Mysterious Giant Turtle - Photos

Loren Coleman released photographs of a supposed "giant turtle" on his affiliated site Cryptomundo. There is little to no information accompanying the photographs. It's only described as Mystery Giant Marine Turtle. He doesn't say where the pictures came from or give any usable information.









It's suggested to be a decomposing (beached) whale, but surely the differences between a whale and a turtle is like night and day - a mistake that's not made easily. Unless they know it's a whale but they're giving false information.
Its flipper does resemble that of a humpback whale, although a humpback flipper would be bigger (Size comparison)... And if you look at the second picture you won't see four flippers, as you would expect from a turtle...

This is what beached humpback whales look like:
A young humpback whale
An adult humpback whale (Slideshow)

Very interesting photos! Nice find!

My first thought was whale too, due to that obvious flipper. No turtles has flippers of that size, if im not mistaken. If it was a turtle, where is the shell then? Those 'brick' like thingies, isnt a decomposed turtle shell. And the first picture is definately not of a mouth, so there goes the resemblance to a snap-turtle..

Ew that's so gross.
Anyway wheres the turtles shell.

Its obviously melted and expanded way beyond its normal shape.
It's laying on a rock too. It's not that big.

why are so many people standing around looking at that mess?

that's the most hideous carcass i've ever seen.

Doesn't look too much like a turtle to me though.

That is a washed up dead hump back whale that has been floating in the ocean for a while decomposing and being nibled away at slowly.

Thats what i reckon. Just having a lok at those two links that were suppplied about hump back whale beaching. yeah definately too similar.

just the dead "turtle" has decomposed ALOT . its a hump.

I could only imagine how much that must stink! But just another dead whale. Still cool pics.

when i first looked at the pics it didn't even look real to me, the flipper looked moulded, like clay or something. but after a bit of research that's a pretty standard look for a dead whale flipper.
are you positive it's lying on a rock? i can see something rock-like, but in the closeups it looks like it's a part of the carcass but perhaps the blubber's just dribbled down the sides. euw.
well at least this time someone had the brains to take more than one photograph of it - got that one debunked damn fast lol

edit: i just noticed something - flip it over. the rock could be the shell? that would make the 'mouth' a bit more plausable. still not sure about the likelihood of the underbelly shell looking like that, but then again, i haven't done my research on shell materials yet.

[edit on 5/16/2007 by Batty]

Originally posted by Batty
edit: i just noticed something - flip it over. the rock could be the shell? that would make the 'mouth' a bit more plausable. still not sure about the likelihood of the underbelly shell looking like that, but then again, i haven't done my research on shell materials yet.

[edit on 5/16/2007 by Batty]

You make a good point. Everyone expects that it's lying on its stomach, while it may be lying on its back...

Still, a turtle's shell is actually bone. The inner layer of a turtle's shell is made up of about 60 bones. As we all know, bones are the last part of any body to decay. Even so, the leatherback sea turtle and the soft-shelled turtles have shells covered with leathery skin instead of the usual "horny scutes". However, even if the outer, softer part decays fast, the inner structure will still remain and hold the original form.

All that said, the following is a long dead Leatherback Turtle:


Source

According to the site where this ^ picture is from it's a badly decomposed turtle, yet there is no question in anyone's mind that it is a turtle.

The question remains, where did Loren Coleman get the picture from, and why would they claim it to be a turtle?

On a side note - I'm glad I'm not standing in the crowd. The smell must be extremely nauseating.

Edit: Clarity

[edit on 16-5-2007 by Gemwolf]

Something I want to say...

In the second and third images the top of the corpse (whether its supposed to be the shell or stomach of a turtle) looks a lot to me like the throat on the larger baleen whales. The sort of ribbed texture (evident in image 3) looks very similar to the expanding throat. And the yellow colouring IMO is the layer of blubber under the skin of a whale. The black patches in image 2 are pieces of skin that have yet to fall/rot off.

yeah, i'm in agreement with the whale proposal. especially on the strength of the flipper shape (gem's picture is a good illustration of general turtle fin size and shape).
i never knew turtles had bones in their shell, so ty for that info gem!
i had a tortoise as a child (was stolen from our back yard one day - argh! poor terence) so i'm reasonably familiar with living shelled ramblers, but dead ones are another story, especially given that this was proposed as a turtle, not a tortoise. gosh, that was a bit garbled, wasn't it! apologies! lol

Oh! This is so mysterious, brothers. a dead whale!













[edit on 16-5-2007 by Franz von Humboldt]

was that supposed to be sarcasm franz? if so it was misplaced, we've already rested on it being a whale, so no revelations there.

It can't be a turtle. I don't even think shells can decompose, and if they could, then the body would have definitely decomposed first.

And its pretty much 95% certain now that its a whale. Nothing to see here.

Of course its a whale, someone just took photos to make it look like something else and cut out the obvious proof its a whale like the tail.

The photos from Cryptomundo do make it out to look like a dead giant turtle, but after comparing them to some of the photos that some members have posted. I'm going to have to say its a dead whale.

I'll keep an open mind to it, and be proven otherwise.

Good catch OP

damn they are sooo big !!!! amazing

Originally posted by Gemwolf
The question remains, where did Loren Coleman get the picture from, and why would they claim it to be a turtle?

I believe the pictures are from Pravda english.pravda.ru... who reported the blubber as a sea monster.

As for the corpse itself, I believe that this is a case of what has come to be known as a "beach blob". (Google it) Basically the whales blubber slides off of the skeleton, and these weird masses wash up and had left people curious for a long time. I think the Bermuda blob was one of the earliest cases of this, but then again it may have been a blob that washed up in Florida.

Originally posted by Batty
was that supposed to be sarcasm franz? if so it was misplaced, we've already rested on it being a whale, so no revelations there.

so now every single word I write is sarcasm, right Batty?



[edit on 17-5-2007 by Franz von Humboldt]

This reminds me of a story that happened down here in Australia a few years back but stuck in my mind. A massive what looked like a ballf of hair washed up on the shore and marine bioligists said it was a living creature. The news reporter said they would be updating the story later when more was found at and yet none of the news channels (of what I seen) ever reported it again :S I have always wondered what it was.