As a mysterious skeleton is washed up on a British beach... Do sea monsters REALLY exist?

www.dailymail.co.uk...

For centuries they've been a part of maritime legend, inspiring curiosity and terror in equal measure. Lurking in the depths of the oceans, shocking in size and appearance, gigantic serpents and prehistoric monsters are as much a source of fascination as ever, especially in Hollywood.

In the past two or three years alone, attacks by huge undersea beasts have provided the centrepiece battles at the ends of blockbusters such as Pirates Of The Caribbean, Clash Of The Titans and The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader.

But are such tales of strange sea beasts more than mythology? Is there any evidence to suggest that some of these monsters of the watery deep - from Jules Verne's giant squid in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea to the legendary Kraken, a leviathan sending sailors to their doom - might actually exist?

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Well, I'm no marine biologist, but I have never seen anything like this. It seems to have an oddly shaped head and definitely reminds me of a "sea monster".

I had to share this as I was quite surprised when viewing the picture, I was thinking sure whatever, they found a supposed sea monster, but this thing looks good and looks like there is potential. But, as I said before I'm no marine biologist so I thought I would show the picture here and see if anyone knows what else this could be.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

Posted before, and it's most likely a Whale, but going on my conspiracy side, I do kinda find it hard to believe it's a whale (even though I've never seen a skeleton of a whale before)

Guess we will have towait for tests. Unfortunately, people create these things, and could be a hoax.

It is very interesting, however....s&f

I'm ready for sea creatures! Bring it on! Makes this world more fun. Next they better find mermaids

Its one ugly sea monster.. It kinda looks like a gator to me ..I've never seen these pictures before and it doest look like a whale to me either hard to say what it is

I don't think I'm buying the whale explanation either. It seems too thin to be a whale. Look at the end of the tail- It kind of looks like a claw.

It's a pilot whale in an advanced stage of decay. Speaking as someone who's worked with rotting pilot whales (long story), I'm calling it now. The skull gives it away.

Looks interesting, and I'm no marine biologist, but most likely some type of large aqautic creature like a whale or shark. Here's a couple of images of Basking Shark carcasses that have been mistaken for sea monsters in the past.




As you can see there is a certain level of similarity to your image. A quick search online will find many other examples.

There are a lot of unexplainable things in the world that you've never dreamed of, far beyond your wildest beliefs. Never discount anything, people have heard and seen too much. But I suggest you do not quote that god-awful paper. Thank you

i'm saying NOT a whale.

fins??

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Possible verydecomposed whale or even shark. Or even a porpoise, but not because size might be questionable.
Oregon decomposed sea animal images

reply to post by BadBoYeed


supposedly the fins fall off when decaying

Hello. I also went and looked at some whale's skeleton and I'm wondering if this could be a "mutant" blue whale, a still born maybe.
We don't seem to see a rib cage, and right above its head, we can see, on the first picture, what look like to cavities. You can see the blue whale's dual blowhole here. Blue Whale

If you look at the head, there is a split in the cranial bone tho it looks ( still? ) weld together, and most whale's head skeletons I've seen have a split.

We don't see fins, but with the state of decay, they easily could have detached, or were not present due to malformation. ( The seas are quite heavily polluted now.... )
The bones in the tail resemble in shape to that of whales.

But, let it be known I am no expert.

Here are some pics for comparisons.










First two pics are of a blue whale skeleton.

reply to post by ShadeWolf


Oh yeah, that's /totally/ a Pilot Whale. Show me some pictures of a Pilot Whale at this state of decay for comparison before you "call it".

Anyways, glad you posted this, OP! I saw this earlier, and was completely shocked. I mean, with how large the oceans are, and the fact that we can only go down so far, there are TONS of marine life we've never seen before. We're /still/ finding species today in the jungles and such we've never seen before, so it's not hard to believe (for me) that this could be something completely unknown.

reply to post by predator0187


Man that does not look like a whale to me. The tail/body just look like they dont fit on a whale, but what do I know? How long ago was this picture taken does anyone know?

reply to post by Believer101


You want pictures of a decaying pilot whale? Because I'll gladly post the ones of the specimen I dealt with. Ask and ye shall receive.

Given the fact that the UK is the leader in pumping radioactive waste (spend fuel rod processing) into the sea, why are creatures like these a supprise?

this has been discussed extensively on another thread

and i believe the most likely candidate was found to be a frill shark

I wonder if it might be a Pilot Whale.

Take a look at this skeleton of one. I don't know. They look similar to me.
www.travelblog.org...

And it even says that Pilot Whales are known for beaching themselves... Maybe they are not to bright?

I don't know. Just looks like a Pilot Whale to me.

en.wikipedia.org...

Anyone else?

reply to post by toolstarr


It's obviously decomposed quite a bit. Whales have a long history of decomposing until they look something like a sea serpent or sea monster. Pretty sure I remember the Father of cryptozoology, Bernard Heuvelmans, having a section about that in his book In the Wake of the Sea Serpents (which as a kid I must've checked out of the library dozens of times). If I recall explains how a basking shark, whale or dolphin might decompose and look a bit like a sea serpent.

Doesn't look too far off from a whale skull to me.

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Someone above also mentioned the Frilled Shark, while I still think this looks whale I do think that's still a possibility. The Frilled Shark is thought to be the source of some sea serpent sightings.

Garman, and numerous authors since, have advanced the frilled shark as an explanation for sea serpent sightings. Because of the shark's modest size, some cryptozoologists have posited the existence of a giant relative, particularly as larger Chlamydoselachus species are known from the fossil record

Frilled Shark