Throughout human history, people have been accompanied by myths and legends. Studying them is very interesting for the reason that such stories usually arise on the basis real events. For example, sea monsters, about which ancient legends tell, may well turn out to be real plesiosaurs or other sea lizards, albeit somewhat embellished.
Myths and truth
The seas have always attracted people - since ancient times, attempts have been made to conquer this element. However, this has not yet been fully achieved. Modern man knows more about life or the lack thereof on other planets than about what is happening at the bottom of the oceans native land. Modern technologies they do not allow us to go down to great depths, so people can only guess what kind of life exists there at the bottom.
The sea sacredly keeps its secrets. Only sometimes do they break through to the surface, and then the surf brings strange finds ashore, or sailors encounter such strange creatures that they then talk for a long time about the meeting. Over time, such stories acquire colorful details, and it is difficult for researchers to separate the truth from the lies, especially considering that no one knows the truth. Legends about sea monsters have existed since ancient times, when people were just beginning to explore the seas.
Most often they talk about giant sea snakes, which may well be descendants of plesiosaurs. Sea monster with huge mouth it may turn out giant shark or an ancient lizard. And the existence of giant squids and octopuses does not raise doubts among scientists - modern science has too much evidence that these creatures exist. However, there is not yet a single photograph of such monsters, and the stuffed huge inhabitant the depths of the sea is still just a dream for the world's museums.
Amazing Finds
Fishermen from a small Japanese settlement spent the entire spring of 1977 fishing off the coast of New Zealand. One fine day, their net brought the remains of a half-decomposed animal. The carcass was 13 meters long and weighed about two tons. The corpse had four limbs, a small head on a narrow neck and an elongated tail. Before throwing the foul-smelling remains of the monster overboard, eyewitnesses severed a limb from it and took a couple of photographs. The surviving limb was taken to the zoological laboratory. Scientists have concluded that this is nothing more than a representative of one of the species of prehistoric lizards that lived in sea depths.
Interestingly, the fishermen claimed that the animal had no bones. It is possible that this was a consequence of a long stay in sea water, where decomposition processes proceed somewhat differently than on land. And L. Ginzburg (a paleontologist from Paris) believes that the sailors caught the corpse of a giant seal in a net. All that is known about this species is that giant seals frolicked in ocean waters 20 million years ago. The paleontologist made his conclusion only on the basis of photographs and a single limb of the animal, so it is possible that it is not true.
In Chile, people were able to see an animal whose appearance defied any explanation. The monster washed ashore Pacific Ocean and that is the only reason why random eyewitnesses were able to describe it. According to their stories, the monster’s fins looked like human hands. The front ones had five fingers with claws, the rear ones had no fingers at all. The skull had an oblong, elongated shape, and there were three huge fangs in the mouth.
The find was immediately nicknamed the “humanoid monster” for its five-fingered fins. Scientists, however, believed that the corpse belonged to a sea lizard from the Triassic. There is no explanation yet for how this lizard was able to survive to this day.
Giant squids have terrified sailors since the Middle Ages, as evidenced by numerous stories, illustrations and engravings.
It is believed that squids large sizes- animals that live in deep sea waters. A dead squid weighing 250 kilograms found on the coast of Tasmania in 2002 challenged scientists' knowledge. The length of its tentacles reached 15 meters. After laboratory studies, experts came to the conclusion that this specimen lived at a depth of only 200 meters. It turned out that it was a female who swam into shallow water and accidentally ran aground. Disputes began over myths that spoke of the danger of huge octopuses and cuttlefish sinking ships.
Fragments of huge octopuses and squids have been discovered more than once in the stomachs of whales or on the shores of the seas. In the nineties of the last century, Japanese experts were able to capture a living huge octopus using a special camera emitting infrared light. And in 2006, such a specimen was caught by Japanese researchers.
Real unicorns
It is generally accepted that encounters with sea monsters are dangerous for sailors. But sometimes such meetings turn out to be fatal for monsters. This is what happened with sea cows and sea unicorns. Legends about unicorns came mainly from northern latitudes, from travelers who talked about the existence of an unknown creature with a long horn.
The three-meter-long shoot was credited with magical and healing qualities. Therefore, the hunt for “unicorns” was open. The animals were killed and the tusks were sold in markets. Hunters, blinded by profit, could not even describe the animals - they paid attention only to the huge horns that could be sold profitably.
Surely there are such greedy hunters today. But still modern people the value of rare finds is better understood, and this inspires hope that if someone manages to discover a living or dead inhabitant of the deep sea, unknown to science, such a find will become known to scientists. And then, perhaps, people will learn more about the depths of the sea and their inhabitants.
Sea monsters: myths and reality
Sensational reports of unprecedented sea monsters splash out on the pages of newspapers and magazines from time to time. Occasionally they are illustrated with photographs. But the mysterious creatures apparently do not like to be photographed - the photographs always turn out blurry and foggy. It was much easier to illustrate similar works in the past. To see this, just look at the map northern seas, compiled in 1572 by Antoine Lafrery. Comments here are obviously unnecessary.
But here is a message related to end of the 19th century century. French researcher M. Guerr writes: “In July 1897, the gunboat Avalanche met two snakes 20 meters long and 2-3 meters thick in Along Bay. Cannon shot from a distance of 600 meters forced them to disappear under water. On February 15, 1898, the same ship and in the same place again met snakes; a shot followed from a distance of 300 meters, and the ship went forward at full speed, trying to overtake the animals. At the moment when the ship was completely approaching them, one of the monsters dived under the gunboat and emerged behind it. You can imagine the confusion the crew was in at that moment. Nine days later, off the same coast, the Avalanche again encountered two such animals. The hunt lasted 35 minutes, but its only result was the coincidence of all observations."
There is a lot that is unclear in this story. Firstly, why did only the crew of a single gunboat see the snakes each time, while the crews of other ships did not see the snakes? Secondly, it is difficult to explain the monsters' commitment to permanent place. Finally, thirdly, their invulnerability is absolutely amazing. A military vessel fires artillery at a target at a minimum distance, but there are no results. Having found no explanation for the above facts, M. Geerr points out that “the story about this incident was regarded by the highest authority as a collective hallucination.”
The Dutch scientist Oddemans collected all the information about giant sea snakes. According to him, the first documented meeting of sailors with a huge sea snake occurred in 1522. Over the next three centuries, snakes were seen by sailors on average once every ten years - by 1802, 28 cases were recorded. But in the 19th century, encounters with sea monsters sharply increased: between 1802 and 1890 they were seen 134 times! They came across both in the past and this century. Despite frequent encounters with sea snakes, no one has yet been able to clearly photograph or film them. Mysterious sea monsters are equally successful in escaping from artillery fire and from the lens aimed at them.
Since monsters refuse to pose, their appearance must be described from casual observations, often based on information not obtained from the observer himself. So, in 1926, a certain monster was spotted at night off the coast of Madagascar. The French scientist J. Petit reports this in his book “Fishing in Madagascar”. The animal glowed with a bright but unstable light, which flared up and then faded away. It seemed that this light, which could be compared to a sea searchlight, was emitted by a body rotating around its axis. According to the natives, this animal appears very rarely. Its length is 20-25 meters, its body is wide and flat (which means in this case we are not talking about a snake!), covered with a hard lamellar shell. The veto has a tail like a shrimp, and its mouth is on its belly. The head glows and emits flames as the monster rises to the surface of the sea.
Regarding the presence of limbs in local residents There was no consensus: some argued that the “master of the sea” was legless, while others believed that he had limbs similar to “whale flippers.” It is extremely rare for a person to be able to touch to a mysterious creature, more precisely, to his remains. So, in 1883, one resident of Annam saw and touched on the shore of Along Bay the decomposed remains of a sea monster similar to giant centipede.
In April 1977, the whole world received a sensational message about the discovery of Japanese fishermen from the Tsuyo Maru trawler. While fishing for mackerel near New Zealand, the net brought back the half-decomposed corpse of an unknown animal. The condition of the find was deplorable. The thirteen-meter carcass, weighing about two tons, spread a stench. The fishermen discerned a shapeless body with four limbs (either fins or flippers), a long tail and a small head on a thin neck. The catch was measured, photographed, and then had to be thrown overboard. First, part of the best-preserved limb was separated from the body and placed in a freezer.
Controversy flared up around the find. Based on several poor photographs and descriptions made by fishermen, Professor Yoshinuri Imaitsumi, head of the Department of Zoology in Japan national museum Sciences, recognized the caught animal as a plesiosaur, a representative of a long-extinct group of marine reptiles. Plesiosaurs are well known from fossils. Mesozoic era. 100-200 million years ago, like modern seals, they inhabited coastal areas of the sea and could crawl onto sandbanks, where they rested after hunting. Plesiosaurs, like most other reptiles, were distinguished by their powerful skeletal development. Judging by the descriptions of the fishermen from the Tsuyo Maru and photographs, the mysterious animal had no bones. Parisian paleontologist L. Ginzburg believes that Japanese fishermen recovered from the sea the remains of a giant seal, also extinct, but relatively recently - “only” 20 million years ago. The French scientist came to this conviction based on the shape of the head and the structural features of the vertebrae. The latter, however, were never seen by Ginzburg himself or anyone else, because the entire find was thrown overboard.
With such shaky arguments, it takes a lot of courage to insist that the find belongs to plesiosaurs or extinct giant seals. Moreover, there are many skeptical scientists who believe that Japanese fishermen recovered from the sea the half-decomposed corpse of a shark or small whale. But it is still possible to judge the find by the structure of that part of the limb that was left in the freezer. Having studied its structure, experts can easily tell who it belongs to: a fish, a reptile or a mammal. The scientific dispute would be resolved simply, quickly and conclusively. However, the owners of the fin or flipper still remain stubbornly silent on this matter.
Why don't they publish the results of the study? The answer to this may be given by the story of another sensational discovery. Here in front of us is a small newspaper article dated 1904: “Unknown animal.”
"Santiago, June 18. In the province of Magallanes (Chile), an unknown animal was discovered washed ashore by the waters of the Pacific Ocean. According to the Chilean newspaper Golpe, it weighs approximately two tons, is six meters long and two meters wide. Two "The front fins of the animal, the newspaper points out, are very similar to human hands with five fingers and nails; the two rear fins have no fingers. The animal's head is elongated, its mouth has three large fangs. The animal will be examined by Chilean scientists."
The reader has the right to expect that now the veil of mystery will fall, and the world will finally be told all the details about the monster with human hands and three huge teeth in its mouth. Not so! As soon as Chilean, New Zealand or any other similar sea miracle falls into the hands of scientists, not a trace remains of the myth. In fact, “plesiosaurs” turn out to be either part of the body of a dead whale, or a shark, or a cluster of luminous planktonic organisms, or simply a figment of fantasy and an optical illusion. It is not for nothing that sea monsters do not leave a mark on photographic film and calmly escape from shells and bullets.
Despite big number enthusiasts who really want to believe that individual representatives of long-extinct reptiles are still living out their lives in the ocean, not a single reliable information about this has yet been recorded. Even Oddemans’ statistics (over 150 cases of encounters with giant sea snakes) are not supported by any material evidence of the reality of the observations. This is practical side question about modern sea monsters.
The theory also gives no reason to hope for the reality of their existence today. No species of animal or plant can exist in a single copy or in a small number of individuals. As soon as the number of a species falls below a critical level, it is doomed to extinction. What is this critical value? It is, of course, different for different animals. According to the Red Book, by the end of the 20th century, orangutan monkeys are on the verge of extinction, their total number is 5,000 individuals. Whale and whale fisheries experts believe that with 2,000 blue whales, it is still possible to maintain and even restore the species. Science knows of only one case of an increase in the number of a species, when it decreased to 45 individuals. We are talking about bison. But this required vigorous measures and large expenditures of funds. All animals were placed in nurseries and zoos. Only under these conditions was it possible to increase the bison herd and release some of the animals into protected forests again.
But sea monsters no one protects or protects. Therefore, their number must be equal to at least several thousand individuals of each species. Whether they are snakes, plesiosaurs or other reptiles, or giant seals, they need to periodically rise to the surface to breathe. Why are they so rarely seen? Where do their bodies go after death? Why has the sea not yet thrown up a single bone of these monsters? The answer to this, to the chagrin of lovers of everything unusual, can only be unequivocal. No giant sea creatures except known to science, not in the ocean. They don't exist, just like Bigfoot doesn't exist. Marine plesiosaurs are as unreal as the famous Loch Ness miracle. But you don't have to be completely disappointed. The ocean still holds many secrets. It is home to many unknown and little-known animals, even more amazing than any fantastic monster or extinct reptile. You can see some of them in the photographs published below.
This unidentified moving object with a diameter of about one and a half meters suddenly appeared in front of the submarine's window at a depth of 770 meters while examining the outer slope of one of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The animal's body emitted a greenish light, and its tentacles wriggled vigorously. Isn't it true that it vividly resembles the appearance of a Martian as described by H.G. Wells in his novel "War of the Worlds"? Looking at this fantastic creature, the dive participants involuntarily remembered ancient greek myth about the glorious hero Perseus and the terrible gorgon Medusa, on whose head poisonous snakes moved instead of hair. Studying the photographs showed that this is indeed a jellyfish, which can be classified as a scyphoid. Still like this huge jellyfish They have never been in the hands of scientists; they are not in any museum in the world.
A large predatory seal inhabiting the Antarctic waters - leopard seal- feeds mainly on penguins. He either quietly approaches the swimming bird and drags it under the water, or noisily pursues it, raising cascades of splashes, and finally overtakes it with the last long throw. Appearance This real sea monster speaks of its far from peaceful inclinations. While working in Antarctica, zoological scuba divers repeatedly experienced the increased attention of leopard seals. Having noticed the scuba diver, the animal immediately rushed towards him and swam around, gradually narrowing the circles, opening its mouth and showing powerful teeth. No means of repelling the leopard seal had any effect - they had to get out onto the ice. The leopard seal moves on ice with difficulty and is therefore not dangerous.
Every year in October and November, on the sixth night after the full moon, the sea over the coral reefs of the Samoan Islands suddenly boils with the sudden appearance of myriads of worm-like creatures that scurry in all directions. From their abundance sea water it becomes like a thick soup with noodles. Flocks of fish and seabirds gather for a feast. Samoans calculate in advance the date of arrival of the palolo - this is how they call the culprits of the sudden transformation of the sea elements. For many centuries, palolo has served the aborigines as both a delicacy and everyday food. On these nights, they scoop up prey with baskets and nets, immediately on the reef they snack on live seafood, bake them in leaves and store them for future use for the whole year, drying them in the hot tropical sun in the morning. Zoologists know that palolos are modified rear ends of sea polychaete worms. The worms themselves, reaching a length of up to half a meter, cannot be seen, since they live in crevices and caves in the thickness of coral limestone. When spring arrives in Samoa, the worms begin to reproduce. The rear ends of the worms, overflowing with reproductive products, break off and float to the surface, where the walls of their body soon rupture, and the reproductive cells fall into the water and are fertilized there. One can only imagine how many of these huge worms, hidden from human eyes, live in the depths of the reef!
Just as there is a grain of truth in every joke, there is a grain of truth in every myth. Unicorns, dragons and cyclops were not invented out of nowhere. They had quite real prototypes, which, not without the help of human imagination, were transformed into those fairy-tale creatures that we know today.
Unicorn - Elasmotherium.
The unicorn is a famous mythical creature that is a horse with one horn coming out of its forehead. It usually symbolizes spiritual purity and chastity. Interestingly, unicorns are found in the legends and myths of many world cultures. The very first images of them were found in India and, according to research, they are more than four thousand years old. Later, unicorns began to appear in the myths of Western Asia, from there they “migrated” to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, where they were considered absolutely real animals. In the West, unicorns began to be mentioned in the 5th century BC.
The main “candidate” for the role of a real unicorn, or rather the prototype of these mythical creatures, is Elasmotherium - rhinoceroses of the Eurasian steppes, which lived during the Ice Age south of the range of the woolly rhinoceros; images of elasmotherium are found in cave paintings of that time. Elasmotherium somewhat resembled a horse with an extremely long horn in its forehead. It went extinct around the same time as the rest of the Eurasian Ice Age megafauna. However, according to the Swedish encyclopedia “Nordisk familjebok” and the arguments of science popularizer Willie Ley, individual representatives of this species could well have existed for quite some time. for a long time, in order to get into the Evenki legends as a huge black bull with one horn in its forehead.
Dragons - Magalanya.
There are a huge variety of types and types of dragons in folk art. Starting from the classic European ones that live in the mountains and breathe fire, to the Chinese ones that look more like snakes. The mythological dragon symbolizes the test that must be passed in order to obtain the treasure. It is associated with immortality, which can be obtained by invading the body of a monster. The battle with the dragon is an initiation mystery with the symbolism of temporary death and rebirth.
In reality, myths about dragons most likely originated from crocodiles or dinosaur fossils that people might find and mistaken for dragons. But, without a doubt, there were also real animals that could well be called dragons. For example, Megalania is the largest land lizard known to science. This species lived in Australia during the Pleistocene era, from 1.6 million years ago to approximately 40,000 years ago. Megalania preferred to settle in grassy savannas and sparse forests, where it hunted mammals, including very large ones. As in the case of Elasmotherium, some representatives of the species could well survive to meet humans. The length of megalania, according to various estimates, varied from 4.5 to 9 m, and its weight from 331 to 2200 kg.
Kraken - Huge squid.
Kraken - legendary mythical sea monster gigantic size, cephalopod, known from descriptions of Icelandic sailors, from whose language its name comes. The first detailed summary of maritime folklore about the Kraken was compiled by the Danish naturalist Eric Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen (1698-1774). He wrote that the kraken is an animal “about the size of a floating island.” According to Pontoppidan, the kraken is able to grab with its tentacles and drag even the largest warship to the bottom. Even more dangerous for ships is the whirlpool that occurs when the kraken quickly sinks to the seabed.
Giant squids, which is essentially what the kraken is, may still exist today. Moreover, this has been confirmed more than once by the findings of fishermen and scientists. The only question is size. Not so long ago, in the southern seas it was possible to find a truly huge mollusk about 14 meters long. In addition, unlike ordinary squids, in addition to suckers, this one also had jagged claws-teeth on its tentacles. Such an animal may well frighten even modern man. And if medieval fishermen had seen him, they would definitely have considered him a mythical monster.
Basilisk - Poisonous snakes.
Basilisk is a creature mentioned in various sources and most often as a monstrous poisonous snake. In Natural History, Pliny the Elder described the basilisk as a small snake up to 30 centimeters long, with a white spot on its head. This was in the 1st century AD. Guy Julius Solin wrote about the basilisk in approximately the same way in the 3rd century, but with minor differences: the length of the snake is up to 15 cm. Much later, only in the Middle Ages, the image of the basilisk began to be supplemented with new details. Thanks to the imagination of numerous authors, the “small snake” turned into “a rooster with dragon wings, tiger claws, a lizard’s tail, an eagle’s beak and green eyes, on whose head there is a red crown, and throughout the body there is black bristles.” This is exactly what they said about the basilisk in Europe in the 13th century.
There is a completely logical version from a scientific point of view that the image of the basilisk is based on certain types of snakes. For example, a cobra fits its description. Its swollen hood could easily be mistaken for the body of a toad, and its ability to spit venom could be interpreted as killing at a distance. According to another version, the basilisk is a horned viper. Her image with horns was an Egyptian hieroglyph denoting the sound “f”, and could have been mistaken by Pliny the Elder for a snake with a crown, which gave rise to Greek name snakes "basilisk" - "king".
Centaurs - Horse riders.
Centaurs in ancient Greek mythology are wild mortal creatures with the head and torso of a man on the body of a horse. They lived mainly in the mountains and forest thickets and were distinguished by an extremely violent temperament and intemperance. It is also noteworthy that in heroic myths some centaurs are educators and mentors of heroes, while others are hostile to them.
The image of centaurs presumably arose as a figment of the imagination of representatives of civilized peoples who did not yet know horse riding, who first encountered the horse riders of certain northern nomadic tribes: Scythians, Kassites or Taurians. This explains both the ferocious nature of the centaurs and their connection with bulls - the basis of the nomadic economy was cattle breeding. According to the euhemeric interpretation of ancient times, these were young men from the village of Tucha who invented horse riding and killed wild bulls; or people from the city of Pelephronium, where a way to tame horses was found.
Griffin - Protoceratops.
Griffins are mythological winged creatures with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle. They have sharp claws and snow-white (and sometimes even golden) wings. Griffins are extremely contradictory creatures, simultaneously uniting Heaven and Earth, Good and Evil. Their role - both in various myths and in literature - is ambiguous: they can act as defenders and patrons; and like evil, unrestrained beasts.
But true story"Gryphons" is no less interesting than the legends about them. Historian Adriena Mayor in her book “The First Fossil Hunters” suggested that the image of the griffin was inspired by ancient Greek historians from the stories of Scythian gold miners of Altai, who could observe in the sands of the Gobi Desert the fossilized bones of protoceratops dinosaurs, liberated from the dunes by the winds. The description of the griffin is quite applicable to these fossil skeletons: the size of the animal, the presence of a beak, the proximity to gold placers, the horny occipital collar of Protoceratops is capable of splitting over time, and its skeleton on the shoulders could create the illusion of ears and wings.
Bigfoot - Gigantopithecus.
Bigfoot (Sasquatch or Bigfoot) is a legendary humanoid creature supposedly found in various high mountain or forested areas of the Earth. Its existence is claimed by many enthusiasts, but is currently not confirmed. In testimony about meetings with " snow people"Most often appear creatures that differ from modern humans in a denser and more muscular physique, a pointed skull shape, longer arms, a short neck length and a massive lower jaw, relatively short hips, with a thick hairline throughout the body - black, red, white or gray.
There are many theories about who Bigfoot might actually be (if he really exists). Starting from the completely plausible, that this is some kind of relict hominid, that is, a mammal belonging to the order of primates and the genus of man, preserved to this day from prehistoric times, and ending with the absolutely fantastic, that these are aliens who flew to us from other galaxies. Modern science There is at least one genus of apes known that closely fit the description of Bigfoot: Gigantopithecus. They existed in the late Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene in the territory of modern India, China, Thailand and Vietnam. According to experts, Gigantopithecus had a height of up to three and even four meters and weighed from 300 to 550 kg, that is, they were the most large monkeys of all times.
Sea serpent - Herring king.
sea serpent- a fantastic creature that is mentioned in myths different nations the world and in eyewitness accounts. Sea serpents have been found in the Mediterranean, Asia, India and even off the coast North America. Naturally, they are described in completely different ways, but almost always this is a huge snake-like creature with a head that looks like either a horse or a dragon.
The prototype of a monstrous sea serpent may not be some ancient animal, but a completely modern herring king or an ordinary belt fish. This is sea deep sea fish from the family Limniformes. It is found in warm, moderately warm and temperate waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. The body of the fish is ribbon-shaped: with a length of 3.5 m, the height of the body can be 25 cm, and its thickness - only 5 cm. But there are specimens that are much larger. For example, an individual 5.5 meters long can weigh about 250 kg. And the largest of the officially registered ones had a length of more than 11 meters. This could easily be mistaken for a sea serpent.
Korean dragon - Titanoboa.
The Korean dragon is one of the varieties of the mythological serpent, which has a number of features specific to Korea that distinguish it from dragons of other cultures. For example, unlike many dragons of other cultures, he does not have wings, but has a long beard. Even greater differences may lie in the character of this mythical beast. While most dragons in Western mythology are usually associated with fire and destruction, Korean dragons in myths are usually seen as positive creatures that protect waters and rice fields. They are believed to bring rain to the earth.
And if with the origin of myths about European dragons everything is not so clear and unambiguous, then with the Korean dragon you can be almost sure. Not long ago, the fossil remains of a huge snake were discovered in Colombia, which was named Titanoboa. Having done comparative analysis skeleton, scientists came to the conclusion that the snake could reach 13 meters in length and weigh more than a ton. Titanoboa lived 61.7-58.7 million years ago in tropical forests modern Colombia. But it is quite possible that she lived on other continents.
Cyclops - Dwarf elephant.
In ancient Greek mythology, the Cyclopes are a group of characters, in different versions divine beings (children of Gaia and Uranus) or a separate people. According to one of the versions, reflected in Homer in the Odyssey, the Cyclops made up an entire people. Among them, the most famous is the ferocious son of Poseidon, Polyphemus, whom Odysseus deprived of his only eye. The Scythian people of the Arimaspians were also considered one-eyed. There is an image of a Semitic one-eyed demon from Arslan-Tash.
As for the scientific basis for these myths, in 1914, paleontologist Otenio Abel suggested that the discovery of dwarf elephant skulls in ancient times was the reason for the birth of the myth of the Cyclops, since the central nasal opening in the elephant’s skull could be mistaken for a giant eye socket. It is curious that these elephants were found precisely on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Malta (Ghar Dalam), Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, the Cyclades and the Dodecanese
23.04.2016 17:25
Legends of monsters are found across cultures different people. Dragons, sea snakes, unknown animals with mystical powers - all this became the basis large quantity legends.
Let's get acquainted with several legends about unknown monsters. Was there ever a basis for such stories or are they all just horror stories? Who knows…
The Story of the Lambton Worm
This story happened in Northern England with the heir of Lambton Castle, John Lambton, who happened to encounter a monster. Hence the name of the monster - Lambton Worm.
One Sunday, when all the people were supposed to be at the church service, John instead of the service went fishing to the River Weir. However, instead of fish, the heir to the castle took a disgusting-looking worm from the waters of the river. To get rid of the vile creature, the man threw it into the well.
After this incident, circumstances developed such that John had to leave the country. He spent seven whole years abroad and, of course, managed to forget about his strange and unpleasant discovery. However, the worm has not disappeared; moreover, over the years it has grown to gigantic proportions.
The monster climbed out of the well and returned to the river. The legend says that during the day the worm rested on a rock located in the middle of the river, and at night it crawled to the shore, where it hunted people and livestock. Local residents repeatedly tried to get rid of the monster, but their attempts were unsuccessful - no matter how much they tried to cut the worm into pieces, the parts grew back together.
When John Lambton returned to his homeland, he learned about the horror that a vile monster was causing to people. The man remembered his long-ago find and firmly decided to get rid of this creature. He turned to the sorceress for advice, who told Jon to put on armor covered with sharp spikes and fight the monster in the water. The heir to the estate listened to her advice - putting on such armor, he went to the river. When he found himself in the water, the worm wrapped itself around the man’s body, but the sharp thorns tore the monster’s flesh into many small pieces, which were immediately carried away by the current, so the pieces could not grow together into one whole, and the terrible worm was finally defeated.
The Legend of the Hairy Beast
In many cultures, dragons are considered dangerouscreatures with huge fangs and claws and the ability to breathe fire. The legend of the Hairy Beast, which has come down to us from the Middle Ages, tells the story of a dragon that attacked a French village.
In addition to the ability to kill his victims with fire, the Hairy Beast had another terrible feature. The entire body of the animal was covered with thick hair, for which it got its name. Poisoned thorns flew out of the animal's fur, killing local residents. The villagers were in despair. The beast destroyed fields, destroyed crops, ate small children and killed anyone who got in his way.
One day, the Shaggy Beast killed a girl with whom a fearless young man was in love. Having learned about the death of his beloved, the young man became furious and firmly decided to kill the beast. Pouncing on the dragon, he cut its tail in half, which was the only vulnerable spot on the body of the animal, and the animal died immediately. The brave young man lost his beloved, but it was this pain and anger that helped him defeat the terrible monster, and thereby save the lives of hundreds of other people.
The Legend of the Giant Sea Serpent
This story took place in 1852, when two whaling ships set sail from the port of New Bedford and set sail across the waters of the Pacific Ocean.
The ships, which bore the names "Monongahela" and "Rebecca Sims", sailed together. While sailing in the ocean, an unusual encounter occurred - the ships discovered a large animal that from a distance resembled a whale. The captain of the Monongahela, Mr. Seabury, inspired by the find, launched three boats that went in pursuit of the animal. However, it was not a whale.
The captain managed to kill the unknown animal with a harpoon, which, writhing in its death throes, sank two of the three boats. Inspecting the carcass of the killed creature, people were finally convinced that their find had nothing to do with a whale. It was a huge reptile of a brownish-gray color, whose body was about 45 meters in length.
Due to its gigantic size, it was not possible to take the animal’s carcass with us.possible, so the sailors cut off only the head of the unknown creature, and left the body in the water. According to the sailors, the reptile's head looked impressive - dozens of sharp, curved teeth protruded from the monster's mouth. The find was placed in a barrel of brine, which was located in the hold of the Monongahela - in this way it was planned to deliver the trophy to the shore.
However, when the ships were returning home, there was strange story- along the way, the Monongahela mysteriously disappeared. The second ship "Rebecca Sims" reached the port safely, but the people from this ship could not explain where the second ship disappeared. Later, the wind carried the wreckage of the Monongahela to the coast of Alaska, but the barrel with the monster’s head was not among the wreckage. Thus, the terrible trophy was irretrievably lost. The only evidence of this story was the ship's log of the captain of the second ship, "Rebecca Sims" - in it the captain described this story, and thanks to him it has survived to this day.
The story of the sea monster from the fog
One day, in 1962, a strong storm broke out off the coast of Florida. It carried an American Air Force inflatable raft carrying five scuba divers into the open sea. People found themselves in a difficult situation, but they all managed to survive the storm.
When the sea calmed down, a thick fog appeared over the water, from which it was necessary to somehow get out. However, as it turned out, the fog was the main problem for people in trouble. About an hour later, the scuba divers heard splashing water and a strange hissing sound. Appeared bad smell dead fish.
Suddenly, a large head rose out of the water, resembling the head of a turtle. The monster's neck, or the part of its snake body that rose above the water, was about four meters long. The appearance of the monster frightened the scuba divers so much that a terrible panic began among people - people screamed in horror and rushed about chaotically, trying to find each other in the fog. Ultimately, four of the five scuba divers jumped or fell into the sea, where they met their deaths. Only one person from the team managed to escape, and he spoke about the meeting with this terrible monster. The bodies of the rest of his comrades could not be found.
Anastasia Cherkasova
“Sea Monsters Fiction, or Terrible Reality” was performed by Valeria Vinokurova and Maria Krasilnikova
Our large unexplored planet is fraught with many mysteries and unknowns, and only lifts the veil of secrets for the “chosen ones”. Increasingly, various scientists are discovering previously unknown known species animals. Of course, it is impossible to explore everything, therefore, at the sight of some unknown representative of the animal world, it immediately receives from people the name Monster. What kind of monsters do newspapers and magazines tell us about, what kind of terrifying beasts does the cinema show us! They have one thing in common - no one has ever been able to put them on a laboratory table, measure, weigh, study their structure and exhibit them in a museum.
Article by E.F. Shnyukov "Nessie in the Black Sea". “All the events described in this article actually took place. It is absolutely known that at the Feodosia Production Association "Sea" trap cages were manufactured by order of the Karadag biological station to catch the "Karadag monster". True, these works did not lead to the capture of the monster.
After the revolution, a company of Red Army soldiers actually went to Koktebel in search of the “huge bastard” and this story was used by M. Bulgakov in the story “Fatal Eggs”. Some time ago, a fossilized egg weighing 1.5 kg and the remains of a prehistoric creature covered with scales were found at Cape Aya. In the split of this egg, a snake’s head with a crest is visible.” .
It happens in the middle of holiday season Vacationers complain that there are various objects floating in the sea, next to which it is not very pleasant to swim: plastic bags and bottles, watermelon rinds. In such cases, you can only blame your own uncultured fellow resort-goer. But the discovery of a vacationer from the Dnepropetrovsk region turned out to be out of the ordinary: on the beach of the village of Katsiveli (Big Yalta), ten meters from the shore, a human leg was swaying on the waves!
Yalta police officers who arrived at the scene removed terrible find of water. Upon first examination, there was little information: the leg was a man’s, size 41. Whether there is a criminal component to this incident and where the remaining parts of the body may be located, the investigation will show.
However, there are also non-criminal versions. For example, that this is an accident - the result of a collision between a vacationer and a boat or jet ski.
No in Lately There were no such emergencies,” Komsomolskaya Pravda was assured by the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Ukraine in Crimea. - Incidents with collisions of watercraft with swimmers occur, they are all recorded, and an investigation is carried out into them. Last time this happened in Feodosia: the injured woman received a scalped head wound and a concussion, the man escaped with bruises.
What was it?
- 1. It is possible that the leg was separated from the body of a drowned person who had been at sea for a long time. Resort-goers continue to ignore calls for caution when swimming and drown: several bodies are pulled out of the sea almost every day. At the same time, it is possible that some of those missing at sea simply go unreported.
- 2. There don’t seem to be any sharks capable of attacking a person in the Black Sea. The only representative of the species, the katran, is simply too tough for such prey: the fish itself is less than a meter long. There is, however, another toothy sea resident - Karadag monster, living somewhere at great depths. They tell a lot about him: either with reference to fishermen who found dolphin carcasses with imprints of huge teeth, or to eyewitnesses who allegedly observed a frolicking monster in the sea.
Jokes aside, there is a great deal of evidence of encounters with sea serpents in our time. Several years ago, at one of the whaling bases in the Indian Ocean, helicopter pilots twice observed animals that looked like gigantic snakes, 10-15 m in length. The snake lay calmly on the surface of the water. Sea monster it was a meter thick and had a light brown color.
The existence of monsters is confirmed by amazing finds. In 1932, a strong earthquake occurred off the coast of North America, washing ashore many corpses of sea inhabitants, including a sea serpent. The animal had a pointed head and a mouth full of sharp teeth. And in 1947, on the western shore of Vancouver Island in the Atlantic, a skeleton of an amazing creature 12 meters long, with a head resembling the head of a ram, was found.
Why go far - we have our own monster in Crimea, the Karadag one. The Black Sea turned out to be very mysterious. December 7, 1990, a team of fishermen from the Karadag branch of the Institute of Biology south seas The Academy of Sciences of Ukraine went out to sea to check the nets set for catching Black Sea stingrays. But they didn’t catch stingrays at all, but a bloody dolphin with its stomach eaten out. Moreover, the width of the bite was about a meter! The size of the tooth mark is 4 - 5 centimeters. The fishermen, of course, got scared, “reeled in their fishing rods” and rushed to the shore.
The story didn't end there. In the spring of 1991, fishermen caught a second dolphin with a similar bite and teeth marks on its body. And then Crimean scientists remembered the legendary monster that once lived in the Black Sea. Mentions of him are found in Crimean legends. One of them - “Chershamba” - tells about a snake place near the village of Otuzy (Shchebetovka) on the Otuzka River, where reeds grow: “Here lived a snake, which, curled up, seemed like a shock of hay, and when it walked through the field, it made ten knees and more. True, the Janissaries killed her. But there were cubs left from her...”
And in 1828, one Evpatoria police officer filed a report in which he wrote about the appearance in the district of a huge snake with a hare’s head and the semblance of a mane, attacking sheep and sucking their blood. Two snakes were killed by local Tatars, who believed that the snakes had sailed from hot countries.
There was also a huge snake at Cape Kazantip. An old shepherd noticed something similar to a ram's skull under a thorn bush and, having nothing better to do, hit it with a stick. And suddenly the incredible happened: a cloud of dust rose, and some huge reptile flew into the air. A little later, in 1921, a note was published in a Feodosia newspaper, which said that some huge reptile had again appeared in the area of Mount Karadag, and a company of Red Army soldiers was sent to catch it. Nobody knows how it all ended. But then the reptile was allegedly seen in the village of Koktebel. And in September 1952 he appeared at Cape Boy. A woman collecting brushwood came across him: according to her, the monster had a small head, a thin neck, and a back as thick as a pillar. When the woman, barely alive from fright, began to scream, the animal began to unwind like a ball. The lower and upper limbs were visible, and she... squeaked. Another eyewitness saw huge snake on Karadag near the Lagorio wall.
In August 1992, one Feodosian was swimming in a bay on the eastern shore of Cape Knik-Atlama and, being a good swimmer, swam 40 meters from the shore. He dived, emerged and a few meters away he saw a huge, up to half a meter, dragon head on a thin neck.
There are still a lot of eyewitnesses, and they cannot all see the same thing. And the bodies of tortured dolphins indicate that we have Gorynychi Snakes in Crimea. They have changed a little, become smaller, but still continue to scare people. But who else scares whom? You know, like in that joke: one dragon decided to breed new breed dragons And people turned out. And one man decided to breed a new breed of people. And they turned out to be dragons. Or this: one dragon dreamed that he was a man. The dragon woke up in a cold sweat and vowed not to overeat before bed again.
In short, we will soon exhaust these too. Look, in a century or two the Gorynychi will disappear like dinosaurs. But there is no need to be upset in advance - nature abhors a vacuum: when dinosaurs became extinct, dragons appeared. Therefore, when the dragons die out, someone else will definitely appear.
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