RED BEARDED SEA SERPENT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 9, 28 January 1942, Page 8

RED BEARDED SEA SERPENT

Two fishermen camc home to Mcx> loolabah', in Queensland, with tlieir eyes poppin.g out, full of a story of a sea serpent with a reel beard. They were fishing quietly they said, "when all of a sudden we saw it!" It was 60 feet long, had red markings and what appeared to be a red beard. It was 300 yards awav, swam along for a few minutes and then "slowly submerged." Then the pundits; got toi work. "Not impossible," said a Queensland ichthyologist. "The ocean depths have never been, searched and we can't be dogmatic about what lives there. The description fits the ribbon fish —a serpent-like creature, 20 to 30 feet long with a silvery, almost transparent body and a red mane. Specimens have been found but to see one alive is unusual." And a South Australian: "Probably the Glesnaes; oarfish. Its fin crest could easily be mistaken for red whiskers. People call them sea serpents." But the Queenslanders were luckier than two Victorians in 1935. They were fishing when a monster with "a head like a diver's helmet and eyes like automobile headlamps" Attacked them. It was trying to board their boat when they put a shot into it and it dived. The biggest ones ahvays get away!