By Paul Seaburn | Mysterious Universe
It’s relatively easy to fool the public – just as any politician, car salesperson or CGI programmer. It’s tougher to fool people who are authorities in the subject that someone is attempting to fool them with. That’s why, when an authority on cryptids is presented a video of a skeleton on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and said authority says it’s not a fake yet cannot identify it – it’s time to look into it.
“Over the years I have been honoured to share some amazing sighting reports, blogs, images and videos with you all. Today I have a video which shows an animal/sea creature that is not readily identifiable. The proportions are not those of a Whale, Giant Squid or a Gigantic Oar fish.
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I cannot identify what this creature is, or even what genome to start looking into.”
In a post on her blog and her Facebook page, Deborah Hatswell – founder of the Being Believed Research and Investigations group and the British Bigfoot Research group and noted British investigator of all things strange – humbly admitted she’s baffled by a video sent to her by a Remote Operated Vehicle equipment operator for the gas and oil industry.
The video was taken in 2017 but work and COVID prevented Hatswell from interviewing the man (he requested to be unnamed for employment reasons) until now. Hatswell is confident the witness’ experience in diving and ROV operations supports his description of the long spine in the video and his assessment that it’s definitely not a whale or anything else he’s seen. Hatswell explains that a whale skeleton has three blades on it’s spinal bones each spaced 120 degrees apart and this creature seems to have only two. She then lets the witness give his opinion.
“The bones could be very ancient because I have seen many clay amphora sticking out of the mud and they have been there for potentially 1000’s of years. The bones were about 30 meters long and very large and look more like they belong to a serpent of some kind.”
A 30-meter-long (100 feet) sea serpent? Remember, this is the Mediterranean Sea, where tales of sea serpents and sea monsters go back to Homer’s Odyssey, Aristotle and the Hebrew Bible (Leviathan). Dragon myths are also plentiful and a flying dragon could certainly be brought down over the sea and end up on the bottom. While sea serpent and dragon sightings in the Mediterranean area are rare today, the ROV operator stresses that the bones look ancient. The only Mediterranean whale large enough to be a possibility is the sperm whale, but their length doesn’t exceed 60 feet and Hatswell gives the evidence why these aren’t whale bones.
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Then … what are they from? A dinosaur that survived mass extinction? A lost relative of the Loch Ness monster? A blue whale or ancestor of one that managed to fit through the Strait of Gibraltar? A Jörmungandr or other Norse sea serpent a long way from the North Atlantic? Are they proof that the Leviathan really existed? We could go on and on, but Hatswell is hoping an authority on long skeletons of the Mediterranean will weigh in with less speculation and more clarity. She has no further info on where the bones were spotted, so a return to find them – if they’re still there … the ROV arm easily crushed a few – is out.
Or … have we all — this writer included — been fooled?
Trusting the integrity of the witness and Deborah Hatswell, this writer has no idea what the bones are from. Do you?
(Special thanks to Deborah Hatswell.)
About the Author
Paul Seaburn is the editor at Mysterious Universe and its most prolific writer. He’s written for TV shows such as “The Tonight Show”, “Politically Incorrect” and an award-winning children’s program. He’s been published in “The New York Times” and “Huffington Post” and has co-authored numerous collections of trivia, puzzles and humour. His “What in the World!” podcast is a fun look at the latest weird and paranormal news, strange sports stories and odd trivia. Paul likes to add a bit of humour to each MU post he crafts. After all, the mysterious doesn’t always have to be serious.