What the Daedalus Saw
A Royal Navy warship encounters a strange creature in the maybe true tale.
In 1848, the Captain of the Royal Navy frigate HMS DAEDALUS sent a detailed report of sighting a strange creature at sea: "With head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the sea and at the very least sixty feet of the animal a fleur d’eau (just above)… It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter that, had it been a man of my acquaintance, I should have recognized his features with the naked eye… The diameter of the serpent was about 15 or 16 inches behind the head, which was without a doubt that of a snake."
Almost immediately after the release of the report to the public, eminent scientists began to pour scorn on the sighting, declaring it to be a large seal or a whale. But the Captain of HMS DAEDALUS stuck to his guns, declaring forthrightly "I adhere to the statements… in my official report to the Admiralty". A few months later he was supported in his sighting by the captain of an American brig, the DAPHNE. In nearly the same location of the Royal Navy ship, the crew of DAPHNE spotted a sea serpent nearly 100 feet long that bore some resemblance to the DAEDALUS sighting. When the brig fired cannon at the creature, it was said to have escaped at the rate of 15 or 16 knots.
Still doubts persisted, even more after two vessels declared they came upon a mass of floating seaweed in the location of the sighting, which they at first thought to be a sea monster. To this day the existence of sea serpents has yet to be confirmed, though encounters continue unabated. Up until the DAEDALUS account there had never been such a detailed report from so official source as a Royal Navy officer.
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The Unmuseum - Photo and more on the Daedalus sighting.
Almost immediately after the release of the report to the public, eminent scientists began to pour scorn on the sighting, declaring it to be a large seal or a whale. But the Captain of HMS DAEDALUS stuck to his guns, declaring forthrightly "I adhere to the statements… in my official report to the Admiralty". A few months later he was supported in his sighting by the captain of an American brig, the DAPHNE. In nearly the same location of the Royal Navy ship, the crew of DAPHNE spotted a sea serpent nearly 100 feet long that bore some resemblance to the DAEDALUS sighting. When the brig fired cannon at the creature, it was said to have escaped at the rate of 15 or 16 knots.
Still doubts persisted, even more after two vessels declared they came upon a mass of floating seaweed in the location of the sighting, which they at first thought to be a sea monster. To this day the existence of sea serpents has yet to be confirmed, though encounters continue unabated. Up until the DAEDALUS account there had never been such a detailed report from so official source as a Royal Navy officer.
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The Unmuseum - Photo and more on the Daedalus sighting.
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