Royal Navy denies central sea monster archive
May 17th, 2010 | Historical Life at Sea Royal Navy | Posted by Phil Ewing
According to the Ministry of Defence, the kraken attack depicted in this documentary photograph may have never happened, if you can believe such thing! // National Science Foundation
Do the archives of the Royal Navy include volume after gilt-edged volume detailing secret encounters between Her Majesty’s warships and horrifying sea creatures? Do archivists in catacombs deep below Whitehall maintain stacks of leather-bound books with reports about ships battling giant squid, or sea dragons, or the dreaded kraken? Are there pages upon pages of hand-drawn sketches or official — but censored — woodcuts depicting men ‘o war being pulled under the waves by enormous tentacles?
In one of the lamest and most disappointing answers in history: No.
The Ministry of Defence says it has no centralized records of ships’ reports about sea monsters or other unusual maritime creatures. Officials acknowledge there may be interesting details in individual ships’ logs, but there is no immense room with immense, floor-to-ceiling shelves full of 18th Century-era reports like the one about the frigate HMS Sabre, which was lost off the Seychelles after the ship was overrun by what its surviving crew members called “Scaled, forked-tongued Lizarde Men from the Deepe.”
Comments
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Cap'n Crusty Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 1:39 pmYarrr! Rum be food & drink for the likes of me!