Lore - Episode 108: Debris

Episode Date: February 18, 2019

Our oceans are some of the most remote regions on the planet. Because of that, people have filled that darkness and space with stories that reflect our common fears and deepest suspicious. Unfortunately, the pages of history offer less reason than we might hope for, leaving us to wonder exactly what might be out there, lurking beneath the waves. * * * The Lore book series: www.theworldoflore.com/books The Lore TV show: www.Amazon.com/Lore Latest Lore news: www.theworldoflore.com/now Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On September 25 of 1808, a fisherman named John Peace spotted something unusual on the rocky coast of his little island. He lived on the isle of Stronsay, part of the archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland known as the Orkney Islands. He had been fishing from a small boat along the rocky shore after a night of heavy winds and torrential rain. And while we can assume he might have been familiar with the aftermath of big storms, I'm not sure he expected to discover something so...otherworldly. It was the corpse of an animal. But it was unlike any animal he had ever seen. Others join him in the examination. Local farmer George Charrar was able to get closer to the corpse

since he was on land, and he made a quick inspection of it. It was nearly 55 feet long, roughly eel-like in its shape and form, but with a distinct neck that measured 15 feet in length. Combined with the creature's small head and the mane of hair that ran down the back of its neck, the details were just too confusing to help them identify it. Today we know more about the corpses like the one John Peace found, and many scientists refer to them as globsters, a decaying mass of organic matter left behind by the corpses of a whale or a large fish. Judging by the length of this corpse, most scientists believe it had been nothing more than an oarfish. But that's not what John and his neighbors thought.

No, they believed they had discovered the remains of something tossed out of the mysterious depths of the ocean, a creature that most seafaring cultures have whispered about since the dawn of time, but few have ever been able to witness in the flesh. It was a beast of wonder and fantasy, but also the stuff of nightmares and dark legends, and we still talk about them today. From the illustrations on ancient maps to Hollywood blockbusters, humans have always been obsessed with monsters of the deep, and while science has given us more clarity over the centuries, we still wrestle with the possibility that we might have missed something, something that's still there beneath the cold black waves of the sea.

And if the tales we find among the pages of history are any indication, we just might be right. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. Before we dive into today's story, so to speak, I think it's important for us to step back and ponder exactly how vast and unexplored the oceans of our planet really are. Most of us have heard the basic statistics, right? The planet is roughly 70 percent water. We know more about the surface of Mars than we do the depths of our own oceans. But here's some perspective. The average depth of our ocean is a little more than two miles deep, which is enough to stack eight Empire State buildings on top of each other and have the top poke through the waves slightly. But the deepest parts can be

upwards of three times that, making them some of the most remote and unexplored regions on the planet. Which is why humans have filled those cold dark spaces with story for thousands of years. In fact, anywhere you find a culture that has encountered the ocean, you will also find tales of legendary creatures. And one of my favorites comes from Japan. In Japanese mythology, there is a giant catfish that lives in the mud beneath the island nation. His name is Namatsu, and he is responsible for causing earthquakes just by moving his body. And if that sounds familiar to you, you might remember the catfish that gives Link the quake medallion in The Legend of Zelda a link to the past. It's a nice nod to Japanese mythology and an echo of our fascination with the creatures that live

beneath the waves. Another example of mysterious sea creatures comes to us from ancient European manuscripts. It's referred to as the Aspidakalon, which is Greek for shield turtle, and is said to be a beast so large that sailors would often mistake it for an island. In fact, there is a fantastic description of the creature in a second century manuscript from Alexandria called the Physiologus. Here is a rough translation. It has what appears to be beaches on its hide, like those from the seashore. Believing it to be an island, sailors beach their ships alongside it, and disembarking, they plant stakes and tie up their ships. Then, in order to cook a meal after this work, they make fires on the sand, as if on land. But when the monster feels the heat of

these flames, it immediately submerges into the water and pulls the ship into the depths of the sea. And this idea, a creature so massive that it could be mistaken for an island, wasn't isolated to the Greek world. There is a Norwegian educational text called the King's Mirror that was written about 800 years ago, and it includes details about a similar creature. This one is also described as large enough to fool sailors, and when it surfaces from the depths of the ocean, it is said to create a whirlpool that can pull entire fleets beneath the waves. By the mid-1700s, the stories of this creature began to evolve. Norwegian writer Erik Pontopeden described it in his book The Natural History of Norway

as having long, powerful tentacles. And with that small touch, you might not be surprised to learn the creature's name. The Kraken And those tentacles are a common detail. The ancient Greek writer Hesiod wrote about similar creatures nearly 3,000 years ago that he called the Skelah and the Keribdis. Both were said to reach out from the ocean waves with long, serpent-like appendages and pull sailors off their ships as they passed. Aristotle even recorded an eyewitness encounter with one in his book Historia Animalium. It was an important transformation. These nightmares of the deep had long been something you could avoid by simply staying away from strange islands no matter how natural and

tempting they might look. But the tentacles added a new dimension to that fear. Now the creature could come for you. It was less an island and more like a serpent, ready to strike when you least expected it. The sightings didn't stop, though. Roughly 2000 years ago, a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian named Strabo recorded the discovery of a mysterious corpse on the coast of ancient Syria. In fact, it sounds a lot like what John Peace and the others experienced that day in 1808 in the Orkney Islands. Strabo described the creature as roughly 100 feet long, with jaws so wide that a man on horseback could have ridden through them. The pages of history are filled with tales of these mysterious creatures. Sometimes they are

never seen, but haunt the lives of sailors like an oppressive superstition. Other times, they're actually sighted, whether at sea or on the shore. And those encounters have filled communities with dread and wonder. Either way, they've made their impact on us. One last example. This one comes to us like so many others from Norway, which isn't surprising, given how tied that culture is to the sea. And it's the description of this creature that sets it apart, and also paves the way for future tales that I want to tell you. In 1555, the Swedish writer, historian, and archbishop, known as Olaus Magnus, recorded that many sailors had claimed to see something unusual off the coast of Norway. He described it as nearly 200 feet long, with a long,

thick neck that could be raised above the surface of the water. It had a mane of dark hair, eyes that seemed to glow red, and razor sharp teeth. Looking back nearly five centuries later, it's hard to not see how significant that particular creature really was. It might sound incredibly familiar to most of us today, but in reality, it was one of the first to pull all of those various details together into one monstrous creature. But it certainly wasn't the last. Hans Agedda had already accomplished much over the course of his 48 years. He had been born in Norway in 1686 to a religious family, and had quickly followed that same path. By 1721, he was considered the apostle of Greenland and founded the settlement of Hope Colony on an island off

Greenland's southeastern coast. Five years later, that community was moved to the mainland, where it would eventually become Nuuk, the capital of modern Greenland. But Hans stayed busy, traveling all over the region doing work for the church, and it was on one of those missions in July of 1734 that he had an experience he would never forget. While off the coast of Greenland, Agedda was on deck looking out over the waves toward the mainland ahead of them when a shape broke through the surface of the water. According to Agedda, a creature raised its head so high up that it rose above their main top, that small wooden platform that sits near the top of the main mast. This creature, he said,

was covered in scales and had a long body that could be seen just beneath the surface of the water. From head to tail, Agedda claimed the monster was nearly as long as his ship, but before they could study it more, it dove back beneath the icy waters, flipped its tail into the air, and then slipped away. A century later, in August of 1848, a British naval vessel had a similar encounter off the coast of South Africa, near the Cape of Good Hope. The HMS Dedalus had been on the way to the small island of St. Helena when one of the sailors spotted an object in the water moving in their direction. As it came closer, and the details came into focus, the crew stared in awe.

It looked like an enormous serpent, but it could raise its neck and head above the waves. At least 60 feet of the beast's length was visible directly beneath the surface of the water, but there was clearly more of the creature deeper down, and it seemed to be just as interested in the ship and crew as they were in it. The creature passed the ship quickly, but as it did, the crew was able to get a better look at it. Captain McQueen noted that the diameter of its neck was at least 16 inches, and that its head closely resembled that of a snake. And while it didn't have the fins one might associate with a fish, it did have something else, a mane of yellowish hair that ran along its back.

Multiple witnesses from the Dedalus all came forward to share their story with a London scientific journal called The Zoologist, and even provided a number of sketches. Many of those were later published by The Illustrated London News, giving the wider public their first glimpse of the sea creature Captain McQueen had spotted, and naturally, spreading the fear. That same year, the crew of the HMS Plumper had their own run-in with the mysterious creature, this time off the northern coast of Portugal. One of the naval officers made a sketch of the creature, but I can't seem to find a sample of it. Eight years later, in the middle of a calm, sunlit March afternoon, the crew of the Imogene spotted their own sea monster and put the details

down on paper. In 1905, the Earl of Crawford was out on his yacht, the Valhalla, when two of his friends spotted something in the water. As it happened, both of these friends were naturalists, one of whom was on the Council of the Zoological Society, which might explain why they had been watching the water around the ship in the first place. According to the story passed along by another member of the crew, Crawford's yacht was off the coast of Brazil in December of 1905, when an unusual object broke through the surface and caught their attention. It stood over four feet high and seemed to move from side to side, and then,

much to the shock of everyone on board, it headed in their direction. Some of the men were able to produce spyglasses, and they made a quick study of the odd creature. It was long and flexible, like a serpent, with a head they described as turtle-like. Its skin was a dark green with a pale color on its underside, but no one was able to see any more of the creature's body than that. After a moment or two, it dropped back beneath the waves and dove hard for the depths of the sea, stirring up foam and bubbles as it went, before completely vanishing. Of course, there were more sightings as the years went on, and you know how it is, once you know you should be looking for something, you're a lot more likely to think you've seen it.

Psychologists call it the Red Car Syndrome, like when you decide that your next car is going to be a red Honda Pilot, and all of a sudden, you see them everywhere you go. It's not the car that's increased in number, it's just your attention that's been shifted. And thanks to those early encounters with mysterious sea creatures, sailors everywhere were experiencing their own early modern version of that. Some of them saw tall necks protruding from the waves, others saw great humps, like the backs of whales or enormous serpent-like tails, and a few of them even managed to mark the details down. But there's one story in particular that seems to have it all, a fully visible creature that defies explanation, multiple eyewitness accounts, and a crew with the foresight

to actually make sketches of what they saw. And when you have that many pieces of evidence all working together within a single story, it has a way of challenging common logic. What if, they seem to suggest, these creatures are real? Life at sea was practically all Arthur Rostrin had ever known. Sure, he'd been born on dry land in 1869 to a loving family in England, but by the age of just 13, he'd joined up with the British Navy, kicking off a career at sea that would span decades. By the age of 16, he had risen to the rank of second mate aboard a ship called the Gauntlet. It was a merchant vessel, owned and operated by a company out of Liverpool. But his work on the ship took him all over the world. Over the next 10

years, he would get to see New Zealand, India, Australia, and both North and South America. In 1895, at the young age of just 26, Arthur switched employers and began to work for a large ocean liner company called the Kunard Line. He would work there for the rest of his life, give or take the two years he was away serving in the Russo-Japanese War. But life wasn't always steady and normal. One example took place in 1907. Arthur had been assigned to a brand new cruise ship that was set to make its maiden voyage in May of that year. He would have served as first officer too, but at the last moment his superiors had him transferred elsewhere, which turned out to be a good thing. That ship, the RMS Lusitania, was torpedoed eight years later by a German U-boat,

an attack that would help push the United States into World War One. Instead, Arthur bounced around between an assortment of passenger ships and trade vessels, serving in a command position on most, which is how he ended up onboard an old steam-powered passenger liner called the Campania, serving as the chief officer. And on the evening of April 26th, he and a fellow officer named H.C. Burnie spotted a large collection of debris in the water ahead. Watch out for that snag, Arthur called out to the other officer. An adjustment was made to their course and the ship swung slightly away, but not enough that the object drifted farther from the ship. In fact, they still inched closer to it as they passed by. And that's when Arthur

saw the object move. It's alive, he shouted, and then watched as the features came into focus. A large head was perched atop a long, thick neck that disappeared into the dark water. What had originally appeared to be nothing more than a cluster of debris bobbing up and down with the swell of the waves turned out to be a living creature, but one unlike anything Arthur had ever seen before. He later recalled wishing that he had a camera with which to capture the beast's appearance. Instead, he used a pad of paper and a pencil to quickly note the details he could see. The long neck was fully 12 inches in diameter, like a massive log, and it rose 8 or 9 feet above the waves. There were small protrusions at the top of the creature's head, and as far as Arthur

could tell, it had no eyes, reminding him of an eel. And then, as quickly as it arrived, it was gone. Of course, Arthur made sure to report the sighting to his captain right away, but the man dismissed it, essentially asking Arthur what he'd been drinking. But when they docked in Liverpool later in their journey, the captain asked Arthur again. Even then, after a span of time where doubt and second guessing could have crept in, Arthur was adamant. He had witnessed a sea serpent. Later that year, he told his story to reporters at the Daily Mail, and even showed them some of his sketches. He was convinced that what he had seen was real,

and wanted others to know about it. But there were already others who agreed with him, even if he hadn't told them. That's because Arthur hadn't been the only person to see the creature. In response to his story in the Daily Mail, a woman named Mrs. J. C. Adkins wrote to the publication to inform them that all of Arthur's details matched her experience earlier in 1907, just months before his own. Another testimony, this time from a group of fishermen, also landed in the newspapers. It included some of the very same details, too. The long neck, the eel-like head, and the overall appearance that reminded them of a giant serpent. A century before the internet would make it possible, it seems the existence of Arthur's

sea serpent had gone viral. One last tale. Decades after his experience, Arthur Rostrin wrote up his memoirs, which were published in 1931. Among the collection of personal stories was the tale of how, one evening at home, Arthur came across a story in the local newspaper. It was about a fisherman who had been found adrift in the Bristol Channel. The man had been found alive, but in shock, both physically and emotionally, after drifting without oars or a boat hook for nearly a week. When he was finally rescued, he told of how he had rode out for a simple evening of fishing, only to be attacked by a mysterious creature, a creature that matched every detail of Arthur

Rostrin's own encounter years before. The fisherman said that he used every tool available to fight it off, eventually losing his boat hook and both oars. But thankfully, the beast never returned for him, instead leaving him to drift for days until a passing ship caught sight of him and came to his rescue. And I find it curious to look at the details of his story from another level. This creature, whether a legend or a living thing, seemed to have hunted this fisherman down and then taken away everything he might have used to defend himself. And in the end, we're all in the same proverbial boat. Even now, in 2019, the existence of sea serpents is still lurking in the backs of our collective consciousness, like debris floating

on the sea. And some of us can't help but wonder if it will eventually raise its head. And if it does, will any of us be ready? The oceans of our world function a lot like so many of the other remote places we tend to avoid, the deep forests of North America, the highest mountain peaks, the vast stretches of the Sahara. Wherever there is a lot of mystery and not a lot of people, legends tend to take form. Given enough time, those stories can reach all of us. Today we stand at an awkward sort of crossroads. Yes, we have the technology and the passion to explore more of our planet. But we're also just so incredibly insignificant in the face of so much unknown territory. We have the tools,

but the job is so much bigger than our ambition. And even now, we're left to wonder what exactly is down there. Stories like the one passed on to us by Arthur Rostrin don't exactly make that an easy question to answer, though. Clearly, the crew of the Campania, as well as countless other ships over the centuries, all witnessed something unusual and bizarre. But the human mind has a tendency to confuse undiscovered with unnatural, so I wouldn't fault anyone for writing it off as a long series of mistakes. Each one could have been nothing more than an erroneous sighting that confused debris with something otherworldly. But then again, the details do hint at something else. Maybe, at the end of the day, we need to weigh the evidence and eyewitness testimony against

the credibility of the people who made those claims. If that's the case, though, then Arthur Rostrin passes with flying colors. Not only was he a respected career officer on a number of large, demanding ships, but he was also looked up to by his peers and deeply trusted by his commanding officers. In fact, his captain knew him to be a deeply religious man, someone who never lied. After docking in Liverpool, the captain pulled Arthur aside and gave him one more chance to retract his story. But the younger man declined. He really had seen what he had claimed. There was no embellishment or fantasy in his story, only the facts as he and another officer had witnessed them. And he would stand by that story for the rest of his life.

Rostrin would go on to command his own ships and was later assigned to captain a large passenger liner that crossed the Atlantic between New York and the Mediterranean. It was a big responsibility, but a task that he had trained for his entire career. Which is good, because that training would be called upon in 1912. That was the year his ship was cutting through the waters of the Atlantic, having just left New York with a full passenger list. But as he and his crew were settling into what would be a long journey, a message was received over the wireless. A distress call. Rostrin instructed his officers to head to the coordinates and then walked off alone to pray. The news sounded bad, and the ocean was a dark, dangerous place to be if you weren't in control.

Prayer was all he could manage until they arrived. They arrived none too soon. Hundreds of people were drifting in the cold water, clinging to a few lifeboats and crying out for help. Rostrin managed to rescue over 700 of them, bringing them aboard his already full passenger liner. It was crowded, but they were safe. Safe from whatever danger the cold Atlantic might have sent their way. And then it was done. That rescue, by the way, took place in April of 1912. April 14th, in fact. And the passengers he and his crew pulled from the icy water had all come from a ship that should never have sunk. A tragedy so unexpected that we still talk about it today.

The Titanic I certainly hope that you've enjoyed this exploration of our cold, mysterious oceans as much as I did. We know so little about the world beneath the surface, so it's no wonder there's a vast collection of tales that hint at our darkest fears. And I have one more that I want to share with you. So stick around after this short sponsor break to hear all about it. In August of 2018, the decomposing corpse of a large, hairy creature washed up on a Russian beach along the Bering Sea. Images of the remains were passed around in hopes that someone might be able to identify it. But so far, no one has been able to solve the mystery.

And it's definitely not the first time this has happened. Some people believe that the Stronze beast, which I mentioned at the beginning of today's episode, is one of the earliest unusual carcasses to be found. But many others have been discovered between then and now. And while there are many similarities between them all, they seem to span the globe. Most of them end up being identified as part of a decaying whale, and it's easy to understand why. Whales have so much fat on their bodies that when their remains begin to decay, they can quickly lose their whale-like features, transforming into a shape that leaves people scratching their heads and whispering about sea monsters. There have been others, though,

that have been less explainable. One of those stories comes to us from South Africa, where an unusual sight was witnessed in October of 1924. It all began when locals looked out into the water just off the coast of Margate and saw two killer whales doing battle with an unidentifiable attacker. This fight was said to have lasted nearly three hours, and as the crowds watched, they witnessed some unusual details. Whatever the animal was, it frequently used its long tail as a weapon against the killer whales. Others described how it was able to lift itself over 20 feet into the air above the water. But the battle ended badly for this creature, and eventually its corpse washed ashore, where it remained

until time and nature wore it down to nothing. But South Africa is also the location of one final story I want to tell you, because it's one thing to find unusual remains on the beach and poke it with a stick while pondering its identity, and something else entirely to find those remains out at sea, still fresh and clearly visible. Which is exactly what happened in 1905, as the steamship known as the SS Armadale Castle was nearing green points in Cape Town. The ship was moving at a fast pace, cutting through the water when a loud sound caught the attention of everyone on deck. A number of the sailors ran to the side and looked down to see what it might have been, and then began to shout for the captain to come and have a look.

It was a fish, they cried, but one unlike any of them had ever seen before. What captain J. C. Robinson found when he got there was the body of an enormous creature. The best guess the crowd of witnesses were able to make was that it was nearly 60 feet long, with a body that was at least 8 feet around. Of course, there was debate among the sailors about what it really was. Some said it was a large shark, while others were certain it was a whale of some kind. The only thing everyone could agree on was that no one had ever seen something like it in all their years at sea, and while that didn't make it definitive, it certainly didn't help calm their fears. The captain and his men tried to find a way to

pull the animal's body onto the ship, but it was simply too far below them and too large to move. In the end, they made a few descriptive notes and then began to discuss what they might call the creature. They finally settled on naming it after one of the men in the crowd, someone with an international reputation, in hopes that it would lend a bit of legitimacy to their story. And just what did they name this mysterious creature? Pisces Rudiardensis, which might sound like a bit too much Latin for most of us, but it actually made a lot of sense. Pisces, of course, means fish, and Rudiardensis comes from the passenger's surname. A name almost everyone today has heard of. The author of the Jungle Book, Rudiard Kipling.

This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Marseille Crockett and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two amazing seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now.

And you can also follow the show on social media. We're there on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.