A mysterious sea creature with a human-like head and hard shell on its back reportedly washed up on the shores of a Cornwall beach over 400 years ago, according to a local newspaper at the time.
The strange looking beast, which no one was ever able to identify, was apparently 48ft long with green eyes and was discovered by two young boys who had been wandering Porthleven beach in search of shipwrecks. Terrified by what they found, the boys ran to inform some adults nearby. What ensued was documented by a Cornish man in an article in the Hereford Journal a month after the incident, as reported by Cornwall Live
Dubbed "Sea Monster", the article reads: "A just and particular description of a very curious and most surprising sea monster driven on shore in Portleaven Bay (sic), on the coast of Cornwall, on the 14th of Sept. 1786, by the strong westerly winds and tempestuous weather, which continued to a violent degree for several days successively, and did much damage at that place and neighbourhood.
"This monster was first discovered by two boys who (agreeable to the custom of that place) went in search of wreck soon after day break; and as they stood on the cliff which commanded a prospect of a small sandy cove, they, at a distance of about a mile, discovered something of enormous hulk near the shore, and which after a short time they apprehended to be the side or part of an unfortunate ship which had the preceding night been broken to pieces by the extremities of the shore.
"They immediately went towards the place with sanguine expectation of great success, and as they approached the spot (the breaking waves at times leaving it dry) they were both struck with the utmost consternation to perceive such motions as it was something which had life."
Approaching a group of men to warn them about what they saw, although the boys were not believed at first, once the men saw the beast themselves, word spread quickly. A number of locals soon gathered and arming themselves in preparation to fight the creature should they need to. The article recalled: "A great number of people soon collected themselves into a body, and determined to go armed, some with large sticks and pokers, others with hatchets, spits, etc, which was, after some deliberation, carried into execution.
"On their coming near the spot they perceived it to be something living, as was represented, and it raised its head, which had not before been perceived, and appeared to direct its course towards them. All were alarmed – some stood their ground, others possessed of greater fear turned back, they could see no legs to it, but it appeared to crawl on its belly, raising its body at times a little from the sand."
No one was able to determine what the creature was. The Cornish man wrote: "Various were the opinions about this creature; some said it was a mermaid, others a whale – but the greater number disbelieving the existence of the former, and adhering to the improbability of the latter, they were all equally at a loss.
"When it was agreed to examine what it was, they all went towards it, and after an hour’s beating, stabbing it, etc, it expired with a groan. Its length was found to be from the top of its head to the end of its tail, 48 feet to inches, and its circumference in the largest part of the body 24 feet and a half.
Its head was large, and prickly in the hinder part, and not formed much unlike that of a man; its eyes were greenish; its mouth large; its nose flat, and from its neck to the navel, resembling nearest to the human kind; its back was hard and more difficult to penetrate than the shell of a turtle; it had two short fore feet, formed like the paw of a monkey, and its hinder parts shaped measured full seven feet in width at the extent, and but five feet long."
It is not known what the locals did with the body of the creature once they had killed it, or whether it was further studied to try and identify what it was. Based on what the man from Cornwall wrote, however, its suggested that they used it to "produce a great quantity of oil".
The Cornish man added: "No one that has seen it knows its name, nor has any monster like it ever been described in record, or come within the knowledge of this kingdom."
This is not the first time, however, that mysterious sea creatures have been spotted on the shores of the English coastline. Dozens of people have reported seeing snake like creature with dark skin and humps on its back, up to 20ft long, in the sea. Sighting of unidentified creatures in the waters of Cornwall have even lead many to theories that that plesiosaurs, a huge marine reptile that lived in the Mesozoic Era (252 to 66 million years ago) when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
This theory first emerged in 1949, by Harold T. Wilkins, who reported that he and a friend were in a tidal creek in Cornwall when they spotted “two remarkable saurians, 15-20ft long, just like a pair of Mesozoic plesiosaur." However, as recently as 2002, a a former Natural History Museum worker, John Holmes, claimed he captured the reptile on camera , releasing the mysterious footage he'd taken on Gerrans Bay.
He said at the time: Mr Holmes, who lived in Sticker near St Austell, said at the time: "My pet theory is that it was a living fossil. I think that there is a group of plesiosaurs going around in the oceans of the world. All around Britain there have been sightings of sea serpents."
To this day, many people worldwide, like Mr. Holmes, believe that plesiosaurs defied extinction millions of years ago and still exist. The most famous example of a "present-day plesiosaur" is the legendary Loch Ness monster. However, when researchers from New Zealand extracted DNA from water samples in the loch in 2019 to catalogue its living species, they found no evidence of large animals or a plesiosaur.
Numerous accounts of strange sea creatures over the last 140 years, beginning with a report of long-necked beast allegedly caught by fisherman in Gerrans Bay, have transformed these sightings into the stuff of legend, with the mysterious creature being named Morgawr, Cornish for "sea giant." There is no explanation as to what these creatures are or whether these sightings are even real, but its been suggested that there could be more than one type of mysterious beast lurking on the waters of Cornwall.