Case file · Cryptid
The Gloucester sea serpent
In August 1817 hundreds of people in Gloucester, Massachusetts, reported a long, humped sea serpent in the harbour; crew on the schooner Caravan fired a cannon at it.
1817 CE · 42.60, -70.66 · status: disputed
The account
Sightings continued in 1818 and 1819, and a playwright satirized them in 1819. The New York Times reported another in 1886. It is one of the best-attested sea-serpent waves anywhere.
The sceptical view
Joe Nickell suggested a pod of vagrant narwhals (2019), and Karl Brandt proposed harpooned whales towing upturned boats (2023); a line of porpoises or tuna also fits some descriptions.
Connections in the atlas
- Josselyn's sea serpent off Cape Ann
- Sea serpents and the Mekong naga
- Linnaean Society report on the serpent