Sea Monsters...!!!

i just recently finished a Fabulous Book:
Monsters Of The Sea
The Truth about The Lock Ness Monster, The Giant Squid, Sea Serpents, Mermaids and other Fantastic Creatures of The Deep...!!!
By Richard Ellis / © 1995

Ordinarily; when a book says that it is The Truth about something, It means that it intends to DeBunk some Cherished Cultural Sentiment, and do it with an Angry Vehemence that could be matched only by pouring gasoline on a box of kittens and throwing the flaming, mewing melee at Bob Barker, just as he's about to announce the winner of the Miss American Contest.

But Actually; This book, while it is decidedly Anti-Lock Ness Monster and Sea Serpents in General...
It does give a pretty strong argument that the evidence for these Sea Monsters really is pretty weak...

But -- It argues that many of the Reports of Sea Serpents, of which, most were made by Sailors 100+ years ago... ( why are there so few Modern Reports of Sea Monsters...??? ) ...were actually Not Sea Serpents... But Gigantic Squids...!!!

That's right! He carefully argues against one kind of Sea Monster in favor of another...!!!
And -- The Evidence for Gigantic Squids are Overwhelming...!!!
Even though NO ONE has ever seen a living one in it's natural habitat,
( there are a few cases of sailors seeing them fight with Sperm Whales on the surface )
or caught one, or even found one intact...!!!
But -- There are Oodles of Pieces of them that have been collected from The Stomachs of Sperm Whales... And it would seem that from the numbers of Sperm Whales that we know exist,
And the amount of Giant Squid that is recovered from their Bellies...
It's estimated that the Bio-Mass of Giant Squids, that are eaten every year by Sperm Whales,
Must be equal to the Bio-Mass of All The Worlds Humanimals...!!!

Regretfully; These Giant Squids, by my standards,
aren't so very gigantic... 50 feet... ( ? )
You expect me to loose any sleep over a 50 foot squid,
considering that half of that isTentacles...

But -- He also seems to allow that there may be 200 foot Octopus' in the Oceans...
Although the only evidence for these; is only ONE report of a Globster washing up on a Florida Beach in 1896.

And then there's the report of a pretty big shark sited in the vicinity of Port Stephens, Broughton Island ( ??? ) ...
The Cray fishmen, who are presumably familiar with most sea life, and could easily distinguish a whale from a shark,
Claimed that ( several witnessess ) they were being annoyed by a Shark that was 300 feet long...!!!
A more conservative witness suggested that it was 'only' 115 feet long.
This is about 2 1/2 to 3 times as long as the longest Great White.
There 'was' a Shark that fit this description,
But it hasn't been photographed by a reputable magazine for more than a million years.
( Carcharodon Megalodon )

Are there still a few left...???

The book is not only MASSIVELY INFORMATIVE,
but it's also Fun & Easy to read...!

Highly Recommended...!!!