Talk:Sea serpent/Archive 1

unsigned contributions
This article does not appear to be neutral and fails to mention the sea serpent classifications. I will try and fix that and give links to where various classification have been recorded.

On the giant squid bit: 2005 was when the footage was released; it was shot in 2004.

Ok ok, I need back up.
In a book I have the writer states that in 1933 someone found a young eel that was 6 feet long. I have not been able to find anything about this eel in any other place. Is there any truth to this? (I'll post the book, writer, and reak date later once I dig up my copy.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zerath13 (talk • contribs) 02:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC).
 * You're thinking of Anton Bruun, who found a six-foot elver and, from the size disparity of juvenile and adult eels he was familiar with, extrapolated an adult size of 108-180 feet. Alas, it was a juvenile spiny eel, and they don't get much bigger than their elver form. See http://books.google.com/books?id=z9gMsCUtCZUC&pg=PA529&lpg=PA529&dq=anton+bruun+eel&source=bl&ots=JTVsjsgi4T&sig=xbxHtMGRFwQMMVvLg9wwaQNKkVo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5sbbULK_F6a-0QH7_4CYBA&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=anton%20bruun%20eel&f=false --Jere7my (talk) 04:20, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Long-necked seal "evidence"
Interestingly, a long necked seal is now known from the fossil record.

That's nice and all, but this sentence seems a bit... misleading. Last I'd heard (which was about a year ago), the only "long-necked seal" known was Acrophoca longirostris, and its neck wasn't all that long--its neck made up 21% of the vertebral column, while in living seals the neck makes up 17%. So far as I can tell, compared to a living seal of the same size, that adds a whopping... 2.4 inches.

Saying "We've found long-necked seals!" implies that its neck was, I don't know... long? I wouldn't call an additional 2.4 inches a "long neck"--maybe if we were comparing bulldogs, but not when we were just talking about a hypothetical animal with a neck like a giraffe. While I agree that Acrophoca may be an indication that there could be seals with even longer necks out there, it isn't Megalotaria ' s lost twin.

And on a side note, why doesn't this article mention anything about vertebral articulation? You'd think it would be worth mentioning that reptiles generally wriggle their bodies horizontally. So are sea serpents an exception to the rule, are they horribly confused, or are we dealing with the reptilian equivalent of the flounder? :P 71.217.98.158 20:17, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Oarfish = Real
I would think that the oarfish would only confirm the existence of sea serpents (at least in one form): it's long, serpentine, rarely seen, and has a freakish looking head. Shouldn't that be a case of confirmation rather than a case of mistaken identity? AnkhAnanku 15:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That's an interesting point, since the Oar-fish is probably the most likely explanation for the sitings from Aeneid from 30 B.C., given that the Oar-fish had red around its head, and could have been mistaken for a serpent with a red main.

But the oar-fish is still just a fish, and 'sea serpent' implies a snake or snake-like reptile. Many of the sea serpent sightings describe it as having large sharp teeth, being anywhere from 60-200 feet in length, and having large 'humps' which can be seen above the water like in the Cape Ann picture. Also, many of the sightings have described the head as being the head of a cow, horse, or camel. The oar-fish is a harmless fish, it has no teeth, its maximum length is said to be up to 22 feet, and its head is clearly that of a fish. Also, the oar-fish could not have moved like a snake, with humps above the water.

The oar-fish is more of an explanation of what some of the sightings could have been, rather than justification of the sea serpent, because afterall, they are two completely different things. I hope that helps, I'd be glad to discuss this further if you have questions, or if I was unclear about something.

--67.234.219.69 (talk) 23:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

well the oar fish description almost describes the Glocester sea serpent Cryptod (talk) 23:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Prehistoric animal
Myself I am conviced that the sea serpent is either basilosaurus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus) or a mosasaurus(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosasaur). The very detailed illustration made by Hans Egede looks very much like either one of those creatures. (they look very simmilar to each other). Note that his descrition predates paleotonlogies discovery of these creatures so he couldn't have gotten inspiration there from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.138.178.152 (talk) 08:28, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that is one of those animals probably a basilosaur. There is a mythological Icelandic beast called lyngbakr which is decried as a giant man eating whale and I believe they are the same creature

whale.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyngbakr

simple explanation?
There could be a simple explanation for at least some of these sightings.

According to the Brittanica most of the sightings are in the cold water currents of the worlds oceans, areas frequented by giant squids.

Squids have two extra large tentacles amidd the cluster of usual tentacles. If such a squid is (basking)on the surface with one tentacle raised out of the water, from a distance it looks just like a head on a long neck.

Nobody seems to have seem a sea serpent from close up but the various sightings made from a distance and the areas seem rather consistent.212.93.199.154 (talk) 11:43, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

That is incorrect. We (Bill and Bob Clark) saw a sea serpent at least 60 feet in length from only 20 yards away on February 5, 1985. We saw it at 7:45 A.M. when we were parked in our car at Marina Green. The animal was swimming in San Francisco Bay when it got stranded on a submerged rocky ledge while it was chasing a sea lion. We saw the entire animal exposed above the surface of the water except for the rear section and the tail. We can give an accurate and detailed description of what we saw. You can go to our blog at http://home.access4less.net/~sfseaserpent/ for more information about our sightings and some other sightings in the SF Bay area. We posted information about our sightings and the Stinson Beach sighting that occurred on October 31, 1983 in this article about sea serpents but someone removed it. Apparently someone doesn't want the information about our sightings and the Stinson Beach sighting to be included in Wikipedia's article about sea serpents. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.243.110.109 (talk) 18:12, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

There have been improvements (Please remove the box)
Some improvements have been made and the article. The article does not need a expert (on mythology), because you do not have to be a expert to write an article about sea serpent.

The person who originally wrote the article has decent knowledge on this subject.

Too many demands are written in the box, you could write 2 or 3 demands but too much demands in the box is ridiculous.

The article is decent now and the box should be removed, and it was not so bad even before recent improvements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gyrkin (talk • contribs) 08:35, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Article has been cleaned up
There's really no need to dedicate so much of the article towards sightings / tall tales (that hold zero corroborative evidence, or evidence of any kind) towards a mythological creature. The article is not neutral as it implicates that sea serpents are real when they are not. It seems as though this article was originally written by someone with an agenda, so I have removed all references in question to keep the article neutral. If you're going to include sightings of dragons, you might as well include all sightings of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. It has no place on Wikipedia in 2018.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.149.69 (talk) 12:33, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

There are no sightings at all listed for Ghost, UFO or Leprechaun (or Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy). Listing every supposed sighting for those would be absurd, and the LACK of an uncountable number of sightings doesn't make the few more valid.

In my response, I suggested adding one of the sightings back in, but with zero scholarly justification - rather because it's a mildly interesting. However, Wikipedia isn't for entertainment. More to the point, not every possible claim that can be worded to be technically not false (and has a citation) belongs on Wikipedia; it's not a repository for non-false claims. The entire section could be be dropped. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.149.69 (talk • contribs)


 * I agree entirely with IP 2.29.XX. The analogy with ghosts, Santa and the Tooth Fairy is apt. Removing practically all the "sightings", and also slightly embarrassing explanations of how "skeptics" [sic] don't believe in these sightings, seems a good idea: as the IP says, it's 2018. The article history is a bit confusing. I understand that Slightsmile and Ebaye reverted the IP principally because they think a big change like that should have consensus. OK, so please let's try to form a consensus. Not sure why Arda Xi and Oshwah reverted (and, in Oshwah's case, quickly self-reverted). Do any of you-all wish to register an opinion here, and help form consensus? And Septrillion, perhaps your revert + quick self-revert was caused by an edit conflict with Oshwah? It looks a bit like it. P.S, IP, if you sign article posts with four tildes, ~, they will turn automatically into a signature + timestamp when you save. Bishonen &#124; talk 23:02, 19 January 2018 (UTC).
 * Sorry, I misspelled User:Ebyabe and broke the ping; trying again on a new line. Bishonen &#124; talk 23:05, 19 January 2018 (UTC).
 * It's a normal reaction to revert someone who comes out of the blue removing 22K of sourced content but I see that someone who's judgement I trust says that the removal is a good improvement so I can move on to other things . Slight Smile 23:24, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Bishonen - Because I managed to fat-finger my keyboard and hit the wrong key, causing me to revert the article. The self-revert was me simply restoring what I rolled-back unintentionally.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   23:35, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I hate that when that happens. Slight Smile 01:51, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Forgive me if I'm intruding but I want to point out something: ALL the voices of contemporary mythological creatures studied by cryptozoology they report sightings for what they are, that is probable inventions or wrong identifications (mothman, chupacabra, Bigfoot ecc.) the page spoke of innumerable identifications and reported some examples without asserting that they were reliable, removing them (for me) was stupid.--L.Cremisi (talk) 19:44, 22 January 2018 (UTC)