Mr. Hebda said there have been over 31 sightings
of "sea monsters" in or off Nova Scotia over the last 140 years. Usually described as multi-humped
serpents, most are basking sharks, he said. "There have been reports from Lake Ainslie, and Aspy Bay.
Cranberry Lake has some monsters in it too," he said. "There have also been recent sightings of oarfish-like creatures off
Antigonish and P.E.I."
OARFISH
FACTS
The oarfish (Genus Regalecidae) is a strange-looking
deep-sea fish found in warm parts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Its body is compressed and the dorsal
fin forms a manelike crest behind the head. Oarfish are large, up to 9 m/30 ft long. They have a small mouth, no teeth or
scales, and large eyes.
The Oarfish is metallic silver-blue,
with blue-black blotches and wavy markings on the body, and pink to red fins.
Secret Life Of The Oarfish: You've heard the saying,
"There's a limit to everything." This saying may be generally true. But when it comes to the ocean floor, traditional wisdom
has been turned topsy-turvy. Listen
RARE SIGHTING OF OARFISH FILMED
Divers from the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Undersea
Test and Evaluation Center
(AUTEC), a Detachment of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport,
Rhode Island, were startled recently when they were visited by a strange looking sea creature.
The divers, Brian Kakuk and Bill Cooksey,
employees of Range Systems Engineering Co., a subsidiary of the Raytheon Corp., under contract to the Navy, were inspecting
a buoy installation in the south end of the Bahamian waters known as the Tongue of the Ocean (TOTO), when a large serpent-like
creature appeared.
The creature, never before seen by either
of the two veteran divers, displayed no aggression as it gently swam towards them. Swimming vertically using only its
elongated dorsal fin, the creature, over 5-feet in length, approached to within an arms-length of the divers.
SMOOTH TO THE TOUCH
"It approached and hovered about ten feet
away, about 20-feet below the surface. It looked at us. My first impression was that the eyes moved in the sockets and followed
our movement", said Cooksey. "I approached the fish and much to my surprise it allowed me to touch the lower part of its body.
It was smooth to the touch and fine scaled like a mackerel",
TOTO is a unique deep water basin, approximately
110-miles (204 km) long and 20 miles (37 km) wide, bounded on two sides by shallow coral reefs and by Andros Island on the
third. TOTO is home to AUTEC, the Navy's principal East Coast in-water tracking range.
TOTO's maximum depth of 6000 feet (2012 m),
smooth basin floor, steep walls and shallow surrounding waters make it an ideal location for testing antisubmarine warfare
systems and tactics of Navy submarines, surface ships, and aircraft, as well as conducting basic acoustic, environmental and
oceanographic research.
MOVING AGAINST THE CURRENT
The divers surfaced and picked up a video
camera. "We moved away to the buoy to do a safety stop. I turned around and saw that the fish was following us," noted Cooksey.
"It had incredible control of its elongated pelvic and dorsal fins. On the ends of these fins were yellow and blue tassels.
It appeared to have control of these little flags moving them against the flow of the current".
"After a few moments of filming it began to
swim into deeper water", said Cooksey. "We dropped from 10 feet to 80 feet quickly. I was amazed that it could move
so fast in its heads up swimming style. It stopped for a moment and was gone".
Back on shore, the video was reviewed and
creature identified as an oarfish (Regale-
cus glesne). The oarfish, although believed to
inhabit all the tropical and temperate oceans of the world, as well as the Mediterranean Sea, is rarely encountered. Most
of what is known of the animal has been gleaned from carcasses found floating, or washed ashore, in other parts of the world,
and even those finds are rare.
FIRST TIME ON VIDEO
According to one source, the number of people
who have actually seen the fish alive is very small. By all accounts a live oarfish has been photographed on only two other
occasions, one of those times by a sport diver, also in the waters off AUTEC. This encounter is believed to be the first time
that a live oarfish has ever been captured on video.
The oarfish is thought to prefer living at
depths down to 2000 feet, but has been sighted on occasion near the surface where it has been misidentified as a sea serpent.
Lacking caudal or anal fins, it was once thought to slither through the water like a sea snake or eel.
This recent sighting and a previous one show
that the fish actually swims vertically in the water column using an undulating dorsal fin to propel it. "The back fin that
ran from its head to the end of its body controlled its movement in the water. In its heads up attitude the fish had total
control of its position in the water", said Cooksey.
MANE-LIKE CREST
Silver in color with streaks of blue, the
oarfish has long oarlike pelvic fins, a long ribbon-like dorsal fin, and a mane-like crest on top of the head. The longest
known bony fish, oarfish can grow to 20-30 feet in length with a weight around 600 pounds. There have also been reports of
oarfish that have measured up to 56 feet in length.
FOOTNOTE: The Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation
Center (AUTEC)
consists of deep water test ranges and research, development, test and evaluation
support facilities located at Andros Island, with administrative and logistic support offices in Newport, RI and West Palm
Beach, FL.
A short video of the encounter as described above
is available as an avi file and a
rm file. NOTE: These are a large files and best viewed via a high-speed connection.
After watching that video footage everyone
can see how impossible it appears to be, that it was an oarfish that Cartwright and his mate saw and as if that was not enough,
here is a comparison between the head described by the lobster fisherman and the head of an oarfish: