Ebook: In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents

When On the Track of Unknown Animals was published by Hill and Wang in 1959, its author, Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, was praised by scientists and reviewers all over the world. Now, after ten years of research, Dr. Heuvelmans does for the sea-serpent what he so convincingly did for unknown land animals.

Like the Abominable Snowman (of which Dr. Heuvelmans wrote in On the Track), sea-serpents have on the one hand been ridiculed by skeptics and on the other made the subject of fantastic speculations. There is only one way to settle the question of the sea-serpents’ existence: examine the evidence. And for this task no one is better qualified than Dr. Heuvelmans. His thoroughgoing investigations of over five hundred reported sightings—they come from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans and span the years 1639 to 1965—of animals thought to be sea-serpents are models of scientific probing and precision, which leave the reader convinced that sea-serpents do in fact exist. Heuvelmans quite willingly calls a hoax a hoax, rejects the doubtful, and accepts only that which can be proved. He has been able to pin down seven distinct types of sea-serpents. Their “convenient informal” names are Long-Necked, Merhorse, Many-Humped, Many-Finned, Super-Otter, Super-Eel, and Marine-Saurian. The book concludes with chronologies of sightings, strandings, and captures.

This translation by Richard Garnett (who also translated On the Track) from Le Grand Serpent de Mer includes a condensed version of Dr. Heuvelmans’ book on the giant squid.