Awesome or Off-Putting: Tacoma’s Electric Sea Monster
By Shawn Lindseth on Monday, December 21, 2009 at 5:00pm6 CommentsAwesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.In July of 1893 several men on a fishing trip encountered a large beast that squirted electrified liquid out of the middle of its head. It rendered two men unconscious and chased the rest of them into the woods. It’s been called an electric monster not because it could fling lightning bolts out of its gnarled fingers – but because it appeared to be a machine of some sort.
If you scroll through old newspapers long enough you can find some pretty strange stuff. For instance – remember the Aurora Texas airship crash wherein the town folk buried the little gray pilot? That was in print day-of thanks to the Dallas Morning News. It was a very old account of something that’s generally considered to be a recent phenomenon.
This next story is pretty similar, but instead of a crashed airship it’s a beached water-ship. Or something. The men arrived at camp late and noticed there was a party of surveyors already snoozing away nearby inside of pitched tents. The recent arrivals all turned in – and then they were awoken by a horrible noise. The story, as Altnews.blogdig.net puts it, goes something like this (in a first person account):
Citer:
“It was, I guess, about midnight before I fell asleep, but exactly how long I slept, I cannot say, for when I woke, it was with such startling suddenness that it never entered my mind to look at my watch, and when after awhile I did look at my watch, as well as every watch belonging to the party, it was stopped… instantly the whole air was filled with a strong current of electricity that caused every nerve in the body to sting with pain, and a light as bright as that created by the concentration of many arc lights kept constantly flashing. At first I thought it was a thunder storm, but as no rain accompanied it, and as both light and sound came from off the bay, l turned my head in that direction, and if it is possible for fright to turn one’s hair white, then mine ought to be snow white, for right before my eyes was a most horrible looking monster.”
Men from both camps gathered on the beach there in the middle of the night. An electrical current described as feeling like a suit made of needles filled the air. One man from the surveyors’ camp felt brave and moved towards the ‘monster.’ It didn’t end well, according to the same site:
Citer:
“One of the men from the surveyor’s camp incautiously took a few steps in the direction of the water, and as he did so the monster darted towards the shore and threw a stream of water that reached the man, and he instantly fell to the ground and lay as though dead. “Mr. McDonald attempted to reach the man’s body to pull it back into a place of safety, but he was struck with some of the water that the monster was throwing and fell senseless to the earth.”
The rest of the men seem to have been a touch smarter and ran to the woods. The creature roared behind them, illuminating the area for miles in all directions – then it submerged and retreated. They could visually follow its underwater glow for a time, but soon no trace was seen.
From the weak physical description we have thus far, the iron beast could have looked like anything. In our minds eye we saw it as a scaly Roseanne Barr but with a bigger gullet. We’re sure you probably envisioned the exact same thing – but you were wrong. We know this because an eye witness actually gave an account back in the day – and that account is as follows:
Citer:
“This monster fish, or whatever you may call it, was fully 150 feet long, and at its thickest part I should judge about thirty feet in circumference. Its shape was somewhat out of the ordinary in so far that the body was neither round nor flat but oval, and from what we could see, the upper part of the body was covered with a very coarse hair. The head was shaped very much like the head of a walrus, though, of course, very much larger. Its eyes, of which it apparently had six, were as large around as a dinner plate and were exceedingly dull, and it was about the only spot on the monster that at one time or another was not illuminated. At intervals of about every eight feet from its head to its tail, a substance that had the appearance of a copper band encircled its body, and it was from these many bands that the powerful electric current appeared to come. The bands nearest the head seemed to have the strongest electric force, and it was from the first six bands that the most brilliant lights were emitted. Near the center of its head were two large horn-like substances, though they could not have been horns for it was through them that the electrically charged water was thrown (or appeared to be thrown).”Its tail, from what I could see of it, was shaped like a propeller and seemed to revolve, and it may be possible that the strange monster pushes himself through the water by means of this propeller like tail. “
Whatever was seen here has been referred to as a creature. It seems like at the time thoughts of it being any kind of crazy vehicle didn’t even cross minds. Why would it though? After all, this was 1893, a time when we’re pretty sure the main mode of transportation was still rolling down hills in the hollowed carcass of a buffalo.
Well whatever those men saw way back then, we’re just glad it got written down. Otherwise today we would’ve had to find another dime-a-dozen bigfoot story to write about – and Nanna said one more of those and we’re definitely out of the will.
For you then, Nanna. This one’s for you.
PS. We quite fancy your Mazda. L'article n'est pas extrêmement sérieux, mais l'histoire est apparemment authentique. Quelqu'un a-t-il des informations supplémentaires/une idée de ce que ça pouvait être ?
Connexion
Inscription
Rechercher
Sage à ses heures, idiot le reste du temps. 
