Oregon Mysteries of the Sea

Let the sunset find you a forgotten dream in the surf. Swim the sea at night, but know that you are not alone.

Hans Egede's 1734 'Sea serpent' isn't too far off when compared to more recent descriptions...

(SALEM, Ore.) - Time stands still in the depths of the sea, where hulking forms dwell in the darkness. In these deeper waters live the giant squid, immortalized as the fearsome Kraken of Norse mythology.

Mariner's tales describe ships attacked by sea monsters with tentacles over a hundred feet long, and recent incidents have corroborated the existence of squid and octopus on massive scale.

The nemesis of the giant squid, the sperm whale, has been seen with suction cup scars as big as truck tires from past battles. Other creatures previously thought extinct, such as the primitive coelacanth, have been documented by science. Oregon has its share of mysteries from the sea.

Native coastal inhabitants incorporated the sea serpent into their artwork, and passed on legends of malevolent creatures such as the Devil's Lake monster in what is now Lincoln City.

TV show featuring Capt. Stan Allyn

Today, Devil's Lake is ringed with parks and condos, but long ago, the local natives referred to it as "Skookum Lake", in reference to a tentacled creature that lived there.

Author Stan Allyn of Tradewinds Sportfishing fame was a witness to a sight so unusual it was four years before he related it to anyone. Gazing out to sea from his beachside home he noticed something at the water's edge. As he watched, several yellow tentacles came out of the surf and groped around on the beach.

The tentacles were fourteen feet long and "thick as a man's thigh" where they disappeared in the water.

Although the body of the creature was never visible, it eventually moved off creating a large disturbance on the surface. It was never seen again, but the resemblance to the Devil's Lake monster makes me wonder if a similar creature had entered the lake through the D River.

Sea Serpent by Maxarkes

Other sightings on Oregon's coast tend to be in the form of huge eels or plesiosaur-like creatures. Author Marge Davenport noted several sightings from the Columbia River to Bandon.

One of the first sightings was nicknamed Claude, who in 1934 was sighted near the mouth of the Columbia River. The crew of the Columbia River Lightship and fishermen frequently saw him for the next 20 years.

Described as: "...about 40 feet long. It had a neck some eight feet long, a big round body, a mean looking tail and an evil, snaky look to its head."

The popular Lincoln City area has been the stage for at least three sightings. According to over 30 witnesses, a 30 foot creature with "a slender neck, a snake-like head, and a fan-shaped tail" made quite a show just off-shore at Nelscott several times.

In 1950 a strange animal washed up at Delake that was never identified. It was described by town Marshall Andy Allum as being around 1000 pounds in weight, covered with hair, with a cow-like body. It came to be known as Old Hairy to the locals. Various educated professionals offered their opinions that it was a whale shark, whale blubber, or an elasmobranch, a creature whose bones are made of cartilage.

Also in 1950, a serpent-like creature with a long tail washed up on the beach near Delake, but the waves quickly carried it back out to sea.

In 1963 divers working for the Shell Oil Company shot film of a fifteen-foot serpentine creature off of Oregon's coast. Nicknamed Martin, it swam with a spiral motion. Marine biologists disagree about what type of animal it is; some say it is a remnant of a prehistoric era. At the least, Martin is an uncatalogued denizen of the deep.

A fifty-foot creature resembling a Plesiosaur was observed by a couple in 1937 at Devil's Churn, near the town of Yachats. With a long neck and tail, and a horse-like head, the total length of the creature was estimated to be 55 ft.

It was seen approaching the Churn, and then it veered southward along the coast, eventually disappearing out to sea. Some say this was actually "Caddy", the name given to a creature usually seen around Vancouver Island.

Near Bandon a sea monster washed up that garnered headlines. Over 12 feet in length, it had a hairy, cow-like body. It remains unexplained to this day.

Perhaps the most notorious incident on Oregon's coast was the blowing up of a 45-foot whale that washed up near Florence in 1970. The Oregon Highway Division was given the task of disposing of the carcass, deciding to use dynamite.

The event was covered by Paul Linnman, formerly of Portland's Channel Two News, who's comments added greatly to the humor of the situation as pieces of whale blubber fell upon the crowd and traveled as far as 1/4 mile away.

Paul still receives a lot of kidding about the event, and wrote a book "The Exploding Whale" to deal with the publicity.

Although my wife and I have spent countless hours walking the beach, we have never seen anything truly alarming. One incident does come to mind, during a late night jaunt at Tillicum Beach at low tide. It was quite foggy, and we were walking toward the sound of the surf.

We continued on for what seemed like an eternity, but never reached the water. The sound of the waves was beside us in the fog, and then behind us, but the water remained strangely unreachable.

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Never had we seen a tide so low that we seriously considered that a tsunami was approaching. To make matters worse, I had already written the first part of this article, and so I was well aware that various aquatic monstrosities could be salivating as we approached. I knew the truly ancient ones were likely to be amphibious, and so it would be a simple matter for them to slither toward us in the darkness.

Whether the first charge would involve a flurry of tentacles or a simple blast of corrosive enzymes it was difficult to say. I envisioned the newspaper headlines proclaiming in the morning "Salem-News Writer Found Partially Digested On the Beach".

Not wanting to alarm my wife I kept these revelations to myself, but I sensed my voice becoming shrill as my adrenaline levels increased. With visions of the Devil's Triangle, we reversed direction, halfway expecting to find ourselves traversing deeper into a limbo world of only fog and perplexing sound...but we lived to tell about it. Another time south of Pacific City we were walking toward the Nestucca Bay and it started to snow on the beach.

As the snow and fog swirled around us, an Oriental man appeared out of nowhere and handed us a green boomerang, and then without a word, he disappeared into the snowstorm. We kept walking.

Let the sunset find you a forgotten dream in the surf. Swim the sea at night, but know that you are not alone.

Stan Allyn, "Top Deck Twenty": "Best West Coast Sea Stories" Portland, Oregon: Binford & Mort, 1989

Marge Davenport, "Caddy, Northwest Sea Serpent", "Colossal Claude and the Sea Monsters", "Afloat and Awash in the Old Northwest". Tigard, Oregon: Paddlewheel Press, 1988.

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J. D. Adams was born in Salem, Oregon, a descendant of Oregon Trail pioneer William Lysander Adams. As a wilderness explorer, photographer, and writer, he sustains a kinship with the spirit of the Oregon country. JD inhabits Oregon's Silicon Forest as an electronics professional with degrees in Electronics Engineering Technology and Microelectronics.

He maintains a Web presence with a signature presentation in genres including travel, history, and technology.

You can write to Jim Adams at this email address: j1mcm0s@earthlink.net