Man stumbles across 'sea monster' as he walked on beach leaving experts baffled

18 December 2023 , 19:55

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The 'creature' has left experts baffled as to what it actually is (Image: Credit: Eric Evans/Pen News)

A man who found what he thinks is a "sea monster" has been left puzzled after a number of experts were unable to identify it.

Dubbed the "Salish sea monster", the creature was discovered by chance while Eric Evans was walking with his brother close to where the Elwah River meets the Salish Sea in the US state of Washington. But after taking photographs of the beast and then showing them to wildlife experts, he was left none the wiser.

He showed the images to his former colleagues at the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, but left without an answer and now an expanding group of people have joined in the debate about what the animal’s true identity is – with no clear consensus but plenty of theories emerging as to its origin.

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Eric Evans and his brother were excited when they found the 'bizarre' creature (Credit: Eric Evans/Pen News)

A spokesperson for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said: "I shared the images and video with both fish and wildlife biologists in our department and we’re similarly stumped! Basically, the conclusion from our biologists is that this is unfortunately too far decomposed to identify."

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And Casey Cook, who directs the Marine Life Center at Bellingham, some 65 miles north-west of the sighting, also examined the pictures said some parts of the body were characteristic of the shark family, while others were more typical of a seal or whale, adding: "Long story short – the big picture is very conflicting and I have no answer for you."

In a video of the remains, Eric’s excitement at his weird find is clear from his voice and he says: "This is a sea monster, we’re convinced of it. Alright marine biology peeps, prove me wrong. This is a biological experiment gone wrong, built in some lab. It’s an attack fish, designed to protect submarines or something else. What is it?"

Ali Redman of the Marine Science Centre in Port Townsend, 37 miles east of the sighting, was willing to “take a stab” at it but admitted she "might be interpreting the images all wrong". She said: "It took me a little while to even see that it is a fish. A lot of the features used for identification aren't visible or are missing, and my eyes might be deceiving me on some others.

"I can't figure out the skin texture. In some places it looks like plates, in others like desiccated skin. I think I'm seeing abdominal pelvic fins which is an ancestral trait and rare in modern bony fish. That narrows it down a lot. If the skin does not have scales or plates I'd go with a ratfish or chimera as my best guess."

However, strandings co-ordinator at Cascadia Research, Jessie Huggins, came to an entirely different conclusion, saying she didn't think the creature came from the sea and asked the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle to take a look. Experts there, however, disagreed with her and said that they did think it had come from the sea.

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Jeff Bradley and Katherine Maslenikov, who manage the museum’s mammal and fish collections, were sure it had risen from the deep and Jeff said: “It took some squinting, but those are definitely fins – one on the side, and one on the end. Katherine eventually admitted it looks like a ragfish – the bony parts sticking out of the end appear to be the skull, but at a weird angle. Ragfish are pretty rare in the Salish Sea, so this was an unusual find."

Despite Casey Cook thinking that the 'monster' might be an elaborate fake because there is mesh-like material visible through a wound in the front of the body, Eric is convinced it is a real creature. The Port Angeles resident said: "I have no doubt the carcass was organic. I touched what I thought were teeth and they felt very cartilaginous, like fish bone. I am elated at this find.

"I'm a 13-year-old trapped in a 60-year-old's body. I love the unexplained from Bigfoot to ghosties to sea monsters. I don't believe whole-heartedly in anything that can't be scientifically proven but this is the closest thing to a physical oddity I've ever run across."

Paul Donald