MORE DETAILS OF THE RED SEA SERPENT

Alan Friswell's account of the monster in the Red Sea that his brother-in-law Alfie encountered back in the 1960s, attracted a lot of interest. So we wrote to him asking if there were any more details? He replied:

My sister remembers the sighting, and mentioned that he said that the head was "a lot bigger than a cow". Alfie said that the animal was a dark green or blue--it was difficult to see in the dark--but when it went through the torchlight it was a very dark colour.

The head was scaly--Alfie said that it looked like a giant snake or lizard--with thick scales around the mouth like a snake. He said that the neck was about two feet thick where it joined the head, and at least three feet at the waterline. He said that as it went through the torch beam he could see giant muscles standing out. He reckoned that if it had got it's head under the boat, it could have thrown them straight up in the air.

Alfie thought that what saved them was that they had brought a large box of ice with them--as he always did--to keep the fish cool in the blazing heat--even at night, it was amazingly hot, and without doing this the fish would have gone off in minutes--and this also served the dual purpose of keeping the beers cold as well as the fish.

Once the fish had been gutted, it was buried completely under the ice, and this might have disguised the smell from the creature. I could try to draw the animal form Alfie's description if you like, but he always maintained that the plesiosaur from The Land That Time Forgot was pretty much spot-on.