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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

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Monday, June 14, 2010

LINDSAY SELBY: Caddy Conundra

Two well documented sightings of Caddy were in 1932 and 1933. F. W. Kemp, an officer of the Provincial Archives of British Columbia, revealed that he and his family had seen a strange creature in strait of Juan de Fuca and Major W. H. Langley, clerk to the British Columbia legislature, reported that on Sunday, October 1, 1933, while sailing near Chatham Island, just east of Victoria, he and his wife had also seen something odd.

Rupert T. Gould wrote about the two sightings in his book The Loch Ness Monster in 1934. The pages below are from the 1976 reprint by University Books USA. (I am middle-aged and not ancient enough to have a 1934 copy lol).The accounts would have still been quite fresh at the time and so would be a reasonably accurate account of what they thought they saw.









What I find interesting is they both sound like giant eels. One mentions a mane, which is often mentioned in other accounts of similar sightings and also a hissing sound. Both say it was not a whale nor any known sea creature that they saw. It, certainly from the descriptions, could not be a giant squid, which is often cited as being the cause of many sea serpent sightings, nor an oar fish as it is too thick and solid. Lets just hope what ever it was is not now extinct due to pollution or lack of food sources!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

On the contrary, Mr. Kemp's sighting mentioned a thickened body and it is Plesiosaur-shaped, but that is not to say that some "Caddys" are NOT giant eels. Sometimes that is specified in the report. Some sightings are moose swimming in the sea close to land and the shape of the head is the telltale sign of that. Some sightings are elephant seals and some are definitely oarfish. But on the whole Caddys are suppoedly Plesiosaur shaped. They come in two varieties "Caddy and Amy", of which the "Caddys" are larger, brighter-coloured and have the manes, and are supposedly males, while the "Amys" are smaller, maneless, duller-coloured and presumably females.

It is interesting that at the time of Kemp's sighting, one witness could describe it as being shaped like Oudemans' "Megophias" while another (Mr. Kemp) could describe it as Plesiosaur-shaped. There was a changing mood about Sea-serpent models for overall shape going on, and Gould's book indicates that as well.

"Caddies" are also reported with half-a-dozen to a dozen humps in a line, and some of the sightings have been categorized as "Many-humped". This is incidentally well out of the range Heuvelmans ascribed to that type and is yet another indication that the "Many-humped" sightings occur world-wide.

Richard Freeman said...

I allways thought this sighting was of some huge marine reptile. It sounds very like the Along Bay sightings off the coast of Vietnam.