The following strange story, concerning a 42ft long sea elephant,
if the original newspaper story is to be believed, comes to you from the Alaskan
newspaper the Petersburg Weekly Report of June 24th 1916:
" A year or two ago a warship of Great Britain`s Australian fleet was given
the strange job of capturing or destroying a mysterious sea monster which had
been reported off the Falkland islands, the scene of the recent German naval
defeat [this would have been on December 8th 1914 - Rich] It is pretty safe to
say that the officers, if not the crew, entertained grave doubts of the actual
existence of the frightful creature which had been described. It was too
terrifying,hideous, gigantic and ferocious. But shortly after the ship arrived
in the waters where the monster.And a pretty good substance it proved
too.
An attack was made upon it, and after some hours fighting with harpoons and
quick firers the mysterious monster , which proved to be a sea elephant between
thirteen and fourteen yards long, was slaughtered and taken aboard. "
Now either there is a mis-print in the text and it meant 13 or 14 ft, or we
have an unknown aquatic mammal here, maybe a southern hemisphere version of the
north Pacific Steller`s Sea Cow, After all the climate around the Falklands is
similar to the coastal regions of Alaska and Siberia where the Steller`s Sea Cow
once lived.
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