GLEN VAUDREY: The Sea monster of Jura

Glen is one of the newer additions to the bloggo family. He wrote to me out of the blue last year to ask whether we wanted a Western Isles volume in our Mystery Animals of Britain series. We agreed that we did indeed want one, and commissioned him. What we were not expecting was such a bloody good writer and all-round nice guy, who - by the way - is writing several other volumes for us, and he is even going to be speaking at the Weird Weekend. Wayhay!!

As is the way when you are writing a book you occasionally miss a story or two; as it were, the mystery animal slips through the net and such is the case with this particular cryptid.

In the summer of 1964 a game keeper from Craighouse going by the name of Neil MacIness reported a sighting he made while looking out to sea from the Isle of Jura. As he was driving along the coast road he noticed a strange creature out to sea at a distance of about 250 yards. At first it looked like a large box floating in the water but as he drew up closer to it he noticed that it started to take on the appearance of a cow’s head. Obviously being intrigued and luckily prepared, he took out a telescope and observed the creature in greater detail. The animal did indeed look more cow-like; while it may have lacked horns it did have buds on the side of its head. It wasn’t only horns it was lacking; it was also devoid of eyes, ears, fins or humps. (I don’t know about you but it really doesn’t really remind me of cow).

While Neil was unable to see the whole of the animal he was able to estimate that it was around 25 feet long tapering towards the tail. He was able to give a description of the colour of the beast as grey and with a smooth texture to the exposed skin.

Whatever the creature was, it slowly made its way along, slightly faster than the tide flow, but without making a wake or leaving a disturbance in the water. Neil estimated that it was moving along at a speed of around 6mph.

After that sighting the creature disappeared into obscurity and so far into the murky world of lost sightings that it totally avoided my attention until long after I had put the finishing touches to mystery animal’s book for the Western Isles.

While it may have missed the book it was still worth unleashing the report to a wider audience