Post by Morgan Sierra on Dec 1, 2010 6:07:58 GMT -6
Here There Be Monsters
A long time ago, sailors were a superstitious lot. They had to be, especially in the days when wooden ships sailed the vast oceans with nothing more than the wind and waves to keep them company. Every time they set out on a voyage they were confronting the great unknown, a world where merciless storms could lash them with howling fury, where giant waves could toss them about like teacups, or dash their ships to pieces. In some cases giant whirlpools could appear out of nowhere to suck a boatload of sailors to a watery grave.
Before the world was fully charted, maps were a patchwork affair of vague land masses separated by vast expanses of open ocean, with blank spaces designating uncharted territory. Sometimes cryptic letters would scrawl out the words "Here there be monsters!" as a warning to future seafarers that they were navigating the unknown. Is it any wonder sailors were superstitious?
When a ship managed to make it back to a safe harbor, grizzled seafarers would pour into bars and taverns and drink copious amounts of alcohol while regaling the locals with wide-eyed stories of howling hurricanes that could shred a sail to pieces, monster waves that flipped boats upside-down, and man-eating sharks waiting to devour any poor soul unlucky enough to fall into the water. Often the listener would be left shaking their heads in amazement, wondering if the stories could possibly be true.
Some of the most unbelievable tales to come out of the sailors mouths were about sea-monsters, seemingly mythical creatures like the hydra, a seven-headed beast that devoured men as they sailed by, or the sea-dragon, a giant, flippered, snake-like creature with a head like a horse and scales covering its' body. Mermaids, half-human beings with tales like a fish, were said to swim playfully alongside the ships, while beautiful bird-like sirens sang a seductive song luring sailors to their doom on a rocky shore.
Not all of the stories were so unbelievable. Among the more scientifically plausible creatures purported to exist in the ocean's vast blue depths were the sea monk, which could have been some type of a hooded seal, and the sea serpent, which could be some as yet undiscovered species of giant aquatic snake. It is even theoretically possible that prehistoric marine reptiles like the ichthyosaur and plesiosaur, which supposedly went extinct millions of years ago, could have survived to the present day and could account for some sightings. Animals like that would definitely strike fear into the hearts of salty men.
The most fearsome of all creatures to ever come whispered out of the sailors mouth was the Kraken.
The Kraken was a ferocious beast of gargantuan size that was originally reported to live off the coasts of Norway and Iceland, although stories of it eventually spread to other parts of the world. It was generally described as a large tentacled creature, like a giant octopus, with a big bulbous head and reddish rubbery skin. Two large round eyes adorned its' evil face and a large gnashing beak served as its' malicious mouth. Its' size was variously estimated to be from as small as a whale to as large as a floating island.
Along each of its many tentacles were large round suction cups with sharp, circular teeth that it used to attach itself to its' prey. It was said to attack ships by coming up unexpectedly from beneath, wrapping its many arms around the hull, and plucking off any unlucky seamen who happened to fall within its grasp. Very few who found themselves victims of the Kraken managed to live to tell the tale. Even entire ships were said to have been dragged under by this ferocious sea-beast.
To the casual land-locked listener these fantastic stories, told by wild-eyed, trembling veterans of the sea must have seemed like sheer lunacy. How could such an unimaginable horror possibly exist? Yet the sincerity with which the stories were related, and the fear and exasperation that accompanied them, left many people scratching their heads in wonder. Could nature have actually produced such a monster?
To bolster their stories the sailors sometimes offered physical evidence to support their claims...strange, circular scars where the suckers on the Kraken's tentacles had supposedly latched onto a man's body as it attempted to pull him into the sea...or maybe a dried, leathery piece of decomposed flesh said to have been carved from the creature itself. The skeptics only scoffed at such evidence.
The scars, while intriguing, could have been caused by any number of things, even self-inflicted as hoaxes. And the dried piece of meat was proof of nothing...the arm of an octopus, the cartilage of a shark...a fragment of flesh from any number of dead animals could bear the same resemblance. The evidence was inconclusive, and it was madness to suggest otherwise. Therefor, the sailor's stories, and sometimes the sailors themselves, were relegated to the loony bin.
As the centuries passed, technology improved to the point that sailing was no longer such a mysterious profession. Ships evolved from wood to steel, providing the sailors with a new measure of security, and internal combustion engines replaced the sail as the means of locomotion. No longer did the vessels have to depend upon the wind to get where they wanted to go. Instead they could motor along with comfort and ease, at a speed the old seafarers could never have imagined.
In addition, technology also developed radar, sonar, radio communications, and satellite navigation systems that allowed modern ships to safely travel to places where the old vessels had never dreamed of going. The ice-covered arctic, the volcanic islets of the Pacific Ridge, even the fathomless depths of the great oceans themselves were finally explored and charted. Eventually the maps became complete and the many blank spaces were filled in. The great unknown had been conquered...the mythical monsters were vanquished.
The modern age has its own equivalent of the sailor. We now call them astronauts, and their oceans are the vast dark expanses of outer space, a huge, uncharted territory of empty blackness, dotted with pinpoints of light...stars that float like islands in an ebony sea.
As our explorers begin the push towards the edge of our solar system, and onwards to the vast boundaries of the universe beyond, we are beginning to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. We have sent observational satellites sailing past each of Earth's large neighbors, and we have successfully landed remote control probes on both Mars and Venus. In a huge triumph of achievement we actually landed a man on the moon and are gearing up for future manned missions to Mars. Even as we speak, one of our earliest probes, Voyager 1, is past the outer planets of our solar system and sailing towards the stars.
We have gained a lot of knowledge in the past century. We now know that most of the planets in our solar system are almost certainly devoid of life. The moon is not inhabited by a race of grey-skinned, big-headed aliens with black eyes and wasp-like stingers as imagined by H. G. Wells in his 1901 book The First Men in the Moon, and Mars is most definitely not populated by little green men. Based on these revelations, many theorists have come to the conclusion that the universe is almost totally barren of life, and that only by some miracle of evolutionary chance did complex lifeforms spring forth from the Earth. While not totally dismissing the possibility that life may exist on other planets in other distant solar systems, the idea that any intelligent extraterrestrial beings visiting our planet is unthinkable. Sheer madness, they would say. Yet there is tantalizing evidence that this very thing might actually be happening.
Many astronauts returning from space have reported seeing strange objects circling their space craft, darting around in what seemed to be intelligently controlled maneuvers. Some of these men, such as Edgar Mitchell and Gordon Cooper, now firmly believe that they witnessed space ships that were piloted by technologically advanced beings.
This strange phenomenon is not limited to those who leave the Earth, either. Millions of people have reported seeing unidentified flying objects flitting about the skies like mechanical fireflies. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, from little lights and glowing orbs, to menacing black triangles, to the classic disc-shaped flying saucer. These UFOs have been photographed, video taped, tracked on radar, chased by pilots, and witnessed as they landed on the ground.
Of course, the skeptics have a whole list of ready made explanations to explain away these sightings, such as weather balloons and swamp gas, birds, bugs and blimps, and ground level lights reflecting off of temperature inversion layers in the atmosphere. Eye-witnesses are deemed unreliable, photographs are declared hoaxes, and radar tracking data is brushed off as malfunctions or anomalies. Still, the reports keep coming in.
Even more disturbing are stories told by people who claim to have met the occupants of these strange craft, and in some cases of having been abducted by these alien beings against their will. These encounters usually follow a similar pattern, such as seeing a bright light, a feeling of paralysis, and a sensation of floating up in the air, followed by horrifying memories of very painful and embarrassing medical procedures. Needles are reportedly stuck in eyes, strange instruments are inserted into ears and noses, and cuts and scoops are made in the flesh. These episodes are usually accompanied by a case of missing time, where minutes, or even hours seem to have disappeared.
The descriptions of the aliens that supposedly commit these heinous kidnappings also share a common pattern. They often are described as being small, grey-skinned humanoids with long thin arms and large pear-shaped heads. Their eyes are big and black, their noses small, and their mouths are just unmoving slits. Other weird creatures have been described as well, displaying a wide variety of sizes, shapes and physical characteristics.
The skeptics merely scoff at these stories, calling them absurd, and in most cases refusing to take them seriously. The few that are investigated are dismissed as simple cases of sleep paralysis, fantasy prone delusions, or some other form of psychological abnormality.
In exasperation the witnesses point to physical evidence to prove that the encounters actually did occur. Fresh scars resembling scoop marks or needle tracks are displayed as proof of surgical incisions, and strange foreign objects sometimes found in the body are claimed to be artificial implants of some kind. Other physical symptoms such as nosebleeds, sinus problems, and even claims of weird psychic abilities are all proffered as evidence. The skeptics, however, are not to be swayed. They admit that while the physical signs are interesting, it still is not proof of anything. Scars could be caused by any number of things, even self-inflicted as hoaxes, and the so-called "implants", while intriguing, still do not show conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial origin. The other symptoms are just as easily explained away.
In addition, the skeptical scientist presents a number of theoretical reasons why space travel between the stars is not just an improbability, but a virtual impossibility. The vast distances between the stars and the amount of time and energy that would be required to make the journey are just a few examples. The extremely prohibitive cost is another factor. Then there is the question of why any extraterrestrial race would even want to come here in the first place. There are trillions of stars and planets to choose from throughout the galaxy, and trillions of galaxies spread throughout the universe. Why would ETs come here when there are so many other places they could go?
Altogether the evidence against alien visitation is overwhelming, the skeptics claim, and since UFOs do not exist, then alien abductions cannot exist either. It would be sheer lunacy to think otherwise. Therefor, the stories told by the abductees, and sometimes the abductees themselves, are once again relegated to the loony bin.
It would seem that the grey-skinned, black-eyed visitors from space have been vanquished...just like the sea monsters of long ago.
Or have they...?
In 1873, a young man was out for a leisurely stroll along the beaches of Newfoundland when a strange shape caught his eye. Huddled on the sand was a big reddish-colored blob, a mass of rubbery skin and long tentacles. It was a monster of incredible size! He quickly reported the strange find to the local townspeople who came down to investigate.
What they discovered was a large squid-like creature with a giant body about twenty feet long. It had two eyes the size of dinner plates and a large parrot-like beak as big as a man's fist. Sprouting from the torso of the creature were eight large octopus-like arms, and two, even longer tentacles that when stretched out brought the total length of the strange animal to a whopping 60 feet! The tentacles were covered with round suckers, each with a round tooth made of a hard bony substance called chitin that it used to secure its' prey.
Scientists who later examined the creature called it Architeuthis dux...the Giant Squid. The older sailors would have recognized it by another name...the Kraken!
The mythical monster had finally been proven to be real.
What other strange creatures might be lurking in the fathomless depths of the oceans? Could the sea dragon or sea serpent be real? Will a fisherman someday haul up a prehistoric plesiosaur that accidentally became entangled in his net? A similar incident occurred in 1938 when a fisherman near the coast of East Africa caught a coelacanth, a type of bony lungfish thought to have gone extinct over 80 million years ago. New species of plants and animals are discovered everyday, such as the megamouth shark, a large deepwater species that feeds on plankton and jellyfish, and the frill shark, which has the head of a shark and the body of an eel, and there are still reports of other strange creatures lurking in the large lakes and oceans of the world. The Loch Ness Monster, Cadborosaurus, Chessie of Chesapeake Bay...will these mythical animals someday be proven to be real?
What other type of lifeforms might there be spread throughout the cosmos? As our scientists extend the boundaries of knowledge further and further into outer space there is a greater chance that a planet harboring life may eventually be located.
Scientists have recently even discovered tantalizing suggestions that primitive lifeforms may in fact exist on the surface of Mars. NASA photos from the Mars Rovers have detected changing color patters on some rocks that may indicate the presence of moss and lichens, and large quantities of methane gas have been detected in the Martian soil which may indicate the presence of bacteria and various primitive organisms. Could there be other unknown lifeforms lurking out there in the darkness? Possibly even intelligent extraterrestrial beings? Could the grey-skinned demons invading many people's nightmares eventually be proven to be real?
As we expand our search throughout the solar system and beyond the the potential for the discovery of such creatures becomes more and more likely. The only questions remaining are when, where, and how terrifying will they be? When future astronauts strap themselves into their rockets to blast off into outer space will they be carrying a map of the stars scribbled with the cryptic words warning, here there be monsters?
A long time ago, sailors were a superstitious lot. They had to be, especially in the days when wooden ships sailed the vast oceans with nothing more than the wind and waves to keep them company. Every time they set out on a voyage they were confronting the great unknown, a world where merciless storms could lash them with howling fury, where giant waves could toss them about like teacups, or dash their ships to pieces. In some cases giant whirlpools could appear out of nowhere to suck a boatload of sailors to a watery grave.
Before the world was fully charted, maps were a patchwork affair of vague land masses separated by vast expanses of open ocean, with blank spaces designating uncharted territory. Sometimes cryptic letters would scrawl out the words "Here there be monsters!" as a warning to future seafarers that they were navigating the unknown. Is it any wonder sailors were superstitious?
When a ship managed to make it back to a safe harbor, grizzled seafarers would pour into bars and taverns and drink copious amounts of alcohol while regaling the locals with wide-eyed stories of howling hurricanes that could shred a sail to pieces, monster waves that flipped boats upside-down, and man-eating sharks waiting to devour any poor soul unlucky enough to fall into the water. Often the listener would be left shaking their heads in amazement, wondering if the stories could possibly be true.
Some of the most unbelievable tales to come out of the sailors mouths were about sea-monsters, seemingly mythical creatures like the hydra, a seven-headed beast that devoured men as they sailed by, or the sea-dragon, a giant, flippered, snake-like creature with a head like a horse and scales covering its' body. Mermaids, half-human beings with tales like a fish, were said to swim playfully alongside the ships, while beautiful bird-like sirens sang a seductive song luring sailors to their doom on a rocky shore.
Not all of the stories were so unbelievable. Among the more scientifically plausible creatures purported to exist in the ocean's vast blue depths were the sea monk, which could have been some type of a hooded seal, and the sea serpent, which could be some as yet undiscovered species of giant aquatic snake. It is even theoretically possible that prehistoric marine reptiles like the ichthyosaur and plesiosaur, which supposedly went extinct millions of years ago, could have survived to the present day and could account for some sightings. Animals like that would definitely strike fear into the hearts of salty men.
The most fearsome of all creatures to ever come whispered out of the sailors mouth was the Kraken.
The Kraken was a ferocious beast of gargantuan size that was originally reported to live off the coasts of Norway and Iceland, although stories of it eventually spread to other parts of the world. It was generally described as a large tentacled creature, like a giant octopus, with a big bulbous head and reddish rubbery skin. Two large round eyes adorned its' evil face and a large gnashing beak served as its' malicious mouth. Its' size was variously estimated to be from as small as a whale to as large as a floating island.
Along each of its many tentacles were large round suction cups with sharp, circular teeth that it used to attach itself to its' prey. It was said to attack ships by coming up unexpectedly from beneath, wrapping its many arms around the hull, and plucking off any unlucky seamen who happened to fall within its grasp. Very few who found themselves victims of the Kraken managed to live to tell the tale. Even entire ships were said to have been dragged under by this ferocious sea-beast.
To the casual land-locked listener these fantastic stories, told by wild-eyed, trembling veterans of the sea must have seemed like sheer lunacy. How could such an unimaginable horror possibly exist? Yet the sincerity with which the stories were related, and the fear and exasperation that accompanied them, left many people scratching their heads in wonder. Could nature have actually produced such a monster?
To bolster their stories the sailors sometimes offered physical evidence to support their claims...strange, circular scars where the suckers on the Kraken's tentacles had supposedly latched onto a man's body as it attempted to pull him into the sea...or maybe a dried, leathery piece of decomposed flesh said to have been carved from the creature itself. The skeptics only scoffed at such evidence.
The scars, while intriguing, could have been caused by any number of things, even self-inflicted as hoaxes. And the dried piece of meat was proof of nothing...the arm of an octopus, the cartilage of a shark...a fragment of flesh from any number of dead animals could bear the same resemblance. The evidence was inconclusive, and it was madness to suggest otherwise. Therefor, the sailor's stories, and sometimes the sailors themselves, were relegated to the loony bin.
As the centuries passed, technology improved to the point that sailing was no longer such a mysterious profession. Ships evolved from wood to steel, providing the sailors with a new measure of security, and internal combustion engines replaced the sail as the means of locomotion. No longer did the vessels have to depend upon the wind to get where they wanted to go. Instead they could motor along with comfort and ease, at a speed the old seafarers could never have imagined.
In addition, technology also developed radar, sonar, radio communications, and satellite navigation systems that allowed modern ships to safely travel to places where the old vessels had never dreamed of going. The ice-covered arctic, the volcanic islets of the Pacific Ridge, even the fathomless depths of the great oceans themselves were finally explored and charted. Eventually the maps became complete and the many blank spaces were filled in. The great unknown had been conquered...the mythical monsters were vanquished.
The modern age has its own equivalent of the sailor. We now call them astronauts, and their oceans are the vast dark expanses of outer space, a huge, uncharted territory of empty blackness, dotted with pinpoints of light...stars that float like islands in an ebony sea.
As our explorers begin the push towards the edge of our solar system, and onwards to the vast boundaries of the universe beyond, we are beginning to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. We have sent observational satellites sailing past each of Earth's large neighbors, and we have successfully landed remote control probes on both Mars and Venus. In a huge triumph of achievement we actually landed a man on the moon and are gearing up for future manned missions to Mars. Even as we speak, one of our earliest probes, Voyager 1, is past the outer planets of our solar system and sailing towards the stars.
We have gained a lot of knowledge in the past century. We now know that most of the planets in our solar system are almost certainly devoid of life. The moon is not inhabited by a race of grey-skinned, big-headed aliens with black eyes and wasp-like stingers as imagined by H. G. Wells in his 1901 book The First Men in the Moon, and Mars is most definitely not populated by little green men. Based on these revelations, many theorists have come to the conclusion that the universe is almost totally barren of life, and that only by some miracle of evolutionary chance did complex lifeforms spring forth from the Earth. While not totally dismissing the possibility that life may exist on other planets in other distant solar systems, the idea that any intelligent extraterrestrial beings visiting our planet is unthinkable. Sheer madness, they would say. Yet there is tantalizing evidence that this very thing might actually be happening.
Many astronauts returning from space have reported seeing strange objects circling their space craft, darting around in what seemed to be intelligently controlled maneuvers. Some of these men, such as Edgar Mitchell and Gordon Cooper, now firmly believe that they witnessed space ships that were piloted by technologically advanced beings.
This strange phenomenon is not limited to those who leave the Earth, either. Millions of people have reported seeing unidentified flying objects flitting about the skies like mechanical fireflies. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, from little lights and glowing orbs, to menacing black triangles, to the classic disc-shaped flying saucer. These UFOs have been photographed, video taped, tracked on radar, chased by pilots, and witnessed as they landed on the ground.
Of course, the skeptics have a whole list of ready made explanations to explain away these sightings, such as weather balloons and swamp gas, birds, bugs and blimps, and ground level lights reflecting off of temperature inversion layers in the atmosphere. Eye-witnesses are deemed unreliable, photographs are declared hoaxes, and radar tracking data is brushed off as malfunctions or anomalies. Still, the reports keep coming in.
Even more disturbing are stories told by people who claim to have met the occupants of these strange craft, and in some cases of having been abducted by these alien beings against their will. These encounters usually follow a similar pattern, such as seeing a bright light, a feeling of paralysis, and a sensation of floating up in the air, followed by horrifying memories of very painful and embarrassing medical procedures. Needles are reportedly stuck in eyes, strange instruments are inserted into ears and noses, and cuts and scoops are made in the flesh. These episodes are usually accompanied by a case of missing time, where minutes, or even hours seem to have disappeared.
The descriptions of the aliens that supposedly commit these heinous kidnappings also share a common pattern. They often are described as being small, grey-skinned humanoids with long thin arms and large pear-shaped heads. Their eyes are big and black, their noses small, and their mouths are just unmoving slits. Other weird creatures have been described as well, displaying a wide variety of sizes, shapes and physical characteristics.
The skeptics merely scoff at these stories, calling them absurd, and in most cases refusing to take them seriously. The few that are investigated are dismissed as simple cases of sleep paralysis, fantasy prone delusions, or some other form of psychological abnormality.
In exasperation the witnesses point to physical evidence to prove that the encounters actually did occur. Fresh scars resembling scoop marks or needle tracks are displayed as proof of surgical incisions, and strange foreign objects sometimes found in the body are claimed to be artificial implants of some kind. Other physical symptoms such as nosebleeds, sinus problems, and even claims of weird psychic abilities are all proffered as evidence. The skeptics, however, are not to be swayed. They admit that while the physical signs are interesting, it still is not proof of anything. Scars could be caused by any number of things, even self-inflicted as hoaxes, and the so-called "implants", while intriguing, still do not show conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial origin. The other symptoms are just as easily explained away.
In addition, the skeptical scientist presents a number of theoretical reasons why space travel between the stars is not just an improbability, but a virtual impossibility. The vast distances between the stars and the amount of time and energy that would be required to make the journey are just a few examples. The extremely prohibitive cost is another factor. Then there is the question of why any extraterrestrial race would even want to come here in the first place. There are trillions of stars and planets to choose from throughout the galaxy, and trillions of galaxies spread throughout the universe. Why would ETs come here when there are so many other places they could go?
Altogether the evidence against alien visitation is overwhelming, the skeptics claim, and since UFOs do not exist, then alien abductions cannot exist either. It would be sheer lunacy to think otherwise. Therefor, the stories told by the abductees, and sometimes the abductees themselves, are once again relegated to the loony bin.
It would seem that the grey-skinned, black-eyed visitors from space have been vanquished...just like the sea monsters of long ago.
Or have they...?
In 1873, a young man was out for a leisurely stroll along the beaches of Newfoundland when a strange shape caught his eye. Huddled on the sand was a big reddish-colored blob, a mass of rubbery skin and long tentacles. It was a monster of incredible size! He quickly reported the strange find to the local townspeople who came down to investigate.
What they discovered was a large squid-like creature with a giant body about twenty feet long. It had two eyes the size of dinner plates and a large parrot-like beak as big as a man's fist. Sprouting from the torso of the creature were eight large octopus-like arms, and two, even longer tentacles that when stretched out brought the total length of the strange animal to a whopping 60 feet! The tentacles were covered with round suckers, each with a round tooth made of a hard bony substance called chitin that it used to secure its' prey.
Scientists who later examined the creature called it Architeuthis dux...the Giant Squid. The older sailors would have recognized it by another name...the Kraken!
The mythical monster had finally been proven to be real.
What other strange creatures might be lurking in the fathomless depths of the oceans? Could the sea dragon or sea serpent be real? Will a fisherman someday haul up a prehistoric plesiosaur that accidentally became entangled in his net? A similar incident occurred in 1938 when a fisherman near the coast of East Africa caught a coelacanth, a type of bony lungfish thought to have gone extinct over 80 million years ago. New species of plants and animals are discovered everyday, such as the megamouth shark, a large deepwater species that feeds on plankton and jellyfish, and the frill shark, which has the head of a shark and the body of an eel, and there are still reports of other strange creatures lurking in the large lakes and oceans of the world. The Loch Ness Monster, Cadborosaurus, Chessie of Chesapeake Bay...will these mythical animals someday be proven to be real?
What other type of lifeforms might there be spread throughout the cosmos? As our scientists extend the boundaries of knowledge further and further into outer space there is a greater chance that a planet harboring life may eventually be located.
Scientists have recently even discovered tantalizing suggestions that primitive lifeforms may in fact exist on the surface of Mars. NASA photos from the Mars Rovers have detected changing color patters on some rocks that may indicate the presence of moss and lichens, and large quantities of methane gas have been detected in the Martian soil which may indicate the presence of bacteria and various primitive organisms. Could there be other unknown lifeforms lurking out there in the darkness? Possibly even intelligent extraterrestrial beings? Could the grey-skinned demons invading many people's nightmares eventually be proven to be real?
As we expand our search throughout the solar system and beyond the the potential for the discovery of such creatures becomes more and more likely. The only questions remaining are when, where, and how terrifying will they be? When future astronauts strap themselves into their rockets to blast off into outer space will they be carrying a map of the stars scribbled with the cryptic words warning, here there be monsters?