The HMS Daedalus Sea Serpent: Another cryptozoology mystery laid to rest

Sea Serpents! They’re mentioned by the Vikings and adorn the margins of old naval maps. Do they really exist?

Sure, we’ve heard of the more famous freshwater lake Serpents like Nessie in Scotland and Ogopogo in Canada, but few legitimate stories of giant, ocean-going Sea Serpents have been reported. Except, of course, for the tale of the HMS Daedalus.

On Aug. 6, 1848, the British Royal Navy frigate HMS Daedalus was sailing between the Cape of Good Hope and the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Southwest Africa. At around 5 p.m., several members of its 200-plus man crew saw something in the water. Something huge.

Captain Peter M’Quhae wrote the following in his official report to the British Admiralty.

“In latitude 24° 44’ South and longitude 9° 22’ East, with the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from the Northwest, with a long ocean swell from the Southwest, the ship on the port tack heading Northeast by North, something very unusual was seen by Mr. Sartoris, midshipman, rapidly approaching the ship from before the beam.

“On our attention being called to the object, it was discovered to be an enormous [S]erpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea, and as nearly as we could approximate by comparing it with the length of what our main topsail yard would show in the water, there was at the very least 60 feet of the animal underwater, no portion of which was to our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation.

“It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily recognized his features with the naked eye. It did not, either in approaching the ship or after it had passed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree from its course to the Southwest, which it held on at the pace of from 19 to 24 kilometers per hour, apparently on some determined purpose.

“The diameter of the [S]erpent was about 15 or 16 inches behind the head, which was, without any doubt, that of a [S]nake. It was never, during the 20 minutes that it continued in sight of our glasses, once below the surface of the water: its colour a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a [H]orse, or rather a bunch of seaweed, washed about its back.”

SEAL VERSUS SERPENT

Captain M’Quhae’s account was corroborated by seven members of the crew, who all swore its truth under oath. At the time, Royal Navy officers were known to be science-minded and not prone to inventing or embellishing stories. Their tale quickly spread through the press.

Upon being accused by Sir Richard Owen, one of the top British biologists at the time, that M’Quhae and his crew saw nothing more than an Elephant Seal, M’Quhae was quick to retort that veteran seamen such as them most certainly knew the difference between an Elephant Seal and what they saw. And what they saw was a Sea Serpent.

Though they became famous, the careers of the HMS Daedalus officers floundered, with the uptight British Admiralty frowning upon the public stir caused by their report. And so it was that for the next century and a half, the story of the HMS Daedalus Serpent became one of the best first-person accounts of Sea Serpents. End of the story? Not quite.

ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION

Some 167 years later in 2015, evolutionary biologist Dr. Gary Galbreath proposed a different, more plausible explanation.

“The ‘Sea Serpent’ could have been a [B]aleen [W]hale feeding with its mouth open and its lower jaw hidden underwater. Some [B]aleen Whales swim in this manner while skimming small organisms from the ocean surface. In the HMS Daedalus’ case, the [B]aleen might have been mistaken for its lower jaw.

“It is easy to understand how the flat, triangular upper head of the whale, with its more [R]eptilian than [M]ammalian general appearance, could have been mistaken for the head of a [S]nake by Captain M’Quhae and his crew.

“Lastly, there is a kind of [B]aleen [W]hale that matches the description, engages in steady surface skim feeding and could easily have been present at the sighting location in August of 1848. The Sei Whale (Balaenoptera borealis) is a slender, snakelike Whale that grows up to 60 feet long – the same length as the HMS Daedalus Sea Serpent.”

Perhaps in an era when the world didn’t know much about Whales in particular and the ocean in general, a skim-feeding Sei Whale looked to a Royal Navy crew exactly what the social conventions of their time would describe it as – a Sea Serpent.

How people saw oceans 500 years ago. Sea monsters of various types populated the expanses of old navigational maps. This is an original map of Iceland from 1542. We’ve learned a bit more of the ocean since the 1500s. (Old City Prints)

NOT NECESSARILY FICTION

So, does this mean Sea Serpents don’t really exist? Well, one has only to see a live Oarfish to see how tales of Sea Serpents may have originated. Oarfishes are extremely long Fishes who live deep in the ocean. Fully-grown, adults of the largest species approach 40 feet in length – bonafide Sea Serpents.

Plus, of course, the ocean is such a vast and largely uncharted place that in time, she might just reveal the secrets slithering beneath her depths.