Name: Shelly F.

Age: 45

Number of witnesses: 1

Location of sighting: Atlantic Ocean, Daytona Beach, USA

Date of sighting: Mid-June 2003

What you believe the creature was: Sea Serpent

Message: “Hi there, I've been waiting to tell this to someone who will believe me. I haven't told anybody. We went deep sea fishing off the coast of Daytona Beach. We left at 6 am with a charter and 10 people on board. It was very sunny and the sky was blue, the water was calm. About 15 mins into heading straight out to sea (2 hr travel time), I spotted something out the corner of my eye. I looked at it and wasn't completely sure of what I was seeing. I saw this huge brown/black neck about 5 feet in width and approx. 12-14 ft in height, huge round head with huge round eyes, was looking back at me. It's like, I couldn't believe I was seeing this thing and IT looked confused as to why a 2 story boat with so many people on board, didn't see IT, just me. I totally remember that I was trying to compare it's backside to the size with a Volkswagon beetle. It had just a small portion of it's back out of the water and I saw it moving it's weird flippers to watch the boat go by. How I knew it was real? It BLINKED, I remember seeing the whites of its eyes, It looked intelligent, curious and I think maybe a little disappointed it wasn't getting attention. As I was looking at it, I also looked around at my surroundings. People were talking, having a bite to eat, not really paying too much attention to the water at all, just me. I figured I shouldn't say anything because the last thing I wanted was people getting scared and reporting it and potentially killing it. I just kept my mouth shut and watched it as it watched me cruise away on the boat. I remember the shininess of the water gleaming off it's head, neck and body, it was a beautiful creature. 

I live in Canada, I have seen many...many types of wild animals and mammals and I have never encountered anything like this sea serpent. I still can't believe I saw. All these years later and I'm still looking up sightings off the coast of Daytona Beach and that's when I saw your report on your Cryptid Sighting and asked if anyone else had seen it, well I have and it's real, very real.”

Thank you Shelly for contacting us regarding your sea serpent sighting, it was a fantastic eyewitness account to read! What makes it even more interesting and fantastic is that, as you mentioned above, your sighting took place within the same geographical location as my sighting did. We are each now part of an exclusive club made up entirely of those who have seen something that others say shouldn’t exist. But I honestly believe they do exist as reports of strange aquatic beasts have filtered out from around Florida for hundreds of years, and your sighting just helps to prove that something strange calls that specific area of the Atlantic home.

One thing I can’t help but focus on though is that you described a large neck and head protruding out of the water and “standing” nearly 12-14ft tall, and a back that looked like a car. Needless to say, that is incredible. The description instantly brings to mind the classic image of a “Nessie-like” creature, a surviving plesiosaur if you will. This type of creature is most often associated with a variety of reported lake monster sightings throughout the world. Some of the most famous are of course the big three; the Loch Ness Monster, Champ, and Ogopogo.

Now, while the more serpent-like aquatic monsters (as well as giant whale/crocodile/shark-like ones) are most often reported as being seen in the open ocean, these long necked dinosaur-like beasts are occasionally reported as well. There are many historical reports of sailors and sea captains seeing the exact same thing that you just described, right down to the skin color. So this location separation isn’t set in stone, these things have proven that they can pop up anywhere.

What I am really curious about though is how far away this creature was from your boat when you saw it. You stated that you could not only see its flippers moving, but that you could also see it blinking its eyes. In all my research, I rarely come across any modern reports of sightings where the witness mentions these small details. In my mind, that would mean the creature had to be relatively close to the boat, and with such a large head and neck sticking out of the water, you would think other people would have witnessed it as well in some capacity. But then again, when people are focused on what they are doing, they can miss the most obvious things right in front of them. Especially in this age of technology where we are able to be distracted nonstop if we so choose.

When asking why you were the only one lucky enough to see this creature, we need to look at a variety of factors. How fast the boat was going, what was happening on the boat at that time (you stated people were eating, was lunch being served?), where were a majority of the people were located (perhaps you were on one side and them on the other), were others getting their fishing gear ready to cast out soon, etc.

There are so many interesting factors to this sighting that I would love to dig into and talk about more, especially about what the flippers looked like, whether any hair or whiskers were seen, and if it puffed water vapor out of its nostrils when it breathed. But sadly, all I can go off of is what was sent to me, and that’s just fine!

One more thing I will say though before this comes to a conclusion. I personally don’t think that what you saw and what I saw were the same creature. The differences are too numerous to ignore, but I do believe that they are both species under the same Sea Monster umbrella. And because of that I say, welcome to the club Shelly!

-The Pine Barrens Institute

*Image Credit: Google

If you have a sighting to share or a piece of folklore to tell, make sure to get in touch and let us know! Remember: It’s your story, so why not share it in your own words!