There is Something in the Water

what lies beneath the rippling surfaces of our lakes rivers and oceans could prehistoric predators long thought extinct still roam or huge deep dwelling creatures that are as elusive as they are mysterious truly there is something in the water the question is what [Music] you the seas lakes and rivers of our world are as fascinating as they are enigmatic mankind has long held an affinity towards these vast bodies of water that permeate the globe they are the lifeblood of this planet and we as human beings seem to have an inveterate curiosity of the depths beneath those

rippling surfaces it's an interest that seeds our wildest dreams and fuels our darkest nightmares we have seen but a glimpse of this mysterious realm and in fact more people have visited the moon than have visited the deepest parts of our oceans despite covering more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface 95% of our seas and oceans remain unexplored and of the tens of thousands of new species which are catalogued each year a huge number of them are aquatic the truth it seems is an ominous one there are potentially millions upon millions of water-borne species still undiscovered

which begs the question what else could be lurking in those depths for centuries sailors reported horrifying encounters with various sea monsters with perhaps the most recognizable amongst them being the dreaded Kraken in modern times however these stories have largely been dismissed as tall tales for sea told to frighten fresh naval recruits and to deter piracy but it may surprise you to learn that sightings of so-called C River and Lake Monsters are as prevalent today as they were all those years ago interest in this subject saw a huge resurgence in the late 90s when an ultra-low

frequency sound was detected underwater by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA in 1997 it was said to have been so loud and so powerful that it was picked up by multiple sensors more than 3,000 miles away it was referred to simply as bloop and scientists initially suspected it must have been made by some huge as yet undiscovered marine animal larger than anything on record by 2012 however investigations had revealed that it was nothing more than sea ice scraping against the ocean floor nevertheless imaginations had been captivated and people had already begun to

put more stock in stories surrounding sea monsters The Legend of the Kraken stretches back thousands of years Homer's The Odyssey mentions a very similar beast but it was Norwegian writer Erik pontoppidan 1755 book the natural history of Norway that first described one in detail pontoppidan wrote that according to fishermen it was so huge it could easily drag a 5,000 ton vessel down into the murky depths and its tentacles were long enough to pluck sailors from the deck of a ship and drown them these tales were often taken with a pinch of salt a no naturalist

of any repute regarded them with any seriousness however in 1857 the legend began to move from fiction to scientific fact a Danish naturalist by the name of Jupiter Steen strip examined a large squids beak which had washed up on a local beach it was free inches wide far larger than any found in known specimens he could only make estimations as to the animals full size but when he was later handed two large tentacles which had appeared on a beach in the Bahamas he famously declared that the Kraken was indeed real in more recent times giant

and even colossal squids have been described growing up to 15 metres in length and some estimations have even suggested that they can grow as large as 20 it's hard to believe but live specimens of these huge animals were only filmed and photographed as recently as 2004 but could they really be responsible for the famous stories of old it is unlikely those giant squids have never been seen at the surface they tend to stay at depths of between 800 and 1,600 metres and whilst they may look fearsome are predators of smaller animals they are relatively gentle

creatures it would seem that the Kraken was possibly nothing more than an exaggeration of their size and ferocity but who knows what else is down there after all the legend of the Kraken was around long before we were even aware that giant or colossal squids existed so one might question what exactly seeded this legend in 2004 a GPS tag which had been attached to a 9-foot great white shark was discovered on a beach in Australia this was just four months after and only a few miles away from where the shark was originally tagged Wildlife conservationists

analyzed the data contained within the tag and discovered something strange during those first four months this female shark had been habitually hunting in the coastal waters rarely exceeding a depth of six hundred feet however at 4:00 a.m. on the 24th of December she was seen to suddenly plunge over the edge of the continental shelf to a depth of 1,900 feet in just under two minutes a speed faster than she could have swam the initial belief was that the tag had simply detached from her body but this was quickly ruled out if the shark could not

have swum as fast as the tiger descended then it certainly wouldn't have sunk as fast more importantly during the descent the temperature was recorded at a constant 78 degrees Fahrenheit much warmer than the 46 degrees that was recorded when it was attached to the shark's fin coupled with the fact that it was sinking into much deeper and therefore much colder water if it had simply detached the tag should have experienced a sudden drop in temperature but this was not the case when the tag itself was examined it was found to be lined with a substance

believed to be stomach acid this final clue suggested that this shark could almost certainly been killed and eaten by something bigger the question was what some people theorized that she had been attacked by a killer whale orcas have been known to hunt sharks and they are certainly big enough growing up to lengths of 32 feet the issue with this theory though is the depth the deepest a killer whale has ever been observed is a mere 850 feet less than half the depth seen in this instance 10 years later in 2014 marine biologists believed they had

cracked the case stating that the culprit was obviously another much larger great white shark acting either through extreme hunger or due to a territorial dispute however this theory is not without its problems first of all it is extremely rare for great whites to resort to cannibalism especially in waters that are as abundant as those found around Australia if it was a territorial dispute then again this goes against everything we have learned about these huge predators being the extremely intelligent animals they are they usually settle these disputes non-violently through a variety of gestures and interactions finally

the temperature the tag recorded as it descended was not as it would be expected at 78 degrees Fahrenheit it was 14 degrees warmer than the highest possible temperature of a great white stomach which is 64 degrees these inconsistencies have led some people to believe that a Megalodon was responsible possibly the largest most powerful fish to have ever existed at an estimated 60 feet in length despite the scientific community being largely in agreement that the Megalodon went extinct about 2.6 million years ago people have contested this belief with numerous eyewitness accounts of massive sharks from all

over the globe whilst these sightings are mostly written off as mistaken identity with whale and basking sharks being the most likely candidates this has not deterred people from believing that the Megalodon is alive and well and still prowling the depths of our oceans after all in 1875 a dragnet from British ship HMS challenger pulled up amongst other things a Megalodon tooth when this tooth was dated using a method which measures the buildup of manganese dioxide it was found to be only eleven thousand years old one can't help but question why such a large unchallenged predator

like the Megalodon would ever go extinct in any case the Megalodon isn't the only extinct species thought to still roam our oceans in 1915 a German submarine u28 had a terrifying encounter with a huge marine reptile commander fry hare George G von frost nur reported in the vessels logbook exactly what happened on July 30th 1915 our u28 torpedoed the British steamer Iberian which was carrying a rich cargo across the North Atlantic the steamer sank so swiftly that its bow stuck up almost vertically into the air moments later the whole of Iberian disappeared the wreckage remained

beneath the water for approximately 25 seconds at a depth that was clearly impossible to assess when suddenly there was a violent explosion which shot pieces of debris among them a gigantic aquatic animal out of the water to a height of approximately 80 feet at that moment I had with me in the conning tower six of my officers of the watch including the chief engineer the navigator and the hounds Minh simultaneously we all drew one another's attention to this wonder of the seas which was writhing and struggling among the debris we were unable to identify the

creature but all of us agreed that it resembled an aquatic crocodile which was about 60 feet long with four limbs resembling large webbed feet a long pointed tail and a head which also tapered to a point unfortunately we were not able to take a photograph for the animal Sankat of sight after 10 or 15 seconds if the commander's report which was also verified by his crew is to be believed then what he described sounds very much like a Moses or mosasaurs were huge marine reptiles which could grow up to 60 feet in length they are

thought to have gone extinct hundreds of millions of years ago but these creatures have apparently been sighted off the coast of New Zealanders here's 2013 and in other parts of the world over the past 300 years the scientific community once again rules out these sightings as merely the misidentification of saltwater crocodiles however this seems a bit of a stretch for most eyewitnesses who have reported lengths of more than 50 feet the largest saltwater crocodile on record was just under 20 feet long but these alleged monsters of the deep are not just limited to prehistoric Animalia

towards the end of the 20th century a Japanese whale research vessel working in the Pacific reported seeing a huge creature breaking upon the surface of the water it was approximately 90 feet in length white in color much like an albino whale but it had a humanoid shape with a round head and tendril like arms or fins which were as long as its whole body it had no legs or feet but instead the lower half of its body tapered and ended in a mermaid like tail because of its ugly human-like shape the research crew named it

ningen the Japanese word for human it has been cited many times since most commonly in the southern Antarctic Ocean leading many to believe that it dwells in colder climates photographic and even video evidence does exist but the quality of the footage leaves much to be desired leading many to speculate that this colossal creature is nothing more than a hoax if ningen does exist however some have suggested that it could be and as yet undiscovered species of whale of course such sightings do not just occur on the high seas there are many lakes and rivers throughout

the world which are thought to hide exotic or ancient creatures with possibly the oldest and most well known example being the Loch Ness monster sightings of Nessie date as far back as the sixth century but the majority of eyewitness accounts only began to appear after the 1930s there is a multitude of compelling photographs taken around Loch Ness and even video evidence showing strange disturbances out on the surface of the lake many of these sightings conjure up the image of a plesiosaur a large aquatic reptile thought to have gone extinct around 66 million years ago there

are a number of theories which attempt to explain how a large group of please yours might have survived the mass extinction event millions of years ago and continued to eke out their existence in the lakes of the Scottish Highlands unfortunately however the legend seems to wane somewhat with each passing year as hoaxes after hoax is exposed and we are left wondering whether Nessie was ever real to begin with is simply lying dormant or has perhaps gone forever Loch Ness is only one of many large bodies of water thought to be home to a plesiosaur sightings

of similar creatures in deep lakes were reported all over the world and they have even been seen in the ocean in 1977 a Japanese trawler fishing off the coast of New Zealand pulled up a large carcass thought to be the rotting remains of a plesiosaur the photographs are compelling to say the least a long neck and a set of fins are clearly visible and whilst many scientists insisted that it was not a fish whale or other mammal analysis later indicated that it was more than likely the heavily deteriorated remains of a basking shark more recently

attention is very much being focused on the River Thames with speculation that this ancient River snaking its way through the City of London is home to its very own Loch Ness monster in 2016 a video was uploaded to YouTube which seems to depict a large dark mass swimming upriver close to the o2 arena two humps are seen to briefly break the surface before submerging again and disappearing for good a week later another piece of footage filmed near the thames barrier was uploaded which showed a very similar dark mass again breaking the surface at the river

this time for a much longer period the person filming did not notice the anomaly until after he reviewed the footage unbelievably a third piece of film was captured during the same week over by the Docklands once again it shows another large dark mass swimming beneath the surface wildlife experts were mystified by these videos particularly the first one although seals dolphins and porpoises have been known to swim up the Thames nothing this large has ever been seen before or for that matter since so what are we to make of all these C River and Lake Monsters

is there any truth to these sightings or are we to dismiss them all as nothing more than exaggeration there simply isn't enough compelling evidence to conclude that any of these creatures exist but on the flipside the depths of the Earth's waters are so opaque mysterious and inaccessible that they might as well be in some far-flung region of the solar system we simply do not know what is down there we cannot deny that the possible existence of oversized predatory or rarely seen creatures in our waters has captivated our imaginations it seems we have plenty left to

discover and possibly plenty more to fear the next time you go paddling in a lake river or sea take a moment to consider what might be lurking beneath your feet [Music]