Pixelated Semantics

Anti-skeptical DNA and the Monster Blobs

Fortean Sea-Blobs are decomposed whales, according to University of Southern Florida biologists. "Lumps of boneless tissue" analysed from the "Giant Octopus of St Augustine" of 1896, the "Tasmanian West Coast Monster" of 1960, and three blobs found in Bermuda and Nantucket in the 1990s are all "washed-up whale remains". Whither the bones, I ask - or is the decomposition so exact and advanced that the process disgorges the bone before uniformly glutinising remaining fat and flesh? And "DNA tests debunk sea monster myths" as a heading has the social smugness of a sceptical conclusion favoured over the useful savouring of anomoly.

Footnote: "Lo!" by Charles Fort ('Complete Books', p.619) contains a useful and interesting account of the St Augustine 'blob' and others in the 1920's. What is most intriguing is that while some scientists of the time put forward the 'anomalous blob/octopus' theory, others were clearly stating it was part of a Sperm Whale. Yet somehow in the intervening period, the account that has survived appears to be supportive of the Octopus Blob - until the Whale theory resurfaced, and is claimed to have been proved. Fort quotes from two newspaper accounts of the time. There are adjunct items of great interest with similar accounts across different times and places, including one from Australia where the remains of a very large creature were taken to Rockhampton for examination.

Meanwhile, while one giant monster is apparently slain, the expectation of monsters grows in another direction. A new Census of Marine Life survey of the depths of the ice-capped Arctic Ocean "could reveal a lost world of living fossils and exotic new species from jellyfish to giant squid"; or at least that is what some scientists wish. It may also be the last chance to study that environment before climate change melts the ice.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 4:23 pm ::