The Monsters of the Deep

The superstitions of seamen are a well-recorder phenomenon, which is understandable because the waters that surrounded them were frightening at night and strew with all kind of dangers. The perusers of old maos will certainly have observed illuminations showing terrible monsters surging from the deep, enlacing ships, and trying to draw them underneath. Stories about mythical animals from the sea abound.

Frightening sea tales have not vanished with the dawn of the age of technology. French military stationed in the tiny Republic of Djibouti reported seeing such a sea monster in the waters of the Goubet, a narrow passage connecting a gulf opening on the Red Sea off Djibouti. When the Calypso was in the Red Sea, the crew saw the monster and filmed it but carefully guarded the discovery and treated it as a secret. In this instance the Cousteau team issued a formal denial by communiqué (through the Fondation Cousteau)[11] and its book.[12] In fact the monster they filmed was a giant manta ray (Manta bistrosis) that indeed lives in the gulf.

[11] Y. Paccalet, "Le monstre de Cousteau", Calypso Log, vol. 63, November 16, 1987.
[12] J.-Y. Cousteau and P. Diolé, La Vie et la Mort des Coraux (Paris:Flammarion, 1971), p. 42.