The year 1866 witnessed a strange and baffling event—an unexplained phenomenon so peculiar that it shook the world.
Without dwelling on the rumors that panicked coastal towns and even disturbed people far inland, it's important to understand how seriously the maritime world took it.
Merchants, shipowners, sea captains, skippers, and sailors from both Europe and America—along with naval officers from every major nation—were alarmed. Their concern quickly spread to the highest levels of government on both continents.
Over time, multiple ships reported encounters with a mysterious presence at sea—a huge, spindle-shaped object that sometimes glowed with a strange phosphorescence. It was far bigger and faster than any whale known to science.
Ship logs from different vessels described the same thing: a powerful, fast-moving mass with incredible energy and size, unlike anything previously seen in the ocean.
If it was some kind of whale, it was far larger than anything classified by marine biology. No naturalist—not Cuvier, Lacépède, Dumeril, or de Quatrefages—would have believed in such a creature without seeing it firsthand.
Even when filtering out the most exaggerated reports—rejecting cautious estimates of 200 feet and dismissing wild claims of a mile in length—one conclusion remained: this thing, whatever it was, exceeded the known limits of marine life.
And it did exist. That much was undeniable.
The human mind is drawn to mystery, and this enigmatic creature set imaginations alight around the globe.
Dismiss it as fiction? That theory no longer held water.
On July 20, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, of the Calcutta & Burnach Steam Navigation Company, encountered the creature five miles off Australia's eastern coast.
Captain Baker first assumed he was approaching an uncharted reef. He was preparing to note its position when two towering jets of water suddenly erupted from the mass, shooting 150 feet into the air.
Clearly, this was no ordinary reef—unless reefs had somehow developed blowholes.
What the Governor Higginson had encountered was a living marine animal, previously unknown, capable of blasting air and steam from its body.
Just three days later, on July 23, the Christopher Columbus, a steamer from the West India & Pacific Steam Navigation Company, recorded a similar sighting in the Pacific Ocean.
This confirmed the creature's ability to travel at astonishing speed. In just 72 hours, it had moved over 700 nautical leagues—something no known sea animal could achieve.
Fifteen days later, and after traveling 2,000 leagues farther, the Helvetia, from the Compagnie Nationale, and the Shannon, from the Royal Mail Line, were sailing in opposite directions across the Atlantic, between the United States and Europe. They each signaled that the monster had been spotted at latitude 42 degrees 15' north and longitude 60 degrees 35' west of the Greenwich meridian.
From their simultaneous observations, they estimated the mammal's minimum length to be over 350 English feet (about 106 meters). This was significant because both the Shannon and the Helvetia were smaller ships, measuring 100 meters from bow to stern.
Now, the largest whales, specifically the rorqual whales, which are found in the waters near the Aleutian Islands, have never exceeded 56 meters—if they even reach that length.
Reports soon followed that would stir public opinion. These included fresh observations made by the Pereire, a transatlantic liner, the Etna from the Inman Line, which encountered the monster, and an official report from the French frigate Normandy. There were also serious calculations by Commodore Fitz-James' general staff aboard the Lord Clyde.
In lighter-hearted countries, people joked about the phenomenon, but in serious nations like England, America, and Germany, there was genuine concern.
Across major cities, the monster became a topic of fascination. It was the subject of songs in coffee houses, ridicule in newspapers, and dramatic performances in theaters. The tabloids saw it as a perfect opportunity for sensational hoaxes. In newspapers looking for material, stories of gigantic imaginary creatures resurfaced. From Moby Dick, that infamous white whale from the Arctic, to the massive kraken, whose tentacles could drag a 500-ton ship beneath the sea.
They even reprinted ancient reports, including those by Aristotle and Pliny, who believed in such creatures. There were also stories from Bishop Pontoppidan of Norway, Paul Egede's accounts, and the reports of Captain Harrington. Captain Harrington, a man whose honesty was beyond doubt, claimed to have seen an enormous serpent in 1857 while aboard the Castilian. This serpent had only been seen in the waters off France—until then.
This sparked a never-ending debate between believers and skeptics in scholarly societies and scientific journals. The "monster question" became a topic that consumed everyone's thoughts. Journalists specialized in science clashed with those focused on humor, filling pages with ink, and sometimes even resorting to personal attacks.
The war of words continued for six months, with the popular press mocking feature articles from prestigious institutions like the Geographic Institute of Brazil, the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin, the British Association, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Articles in Cosmos, published by Father Moigno, and scientific journals from around the world were ridiculed by the tabloids.
When the monster's critics referenced a quote by the botanist Linnaeus, saying that "nature doesn't make leaps", the witty journalists twisted it, suggesting "nature doesn't make lunatics," and advising their readers not to believe in sea monsters, krakens, or Moby Dick—all seen as the works of drunken sailors.
Finally, in a satirical journal, one of the most famous columnists dismissed the monster entirely, mocking it with wit and humor, likening it to the mythical tale of Hippolytus rejecting Phaedra's advances. The creature was ridiculed to the point of death in a wave of laughter. Wit had triumphed over science.