Colossal Claude: The Columbia River Bar Sea Serpent

The Columbia River Lightship held its station roughly five miles west of the Columbia River's mouth. The vessel on duty was LV-88, which served there from 1909 to 1939. In March 1934, the U.S. Lighthouse Service tender Rose came out to drop off a relief crew.

On or just after the Ides of March, 1934, the crews of both vessels saw something in the water. A huge, snaky thing, swimming around the ship. They watched it through field glasses for several minutes.

Mate L. A. Larson gave the description that would follow the creature for decades. "It was about 40 feet long. It had a neck some eight feet long, a big round body, a mean-looking tail, and an evil, snaky look to its head."

Capt. J. Jensen, master of the Rose, saw the head differently. To him it looked more like a camel's than a snake's. The Salem Capital Journal quoted him saying the creature "had a neck about eight feet long, with a large head. It opened its huge mouth and gaped at the lightship." The Bend Bulletin carried another account. "Its head was under water, but we could see its long body. It appeared to be at least 40 feet in length."

The crew wanted to lower a small boat and go after it. The officers refused. They were afraid it might turn on them and swamp the boat.

Three newspapers carried the story that spring. The Oregonian, the Bend Bulletin and the Capital Journal. The animal became Colossal Claude. And the sightings did not stop. In 1937 Capt. Charles E. Graham of the troller Viv described a "long, hairy tan-colored creature, with the head of an overgrown horse, about 40 feet long, and with a 4-foot waist measure." That same year a couple named White at Devil's Churn, near Yachats, saw "a huge hairy thing that looked like an aquatic giraffe."

April 13, 1939. Capt. Chris Anderson of the halibut boat Argo watched the creature pass within 10 feet of his vessel. "He could have sunk us with a nudge. His head was like a camel's. His fur was coarse and gray. He had glassy eyes and a bent snout." Fishermen's sightings are said to have continued into the 1950s. Then they stopped.

No Lighthouse Service, Coast Guard or scientific inquiry into the 1934 sighting is known. Some details remain unsettled. Some later writers place Larson aboard the Rose. Others put him aboard the lightship itself. Dates range from the Ides of March to 19 March. Jensen appears as both J. Jensen and J. F. Jensen.

Offbeat Oregon columnist Finn J.D. John weighed three possibilities. Fishermen's tavern tales. A real but unknown animal. Or a surviving plesiosaur. He doubted the last, citing 66 million years of environmental change and how unlikely it is that an air-breathing marine reptile could go unnoticed. No specific known animal has been put forward for the 1934 sighting. Some writers link Claude to Cadborosaurus, the British Columbia sea serpent. Others tie him to Marvin the Monster, filmed by Shell Oil underwater cameras in 1963.

Claude lives on in Michael Newton's Strange Monsters of the Pacific Northwest, in Cameron La Follette's "Sea Serpent Lore" for the Oregon Encyclopedia, in columns in The Astorian and the Chinook Observer, and in podcasts such as REI's Camp Monsters.