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Creature record / 1962

Edward Brian McCleary's Pensacola sea serpent and the USS Massachusetts wreck tragedy

March 24, 1962 · Wreck of USS Massachusetts (BB-2), off Pensacola Pass, Florida, United States
13Thinly documented Cryptid Creature 26 sources 1 videos

March 24, 1962. Five teenagers from Fort Walton Beach set out on a rubber raft toward the wreck of the old battleship USS Massachusetts, off Pensacola Pass. Fog closed in. Night fell. Only one of them came home. Edward Brian McCleary was 16. In 1962 he told reporters about a swamped raft, cramps and friends lost in the fog. Three years later he told a different story. A long neck rising ten feet out of the water. A head like a sea turtle's, with teeth. Green eyes. The smell of dead fish. One by one, he said, it took his friends.

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Context

The wreck lies about 1.5 nautical miles south southwest of Pensacola Pass, in 26 to 30 feet of water. The old battleship USS Massachusetts was sunk deliberately by naval gunfire in January 1921.

Sources (26, most influential first)

  1. What's Eating You? Florida's Hungry Sea-serpent Revisited · Centre for Fortean Zoology blog (Michael Newton)· 2011-05-26 · Wiki, blog, podcast · blog
  2. Edward Brian McCleary claimed his friends were eaten by a sea serpent · Metabunk· 2024-06-20 · Forum, social media · forum
  3. Did a Pensacola sea monster claim four lives? · Pensacola News Journal via Yahoo (Troy Moon)· 2024-02-05 · Press, book, documentary · news
  4. McCleary account · trueauthority.com · Wiki, blog, podcast · blog
  5. My Escape from a Sea Monster · Morbid Streak· 2021-05 · Wiki, blog, podcast · blog