The Santa Clara Sea Serpent: A Ship Strikes a Monster off North Carolina

Late December 1947. The Santa Clara was a new ship, built in 1946, one of Grace Line's nine post-war C2-type cargo-passenger vessels. She was bound for Cartagena. She is easy to confuse with an older namesake. The pre-war Santa Clara of 1930 became USS *Susan B. Anthony* and was mined and sunk off Omaha Beach in 1944. The ship in this story is the third of the name, sometimes called Santa Clara III.

December 30, 1947. Open sea, roughly 118 miles out from Cape Lookout by one later estimate. Third Mate John Axelson saw it first. A snake-like head reared out of the sea about 30 feet off the starboard bow.

Three mates watched it as it came abeam of the bridge and passed astern. Two are named: Chief Officer William Humphrey and Third Officer John Axelson. The head was about 5 feet long and 2½ feet across. The neck was about 1½ feet in diameter. Some 35 feet of cylindrical body showed, about 3 feet thick. The skin was dark brown, slick and smooth, with no fins, hair, or protuberances.

From first sight until it disappeared, the animal was thrashing about as though in agony. The water around it was stained red over 30 to 40 square feet. The officers concluded the ship's stem had struck it, perhaps cutting it in two. It was last seen thrashing in a large bloody patch astern.

The ship radioed the U.S. Hydrographic Office that same day, giving its position as LAT. 34.34 N. LONG 74.07 W: "STRUCK MARINE MONSTER EITHER KILLING IT OR WOUNDING IT. ESTIMATED LENGTH 45 FEET WITH EEL-LIKE HEAD AND BODY APPROXIMATELY 3 FEET IN DIAMETER."

The master, J. Fordan, published a fuller account, and the Associated Press carried it. No carcass was recovered. No photograph is mentioned in any account. No record shows that the Hydrographic Office, or anyone else, investigated.

Writers have since tried to name the animal. Futility Closet suggested a giant oarfish: "Possibly the creature was a monstrous oarfish; we'll never know for certain." Yet an oarfish carries a red fin along its whole back and is flattened sideways. The officers reported no fins and a cylindrical body.

Others list the Santa Clara among ships that collided with a giant squid. Squid blood is not red, which sits poorly with the stained sea. Matt Bille, writing in 2016, counted it among reports of giant eels, and the case is linked to Bernard Heuvelmans' "super-eel" category. Whether Heuvelmans discussed this encounter himself is unconfirmed.

The story grew in the retelling. Later versions stretch the animal to sixty feet and have it cut in half and sink below the surface. None of that appears in the earliest wording.

In 2024 Wrightsville Beach Magazine folded the encounter into the sea-monster lore of the Cape Fear coast, beside the serpent locals call Willie. No hoax has ever been alleged. No source doubts the officers. What the Santa Clara struck that day has never been identified.