Delaware River whales, sharks and monsters

From the Universal York blog, this post on a whale displayed in a York County barn belonging to one Samuel Spangler sometime in the first half of the 1800s. The whale is described as having been caught in the Delaware River. This wouldn't be unheard of.

The Philadelphia Inquirer (December 6, 1994) reported that a 30-foot right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) dubbed "Waldo the Wrong-Way Right Whale" was found in the Delaware between Philadelphia and New Jersey. Wildlife officials managed to point it back towards the sea, but in early 1995 the whale had returned and was beached temporarily at an oil refinery near Pennsauken, New Jersey. "Waldo" was last seen in waters off Canada.

In April, 2005, NBC's Today carried reports on a beluga whale that had been seen around Trenton and Beverly, New Jersey. The animal was identified as one called Helis, whose native territory was in the St. Lawrence River. Helis had left the Delaware Bay around April 18, but by the 29th he was back in the river near Burlington Island. He was later seen near the Walt Whitman Bridge moving south. There were a few reports of the beluga from the Schuylkill River, but I don't know whether these were confirmed. By the end of the month, he had again moved out of the river.

The New York Times (May 1, 1922) reported that a 12-foot shark "said to have been of the man-eating variety" was killed by Joseph Fletcher in Tacony, Pennsylvania.

Several species of sharks live in the Delaware Bay and may make their way up the river; the Tacony shark is most likely to have been a bull shark. Other dangerous species such as the hammerhead and thresher exist in the Bay, but these prefer open waters and would not likely be found upstream. The bull shark is also the likely culprit in the attacks at Matawan, New Jersey in 1916.

The book Totally Bizarre Pennsylvania mentions a sighting of a supposed sea monster near the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in August, 1975. Peter Evangelidis reported that he and his girlfriend were along the river at Penn's Landing when he saw what he first thought to be a "bunch of black inner tubes or tires floating down the river, about 30 yards out" but that was moving against the current of the river. After a moment there was a violent splash and "this sleek head of an animal that should not have existed sprung its head out of the dark river no more than 30 feet from us". A canal cuts across Delaware, joining the Chesapeake Bay to the Delaware Bay. Evangelidis wondered whether the Chesapeake Bay sea serpent, Chessie, could have made it through the waterway and into Philadelphia. 1975 also saw reports of both sharks and whales from the Delaware, so it conceivably could have been one of these.

The above is the photo Evangelidis took of the creature.

Chessie the sea monster

'Chessie' is the name given to the sea serpent that supposedly inhabits the waters of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay. While the first confirmed sighting of a reptilian oddity that may or may not have been Chessie took place in 1933, the sighting of a 'dragon' on the Patuxent River, legends of a reptilian monster haunting the confluence of the Piscataway Creek and the Potomac River date back to the 1800s. Chessie was sighted in 1965 swimming in the South River near Annapolis. In 1977, it was sighted where the Potomac empties into the Chesapeake, and in 1978 the serpent returned to haunt Calvert Cliffs. That same year, something left three-toed tracks near Leonardtown on the Potomac. Sightings continued throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1982, Robert Frew filmed a 'giant eel' off of Love Point, on Kent Island. Reports of Chessie have died off since the 1980s. Leatherback turtles in the waters of the bay have been mistaken for Chessie, and a manatee which made its way into the Chesapeake in the 1990s was nicknamed Chessie after the monster.

A western Pennsylvania river monster: the Ogua

Native American lore placed a monstrous creature called the Ogua in the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers. The Ogua was a chimerical creature shaped like a turtle, with a 15 foot tail and two heads that emerged from the water by night to hunt and kill deer, snaring them with its tail. Some Natives had stories that it was a monster generated by the legendary chief Hiawatha. European settlers reputedly encountered the beast, and an account is supposed to exist in the collection of West Virginia University.

Giant catfish in the Susquehanna

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in 2002 that Greg Misenko of Lititz and others had caught flathead catfish at Safe Harbor Dam. Flathead catfish can get big, over 100 pounds. In fact, Fosters.com reported in July of that same year that a flathead five feet long and 103 pounds had been caught in Georgia, and the record-setter, at 123 pounds, was caught in Kansas.

Flatheads are normally found in only the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in Pennsylvania. Ecologists are concerned that the presence of the fish could upset the ecosystem of the Susquehanna. Flatheads have also been found in the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers.

Susquehanna River monster

As mentioned on Cryptomundo, Ken Maurer of the Sunbury Daily Item reported a monster in the Susquehanna River:

For those of you who missed the “most mysterious sighting” question asked of The Daily Item’s Great Outdoors panel, I told of a large creature that I saw swimming in the Susquehanna River.

I have to say that I received several comments concerning my eyesight, mental state, and imagination. Well, I saw what I saw, several times actually. I don’t know what it was and I have thought about it quite a bit.

The other day an acquaintance who shall mercifully remain nameless came up to me and told me he read of my experience in the paper, and he was amazed because he witnessed the same mysterious sighting. His sighting was a couple of miles downstream from the area where I saw it. We discussed it at length. He felt that because of the size of it, it was a mammal of sorts, similar to a seal or otter.

I felt it was a fish of some kind. After much discussion, we sort of agreed that it must be a fish because the head never comes out of the water. I have witnessed seals, otters and beavers swimming, and the head always comes out of the water somewhere along the line.

Now, as to how this all started. About eight years ago, a good friend of mine told me about this “thing” he saw swimming in the river. He described a small submarine about to surface.

Of course, I thought he was nuts. Then one evening we went fishing and the “thing” showed up. At first I thought it was a deer swimming across the river, then it turned and came upstream. When it got closer, there was nothing sticking out of the water. It pushed a wake that made waves that lapped up on the shoreline. At about 50 yards, it sank out of sight. Creepy. Over the next year or two, I saw it several times and it always sank out of sight before it got close enough to be seen clearly.

The only fish I can think of that could create this disturbance is a huge carp. I’ve never seen a carp act like that, but what else could it be? It’s not a mammal because nothing ever comes out of the water. Between those of us who have seen it, we think it must be at least five or six feet long, which is far larger than any carp I’ve ever seen.

Before you jump in your boat and go looking for it, sightings are rare. I haven’t seen it for years, although last summer a guy told me about a very similar sighting in the same general area.

We live in a very civilized area. How could any creature live around here, on land or water, that we don’t know about?

Well, we don’t know everything. When darkness falls, the forest turns into a very different place. Many hunters have seen and heard things in the pre-dawn darkness that are hard to understand or explain. Coyotes, for example, are very common around here, yet many people have never seen one. Who would have ever thought someone would catch a gar out of the river? We have pictures of that.

The outdoorsman Izaak Walton said it best: “Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are meant for wise men to ponder, and fools to pass by.”

Theories on its identity have ranged from a manatee (given the Chesapeake reports) to large catfish. Unfortunately, few details are given and as a result positive identification is impossible.