Water Monster · Virginia · 1846
VA-1846ID case-cd5d05d9d0Added to map Oct 30, 2026
- Creature
- Water Monster
- When
- Feb 1846to the month
- Where
- Virginiato state level
- Reports
- 1 document1 independent
The account
Witness reports that Captain Lawson and his hands observed a large moving body with a head and mouth off the coast of Virginia, which they identified as a sea serpent.
See the source ↓ one document so far, so there is no trail to follow yet
We map claims, not creatures: this is what the sources say, not proof. How a case is built
Details
- Creature
- Water Monster
- Where
- Virginia, United States
mapped to state level · from the report's own words, generalized to a larger area - When
- Feb 1846
- Account
- Not first-hand (retold or reported by someone else)
- Backed by
- 1 independent source
- Added to map
- Oct 30, 2026
- Case id
- case-cd5d05d9d0
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Source trail (1)
Every link goes to where we found the account. The earliest we found is marked; it is the earliest found, not necessarily the original.
- Image 1 of The New York herald (New York [N.Y.]), February 26, 1846
Newspaper · 1846-02-26
Earliest found, not necessarily the original.
Further reading
- The Great New England Sea Serpent, J. P. O'Neill (1999)
Account of the 1817 Gloucester sightings and later reports.
Borrow on Internet Archive - On the Track of Unknown Animals, Bernard Heuvelmans (1959)
The founding work of cryptozoology.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark (1999)
Encyclopedia of reported creatures.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Abominable Science!, Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero (2013)
Skeptical history of the Yeti, Nessie and others.
Borrow on Internet Archive
Books we have not reproduced: borrow them free at archive.org. Listing a book is not an endorsement of its claims.