Other Aquatic · Puerto Rico · 1982
UNI-1982ID case-de65d67dc4Added to map Oct 30, 2026
- Creature
- Other Aquatic
- When
- Apr 1982to the month
- Where
- Puerto Ricoto state level
- Reports
- 1 document1 independent
The account
Two crew members on the USS Independence reported seeing an enormous shark's dorsal fin rise from the water behind the ship.
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
- Other Aquatic
- Where
- Puerto Rico, United States
mapped to state level · from the report's own words, generalized to a larger area - When
- Apr 1982
- Account
- Not first-hand (retold or reported by someone else)
- Backed by
- 1 independent source
- Added to map
- Oct 30, 2026
- Case id
- case-de65d67dc4
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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.
- Cryptids in the Sea, Part 2. Larger Than a Blue Whale: The USS Independence Incident, April/May 1982, Roughly 200 Miles East of Puerto Rico
Reddit · 2025-02-25
Earliest found, not necessarily the original.
Further reading
- 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 - In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, Karl Shuker (1995)
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.