Water Monster · Portland, Maine · 1873
- Creature
- Water Monster
- When
- Jul 6, 1873to the day
- Where
- Portland, Maineto town level
- Reports
- 2 documents1 independent
The account
Witness reports Mr. S. B. Beckett saw a large serpent-like animal swimming in Portland Harbor on the evening of July 6.
Trace the source trail → every document, in time order, and how they connect
We map claims, not creatures: this is what the sources say, not proof. How a case is built
Details
- Creature
- Water Monster
- Where
- Portland, Cumberland County, Maine, United States
mapped to town level · from the report's own words - When
- Jul 6, 1873
- Account
- Not first-hand (retold or reported by someone else)
- Backed by
- 1 independent source (2 documents; copies and reprints are not confirmations)
- Added to map
- Oct 30, 2026
- Case id
- case-fe53553e4d
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Source trail (1)
Down the rabbit hole → 2 documents, and how they connect
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 2 of New-York tribune (New York [N.Y.]), August 22, 1873
Newspaper · 1873-08-22
Earliest found, not necessarily the original.
Further reading
Books that mention this place
A match on the place name, not necessarily this case. Once you have borrowed a book, its link opens the search inside it on the place.
- Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark (1999)
Encyclopedia of reported creatures.
Borrow on Internet Archive - The Great New England Sea Serpent, J. P. O'Neill (1999)
Account of the 1817 Gloucester sightings and later reports.
Borrow on Internet Archive
More on this creature
- On the Track of Unknown Animals, Bernard Heuvelmans (1959)
The founding work of cryptozoology.
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.