![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/swiyvvhzpwpz55fa.jpg\")
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WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash. – Forget the monster under your bed this Halloween. What about the one once said to be lurking beneath the waters<\/a> near Deception Pass?<\/p>\n Reports of a sea serpent made headlines across Washington in the 1950s. Today, those old newspaper accounts offer a mystery for wildlife veterinarian and scientist Joe Gaydos of the SeaDoc Society: What were people actually seeing?<\/p>\n “We love the mystery right? And the ocean is just full of mysteries,” said Gaydos.<\/p>\n A creature that drew crowds <\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n One headline from 1958 declared: “Loch Ness in Scotland has nothing on Whidbey Island.”<\/p>\n The creature was described as light brown, 12 feet long and 12 inches in diameter. Reports out of Anacortes added another unusual detail: a tuft of black hair on its head.<\/p>\n According to Anacortes city lore, even The Associated Press reported on the animal. People reportedly came to gawk, with some cutting off pieces to keep as souvenirs.<\/p>\n But the descriptions alone leave questions about what the creature could have been.<\/p>\n FOX 13 brought the old reports to Gaydos, who walked through several possibilities, from deep-water fish to sharks found in the Salish Sea.<\/p>\n Could it have been a shark? <\/p>\n Local perspective:<\/p>\n An oarfish might seem like a candidate for a sea serpent sighting because of its size and shape. But Gaydos ruled it out, saying an oarfish has never been seen in the Salish Sea.<\/p>\n Other possibilities included a sixgill shark, a basking shark or a lancetfish<\/p>\n Sixgill shark (top left), a basking shark (top right) and a lancetfish (bottom) <\/p>\n According to Gaydos, sixgill sharks feed near the surface and have washed up on beaches in the Salish Sea.<\/p>\n Basking sharks can reach 30 feet long. While gentle, they can look frightening to someone unfamiliar with them, he said.<\/p>\n “If that thing washed up on the beach it would terrify people, especially if they hadn\u2019t heard of it,” said Gaydos.<\/p>\n Lancetfish were lower on his list because they live in very deep water. Their appearance, however, could certainly fuel a frightening description.<\/p>\n “These are fish of the deep and imagine your worst nightmare while you\u2019re swimming. This is a long eel like fish that has just giant teeth,” said Gaydos.<\/p>\n His strongest guess: A wolf eel <\/p>\n If Gaydos had to put money on an explanation, he would choose a wolf eel.<\/p>\n “It can grow to be eight feet long and its head is almost probably as big as my head,” said Gaydos.<\/p>\n He described large jowls and sharp teeth that nearly stick out of it\u2019s mouth.\u00a0<\/p>\n That remains his strongest guess, rather than a confirmed identification of the creature described in the old reports.<\/p>\n More beneath the surface <\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n How could a marine animal be mistaken for a sea serpent in 1958?<\/p>\n Gaydos pointed out that scuba diving was still new at the time, giving people fewer opportunities to see what lived beneath the surface.<\/p>\n “People didn\u2019t have submarines and so there was all of this unknown and there\u2019s still a lot of unknown so it\u2019s not surprising that people are looking out there and wondering what something is and conjuring up cool ideas about it,” said Gaydos.<\/p>\n Today, more than 260 species of fish are known to inhabit the Salish Sea, according to Gaydos.<\/p>\n “We live in a hugely biodiverse place,” said Gaydos.<\/p>\n MORE NEWS FROM FOX 13 SEATTLE <\/p>\n Seattle Revive I-5 Milestone: Northbound Ship Canal Bridge lanes set to reopen by early November<\/a><\/p>\n RunX Seattle opens registration for debut downtown half-marathon<\/a><\/p>\n New orca calf spotted in WA with southern resident killer whale J pod<\/a><\/p>\n Garth Brooks adds third Seattle show at Climate Pledge Arena<\/a><\/p>\n Seattle homelessness plan: Mayor Wilson expands pilot program citywide<\/a><\/p>\n To get the best local news, weather and sports in Seattle for free, sign up for the daily\u00a0FOX Seattle Newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Download the free FOX LOCAL app for mobile in the\u00a0Apple App Store<\/a> or\u00a0Google Play Store<\/a> for live Seattle news, top stories, weather updates and more local and national news.<\/p>\n The Source: Information in this story came from the SeaDoc Society and FOX 13 Seattle reporting.<\/p>\n Whidbey Island<\/a>News<\/a>Washington<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash. – Forget the monster under your bed this Halloween. What about the one once said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,294644,46,43,141,208,82418,294645,386],"class_list":["post-655121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-il","tag-island-county","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-science","tag-us","tag-wa","tag-whidbey-island","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sixgill](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/vlcsnap-2026-10-22-18h48m11s800.png\")
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