Al-Fantas Fishman
The following report surfaced off the Jordan Times Website in 1997 (credit to Garth Haslam for making me aware of this story).
BAHRAIN - It could be a sea monster, a rare species of fish, a creature from outer space, or a total hoax altogether. But what Mohammad Yousef Obaid, a Kuwaiti municipal employee, fished out of the sea on a family outing a week ago is definitely strange.
Mr. Obaid, 35, says he found the creature floating face down in water, Aug. 8, as he was fishing in the Al Fantas area of the Kuwaiti shoreline at around 11 p.m.
"First I thought it was a dead human body and wanted to call police," he recounts. "But then I thought let me determine for myself what it was and so I turned it face up with a stick."
"I was shocked to see that the creature, or whatever, had a strong resemblance to humans," says Obaid. "I could see that the body was disintegrating but could distinctly spot the strange skull, remnants of eyes, ears and mouth, spinal cord and pelvis."
The creature could have been dead for about a week or more, according to Mr. Obaid, who adds that as he pulled the skeleton to the shore, it broke into three pieces. He took home the skull and spinal cord (which remained attached to each other) but the rest of the creature's body was missing when he went back to get it.
The skeleton is one and a half metres long; it has a big mouth, two nostrils, two eyes and two ears which jut out of the skull resembling a Chinese dragon or even the "devil" as portrayed by artists.
Mr. Obaid, a father of five, says he is keeping the skeleton in a deep freezer at home. "But it has turned black by now," he said Saturday. The municipal worker says he approached several research centres in Kuwait with the story, but "no one seemed to take me seriously."
"It is no hoax," swears Mr. Obaid. "I think it will be a big shame if such a rare find goes uninvestigated."
The Kuwaiti Merman and Other Sea Monster Carcasses
Left to right - Santa Cruz, CA (1925, a beaked whale); Effingham, BC (1947, a shark); Hendaye, France (1951, a shark); Scituate, MA (1969, a shark); the Zuiyo Maru "plesiosaur" (1977, a shark); Langkawi, Malaysia (1990s, an orca).
Second row - Al-Fantas, Kuwait (1997, a ray).
CHORVINSKY, Mark
Unk. A Gallery of
Globsters. Strange Magazine
Website.
VIVEKANAND, P.V.
1997 A Creature Fished
Out Of Arab Gulf Remains in Freezer With No Interest From Authorities.