Willie the Sea Serpent
Wilmington North Carolina - Sightings of a mysterious sea serpent have come from this area for centuries. Local Indian legends reported that a giant snake lived in the ocean at the mouth of the Cape Fear River and could only be appeased by a human sacrifice. The first written record of the serpent was made in 1524 when Spanish explorer Giovanni Da Verrazano came to the area. In his journal he wrote; "We traveled to the mouth of the river and made camp. During the night one of the men saw a great snake resting upon the waves not far from shore."
Sightings continued as various parties tried unsuccessfully to build a city at this point on the eastern seaboard. The Earl of Wilmington, Spencer Compton (for whom the city is named) reported seeing something surface in the water during 1732. James Calden, a part time naturalist and full time Union soldier took down accounts of the beast when he was stationed in the city in 1865. He wrote; "Local citizens all seem to see the same thing. A long snakelike creature that surfaces occasionally at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. It is described as being dull gray in color, approx. 4 feet wide and over 40 feet in total length. They have named it 'Willie' in honor of the town of Wilmington."
Local sightings of the monster have continued and Tabbot Cruthfield, a local historian, has recounted several of the sightings for a folklore book of the area and helped set up a small exhibit at the Wilmington Historical Museum.
"Willie is still out there, or at least his descendants." Cruthfield told me. "Fishermen still see him occasionally and he's been spotted up the river and even coiled around the old battleship once. In 1968, a paleontologist came here and looked for Willie but never saw him. He (the paleontologist) did write down what everyone had seen and said that what Willie might be is a 'Basilosaurus.' That's a dinosaur that's a distant relative of the whale.
If a Basilosaurus does use the mouth of the Cape Fear river as a hangout the records may need to be updated since it was thought to have died out over 20 million years ago.
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SEA SERPENT WEB CAM
A local resident has allowed us to use the balcony of his condo as a vantage point for a web camera set up to catch sight of the beast. The area under surveillance is roughly 100 feet from the mouth of the Cape Fear River. The seabed underneath the waves has a natural slope to it which rapidly drops to a depth of over 200 feet. It seems to be a favorite spot of 'Willie' and he has been spotted here over a dozen times in the last ten years. The camera puts a new frame up once every minute and refreshes automatically. In addition this camera is equipped with short range infrared which may or may not help viewing at night. If anyone does spot anything, please save the image and e-mail me at derek@freakylinks.com.
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Click here to see the "Willie the Sea Serpent" Live Freak-Cam!
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June 27, 2000 - Hot news out of Wilmington
Late last week as I was getting ready for my trip up to Alabama the Freakylinks hotline rang and on the phone was none other than my friend Brad (the freak in Wilmington who lets me use his condo patio for the sea serpent cam).
"Waz up?" I said in my best, "owner of a cool paranormal website" voice.
"Willie's up." He replied in an "I know cool stuff you don't" voice.
Well that got my attention, so I grabbed pen and paper and wrote down the facts as he yelled them out thru the phone line. The long and short of it is as follows:
Gossip around Wilmington last week was that Willie had made another appearance and Brad tracked this small talk back to its source and found a kernel of truth to the chitchat.
On Tuesday the 21st, a family was fishing at the mouth of the Cape Fear River and had something snag one of their lines. The father, Nate Bascom, thought it was just debris until he tried pulling on the rod and had it jerked out of his hands! The pole quickly disappeared under the cloudy water and wasn't seen again. The family reported seeing some swirling in the water but never saw anything expose itself.
"It wasn't a stump floating down river or trash," Bascom told me over the phone when I interviewed him. "Something that was alive yanked that pole out of my hand,. Maybe it was an alligator but I ain't never heard of a gator swimming that far down the river, they don't like the salt water that much. Whatever it was didn't see fit to raise up and look at me and I wasn't about to go out in that water and see for myself."
However, (and this is where it gets interesting) there just happened to be 2 young viewers named Bryan and Rob out of Wellington Florida that was checking out the sea serpent cam on freakylinks around this time. They sent me the following pic they saved off the web cam:
When I first got this pic I hadn't heard about the fishing pole attack and I e-mailed the boys back that I thought it might be a fish. Now I'm not so sure. Of course, like every other paranormal picture it's not something you can clearly say yes or no to about. Why won't these monsters just stop and smile at the camera once and a while? Anyway I thought I would post the info and let you decide for yourself. If you can think of anything to add make sure and post it on the discussion board.
