“Mystery of waters, never slumbering Sea!”
— James Montgomery
Ask the average person on the street to name a few of the most legendary, elusive and mythical(?) beasts in the history of humanity and far and away the survey would say “Bigfoot” and “the Loch Ness Monster.”
“Mystery of waters, never slumbering Sea!”
— James Montgomery
Ask the average person on the street to name a few of the most legendary, elusive and mythical(?) beasts in the history of humanity and far and away the survey would say “Bigfoot” and “the Loch Ness Monster.”
No other criptids have captured the world’s imagination, at least in Western cultures, to a greater extent than these two big lugs and at one point in our history anyway, the waters around Catalina were the location of a number of sightings of our very own “Nessie.”
The sightings occurred many years ago and all of the principals involved have long since passed from this early plane. But the number of sightings and the distinction and prestige of those involved make for a fascinating bit of local lore.
Named not for the town of San Clemente, but for the Island of the same name, the Clemente Monster was first reported in the early 20th century. “It had a great columnar neck or body,” claimed author and attorney Ralph Bandini on a fateful fishing trip off Catalina in 1916. “Surmount this neck or body with a flat-topped, blunt reptilian head.”
Bandini went on to describe the eyes as “two huge, round, bulging” ones—features that would be common to subsequent sightings.
“Two things stood out above all others,” continued Bandini. “Those enormous eyes and its unbelievably huge bulk. I never want to look at such eyes again.”
In the June 1991 issue of National Fisherman magazine, Bandini elaborated on his sighting. “It was as big as a submarine, like something out of prehistoric times.” In this 1991 version, he also claims to have fired a number of shots at the beast with his 30-30 rifle; an act which had the desired effect of sending the critter scurrying into the depths.
Most of the sightings of the Clemente Monster occurred during the 1920s, including a close encounter in 1920 or 1921 by none other than George Farnsworth, after whom Farnsworth Bank off Catalina’s windward side is named. “Whatever it was,” said Farnsworth, “(it) stood 15 to 20 feet out of the water…I seized the glasses and had a perfect view because we were running towards it.”
“Its eyes were 12 inches in diameter, not set on the side like an ordinary fish, but more central. It had a big mange of hair, about two feet long,” he said. “I saw it afterwards several times,” he continued. “Lots of people said it was a sea elephant. Well, I know a sea elephant … This was no sea elephant.”
Was this Mr. Farnsworth’s sneaky way of keeping others out of his fishing grounds? If so, he apparently enlisted the help of several others over the years.
One of the Tuna Club’s most famous early members, George C. Thomas III, described as “not given to tall tales or exaggeration” reported a sighting in the mid-1920s; an encounter that appears in the book “History of the Tuna Club.”
“What the hell was that?,” asked Thomas of his fishing partner upon seeing “a big black form, like the sail of a Japanese albacore boat.” As they approached the creature, it submerged out of sight. The last recorded sighting of the Clemente Monster (that I could find anyway) took place in 1927 off the Orange County shore. Howard Wilson, the Orange County editor of the Los Angeles Times in those days, claimed to have seen our seafaring friend about 400 yards off Laguna Beac He claimed the “brownish” monster had a camel-like head and neck, along with “eyes like dinner plates and a neck that extended some ten feet above the surface of the sea.”
Now, in the 21st Century—whether from our waters or from our minds—the Clemente Monster has apparently moved on.
Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available on Amazon, Kindle and in stores all over Avalon.
