An "enormous" creature with a hard shell on its back and a human-like head is said to have once washed up on a beach in the West Country. The unknown beast, described as 48ft long and having green eyes, was reported to have stranded on Porthleven beach during a violent storm.
Two boys were playing on the coast and looking for shipwrecks when they stumbled across it. The hair-raising event happened on September 14, 1786, and was shared upcountry in the old weekly newspaper, Hereford Journal, in October of the same year. It was reported by a man from Cornwall who related how villagers slew the unknown beast, reports Cornwall Live.
Called 'Sea Monster', the article reads: "A just and particular description of a very curious and most surprising sea monster driven on shore in Portleaven Bay (sic), on the coast of Cornwall, on the 14th of Sept. 1786, by the strong westerly winds and tempestuous weather, which continued to a violent degree for several days successively, and did much damage at that place and neighbourhood.
