The siren song of the sea serpent THEO PAIJMANS
Theo Paijmans recalls the dutch zoo director whose obsession cost him his career He had come to the conclusion that the sea serpent was real
I n October 1892, Anthonie Cornelis Oudemans, eminent zoologist and director of the Zoological Garden at The Hague, published his book The Great Sea-Serpent. It was the first critical study of a problem that had been vexing sailors and scientists for centuries. In this massive tome, numbering nearly 600 pages, the result of an intense, three-year study, Oudemans had come to the conclusion that the sea serpent was real.
He baptised the creature – which he thought an unknown seal species – ‘Megophia Megopias’. A reviewer in the
Army and Navy Gazette was impressed by his approach: “After giving a bibliography of the subject, an account of the many cheats and hoaxes, and of a number of ‘wouldbe sea serpents’ as well as a record in detail of a great many observations, and an analysis of the various explanations that have been offered, he proceeds to collate very carefully all the material he has so laboriously brought together. We believe no one has preceded him in this method.” The Times was less enthusiastic: “We hardly know what to make of a big book entitled the Great Sea
Serpent… At first it looks like an elaborate scientific treatise, and so no doubt it is seriously regarded by its author; but, on closer examination, it rather presents itself as a cumbrous and elaborate, albeit quite unconscious, joke.” A newspaper from The Hague suggested in a brief review that from now on sea monsters might be taken more seriously, but immediately below the review it had placed an account of a fata morgana: a hint, perhaps, of what the newspaper really thought. The scientific community kept Oudemans’s study at arms’ length. In the Illustrated London
News Andrew Wilson, used by Oudemans quite a few times as a source, wrote dismissively: “As for Oudemans’ seal theory, there is so much drawing on ‘what might be’ involved in its acceptation that I must discard it altogether.”
Oudemans was born on 12 November 1858. His father was an eminent astronomer and director of the observatory of Utrecht. A crater on Mars has been named after him. In 1885, Oudemans was appointed director of the Zoological Gardens of The Hague. Originally, his zoological research involved mites, tiny creatures that bear little resemblance to the elusive leviathan of the seas. Oudemans also discovered various insect species and even a new species of small African primate, all pointing to a solid scientific career. But in 1882 he wrote an article entitled ‘Something about fabulous stories and the alleged existence of the Great Sea Serpent’, foreshadowing his later obsession. That began in 1889. Three years later he had amassed 187 reports, had read anything on the subject that he could lay his hands on and had finished his spectacular study. The scientist Chladni, who had collected all he could find on meteorites and had proven their existence, was his shining example. Oudemans stated in his preface: “This work has the same purpose as Chladni’s had in 1829. It is [the author’s] sincere hope that it may meet with the same success.” The Times reviewer pointed out that the difference between Chladni’s meteorite reports and Oudemans’s sea serpent sightings was that meteorites exist and can be seen, but a sea serpent carcass has never been found; therefore its existence is as unproven as that of ghosts, no matter how many eyewitness accounts there may be.
In 1895, three years after the publication of his magnum opus, Oudemans resigned from his position as director of the Zoological Gardens. ‘Differences of opinion with his superiors’ was the reason given. He moved to Arnhem, where he taught biology at the same school where he had once studied. One of his pupils was Escher, later to become a famous artist, with whom Oudemans was on friendly terms. Oudemans was a very private person who he did not share much about his personal life. He married twice, but tragedy struck on both occasions with the untimely deaths of his spouses. He spent the last two decades of his life quietly in the company of Mrs JB Bruyn, also a schoolteacher. As before, he studied mites, the topic of most of the 584 papers he wrote during his scientific career. But occasionally Oudemans returned to his mythical monsters of the deep, for instance with a series of articles published between 1903 and 1906. The siren song of the sea serpent was too strong to resist. And when in 1933 the monster of Loch Ness became world news, his interest was piqued. He corresponded with British researchers and collected all he could on the case. A year later Brill and Luzac, the original publishers of his sea serpent book, issued his findings on the case in a slim pamphlet as
The Loch Ness Animal. In 1935, he penned four articles on the monster for a Dutch magazine – his final words on sea serpents. In 1937, he briefly spoke out: “The future will learn whether I have judged rightly or wrongly.” After a brief illness, Oudemans died on 10 January 1943. The
Great Sea-Serpent outlived him. It was reprinted many times and is currently freely accessible on the Internet. THEO PAIJMANS contributes regularly to FT and other publications. He is the author of The Vril Society and Free Energy Pioneer: John Worrell Keely.