THE PENSACOLA PLESIOSAUR
Not many sea monster encounters end in death, but Florida has the dubious distinction of two sea serpent sightings that led to tragedy. DAVID GOUDSWARD tells the story of one of them.
Other than accounts in folklore such as mermaids luring sailors to their doom, or the hapless fisherman killed by Nessie, there are very few marine cryptid encounters that involve fatalities. Florida has the dubious distinction of having two alleged sea serpent sightings that led to tragedy. DAVID GOUDSWARD tells the story of one of them.
One of the most notorious sea serpent reports in cryptozoology came to the attention of researchers in 1965. While there is no shortage of sea serpent sightings in Florida, the area around Pensacola had been quiet. Other than Thomas Helm’s 1943 possible cryptid pinniped sighting 100 miles away in St Andrew Bay in 1943, there is no record of sightings along that section of coast. So when the May 1965 issue of Fate magazine hit the newsstands, cryptozoology researchers were taken by surprise. Author Edward Brian McCleary claimed he was the sole survivor of a sea monster attack in 1962.
In the version McCleary recounted in
Fate, he was 16 years old when another teen named Eric Ruyle invited him to go skin diving later that Saturday morning, 24 March 1962. McCleary agreed. Rounding out the group was 17-year-old Warren Salley, 14-year-old Larry Bill, and 14-year-old Brad Rice. McCleary admitted he was completely unfamiliar with the dive site – the wreck of the Massachusetts, a WWI battleship built in 1893 and scuttled by the Navy in 1921 to be used for target practice. Lying in 25-30ft (7.6-9m) of water, part of the ship is still exposed to this day. No longer of use to the Navy, it had become an artificial reef and the destination of the increasingly popular new hobby of skin diving.
The group’s destination was Fort Pickens State Park (now maintained by the National Park Service) at the western tip of Santa Rosa Island. An hour later, they were parked near the fishing pier and preparing to launch a 7ft (2m) Air Force life raft, equipped with a drift anchor and oars. McCleary noted they had climbed to the top of Fort Pickens and could see the wreck, two miles (3.2km) off the coast. He observed the water was cold as they launched the raft.
They took turns paddling. Salley was paddling when Bill noticed the wreck was now on the left, but when they’d started out, it had been on the right. In other words, the current was pushing them to the west. McCleary noticed that whitecaps had formed, and the sky was clouding over as the wind picked up. They decided to turn back, but the wind and waves were pushing them into the Bay channel. Ruyle, McCleary, and Salley jumped into the icy water and began kicking behind the raft while Bill and Rice took the oars. But the tide was just too strong. They climbed back into the raft, shivering from the cold. The waves were so high they had to hold the sides. The sky continued to darken, and they could see small craft heading to port in the distance. They tried to wave down a passing ChrisCraft with no success. Bill began getting hysterical.
McCleary pointed out a buoy about a mile in the distance, and they began paddling toward it. The plan was to hook it with the drag anchor. As they neared it, the waves were threatening to swamp the raft – only the inflated sides kept them afloat. They neared the buoy, but before McCleary could toss the drag anchor, the waves lifted the buoy up from its mooring and a riptide formed beneath. They looked at the 20ft(6m) tall, red-metal behemoth as McCleary stood up and hurled the anchor, like a lasso, at the buoy. Before the anchor reached the buoy, the raft was caught in the current and dragged straight toward the bottom of the buoy. McCleary yelled for everyone to jump as the buoy came down off the wave, smashing into the raft.
Salley spotted the raft resurfacing. McCleary and Ruyle reached it first and were able to flip it over. They climbed back in as a cold driving rain began. They watched helplessly as the current pushed them past the Massachusetts. McCleary noted the wheelhouse sticking out of the water and wind roaring through the windows, making a sound like a siren.
Before McCleary could toss the anchor, the waves lifted the buoy up from its mooring
THE ENCOUNTER
The five teens lost track of time, but eventually, the rain tapered off to a fine mist and the sea subsided to a dead calm. A thick fog rolled in and McCleary noted it was unnaturally silent; the silence just reemphasised their predicament. Rice began to panic. They tried to calm him down and decided all they could do was sit and wait. The fog limited them to 25ft (7.6m) of visibility. The water, which had been notably cold at the beginning of the trip, was now unusually warm, yet this was only March.
Bill suddenly bolted upright and said he heard a boat. No one else heard anything, but the air suddenly became thick with a sickening smell of dead fish. Forty feet (12m) away, a tremendous splash generated waves that reached the raft and broke over the edge. They heard another splash, and through the fog they could see a shadowy form that looked like a telephone pole, 10ft (3m) tall with a bulbous shape on the top. It stood there for a moment, then bent in the middle and dove underwater.
They heard another splash, and through the fog they could see a shadowy form
A high-pitched whine broke the silence and the boys panicked. The five of them put on their swim fins and jumped into the water, which was covered in patches of crusty brown slime. McCleary noted a slight current that he hoped would lead to the shore. Instead, they decided to try to reach the Massachusetts. Ruyle and McCleary took the lead, with the other three close behind. Whatever they had seen, they could now hear, hissing and splashing behind them. The fog was clearing but the water was getting rougher. It began raining again and the water was getting colder.
McCleary was beginning to get a cramp, so he started swimming with slow, deliberate strokes, more concerned with staying afloat. Ruyle was still nearby, and they would call back to Rice, Salley, and Bill. As they swam toward the wreck, they suddenly heard a scream and Salley yelled that the monster had gotten Rice, but his yells were suddenly cut off by a short cry. Bill caught up with Ruyle and McCleary. The only sounds were the ocean and thunder. McCleary slipped into a fugue – unaware of the ocean depth or what was out there, and imagined sinking peacefully to the bottom. The pain in his legs snapped him back to reality and he realised Bill had vanished. He and Ruyle dove under, but there was no sign of Bill. Ruyle grimaced and also went underwater. He was cramping up badly. McCleary had him wrap his arms around him and began swimming. They struggled through the water for several hours. Night had fallen and the two struggled onward in the dark, waves breaking over their heads.
Just about when McCleary was about to give up, a lightning strike lit up the sky and they saw the silhouette of the Massachusetts.
A wave broke over them and the two separated. Another bolt of lightning showed Ruyle ahead of him, swimming toward the ship. The creature surfaced next to Ruyle. McCleary noted the long neck and small eyes. The mouth opened, and it dove on top of Ruyle. McCleary screamed and swam past the ship. He didn’t remember swimming the two miles (3.2km) from the wreck to the shore. He slept in an abandoned watchtower until the morning when fishermen spotted him.
THE REPORTS
Bernard Heuvelmans briefly mentioned McCleary’s story in the 1968 English version of In the Wake of Sea Serpents, unwilling to commit to its authenticity because he had only been made aware of it just before releasing the English edition and was reluctant to speculate. Other authors were less cautious, using the Fate version as if it were the only source available.
The Fate article embellishes details when compared to the newspapers of the time that anxiously covered the search for the boys and McCleary’s rescue. Allowing for exaggeration and hyperbole to make the story more marketable for Fate, there are factual issues as well. Charts of the harbour at the time confirm a red buoy nearby, just 200 yards (180m) off the wreck, designated “WR2”. But the buoy had a bell and flashing red light, making the location of the wreck reasonably easy to detect in fog, rough seas, or darkness. All other red buoys would be on the starboard side of the channel. The nearest would be the port side markers, which would be black. The nearest starboard (red) buoy without a light or bell would be 1.5 miles (2.4km) away on the far side of the channel, and the port buoy on the opposite side had a light. In fact, it would be difficult for the raft to become lost unless it was pushed across the channel into the shoals on either side of Pensacola Pass, which would require a direction perpendicular to the current and would make land still visible during the daylight hours.
So what actually happened to Brian McCleary and his friends that day?
A review of the 1962 newspapers confirms that McCleary was involved in a tragic trip into Pensacola Pass where four of his friends disappeared, but there are notable differences between the contemporary newspaper accounts and the version in Fate.
Brian McCleary’s mother was in Fort Walton Beach Hospital for a series of tests when her son’s friend, 16-year-old Eric Ruyle, came to the hospital to ask if Brian could go spearfishing the next day off Fort Pickens with a group of friends. What Ruyle didn’t stress was how far off Fort Pickens Ruyle and his friends were planning to go.
Saturday, 24 March 1962, was a perfect day for snorkelling. Clear skies, temperatures in the mid-60s°F, and no rain in the forecast. More enticing to Brian McCleary was their destination; he had only lived in Florida for a year, and while already an avid diver, he had never visited a shipwreck. His mother would later tell the newspaper that he had never been in a boat, let alone a raft. So it appeared that none of the teens had a sense of the potential risks.
Even today, the Massachusetts, although in shallow water, is not considered a dive for novices. The ship was scuttled in a location selected for military target practice, its future popularity among divers not considered. It is in the Pensacola Pass, an outlet that connects Pensacola Bay with the Gulf of Mexico. The location is prone to strong currents and rough surges. The adventure was doomed almost from the start.
The version of events in local newspapers was based on interviews with McCleary, and the difference between the two versions is striking. In the original newspaper version, the teens had barely paddled a quarter-mile from shore when swells started threatening to swamp the raft. They decided to head back, but discovered they were caught in a strong tide that was pushing them out into the Gulf of Mexico. The raft passed a channel marker buoy that the teens attempted to hook onto with the drag anchor. This was unsuccessful, but it also confirmed they were being pushed out into the open sea. The boys debated swimming to the buoy, but within 15 minutes, it was already a half-mile away. Panicking, they decided to abandon the raft and swim to a buoy.
The plan was to stick together and help each other reach the buoy. The plan fell apart as soon as they hit the water. The current was too strong and the boys were exhausted from attempting to paddle back to safety. Salley and Rice immediately became separated in the swells. Ruyle soon developed muscle cramps. McCleary and Bill attempted to hold Ruyle up, only to have McCleary develop leg cramps as well. McCleary tried to get Ruyle to hold on to him but told him he didn’t think they were going to make it. Ruyle told him they were at least going to try. Another swell separated McCleary and Ruyle. In this dinosaur-free version of events, McCleary told searchers he didn’t actually see any of the four go down.
McCleary was a strong swimmer, probably the strongest in the group. He
kept his head and realised that to battle against the current was futile. Using the buoys as landmarks, he began swimming at an angle, cutting across the current rather than battling it head-on. Using only his arms until his legs began to loosen up, he swam for hours. Feeling the tide changing direction, he allowed it to push him toward land. He reached the shore after dark. He had been in the water for more than five hours. He staggered onto dry land, but couldn’t find any buildings. Exhausted, he fell asleep against what he thought was the Coast Guard watchtower on Santa Rosa, seven miles (11km) east of their starting point at Fort Pickens.
McCleary was found at 6.45 the next morning by spear fishermen. He learned that the Coast Guard had spent most of the night searching for them. He had been sleeping against an old gun emplacement at the abandoned Fort McRee on the eastern tip of Perdido Key, almost directly across the Pass from where they had started. The fishermen took him to a nearby trawler that radioed for a Naval Air Station helicopter. The ‘copter that took him to the hospital for observation was piloted by Major Ralph Ruyle, Eric Ruyle’s father.
The raft had washed up further west on what is now called Perdido Key Beach, roughly where the Beach Colony Resort now stands. It had not capsized, swamped, or been crushed by a buoy. It still contained five spear guns, five face masks, three fins, a knife, five pairs of shoes, five towels, three hats, and a cap.
By Monday, as reports from the search
Shortly afternoon, the body of 14- yearold Brad Rice washed a shore near Fort McRae
ship began to filter in from the weekend, the press was referring to McCleary as the sole survivor. With McCleary’s description, the search area was narrowed. Pensacola Naval Area Station joined Escambia County Search and Rescue as 20 boats dragged the area around the Pass. The search was called off Friday afternoon. Navy aircraft crews were ordered to keep a lookout for bodies, but there was little doubt it would be a recovery, not a rescue.
Frank Neilsen, one of the shore-based searchers, had not given up. The ocean had been particularly rough the night of 30/31 March, and Neilsen hoped perhaps it would be enough to push one or more of the bodies back to shore. He was correct. Shortly after noon, the body of 14-year-old Brad Rice washed ashore near Fort McRae. He was still wearing swim fins.
A memorial service for Eric Ruyle, Warren Salley, and Larry Bill was held that night in a chapel at Eglin Air Force Base. Their remains were never recovered. Brad Rice’s funeral took place on 2 April, followed by interment at Fort Walton Beach’s Beal Memorial Cemetery.
This version, pieced together from contemporary newspaper reports, paints a significantly different picture to the tale in Fate. Where McCleary’s 1965 version involves a squall and fog, no 1962 newspaper report mentions such weather conditions, including McCleary’s firsthand account. Additionally, the daily weather report for 24 March 1962 from the Sherman Naval Air Station clearly showed the 1965 account in Fate is incorrect. At the time
the boys launched the raft, the wind speed was 13mph (21km/h) and diminishing. The visibility was five miles (8km). There was no precipitation recorded for the day. The Naval Station reported fog, but based on hourly temperature and dew point records, fog could only develop briefly in the early morning; the sustained 8-12mph (1319km/h) winds would make it unlikely for any fog to last very long, let alone into the afternoon when the winds increased.
McCleary knew the newspaper reports of the day and the Fate article had significant differences, not the least of which was a glaring lack of sea serpents in the original account. His pre-emptive answer was that the director of the Escambia County Search had initially advised him to keep quiet about the sea monster and let the matter fade away as an unfortunate tragedy at sea.
MAKING MONSTERS
The Fate article itself was an anomaly. McCleary looked for no publicity before or after this article and avoided interview requests. Among the readers of McCleary’s story in Fate was cryptozoologist Tim Dinsdale, famous for his 1960 film footage of something in Loch Ness and his 1961 book on the beast, Loch Ness Monster. Dinsdale was working on his second book, The Leviathans, in which he included reports of other lake and sea monster sightings – a way to bolster the Loch Ness creature’s legitimacy by showing it was not an isolated case. Dinsdale was struck by how similar the description of the Pensacola creature was to another case, one he had mentioned in the 1961 book: a 1910 sighting in the Bay of Meil, off the Orkney Islands, by WJ Hutchinson. He wrote to the magazine, and the editors forwarded the letter to McCleary. McCleary wrote back, including additional details, some of which
conflicted with the particulars in Fate, let alone the actual event. The neck, brownishgreen and smooth, was now 12-ft (3.7m) long, adding 2ft (60cm) to the description in the article. The head, formerly described merely as a bulb, was now like that of a sea turtle, only more elongated and with teeth. The eyes were green with oval pupils, and there may have been a dorsal fin. And now McCleary claimed he stayed most of the night aboard the wreck of the Massachusetts and swam to shore in the early morning.
McCleary included a drawing of the monster that showed a long-necked, dinosaurian creature surfacing in front of a channel buoy. The curvature of the neck is reminiscent of the widely reproduced “Surgeon’s Photograph” of the Loch Ness monster. More telling is the buoy, showing a lateral marker buoy with a “9” written on it. Nine, being an odd number, would be on the port side of the channel heading to shore, black, not red as described by McCleary. A review of the Pensacola Pass marine charts of the time shows the number 9 buoy was not lit, meaning it was a “can buoy”, flattopped and cylindrical in shape.
The question remains: why are there multiple versions of the story?
The answer may simply be the 2¢ a word that Fate paid writers. McCleary had gone on with his life. He graduated high school in June 1963 and attended a local Junior College before transferring to Louisiana State University for the Fall semester of 1964. He met a local girl, a sophomore named Paula. By August 1965, they were engaged, and were married on Labor Day weekend. By the time he was engaged, McCleary’s story had run in Fate. The $40 (more than $320 in 2019 money) would have proven helpful for newlyweds setting up an off-campus home.
McCleary found work and attended LSU
part-time while his wife continued full-time (underwritten in part by legacy scholarships provided to alumni children). She graduated in May 1966. McCleary graduated in 1968, and the couple moved to Connecticut so he could start a career, somewhat ironically, as a life insurance claims adjuster. They moved with some frequency. He continues to maintain a low profile, unwilling to discuss the matter.
The Fate story is essentially a fictionalised version, but four families lost sons that day in 1962. They are painfully aware of how real the tragedy was. A 14-year-old boy is buried in Fort Walton Beach, and three sets of parents did not even get that much closure. There is no need for a sea monster to make it worse.
SOURCES
Tim Dinsdale, The Leviathans, Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1966.
Bernard Heuvelmans, Rupert Hart Davies, 1968.
Edward Brian McCleary, “My Escape from a Sea Monster.” Fate 18, no. 5, May 1965. Pensacola Journal, 25+26+27+28+29+30 Mar, 1 Apr 1962; Pensacola News,
27+29+30 Mar 1962; Playground News (Fort Walton Beach), 27+30 May 1962.
Adapted and extracted from Sun, Sand and Sea Serpents by David Goudswad, publiched by Anomalist Books (www. anomalistbooks.com), RRP $16.96/£12.99
✒ DAVID GOUDSWARD has written books on topics ranging from HP Lovecraft’s travels to ancient stone ruins in New England, as well as many articles on Florida history. He is a frequent lecturer on historical topics and the craft of writing. He lives in Lake Worth, Florida.