When we think of the great unknowns, it is often to the heavens that we have looked,

gazing out into the deepness of space in wonder at what lies beyond.

But what lies below the surface of our planet's vast oceans is perhaps almost equally mysterious.

And for some, it is a world that will never be glimpsed in any way, at all.

Since time immemorial, the ocean has held a powerful grip on the imagination of all cultures

that have come into contact with it. Through the power of myth and folklore, it is a raging

manifestation of all that is unknown. For some, it is the very embodiment of freedom. For

others, it is nothing less than the murky fluid of their darkest nightmares.

In Sigmund Freud's interpretation of dreams, it is to water that the fame psychologist turns

to elaborate his ideas. Where at the surface we find the conscious mind, down below, deeply

submerged, lies a shadowy world of all that is repressed. And yet, for all the myths and

stories that have sprung from the sea, fantastical tales of monsters and mermaids, the remain

those that make no illusions to metaphor, whose place is not for the pages of the poet or

the psychologist's couch, but exist merely as a matter of record, stories of hidden worlds

and unknown creatures that may yet prove to be beyond our wildest imaginations.

You're listening to unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean Smith.

The sea monster has been ever present in ocean folklore since men and women first

gazed across the surface of the mysterious deep. Many creatures of myth and legend have since

been found to be nothing but misidentified aquatic mammals, creatures such as the beautiful

and baguiling manatee that gave rise to the sirens of Greek mythology. But there are also

stories equally abundant of strange sightings of creatures that don't quite tally with the known

biology. Sightings such as the one experienced by Lutheran missionary Hans Eguid in July 1734.

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