The St. Augustine Monster
A giant carcass on a Florida beach was announced as an octopus far larger than any known.
What was reported
On 30 November 1896, two boys cycling on Anastasia Island found an enormous, pale carcass half-buried in the sand. A local doctor, DeWitt Webb, examined and photographed it and decided it was a gigantic octopus, reporting what he took to be remains of arms nearby.
The Yale zoologist Addison Verrill, working from Webb's reports, named it Octopus giganteus, though he soon changed his mind.
Explanations offered
Studies of preserved tissue in the 1990s and again in 2004 found it was whale blubber, a mass of tough tissue from a dead whale. Many globsters washed up around the world since have turned out the same way.
- When
- 30 November 1896
- Where
- Anastasia Island, St. Augustine, Florida, USA
- Witnesses
- Two boys, then the local doctor DeWitt Webb
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.