(classical music plays) - [Knute Berger] Seattle has a hockey team named after the kraken.

A legendary old Norse sea monster.

Do we in the Northwest have a history of sea monsters?

Yes sure you betcha.

We all know about Bigfoot lurking in our forests and the pages of the tabloids, but strange creatures have also been sighted in our Salish Sea waters.

Move over Sasquatch, meet Cadborosaurus.

(dinosaur growls) (plucky music plays) The idea of sea serpents in the Salish Sea and nearby waters is an old one.

(tentative music plays) Indigenous artwork has featured a serpent light creature in petroglyphs, dances, songs, masks, and carvings.

It was a known critter long before Europeans came along with their own stories of seeing weird things at sea.

In 1880 a news item in the Vancouver Independent reported that a marvelous sea serpent had been seen again off Cape Flattery.

Quote, "He disported in the water for more than 15 minutes to invite inspection of its prodigious size and rare ugliness, throwing his long tapering body 90 feet out of the water and disclosing wings that put our main sail in the shade."

Reported one B. Stowe, when he got to port.

The serpent's snorting was said to be epic.

(creature growling) That same year, a wonderful sea monster was said to have been caught near Victoria by local First Nations people.

(gulls cry) It was brought to town and described as a genuine sea serpent.

Six feet in length with the orthodox mane.

A head shaped like a panther.

It was sent to have been preserved in spirits and sent to Ottawa for identification as no locals knew what it was.

That wasn't the last time some odd carcass found on a Northwest beach sparked the question, what the heck is it?

(waves crashing) Strange sightings weren't confined just to saltwater.

Indigenous peoples told stories of a creature in lakes famously a serpent-like critter in BC's lake Okanagan named Ogopogo.

(harp is strummed) Since the late 19th century.

Hundreds of sightings of large serpent-like creatures have been reported off the coast of Washington and British Columbia.

(mysterious music plays over waves crashing) Most in the Salish Sea from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to Willapa Bay, from San Juan Islands to Howe Sound.

The creatures weren't always flapping massive wings, but were often described as having a long body or neck, sometimes serpentine in movement.

People had different impressions of its head though, saying it looked like a dog, (dog barks) or a seal (seal barks), a horse(horse neighs), a sheep(sheep calls), a cat (cat meows), a cow (cow moos).

I suppose it's a kind of Rorschach test for the observers.

(revealing tone plays) As with UFO's, sea serpent sighting, seemed to come in bunches.

(tentative music playing) With more boat traffic, more reports came in.

The biggest bunch began in the 1930's in the waters off Vancouver Island.

In October of 1933, the Victoria Daily Times reported on an admittedly slow news day, that sightings of a strange sea creature were made by witnesses deemed credible.

That story turned on the spigot of serpent sightings.

The sightings were by two different couples roughly a year apart, both in the vicinity of Cadboro Bay near Victoria.

One witness, a Major Langley, a local barrister, was out on his yacht with his wife.

When they heard a snort and a hiss, and saw large creature with a dome-like back with serrations.

Langley had been wailing and he said it was unlike any whale he'd ever seen.

(creature grunts) It was near the same location where the previous summer, another couple named Kemp had cited something bizarre.

Mr. Kemp worked for the provincial archives and reported the siting of a reptilian creature swimming towards shore, where it raised its head out of water and rested it on a rock.

It had a serrated tail and moved to bit like a crocodile.

It had a mane that resembled a bed of kelp.

He calculated it was more than 60 feet long.

(creature growls) Like Loch Ness's Nessie in Scotland, it needed a name.

Suggestions range from the multi-syllabic Hyaschuckaluck, which means large water snake in Chinook jargon, to Amy.

But they settled on Cadborosaurus or just Caddy for short.

(revealing tone played) The sea serpent of old had hit the modern media.

(plucky clarinet music) Articles appeared, and scores of new sightings were recorded.

Some believed that there was an entire Caddy family out there frolicking from Puget Sound to Campbell River.

(light upbeat music playing) Speculation was that it could be a survivor of the prehistoric era, perhaps a Jurassic Plesiosaur.

Still, despite hundreds of sightings, high resolution photos and film have been elusive.

Strange remains on the beach, have turned out to be decayed remnants of other sea species like Oarfish or Basking Sharks.

Like Bigfoot, no one has been able to nail down just who or what Caddy is.

Maybe a better name for Caddy is a Cagey.

(bell rings with lowering of sunglasses) The Salish Sea could be crowded with cryptids.

The name for unknown species.

Researchers say Caddy sightings are not necessarily describing a single creature, but possibly two or three different critters.

Nor do sightings guarantee that anything truly new or unknown is really out there snorting and hissing and splashing about.

Except maybe the human imagination.

(mysterious music playing) (harp is strummed) - [Announcer] MossBack's Northwest is made possible by the generous support of Bedrooms & More.