History of the Supernatural

The Devilfish:

For many years, local fishermen debated whether the Devilfish (also known as the Kraken) was a creature of fact or fiction. The fearsome squid was known to be as large as a ship, able to easily reach out of the sea and pluck unlucky fishermen off the deck, dragging them down to the depths of Davy Jones' Locker. It was a fearsome foe, with lashing tentacles and a razor sharp beak, and in the rare folk tales where a sailor met it and lived to tell the tale, he was only ever able to defend himself against the beast with a sharpened knife. Today, we have proof the beast is real - known now as the giant squid, or Architeuthis dux! This means that the kraken is the only sea monster in Canada to have been proven real and accepted by the world at large.

The kraken was notably spotted from land in 1873 on Bell Island, the Isle of Demons, when it lunged from the sea and attacked a young boy and a minister. Bishop's Rock in Conception Harbor marked a popular hunting ground for the beasts in days of old. Men who fished there would disappear from their boats without leaving a trace. None reappeared to tell their tales, and to shed light on what lay lurking in the deep water, that is, until Sam Wilney and Pat Daly set out to fish. They initially mistook the tangled shape for seaweed in the water, and were caught off guard when a great tentacle burst from the water. The beast, which had been laying in wait, watching for pray, rose from the deep and grabbed hold of their small boat. It seemed all hope was lost, until Pat remembered the axe that had brought on board to perform repairs to the boat. He shouted to Sam, who took the axe and used it to disarm the kraken - slicing away at the tentacles until the fearsome beast was forced to retreat. They said the tentacles were over five meters long, and that the beast's body was nearly a meter in circumference.

Creatures of the Deep

Though the Kraken is the most well known sea monster of Newfoundland, it is not the only one suspected to exist. In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, an English colonist, claimed to have seen a beast with the head of a lion and glaring eyes in the water. Henry David Thoreau echoed this in 1638 when he claimed to have seen a great serpent coiled on a rock with the same lion head.

In another account, a missionary from Norway described a beast that was bloated and huge, like a whale, but with a long pointed snout, and great paws. Is it possible that these exlporers were seeing seals for the first time, or was there something else in the water? Others describe sea serpents the size of whales, but without the lion head, and in 1915, two German submarines reported seeing a gigantic animal resembling a crocodile 18 meters long, with feel. In recent years it has been theorized by fellow investigators of the supernatural that Nessie, the famed beast of Loch Ness in Scotland could be a close descendent of the plesiosaurus that evaded extinction. Is it possible that this could be a similar creature, left over from prehistoric times? Others think sea monsters were actually oarfish, or sunfish (depicted above), though they rarely match the beasts' descriptions.

Cures and Remedies:

Before access to health care was as widespread across the province, many people relied on home remedies which have since fallen out of practice. One who suffered from visions of the Old Hag - an elderly woman who was known to crawl onto the chest of her victims and slowly suffocate them (now believed to be a shared hallucination by those who suffer from sleep paralysis) - could be cured by having friends chant their name backwards, or by strapping a board full of nails to their chest as a weapon against the spirit. A tooth ache could be cured with dust or pebbles from a fresh grave, and a wart could be cured feeding an animal a piece of bread with the blood of the afflicted's wart rubbed on it.

Great Apes

In the last century, sightings of Bigfoot have lept up, allowing this supposed cryptid to dominate many conversations about the paranormal today. Bigfoot does, however, have more disproven sightings than any other supernatural phenomena of this earth as a result of his popularity. Most scoff at the idea of a great ape swimming across to Newfoundland from the mainland - but coyotes were seen doing the same only last century, with much lower odds of survival. Gigantopithecus is a genus of ape that is believed to exist all across the globe, which made it to North America by crossing the Bering land bridge that connected Alaska and Siberia during the last glacial maximum alongside humans, 26 thousand years ago, giving it plenty of time to spread out across North America.

There are few reports of Bigfoot in Newfoundland, however, which makes the inclusion of such an animal on this site contentious. However, as has been pointed out by some who defend the existence of Gigantopithecus in Newfoundland and Labrador, many reports of the supernatural in Newfoundland have been pushed to fit into one box or another, with stories about demons and fairies, and it is possible that something so difficult to categorize might have been dismissed all together.

UFO Sightings:

There have been countless UFO sightings across the province over the years - which we are fortunate to have documented on the national UFO sighting database (it's real, look it up!). Most accounts are of floating lights high in the sky, some of which changed colors or flashed while they arched across the sky to destinations unknown. One of the most well known sightings was in 1978, when a light appeared over Random Island across the water from Clarenville. It had lights that flashed red, white and blue and hovered over 2,000 feet in the air!

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