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Sea monsters in Casco Bay? As with many bodies of water, there are legends about strange creatures lurking beneath Casco Bay as well. Our local monster is known as Cassie and is apparently serpent-like in her form. Cassie was first sighted back in 1779 by a young sailor named Edward Preble. Fast forward nearly 200 years to 1958 when a fisherman described a similar serpent-like creature he saw that turned its head in response to the repeated blow of the foghorn. Apparently, Cassie is a long-lived serpent! The depths of this story can be plumbed at Portland’s International Cryptozoology Museum...

Photos posted on Instagram showed one of the two deep-sea dwellers — which reportedly measured 10.5 and 13 feet, respectively. One was found on the shore of Toyama Bay and the other got caught in a fishing net near the port of Imizu. According to Japanese legend, the fish will purposely rise to the surface and beach themselves whenever they believe trouble’s on the way. Residents have reported their presence before the arrivals of tsunamis and earthquakes in the past — including the 2011 Fukushima quake. However, experts have said not to worry. “The link to reports of seismic activity...

A group of Vietnamese fishermen said they were surprised when their nets snared a massive oarfish measuring more than 12 feet long. Xuan Quy and Thanh Hoa said they were out fishing with a friend Tuesday off the coast of Thanh Hoa Province when they pulled in their nets and discovered they had ensnared an oarfish measuring about 12 feet, 9 inches long. The fishermen said it was the first time they have caught an oarfish. They said it is rare to encounter oarfish because they generally live in deeper waters than their fishing nets can reach.

CATALINA ISLAND (CBSLA.com) — Could the appearance of rare “sea serpents” washing ashore beaches in Southern California portend disaster? The question comes following the discovery of the carcass of a rare 18-foot-long oarfish off the coast of Catalina Island on Oct. 13, followed by another snakelike 14-foot-long oarfish found on Oct. 18 in Oceanside. Fishermen in Japan reported a sharp uptick in oarfish sightings in March 2010 following the massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake in Chile that same month, which marked almost exactly one year before the country was devastated by its own magnitude-8.9 quake in northeast Japan. Oarfish, which can grow...

(UPI) -- A snorkeling instructor discovered a dead 18-foot oarfish off the coast of Catalina Island on Sunday. "It just amazed me," said Jeff Chace, director of the Catalina Island Marine Institute, adding that it took about 15 people to carry the leviathan onto shore. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery," he said. The instructor was snorkeling in 15 to 20 feet of water in Tony Bay when she stumbled upon the carcass after seeing a "half-dollar sized eye starring at her from the sandy bottom," Chace said. Chace said it is unclear how the oarfish died because there were no...

Oarfish omen spells earthquake disaster for Japan Japan is bracing itself after dozens of rare giant oarfish - traditionally the harbinger of a powerful earthquake - have been washed ashore or caught in fishermen's nets. The giant oarfish can grow up to five metres in length and is usually to be found at depths of 1,000 metres Photo: NORBERT WU / MINDEN PICTURES By Julian Ryall in Tokyo 7:00AM GMT 04 Mar 2010 The appearance of the fish follows Saturday's destructive 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile and the January 12 tremors in Haiti, which claimed an estimated 200,000 lives. A...

A rare - and dead - oarfish washed up at City Beach in Perth yesterday, proving more than a handful for Troy Coward, Andy Mole and Axel Strauss (pictured). The serpent-like animal was found six metres offshore, bringing to at least six the number of oarfish that have washed up on the West Australian coast in recent months. Prefering to live in the depths of the ocean they have only been known to come to the surface when sick or dying and have rarely been seen alive. Living in the world's warmer oceans, it feeds on plankton and is harmless...

PORTLAND, Maine (Wireless Flash) -- The recent tsunami in south Asia is stirring up lots of relief efforts -- and it could also be splashing all sorts of unknown sea creatures onto the shoreline. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, co-author of "The Field Guide To Lake Monsters And Sea Serpents" (Tarcher/ Penguin), predicts that relief workers will soon be finding a large number of "globsters" on area beaches. "Globsters" is the term given to big masses of round flesh that measure between eight and 20 feet. Although the globs look like octopi, Coleman says they are often previously-undiscovered species of sea serpents,...