The Queensland Creature
In December 1964, French photographer Robert Serrec was on vacation in Queensland, Australia, when he took the photograph of a lifetime -- or faked it. He was paddling rowboats with a group of family and friends in shallow waters off Hook Island, near the Queensland coast, when he says a bizarre creature appeared beneath the waves.
Serrec described the monster as an enormous, dark-colored snake with the shape of a giant tadpole. It had a huge reptilian head and a slender, waving body that stretched to about 75-80 feet. Serrec said there seemed to be a wounded area on the creature's back. One of Serrec's photos (shown on this page) presents a very clear and striking image that distinguishes it from the average blurred, murky sea monster picture. Serrec also shot some movie camera footage underwater, but it did not turn out with any distinct detail. Serrec's photo and his story have been widely discredited as a hoax. The main argument against the photo is that it is simply too clear -- it looks so perfect and so overly "real" that many experts believe, ironically, that it must have been staged. It is also extremely difficult to judge the scale of the supposed creature. The position of the tiny man in the rowboat above the monster creates the visual impression that the monster must be gigantic, but it could actually be a small prop photographed at very close range, with the rowboat off in the far distance.