Extra-large, even giant-sized, eels are frequently cited as potential identities for all manner of freshwater and maritime monsters around the world, including Britain's very own Nessie. Down through the years, I've documented a fair few of these reports, from such disparate, far-flung locations as North America, New Zealand, and the Mascarene Islands. Now, another location, Vietnam, can apparently be added to that list.
Longstanding Loch Ness Monster researcher Steve Feltham hosts a very interesting and informative public Facebook group entitled 'Steve Feltham, Nessie Hunter, Interactive Collective', which acts as a forum for sharing relevant information relevant to this pre-eminent cryptid. On 13 October 2022, group member Mike Gavan from New Zealand posted the following fascinating account of what may have been a truly gigantic eel encountered underwater off Vietnam by one of his friends:
I’ve just had a visit from an older friend of mine, Tim.
Tim was a deep sea diver in the 1970s, working from a bell at an average depth of 200 m [656 ft], his work was in the area of undersea recovery, maintenance for the oil industry world wide.
Around 1974, Tim was diving on a recovery job at 220 m [722 ft] off the coast of Nha Trang, Vietnam.
His job was to recover a length of special purpose ducting that had been lost overboard, he was to locate it, tie it and await a winch.
About 10 minutes into his dive from the bell Tim saw what he believed was part of the ducting and proceeded towards it, [but] as he got close enough to touch it he realised that it was not ducting!
"It was soft and felt like an eel or fish, the girth was around 6 ft, when I did actually touch it a large head looking like a snake or reptile appeared in my lamps, I contacted the top and asked if they were seeing what I was seeing as I had a camera attached to my dive suit, yes was the reply. ”Go to the bell now Tim, repeat, go to the bell now!” was their reply, I estimated the creature to be over 100ft, possibly 120-130 ft in length, I turned and headed bell asap, which wasn’t quickly due to my dive suit and gear, it was terrifying and I never looked back, I’ve seen giant sharks, strange lights etc but that snake thing was the weirdest thing I ever saw in my tenure as a deep sea diver!"
Tim is now 78 years old, honest and trustworthy & also sound of mind.
He lives on a back country farm of 4000 acres in solitude now.
This was relayed to me literally 2 hours ago.
The creature that immediately came to mind when I read this report was a moray eel or muraenid, of which there are over 200 species found in tropical and temperate waters worldwide, often in coastal regions, and are famously serpentine in appearance. However, the longest known species, the slender giant moray Strophidion sathete, is 'only' up to 13 ft long, a far cry indeed from the immense length cited by eyewitness Tim for the elongate entity that he allegedly encountered at very close range (and even allowing for possibly a sizeable degree of over-estimation on Tim's part due to the extreme shock and fear that he'd clearly experienced).
But could there be exceptional individuals far greater in size than any recorded by science existing incognito in our oceans, their huge dimensions buoyed by their liquid environment? If so, they would indeed be veritable monsters. I wonder what happened to the film that Tim's camera recorded of this creature, as viewed by his above-surface team? That would certainly be well worth a watch!
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