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The year 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained and downright inexplicable phenomenon
that surely no one has forgotten. Without getting into those rumors that upset civilians in the seaports and
deranged the public mind even far inland, it must be said that professional seamen were especially alarmed.
Traders, shipowners, captains of vessels, skippers, and master mariners from Europe and America, naval
officers from every country, and at their heels the various national governments on these two continents, were
all extremely disturbed by the business.
In essence, over a period of time several ships had encountered "an enormous thing" at sea, a long
spindle-shaped object, sometimes giving off a phosphorescent glow, infinitely bigger and faster than any
whale.
The relevant data on this apparition, as recorded in various logbooks, agreed pretty closely as to the structure
of the object or creature in question, its unprecedented speed of movement, its startling locomotive power, and
the unique vitality with which it seemed to be gifted. If it was a cetacean, it exceeded in bulk any whale
previously classified by science. No naturalist, neither Cuvier nor Lacépède, neither Professor Dumeril nor
Professor de Quatrefages, would have accepted the existence of such a monster sight unseen -- specifically,
unseen by their own scientific eyes.
Striking an average of observations taken at different times -- rejecting those timid estimates that gave the
object a length of 200 feet, and ignoring those exaggerated views that saw it as a mile wide and three
long--you could still assert that this phenomenal creature greatly exceeded the dimensions of anything then
known to ichthyologists, if it existed at all.
Now then, it did exist, this was an undeniable fact; and since the human mind dotes on objects of wonder, you
can understand the worldwide excitement caused by this unearthly apparition. As for relegating it to the realm
of fiction, that charge had to be dropped.
In essence, on July 20, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, from the Calcutta & Burnach Steam
Navigation Co., encountered this moving mass five miles off the eastern shores of Australia. Captain Baker at
first thought he was in the presence of an unknown reef; he was even about to fix its exact position when two
waterspouts shot out of this inexplicable object and sprang hissing into the air some 150 feet. So, unless this
reef was subject to the intermittent eruptions of a geyser, the Governor Higginson had fair and honest dealings
with some aquatic mammal, until then unknown, that could spurt from its blowholes waterspouts mixed with
air and steam.
Similar events were likewise observed in Pacific seas, on July 23 of the same year, by the Christopher
Columbus from the West India & Pacific Steam Navigation Co. Consequently, this extraordinary cetacean
could transfer itself from one locality to another with startling swiftness, since within an interval of just three
days, the Governor Higginson and the Christopher Columbus had observed it at two positions on the charts
separated by a distance of more than 700 nautical leagues.