FT275


Back in early September 2010 (see FT268:19), I and German coll­eague Markus Hemmler jointly solved one of the most perplexing of all cryptozoological mysteries by revealing, almost 86 years after the remarkable events surrounding it had taken place, the much-speculated identity of Trunko and discovering no fewer than three hitherto unpublicised photographs of its beached carcase.

This truly bizarre entity (which I light-heartedly dubbed ‘Trunko’ in my 1996 book The Unexplained, never suspecting for a moment that this would ultimately become universally adopted as its formal name) was of course the infamous white-furred, proboscis-endowed sea monster from the early 1920s that had allegedly battled two whales out to sea at Margate, in Natal, South Africa, before its lifeless carcase had washed ashore on Margate’s beach.