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Cryptozoologist and Sea Serpent researcher Gary Mangiacopra of Milford, Connecticut, died of a coronary heart assault, age 71, on November 14, 2022.
In 2011, writer Chad Arment heard from Gary that he had a coronary heart assault and was recovering. In current months, in an try to trace down what had develop into of Gary, the sources of a detective have been employed to entry official data telling that he had handed away on the finish of 2022.
For a half century, Gary Mangiacopra gathered a powerful quantity of archives on the query of Sea-Serpents, the American Lake Monsters, and the Big Octopus of Florida. Gary additionally labored in different subjects of cryptozoology, and mysteries of his dwelling state of Connecticut.
Gary wrote of his early curiosity within the subjects he cherished for his Amazon creator profile: “I first took an interest within the fascinating discipline of cryptozoology as a younger boy after studying journal articles on the Yeti and Bigfoot. My curiosity within the discipline grew all through adolescence. Later in faculty, I started conducting formal analysis on this discipline, and finally wrote my Masters Thesis on the “Theoretical Inhabitants Estimates of Giant Aquatic Animals in Chosen Freshwater Lakes of North America.”
He adopted the analysis of Roy Mackal and Bernard Heuvelmans, and wrote “I owe partially a few of my success to my good buddy and mentor Dr. Arthur E. Gagnon. Through the years his encouragement, teaching, and technical recommendation, have assisted and helped me to proceed my analysis and writings.”
Gary Mangiacopra, a New Englander along with his particular grasp’s diploma in biology, had been inquisitive about doing archival cryptozoological investigations since he was a teen. He grew to become one of many foremost specialists within the research of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reviews of the Sea Serpent in New England.
Gary was an intensive Sea Serpent researcher, and his multi-parted “The Nice Unknowns of the nineteenth Century,” was printed in Of Sea and Shore in 1977. In Vol. 8, No. 3 (Autumn 1977), he launched his systematic classification of his findings. The Mangiacopra system organized sea serpent sightings from New England, a area famous for sightings of coiled sea serpents, a lot of which have been labeled as many-humped sea serpents within the Heuvelmans system.
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After analyzing 64 sightings from the nineteenth Century North Atlantic, Mangiacopra concluded that there have been 4 varieties of sea serpent represented in these reviews. These Mangiacopra varieties are the dorsal finner, maner, horn head, and many-coiled.
Mangiacopra later decided that many sightings, particularly after 1947, didn’t match nicely into any of those classes. Based on Mangiacopra, most post-1947 sightings of sea serpents describe animals which resemble his multi-coiled sea monster, however with completely different physique proportions.
Mangiacopra’s five-year research was based mostly on an examination of 64 alleged sea serpent sightings reported in New England (United States) newspapers between 1869 and 1899. Of the 64 circumstances, he decided that 1 was a hoax, 8 have been misidentifications, 7 contained inadequate information to make any conclusions, and 48 have been unknown animals or “doable sea serpents.” Whereas he was capable of verify that the ships and captains talked about have been actual, and have been within the said places, based mostly on the “arriving ships” columns of varied newspapers, Mangiacopra admitted that there was no method of realizing how dependable the descriptions themselves have been. He based mostly his classifications primarily on secondary options, because the sightings featured few frequent fundamental options. Every of the Mangiacopra varieties was in comparison with a Heuvelmans sort and a LeBlond & Sibert sort, the latter system being created for North Pacific reviews from the identical latitude as New England.
Based on Mangiacopra on the time, though the maner and many-coiled have been essentially the most generally reported, sightings of the dorsal finner and horn head contained extra particulars, displaying that they weren’t misinterpretations of the primary two varieties. The excellence between the maner and many-coiled was blurry, however Mangiacopra favored their identification as separate varieties.
Maniacopra’s particulars concerned:
1) Dorsal Finner
The dorsal finner appeared in 5 sightings, made between 1878 and 1888. Primarily based on these 5 sightings, Mangiacopra described it as between 70′ to 100′, with a 9′ to fifteen′ diameter and a weight of two tons. The pores and skin is clean, generally scaly or warty, and is uninteresting inexperienced to darkish brown with a lighter yellow underside. The pinnacle is in comparison with that of an alligator or a frog, and is 15′ lengthy, with a 5′ jaw sporting 6” tooth. This kind has a single pair of entrance flippers, a big fin on its again, and vertical undulation permitting it to swim quickly.
The dorsal finner is considerably equal to the many-humped sea serpent of the Heuvelmans system, and, just like the many-humped, the first principle concerning its id is a species of cetacean.
The Maner
Primarily based on seven sightings, the maner is a serpentine or eel-like animal, between 15′ and 50′ lengthy, with a flat 3′ head formed like a horse’s or a snake’s, tapering in the direction of the muzzle. Its eyes are giant, and its 10′ neck is slender. Some accounts give it a mane or beard, others quills. Mangiacopra in contrast the maner to the merhorse of the Heuvelmans system and giant eyes of the LeBlond & Sibert system.
In Loren Coleman’s and Patrick Huyghe’s The Area Information to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Different Thriller Denizens of the Deep (Tarcher, 2003), describes it as “actually simply one other title for Heuvelmans’ Merhorse.” It could be an unknown species of pinniped.
3) Horn Head
Primarily based on 5 sightings, the horn head is a long-bodied animal 25′ to 60′ lengthy, with a darkish dorsal floor and lighter underside. It has crocodile-like scales, saw-like projections on its again, a forked or pointed tail, and a pair of horns on its flat, spherical head. The horn head is in comparison with the long-necked sea serpent of the Heuvelmans system and the small eyes of the LeBlond & Sibert system. Throughout the Coleman-Huyghe system, the horn head can be a part of the Waterhorse sort. (Mangiacopra didn’t speculate on his Horn Head’s doable id.)
4) Many-Coiled
Primarily based on 5 sightings, the many-coiled is serpentine, with attribute curves looping out and in of the floor of the ocean, and swims like a snake. Its diameter is small for its size, given as 20′ to 100′, and its seal-like head, which is usually described as horned, has a diameter of two′. The loops are generally mentioned to assist dorsal fins.
Mangiacopra in contrast the many-coiled to the tremendous eel of the Heuvelmans system and the serpentine animal of the LeBlond & Sibert system, although it’s thought-about to be extra much like the many-humped sea serpent. Like that sort, the many-coiled is imagined to be an archaic, elongated cetacean, probably much like Basilosaurus.
5) Eel-Sort
A doable fifth sort appeared in a single report examined by Mangiacopra, the Rondout serpent of 1886. Mangiacopra in contrast it to the super-eel as a consequence of its lengthy dorsal fin, though the seal-like comparability was harking back to the many-coiled.
Mangiacopra has been credited with monitoring down “misplaced” St. Augustine (1896) Big Octopus information.
Lake Monsters too
Gary Mangiacopra additionally studied American Lake Monsters. He printed many articles on varied sorts of marine and aquatic cryptids within the journal Of Sea and Shore, and he instructed, for years, of making an attempt to arrange separate books on Sea Serpents and Lake Monsters.
“In 1980, Gary S. Mangiacopra printed the one scientific assessment of the proof up to now in Of Sea and Shore,” of Sharlie, the Lake Payette Monster, wrote journalist Grove Koger within the Fall 2018 subject of Idaho’s McCall Journal.
Mangiacopra “concluded that at the very least some reviews could be of pinnipeds—that’s, seals. In Mangiacopra’s situation, Northern Elephant Seals would possibly, simply would possibly, have made their method up what have been as soon as free-flowing river methods way back and located themselves trapped in Payette Lake by twentieth century dams.” (Cryptozoologist Roy Mackal wouldn’t make this identical suggestion till 1996.)
Koger continued: “I’ve a specific cause for being taken with Gary Mangiacopra’s principle. In 2001 a buddy of mine and his brother hiked to Decrease Baron Lake in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains southeast of Payette Lake. As they approached the shore with their fishing poles, a sealclimbed out of the water onto a rock about thirty toes away and barked at them. The 2 have been so astonished that they withdrew instantly and went fishing elsewhere.Now my buddy grew up within the space and has hiked nearly each considered one of its trails. He’s additionally seen nearly each conceivable animal within the area, together with, evidently, otters. What he and his brother noticed that day wasn’t an otter. It was a seal.
“Unattainable?
“Sure, after all, nevertheless it occurred.”
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Work by means of the years:
Gary Mangiacopra generously distributed his findings by means of information objects, archival articles, and copies of filmed footages to many individuals and analysis teams.
In 1978, Gary attended the FortFest in Washington D.C. to share his findings with others. He did the identical on the Lake Champlain Monster Symposium in 1980.
For instance, Darren Naish wrote of how Gary shared the Lake Dakataua “Migo” Monster footage of 1994 with others. He was inquisitive about investigating circumstances collaboratively.
Like a number of different researchers, I, Loren Coleman, was a frequent correspondent with Gary. His stuffed manila envelopes have been full of clipped articles, handwritten notes, and arduous to learn carbon copies of letters to others. However Gary rejected any type of on-line presence, in addition to emails; it grew to become increasingly more tough to be in contact with him.
The final time I used to be capable of have a face-to-face dialog with him was on the Worldwide Society of Cryptozoology assembly at Princeton, Rutgers, NJ, 1995.
In 1995, Mangiacopra wrote a significant article with Dwight G. Smith, “Connecticut’s Thriller Felines: The Glastonbury Glawackus: 1939-1967” (The Anomalist: 3) on his decades-long investigation of his dwelling state’s Black Panther accounts.
Additionally they collaborated on Dwight G. Smith and Gary Mangiacopra, “What Readers Wrote In: secondary Bigfoot sources as given within the Letters-to-the-Editors column of the Sixties–Seventies Males’s Journey Magazines,” North American BioFortean Assessment 5:4 subject 13 (December, 2003): 19–31.
In 2007, Grey S. Mangiacopra and Dwight G.Smith printed Does Champ Exist? (Coachwhip Publications). It was their first full size guide, and was concerning the doable existence of the Lake Champlain Monsters, Champ, rumored to inhabit Lake Champlain.
Mangiacopra would typically inform different researchers that he was at the moment (within the Nineteen Eighties-2000s) engaged on a two-volume guide overlaying Sea Serpents.
On his Amazon profile, he elaborated: “Presently I’m engaged on six books together with a two-volume set about sea serpents.”
That dream was by no means to come back true.
Coachwhip writer Chad Arment writes:
Loren lately famous the passing of long-time Fortean researcher Gary S. Mangiacopra. I had helped Gary with the publication of his Champ convention guide (now out of print), however his hoped-for bigger guide on marine monsters was by no means accomplished. Loren jogged my memory of his varied papers in Of Sea and Shore, a conchology publication, and it seems these can be found in an on-line archive. The archive is a bit unwieldy to go looking, however there’s a PDF obtain choice for every quantity. Gary wrote about sea monsters and blobsters of varied kinds, again into the Seventies.
Gary Mangiacopra did seem in impartial documentaries, in addition to on one episode every of Monsterquest (2008) and Historical past’s Mysteries (2009).
Many thanks to numerous web sites who’ve remembered the work of Gary Mangiacopra, in addition to the people Roderick Dyke, Hammerson Peters, Chad Arment, Dave Goudsward, Marc Myrsell, and others.
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