FIELD FILE · BLOCK-NESS-MONSTERLAKE & SEA MONSTERHOAX / DEBUNKED
Block Ness Monster
Also known as Block Island sea monster, Block Island skeleton
A 14-foot serpent-like skeleton netted off Block Island in 1996, put on show, then ‘kidnapped’ from a freezer – most likely a basking shark.
Block Island lies about 14 miles off the Rhode Island coast, a quiet summer resort better known for bluffs, lighthouses and ferries than for monsters. In June 1996, though, two fishermen aboard the boat Mad Monk, Gary Hall and J. T. Pinney, went out netting for monkfish and came back with something far stranger: a long, serpentine skeleton about 14 feet from end to end, with a narrow skull and a spine longer than two men laid head to toe.
They laid it out on the stone breakwater at Old Harbor, near the ferry docks, and for two days curious crowds streamed in to see it. One year-round resident joked that more people visited the harbor in those two days than in the previous century. Islanders promptly christened it the “Block Ness Monster,” Pinney printed T-shirts that sold in local shops, and a bar invented a cocktail in its honor.
Then the monster vanished. Biologist Lee Scott of Nyack, New York, who had a summer home on the island, stored the remains in his freezer intending to send them to the National Marine Fisheries Service lab in Narragansett for study. While he was out fishing, the skeleton disappeared. Scott later got a call from the “kidnappers,” islanders who said they feared it would be shipped off and never returned. Some suspected the whole caper was staged to bring in tourists.
Fisheries scientists who examined photographs, including shark specialist Lisa Natanson and biologist Wes Pratt, said the bones were almost certainly those of a basking shark – a harmless, plankton-eating giant common off New England, whose decaying carcass is famous for impersonating sea serpents. The Block Ness Monster remains a cherished bit of island lore.
- Status
- Hoax / debunked
- First reported
- 1996
- Best-known location
- Old Harbor, Block Island (New Shoreham), Rhode Island
- Also called
- Block Island sea monster, Block Island skeleton
- Reported in
- Rhode Island
What witnesses describe
A gray, cartilaginous skeleton about 14 feet long, with a slender, serpent-like spine and a small, narrow skull with a long snout (about 12 inches, twice the usual for a basking shark). No flesh, fins or skin survived to identify it.
Where and when it’s seen
The waters around Block Island and Rhode Island Sound, where basking sharks feed in summer.
Notable sightings
- June 1996The <em>Mad Monk</em>’s catch Off Block Island, Rhode Island
Fishermen Gary Hall and J. T. Pinney hauled up the skeleton while netting for monkfish and displayed it on the Old Harbor breakwater, where crowds gathered for two days.
- Summer 1996The monster is “kidnapped” Block Island, Rhode Island
The remains disappeared from biologist Lee Scott’s freezer before they could be sent for study. Anonymous islanders later said they had taken it to keep it on the island; it has never resurfaced.
- September 22, 1996National headlines Block Island, Rhode Island
An Associated Press story carried the mystery nationwide, quoting fisheries experts who believed it was a basking shark and islanders who preferred a monster.
What could explain it?
- Fisheries scientists identified the remains as very likely a basking shark; when these sharks decay, the jaws and gill structures fall away, leaving a small skull and long spine that look like a plesiosaur or sea serpent.
- The unusually long snout can be explained by the way a basking shark’s soft tissues and whisker-like structures collapse after death.
- The skeleton’s disappearance before scientific study means the identification was never confirmed – and some islanders suspected the “kidnapping” was a publicity stunt.
Legend, culture and tourism
The Block Ness Monster is a favorite piece of Block Island folklore, remembered with T-shirts, a namesake cocktail and even a later eye-shadow shade, and it features on the New England Legends podcast. It belongs to a long line of “globster” and sea-serpent carcasses, such as the 1977 Zuiyo-maru find, that turned out to be basking sharks.
Places to visit
The ferry harbor where the skeleton was laid out on the breakwater for crowds in 1996.
Where it’s reported
Block Ness Monster in the news
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Sources
First published · Updated
