Snakes Alive!

Investigation by Dr. Abner Mality

Outside of spiders and cockroaches, no other animal causes as much heebie-jeebies as the snake. I'm not troubled by any creepy critter and find snakes especially fascinating. When I'm not performing experiments in my lab or writing for Wormwood, I work in the Children's Gallery at the Burpee Museum in Rockford, Illinois. Yes, I know the thought of Dr. Abner Mality working in close proximity to children is horrifying, but really, there's nothing to worry about. One of the permanent "guests" in the Gallery is a big ball python named "Monty" (get it?), who seems to be a friendly old fellow. Although I must admit I gulp a bit when Monty snaps up a mouse and guzzles him down, slurping up the rodent's tail like a piece of spaghetti. Elsewhere in the museum are two fox snakes who are more affectionate towards people than just about any cat or dog I've seen.

The lack of legs and the unblinking stare of the serpent perhaps serve to unnerve the weak and fearful. Plus the constant religious propaganda about snakes being evil does little to help their cause and they can hardly defend themselves against such heinous charges.

However, a snake in excess of 50 feet long certainly would give even the stoutest reptile-lover pause. But such creatures do not exist. Or so conventional science tells us. It is generally accepted that even giant anacondas will rarely exceed 30 feet in length and never 40. The largest recognized snake was a 32 foot python bagged in Indonesia in 1910. Now a 30 foot python is nothing to mess with, but there are many reports of slithering serpents far in excess of that length. That's what we'll be looking at in this edition of Wormwood Files.

There are many stories and legends from antiquity speaking of truly gigantic snakes. Native American myth is full of stories of great horned serpents that haunted tribes of the First People. On the opposite side of the world, India and Southeast Asia also tell stories of "nagas"...giant snake spirits. These parts of the world remain hotbeds for sightings of truly gigantic snakes. And Greek and Roman writers also wrote of encountering monster reptiles in their journeys across the ancient world.

In more recent times, man has started to penetrate and dominate areas of the world where he was previously little known, such as the jungle vastness of South America and the equally dense tropical forests of Africa. It is from these locales that the best and most reliable reports of giant snakes come.

Father Victor Heinz was one of those intrepid men of God who ventured forth into the "green hell" of the Amazon basin to preach the word. As such, he was a witness of more than typical reliability. In 1922, Heinz was travelling by canoe up the Amazon River, which was swollen from recent floods. He then made this observation:

...suddenly I noticed something in midstream. I distinctly recognized a giant water-snake at a distance of some 30 yards...Coiled up in two rings, the monster drifted quietly and gently downstream. My quaking crew had stopped paddling. Thunderstruck, we all stared at the frightful beast. I reckoned that its body was as thick as an oil drum and that its visible length was some 80 feet. When we were far enough away and my boatmen dared to speak again, they said that the monster would have crushed us like a box of matches if it had not previously consumed several large capybara...

Father Heinz had just encountered what zoologists would call an "impossibility"...and what many Amazon natives would call a local species. It was not to be his only encounter with gigantic Amazon snakes. In 1929, he again saw a similarly monstrous beast in the river. This one swam placidly past Heinz's boat on its way to the far riverbank.

One of the most colorful and intriguing characters from that fabulous breed known as the "daredevil explorer" was the celebrated Colonel Percy Fawcett, a man whose life was full of incredible exploits. Fawcett was fond of a good yarn, but he was considered by those who knew him to be a man of painstaking observational skills and steadfast honesty in describing what he saw. He was a pioneer mapper of the South American wilderness and in many cases, he was the first European to venture into some of these areas. Eventually, Fawcett's wanderlust got the better of him, as he disappeared without a trace into the jungle after seeking out a "lost city" supposedly related to Atlantis. But before that tragic fate befell him, Fawcett had a wild and wooly encounter with a monster snake while travelling up the Rio Negro with a native crew. We'll let him tell the story in his own words:

...there appeared a triangular head and several feet of undulating body. It was a giant anaconda. I sprang for my rifle as the creature began to make its way up the riverbank, and hardly waiting to aim, smashed a .44 soft-nosed bullet into its spine, ten feet below the wicked head. At once there was a flurry of foam and several heavy thumps against the keel of our boat, shaking us as though we had run on a snag...We stepped ashore and approached the reptile with caution. It was out of action but shivers ran up and down the body like puffs of wind on a mountain tarn. As far as it was possible to measure, a length of 45 feet lay out of the water and 17 feet in it, making a total of 62 feet.

When Fawcett told the tale of this encounter back in civilization, he was roundly laughed at and called a liar by armchair "experts" who had never left the safety of their gentleman's clubs. If this had been the only story of giant snakes to come from South America, we could perhaps chalk it up to exaggeration on Fawcett's part. But many other reports of such beasts have come from the Amazon...several of which make Fawcett's snake sound rather small in comparison.

One such would seem to be the monstrous giant whose picture appeared in the January 24, 1948 edition of [i]The Pernambuco Diario[/i]. The photograph was submitted to the paper by a Senhor de Oliveria, manager of the local bank. According to de Oliveria, the giant snake had been found resting along a riverbank, with the horns of a recently devoured steer hanging from its mouth! That seemed to explain the rash of mysterious cattle disappearances in the area. Some brave Indians tied a strong rope around the sleepy snake's huge head and towed it by boat up the river to Manaus. De Oliveria said a measurement of the snake showed it was an unbelievable 131 feet long and that it weighed over 5 tons. Such a monster would be capable of sinking all but the biggest boats and of gulping down humans like appetizers. It is unknown what became of the giant. The grainy photo of the snake certainly seems to show something far larger than the usual anaconda but because of the way snakes coil up and the way their skin expands and contracts, exact measurements are difficult. The story does not relate if the snake was killed or not, but no further mention of it is made. The rotting corpse of such a huge beast would certainly be a nauseating health hazard.

Other anacondas in excess of 100 feet have been reported in the Amazon basin. But with the exception of de Oliveria's snake, few have been captured. One alleged 115 footer was shot and killed by militia not too far from where the 131 footer was found. And there are persistent reports by the natives of another type of truly huge snake in the Amazon river called the "sucuriju gigante". This is a far sleeker and faster creature than the thick, somewhat sluggish anaconda. The sucuriju is said to travel up the river by night and its huge eyes...the size of pie plates...glow green in the darkness. The natives are terrified of this creature and regard it with great fear.

Monster snakes are found in other habitats than South America. The dark continent of Africa also has its reports of giant serpents. Perhaps the best photo ever of one was taken from the air in 1959. The photographer was a Belgian war hero and helicopter pilot of undoubted veracity named Remy van Lierde. Van Lierde was flying over a remote bit of scrubland in the Congo Republic when he saw a truly enormous snake slithering up a gully. Van Lierde estimated this individual's length at 50 foot at least. When he swung his chopper lower to take a closer look, the angry snake raised up and made a motion like it would bite the helicopter! You can see the photograph here. The body of the snake was compared to features in the landscape and the length did indeed seem to be in the neighborhood of 45-50 feet. The photo was judged genuine by many experts. And what would a well respected man like van Lierde have to gain by creating a hoax out of the blue? His photo is the best evidence that truly monstrous snakes really exist.

How about the U.S.A.? While the States don't boast nearly as many accounts of giant snakes as South America and Africa, there are some noteworthy reports. The Keystone State of Pennsylvania seems to be the American hotspot for mega-snakes. Big Top Mountain in the Poconos was the location for many sightings of a 40 foot snake. Sightings started in 1919 and lasted all the way up to the mid-70's. Since no witnesses have spotted this customer in the last 30 years, we can assume that whatever big snake haunted the mountain is now dead. It's worth noting that the Pennsylvania mountains are full of caves and abandoned coal mines where such creatures can hibernate during the winter. Also, since big snakes can live to a ripe old age, this was very likely one especially huge individual.

Ohio has also seen its share of giant snakes. The most famous is undoubtedly the legendary "Peninsula Python" who terrorized the Cuyahoga River area in 1944. When snake tracks that were wider than a car tire were found amidst the area farms, the Peninsula area went on alert. A local chicken coop was raided by the beast and a hysterical woman said she saw a 20 foot snake devouring a chicken. Trackers were called in and a reward was set for the snake's capture. But this python was a wily customer and always seemed to be one step ahead of his pursuers. He was never captured. A 20 foot snake is certainly not outside the realm of possibility, but nothing native to Ohio could attain such a size. Remember, this was in the days before people kept large snakes as pets,too. In addition to the Peninsula Python, the village of Rogues Hollow (kind of a cool name for a town!) was the site of frequent large snake sightings. A 13 foot python was captured in 1944 and 10 years earlier, the biggest blue racer ever recorded--9 an a half feet--was also found in Rogues Hollow. Fear and surprise might add a few feet onto the length of these critters in witnesses stories.

Nowadays in America, a giant snake is likely to be a python that some half-witted exotic pet owner dumped into the wild. Such creatures have been known to last a long time on their own, usually feeding on domesticated dogs and cats as well as wild animals. Accompanying this article you'll see a picture of a 19 foot boa constrictor caught in Noblesville, Indiana in 2006.

My own mom told me once about a childhood encounter with a big snake. She grew up in the valleys and hollows of southeastern Wisconsin in Mineral Point and would often play amongst the tumbled stones and logs there. One spring, while jumping from one big stone to another, she happened to look down and catch sight of an enormous snake of at least 10 feet in length, coiled quietly between the stones. Needless to say, Mom departed in haste.

Now just think of the real giants we've mentioned here. If a 10 foot snake can cause fear and panic in people, just imagine what a 100 footer would do! Do these mega-snakes still roam the jungles of the Amazon or Southeast Asia? There have not been reports of such giants in several decades now. A few years back, an Indonesian village claimed to have captured one, but that was proven to be a hoax. With jungles fading before chainsaws and fire everywhere, can even the mightiest of reptiles hope to survive?

I for one hope that they will...

This is Dr. Abner Mality, turning out the lights...