On April 29, 1977, Toei Kyoto Studio's latest special effects film, Dinosaur, Strange Bird ( Legend of dinosaurs and birds ) , was released.
Today's seemingly old-fashioned Loch Ness Monster vs Pterodactyl plot, with unknown jazz music, is the latest and most fashionable monster blockbuster of that era.
Just two years ago, people's enthusiasm for the Loch Ness Monster was unprecedentedly high, and some scholars explored the lake with sonar, and the news that the silhouette of the 9-meter-long monster was photographed, so the Loch Ness Monster was very hot.
Most Japanese audiences are still obsessed with the sensory impact of monster movies, unaware that they themselves are about to encounter one of the most evidence-proof sea monster events in history.
Just four days before the film's premiere, a Japanese trawler, the Miyoyo Maru, was sailing in the waters off New Zealand.
As usual, the huge distant-water fishing boat greedily sniffed the smell of fish, expecting to return with a full load.
At 10:40 a.m. this morning, Ruiyang Maru's trawling net seemed to be very rewarding, and the crew could even hear a hint of fatigue from the roar of the winch collecting the net.
The tightening of the net was gradually raised to the surface of the sea, but what was in the net was not the mackerel harvest that the crew expected, but was occupied by a large ball of rotten flesh with white flowers.
How big is this lump of meat? According to the crew's measurements, the rotten meat was 10 meters long and weighed 2 tons.
At that time, the production director Yano had preconceived notions that this was just a rotten whale corpse, so he reported it to the captain.
In fact, the recovery of some strangely shaped decomposing sea creatures is not surprising to these distant-water fishermen.
During the first boom in the whaling industry, due to the limited whaling and processing technology at that time, a large number of whale carcasses were only cut off most of the subcutaneous fat, and many of the remaining corpses became the rotten flesh of white flowers.
This rotten flesh, which usually has no eyes, no head or even an identifiable skeletal structure, was collectively referred to as "globster" because of the Tasmanian cadaver incident in the 60s, and there is currently no suitable translation for Chinese.
The St. Augustine Monster discovered in Florida in 1896
The corpse salvaged by the Ruiyang Maru was not huge, but it was far beyond the size of ordinary marine creatures.
Coupled with the white body surface, it is easy to think of cetaceans with very high fat content.
But when the crew hoisted this strange thing with a crane, Yano suddenly doubted his previous judgment.
Yano found that it did not have any distinctive hallmarks of cetaceans, such as the huge mandible of baleen whales, the teeth of toothed whales, and the skeletons that all whales have.
The unknown object also has a large amount of skeleton left behind and does not look like any marine mammal.
Yano felt that his previous judgment was too naïve, so he asked about 17 other colleagues who were present, and no one knew what it was.
The 39-year-old Michihiko Yano graduated from Yamaguchi Marine High School, and his education was not low at the time, and he was very familiar with various marine creatures.
Seeing such a mysterious corpse, he subconsciously thought of "scientific discovery" and strongly suggested that the captain keep it.
However, the rotten stench and disgusting grease that constantly dripped from the unidentified object.
This is absolutely intolerable for a full vessel worth 200 million yen.
Before discarding it, Yano borrowed a camera to take five precious photographs that we can see now, roughly measured some data, and took a sample at the fin.
All of the material was documented by Yano, including a two-way view of the body (inaccurate and with a considerable degree of speculation), as well as some key information that is difficult to show through photographs.
On June 10, 2010, the Zuiyo Maru issue was re-repeatedly screened in Japan, and this watchful part "The Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds" was screened in 10th month.
Yano returned to the company with five photos and notes taken at the time, completely unaware of how enthusiastic the interest in the sea monster was.
The company's executives were the first to show great interest, and they observed the unknown creature in the photo, and the two features of the small head and the long neck showed that it was a monster completely different from the existing creature.
They even asked some local scholars to identify the bodies in the photographs, but all said they hadn't seen them.
Since there is no authority to give a definitive answer, the speculation will surely continue.
A month later, Yano's fisheries company held a press conference to unveil the new scientific discovery.
Subsequently, several major Japanese newspapers immediately published some sensational reports on the front page.
Combined with the hot research boom of the Loch Ness Monster and the publicity of related film and television works, most people compared this small head and long neck of the unknown corpse with the Loch Ness Monster.
Thus the nameless corpse also had a new name, New Nisi (Nissi is the nickname of the Loch Ness Monster).
Compared to Nice, who looks at the flowers in the fog of the lake, The New Nice is obviously more like a widowed aquatic dinosaur.
The new Nissi in the photo has a relatively small head, a neck length of about one-third of the body length, and a broad pectoral fin.
These features are reminiscent of plesiosaurs, which are thought to be extinct (strictly speaking, plesiosaurs are not classified as dinosaurs, but will not be reiterated below for convenience).
The discovery of the new Nissi can be said to have made up the right time and place.
The so-called Tenshi, the time when The New Nissi was discovered, was at an excellent time when Japan was keen to study water monsters, as explained above.
In the 1970s, Japanese scholars first went to Loch Ness to investigate
The interlude of people, that is, the key figure of Yano, not only left behind 5 precious color photos, but also recorded a large amount of valuable information.
As for the location, it is still the most rigorous to say, to know that the most difficult to justify the plesiosaur hypothesis in the loch Ness monster incident is the environmental limitation of the lake.
Can Loch Ness accommodate the smallest population of plesiosaurs to survive to this day? How did plesiosaurs enter freshwater lakes?
The new Nissi, found in the South Pacific, has no such inexplicable problem, and the plesiosaur was originally a marine creature.
The discovery of relict species is not impossible, with one of the most famous examples: coelacanth fish associated with terrestrial vertebrate origins.
The coelacanth order first appeared 377 million years ago, and its closest suborder Scallope is thought to be the ancestor of all terrestrial tetrapods.
In 1938, a trawler also caught a large fish 2 meters long in South African waters, and although it felt strange, no one gave the strange fish any special treatment, and it was put on the market for sale.
A lady who works in the museum, Latimer, happened to meet and, out of professional sensitivity, recorded in her notebook what this strange fish with "limbs" looked like.
After discussions with fish experts, Ms. Latimer learned that it was most likely an ancient fish with a coordy eye, but unfortunately the fish had long been eaten by fishermen.
It wasn't until 1955 that scientists found at least 15 of these fish in the Indian Ocean, which was later confirmed to be the genus Speartail in the order Coelacanth, which was previously thought to have gone extinct 65 million years ago.
The story of the speartail fish is told, and the truth is that the relict species may really exist, and the plesiosaur happens to be extinct at the same time as the coelacanth.
Following the logic of the relict species, it also explains why the neck of the new Nissi was much shorter than that of the plesiosaur.
If plesiosaurs really survived, they have undergone tens of millions of years of adaptation to the environment, and plesiosaurs have also had a tendency to shorten their necks before extinction.
A skeletal structure of a short-necked plesiosaur, noting the number of vertebrae in the neck compared to Yano's notes
The Japanese are extremely eager for the final result of this major scientific discovery, and the enthusiasm is like the enthusiasm of our country to crack the Goldbach conjecture.
In 1977, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Founding of the Japan Science Museum, one of the commemorative stamps issued at that time was themed after a plesiosaur.
If we now know about this famous sea monster incident, I am afraid that we will think that the national research in Japan was fruitless.
Otherwise, to this day, there will not be so many hunting websites that have been muddying the waters and still will not give a definite answer.
So is there any conclusion about the 1977 Japanese Mizuyo Maru sea monster incident?
Yes, and it was basically conclusive in 1978.
Since it can be called the most evidence-based sea monster event, it is certainly indispensable to the systematic and rigorous research of scientists.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence comes from the analysis of the total amino acids of the collagen belt with the monster, and don't forget that Yano also took a sample of the pectoral fin at that time.
The results of amino acid analysis showed that Neones was very similar to basking sharks, with a very low difference index of only 0.95.
Basically, it is believed that the monster is some kind of shark, and it is most likely a basking shark.
Basking sharks are the second largest known shark species, after whale sharks, with an average body length of 6.7-8.8 meters, and the largest individual is more than 12 meters long and weighs 19 tons.
Like the whale shark, the basking shark is a filter-feeding fish that feeds on plankton and has a large jaw.
When basking sharks die and decompose, because shark bones are lowly calcified, carcasses are usually prone to losing large amounts of tissue.
For basking sharks, the first to bear the brunt is the huge jaw, which is missing so that the head of the carcass looks very small, and the shape is somewhat similar to that of a sea turtle.
Looking closely at the photographs taken by Yano, it is not difficult to see that The New Nissi has the V-shaped bone characteristic of sharks, as well as the overlooked dorsal fin.
Some of the information in Yano's notes actually conflict with the facts, which is why the aforementioned "personal speculation" is described.
When it was determined that the monster was most likely the research direction of basking sharks, more and more of the original doubts were also solved.
For example, the monster's white subcutaneous fat and red muscles are unique anatomical features that distinguish basking sharks from other sharks.
Skeletal anatomy of the great white shark, note the bones at the pectoral fin
The most extreme is that Mr. Takatsu personally made a photo of The New Nissi.
As early as the end of 1977, Takatsu used the captured basking shark as an experimental subject, cutting off its jaw to remove internal organs and abdomen, and then using a crane to lift the basking shark carcass.
The result is an almost perfect reproduction of the scene that Yano photographed on the Miyo Maru.
Combined with a variety of studies and evidence, a considerable number of scholars published reports in 1978, basically concluding that the unidentified organism is a severely decayed shark, most likely a basking shark.
Many years after the incident, some badly decomposed basking shark carcasses appeared, and their shapes were basically similar to those of the new Nissi, further affirming the conclusions of most scholars.
However, most Japanese people do not pay attention to rigorous scientific reports, and still firmly believe that the new Nissy is an unknown monster or a relict dinosaur.
Not only were they still keen to find "more plausible" hypotheses for the New Nissi after 1978, but they also moved the New Nissi into various works as a culture.
Rather than saying that the Japanese cherish the possibility of becoming a "scientific discovery" that may change the world, the Japanese want a "Japanese discovery."
From Yano's notes, they preconceived notions about describing a dinosaur-like creature.
In contrast, Europe and the United States, which are also interested in the discovery of sea monsters, rarely mention some whimsical hypotheses in their media reports.
There are many reasons for this discrepancy, and it is difficult to say that there is no national pride that has been exploited.
But isn't that also human nature?
If the New Nissi incident had occurred on a fishing boat in the United States, perhaps they would have preferred that the monster be this ↓
In this way, the American people will no longer worry about China's recovery of the leased fat, and anyone can fish a few heads from the sea and put them in the aquarium every day.
*References
HUO Yuhua,CUI Renshu. Monsters in the Pacific Ocean - Still a Mystery[J]. Chinese Journal of Nature, 1978(07):446-450.
Nankai monster "Newnessy". UMA (mysterious unimidified animal), http://www.nazotoki.com/newnessie.html
Glen J. Kuban. Sea-monster or Shark? An Analysis of a Supposed Plesiosaur Carcass Netted in 1977. Reports of the National Center for Science Education , May/June 1997,Vol.17,No.3,pp.16-28.
By Danny Kringiel. Mystery of "sea monster" finds The great blob. http://www.spiegel.de/einestages/globster-raetselhafte-monster-funde-am-strand-a-1058720.html
Newnessy's dream was "cut off" – immunoassay also confirmed "swallow". Asahi Shimbun, June 5, 1978 morning edition, 13th edition, page 22.
Two Uri, no, two sharks. Asahi Shimbun, morning edition, 13th edition, page 22, november 13, 1977.