Hells Gate Sea Serpent

 

Hells Gate Sea Monster

Hells gate is a drainage system in the New York area. City Island is located at the extreme western end of Long Island Sound, south of Pelham Bay Park.

Long Island Sound off the shores of Pelham  had been the source of sightings of a mysterious sea serpent for a few years.There were so many reports during that two or three year period in the late 1870's that the respected scientific journal Scientific American collected, analyzed, and published  eyewitness accounts. No definitive proof was found.

Captain Banta ,the river pilot, rowing a small boat off the waters of City Island shortly before daylight in August 1895 on his way to meet a vessel that he was  to guide through the treacherous waters of nearby Hells Gate. Suddenly  a huge  creature with "big black eyes, which gleamed like dark lanterns" and that made a noise that "resembled that of a big steamer turning about in midstream" rose from the deep and struck his boat, raising it out of the water and nearly capsizing it.  Captain Banta dropped his oars and held onto the sides of the boat for dear life. 

The sea monster sank beneath the waters  and  then rose again  striking the boat a second time and lifting it out of the water  The monster was then attracted by the sound of a steamer and headed away leaving Banta to steer his damaged boat to shore

Three members of the United States Military also sighted the  Sea Serpent in 1895, the large beast had a head covered with "a big shock of hair."  It could lift that massive head out of the water on a long neck that writhed in the air.  Its neck was "at least four feet in diameter" and had skin that was scaly and "spotted white in places."  The face of the beast had great whiskers.."  It had a green beard and bright blue eyes with big flippers that it used to propel itself along.  Most frighteningly, when the beast dove into the depths of the Long Island Sound, its tail would shoot upward into the air "clad in rattles exactly like a rattlesnake."  When the tail reached its highest point out of the water, the rattles would begin to clang before the beast disappeared into the deep.

  A  few days after this a twenty-five foot long snake thought to be a boa constrictor floated out of the Sound and onto the shores of an island near Hell Gate, It was reported in local newspapers.

 The snake's back was badly torn as if it had  been killed by the paddle wheel of a steamer."

Some reports cite Banta’s experience as 1902 which would be after the snake was found. If that is the correct date then the dead snake was not responsible for the sightings.