the ocean depths there are strange creatures, survivors of the Age
of Reptiles, still living... Arguments are to no avail. Therefore I do
not hope to convince anyone - especially newspapermen - for
serpent yarns make much too good copy.
...There is not a shred of scientific evidence to show that any of
the great monsters of the Age of Reptiles still exist. No one could
ask for a better sea serpent than the thirty foot mosasaur but
unfortunately it has been extinct for about eighty million years...
[T]heir fossilized bones are never found above the beds of the
upper Cretaceous age. Then sharks[,] whales[,] and seals became
the dominant giant marine types and it is these that give rise to
most of the sea-serpent stories that are not pure fabrication."
1938
