The Science of Monsters

There were reports of abductions in the late 1980s and early ’90s that sounded strikingly similar to the Creature from the Black Lagoon. In “Abduction Notes,” published in the April 1993 issue of the MUFON UFO Journal, hypnotherapist John Carpenter said:

Typically, these reptilian creatures are reported to be about six to seven feet tall, upright, with lizard-like scales, greenish to brownish in color with claw-like, four-fingered webbed hands. Their faces are said to be a cross between a human and a snake, with a central ridge coming down from the top of the head to the snout. Adding to their serpent-like appearance are their eyes which have vertical slits in their pupils and golden irises.

The Gill-man in Creature from the Black Lagoon attacks because his home is being invaded by visitors. Are there instances in nature of animals fighting back against imposing forces? There are numerous examples all across the world of animals attacking humans when they encroach on their territory. Alligators in Florida, lions in Tanzania, and tigers in Bangladesh have all been reported in attacks. There are two main reasons for increases in these incidents. The first is a positive thing: conservation efforts. Because more species are being saved and more habitat is being set aside to preserve, the chances increase of human-animal encounters. On the flip side: as the human population increases globally, more land and food are being taken up. Animals will attack for food or to defend their territory, and these attacks can be devastating. One incident in 2002 saw a single elephant taking the lives of twelve people in Nepal.⁷ Experts say that although the number of people dying from animal attacks is increasing, it is still rare and lower than the number of those dying from disease, famine, and war.

If the Gill-man could have communicated that his territory was being invaded, would it have helped? In 2017’s The Shape of Water, a movie inspired by Creature from the Black Lagoon, director Guillermo del Toro explores the romantic relationship between a creature and a woman. The character of Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) is mute and communicates through sign language. She is able to connect with the creature in the movie by teaching him sign language, and they fall in love. Although the creature may be part human in The Shape of Water, there are many real-life examples of animals being able to communicate with humans. Perhaps the most famous case is Koko, a female western lowland gorilla that learned a modified version of American Sign Language. She was able to use more than one thousand signs and understand over two thousand spoken words.⁸

Gorillas aren’t the only animals that have been known to communicate with humans. Dolphins, elephants, dogs, and birds have all been known to learn words or symbols when observed in studies. A border collie named Chaser learned over one thousand words and Kanzi, a bonobo, learned more than three thousand symbols.⁹ What can we, or they, do with this knowledge? Because our brains are different than animal brains, we may never have the same things to converse about. We think about things differently. According to primatologist Joan Silk, “primates are endowed with cognitive abilities that are especially well suited to tracking social information. For example, primates are able to recognize individuals; identify kin; compute the value of resources and services; keep track of past interactions with group members; make transitive inferences; discriminate between cooperators and defectors; and assess the qualities of prospective rivals, mates and allies.”¹⁰ She suggests sticking to these topics if communicating with a primate.

Humans have explored less than 5 percent of the planet’s oceans. What could be lurking beneath the surface? We may never know. But learning about the lore and legends that surround the deep and ways to better communicate with animals may help us if or when we run into our own creature from the black lagoon.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

JAWS

Year of Release: 1975

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writer: Peter Benchley

Starring: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss

Budget: $9 million

Box Office: $470.7 million

Beachgoers are tormented by a man-eating great white shark in Jaws. Although the town of Amity in the film was fictional, movie fans distinctly remember avoiding the water after seeing the blockbuster in June of 1975. California native Cheri Gray Pierce recalls the feeling of the time. “I was just finishing up my sophomore year of high school and was spending a lot of time at the beach that summer. I remember a lot of people being freaked out about going in the water, hearing a lot of them breaking out in that ‘shark music’ while we were basking in the sun.”