any info on Lake Goubet, Djibouti (monster story...)
JustAThought
Concerns Lake Goubet in Djibouti, NE Africa.
According to one guidebook "Most of the coastline of Djibouti lies along the
narrow Gulf of Tadjourah, an east-west orientated trench with a maximum depth
of 883m. A shallow, nut narrow opening separates it from the semi-enclosed
basin of the Goubet al-Kharab, which has increased salinity and coral reefs of
low surface diversity."
Translated from a French site on Goubet al-Kharab:
"The site, it should be acknowledged, has what to strike imagination and
impressioner significant hearts and simple spirits: twenty kilometers length,
ten broad, the bay is entirely encircled abrupt mountains which descend
directly in water, a 600 meters height to a 200 meters depth."
It is a seawater loch known locally as 'the pit of demons'
Here's the story that related to Jacques Cousteau...
"The famous oceanologist has made a strange experiment in 1986. Not far from
Djibouti, near the El-Kharab detroit, in the Koubé area, Cousteau and his crew
immerged a shark cage containing the body of a camel. When they haul it, the
cage was totally crushed. According to unverified rumours, Cousteau has made a
film of the creature but it was of bad quality and humanity was not ready to
assimilate the discovery"
Here follows a French translation of another page I read about this.... it's
quite long, so I'll finish my post here, before pasting it below....
My question is: have any of you heard of this? know any more? anyone even been
diving there?
------------------------------
There would be mysteries remaining hidden in the past of a scientist
universally known, namely the commander Cousteau? One day will certainly come
or its descendants or his/her former companions of crew will make paraitre his
memories but while waiting for this hypothetical publication, we lean on the
Cousteau mystery...
The business burst on June 26, 1995: Stéphane Swirog, delivers information,
bringing back briévement a history reported by one of its collégues military
stationed to Djibouti: it was about a discovery carried out by the commander
Cousteau in an ocean deep off Djibouti, or are located small islands in the
gulf of Tadjoura and more particularly in the master key of El-Kharab.
According to the commander, it would not have been revealed because it would
have entrainé too significant consequences on current knowledge.
The experiment would have consisted in immersing a carcass of camel in a cage
intended for the observation of the sharks and the cage would be come out from
it crushed as by some formidable creature. No proof confirms the subject but
this rumour is trés widespread in Republic of Djibouti. In 1996, another
testimony of a soldier who be on mission in the area. According to this last,
the Cousteau team would have arrived at Djibouti and would have actually
plunged a carcass in a cage, and this one would have been entiérement crushed
at the time of its increase.
The commander would have plunged and considering something: he would have
declared that what he had seen was too significant to reveal it with humanity.
Would the discovery of commanant be "the thing" about which Pierre Clostermann
speaks? The study of deep seas and the abyssal pits is still incomplete and if
this information appeared exact, it would confirm without any doubt the
existence of a particularly fantastic, unknown animal species or to
rediscover.
Which creature could have pulverized a cage with the sharks, attracted by a
appàt? The first on the list is known: it is about the large white shark
(Carcharodon Carcharias). Is such a large white, if powerful, would be it able
to crush a shark cage? One can doubt it, especially knowing the know-how and
the competence of the Cousteau team.
Thus let us widen our field of research in the family of the sharks and come
well on to the ancétre from the large white, namely gigantic the carcharodon
megalodon of miocene. It is probably about largest fish having ever lived,
with a size oscillating between 15 to 25 meters and of the 20 height
centimetres teeth, the màchoires of this super giant of the seas having an
opening oscillating between I, 50m and 1,80m.
In 1954, the cotre Australien Rachel Cohen passed by hold séche to Adelaide
for a careenage: it is trés interessant to note that the half rings described
by the establishment of the teeth and of the traces practically a meter of ray
had. The captain of the aforesaid boat had to remember a large shock being
produced of night at the time of a tempète off Timor. Aprés a thorough study
of the hull, ichtologists Australiens concluded that the animal owner of such
teeth was to measure 24 meters roughly. There is some share in the peaceful
one, undoubtedly normally in great depth, of the sharks of the worst species
having this size.
Closterman quotes in its book of testimony of David G.Stead of the museum of
Sidney which wrote in 1963 in "sharks and rays of Australian seas":
"I had between the hands of the teeth of carcharodon dredged in the peaceful
one; they were not fossils, some was mème trés recent and had belonged to
specimens from 25 to 30 meters length."
The surface of distribution of the large white is immense; it is known in all
the seas of the world. When with the carcharodon megalodon, if there still
existed, it should live the mèmes biotopes but certainly with depths closer to
those or are supposed food the giant squids.
Noël Kemp, geologist approved of Tasmanian Museum, compares in the
illustration a fossil tooth with the jaw complete of a large white which had a
5 meters length: the size of the fossil tooth indicates that it belonged to a
12 meters length shark. It would not be thus astonishing to find off Djibouti
of such animals, the large white attending of the remainder this zone of the
Indian Ocean.
A prehistoric animal?
Mème if the assumption of the carcharodon megalodon is tempting, other
suspects could extremely well be retained. One can think of Mosasaure, which
lived with the cretaceous, at the end of the secondary ére. They were enormous
lizards whose body made think of that of an enormous crocodile. With could
their powerful teeth, they crush anything and why not a cage with sharks?
These animals had a length oscillating between 12 and 15 meters and were great
terrors of the oceans of the time. They are officially extinct since 70
million years but under the denomination of alarming spectre, one often finds
their silhouette characteristic of trés large crocodile.
With the lower cretaceous the kronosaurus lived which was largest and heaviest
of plésiosaures with neck court of the Australian area and which was a version
reptilienne of our current cachalot. Its cràne flattened at the top, length
and solid mass, measured 3 meters, practically the quarter overall length of
its body, and was larger and more extremely than that of most gigantic of the
carnivorous dinosaurs. The overall length of the animal was evaluated between
12 and 15 meters. One of its last representatives is certainly that which made
the stupor of the crew of U 28, July 30, 1915.
The submarine torpedoed in the North Atlantic the British ship Iberian and
following the underwater explosion of this last, the members of U 28 saw with
the remains of the wreck a gigantic animal raised by the deflagration:
according to the report/ratio of the commander of the submarine, Georg Gunther
Freiherr Von Forstner, the animal which disappeared in water at the end of 10
to 15 seconds meurait approximately 20 meters length and resembled by its form
a crocodile, with four members provided with powerful palmations and long a
tète fraying at a peak. Astonishing testimony, especially when it is known
that it comes from a professional sailor.
A giant octopus?
The last applicant with this mystery could be, like the suggére Christian
Christmas, cryptozoologist recognized by his many experiments on the ground, a
giant octopus of gregarious type alive in immense holes or caves and not
having any reason to go up on the surface. The most significant example of the
existence of such monsters is that relating to the found corpse with
Saint-Augustine in 1896, whose immense remainders belonged to a espéce of
octopus whose measurements do not have any common measurement with largest
that we currently know. Such large unknown octopuses would not have any
difficulty in crush shark cages. It is certainly the track most interesting to
follow, it is also the belief of the indigénes of the areas.
All is possible at this stage of the enquète. The only element at our
disposal, material but nonvisible, is the fact that the shark cage was crushed
by some animal having a considerable force. The element which us lack is that
concerning the state of the known as cage and we let us not know either if the
indices raised with its examination could make us go up until the true
identity of the attacker.
Let us note that in its work "Monsters of the lakes and the Oceans" (southern
editions full, 1996) Richard D. Nolane specifies that aprés Jean Jacques
Barloy, the commander cousteau would have succeeded in filming the monster and
would preserve the document in a trunk with order never to leave there because
it would be of bad quality and harmful to his reputation. There would be as a
booklet as one of the correspondents of Barloy would have had between its
hands.
Barloy during the emission Sciences with the naturalness of Marie-Odile
Monchicourt diffused on October 5, 1987 on France-inter, revealed:
"the monster of Djibouti would live in *** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE *** le Koubé,
qui est une sorte de petite mer intérieure aux eaux noires et bordées de
falaises verticales. Le monstre y serait entré autre-fois et ne pourrait plus
en ressortir (soit parce qu'il a grandi, soit parce que les courants
l'empèchent de partir). Cette créature ressemblerait à une gigantesque raie.
Tous les ans aurait lieu une cérénomie organisée par des habitants du lieu qui
considéreraient la bète comme un dieu de la mer. Ils descendent dans les eaux
noires du Koubé un chameau vivant, dans une cage, en guise d'offrande. trente
secondes aprés ils remontent la cage mais celle-ci ainsi que le camélidé ont
disparu. Il y a eu entre-temps quelques remous pour témoigner du drame.
Cousteau aurait parait-il réussi à filmer le monstre. Il conserverait le
document dans un coffre-fort, avec ordre de ne jamais le sortir. En effet, le
film serait de mauvaise qualité et Cousteau craindrait pour sa réputation. Il
aurait également écrit une brochure intitulée: la bète ou la chose "
En dehors de ce témoignage qui passa sur les ondes, il y a un mutisme complet
sur le film et la brochure.
Comme le disait le commandant cousteau :
" Mes amis, je crois que la mer nous réserve encore bien des surprises......."