Actual photograph
Similar in description to the Gloucester sea serpent of the early 1800's, the giant serpent of the Chesapeake Bay has had many witnesses over the years and even has a page dedicated to it on Maryland's Department of Natural Resources Web site. In 1936, one of the earliest mentions of Chessie was made when the crew of a military helicopter flying over the Bush River claimed seeing an unknown reptilian beast in the waters below. It wasn't until the early 1980's, however, that these reports started to garner some real attention. Thanks to cameras, Chessie's existence became more of a reality as visual evidence of sightings started to file in. In 1982, one family videotaped their sighting from their Kent Island home, which the Smithsonian then held a mini-symposium on. They concluded that the video, along with a previously unreleased image by a local woman, proved that something was alive within the Chesapeake Bay. What it was, though, they could not determine. Witnesses compare Chessie to an anaconda or a python — serpentine, snakelike and dark in color. It's said to be thorty feet in length and about as thick as a telephone pole. Some say there is more than just one living in the waters of the Chesapeake. While there haven't been any reports of nefarious behavior on the part of Chessie, a thirty-foot slithering sea creature is not something many of us would welcome encountering. Over the years, reported sightings have subsided, but the curiosity remains.
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