The new season of MonsterQuest, the History Channel’s cryptozoology-themed show, started airing last week. The first episode was titled “Monster Sharks,” though the subject of the episode were completely non-monster great whites in the oceans off the U.S. Increasingly I suspect the MonsterQuest people are running out of good subjects, judging from episodes like “Monster Sharks,” “Gigantic Killer Fish” (goliath groupers), and “The Real Cujo” (packs of dogs — really).

But last season MonsterQuest had a whole episode entitled “Sea Monsters,” focused mostly on something that could, at least in theory, be an unknown animal. Some guy in South Florida had a bunch of footage of an animal frolicking in an inlet. Though the footage appeared to show a manatee, much hay was made out of the fact that the animal’s tail appeared to be shaped roughly like a trident. The possibility that a manatee’s tail could be mutilated by a boat propeller to look like that was broached, but dismissed. Florida Fish and Wildlife keeps track of mutilated manatees, the show explained, and none  has a tail that looks like a trident. They also managed to find a scientist from a local university to look at the footage and exclaim that the head of the creature looked nothing like a manatee, even though it looked exactly like the head of a manatee.

Guess what? A manatee has been found with a tail that looks exactly like the one in the video tape. As reported by WPTV, Florida Fish and Wildlife biologists found the manatee huddling for warmth near a power plant. For the sake of comparison I’ve included pictures both from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and the original videos seen on MonsterQuest.

Another day, another Normandy Nessie story. Today’s comes from the Tampa Tribune’s website, though it looks like it may be a transcript of a TV story. I’ll reprint it below, but first I want to talk a bit about what we’re seeing happen here.

Now that Russ Sittloh’s story of a monster is hitting the media it’s starting to develop into something more complicated. Initially he was saying that he had seen the monster twice in October, but now he’s saying he saw it as far back as April. Originally he specified that he didn’t see the creature’s head, now he’s saying he saw the creature’s head during the first sighting. Other people are now coming forward to say they’ve also seen the monster. From what I can tell, none of these other witnesses are saying they saw any specific animal, but rather that they saw something in the water they didn’t recognize. I’ll probably try to contact some of them, just to see what they have to say.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sittloh continues to produce videos from his backyard security camera, though the animal shown in them is almost certainly a manatee.

I expect that if the story of the monster continues to be disseminated we’ll have more people claiming to see the monster. Most of these will probably just be people seeing a manatee or a fish or even a shark for a second, and reporting it as an unknown animal because they didn’t recognize it. I’m sure that there will also be a few people, either hoaxers or fantasy-prone individuals, who will give ultra-detailed descriptions of giant aquatic snakes. And the physical evidence will remain elusive, other than more videos of manatees.

I suppose I should explain for the benefit of our out-of-state readers why everyone seems to be jumping to the conclusion that there might be giant snakes swimming around Pinellas County. During the slow news months of late summer this year, or “silly season,” the media in Florida became obsessed with snakes, based on reports about an exploding Burmese python population in the Everglades. (Florida Wildlife workers then went hunting for the snakes and came back with far fewer than they were expecting, so the whole thing was probably overblown.) Around the same time there was also a young girl who was tragically killed by her family’s pet snake, but in a lot of people’s minds the two stories got conflated and now there are people who are afraid giant Everglades pythons are sneaking into people’s homes and killing children. Hence the speculation about dangerous snakes in the following article.

There’s something strange and big swimming in the canals of Madeira Beach along the Pinellas County coast. Those who have seen it say it’s no fish and think it could be a sea serpent.

Russ Sittlow, 78, has seen it. He calls the creature “Normandy Nessie” because he lives on Normandy Road.

The retired engineer said he first saw “Nessie” in April.

“His head come up out of the water, and then he rolled up in a double roll behind him and he was long he was huge,” he said of that first sighting.

Sittlow said he has seen two of the creatures in the canal, one very large, and the other a bit smaller. He estimates the largest one is at least 30 feet long.

Sittlow set up a surveillance camera to record video if the creatures came back. He said his camera recorded “Nessie” three times since September, the latest Saturday.

He showed the video to a reporter. It shows a dark form swimming along the surface of the water. It appears to be about 30 feet long. Another clip shows the creature splashing in the water.

“I don’t know what it is,” he said.

When a reporter asked if he thought it was really a monster, he hedged.

“No, no, well, call a monster what you will, it’s something different, it’s something strange, it’s something I’ve never seen in salt water,” he stated.

Sittlow’s account of what he saw is backed up by neighbor Maria VanAiken, 47, who said she saw the “monster” this summer while on her back porch.

“I looked up and I saw this like huge-looking creature,” she said, adding that it wasn’t a manatee or dolphin.

“This huge thing just came out of the water,” she said.

Her husband saw the creature later.

When pressed, Sittlow backed off his sea monster theory, but not totally.

“This is a snake I guarantee you, or a serpent like thing that looks like a snake,” he explained. He thinks it could be an anaconda or a python or “a mutation there of.”

State wildlife officials who have seen Sittlow’s video believe the creature is a manatee.

Sittlow disagrees. Whatever is in the canal is dangerous, he said, and he doesn’t recommend swimming there until it’s positively identified.