Four Teens Killed by a Sea Monster in Florida
We take you back to March of 1962. Five teenagers from Fort Walton Beach, Florida are on a raft headed out to explore the partially submerged USS Massachusetts. Of the five only one, Brian McCleary will return. The lives of the other four young men will be lost to an attacking sea monster.
The boys, Brian McCleary 16, Eric Ruyle 16, Bradford Rice 14, Warren Felley 16, and Larry Stuart Bill 17 had set out on a “seven-foot Air Force life raft”. The weather was forecast to be clear making this a perfect day to explore the shipwreck. As these things go, suddenly, the weather started getting rough. The tiny raft was getting pushed out to sea. The teens had been taking turns rowing so none of them would be exhausted when they got to the wreckage to dive. As the storm overtook them, Eric, Warren, and Brian were determined to not be pushed out to sea, so they went into the water to try to push the raft back to shore. This was an impossible task, and they were soon back in the boat.
As the sky darkened other boats could be seen by the boys heading back to the safety of the shore. They waved at the boats frantically only for the passengers to wave back. The storm began to calm, but a thick fog rolled in. Visibility was at only 25 feet when they noticed the water strangely becoming warmer. The smell of rotting fish suddenly filled the air around them and they saw something that resembled a telephone pole with a bulb on top. It dove underwater making a high-pitched whine.
For some reason, the boys jumped into the water. They noticed patches of brown, crusty slime around them. They swam towards the shipwreck, but they were exhausted. After swimming for about thirty seconds Warren was yelling, “Hey! Help me! Help me! It’s got, Brad…” He then vanished. The three boys Brian, Larry, and Eric pushed towards the shipwreck having lost sight of Warren and Brad.
Larry was the next to vanish. Brian and Eric tried to find him, but it had become too dark to see. Brian and Eric were soon holding onto one another as Eric was fatigued. After what seemed like a couple of hours, they once again spot the USS Massachusetts. The two remaining boys had been separated by a wave but were still swimming towards the shipwreck.
The sea creature suddenly surfaced before diving into Eric, taking him underwater. Brian panics swimming past the ship. He blackouts and cannot remember anything until he wakes up on the shore and is found by some people on the beach.
After being taken to the hospitable Brian reports his ordeal to the police who tell him to not mention the sea monster. A mental breakdown that would last about three months followed. No one would believe Brian, but he stuck to his story. Disbelief would follow him for the rest of his life.
Skeptics would say the monster was just a hallucination brought on by exhaustion. Others would claim it was a whale. Brian would pass away in 2016 after he stopped talking about the day he lost his four friends.
What do you think happened? Was this an actual undiscovered cryptid or was it the exhausted and panicked brains of the boys hallucinating? We here at The Freaky Deaky Podcast do not believe it was a whale, but we would love to hear your take on this.
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