Thursday, July 19, 2007

The Beast of the Thames?


London's River Thames hardly seems to be the location where a person might expect to see a classic lake monster or sea serpent.


Yet, the river has been the site of at least one such encounter.


Or, at least according to a guy named Colin Perks, it has.


I met Perks a few years ago, when he told me a long and convoluted story about his alleged knowledge of diabolical activity in the ancient English town of Glastonbury that was connected with the legends of King Arthur and the actions of a monstrous gargoyle that protected the final resting place of the renowned king.


The story was told in my book Three Men Seeking Monsters, and more than half a decade after I first heard Perks' story, I still don't know what to make of it.


Indeed, the story became even more bizarre when Perks later claimed to have photographed a very small serpent-like beast in London's River Thames, and in a stretch of the river that ran right past British Intelligence's MI6 building.


Whether it actually shows nothing stranger than a log, a real serpent-style entity of some type, or something else entirely, I know not.


But for what it's worth, here's Perks' photo, reproduced above.

10 comments:

twas_brillig said...

Wish we could have a higher resolution photograph included with the story. Doesn't help having such a small image.

twas_brillig said...

Wish we could have a higher resolution photograph included with the story. Doesn't help having such a small image.

twas_brillig said...

Why can't you provide a higher resolution photo, it might help with the truth of the matter.

Padme said...

My mother and I visited London last month and she claims she briefly saw an unusual creature in the Thames by the bridge between St.Pauls and the Tate modern.

Shamus said...

Can we see a close up of that photo?

Nick Redfern said...

I'm on the road a few days but on return will scan the original photo (which is in my possession) and make a new post of it.

Neil A said...

Hey Nick...I only just came across your post from 2007. It's clearly a log/driftwood,a s they are always making their way up the Thames. I see similar objects from my window too.

Interestingly, I have some very old reports of a shark found dead in the Thames, and also whales, sturgeon, leatherback turtle and an alligator have turned up.

Nick Redfern said...

Hey Neil

Cheers for the comment. Yeah, you'll note my "log" comment in the post.

The biggest problem with Perks was that he was highly paranoid, and saw cover-ups and weird synchronicities all over the place.

And, I suspect, he simply got carried away with what he saw in the Thames, assumed it was something animate, and weaved it all into his complex theories.

Dan said...

Nick,
I wonder if this man who calls himself Colin Perks is in any way related to another man most definitely called Colin Perks who in 1966 was a police officer. This Colin Perks was the subject of investigations by a specialised branch of the UK Ministry of Defence, after Mr Perks reported seeing a glowing green object the size of a bus hovering behind a row of houses in Wilmslow whilst on an early morning patrol.

The Surname "Perks" is not a common one, and two men with the same forename and surname would be a large coincidence. Is the Perks of whom you speak old enough to have been a young copper in 1966?

Nick Redfern said...

Hi Dan

No, it's actually a different chap. I recognized immediately the name issue when I met him about 10 or 11 years ago.

He actually died in 2009, but he was definitely a different Perks. There was some speculation that he may have used an assumed name, but I think that was down to the name being the same as the police officer, rather than down to hard proof.

Either way, he was a strange an interesting chap - and very enigmatic.

The official file on the other Colin Perks - the police-officer - was declassified into the public domain by the British Ministry of Defence in 1997.

It's a lengthy, interesting file, with info on on-site investigations by the MoD.