Egede's Greenland sea monster

On 6 July 1734 a ship's crew on a voyage to Greenland, in Egede's account, saw a huge creature rise out of the sea.

Egede wrote that on 6 July 1734 his ship was off the coast of Greenland when those on board saw a creature unlike anything they knew. Wikipedia quotes the report: the head lifted so high it seemed above the lookout post on the mainmast, the head was small, the body short and wrinkled, and large fins drove it through the water. The tail came into view later, and the creature was longer than the whole ship. HISTORY (UK) adds that Egede put the encounter in a report, and another crew member sketched it.

Chambers's Journal retold the story in the nineteenth century in the words of an old seaman. In that version the creature raised its body so high that its head overtopped the mainsail. It had a pointed nose and spouted water like a whale. It had broad flaps like wings in place of fins, a body that looked covered in shell-work, and a rugged skin. When it dived, its serpent-like tail rose a full ship's length above the water. The crew judged the body to be as bulky as their ship and three or four times as long.

Wikipedia ranks it among the earliest sea serpent descriptions and says a giant squid is now the favoured identification.