Morgawr means ‘sea giant’ in the ancient, but still used, dialect of the Cornish people. The first documented time this creature was reported was a very close encounter indeed. It occurred in 1876, way before the boom in the tourism industry. This was a time when hardy men set to sea in small sailing ships to make a living, but on one particular day two fishermen caught more than they were bargaining for. They had cast their nets into the salty waters of Gerran’s bay only to discover that they had caught a giant long necked beast. That fateful day Morgawr earned its status as more than just a legend.

It was in 1926, a full fifty years later, that the next recorded contact with Morgawr was made. Again, Morgawr had become tangled in the nets of fishermen, who described it as twenty feet long with a tail measuring about eight feet. It was reported to have scaly legs and a beak like head.

It is possible that both of these catches could have just been the mangled remains of basking sharks, as decomposition in the water often greatly distorts the body. This theory would go little way to explain the next time Morgawr was sighted.

It was a sunny September evening in 1975, and a Mrs Scott was out for a sea-side walk with her friend Mr Riley. This was to be an evening neither of them would ever forget. They reported seeing a hideous hump-backed creature off Pendennis Point. The creature had “stumpy horns” and bristles running along the back of its long neck. Shortly after being spotted, the animal dived and stayed briefly submerged before returning with a conger eel clamped firmly between its jaws.

The next significant sighting took place in February 1976. The Falmouth Packet, a local newspaper, received two photographs from a lady known as Mary F. The photographs, published on the front page, revealed a long necked animal in the water with two sloping humps on its back. Mary F included a note with a description of what she had seen:

"It looked like an elephant waving its trunk, but the trunk was a long neck with a small head on the end, like a snake's head. It had humps on the back which moved in a funny way. The colour was black or very dark brown, and the skin seemed to be like a sea lion's... the animal frightened me. I would not like to see it any closer. I do not like the way it moved when swimming."

Neither Mary F nor her negatives have ever been traced; however respected mystery writers Janet and Colin Bord have examined first generation copy prints and “feel that these photographs could well be genuine.”

Following the publication of the photographs the Falmouth Packet received a flood of letters from readers also claiming to have seen a similar animal out at sea. At the beginning of May that same year (1976) two London bankers, taking a fishing holiday, saw a pair of these creatures at the mouth of the Helford River, it could be that Falmouth bay is home to a whole colony of Morgawr!

The best evidence of Morgawr existence to date came in 1999 when local man John Holmes, who had been an employee of London’s natural history museum for 19 years, caught Morgawr on video tape while filming his wife swimming in the sea.

He told BBC Radio Cornwall: “I was filming my wife and had climbed on a rock to admire the view across the bay and I thought I heard a splash. A bizarre movement caught my attention about 250 metres off shore and this thing appeared to be standing about one metre above sea level.”

At first Mr Holmes thought that it was the fin of a killer whale or shark, he soon realised it wasn’t: “I then saw a snake-like head and neck which appeared to be raised out of the water. I was so shocked by what I saw that I almost fell off the rock. I screamed to my wife and she climbed out of the water. I only saw it in the water for a brief amount of time.”

The footage from Mr Holmes’s camera only came to light in 2002, as he feared he would be ridiculed. Since then it has undergone analysis from a forensic scientist and Tim Farrow of TJF Productions in St Austell. They confirmed that the tape was genuine beyond doubt, had not been doctored in any way and showed an animal type object in the sea.

So what is Morgawr: a surviving group of prehistoric creatures; or an unidentified species of long-necked seal? Both are plausible theories presented by experts – or maybe you have your own ideas. Until further proof comes to light, the only limits to Morgawr’s true identity are the limits of your imagination.