A Mysterious Memorial Appears for Staten Island Ferry That Was Sunk by a Giant Octopus in 1963
It was close to 4am on the quiet morning of November 22, 1963 when the Steam Ferry Cornelius G. Kolff vanished without a trace. On its way with nearly 400 hundred people, mostly on their way to work, the disappearance of the Cornelius G. Kolff remains both one of New York’s most horrific maritime tragedies and perhaps its most intriguing mystery. Eye witness accounts describe “large tentacles” which “pulled” the ferry beneath the surface only a short distance from its destination at Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan. Nobody on board survived and only small pieces of wreckage have been found…strangely with large “suction cup-shaped” marks on them. The only logical conclusion scientists and officials could point to was that the boat had been attacked by a massive octopus, roughly half the size of the ship. Adding to the tragedy, is that this disaster went almost completely unnoticed by the public as later that day another, more “newsworthy” tragedy would befall the nation when beloved President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated.
It never happened. But more people probably believe this happened than Oswald was the lone shooter.
This is one of the saddest things I ever read. Those poor, desperate souls! So hard to imagine the terror they must have felt.
My Father just missed the ferry that morning. Mother had forgotten to make his lunch the night before and the time he spent in corrective action for my mother is the only reason he was running late. Long story short, they made up later in the evening and nine months later I was born. So yeah, it really happened.
OH, the humanity!
….Captain Nemo never left the wheel house, Ned Land was never heard from again.. and the whereabouts of Prof. Pierre Aronnax remains a mystery to this day..
And it wasn’t no stinking octopus, it was a Squid! Geesh.. some people!!
And 10 thousand moose limbs cheered in New Jersey!
that is funny stuff
Wasn’t that the same squid that played Octopussy in that Bond flick?
I was born in 64.
I remember this disaster well.
There’s a similar memorial on the Italian coast, near Naples, where a Japanese merchant vessel was pulled down by what witnesses described as a “giant squid”.
Sadly, no trace has ever been found of any of the passengers or crew of the Kalimari Maru.
🙄
The National Safety Admin. later reported that the steam powered vessel exploded when the cold seawater hit the hot boilers. The squid escaped unharmed.
When I read that, Oswald my gum!
I told Capt. Ahab to tarn hard to starboard, but nay, he woulda not listen!
I leapt to the gunwhale and grabbed me harpoon, as steady as Gibraltar, was I – when out of the Davy Jones’ locker the monster shew hisself for only a brief instance – but it waren’t e’nou! I shivered me timbers and cast the ‘poon with all the might that I might mightily might but the crash was inenviable! The Hellish beast groped with its nine tenacles and pulled us usunder – like to a tie me kangaroo down, bouys … an all was lost …
Isn’t this the plot of a Lovecraft story?