The Kraken

Timeline

1. c. 77 ADPliny: an octopus raids the fish tanks at CarteiaREPORTED
2. c. 1250The King's Mirror describes the island-like hafgufaREPORTED
3. 1752Pontoppidan's kraken, "a mile and an half" aroundREPORTED
4. 1801Denys de Montfort's colossal octopus engravingREPORTED
5. 1861The Alecton lands a piece of a giant squidCONFIRMED
6. 1873The first photograph of an intact giant squidCONFIRMED
7. 1878Thimble Tickle's "55-foot" squidDISPUTED
8. 2004First photos of a live giant squidCONFIRMED
9. 2012First video in its own habitatCONFIRMED
10. 2019First video in U.S. watersCONFIRMED
11. 2025First colossal squid filmed aliveCONFIRMED

Evidence locker

1. c. 77 ADREPORTED

   At Carteia in southern Spain, an octopus raided salted-fish tanks at night, climbed a tree to get over the fences, and was killed with tridents. Its arms were said to be 30 feet long.

   Pliny wasn't there: he credits the story to a man named Trebius.

   • Pliny, Natural History IX.48 (Bostock & Riley, 1855)
2. c. 1250REPORTED

   The Norwegian King's Mirror describes the hafgufa: a sea creature that "appeared more like an island than a fish" and fed by belching out bait.

   Larson's 1917 English translation renders the Norse word hafgufa as "kraken"; the link to the kraken came later.

   • The King's Mirror, trans. Larson (1917), Ch. XII
3. 1752REPORTED

   Bishop Erik Pontoppidan wrote that the kraken's back was "about an English mile and an half in circumference (some say more, but I chuse the least for greater certainty)".

   Fishermen said they expected 80 or 100 fathoms of water over it and found 20 or 30.

   • Pontoppidan, The Natural History of Norway (London, 1755), Part II, pp. 210-212
4. 1801REPORTED

   Pierre Dénys de Montfort published the famous engraving of a colossal octopus dragging a ship under.

   • Le Poulpe Colossal (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
5. 1861CONFIRMED

   On 30 November 1861, northeast of Tenerife, the crew of the Alecton harpooned a giant squid and got a noose around it. The tail broke off; they landed a piece of about 20 kg.

   Later books give 17 November or even 1860. Lieutenant Bouyer's own report settles it on 30 November.

   • Bouyer's report, Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences 53 (30 Dec 1861), pp. 1263-1265
6. 1870CONFIRMED

   Jules Verne's characters retell the Alecton's encounter in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.

   • Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Part 2, ch. 18
7. 1873CONFIRMED

   A giant squid caught in Logy Bay, Newfoundland, was photographed by the Reverend Moses Harvey: the first photograph of an intact giant squid.

   • Verrill (1880), The Cephalopods of the North-Eastern Coast of America, specimen No. 5
   • The photograph (Wikimedia Commons)
8. 1878DISPUTED

   At Thimble Tickle, Newfoundland, a stranded squid was reported with a 20-foot body and a 35-foot arm. It was cut up for dog food; nothing was kept.

   The famous "55 feet" is those two numbers added together later. Modern researchers suspect exaggeration or post-mortem stretching.

   • Harvey's letter (Boston Traveller, 1879), quoted in Verrill (1880), specimen No. 18
9. 2004CONFIRMED

   Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori photographed a live giant squid about 900 m down off the Ogasawara Islands: more than 500 images of an active hunter.

   • Kubodera & Mori (2005), Proc. R. Soc. B 272
10. 2012CONFIRMED

    Kubodera, Edith Widder and Steve O'Shea filmed a giant squid in its own habitat for the first time, using Widder's Medusa camera and a submersible.

    • Nature news (2013)
11. 2012CONFIRMED

    Medusa's lure copies the 'burglar alarm' of a deep-sea jellyfish: a spinning ring of light that summons something bigger to eat its attacker.

    • NOAA Ocean Exploration: The Medusa
12. 2019CONFIRMED

    A young giant squid, at least 3 m long, came at the Medusa lure in the Gulf of Mexico, then pulled back: the first video of one in U.S. waters.

    • NOAA Ocean Exploration log, 20 June 2019
13. todayCONFIRMED

    The biggest giant squid ever measured reach about 12-13 m, most of it two feeding tentacles.

    One statistical study argues up to ~20 m is possible, but no one has measured one that size.

    • Paxton (2016), Journal of Zoology 300
14. todayCONFIRMED

    Sperm whales carry round scars from giant squid suckers, and their stomachs can hold squid beaks by the thousands.

    • Smithsonian Ocean: giant squid sucker marks
15. 2025CONFIRMED

    In March 2025, a remotely operated vehicle filmed a living colossal squid for the first time: a see-through juvenile about 30 cm long, 600 m down off the South Sandwich Islands.

    • Schmidt Ocean Institute

See the real thing

We don't own these photos and videos, so the episode recreates them. Here are the originals:

• The 2004 photos: Kubodera & Mori, Proc. R. Soc. B (2005)
• The 2012 footage: Nature news
• The 2019 footage: NOAA Ocean Exploration
• The 2025 colossal squid: Schmidt Ocean Institute

What's recreated RECREATION

These shots are our own illustrations of real events, not footage:

• The opening strobe shot of a squid mid-strike
• The 2004 baited-camera sequence
• The 2012 Medusa approach and submersible shot
• The 2019 Gulf of Mexico encounter
• The 2025 colossal squid
• Pliny's octopus at Carteia, the fishermen's rising kraken, and the Alecton scene

Corrections

None yet. If you spot one, tell us and it'll be logged here with the date.