The July 1922 issue of Scientific American (Vol. 127 issue 1) included an article on page 21 titled "An Antediluvian Monster - Is the Argentine Plesiosaurus a Fake or a Scientific Marvel", by Leonard Matters.
Below is an image with the article.
Below I quote it fully, just for the record, of course outlines the case and gives us the impression that Onelli's story was a indeed fake:
"Whatever may be the opinion in scientific circles —and it is one of scornful skepticism—the fact remains that the report of the existence in Argentina of a living specimen of a race of mammoth reptiles, supposed to have been extinct for millions of years, has excited intense interest. Every scientist of note has scoffed at the idea, but, headed by Dr. Clement Onelli, Director of the Zoological Gardens at Buenos Aires, there is a large body of Argentine public opinion strongly of opinion that a member of the plesiosaurus family will be discovered, alive or dead.
Dr. Onelli has disclosed to the press in Buenos Aires the fact that some time ago he received a letter from a American mining man down in Patagonia, reporting the existence of some monster, of a type well known to palentologists through fossil remains, but unknown to modern zoology. The American, a Mr. Sheffield, has been prospecting for gold along the Andes in the Tertitory of Chubut for many years, and Dr. Onelli says he knows him to be perfectly reliable. Mr. Sheffield wrote to the doctor stating that he had come across some enormous tracks near a lake. Bushes and undergrowth were trodden into the ground, and so deep were the tracks that they could only have been made by some living thing of ponderous weight. Continuing his account, Mr. Sheffield said: “I saw in the middle of the lake an animal with a huge neck like that of a swan, and the movement in the water made me suppose the least to have a body like that of a crocodile.”
Dr. Onelli has pointed out that Mr. Sheffield has given, for a layman, a remarkably accurate outline of the plesiosaurus, one of the mammoth reptiles that lived countiess years before the ice-age, and became extinct during that geological epoch in the world's history. Moreover, the report recalls more than one similar story of the existence in Patagonia of some strange feature, never yet clearly identified. Patagonia was undoubtedly at some time the habitat of mammoth beasts, and prehistoric man. Extensive fossil beds have been located, and scientific knowledge has been Widely enriched by the discovery of many kinds of extinct mammals and reptiles. Professor Frederic B. Loomis conducted an expedition through the Territory of Chubut in 1911, on behalf of Amherst College, and was successful in unearthing a petrified forest and, among other interesting fossils, the skull of a pyrotherium, an extinct elephantine creature.
There has long existed a romantic sort of idea that in the comparatively uninhabited parts of Patagonia, where certain forms of vertebrates are believed to have originated, a discovery would yet be made, of a nature that would stagger science—the finding of-the “missing link,” for instance, or more probably the capture of an actual living specimen of some supposedly extinct creature of antediluvian antiquity.
Palentologists and scientists in general have never been associated with such a belief, but nevertheless it has been a popular fancy, and has not lacked some degree of support among men whose opinion carries weight. In announcing the latest report to the public Dr. Onelli has recalled this interesting speculation. He was personally first attracted by the idea 25 years ago when he was down in Patagonia. On the shores of White Lake there then lived a Chilean farmer who declared that often at night a strange noise could be heard, as though a cart were being dragged over the pebbly shore. It was asserted that on moonlight nights a huge beast could be seen in the lake. It had a long reptilian neck which rose high above the water, but when disturbed it would at once dive and disappear in the depths.
Ten years after hearing of the apparition in White Lake, Dr. Onelli heard of the discovery made by a Norwegian engineer named Vaag, who was a member of the commission of demarcation of the boundary between Argentina and Chile. Mr. Vaag gave the name of River Tamango to a waterway flowing from the Andes, on whose banks he found the remains of some great beast, and the tracks of a creature that probably resembled the plesiosaurus. Later on, in a cavern, further south at Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope) there were found the remains of a hide and many bones of a great quadruped. The condition of the hide and the fact that the bones were conserved in a gelatinous condition, gave rise to the belief that it might be possible to find a similar beast alive. These interesting discoveries led to a number of expeditions, to which popular imagination at least attracted the objective of looking for a surviving specimen of the mammoth age, even if the scientists themselves had no such belief in the idea. These expeditions worked in different parts of Patagonia, and made interesting discoveries, though credence in the they found nothing to warrant any popular theory supposing the existence of zoological phenomena.
This, in brief, is the history behind the most recent report made on the authority of Dr. Onelli. Science in general utterly discredits the suggestion that a plesicsaurus, or anything like the extinct reptile, is still alive, and the many scornful comments on Dr. Onelli’s report leaves it doubtful whether scientists admit even the possibility of there being in Patagonia some unknown animal of large proportions. It has been hinted that the creature with the long swan-like neck is in the sume class as the sea-serpent, and is really born in a bottle. However, the refusal of scientists to take Mr. Sheffield’s story and Dr. Onelli’s theory as credible, has not prevented the doctor and the Argentine people getting deeply interested in a proposal to fit out an expedition for the capture of the creature, alive or dead.
So seriously has the idea been taken up that a rather amusing development has followed. Dr. Albarrin, President of the Society for the Protection of Animals, has demanded that the Minister for the Interior shall stop the expedition, under Law No. 2,786, which prohibits the hunting and destruction of rare animals. Dr. Albarrin urges that if there should still exist a plesiosaurus, then Argentina possesses a scientific marvel of immense value, and it should neither be killed nor captured, but should be allowed to enjoy to the full the liberty it has had over millions of years. The worthy doctor claims that it would be more humane and creditable to Argentine culture to leave the creature where it is and let it reproduce its species."
You can Read it online and see what this magazine looked like over 103 years ago.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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