Двадцать тысяч лье под водой / Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

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The year 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained phenomenon that surely no one has forgotten. It must be said that professional seamen were especially alarmed. Traders, shipowners, captains of vessels, skippers, and master mariners from Europe and America, naval officers from every country, and the various national governments on these two continents, were all extremely disturbed by the business.

What happened? Several ships had encountered “an enormous thing” at sea, a long spindle-shaped object, sometimes giving off a phosphorescent glow, infinitely bigger and faster than any whale.

The relevant data on this apparition agreed pretty closely as to the structure of the object or creature in question, its unprecedented speed of movement, its startling locomotive power, and its unique vitality. No naturalists would have accepted the existence of such a monster sight unseen—specifically, unseen by their own scientific eyes.

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