For hundreds of years, sailors have reported freak, gigantic waves hundreds of feet high, and seemingly appearing out of nowhere. Hundreds of leagues from land, or any other witnesses, they would swallow up ships whole, only rarely leaving a survivor or two to tell the tale. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

But, well, sailors have said a lot of stuff over the years. Mermaids that turned out to be dugongs ; monstrous sea snakes that are later found to be whale dicks ; after a while, you’re going to stop taking these stories at face value and maybe start putting it down to a little too much tapping the Admiral . After all, it was well-known by the 19th century that waves couldn’t physically exceed about 30 feet in

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