Storied asks 'Why Does A Ghost Whale Terrorize The Japanese Coast?' An Earth Month ghost story

Happy Earth Week! I'm kicking off my observance with an unconventional choice, Monstrum on PBS Digital's Storied asking Why Does A Ghost Whale Terrorize The Japanese Coast?

Lore of the ghostly whale skeleton, Bake-kujira, brings an ominous twist to stories of the revered marine giants in Japan. The entity is an omen of misfortune that emerged during the rise of industrial whaling in the 20th century. Is it a simple ghost story, or a warning of ecological collapse? And is Bake-kujira’s legend as relevant now as ever?

Watching this video reminded me of the retirement plans I shared in Marche du Nain Rouge, history and revelry.

One of the projects I'm considering pursuing in my retirement is a horror mystery series set in Oakland County. I thought I would ignore the Nain Rouge because it was concerned with Detroit proper, not the suburbs. Hearing that the Nain Rouge protects the suburbs as well as the city means that I might have to incorporate the imp in my stories. Hmm. Maybe in the sequel. I have another supernatural entity planned to bedevil my protagonists in the first collection of tales.

A vengeful whale spirit is exactly the kind of antagonist I'm looking for, except that my readers would think it's out of place in Michigan. Not completely, as three Quaternary, likely Pleistocene, whale fossils have been found in the Great Lakes State.

In 1927 excavations for a new schoolhouse in Oscoda turned up a Late Pleistocene fossil rib that may have belonged to a bowhead whale of the genus Balaena. The specimen is now catalogued as UMMP 11008.[15] 1930 saw Hussey publish the first scientific paper on the Michiganian whale fossils curated by the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology.
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The 1950s saw paleontological attention return to Michigan's whale fossils. In 1953, Handley tentatively referred the rib discovered in Oscoda during the 1927 schoolhouse excavation to the genus Balaena.[15] He also reported the discovery of an Arkonan-aged[clarification needed (possibly referring to Thedford-Arkona region)] rorqual rib of the genus Balaenoptera. The fossil had been discovered upright in the sand during the excavation of a cellar in Genesee County.[18] Handley also reported the discovery of another walrus fossil, a skull catalogued as UMMP 32453 found in a Mackinac Island gravel deposit.[13] Handley also reported the discovery of sperm whale ribs and a vertebra from Lenawee County.

While I've read at least one author explain these findings as the result of early Native Americans transporting them from the coast, I think it's just as likely, if not more so, that the whales swam up the early Mississippi or St. Laurence into the forerunners of the Great Lakes. Whales swim into rivers from time to time, and it usually ends poorly for them.

ETA: It turns out that these whale specimens are too recent to for that to have happened.

Last week the results of study found the township bones were baleen whale vertebrae and radiocarbon dated the age at 220 +/- 30 BP (Before Present), as such, it is similar to a previous date of 190 years old for a sperm whale bone found in Michigan. The baleen whales have baleen instead of teeth which they use to collect shrimp-like krill, plankton and small fish from the sea. The report also included that all the dated whale bones found to date from Michigan are far too young for whales to have entered the Great Lakes. Bones of a sperm whale, finback whale, and a right whale where reported found in Michigan were dated between 190 and 810 years old, John Zawiskie, the Curator of Earth and Life Sciences at Cranbrook Institute of Science commented on the results of the whale bone discovery.
“Whales could only have entered the Great Lakes when the sea level was higher during glacial and post-glacial times more than 10,000 years ago,” said Zawiskie. “The whales are all too young – the oldest are only 800 years old.”
Why the bones were found in the township is uncertain, however one suggestion is that the bones may have been brought to Michigan by Hopewell culture people from the Atlantic coast, or maybe even a long running elaborate hoax, where someone else placed the whale bones on the landscape.
“The Hopewell people lived on the Atlantic Coast and they may have brought the whale bones to Michigan as they brought many shells and other marine items with them,” added Zawiskie. “It is unlikely that the Hopewell people scattered whale bones across Michigan and of course the recent find is only 220 years old – the other whale ages range from 190 to 800 years old.”

Darn. On the other hand, these findings make it more likely for whale spirits to haunt Michigan, not less, as they've been moved relatively recently. Just the same, I think I might refer to the legend of Bake-kujira, but choose another angry animal apparition for my antagonist, like a mammoth or mastodon. Time to look for African and south Asian stories of ghost elephants as inspiration.

Enough weirdness. I already have more conventional videos for tomorrow's celebration of Earth Day. Stay tuned.