There is a recorded incident of a kraken becoming trapped in the cleft of a rock when it swam to close to the Norwegian shore in 1680. The putrid stench of its rotting body supposedly remained for months.

In 1875 the barque Pauline spotted a sperm whale with a snake-like creature wrapped around it's mid-section. The crew reported this sea serpent eventually dragged the whale down to its death.

More likely the "snake" was the arm of a large squid in battle with the whale. Many old mariners’ tales include crewmembers being whisked off deck by giant tentacles armed with plate sized suction cups. There are also some instances where one of the giant arms are hacked off or found washed up on shore.

Since 1978, more than 60 giant squids have been fished or stranded on the shores of New Zealand, the bigger one was 14 m long and weighed more than 1 t.

Clyde Ropper from the Washington Smithsonian Institute has been looking from the “big one” for the last 37 years. In 1997 and 1999, he  set up two expeditions to explore the depths of the Kaikoura canyon in New Zealand where the hoki, favorite dish of the beast, abounds. 

In 1997, the crew used a special prop call Deep Rover to film as deep as 1000 m. Clyde has even attached a camera on a whale, hoping the monster would attack it.