[4][3] Frédéric Bouyer [fr] who served as captain on the Alecton wrote a travelogue, which first appeared as an article in Le Tour du Monde in 1866,[1] later published as a book, La Guyane française: notes et souvenirs d'un voyage exécuté en 1862-1863 (1867).

[7] The illustration of the ship was by Édouard Riou, based on the sketch by E. Rodolphe, the ship-of-the-line ensign (enseigne de vaisseau)[a] aboard Alecton.

[15] Resolved to capture the monster, the captain ordered the ship to fire muskets, launch harpoons, and try to ensnare the squid with a noose.

[23] The Alecton encounter of 1861 was the inspiration for the giant squids attacking the submarine in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne, published in 1870.

[24][25] Verne ascribed vicious behavior to the giant squid to paint it as a monster of legend, and the physical descriptions did not square with the living creature.