Scylla and Charybdis are, in Greek mythology, two immortal and irresistible monsters who beset the narrow waters separating the Italian peninsula from Sicily. They give poetic expressions to exceptional oceanographic features encountered in the Strait of Messina. Recently, the SEASAT satellite has added new information on the oceanography of this strait. For the first time, experimental evidence is presented that internal waves are generated in the Strait of Messina. The generation mechanism is linked to tidal currents washing over the shallow sill within the strait. The experimental data originate from a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image obtained from the SEASAT satellite on Sept. 15, 1978, and from subsequent in situ measurments carried out from the Italian research vessel Bannock in Nov. 1980. The circular wave pattern visible on the SEASAT SAR image is interpreted in terms of internal solitons. Furthermore, the SEASAT SAR image also reveals 'tagli,' special types of tidal bores, encountered in the Strait of Messina.