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Strange Sea "Blob" Caught on Camera

mrpoultice

mrpoultice

Fen-dwelling Slodger
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Jan 28, 2003
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An ROV performing some kind of inspection* captures a very strange looking sack-like blob on camera.

This came up on Reddit late last night, and has been the subject of some at-length discussion by the users there. Current opinion has divided over Whale placenta Vs rare jellyfish Deepstaria enigmatica.

Video HERE
Link is dead. No archived version found.
Here's a representative photo posted at Reddit ...

img00018.jpg


Discussion by Reddit users HERE (quite long)

Your opinions may vary.

*Annoyingly I can't at this moment find any more info/background on the video, though the date stamp in the bottom right gives us 04-25-2012 so it appears to be new.

I have posted this here as if it just turns out to be a bit of decomposing whale, I don't yet feel it belongs in Cryptozoology. Mods feel free to move otherwise.

Mr P
 
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Most people seem to agree that it's a Deepstaria enigmatica, if you check it out in google it does seem to be.
 
Ronson8 said:
Most people seem to agree that it's a Deepstaria enigmatica, if you check it out in google it does seem to be.
Click to expand...

Yep. I found plenty of images that bear this out.
 
Most people seem to agree that it's a Deepstaria enigmatica, if you check it out in google it does seem to be.
Click to expand...

Yep. I found plenty of images that bear this out.
Click to expand...

But in a recursive-fashion if you'll find 90% of those results in the Google image search link back to THIS same story? Odd.

Mr P
 
mrpoultice said:
Most people seem to agree that it's a Deepstaria enigmatica, if you check it out in google it does seem to be.
Click to expand...

Yep. I found plenty of images that bear this out.
Click to expand...

But in a recursive-fashion if you'll find 90% of those results in the Google image search link back to THIS same story? Odd.

Mr P
Click to expand...

Well, there is a Wikipedia article, and there is this:

http://species-identification.org/species.php?species_group=zsao&id=2434&menuentry=soorten
 
I've just watched the video on the HuffPo website. It's pretty likely to be a giant jellyfish, the Deepstaria enigmatica, most likely, it's got siphons and things that look like the sort of organs jellyfish wear on the outside, just strangely compacted, in comparison to the vastly expanded and leathery, bell.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...e-caught-on-ocean-camera-video_n_1502102.html

Just really creepy the way it looks like the sort of thing Clark Ashton Smith might have written about, based on an idea by HP Lovecraft.
 
Scientists seem to agree that 'globsters' are whale carcasses decomposed and scavenged until all that remains is a fiberous mst of hide and blubber.

It makes sense
 
There are also the salps, colonial organisms that can obtain considerable size.

The sea contains many strange things, some quite large, many just plain hideous, a few, deadly dangerous.

The monster in 'Alien' was inspired by a small sea creature.
 
krakenten said:
The monster in 'Alien' was inspired by a small sea creature.
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Which one?
 
The amphipod Phronima has been cited as an influence for the creature.

Times of discovery seem a bit out of whack, so decide for yourself. You can see some resemblance in photos....but.....

The whole Alien thing may have stemmed from a horrible Italian flick called '
Vampire Planet'. The costumes are risible, nay, laughable, poor Barry Sullivan looks like an over the hill pervert on his way to a dungeon club.

But the scenes in the derelict space craft on the planet's surface are very spooky.

"Globsters" are a study of their own!
 
krakenten said:
The whole Alien thing may have stemmed from a horrible Italian flick called '
Vampire Planet'. The costumes are risible, nay, laughable, poor Barry Sullivan looks like an over the hill pervert on his way to a dungeon club.

But the scenes in the derelict space craft on the planet's surface are very spooky.
Click to expand...

Planet of the Vampires is a very enjoyable flick, Mario Bava really wrings some very disturbing scenes out of his miniscule budget. In places it comes over as a poverty row Forbidden Planet and not a patch on Black Sunday but worth catching.
 
As a zoologist I have to say the Alien skull shape is clearly based on a seal skull (Phocidae)
 
The amphipod has been mentioned several times as the basis for the Alien imago form. Maybe so, maybe not.

The horseshoe crab- and a pint or so of oysters went into the Facehugger, legs from king crabs did the grabbing. I remember seeing the movie, and hearing a mass 'ewwww!' from the audience, and a small voice that breathed, "That was on his face!"

The Bava movie had its moments, but the costumes were beyond stupid-the last gasp of Ray-Gun Gothic- and we can agree that Alien was a much better film. However, Bava did it first, and improvement came with more budget.

The sequence in the ET derelict is the best part of the film, utterly mysterious. I saw that one in a college TV lounge, and the normally rowdy audience was transfixed.

The genius of Geiger in making the creature eyeless is really a measure of the man's talent. Hardest part of a creature to make properly is the eyes, hence BEMs(bug-eyed monsters), compound eyes are easier to fake.

(thanks for the seal skull info, I've never seen one.)
 
My daughter kept a couple of freshwater moray eels (Gymnothorax sp.), and we did wonder if they had had any influence on the design of the adult alien from the film. When they fed, they would grab the food in their jaws, then a second set of jaws would come from inside, grasp the food and pull it down their throat. We got a glimpse of this second set now and again; it looked like a small, white, clenched fist on a stick. You can see it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utuxlfvlLEQ
 
It's funny you should say that, a couple of months ago I was cooking swamp eel for a friends party, hadn;t tried eel before and really couldn;t help thinking that the colour and texture of the skin and the shape of the chunks really does look like the aliens head.

I thought it was delicious baked in apple, date and ginger sauce. Everyone else was too scared of it to try putting it in their mouths.
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
Everyone else was too scared of it to try putting it in their mouths.
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Yes, I can quit understand that after looking at pictures of it in google. :nooo:
 
I'd have tried it - after all, it's only fish, and the recipe sounds yummy!

BlackRiverFalls, did you have to skin it first? I remember trying to skin a conger eel, and we ended up nailing its head to a board to keep it still and using a couple of pairs of pliers to get a grip on the skin...! Obviously you couldn't do that with a swamp eel, but I wondered if they were difficult to peel as well?
 
They don't need peeling at all, the skin isn;t thick enough to be a problem, it cooks just fine.
 
oldrover, I don't think we cooked it right - we fried it, and it was tough as old boots. We ended up feeding it to the dogs. How do you cook it/have it cooked?
 
monops said:
I'd have tried it - after all, it's only fish, and the recipe sounds yummy!

BlackRiverFalls, did you have to skin it first? I remember trying to skin a conger eel, and we ended up nailing its head to a board to keep it still and using a couple of pairs of pliers to get a grip on the skin...! Obviously you couldn't do that with a swamp eel, but I wondered if they were difficult to peel as well?
Click to expand...

Its easier to skin if you kill it first.
 
Just fry it it should be all right. Check with the fishmonger though. Maybe you had a bad cut or something. Definitely though give it another go it really is a lovely fish.
 
It was from a huge one my husband caught (and just to reassure you, it was dead when we skinned it - just slippery!) Maybe it was old?
 
It was probably tough because you skined it, it would have lost too much moisture in the cooking.
 
it bakes just fine if you make a sort of casserole with it... the sauce part was greek yoghurt, dates with the pips out, peeled chopped apple and a little ginger powder.

i don;t know conger eel but it does sound like something went a bit wrong there.
 
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