• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Unidentified Aquatic Creatures

blessmycottonsocks

blessmycottonsocks

Antediluvian
Joined
Dec 22, 2014
Messages
9,419
Location
Wessex and Mercia
Looks like a cross between a manatee and a hippo:

SmartSelect_20240328_133556_Gallery.jpg
SmartSelect_20240328_133608_Gallery.jpg

Mystery sea creature photobombs Brit's pictures on holiday in Corfu sea cave​

Harvey Robertson was on a boat cruise with when he captured a number of photographs of what looks like a cross between a crocodile and a hippo.

By
LOUISE PARKER
  • 13:19, 27 Oct 2015
  • UPDATED14:22, 27 OCT 2015
A Scots tourist who took pictures of the sea was left in shock after he discovered a weird "creature" had photobombed his holiday snaps.
He held the camera over the side of the boat to take pictures of the sea.

But when he lifted his camera back up, Harvey discovered a mysterious creature had appeared in one of the frames.

[...]

Harvey, 52, said: "I have no idea what it could have been, I have never seen anything like it.

"I caught the picture by accident. I was in a sea cave on a small boat about 20 miles south of Albania on the west coast of Greece.

"I was trying to capture the water colour and was not looking at the water, the flash went off. I only saw the creature when looking back through my pics."

The creature, that has so far been unable to be identified by experts, evokes images of Greek mythology.

Source:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/mystery-sea-creature-photobombs-brits-6714478
 
I've looked around a bit and there seem to be two schools of thought. One it's Cuvier's beaked whale, which I'm struggling to see. Or it's a bit dodgy. Over on Doubtfulnews, some photo guy has estimated that the object is in fact quite small, probably not more than a foot.

Also Darren Naish has apparently suggested a gunwale protector as a good lookalike.
 
By Jove, I think he's got it!
 
Damn. Looks likely as a candidate. Perhaps government reductionist austerity has now reached the realms of cryptozoology.

2015-11-04 21.14.42.png


Next they'll be telling us Nessie was a dicarded rubber inner tube...and proving it with pictures, for goodness sake.
 
Last edited:
Has this been posted? It belongs in the Crypto "What the hell is this thread?".

From the Express
By Jon Austin
PUBLISHED: 16:30, Mon, Nov 9, 2015

It was posted on Reddit with the caption: "Friend found this outside her house. WTF indeed."
Responses came thick and fast with one poster saying: "It's clearly an alien."
Whatever the bizarre creature is or was, it IS likely to put you off your dinner.
It was shared on Facebook by Gianna Peponis, who appears to have been the friend in question.
She wrote: "I wasn't gonna post this but I can't stop trying to figure out wtf this thing is.
"I heard something scream at like 11.30 last night and went on my side yard and found this thing. It was dead when I found it."
It is understood the creature was found in San Jose, California.
Click to expand...

Alien-2-386208.jpg
 
Snopes claims it's a partially-eaten deer foetus http://www.snopes.com/san-jose-alien/ (but I'm not entirely agreeing with that, from the purportedly-remaining shape).

I've seen quite a few non-viable aborted mammal foetuses, but; this somehow is shaped more bird and anomolous bulk, than Bambi ...

I generally have a lot of repect for Snopes (and I am the arch-skeptic, of them all) but this might be an excessively-reductionist explanation. So saying, surely this bio-lump is now in some path-lab freezer, with basic genotype/tissue typing completed?

Note the 'karna whoring' suggestion made by Snopes: a possible motive for the Reddit OP?
 
Last edited:
blessmycottonsocks said:
Either a pigeon foetus or Kang from The Simpsons.
Click to expand...
Yes, maybe, if pigeons developed foetally in wombs, rather than eggs, and were cross-bred with megacephalitic turkeys....and, if Kang were pruned back to a two-legged faceless lump, then also, perhaps
 
It's an aborted foetus of some kind, that much is true.
Aborted naturally because it was deformed and non-viable, perhaps?
 
I think it may be a calf looking at the colouration. I think it's a mammal rather than a bird, looking at the forelimbs.
 
ChrisBoardman said:
The original picture is not an animal, probably an armrest from a plane crash.
Click to expand...
The previous grey mono-nostrilled aquatic inorganic inanimus? Quite possibly.

The great mambo non-chicken half-calf? I think not....
 
Stillill said:
Probably irrelevant but I don't think the "ear" that you've highlighted is an ear. If you zoom onto the photo it looks like a piece of paper/card.
It also looks like some of the snout or nose area is missing and may have been eaten away.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I noticed the strangely square shaped ear as well .... and the suspiciously flattened grass it lying on. If it's fake, it would have been sculpted, a cast made of it then gelatine poured in to create the finished product.
 
It looks tiny, judging from the blades of grass - no more than maybe 8cm long. If you Google chicken foetus, it looks not dissimilar.
 
oldrover said:
I think it may be a calf looking at the colouration. I think it's a mammal rather than a bird, looking at the forelimbs.
Click to expand...
The dark patches around the neck could be where darker coloured fur/hair would grow had it matured.
Looks like the beginnings of a hoof maybe on the left leg . I would go with mammal rather than bird if it is a real creature.
 
Stillill said:
The dark patches around the neck could be where darker coloured fur/hair would grow had it matured.
Click to expand...

It's that which makes me think of a calf. You know that sort of Freisan pattern.

I've just googled cow foetus and it's a pretty close match.
 
Is there anything to be said for making this thread a sticky for all the photos that crop up of misidentified or confusing carcasses.
 
oldrover said:
Is there anything to be said for making this thread a sticky for all the photos that crop up of misidentified or confusing carcasses.
Click to expand...
Does anybody ever turn to stickies for info? I never have! If a subject interests me enough, I hope I'll be able to remember it well enough to find it again if need be. If it doesn't interest me then I won't look.
 
I do. I always post in the sticky threads. Unless it's totally off topic for them.
 
Yithian said:
Odd, some kind of deformed porpoise would be my first guess.
Click to expand...
No, it is literally just a rubberised boat-fender. The 'nostrils' are holes for screw-bolts.

Definitely and definitively.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top