Of course, this came from New Zealand — such a strange nation.
An odd-looking sea creature, described as “something out of Alien,” washed up on an Australian beach and has now been identified by local nature enthusiasts after causing an uproar.
The woman, who located the mysterious creature at Step Beach in Fairhaven, Australia, posted in the Facebook group “Field Naturalists Club of Victoria” to request help in identifying it, according to the New York Post. (RELATED: Video Shows Utterly Bizarre ‘Jellyfish’ UFO And It’s One Of The Freakiest Things You’ll Ever See)
The beachgoer’s post instantly went viral, as did suggestions of what it could be. Comparisons included the wizened old chocolate enthusiast from “SpongeBob SquarePants” and a placenta.
“From another planet!” another user commented.
Finally, a knowledgeable group member stepped in to identify the thing, which was not, in fact, a SpongeBob character, a piece of medical waste or a xenomorph from Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi/horror masterpiece.
“[T]his is a Pyura pachydermatina. It is a sea tulip, a solitary species of tunicate in the suborder Stolidobranchia. It is native to shallow waters around New Zealand,” user Dusty Neil Henderson wrote.
The Post described the sea tulip as “an organism covered in lumps and bumps thanks to the encrusting sponge that covers its surface” that is “found as low as 262 feet deep in coastal waters.”
Beachgoer finds mysterious sea creature ‘from another planet,’ baffling social media: ‘Something out of Alien’ https://t.co/fFdXasNwfY pic.twitter.com/MG5UJbhM4x
— New York Post (@nypost) January 9, 2024
I can totally understand the freakout here.
Just imagine walking on the beach and then randomly coming up to something like this. You wouldn’t be able to help yourself. You’d think about aliens too (if only for a moment). At the same time, knowing how I am, I would also start thinking about all the other weird stuff that’s in the ocean, especially when you start really getting down there. The deeper you go, the weirder it gets.
Hell, since we’re making SpongeBob references, they even made an episode about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M0udVSwX1I
There’s some horrifying stuff in the ocean, so this is no surprise, honestly.