As per a news report by CBS News, an oarfish that is said to live in “waters that are least explored by scientists” was found off the South California coast on Aug. 10.
Discovered in an already deceased state, the oarfish was 12-feet-long according to UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The Ocean Conservatory has described the fish as “strikingly large and odd looking” with a “long, silvery, ribbon-shaped body”
These fish are not ordinary marine creatures, and are associated as ominous “harbingers” of approaching natural disaster. Supporting this claim, the article by CBS News goes on to describe how “20 such fish washed upon the shores of Japan right before the 2011 earthquake,”
Emphasizing the almost once-in-a-blue-moon nature of these sightings, UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography states how only “20 oarfish have washed up in California since 1901,”
Since they are deep-sea dwellers, the Ocean Conservatory concluded that the fish are spotted close to the ocean, only if they are “sick, dying or disoriented.” To determine the exact cause of death of this oarfish discovered on Aug. 10, scientists from the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography are also planning to perform a necropsy.
In addition to being rare in terms of their sightings, these fish are unique in appearance and build. The article by CBS News describes how the fish can grow to be up to 30 feet tall. They also have large eyes, and an almost “foreboding” crown of red spines.
For now, the relationship between the presence of the doomsday fish and the successive occurence of natural disasters might seem up in the air. However, the 4.6 earthquake that rocked Los Angeles just two days after this “marine oracle” was found on the South California coast indicates a bone-chilling possibility of this association being true.
