Locals and authorities are baffled after a whale-sized object covered in scores of barnacles washed ashore in New Zealand. Melissa Doubleday was the first person to spot the strange object.
She was driving past Muriwai Beach near Auckland when she caught sight of the strangest thing she’d ever seen in her life. It was about 5 kilometers from shore but she needed to investigate…
“Just curious to know if anyone knows what this is?” she asked a community Facebook group. “I drove past and was like what the?”
Everyone who has seen the pictures is just as shocked and confused as Doubleday. Scroll down for the true answer, because it will likely shock you!
Multiple theories are being floated to try to identity the mass of barnacles and strange shag. The first is that it is an ancient Maori canoe. Others claim it is a monster lost at sea from the 1980s television series Under the Mountain. More claim it’s a shipwreck, a Caribbean walrus, or just artwork.
The most popular explanation is that this strange object is an alien time capsule…
The truth might be less interesting. It seems to be a large piece of…
driftwood covered in what are called gooseneck barnacles.
“I actually thought it was a washed up whale as I approached it, so weird,” Doubleday said.
The strange alien-like object was like the mounds of earth that rose out of the ground following New Zealand’s recent 7.8 magnitude earthquake. Sea beds rose two meters out of the ground, exposing interesting sea life underneath.
Gooseneck barnacles are filter-feeding crustacean that attach to rocks and hard surfaces like ordinary barnacles. These barnacles rely on the movement of the ocean to feed them. If the tides were not flowing, they wouldn’t be able to eat.
Back in the 1500s, some people believed that these strange underwater creatures produced “barnacle geese”, which are like normal geese. This is obviously not true.
You can find these barnacles as food in Portugal and Spain, where they’re a delicacy called percebes.
Watch the clip below that shows these unbelievable creatures alive and moving. Did you know about them before reading this? Comment below and share this with your friends to see what they think!
