Throughout history, there have been tales of dead animals washed up on the seashore that no one can identify. The really big ones make the news and have often been identified by witnesses as monsters of some sort. These are called "globsters," which is a combination of glob and monster. The more decomposed the creature is, the harder it is to identify. Once barnacles and other scavengers start feeding on it, it may start to look very strange indeed. And the sea can leave a decomposing corpse slimy or hairy or quite monstrous. You can see how this sort of thing once made people believe in dragons and sea serpents. These days, scientists can usually identify what this globster once was, but until then, it may as well be a sea monster. The 20-foot hairy globster pictured here was seen on a beach in the Philippines in 2018.
The white, shaggy carcass may have resembled the dragon from A Neverending Story (1984), but its origins were less fantastical. Local officials concluded that the remains belonged to a whale that had died a couple of weeks earlier—possibly after being struck by a ship. The long “hairs” were actually decaying muscle fibers, and the white coloration was a natural consequence of decomposition.
These are stories that are better read about than witnessed, mainly because of the smell. Read the stories of six really bizarre documented globsters at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: Huntxel)