just saw this:

Giant Sea Creature Baffles Chilean Scientists (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20030701/sc_nm/chile_science_dc)

Cool, thanks for posting WK... will be interesting to see how this pans out...

Eeeewwwwwwww.....

Let's get a sample, and send it to Steve and Kat! :mrgreen:

John

being teuthoholics, i wouldnt be surprised if they get dragged into it..... if it hadnt been sitting around for so long id be willing to test it for ammonia....

:cthulhu: :heart: :meso: + :beer:

Nope, not heard a peep out of anyone re this globster. I'd like to see pictures of this thing, if anyone can direct me to them.
Ta
O

There is an angled shot of it (split focus with the people who are observing it) on CNN:

CNN coverage (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americas/07/02/chile.science.reut/index.html)

I'm looking to find some better pictures.

Thanks Llywelyn; looks like no piece of giant squid or octopus to me; better shots needed. Bizarre that they say it is invertebrate (and didn't look like, feel or smell like whale).
Cheers
O

Basking shark.... Its probably a basking shark...

Wasn't it supposed to be an invertevrate?

Chondricthyan... invertebrate... it's pretty much all the same when its three a.m. and you can't sleep...

"Good... Bad... I'm the guy with the gun." - Bruce Campbell, "Army of Darkness"

Eh, and most times the media can't tell the difference between a horrible gelatinous blob and a political leader... Not that there's much of a difference

Good call on the basking shark...that is what I thought also...so, it didn't feel right or smell right...but what about "how did it taste?" :shock:

"Shop smart...shop S mart."

some of my favorite movies of all time!
Greg

Maybe I'm just talking out of instinct here, but I keep thinking "basking shark"... Oh well

Oh, and I met Bruce Campbell a few years ago. Very nice guy, and a lot of laughs.

John

At forty-feet in length, this "blob" would have to have come from a Basking shark at the upper reaches of the species' achievable size; from an animal that big, there ought to be some clearly recognizable structures left. It doesn't seem reasonable to believe that a decomposed, 40-foot Basking shark could fool any ichthyologist these days, since they tend to top the suspects list when weird carcasses are found.

Spotted next to an expired humpback whale, eh? Odd. A gray and lumpy mass, not foul-smelling, floating in close proximity to a whale. Could this stuff have been coughed-up or pooped-out of the dying humpback, ala ambergris?

Clem

That's decomposed whale skin and blubber for sure; going to be egg on a few peoples faces after this. We've had globsters just like it here.

Sad, but probably the dead mate of the other humpback.

Thanks, Steve! Sad about the whales... :(

Boy, what a site...mysterious sea globsters...tragic tales of cetacean love and loss...mysteries solved in under 24 hours...clownfish recipies and wine selection...Kiwi teuthologists...

You JUST can't get that on Yahoo.

rusty

Ouch... rough way to go...

Found the aforementioned globster on the bbc news website. It has a picture if anyone's interested.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3039102.stm

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030701/sc_nm/chile_science_dc_2

has a slide show of the glob!

Melissa

oooooooo....globsters. "a squishy! i will call it squishy. and he will be my squishy"

An article posted yesterday later in the afternoon now features the headline, Chilean 'Blob' May Be Giant Octopus, Whale Blubber (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=570&u=/nm/20030702/sc_nm/chile_creature_dc&printer=1).

While I am happy that this stirs up interest in octopuses, thus increasing traffic and membership to TONMO.com :), I'd say it's pretty clear that Steve is right, this is most probably whale blubber -- and I'm a layman. I have definitely seen pictures of these "globsters" before (such as the infamous St. Augustine, Florida globster), and they have invariably been discovered to be decomposed whale blubber. :chillpil: :)

Hey Phil, didn't you get a postcard of a globster off eBay a few months back? That was a good catch if I remember correctly...

Hey Phil, didn't you get a postcard of a globster off eBay a few months back? That was a good catch if I remember correctly...

Yeah, that's right Tony. I meant to post a picture of it at the time....but I forgot!

Anyway, here it is. It's very strange image and was billed on e-bay as a postcard but is infact a photograph. It's a pity that there is no location or date on the photo (any ideas?) but there is some form of car in the background which looks as if it was built in the late twenties. The car is hard to make out, though.

The 'thing' in question looks more like a sculpture than an amorphous globster. Perhaps Mr Barnham was up to his old tricks again? Amusingly, someone has written that the specimen (?) belongs to the Octabus family!

That hand-written note is hysterical!! :lol:

Oh goodness, the hysteria is growing. A quote from the following article, on CNN:

"The more they looked at the creature, the more they became convinced it was a giant octopus known as Octopus Giganteus."

Full article:

Chilean scientists work to ID mysterious sea creature (http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/07/02/giant.find/index.html)

Obviously , We have been incorrect. This is an Octobus giganteus ssp.noterietious A well known subspecies of the drifting, amoral form of Octobus giganteus giganteus.
" O.g.noterietious is a commonly occuring cephalopod of unusual dimensions, adults are frequently in excess of 200 meters in length, living in small sand depressions near carnivals and traveling shows (especially those featuring the bearded lady). Their food preferences are still unknown, but a scattering of popcorn boxes and empty ice cream tins does suggest a varied diet of junk food...
Several were found last year near crop circles in Iceland, damaging the watercress crops of two farmers quite severely, and this subspecies now has been listed as a "pest" species on the USDA list of ill-mannered animals not for human consumption."
from the Emerging Animal Report, USFW 2003

Gosh all...shouldn't we be embarrassed????
(sic) :lol:
Greg

Submitted for your approval -- a 30-foot-long communal jellyfish with 9-foot-long tentacles:

http://animal.discovery.com/convergence/futureiswild/poll/poll_100mill.html

[Click on the "Ocean Phantom" pic]

Then read the short story "The Man With A Thousand Legs" in Frank Belknap Long's anthology RIM OF THE UNKNOWN.

Has the future arrived 100,000,000 years early?

Or is life imitating Cthulhu Mythos literature?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Taningia Danae, Scholar-in-Residence
Dana Scully Academy of Urgent Whispers and Furtive Glances

I have definitely seen pictures of these "globsters" before (such as the infamous St. Augustine, Florida globster), and they have invariably been discovered to be decomposed whale blubber.

Tony,

The identity of the St. Augustine "Monster" is still a subject of debate. The last time it was subjected to a scientific study, the authors analyzed what was left of a tissue sample and announced that it wasn't an octopus, but couldn't decide on what it was, offering as provisional ID's a Basking shark or whale skin/blubber mass.

The Chilean blob shows one striking point of similarity to the St. Augustine blob: a straight, short cut in the tissue of the bulbous "head." Perhaps this is the blow-hole aperture, turned inside out?

I, for one, am interested in the mechanics of a whale's decomposition. How does a floating, dead whale become a beached skin? Is it opened up by scavengers and "cored" until the skeleton drops out?

Clem

Even the BBC is now claiming that this is a giant octopus of some description - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3041884.stm. Richard Sabin, whale specialist at the Natural History Museum in London, said he would be surprised if this turned out to be whale blubber, though he's made this judgement on the basis of the photos alone (though I suppose we've ALL made judgements just from those photos!).

He's quite right when he says that we won't know for sure what it is until a bio-sample gets back to a lab for a thorough investigation.

It's an intriguing one alright!

p.s. hi to everyone on the forums - the above was my first post (I've been a silent observer up to now but have a great love of everything piscatorial or sea-based, having grown up about 300m from the sea on the south coast of England).

I shall look forward to contributing to the forums as best I can in the future!

Clem
Dead whales decompose very rapidly - the blubber is such an efficient insulator that the body heat is retained after the animal dies, enabling bacteria to decompose the insides rapidly. A sperm whale washed up on a beach will virtually dissappear in 10 days - including most of the bones. (Sperm whale bone is full of oil and apart from the jaw & atlas/axis vertebare articulations, very soft and almost spnge-like). The only part of the body that persists is the blubber, which forms a strange ragged white fibrous mass (often with little smell) variously identified as "mystery monster". Makes for better newspaper headlines than "big dead smelly whale on beach"

Myopsida,

Many thanks for your pithy response to my query. (I learn a lot from the people at this site.)

I suppose the "tentacles" of the Chilean blob could have been produced as the expansion pleats of a Humpback's throat gave way into long, thick strips of tissue?

Vis my earlier observation about the presence of a sharply defined slit in both the Chilean and Floridian blobs, I've attached a comparison illustration below. If not a blowhole, I suppose it could be another orifice.

:roll:

Clem

The globster seems to have an underlying pink color, with red showing through various rends in the tissue... this gives it a mammalian feel, to me at least, especially since any good aristocratic ceph is blue-blooded.

Oh, and I liked the picture of the horse next to it. Guess they couldn't get a double-decker bus onto the beach. ;)

but...Where IS the bearded lady??????????

If not a blowhole, I suppose it could be another orifice.

:roll:

Clem

"Another orifice"? You just had to say that while I was eating breakfast, didn't you?

Haven't been this grossed-out since someone told me they discovered rings around Uranus....

:yuck:

Tan Injera
Abyss-inia

That is the danger of going onto this site in the morning...sometimes I need a pint or two before I log on. :D
Greg

That is the danger of going onto this site in the morning...sometimes I need a pint or two before I log on. :D
Greg

I humbly beg your forgiveness, Greg (hey, that rhymes)! However, it could've been much worse. At least I didn't say, "As 7th Planet United fans tell 3rd Planet United fans, 'Down Earth, up Uranus!'" Or "Have you heard about the new self-help book, WOMEN ARE FROM MARS, MEN ARE FROM URANUS?" Or, "Why is the starship Enterprise like toilet paper? They both circle around Uranus to wipe out the Klingons."

So -- bottom line -- aren't you glad I'm not "cheeky" enough to say any of the above?

Still hoping to see Uranus' moons, I am....

Tani, Rear Admiral
JAUNDICE (Jokes About Uranus Never Display Intelligence, Creativity, or Education)

Taningia,

You ass-umed that it was the anus of a whale to which I referred. More generally, the aperture on the Chilean blob could be a Humpback's genital slit. Still not breakfast-time reading material, perhaps, but what are ya gonna do.

:roll:

Clem

"Boys are different from girls. Girls have a vaginer."
seemed appropriate somehow...from that flick with Arnie S. ...Kindergarten Cop or something...
Greg

Oh, and I liked the picture of the horse next to it. Guess they couldn't get a double-decker bus onto the beach. ;)

Kat,

From CNN (July 4):

"This is a very important find for science. We need to get down there as fast as possible so we don't lose the specimen," said Sergio Letelier, a researcher at the Museum of Natural History in Santiago.

"But we don't even have money for the bus, let alone a plane fare. It's pathetic," he added.

Let alone a double-decker bus.

:heee:

Clem

"Boys are different from girls. Girls have a vaginer."
seemed appropriate somehow...from that flick with Arnie S. ...Kindergarten Cop or something...
Greg

That was from a movie? I always thought that was a direct quote from Arnie during an interview.

:jester:

I'll be baahk,
Tani

hmmm, from what pretty much everyone has said that was there it aint a whale, or whale blubber/skin.... i read soemthing about its silicon concentrate (or something) not being the same of that of a squid and or whales....

im just saying dont be too quick to find rational explaination, i mena wouldnt it be COOL if there was a 15 meter octopus?

:jester:

good heavens YES!!!

Personally, I am sticking with the giant octopus carnie thing...either that, or it is a big wad of chewing gum from the bearded lady...
Greg

i'm just saying that i agree with tomossan that it would be absolutely wonderful to find an octo that big. a sea monster like that would be so totally cool i'd just grin all day to know that it was true. the colossal squid got me all excited(and i'm still grinning about THAT one),if this wad 'o flesh turned out to be an octo it would put me into delirium for a bit without a doubt. *sigh* a boy can dream ,'eh?

any updates? i haven't surfed any today yet...just woke up really. :)

no updates as far as i know.... those poor chilean scientists are so poor they porbbaly sent the blobs 4th class :P

tests will take a while, if they take longer than say wednesday than u cna begin to consider its something more than a whale....

:madsci:

p.s. hi to everyone on the forums - the above was my first post (I've been a silent observer up to now but have a great love of everything piscatorial or sea-based, having grown up about 300m from the sea on the south coast of England).

I shall look forward to contributing to the forums as best I can in the future!
Excellent! Welcome FishBoy!

I think the prescribed :chillpil: is beginning to take effect:

It's not an octopus, so what is 'the blob'? (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s897695.htm)

Note to those watching this thread, don't miss the Phil's Globster Poll in this thread (http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=866).

I suppose it was inevitable...

"The round substance looks like a mammoth jelly fish and is about as long as a school bus." - MSNBC Staff & Wire Reports, July 8

:?

Seeking an hysteria-free, blessedly factual update on the Chilean globster?

http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20030709/02

Good stuff, there.

You guys is right.

Dead sperm whale carcass that the bones had fallen out of.

Beached "blob" mystery solved (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20030711/od_uk_nm/oukoe_chile_creature&e=12&ncid=757)

It is currently thought to be a Sperm Whale.

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters07-11-101500.asp?reg=AMERICAS

Here are several 'globsters' I dealt with several years ago (similarly, initially reported as a colossal squid of some description). Both proved to be whale remains (the smell gave them away)

mmm, rancid whale. that's got to be a lovely stench.

Here are several 'globsters' I dealt with several years ago (similarly, initially reported as a colossal squid of some description). Both proved to be whale remains (the smell gave them away)

Fascinating! The globster in the second photo definitely appears to be a damaged sperm whale hide. However, the globster in the first photo looks remarkably like a Kiwi guy with glasses and a mustache, examining some sort of flotsam in the foreground.

Of course, since it's just a photo I can't determine what the globster in the first photo smells like, though I suspect it's some sort of after-shave cologne (either British Sterling or Old Spice).

I suggest that both specimens be submitted to the nearest marine biology lab for examination and -- if possible -- preservation for future study (because of the presumably volatile nature of the globster in the first photo, the recommended preservation medium would be either Speight's or a nice chianti).

Further analysis of these bizarre objects will be followed with great interest on this site and, I daresay, within the entire scientific community.

Yr humble servant,
H. Lecter, M.D., Ph.D., C.I.A. (Culinary Institute of America)

i think globster.jpg either looks like a platypus or a really ugly alligator made out of sand....

kind of like looking at clouds, but you cant smell clouds....

If only I knew how to make these links tidy!!!

Someone just shot this through to me

tidy link (http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Enviro/03FloridaHEAD02ENV070503.htm) [/edit by tonmo :heee:]

Today National Geographic posted a follow-through on this story..

Chilean Mystery Blob Identified as Sperm Whale Skin (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/08/0825_030825_chilewhale.html)

Further follow-up to this old dusty story, from Science Daily...

Scientists Solve Chilean 'Blob' Mystery (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040122083507.htm)

WHACK!... WHACK!... WHACK!

What's that sound? Apparently its a scientist beating a dead squid... er, whale... :P

Just kidding! Thanks for the followup, Tony!

John

check the top left corner....

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/skunkworks/about/index.html