A very large, very strange looking sea creature was found by the Iranian Navy in the Persian Gulf and has people speculating as to what it is, ranging from “dinosaur like,” to a mutilated whale carcass. 

I've contacted the Smithsonian and British Natural History Museum to see if they care to comment butif this was Iranian Navy where are they?  Just seems to be some kind of tug boat. 

The fact that a video was "removed by user" on so many sites makes me VERY suspicious -why?  I'd very much like to think it was an unknown sea creature because it might do sales of my last book some good! 

However, after a life time chasing the weird, sinister and strange I am not holding my breath just yet--no major news organisation has even mentioned this. 

Hoax or...genuine?  I say whale! 

And I am still surprised that people are calling this a "mystery" sea creature.  Images are from a video taken at a Shell oil rig.  Its shows a Big Fin squid -rare image (Monterrey Bay Centre has a clearer shot-see below). 

Below:Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (c)2013

Bearing in mind the 1953 report of an oddly coloured HUGE mass that killed a shark in front of a diver I find this video footage absolutely fascinating! 

But Eric Frank Russell, the science fiction
author and, it seems, a devotee of “Forteana” has left a very annoying legacy
in the shape of a 1953 report to origin of which I still have not tracked down
after ten years! 

”A report
dated 1953, made by an Australian diver working in the

South Pacific,
tells of something that may have been more familiar

to the
ancients and formed the source of a few of their best horror

stories.  Wearing the latest type
of diving-suit, the narrator had been

testing it
by trying for a depth record in deep ocean.” 

Then comes the mind-boggling account:

“All the
way down I was followed by a fifteen foot shark which

circled
around full of curiosity but made no attempt to attack.  I

kept
wondering how far down he would go.  He
was still hanging

around some
thirty feet [9m] from me, and about twenty feet [6m]

higher, when
I reached a ledge below which was a great, black chasm

of enormous
depth. 

“It being
dangerous to venture farther, I stood looking into the chasm

while the
shark waited for my next move.  Suddenly
the water became

distinctly
colder.  While the temperature continued
to drop with

surprising
rapidity, I was a black mass rising from the darkness of the

chasm.  It floated upwards very slowly.  As at last light reached it I

could see
that it was of dull brown colour and tremendous size, a flat

ragged
edged thing about one acre* in extent. 
It pulsated sluggishly

and I knew
that it was alive despite its lack of visible limbs or eyes. 

“I stood
perfectly still, not daring to move, while the brown thing sank

back into
the chasm as slowly as it had emerged. 
Darkness swallowed

it and the water
started to regain some warmth.  God knows
what this

thing was, but
I had no doubt that it had been born of the primeval slime

countless
fathoms below.” 

There are some odd aspects to this.  We know that sharks will start to sink if
they stop swimming but what made this one hang motionless rather than swim off
if it sensed a dangerous predator? 

A report published in the journal Nature
describes a remarkable gel found in the shark snouts that allow them to detect
minute temperature changes.  Such a sensitivity to such differences could help
lead sharks to thermal fronts in the ocean that are teeming with quarry.  Being cold-blooded, sharks rely on external
water temperatures to keep them warm. 

A shark head contains a number of sensors
known as ampullae of Lorenzini that can help the animal detect electric fields
emitted by the earth's magnetic field or by other sea-dwellers. 

There are many things that affect where shark
species are found.  One being the
temperature of water, the amount of light available, the amount of salt in the
water, or even the water currents.  The
kinds and amounts of food sources available as well as the types of predators
all have an effect.  Possibly the most
important of these factors is temperature. 
It is interesting to remember that sharks cannot stand large changes
in temperature.  This means that shark
species that like cold water stay near
the Arctic, while shark species preferring
warm water stay in the tropics.  That said, sharks that like cold water can easily
live in warmer places by simply swimming down to the depths where the water is
colder.  Many kinds of sharks live near
the water's surface, and a few live deep in the sea. 

The diver noted the sudden drop in temperature
prior to the creature rising from the chasm. 
The shark, in this case a warm-water dweller, hit suddenly by a wave of
cold could become inactive.  This would
explain the sudden inactivity.  But
surely it could have detected the other creature using its natural senses?  It seems quite obvious, the cold wave hit the
shark before it sensed any danger.  This
would explain that particular aspect. 

The assumption is that the creature was some
huge form of jelly-fish.  But this seems
almost unlikely.  An experienced diver, particularly
one expert enough to depth-dive in new gear would be equally experienced, especially
in those warm waters, to seeing jelly-fish. 
Surely he would have said “the biggest jelly-fish I had ever seen –an
acre across in size”?  He does not.  One
acre = 4046.86 square metres or 43560 square feet –so this was sizeable!  From
this we suppose that it did not look
like such a creature, even if sounding a little like one. 

The jelly-fish tentacles could be described as
looking like “cooked noodles” and hang underneath the body and can be as long
as 1 cm to 120 feet (36.5m) which is longer than, say, a basketball court.  Tentacles can number a few to as many as
800.  These tentacles are concentrated
around the mouth because, after the prey is stung by the tentacles they then
pull the food up to be eaten.  The stinging cell is located at the top of the
tentacle; when its prey swims by the jellyfish will touch the fish with its
tentacles –automatically killing it. 

However, the diver did not mention tentacles and the shark was seen to convulse after
being touched by the upper-side of the creature –an electrical charge rather
than stinger?  The shark was then drawn
up into the creature’s mass which does sound like a jelly-fish or an animal
that consumes its food in a similar way. 
It would be far more comforting to say this was a phenomenally huge
jelly-fish unknown to science but are there similar reports? 

And people ask WHY I don't want to go wading out into the sea! 

Pursuing The Strange & Weird

Ships in 3-5 business daysFrom Dead Aquatic (Humanoid) Creatures, the giant squid and yet undiscovered sea creatures;submarine and ships crews encountering true leviathans.  Extinct animals at sea that have been re-discovered and the subject of Sasquatch and other Hominids around the world as well as two early French UFO entity cases that still baffle, ghosts, strange creatures-and the Star-Child hoax.  All dealt with by the naturalist and pursuer of the strange and weird