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Something fishy? Video of mysterious unidentified floating object leaves marine experts baffled

Marine biologists have been left baffled after footage showing what looks like an enormous blob floating underwater emerged online.

Filmed by underwater drillers in an unknown location using a deep-sea remote controlled camera, the video captures the mysteriously-shaped milky mass drifting near a well 5000 ft below the ocean surface.

At the end of the viral clip, the odd-looking creature makes a sudden descent.

But not even experts from the UK’s Marine Biological Association (MBA) or the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton know what it really is.

The MBA's head aquarist John Rundle told Yahoo! News: “It looks like some sort of jellyfish, but we cannot be conclusive.”

The Web is awash with suggestions that the marine oddity may be some kind of deep sea monster.

Others go as far to speculate that it could be a whale’s placenta.


[Related article: First basking shark of the season spotted off Cornwall coast]



The most widely-held theory among commentators is that it’s a species of jellyfish called Deepstaria enigmatica – but the object's appendages and organs would make it unique among its slippery brethren.

The invertebrae, which is usually found in the South Atlantic, was first discovered in 1967 and can measure up to 60cm in diameter.

Are you puzzled too? What do you think the creature looks like?