On Sunday, a strange seaweed-covered object washed up ashore on a beach in New Zealand. The officials are yet to figure out and explain what it is.
The strange object was found on Muriwai Beach in Auckland by a resident, Melissa Doubleday. She took to Facebook to post pictures of the object on the Muriwai & Waimauku Area Community group. She posted, ‘Just curious to know if anyone knows what this is??! Washed up on Muriwai Beach.”
Melissa said that as she was walking down the beach, she spotted this creature and thinking it was a whale approached it. As she got closer she saw the deformity and was bewildered to what it is. The post got various suggestions which ranged from Maori Canoe to Rastafarian whale. Some even compared it to the Predator from Arnold Schwarzenegger movie series.
While some went ahead and called it ‘Alien Pod Time Capsule’, some suggested that it might be driftwood covered in gooseneck barnacles.
The gooseneck barnacle seemed an appropriate suggestion as they hold water and are often found in large numbers attached to driftwood. These filter-feeding crustaceans filter the water surrounding them for micro-organisms, purifying water.
They use their flexible stalks to attach to hard objects such as the hulls of ships, piers or rocks. A valid explanation would be that the during the recent earthquake this might have gotten detached from the seabed and washed ashore.
This mysterious find has been dubbed the ‘Muriwai monster’.
