A 16-foot giant fish captured by a group of fishermen in Chile recently drove locals into a frenzy.
The oarfish is said to be a forerunner of earthquakes and tsunamis, and its appearance is considered a terrible omen in several cultures.
These secretive animals are the world's longest bony fish, living in the dark depths of the deep sea and rarely seen near the coast.
The viral oarfish has been found in Chile
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The video has been shared on several social media platforms but it was first posted on TikTok where it reportedly garnered nearly 10 million views, as per NDTV.
The post raised concerns among people as the creature is traditionally seen as a bad omen for tsunamis and earthquakes.
"That's a scary amazing fish," wrote one user, while another explained the concern: "Oarfish live in the depths.
It is said that when they start to the surface it is because the tectonic plates are in movement.
Internet users believe that the creature's proximity to the shore signaled imminent underwater earthquakes.
The video was shared on numerous social media sites, but it originally appeared on TikTok, where it apparently had around 10 million views.
People were concerned after reading the message since the creature is usually thought to be a terrible omen for tsunamis and earthquakes.
One person noted, "That's a terrifying fantastic fish," while another expressed concern about Oarfish living in the deep. The movement of the tectonic plates is supposed to cause them to rise to the surface.
Users on the internet think that the creature's closeness to the beach foreshadowed impending undersea earthquakes.
Oarfish may grow to be 11 meters long. They typically dwell in deep water and only come to the surface when sick, dying, or reproducing.
Meanwhile, seeing this fish is unusual. An oarfish was discovered on a beach in New Zealand in April, when it was seen by local beachgoers.
This notion stems from tales that oarfish, which reside between 200 and 1,000 meters deep, only beach themselves on coasts before undersea earthquakes. However, scientists refute these statements.
When two oarfish were captured in Japan in 2019, Uozu Aquarium keeper Kazusa Saiba told CNN that there is no scientific evidence to support the belief that oarfish arrive during large earthquakes. However, we cannot completely rule out the idea.
Legend has it that they beach themselves on coasts before of undersea earthquakes, and are known as "Ryugu no tsukai" in Japanese, or the "Messenger from the Sea God's Palace."
The story gained hold during the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, which killed over 20,000 people. According to Kyodo News, at least a dozen oarfish washed ashore on Japan's shoreline the year before the accident.
A group of Japanese academics looked through several sources to see whether there was a link between oarfish sightings and earthquakes.
They gathered data from press publications, scholarly journals, and aquarium records dating from November 1928 to March 2011.
Based on this data, they calculated that the overall number of deep-sea fish encounters was 392 among 45 species.
Only eight of these 45 species, including the oarfish (Regalecus glesne), are linked to earthquakes.
They used statistical tools to compare 336 deep-sea sightings to 221 earthquakes that occurred during that time span, but they were unable to discover an association.
