Every now and then, the stories of sea monsters take a physical form when a huge, decaying carcass of what appears to be a monster from the deep washes ashore. Such a creature came ashore on Seram Island in Indonesia’s Maluku province in May. Initially, the 50-foot-long body was said to be a giant squid but the appearance of bones from the decomposing and incredibly smelly corpse allowed scientists to identify the creature as a dead and rotting baleen whale. The scientists are unsure whether the whale was a blue, a Bryde’s whale or possibly a fin whale.

About a year ago, fisherman from Bunbury, near Perth, Australia saw what appeared to be some sort of alien sphere floating on the surface. At first they thought that it might be a stranded hot air balloon but on closer examination saw that is was very strange indeed. From the photograph I was reminded of a 1957 sci-fi move, “The Brain from Planet Arous.”

When the fisherman came closer and had a a different perspective on the object, they could see that it was not an alien space ball but instead a dead baleen whale, bloated with gas.