A Mysterious Lump Shaped Like A Mermaid Washed Up On An Island In Papua New Guinea
In 2023, a strange white lump of flesh shaped like a mermaid washed up on an island in Papua New Guinea. The mysterious mass was likely a marine mammal, but experts couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. Their guesses ranged from anything to a dolphin or shark.
Locals of Simberi Island came across the severely decayed creature on the beach. Simberi Island is a small volcanic island located in the Bismarck Sea, with a population of around 1,000 people. It is part of Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland Province.
The dead creature is known as a globster, an official term that is used to refer to an unidentified organic mass that washes ashore.
The origins of globsters are difficult to determine because most of the corpse has rotted away. In this case, the lump was missing its head and large chunks of flesh.
There is no information on the size and weight of the remains because they were not properly measured before locals buried them.
Additionally, no DNA samples were collected, which makes it nearly impossible to identify the corpse. Experts tossed around some ideas of what the mass could be.
“This looks like a long dead dugong [marine mammals also called sea cows which are related to manatees],” said Eric Hoyt, a researcher at the United Kingdom’s Whale and Dolphin Conservation charity. “It will have been dead for weeks or longer.”
Another expert named Jens Currie, the chief scientist of the Pacific Whale Foundation in Hawaii, also thought the mermaid globster could be a dugong, which has inspired stories of mermaids in the past.
According to Currie, the creature’s head was probably too large to be a dolphin or whale, based on what was left of it. Plus, the amount of blubber suggested that it was a marine mammal, not a shark.
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Others speculated it was a “very decomposed cetacean.” Cetaceans, or dolphins and whales, turn white after their skin falls off.
The most common cetaceans in the region are short-finned pilot whales, sperm whales, spinner dolphins, and pantropical spotted dolphins.
Without more data, it is a challenge for experts to make an educated guess about the mermaid globster. It seems that we will never know for sure what the creature was.
Perhaps it really was a mermaid who had passed away and just happened to wash up on Simberi Island.
The mermaid globster hasn’t been the only bizarre corpse to wash up on shores in recent years. For example, in 2008, the “Montauk Monster” turned up on Long Island, sparking theories about an alien, mutant, or raccoon.
It also mysteriously disappeared. And in 2018, locals in Russia and the Philippines found a giant, hairy globster on their shores.
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