Two deep-sea creatures, known famously as ‘doomsday fish’, recently washed up on a Mexican beach – and everyone is having a meltdown at the extraordinarily rare sighting.
Parul Sharma GAU audience writer
05:00, 12 Mar 2026Updated 09:37, 12 Mar 2026
These deep-sea creatures are seldom spotted near the surface(Image: x)
In a startling discovery on the coast of Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, two incredibly rare deep-sea creatures, also known as ‘doomsday fish’, have been seen struggling outside the water, lying on the beach.
According to folklore, the seldom-seen deep-sea oarfish is thought to be a precursor of bad news, and two such creatures being spotted together could be indicating signs of some seriously dreadful events to come.
The long, ribbon-like fish is a mysterious deep-sea creature, often found at depths of 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) and rarely seen near the surface of the water – making two sightings of the rare oarfish a highly unusual and remarkable occurrence.
The extraordinarily rare sighting
Beach visitor Monica Pittenger, in association with the account We Love Animals, initially posted the shocking video clip she captured of the incident to Instagram on March 4, 2026, in which the two deep-sea fish can be seen struggling on the beach, reports the Mirror.
In the footage, the oarfish can be seen washed up on the Mexican beach, as one of the unfortunate creatures helplessly flounders outside the water.
The ‘doomsday fish’ is considered to be a bad omen(Image: x)
The camera then moves to the other side, where a second oarfish can be seen, also seemingly stranded between the water and the shore.
A crowd gradually starts to gather around the first doomsday fish, and one of the women in the video (later identified by Monica as her sister Katie) can be seen bending down as she begins pushing the creature back into the water.
Moments later, she is accompanied by additional bystanders and collectively they all succeed in pushing the deep-sea oarfish back into the water.
Speaking in the video, Monica can be heard saying: “I didn’t believe my eyes. It was like something out of a fiction movie. I had never seen anything like it before. I just remember thinking, is this real?! And honestly, when I saw the second one, I got a little nervous.”
Monica described how she and others in her group “saw something in the distance” as she revealed “It was flashing, and it was really bright.”
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She added: “And when we saw them up close, it was like nothing we’ve seen before, so we were like, ‘This can’t be real.'”
Monica recounted how her sister Katie “just cannot stand anything in pain” and responded to the distressing situation “super fast” to help the creature return to the water. Katie was promptly assisted by a young girl and eventually others participated in the rescue effort.
Monica said: “Just watching all these men standing around, and she [Katie] throws me her phone and her drink and her bag, and she’s like, ‘Hold this.'”
“I think a lot of people were very hesitant because nobody really knew what it was. It’s not every day that you see that. And I mean, I don’t blame them.”
After they finished pushing the first oarfish back into the sea, the spontaneous rescue team reportedly proceeded towards the other fish, which was also assisted back into the water by Katie and her companions.
Concerns over the video being AI rapidly spread (as they tend to in this modern era), however, Monica confirmed the video was genuine in a comment under her original Instagram post, responding to people questioning the video’s authenticity: “It’s not AI!! It’s my video.”
Why their appearance is causing panic
Oarfish can grow up to 30 feet in length and Japanese folklore suggests these deep-sea creatures are dispatched as messengers by the sea gods as a warning of impending doom in the form of natural disasters like tsunamis and earthquakes.
Although the mesopelagic-dwelling creatures have long been associated with tsunamis and earthquakes in myths, scientists have found no actual evidence their appearance, though rare, can predict natural disasters. As per Surfer, no seismic activity has followed the ‘doomsday fish’ sighting till now.
The gigantic fish’s reputation as a bad omen precedes its actual harmless nature, with it long being used as a symbol to predict real-world natural calamities and catastrophic disasters.
The internet has, understandably, lost its collective mind at the sighting, with one X user writing: “The ocean drops two literal harbingers of doom on the beach at Cabo, is it time to rethink that trip or just bring my doomsday kit and pretend everything is fine?”.
One social media user commented: “Seeing the ‘doomsday fish’ on the surface is always a chilling sight. Whether it’s seismic activity or shifting ocean currents, something deep down is definitely changing. Nature is sending us a signal we shouldn’t ignore.”
While one X user wrote: “Two doomsday fish washing up in quick succession may be telling us something. Especially when only a few have ever washed up over several hundred years.”
Another user humorously posted: “Two 20–30 ft oarfish basically doing a surprise beach cameo in Cabo? That’s not just rare , it’s statistically absurd. Normally they chill at 3,000 ft deep where it’s pitch black and zero drama. People pushing them back into the water like it’s a group project is wholesome chaos.”