Terrifying ‘alien’ creature with claws washes up on an Australian beach

By Alma Fabiani

Published Mar 31, 2022 at 11:34 AM

Reading time: 1 minute

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When Queensland-based Christian pastor Alex Tan went on a lovely morning walk on the beach, we’re pretty sure he didn’t expect to come across what he first thought was an alien. Tan initially shared the footage you’re about to see on his Instagram Stories, but felt it required to be shared in a feed post too so that people would not miss out on how strange this mysterious creature looks.

In the video (as well as in the post’s caption), Tan asked whoever came across the horrifying footage to try and identify the beast. “I’ve stumbled across something weird,” he said.

“This is like one of those things you see when people claim they’ve found aliens,” Tan continued. The video then panned across to a rather bloated corpse of something with rat-like claws, a decaying skull, and a very long tail.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ALEX TAN (@tanalex)

Chances are, you’re now shaking in your boots anticipating the nearing alien invasion this footage seems to predict. Well, if you are, you can relax—because the creature has been identified by University of Queensland (UQ) Associate Professor Stephen Johnston.

Speaking to the Courier-Mail, the Professor confirmed Tan’s suspicions, explaining that the animal was most likely a swollen, waterlogged brushtail possum. “The skull and hindlimb give the clues,” he said. “The animal was probably washed down into the ocean during the floods.”

Tan had vowed on social media that he would offer a pub meal for any expert who could correctly identify the creature. We certainly hope he got Professor Johnston a nice fish and chips.

When reporting on the news, LADbible went on to mention another ‘alien’ mystery which still hasn’t been solved. According to the publication, one Sydney-based man, Harry Hayes, went for a jog in February 2022 and discovered “a very bizarre—and very dead—thing on the road.”

Terrifying ‘alien’ creature with claws washes up on an Australian beach

“My gut says it’s some kind of embryo but with COVID, World War III, and the floods [going on right now] this could very well be an alien,” Hayes told LADbible Australia. Though the publication approached the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to identify this creature, so far, no academic has been able to fully confirm what it is.

According to the Guardian, however, scientists at San Diego’s Institution of Oceanography University identified it as a Pacific football fish, a deep-sea dweller. Please stay there next time.

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