A rare deep sea fish, regarded as a harbinger of doom, has washed up on a southern California shore. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said one of its PhD students discovered an oarfish on a beach in Encinitas last week that was around nine to ten feet long.

A rare deep-sea oarfish, also called a sea serpent, washed ashore near San Diego in Encinitas, and Scripps scientists are unsure what happened.

A very rare fish has washed up on a California beach, but it could come with some bad news. For the second time in 2024, a rarely seen deep sea fish, known as an oarfish, has washed up on the coastline in California.

A long, ribbon-shaped oarfish, rarely seen and believed to signal disaster, has washed up on California’s shores for the second time this year. PhD candidate Alison Laferriere from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego discovered the nearly 10-foot-long oarfish on a beach in Encinitas, in southern California, last week.

The discovery of the dead 9½-foot-long fish follows a similar find by kayakers and snorkelers in August at La Jolla Cove

A member of the Scripps Oceanography team spotted the dead fish outside of San Diego, California. The fish was estimated to be 9 to 10 feet in length, which was much smaller than the one recovered in La Jolla in August.

It is the second time this year that an oarfish has been found in the area. Sightings are very rare, with fewer than a couple of dozen having been seen on the state’s coast in 120 years. They inhabit the depths of the ocean in a region known as the mesopelagic zone,