BERMUDA BLOB: (BERMUDA)

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The identity of this large, mysterious, star shaped carcass remains shrouded in mystery, even to the scientists who have studied its tissue samples.

In May 1988, one of the more peculiar carcasses ever to be washed up from the ocean’s depths was found lying on the shore of Mangrove Bay in Bermuda, by a treasure hunter named Teddy Tucker.

Quickly dubbed the “Bermuda Blob” by the local press, this corpse has been reported as being approximately 8-feet long and almost 3-feet wide. Tucker described the cadaver’s complexion as being extremely pale and fibrous, with no apparent bones, cartilage or visible openings. Tucker’s account also stated that the creature seemed to have five arms or legs, which he described as being akin to a disfigured star.

This description bears a remarkable resemblance to cadre of other strange, quasi-mollusks, which fit into a peculiar sub-section of Curious Carcasses known as GLOBSTERS. This list includes (among some notable others) the TASMANIAN GLOBSTER as well as the MURIWAI CARCASS.

In an attempt to preserve a sample of the creature for scientific study, Tucker – with great difficulty, as the creatures tough hide proved more resilient than it at first appeared – finally managed to remove a small portion of the animal’s flesh. The tissue samples were reportedly taken to a laboratory for further study. Soon after Tucker made this discovery, the remains of the Bermuda Blob, like so many of its ilk, floated back out to sea.

In 1995, a report was published by Sidney K. Pierce, Gerald N. Smith, Jr., Timothy K. Maugel, and Eugenie Clark, regarding the tests done on both the famous ST. AUGUSTINE PHENOMENON tissue as well as the Bermuda Blob.

They determined the blob’s amino acid content and looked at it through an electron microscope. Both results indicated that the carcass was composed largely of collagen. The proportions of various amino acids in the Bermuda Blob were characteristic of ectothermic (cold-blooded) vertebrate collagen. Pierce, Smith, Maugel, and Clark conclude that the Bermuda blob is the skin of some fish, possibly a shark.

However, Richard Ellis, one of the country’s foremost authorities on ocean life, points out difficulties in this explanation, stating that no fish skin is thick enough to form anything the size of the Bermuda Blob. It should also be noted that even for the short time that the Bermuda Blob had been in preservatives, its composition could have been dramatically changed.

In 1995, yet another blob washed onto a Bermuda beach.  Analysis of samples in 2004 suggests that this second Bermuda Blob was likely a large mass of adipose tissue from a whale.

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