According to NBC News, the ominous creature lives in the depths of the ocean, making it a rare sight. There have been just 21 recorded oarfish sightings near California beaches since 1901. Two of those sightings occurred in 2024 —another oarfish washed up on a shore in La Jolla in August.

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.