'I was just mesmerized.' Researchers capture first northeast Pacific sighting of spooky squid

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Set us as preferred The underwater vehicle was coasting about six feet above the ocean floor, two miles deep, when a pinkish, mysterious creature swam into its camera’s sights, drawing gasps in the research vessel floating at the surface.At first, postdoctoral researcher Olívia Soares Pereira thought the vehicle had come across a jellyfish.

Then she saw on the monitor a characteristic “elbow” and realized that what she was seeing was much rarer.“Magnapinna!” Pereira shouted, and pulled out her phone to take a video.

The Aug.7 sighting of the elusive bigfin squid was the first time the animal has been seen alive in the northeast Pacific Ocean, and one of the few times it has been seen at all, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

Only about 70 have been observed or collected, the institute said in a statement.And it wasn’t even the goal of the 10-day research expedition.The institute, along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sent a research vessel Aug.

3 on a trip to study underwater mountains, called seamounts.The geographic features are hot spots of biodiversity, with corals, sponges and even an octopus garden, just like in the Beatles song.

One of the key goals of this particular expedition was to gather data to determine if whales were leaving behind furrows in the sediment of the Davidson Seamount, about 80 miles southwest of Monterey, as they chased fish for food.The underwater drone, tethered to the ship with cables and about the size of a small car, was just above the ocean floor as the researchers and pilots searched for furrows potentially left by whales.

One of the senior researchers on the expedition, Andrew DeVogelaere, said he was focused on the seafloor, “thinking about the whale pits,” when the squid suddenly showed up.“I was just kind of mesm...