IT is often said that “you live and learn”, which means that everyday that one grows older, one gets wiser with experience. But it would be more interesting to say, “one knows and learns”. Which, simply put, means one learns with knowledge and as one pursues more and more knowledge, one learns more each day.

The reason for this little lesson in philosophy before starting this article is that many times we hear and might not believe something as possible, but as we learn more and more, we may find that with each passing day we unfold yet another mystery. Folktales and legends speak of huge creatures that roamed the earth, flew the skies and yes, swam the seas and oceans. They were probably stories, which were exaggerations or made up for scaring children or just to make time pass sitting around a fire on a cold night.

You might think. But think again, as sometimes fiction meets fact in a most puzzling way. For the last few hundred years, many pieces, or one should say parts of marine life, have washed ashore. Sometimes large pieces of flesh, which could not be identified with any kind of known fish. But then some of these “blobs” as they are referred to, were later identified as some large sea mammal like a huge whale, shark or even octopus. And then there were some “blobsters” which not only sparked a huge interest but even awe from researchers and marine biologists.

Could this be true? Do these huge prehistoric looking creatures live thousands of feet deep under the depths of our waters and are intelligent enough to come up just to warn us?

Examining the pieces even at that time, one could hardly believe that creatures this large were part of our living world, even though they lived hundreds of feet below the surface of the waters.

In 1896, the waves brought in a huge mass of a sea creature, which was a rubbery piece of marine, flesh about six feet high, in St. Augustine, Florida. The blob was supposed to have been a part of a giant octopus. But the sheer size of the octopus that was calculated came to such a huge measurement that researchers and naturalists were left baffled. It was not known before then that the calm and cool waters held in their depths a creature of that size.

Recently, a few months back, a huge and strange skeleton washed ashore the beach in Los Angeles, California. The partial skeleton was four meters long and had horns on its head. As it lay rotting on the beach, many onlookers gathered o see this large monster. “It’s very decomposed and we cannot identify it,” stated the spokesman of the PROMAR Sea Life Defence Programme, to the media.

To add to the sea beast mystery another similar creature washed ashore about a week later. What was going on? Who or what were these mysterious creatures from the sea?

As marine scientists later experimented on the remains, they came to the conclusion that the unfortunate creatures were sabre-toothed whales. But the question still remained as to what brought these huge creatures to the shore?

Then we have the huge giant oarfish, which is termed as a sea serpent, which washed ashore, was 18 feet long and was at first rumoured to be some kind of dinosaur. Now these large huge snake-like creatures live very deep underwater in oceans where they hide their monstrous size.

Jin Dines, the researcher with The natural History Museum of Los Angeles reported in his statement to the press that “it’s too early to tell” why these strange and large creatures are coming to the shores. Other researchers say that it’s probably global warming and warmer waters, but they are not sure. Moreover, the creatures did not show any signs of being hit by a large vessel or disease.

The beaching of two large oarfish that washed ashore the Californian beach do have an explanation according to Japanese folklore amongst seamen — these monsters from the deep are warnings of a disaster like an Earthquake. The myth is that these gigantic creatures live 3,000 feet under the surface come up on purpose to warn surface dwellers of an earthquake. Just like an ancient warning bell.

Coincidentally, months after a huge earthquake measuring 8.8 in the Richter scale rocked Chile in 2010, and then again the quake felt in Japan in 2011 resulted in several oarfish either beached or were caught near the epicentre of the quake, which was off the coast of Honshu. These giant sea serpents or oarfish are termed, “Messenger from the Sea God’s Palace”, by the Japanese.

Could this be true? Do these huge prehistoric looking creatures live thousands of feet deep under the depths of our waters and are intelligent enough to come up just to warn us? Even experts who spend their entire lives studying marine life and go exploring the unknown depths say that it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see an oarfish dead or alive as they are mostly secretive, mysterious creatures written about in mythical stories.

But of course, modern scientists do not believe the myth that these creatures come up to warn or are the result of earthquake activity. They think that since they are so large and swim very slowly under the depths, a strong undercurrent might bring them up without their capability to swim back to the depths.

Now, we have another interesting fact to look into. In May this year, news broke out that a new species of reptile from the dinosaur era is making scientists think of rewriting books on the evolution of prehistoric sea monsters. The skeleton of a 10-foot long creature known as “ichthyosaur” was found embedded on a stone slab in Kurdistan, Iraq.

What’s strange about finding a dinosaur skeleton one might ask? Here is the mystery.

It’s not supposed to live till when it did. Meaning it ruled the depths of the waters of the planet 66 million years ago. Meaning it lived during the Jurassic period but has miraculously survived till the Cretaceous era much later!

How did this happen? Did the myths and legends that speak of huge sea monsters and dragons churning the waves and swallowing towns speak the truth? One learns and lives.