Globsters’ Glory Days Are Gone
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 16th, 2007
Globsters formerly were a staple of cryptozoological wonders. Large masses of unknown origin would be found beached in exotic locations around the world. Local wags would scratch their heads and big city experts would state their confusion to the media.
Articles written and book comments would repeat the stories over and over again that Globsters were perhaps Sea Serpents or other unknown marine monsters. If only we could get a sample of such and such a Globster, we were told, perhaps a final determination could be made.
The term “Globster” was coined in 1962 by zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson to describe the 1960 carcass (shown above in the news clipping), which today is known as the “Tasmanian Globster.” It was a large unidentified carcass that washed ashore in western Tasmania, in August 1960. It measured 20 by 18 feet (6 m by 5.5 m) and was estimated to weigh between 5 and 10 tons. The mass lacked eyes and in place of a mouth, had “soft, tusk-like protuberances,” with a spine and six soft, fleshy “arms.” The remarkable stiff, white bristles covering its body were always mentioned as adding to the mystery of what this could be.
Another such beaching (directly above) was called the “Four Mile Globster,” and described as an unidentified mass washed ashore on Four Mile Beach, Tasmania, in 1997.
However, today, findings, DNA sampling, and better tracking of beaches internationally have almost assuredly linked Globsters to extremely decomposed whales.
One recent find, which looks similar to all the old Globsters was not even mentioned as mysterious. See two angles of it below:
(Photos by Tiffany Boothe, Seaside Aquarium.)
In an article of this past week entitled “Decomposed Whale Beaches on Oregon Coast…,” no doubt was expressed about the origins of this mass. It was stated to be a whale by the staff of the Seaside Aquarium at Seaside, Oregon. As the article observed, it was…
…one very nasty decomposed whale that washed up Tuesday on Del Rey Beach – just north of Gearhart. It was so badly decomposed that staff from the Seaside Aquarium had few clues from which to identify it. Manager Keith Chandler guessed it might be a gray whale, although Deb Duffield from the Marine Mammal Stranding Network headquarters at Portland State University said she thought it might be a humpback whale. She received the photos via email from Tiffany Boothe at the Seaside Aquarium.
It was about ten feet long and thoroughly unrecognizable, Chandler said.
He said it could be the dead whale that was seen last week floating about two miles offshore from Depoe Bay.
The whale was extremely bad smelling, said Chandler. “It’s just a hunk of rotting flesh,” he said. “It’s just a blob. The skin is so bad and slimy it looks like fur.”
They could not get near it on Tuesday because of high tide. “The last thing you want is that decomposed thing to roll over on you or just touch you, when it’s being knocked around by the tide,” said Boothe.
Boothe and Chandler will attempt to collect flesh and blubber samples from the creature at low tide on Wednesday morning. There is a possibility representatives from the Marine Mammal Stranding Network will come out to investigate as well.
There is no word how it may be disposed of.
The glory days of Globsters appear to be gone. The mystery and glamour of the Globster is a thing of history.
Or so it seems.
The one cautionary footnote I must add is that not all the Globsters, if the word applies any longer, may be explainable as stranded and decaying whales. The mystery of the St. Augustine, Florida, stranding of 1896, could indeed be a “Giant Octopus,” according to Roy P. Mackal’s analysis of the material on file in the Smithsonian archives.
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well the bottom two pics have a general whale shape, but the one above those does not strike me as a whale at all..
I’ve always had a bit of a fondness, if that’s an applicable word here, for Globsters. Thanks for the update Loren.
All globsters have been proven to be dead whales including the one found in St. Augustine, FL. A sample from that stranding was recently tested by a scientist in San Diego. I don’t remember his name but that info is available on an episode of “Is It Real” titled “Monsters of the Deep” that periodically airs on the National Geograpic Channel. Dr. Roy Mackel is wrong. Technological advances in DNA testing have proven this to be true. Sorry!
Did they ever find out what the original one in Tazmania was ?
The detailed description was amazing!
timbo21 is correct about the St. Augustine carcass. Interested parties should check out the “St. Augustine Monster” Wikipedia entry for more information.
From Richard Ellis “Monsters of the Sea”. Eugenia Clark, a Zoologist & Cryptozoologist at the university of Maryland was able to get a sample of tissue of the St Augustine and Bermuda blob and had them analyzed by Skip Pierce a molecular biologist. Pierce concluded they were not octopus or squid tissue but pure collagen. However, this raises more questions. Collagen is the fibrous constituent of bone, cartilage. Connective tissue does not exist in two or three ton lumps. It it would have to be one hell of a tumor.
Don’t get too cozy–all of them should be tested, not just declared “whales” and disposed of. It’s dangerous to automatically called all globsters whales. They may all be whales, but they still need to be examined.
I’m a frequent beachcomber along the Oregon Coast north of Seaside. I had occasion to contact Keith Chandler of the Seaside Aquarium a couple years ago to report a dead harbor porpoise. He and an associate arrived quickly and recovered the whole animal, which had not yet begun to decompose. He said in cases of small mammals like the porpoise they freeze the carcass and send it to the Oregon State U. Marine Sciences Lab for autopsy. A creature as big as the recent Seaside whale cannot be reasonably recovered intact, but tissue samples are taken and sent to the lab. If it’s unrecognizable they may speculate on what it is, but they don’t dismiss it and dispose.
As for globsters I realize most of them are whale carcasses, but where can I find any pictures of stranded Octopus (Octopi?) or Squid that may have been mistaken for globs? Or do they decompose in a significantly different way from mammals?
This to me is a very good example of how science can help us to get to the bottom of some of these mysteries. Being someone who at one time held a certain fondness for the mystery of globsters, I feel a certain sadness that this mystery is no longer one but at the same time, I am pleased at how science can take a seemingly unfathomable mystery of ages past and get to what is really going on. Beautiful. All I really want with any cryptozoological phenomena is to know the truth, no matter what that truth turns out to be.
Well said, Mystery-Man!