Vex on the beach.
Photos of a creature — resembling a “mermaid alien” — washed ashore on an Australian beach have sent the internet into a collective tizzy online as viewers scramble to guess the mystery critter’s identity.
The macabre-looking flotsam first came to light via a post in the Marine Biology Facebook group that’s currently making waves online.
“It was exactly like a mermaid shape,” said uploader Bobbi-lee Oates, 34, of the skeletal remains, which she stumbled across while walking along the beach in Keppel Sands, Queensland.
“We were driving along the beach looking for a campsite, and we couldn’t help but notice how much the skull looked to be in the shape of a human’s,” the Aussie recalled. “So we instantly stopped from the confusion as to what the hell could this be, and why does this look like a human skull?”
Accompanying photos show the apparent oceanic enigma, which indeed boasts a dome-shaped humanoid skull, and splayed out ribs that evoke the alien’s locks in “Predator.”
Oates, who estimated that the critter was 6-feet long, described: “It had a human-shaped skull with an elongated jawline, and hair similar to the color of a cow or kangaroo, but with hair missing in many places due to decomposition.”
She continued: “It was exactly like a mermaid shape, but hairy, because it seemed to have a tail or limb of some sort,” added the aghast gal, who was “shocked” over the corpse’s human-like countenance.
The beachcomber said that she initially thought she’d discovered a “miracle new species.”
Hoping to identify the apparent cryptozoological marvel, Oates turned to the Facebook commentariat, inquiring: “Wondering if anyone has any idea what it is or who I could possibly get to find out exactly what it is.”
Armchair biologists were willing to lend their theories with one positing, “Doesn’t look like a marine animal. It’s got a leg. It’s also very hairy.”
Others wrote, perhaps in jest, that the creature was a “mermaid” or “siren.”
“Contact local police man that looks human,” suggested one viewer.
However, some realists suggested that it was a normal, non-mythological creature. “Looks like a dead seal/sea lion,” postulated one commenter, while another theorized, “Likely a dolphin of some sort.”
“The head is twisted back on the body, snout tucked under neck,” they wrote.
“Highly decomposed, but not completely. Concerned that the flukes look cut of in straight line.”
“That is a one-legged kangaroo carcass,” suggested a third.
Meanwhile, animal experts believed that the remains belonged to a marine mammal of some sort.
“Definitely looks like a small cetacean to me,” theorized Rob Deaville, project manager for the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme at the Zoological Society of London, after reviewing the photos. “I’m not familiar with the area nor which species are normally found there, so can’t really take it any further than that.”
For Oates, the search continues. “I still have not found out what it was,” she lamented. “I was hoping someone would comment saying what it was, but the comments were all so different.”
This isn’t the first time a Martian-esque entity on a beach has royally stumped the internet.
A South African man sparked hysteria among the online masses in 2022 after photographing what appeared to be aliens emerging from the sea.
