Aquatic creatures. United States

In 1978, a large marine creature, presumably an unknown species of squid, about 45 meters long, attacked the ship USS Stein and with its claws damaged the hull of the sonar attached to the bottom of the vessel.


This story sounds like fiction, but it was officially confirmed, and this incident was later included in the report "Sea Creatures and Equipment Damage Problem".


Unfortunately, the story that got into the media contained few details, but there is a video showing a piece of damaged rubber coating literally dotted with small holes.

It was also reported that sharp claws similar to claws from suckers on squid tentacles were found in the rubber. And these claws were as big as they had never been found on any squid found by scientists.


It has been estimated that a squid with such claws can reach a length of about 45 meters, although this is a very unreliable estimate, and official reports do not report the size of the attacking creature.


Damage to the rubber coating of NOFOUL sonar equipment was studied by expert F. G. Wood from the Naval Ocean Systems Center (Naval Electronics Laboratory), Point Lima, San Diego.


NOFOUL is a rubber-like coating used to cover sonar domes to reduce the growth of polluting organisms.

"Approximately 8% of the dome area was damaged, which led to an increase in sonar noise. Almost all of the cuts contained remnants of what looked like teeth or claws. After studying these "claws", scientists came to the conclusion that the most likely culprit is a large species of squid. A number of squid species have rim claws," the NOSC report says.


"In some species of squid, suckers are replaced by sharp curved claws. But none of these claws exceeds even a fraction of the size of the fragments found on NOFOUL."


"If the squid was really responsible for the damage (and there seems to be no other plausible explanation for this), then it must have been extremely large and belonged to a species hitherto unknown to science"

It is still unknown for sure whether it was really some giant squid unknown to science or another mysterious sea creature, since no additional information has been leaked since then. Perhaps the information was classified.

It is also still unknown where the USS Stein was in the ocean when it received such damage, whether this large creature was displayed on military radar, whether the sailors heard sounds when it attacked the ship, and so on.


By the way, science has already recognized the existence of giant squid, but officially the largest giant squid reaches about 8 meters. There are also reports of 20-meter squid, but they are considered unproven rumors.