When strolling along the beach, it’s only natural that items that had been drifting at sea would wash up on shore. A woman was out walking her dog on a beach in the U.K. when she stumbled up a large white mass that was topped with a bunch of seaweed.
Helen Marlow was visiting Marazion Beach in Cornwall when she spotted the white blob. “I had no idea what it was, it just looked like a huge mass of something organic,” she said. “My dog went wild, it seemed quite fresh with no distinctive tears or damage and had no nasty smell. I really had no idea.”
After she was unable to identify the object on her own, Marlow posted some images online in hopes someone might have an answer for her. Answers differed between a weather balloon and something from a sea creature.
She posted about the incident on Facebook claiming that a solution had been reached. Marine conservation officer Abby Crosby said: “Local marine biologists thought it could have been whale placenta, which would have been a very exciting discovery if it meant that a whale was born off the coast of Cornwall.
“However, experts at the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) identified that it was more likely a gut or stomach from a whale.”
Crosby added that marine mammals will sometimes wash up dead on beaches at various stages of decomposition, which is likely what happened in this instance.