After a long, winding road of tests, researchers at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and other institutions determined that the strange blob once attached a large sea anemone to a rock

April 28, 2026 10:00 a.m.

After researchers aboard the Okeanos Explorer ship couldn't figure out the orb's identity, they sent it to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History for a more thorough investigation. NOAA Fisheries

In August 2023, scientists found a mysterious object stuck to a rock on the ocean floor off the coast of Alaska. They carefully extracted the four-inch-wide, tannish-gold orb and brought it to the surface—but, even then, they still couldn’t identify the unusual-looking specimen, beyond that it was “biological in origin.”

“Everyone was like, ‘What the heck?…