A giant oarfish found somewhere on a beach in Japan. Photo source: http://www21.ocn.ne.jp/~access-z/beach/ryugunotsukai/w01.htm

In March of 2010, British newspaper The Telegraph published this article that speculated about an oncoming powerful earthquake there after dozens of giant oarfish have been found washed ashore on beaches in Japan and some caught in fishermen’s nets.

What makes this interesting is that the monstrous oarfish — traditionally seen as the harbinger of a powerful earthquake — usually live in the depths of 1 kilometer (more than 3000 ft) and are very rarely found above 200 meters from the surface. To make them even scarier, the oarfish can grow up to 17 meters (56 ft) in length.

According to traditional Japanese lore, these fish swim to the surface and beach themselves to warn of a coming earthquake. There are also scientific theories that animals are more sensitive to movements beneath the surface than humans. Some scientists believe that deep sea fish may be susceptible to movements in seismic faults and act in unusual ways before an earthquake occurs. However, most seismologists don’t see any scientific relationship between these sightings of oarfish and an earthquake.

But still, is it possible that the fish knew what was cooking under the surface? In ancient times when we didn’t have all the high-tech yet, Japanese believed that some fish, particularly catfish, warned of coming earthquakes