Elleda Wilson: In One Ear: Stuff of nightmares

Dec. 2—Jay Beiler was taking a walk just before sunset on Black's Beach in Torrey Pines in the San Diego area, when he was startled by coming across a monstrous-looking fish about the size of a soccer ball that washed up in the sand, TimesNowNews.com reports. He took three photos; one of them is shown.

NBC 7 in San Diego sent Beiler's photos to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who identified the fish as a rare Pacific footballfish (himantolophidae), who live in tropical and subtropical waters 3,000 to 4,000 feet deep in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans.

History note: The footballfish was first discovered by zoology professor Johan Reinhardt in 1837.

"This is one of the larger species of anglerfish," Ben Frable, of Scripps, said, "and it's only been seen a few times here in California, but it's found throughout the Pacific Ocean." Unfortunately, the fish was not recovered, and probably washed back out with the tide.

"I have never seen anything quite like this before," Beiler told NBC 7. "At first, I thought it was a — like a jellyfish or something, and then I went and looked at it a little more carefully, and some other people were gathered around it too, and then I saw that it was this very unusual fish.

"It's the stuff of nightmares," he added, "(the) mouth almost looked bloody."