Scientists stumped by golden orb discovered at bottom of the sea

How would you react if you saw something deep below the surface of the ocean that you absolutely could not explain.

That's the situation that researchers exploring the sea bed off the coast of Alaska found themselves in while operating a NOAA Ocean Exploration underwater craft.

What were they mystified by? A single golden orb.

Footage shows the object perfectly visible on the sea bed, but the vehicle was actually around two miles below the surface – so deep that light usually cannot penetrate.

The bizarre orb was around 10 centimetres wide and was attached to a rock on its own, and scientists really weren’t sure what it could be when it was observed in 2023 during a livestream.

A golden orb egg ? Mysterious shiny orb seen on seafloor off Alaska stumps ocean explorerswww.youtube.com

Footage shows just how baffled researchers were upon its initial discovery, with one saying: "I don't know what to make of that.”

Another said: "It's definitely got a big old hole in it, so something either tried to get in or tried to get out.”

There’s no doubt that it’s an odd looking thing, but the really strange thing is that the orb is on its own, and not part of a larger group of objects.

If it was some sort of egg, like some have suggested, then it would be more common to see groups of similar forms packed closely together.

The sighting is certainly one of the more unusual points of scientific discourse we’ve seen recently, but the common consensus seems to be that it could be an egg that something hatched from.

Kerry Howell is a Deep-sea ecologist from the University of Plymouth. She told the Guardian: "We're going with egg because of the texture. It felt fleshy and it doesn't have any obvious anatomy. It has a hole in it that suggests something has come in or gone out. But it doesn't look like any egg I've ever seen.”

"If it is an egg, the really interesting question is whose egg is it. It's quite big. That's not a small fish egg. That's a sizable thing."

Sign up for our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings