The Florida Mystery Eyeball Doesn’t Belong To Cthulhu After All
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Disappointing news for any readers eagerly awaiting Cthulhu to rouse from his sleep at the bottom of the ocean and usher in an era of terror the likes of which we can’t even imagine. I’m sure we got your hopes up last week when we told you how a giant, disembodied eyeball washed up on a Florida beach. Now any hopes of tentacled horrors rising from the deep have been dashed; it turns out it’s probably just a swordfish eye.
The experts from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission made the announcement today, dashing the hopes of many a robed and chanting follower of the Old Ones. FWC spokesperson Joan Herrera said in a statement: “Experts on site and remotely have viewed and analyzed the eye, and based on its color, size and structure, along with the presence of bone around it, we believe the eye came from a swordfish.”
Even more disappointing, this particular swordfish eye wasn’t even ripped from its socket during a battle with a giant squid or mutant anglerfish or something else appropriately eldritch. No, Herrera says that the eye was likely just tossed overboard by a fisherman who’d already met his quota on gigantic eyeballs for the month.
This is all very disappointing.
Now, the door isn’t completely closed on the idea of this being from some godless horror whose very visage would boil the blood of any hapless onlooker. The FWC is still waiting on genetic confirmation that the eye is that of a swordfish. At the very least, I’m sticking with my theory that it does belong to a swordfish, but that swordfish was the victim of a ritualistic murder by a notorious swordfish serial killer.
Before we leave you to go about your day, here’s a bit of squirm-inducing Photoshop work created by io9 reader Michael Franchina. If you’ll excuse me I’m going to go stand in the shower for 20 minutes trying to scrub off the heebie-jeebies.
