18-foot-long oarfish found off California coast

The 300 pound oarfish, surrounded by the CIMI staff who pulled it out of the water. 

A snorkeling science instructor this weekend off the Southern California coast discovered something out of a fantasy novel: the silvery carcass 18-foot serpent-like oarfish is one of the creatures thought to be the "sea serpents" of nautical legend.

This type of creatures are rarely encountered though they surface and wash ashore when they die or are near-death.

Jasmine Santana of the Catalina Island Marine Institute needed more than 15 helpers to drag the 300 pounds giant sea serpent creature to the shore.

"This is  a life time discoverry." Mark Waddington, senior captain of the Tole Mour, CIMI's sail training ship said adding;

"We've never seen a fish this big, The last oarfish we saw was three feet long."

About two dozen miles from the mainland, Santana saw something shimmering about 30 feet deep while snorkeling during a staff trip in Toyon Bay at Santa Catalina Island. She thought of  of how to drag it out of the water. "Ofcouse nobody would believe me." She said.

After she dragged by the tail for more than 75 feet, staffers waded in and helped her bring it to shore.

“The craziest thing we saw during our two-day journey at sea happened when we got home; these islands never cease to amaze.” Connor Gallagher told the press.

CIMI's marketing director 'Kent Woods', said that the office is flooded with inquiries about the fish, where it came from and how it got there.

Oarfish spend most of their time hundreds of feet below the surface, so very little is known about then. In 2011, an undersea rover from Louisiana, the State University also captured the elusive creature in its home territory, around 360 feet down.

According to one reference book, In the year 1901- a 22-foot oarfish drifted onto the sand in Newport Beach, California and this was a basis for many sea-serpent stories told by local bar patrons for more than a decade after its discovery.

The fish apparently died of natural causes. Video footage and Tissue samples were sent to be studied by biologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara.