Mysterious creatures have long baffled not only common folks but also scientists who are doing their best to understand them.
Recently, another head-scratcher was spotted in Hsinchu, Taiwan. This strange creature doesn’t look like anything from this world, causing the people who found it to believe that it might be something otherworldly.
The creature looks like a bunch of wire hangers or branches twisted one around another. The shock, however, followed as the animal started moving, twisting, and crawling on the ground.
After it was recorded creeping around rocks, the creature had been compared to “an alien life form that has got lost on Earth.”
Meilan, the person who recorded the creature and shared the video online, wrote:
“I found this on the ground and it caught my eye. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It was so strange and people said different things about it. But I wanted to know what it actually was.”
So what exactly was it? A weird animal species that we aren’t very well aware of? An alien that crashed onto our planet during a meteor shower? Or perhaps Slenderman’s bestie?
Sorry, but it’s neither an alien nor anything supernatural. The ‘creature’ was actually a tangled mass of horsehair worms which are commonly found near wet regions such as rivers and streams. They are known for wriggling until they end up in large tangled masses.
As University of Kentucky Entomology department explained, these animals develop as parasites and leave the bodies of their hosts as they mature. Fortunately, they are not harmful to human beings.
“Tangled masses of these worms can be found in the spring. This has led to a variety of stories about their origin. The name ‘horsehair worm’ refers to the old belief that they came from horse hairs that fell into water and came to life.
“Cabbagehair worm is used in some localities because they can be found in the water droplets that collect in cabbage leaves. Since they are usually contorted into “knots”, the name Gordian worm was used by some. According to Greek legend, King Gordius of Phrygia tied a complicated knot.
“Although biologists have partially untied the mystery of these knotty worms, certain aspects of their biology are still coiled up tightly,” the Entomology department wrote.
The woman who shared the footage was glad that the creature wasn’t an alien and that her questions were put to rest.
Alien or not, there’s no arguing that these worms look like something that would crawl out of a nightmare. If you agree, make sure to SHARE this post with your friends and family on Facebook!