PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – While riding his all-terrain vehicle along the coast near Florence, Oregon, Wednesday afternoon, Adoni Tegner came across what he could only describe as a sea monster. 

“It just didn’t look anything like what I’ve ever seen. It looked more stringy and it almost looked like it had been a large squid or something,” he said. 

The thing was the size of a pickup truck. It reeked of decomposing mammal, and it was covered in what appeared to be long, white hair.

Tegner rushed back to town to bring his girlfriend, Merica Lynn, out to see what he’d found. She was just as shocked and had no idea what she was looking at. 

“We’ve seen whales wash up before, and some that had been stuck on the shore for a few weeks, and never have they grown hair like that,” she said. 

Lynn touched it and said it was “firm but squishy” and felt blubbery. She could tell it was the body of something; she just didn’t know what. Tegner was confused by the long tendrils that appeared to be attached to it. He could see them move every time waves hit it. 

“If it had been torn apart, it was really odd how the muscle structure broke down and almost made it look like it had some kind of tentacles on it,” he said. 

The ribs — under what appeared to be hair and flesh — also looked unusual to him. 

Lynn took a video and posted it on Facebook to ask if anyone knew what it was. 

Friends started chiming in saying it appeared to be a “globster,” the name given to large, decomposing marine animals that have washed ashore in the past and appear to be covered in fur. 

If it is a globster, Tegner and Lynn are perhaps one of only a handful of people in the world who’ve reported finding one. 

According to LiveScience, something similar washed ashore on a beach in The Philippines in 2018. Like the thing Tegner and Lynn found, this so-called globster was covered in what looked like white hair and was as big as a truck. 

At the time, a fishery law enforcement official said it was likely the remains of a whale.

In another report, LiveScience says globsters tend to intrigue people because they’re “mysterious and deformed.” The article cited marine biologist Ben Roesch who’s studied the massive, odd objects that have washed ashore in the past and said they often turn out to be whales or sharks or other sea creatures. 

Lynn was surprised at how closely the globster they found resembled ones that have been seen in the past. 

KOIN 6 News contacted Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center to see if a marine biologist could share more information about the mysterious discovery on the beach.

Jim Rice, a stranding program manager, replied and said it simply appears to be the decomposed remains of a dead whale.

“What looks like hair is the decomposing remains of other body tissues: muscle, nerves, tendons etc. I would estimate that this one has been dead for several months,” he said.

Oregon State Parks first reported this globster to him in late September.

Rice said OSU typically receives a few such reports of severely decomposed whales each year along the Oregon coast.

Tegner and Lynn say they’ll never forget what they saw that day on the beach.