“The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings.”

January 9, 2013 9:54 AM

"Release the Kraken!" [Discovery] "Scientists and broadcasters have captured footage of an elusive giant squid, up to eight meters (26 feet) long that roams the depths of the Pacific Ocean." [Video] [Image 1] [Image 2] [Previously] [Previously]
posted by Fizz (26 comments total)

More accurately, "the giant squids now know what we look like."
posted by Etrigan at 9:55 AM on January 9 [5 favorites]

I'm reminded of that stereotype about old maps during the days of exploration, where people would write "Here be Monsters" on the uncharted spots.

Usually the spots they'd write that in covered the world's oceans. Little did we know there's truth to that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:58 AM on January 9

I know people are always excited about exploring space but the ocean is a wonderful mystery and there's still so much more to learn and discover.
posted by Fizz at 9:59 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

I know people are always excited about exploring space but the ocean is a wonderful mystery and there's still so much more to learn and discover.


and maybe ourselves from.

With any luck, Pacific Rim will be really popular with the Prepper/Tea Party set and there will all the sudden be calls for the government to spend TSA money on oceanographic research in the name of patriotism.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:01 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

The size of the giant squid aside, squid are fascinating because they're so weirdly counterintuitive by the standards of what we're used to seeing, biologically. I was scuba diving in Belize over the holidays and saw a little Caribbean reef squid swimming about -- two feet long, tops -- and was just confused. Where's the front? Where's the back? What is this thing? Why is this thing? x50 if it's the size of a school bus.
posted by eugenen at 10:05 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: Where's the front? Where's the back? What is this thing? Why is this thing?
posted by Fizz at 10:06 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]

Until the video's on the Web, isn't this just an ad for a Discovery Channel show?
posted by nicwolff at 10:07 AM on January 9 [6 favorites]

I was really looking forward to seeing the actual video when I first heard about this on Monday (none of the sites I was reading actually provided a link to the video). I'm a bit disappointed that the linked video is 53 seconds long but only includes about 6 seconds of actual giant squid.

Is the entire video going to be made public at some point, or is that 6-second clip really it?
posted by asnider at 10:08 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

Why colonize space when we can simply build undersea cities and factory fish farms?
posted by Apocryphon at 10:09 AM on January 9

Yes, but how does it taste?
posted by Burhanistan at 10:09 AM on January 9

Yes, but how does it taste?

Polluted.
posted by griphus at 10:12 AM on January 9

This should be appearing on PZ Myers's blog any time now.
posted by TedW at 10:19 AM on January 9

Yes, but how does it taste?

The flesh is full of ammonia, so it's basically inedible.
posted by empath at 10:27 AM on January 9

NZ website video

Since no one else has bothered to say it, and because I don't want to upset them, "I for one welcome our squidy-squid overlords."
posted by New England Cultist at 10:46 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

"I for one welcome our squidy-squid overlords."

I decided to start worshiping the Kraken a few years ago (because, why not?)

So, I'm good to go.

Which is to say, when Its Wiggly Giant Tentacled Darkness Rises from Crushing Frigid Depths to Devour all that is, I'll be an early appetizer, which is, you know, kind of an honor, I guess.

My understanding is that It really only cares about the opinion of cats. Don't know why. But that's religion for you.
posted by quin at 10:53 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]

More accurately, "the giant squids now know what we look like."

Silly air-breather. They've known that all along.
posted by snottydick at 11:18 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]

"I for one welcome our squidy-squid overlords."

You do that, I'll continue to follow the whale lords who feast upon them from above.
posted by Atreides at 11:24 AM on January 9 [4 favorites]

Does it sow?
posted by Apocryphon at 11:42 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]

26 feet long? Eh, that's not so big.
I want it to be 700 feet long! That's big.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:47 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]

ph’nglui mglw’nafh cthulhu r’lyeh fhtagn
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:50 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]

26 feet long? Eh, that's not so big.

Never insult a species that produces ink by the sacful.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:04 PM on January 9 [8 favorites]

That, Atom Eyes, may be the best giant squid joke ever executed.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:06 PM on January 9

I've been constipated all week. This picture fixed it. Scared the crap out of me. I Always thought this was just an expression. Ymmv
posted by humanfont at 4:58 PM on January 9

One step closer to fulfilling my career goal as a Giant Squid Trainer at Seaworld.
posted by wolfdreams01 at 9:26 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]

That video was most definitely an ad, and a particularly annoying one at that. (Nearly no content? Snarky, pointless narration? Stock photos? Check, check, check.)
posted by jiawen at 9:48 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]

The Kraken Wakes: What Architeuthis is Trying to Tell Us

The kraken of tall tales and sea shanties is coming into sharp focus, a flesh-and-blood reality. But why now?

Ellis thinks our increasing ability to peer and pry into the world’s most remote nooks and crannies has something to do with it. “We are only now learning how to investigate the ocean without sending a man down in a bathysphere or a research submersible,” he told me. “The use of robot cameras enables researchers to cover greater swaths of dark ocean without endangering themselves. The more we do it, the more surprises we get.” (His new e-book, The Little Blue-eyed Vampire from Hell, is about one such surprise, first described in 1903 but only recently videotaped in its bathypelagic haunt in 1992: Vampyroteuthis infernalis, the freakish little squid with the largest eyes in the animal kingdom, proportionally speaking; light-producing photophores dotting much of its body, like deep-sea Christmas lights; and of course that awesome name, worthy of a Norwegian death-metal band.20) Stealth—made possible by far-red lighting and noiseless cameras—is also a factor, says Widder, in increased sightings of giant squid and other figments of the oceanic unconscious.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:09 AM on January 30