A rare deep sea fish, regarded as a harbinger of doom, has washed up on a southern California shore. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said one of its PhD students discovered an oarfish on a beach in Encinitas last week that was around nine to ten feet long.

Kelp, that can’t be good. A rare, massive fish known as the harbinger of doom has washed up on a California shore — for the second time in just three months. The roughly 10-foot-long dead oarfish — rumored to be a sign of impending earthquakes — was found stretched out on the rocky shoreline of Grandview Beach in Encinitas by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography last week.

It is the second time this year that an oarfish has been found in the area. Sightings are very rare, with fewer than a couple of dozen having been seen on the state’s coast in 120 years. They inhabit the depths of the ocean in a region known as the mesopelagic zone,