Mysterious ‘Muriwai Monster’ baffles New Zealand residents after washing up on beach

SOME very strange things have been washing up on NZ’s beaches after the recent earthquakes, but this is the weirdest. It’s spawned some crazy theories.

Strange things have been washing up on New Zealand beaches after recent earthquakes.

A HUGE and mysterious object that washed up on a New Zealand beach has caused widespread speculation about its origins, spawning some particularly bizarre conspiracy theories about what it might be.

Locals of Auckland’s Muriwai Beach were left puzzled after they found the giant barnacle-covered object beached on the shore over the weekend.

Local resident Melissa Doubleday came across it on Saturday and was left perplexed by the foreign beach intruder which later became known as the “Muriwai Monster”.

“I actually thought it was a washed up whale as I approached it, so weird,” she told Stuff.co.nz.

The Muriwai Monster baffled locals.

In a bid to crowdsource some ideas on what it might be, she posted photos to a local Waimauku Area Facebook group.

Among the colourful, and rather facetious, suggestions for its possible identity offered up by those online include a “washed up whale,” a “sea monster with dreadlocks,” a “beach Christmas tree,” a “Maori canoe” and even an “alien pod time capsule”.

Of course the real answer is decidedly less fanciful.

The large object is believed to be a piece of driftwood covered in what are known as gooseneck barnacles.

Gooseneck barnacles are filter-feeding crustaceans that live attached to hard surfaces along shorelines between the tide marks.

Plenty of unusual things have been washing up on New Zealand beaches lately, after recent earthquakes disrupted the landscape.

In November, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit New Zealand’s South Island lifted up the seabed by two metres, pushing it above the ocean’s surface.

Earthquakes which have disturbed the sea floor have caused all sorts of things to wash ashore in New Zealand.