As for why people consider the oarfish to be a “doomsday” fish, NBC News explains that — as oarfish typically dwell in the deep ocean — the appearance of one suggests a coming natural disaster like an earthquake. About 20, for example, washed up prior to an earthquake in Japan in 2011, the country’s worst on record.

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.

A member of the Scripps Oceanography team spotted the dead fish outside of San Diego, California. The fish was estimated to be 9 to 10 feet in length, which was much smaller than the one recovered in La Jolla in August.