A South African man sparked hysteria on the Internet after uploading chilling pictures of creatures looking like "headless octopi" crawling out of the water.
The pictures were shared on Facebook and soon attracted a lot of concerned commenters, reports "Kennedy News".
"The reactions surprised me," Jan Vorster told the News channel, talking about the pictures he took in his hometown of Still Bay, South Africa.
"I thought that people would have fun with it, but then it was very serious, some of it was extremely serious." He added: "A lot of commenters were very scared of these weird sea monsters. Many wrote to me asking: "Is it safe to go into the water?".
So what was it?
In reality, the scary pictures showed dried plants that washed up and concentrated on the sand - but in the eyes of some, these alien creatures emerging from the ocean seemed like a horrifying apocalyptic sight.
"Is it safe to go into the water?"
Commenters
"People told me they were canceling their vacations. Some even told me to get away from there and call security forces," said Vorster.
Some concerned people even bothered to send the pictures to scientists and the municipality. They confirmed that there was no danger as these were simply dried overturned aloe vera plants that washed to the beach from the desert.
To be fair, they made us slightly nervous too.