A group of surfers in Uruguay got quite the fright when they encountered a sizeable mystery creature that they still cannot identify. The puzzling incident, which came to light last week, reportedly occurred on August 16th as Andrés Fernández and two friends were out on the water at the country's popular Bikini Beach. Their excursion took a strange turn, the surfer recalled, when "suddenly the waves stopped." During this ten-minute-long inexplicable period of calm, he said, "a creature appeared to our right," both frightening and flummoxing the group.

Conceding that his recollection of the animal was "very confusing," Fernández explained that his attention was first drawn to it when he heard "a whale-like noise." Turning to look at the source of the sound, the surfer was surprised to see "a black back with no visible dorsal fin, but it had little scales" along its spine. Remarkably, the witness estimated that the mystery animal was a whopping three feet wide. Fortunately for the surfers, their encounter with the creature was brief as it "went to the bottom and disappeared" shortly after passing behind the group.

Looking back on the experience, Fernández expressed gratitude that "nothing happened" to the group, but also mused that "the scare was huge." When he later turned to the internet to possibly identify the animal, the surfer indicated that he could find no whale that matched what they saw in the water that day. "I've been trying to define what it was for a while," Fernández said of the creature that continues to haunt him. What do you think the surfers encountered off the coast of Uruguay? Weigh in with your best guess at the C2C Facebook page.