If you’re a fan of ancient Lovecraftian horrors residing in the coldest, darkest regions of the world, you’re going to love the mysterious black iceberg. Found off the frigid coast of Newfoundland, a massive obsidian iceberg has emerged from the depths, ready to fill your mind with cosmic horror.
As reported by the CBC, the iceberg was photographed back in May by fisherman Hallur Antoniussen. It was spotted about 100 miles offshore. And it’s not your average floating frozen cube. Antoniussen, a man with half a century of navigating around icebergs, said the thing was roughly three times the size of its bluish-whitish peers and shaped almost like a diamond.
Antoniussen told the CBC that he’s seen plenty of icebergs with rocks in them, giving them the occasional dark hue, but he’s never seen one as deeply richly completely black as this one. Again, he’s a seasoned veteran of these seas. This iceberg in particular was so odd, so out of the ordinary, that he responded the only way he knew how: by running to his cabin to grab his phone so he could post a picture of it on Facebook.
The picture went viral, and theories poured in. Maybe it’s a frozen oil slick? Maybe it was a bunch of frozen, tightly compressed dirt? A giant alien egg? Sure! Why not? We’re still in the “no bad ideas” phase of this…thing’s explanation. Experts don’t have a definitive answer as to what this black diamond iceberg could be, but some legitimate theories are floating around.
Lev Tarasov, a physicist and glacier expert at Memorial University in Newfoundland, theorized that ancient volcanic eruptions may have dusted the ice long ago. That ash then got locked in, compressed over centuries, and eventually broke free to give modern fishermen a proper fright.
Again, not much is definitively known about this thing, but one thing that’s just a little bit freaky is its estimated age. Tarasov explained to the CBC that this thing could be anywhere between 1,000 to 100,000 years old, possibly dating back to the Ice Age. Remember, “tip of the iceberg” is more than just a turn of phrase. It’s a very literal thing that we have to keep in mind with this black iceberg. This freaky, bizarre thing we’re looking at is only probably a tiny fraction of a much larger mystery.
It’s probably not aliens. Probably not an ancient monster that was sentenced to spend eternity in an icy prison at the bottom of the ocean but climate change broke it free of its confines and then a fishing boat pulled up next to it to get a closer look at this mysterious black iceberg and then a giant glowing red eye opened up inside. Probably just some old dirt or something. Either way, whether it’s ultimately deadly or boring, it’s a gorgeous—somewhat ominous—sight to behold.
The post That Ominous Black Iceberg Probably Isn’t a Sign From the Aliens appeared first on VICE.
