June 30th, 2009 
The latest viral video is from the sewer under Cameron Village in Raleigh, NC. The mysterious creatures found are nothing short of disgusting and spectacular. This video has made its way to Video Sift and various cryptozoology sites. Speculations on the nature of this creature run from bryozoans, cnidarians, slime molds, and some mysterious alien creature here to suck out our brains. Well let me say first that it is none of the above. I can think of no freshwater Cnidarian that looks anything like this. It lacks the characteristic delineations that would indicate individual zooids in the colony and frankly the retracting of finger-like tentacles doesn’t seem like a bryozan characteristic (see the pictures at this site). In fact, I have poked a lot of invertebrates as lab instructor for invertebrate zoology and as a graduate student just for shits and giggles and none of the mentioned candidates would respond like this. So back to square one…
You shouldn’t trust me however…you should trust an expert in one of the aforementioned groups. Enter stage right Dr. Timothy S. Wood who is an expert on freshwater bryozoa and an officer with the International Bryozoology Association. I sent along the video and this was his reponse…
Thanks for the video – I had not see it before. No, these are not bryozoans! They are clumps of annelid worms, almost certainly tubificids (Naididae, probably genus Tubifex). Normally these occur in soil and sediment, especially at the bottom and edges of polluted streams. In the photo they have apparently entered a pipeline somehow, and in the absence of soil they are coiling around each other. The contractions you see are the result of a single worm contracting and then stimulating all the others to do the same almost simultaneously, so it looks like a single big muscle contracting. Interesting video.
More video of Tubifex
[...] Originally Posted by Luke122 WTF is that? Creatures from the Sewer | Deep Sea News [...]
[...] Creatures from the Sewer | Deep Sea News They're big blobs of worms. [...]
The first video is giving me an error saying it is not publicly available.
Here is a new link to that video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELoqZiamr4E
here is the mirrored version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcKpx2DxGwY
Fixed video, should be up now. Thanks for the heads up
[...] A lot of people are agreeing with this aquatic specialist, but there are some conflicting reports. Creatures from the Sewer | Deep Sea News [...]
[...] Full article Share/Save [...]
HA you can’t figure out what it is because its COLONOSCOPY film! DUH!
It’s not a colonoscopy film. There are concrete walls in the video. I don’t think it’s Tubifax worms either, but I haven’t really looked.
[...] Deep-Sea News se han puesto en contacto con el doctor Timothy S. Wood del departamento de Ciencias Biológicas de [...]
[...] Creatures from the Sewer! …Deep Sea News A story like this was bound to spread beyond Cameron Village. [...]
Erm, does anybody else find this mildly erotic or am I in the minority?
Yikes, hopefully Mr Magoo is in the minority
The minority. Which is probably still large enough to sell videos to for a nice profit.
if they are not 2 different species in these videos, they are in different stages of life. the sewer blob looks like a slimy hive. you can see it contracting and expanding with the whole blob.explain the barb looking “nail”. very interesting indeed
Clearly the videographer here is not trained in zoology – otherwise we’d have images of the whole blob in a jar of formalin! Identification would then be much easier.
Doesn’t look the same to me. It seems like they would prefer to be under the water as opposed to being just above the water line. The clump in the top video seems to be very solid or is it covered with a layer of slime?
I’m still gonna go with shoggoth spawn.
[...] crew at DeepSeaNews.com sent the video over to Dr. Timothy S. Wood, an expert on freshwater bryozoa and an officer with the [...]
Someone needs to remove one of these clumps and dig into it with a knife so that we can get another video. Or better yet, go down there and cut into it “in situ”. Now that would be fun to see.
Chris, it’s definitely not a colonoscopy. Have you ever seen one of those before? Just look at google it and look at the images, it looks NOTHING like this video.
[...] same almost simultaneously, so it looks like a single big muscle contracting. Interesting video. Creatures from the Sewer | Deep Sea News __________________ And you're watching http://www.PCMTL.com : Driftmania : On Fire Buy PCMTL.com [...]
[...] thanks to this site for the [...]
Chris
It is certainly NOT a colonoscopy film. I hope you were joking and we just didn’t get your humor. Otherwise duh.
Take no chances! Send R.J. MacReady down there with a flamethrower.
[...] Norte nos dirigimos, concretamente a Cameron Village, donde en una alcantarilla han aparecido unas formas de vida singularmente extrañas, húmedas y fundamentalmente asquerosas que (obviamente) han sido confundidas con formas de vida [...]
Jim Lemire
Make your own smegging video, then!
sheesh.
[...] Bryozoa Work ? The Blogs at HowStuffWorks I'll see your Bryozoans and raise you Tubifex worms. Creatures from the Sewer | Deep Sea News __________________ Follow me through the doors of [...]
Has anyone considered a mutated variety of sea slug? That would explain the existence in the sewers, and the wierd brain-ishness. It’s possible it was exposed to air and evolved to undergo this strange mutation.
[...] camp believes it to be slime mold, the second believes it/them to be fresh water bryozoan. The third camp believe it is a species of Tubifex worm that have taken to living in a [...]
[...] they bunch together in colonies and feed with tiny tentacles. Case closed again? Nope. Deep Sea News weighs in on that theory and says "No way". [...]
[...] This post was Twitted by PinkTentacle [...]
[...] crew at DeepSeaNews.com sent the video over to Dr. Timothy S. Wood, an expert on freshwater bryozoa and an officer with the [...]
[...] Creatures from the Sewer | Deep Sea News wait….maybe it IS an alien… Mgalekgolo – Halopedia, the Halo Wiki – Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, and more [...]
[...] Creatures from the Sewer | Deep Sea News [...]
[...] crew at DeepSeaNews.com sent the video over to Dr. Timothy S. Wood, an expert on [...]
[...] This post was Twitted by CatrinHedstrom [...]
I want it’s babies , i don’t care how…
I hope your colonoscopy doesn’t look like this chris.. but if it does, i suppose you could always profit off it through folks like mr magoo…
Unfortunately the video material isn’t of high quality, but it seems like these “things” are not individual Worms moving. I’m a computer science student and have NO clue about biology at all. The only thing I can do is perform an analysis on the video material itself. As much as I’ve seen yet (with bare eyes) the surface structure stays relatively intact before and after contractions. In that Tubifex video above I saw individual worms slowly “breaking out of the formation” at times though. Further I didn’t see that much slime in the Tubifex video. That slime must be of protective nature I think. Guess one species cannot adapt so fast (produce slime the next day)…
[...] This post was Twitted by dek_1 [...]
[...] Timothy S. Wood from DeepSeaNews.com says this: Thanks for the video – I had not see it before. No, these are not bryozoans! They are [...]
OMG!! ZERGLINGS ARE MAKING THEIR NEST!! PREPARE FOR A STARCRAFT INVASION!!
Woah, freaky stuff. Very cool. It’s spooky the way it all contracts, and it totally reminds me of those brain sucker things from… some old video game… I can’t remember. But the screen used to go green and it would suck your health out when they jumped on you.
[...] Deep Sea News posted the video above the other day – very cool, very disturbing stuff. Basically it’s like a gob of goo found in a sewer which contracts and has tentacle-like things all over the place – but if you want a technical discussion on what it actually is you should click through to them. Gross, but cool. I noticed Sci at Neurotopia picked it up too Definitely worth a look. [...]
[...] But, sadly for Apparently, they’re not alien or unknown, they’re Tubifex worms. [...]
[...] unos días se publicaba un video de una criatura desconocida en una alcantarilla en el estado de Carolina del Norte. Se trataba de una masa viscosa que parecía [...]
[...] another scientist said no way to bryozoans. DeepSeaNews interviewed Dr. Timothy S. Wood, an expert on freshwater bryozoa and an officer with the [...]
[...] Creatures from the Sewer [...]