Bones of N. Oregon Coast Sperm Whale Getting Shuffled As Rest of It Turns Into Globster

Published 10/22/25 at 7:25 p.m.
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Gearhart, Oregon) – Davy Jones's locker is not a quiet graveyard, it seems. (All photos Tiffany Boothe / Seaside Aquarium)

Just in time for Halloween, a striking monstrosity has appeared on a north Oregon coast beach: some really large bones.

Only, it turns out that patch of gigantic bones has been there all along: recent weather just caused them to change a bit.

Tiffany Boothe of Seaside Aquarium made the discovery earlier today.

“The sperm whale that washed ashore near Sunset Beach back in [May] took a beating in yesterday's high surf,” she said. “Bones from the jaw and skull are now scattered along the beach just north of the whale.” Rare Sperm Whale Stranding on N. Oregon Coast, Was Hit by Boat

Indeed, this is what the aquarium was expecting.

The find helps answer the question: how long does it take for a whale body to decompose on the sand? And another question: What is a globster?

First:

This deceased sperm whale has been on a bit of an adventure. It was first noted back in May of 2025 by fishermen who saw it some 15 miles off the Oregon. Then another report came a few days it was floating some seven miles offshore.

Sperm whale back in mid 2025 when it first appeared

By early June the corpse has run aground about 12 miles north of Seaside. Boothe was documenting how the Marine Mammal Stranding Network dealt with it. This revealed some sad news.

“A necropsy was performed today by Portland State University, Cascadia Research Collective, and the Seaside Aquarium,” Boothe told Oregon Coast Beach Connection back in June. “During the necropsy, damage to the vertebrate was visible along with signs of hemorrhage, this helped the team determine that this whale was struck by a vessel.”

From the start, the plan was to simply leave the whale to decompose on the spot: no burying it in sand, as they often do on busier beaches. By doing this naturally, it gives the local ecosystem a boost.

It gives turkey vulture, bald eagles and even coyotes something to feed on. Besides, it was a bit off the beaten path and away from crowds.

Now, the nasty thing is becoming a globster – on top of having its bones scattered about by wild tides.

What's a globster? It's a pungent blob of rotting flesh on the beach – a term coined a century or so ago to cover what was deemed a kind of paranormal mystery on beaches in Europe. Until maybe the '70s or '80s, these mysterious, amorphous freaky things would get labeled as a cryptid: a previously undiscovered sea monster.

Now, it's a term used largely tongue-in-cheek to describe a whale corpse that's rotted so badly it's unidentifiable to the average eye. Hairy 'Globster' Sighting Raises a Stink at N. Oregon Coast's Rockaway Beach

It all leads to the question: how long does it take for a whale body to decompose or decay out in the open?

The answer is eight months, Boothe told Oregon Coast Beach Connection in the past. So this guy has a bit to go still, but parts of the sperm whale's bones are now showing - and getting shuffled a tad – while other parts of his body go down the globster path.

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