Gino Covacci was walking on Pompano Beach, Florida, with a friend when he saw something sticking out of the sand. He picked it up, brushed it off and the rest is mystery...
"Everyday, I find many different things," Covacci told CNN, "beautiful shells, usually, but not something like this."
"This," it turns out, is an eye with deep blue pupils -- an eye that happens to be as big as a softball.
Covacci summoned a police officer, who put him in touch with researchers in St. Petersburg who, he says, didn't ask a lot of questions but came to pick the strange object up.
Carli Segelson, public information officer for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, says that staff there has been working to identify the former owner of the eyeball, but that at this point, they're not sure of its provenance. The frontrunner, she says, "is some type of large fish."
Covacci, who is originally from Italy but now lives in Florida, isn't so sure.
"It is a squid," he said, "not a fish. Prove me wrong!"
Where do you think the giant eyeball came from? A squid? A fish? Or something more mysterious and magical? Conspiracy theories welcome in the comments below.
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