While conducting routine maintenance off the coast of Angola, a BP team spotted a strange looking fish that oddly resembled the “flying spaghetti monster.”

If you’re not familiar with the flying spaghetti monster, don’t be worried. It’s actually not a real fish, but rather a parody deity of pasta enthusiasts worldwide. According to folklore, the flying spaghetti monster looks like a cross between a jellyfish and a mound of pasta noodles with a head. Flying spaghetti monsters refer to themselves as pastafarians (clever, huh?), but it’s all in good fun. Think of it as nothing more than an internet and tabloid sensation, similar to Bigfoot chasers or Loch Ness Monster observers. Basically, no one ever expected there to actually be a flying spaghetti monster.

I guess the joke’s on them.

While obviously not an actual flying spaghetti monster — you know, since that’s not a real thing — the animal found by BP researchers looks exactly like those photoshopped concoctions of spaghetti monsters that you see all over the internet. It seriously looks like a wad of spaghetti floating around.

Per The New Scientist, after many puzzled looks and confused scientists, Philip Pugh was finally able to identify the animal, saying,

“After noticing that the tentacles do not have side branches, he deduced that it was a specimen of Bathyphysa conifera. Siphonophores belong to a group of aquatic animals that include corals and jellyfish. Specimens up to 40 meters long have been found, making them among the world’s longest animals.”

Too bad for the pastafarians that it wasn’t actually the real thing. But we think this is pretty darn close.

SHARE the love and pass it on!