Take a trip to the bottom of the sea if you want to see aliens.
Humans are venturing deeper into the ocean's depths and more and more strange and wonderful creatures are being seen. Scientists spotted an aquarium full of deep sea curiosities. Here are some of our favorite things.
A strange creature covered in orange and spaghetti-like appendages caused a stir online.
The spaghetti worm was first spotted by researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute using a remotely operated vehicle.
The pasta-mimicking worm has no eyes or gills and uses its colorful tentacles to catch the tiny pieces of organic debris that fall to the seafloor.
Spaghetti worms live in burrows or tunnels below the ocean and only eat bits of food. The Biremis worm swims through the water or crawls along the bottom of the ocean to find food.
There is a weird deep-sea worm.
In the dark ocean depths off the California coast, a squid mom carrying a string of pearls in her arms was captured on camera.
The deep-sea squid is an unknown species and was spotted with an ROV off the coast.
Squid mothers don't carry their eggs. Females usually release their eggs on the ocean. Brooding increases the chances of hatching, but it also increases the risk of being eaten by the mother, which is why it's rare.
The mother of a squid's mantle can only grow to a maximum length of 3 inches, making her look larger in the picture than she really is.
A mother carries a string of eggs.
Researchers spotted a strange creature that looked like a half-peeled banana. The gummy squirrel is a sea cucumber and was around 2 feet long.
The gummy squirrel was one of 55 that were collected by the Natural History Museum in London.
The sea sponge and coral are thought to be exclusive to the Atlantic ocean. There could be as many as 39 new species in the collection.
A squirrel found in the deep sea looks like a banana.
Scientists were left scratching their heads after they found strange creatures on the ocean floor.
The researchers used an ROV and live-streamed the dive online. There were blobs on the ocean bottom between 1,335 and 2,005 feet below the surface.
Researchers were able to guess what it might be during the live stream. There was no unanimous answer to suggestions of soft corals and sponges. One researcher joked that it's not a rock, but as far as he can go.
Scientists are at the bottom of the ocean.
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The red squid had strange peepers. The strawberry squid had two eyes, one big and one small.
In Monterey Canyon off the coast of California, the team spotted a weird-eyed cephalopod using an ROV.
In the deep ocean, the squid's large yellow eye looks upwards to see shadows cast by animals above and the smaller black eye looks down to see flashes of bioluminescence.
The hatchlings have identically-sized eyes. The left eye gets bigger as they get older and the right stays the same. The left eye can be twice as big as the right eye by adulthood.
There is a weird-eyed strawberry squid in the water.
A strange deep-sea creature resembling a plastic bag with Cheeto guts was spotted near Hawaii.
There is a floating creature at a depth of 7,221 feet in the Marine National Monument. The sea cucumber is a member of the family Elpidiidae and is known for its ability to pick up snow from the ocean floor.
The transparent creature has a fin-like appendage that it uses to swim short distances. There are tubes in the sea cucumber that are bright orange, but it's not clear why.
There is an alien shopping bag with Cheetos in it.
Researchers from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration were surprised when they caught a strange looking fish off the coast of the Aleutian Islands.
The fish is covered in ringed spots and has a modified fin that allows it to cling to the bottom.
The snailfish can live up to 2,723 feet below the ocean's surface. They are able to survive the crushing pressure of the deep sea thanks to their consistency and translucent bodies. Scientists don't know a lot of parts of their life history.
The fish was pulled up from the depths of Alaska.
A fisher was fishing off the coast of Australia when he caught a shark. The specimen had a large pointed snout, bulging eyes and rough skin.
The mystery surrounding the creature that was dragged up from around 2,130 feet below the surface was made worse by the fact that nobody knew which species it was.
Guesses were made about what type of shark the smiling specimen was. According to several shark experts, the animal was most likely a gulper shark.
A strange shark with a human-like smile is dragged up from the deep sea.
Video evidence of the deepest- swimming squid ever recorded was discovered by a team of researchers hunting for a lost WWII destroyer ship.
At a depth of over 20,000 feet below the surface, the big fin squid was spotted by the team above the floor of the Philippine Trench. Four dumbo octopuses were spotted at the same depth.
The previous champ had a big fin squid spotted about 15,000 feet below the ocean.
The researchers had been looking for the wreck of the U.S. Navy destroyer that sank during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
The squid is 20,000 feet under the sea.
A huge, creamy yellow woodlouse relative with a resemblance to Darth Vader was found in the Gulf of Mexico.
A baited cage trap was set at about 2,000 feet to 2,600 feet below sea level to catch the new species. It was initially thought to be a specimen of the Bathynomus giganteus, but it turned out to be a completely new species.
The creature is 2,500% larger than a similar insect called a pill bug.
It is 25 times larger than a land louse.
Want to know more about the ocean? We answered questions about why there are so many giants in the deep sea and what the deepest spots in the ocean are.
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