New life form in sewers?

Agree with tubifex type worm.

My thoughts: You can see peristalsis-like movement over each of the "things". Especially where the "connecting" strands latch on to the pipe walls.

The resolution is pretty poor to really make it out but you can also see this peristaltic motion of individual worms on the top of each of the "growths".

[edit on 1/7/2009 by believer81]

Originally posted by evo190
If it's real...

We should figure out how to produce energy from IT.

You think it can help us get to the moon?

From what I can see, these where not a mass of tiberex worms, or whatever you call them, they look more like tendrils than worms, the way the grip the wall of the sewer, not writhe across it. Then we have that 'sting' that shoots out of it as it reacts to the light/heat, it goes in and out twice.

This looks like one cohesive creature, not a mass of smaller creatures, at least to me.

EMM

OMFG@@@!!! that thing is GROSS!

i dont want to be wading through the sewers and see something like that!

wtf did we do??? how do we stop it now that its on a all out rampage of cities and villages!!! it just wont stop until we are all dead I KNOW IT!!

time to get those big bad flame throwers from aliens movies

As far as I can tell it most definitely is NOT a bryozoa, and it sure doesn't look like any of the tubifex examples, but I'm no expert by any means.

The only thing I can think of is that it is a mass of tubifex worms covered in some sort of bacterial growth and when they huddle together in self defense the growth is pulled taught as it clings to them, resulting in what looks like muscles contracting. Does that make sense to anyone other than myself? I have a hard time articulating it but when I watch the video it appears to make sense to me.

This doesn't really explain how they seem to be attached to the wall, unless that bacterial growth is strong enough to suspend them there up.

I'm not really satisfied with that answer but it's the best that I can come up with based on the video.

Very interesting indeed, I hope someone retrieves a sample somehow, as disgusting as it is I also find it fascinating (kind of how I find insects repulsive when they invade my home but observing them in nature is beautiful.)

*edit*

Up close tubifex worms are kind of cute, haha.



[edit on 1-7-2009 by DirtyPete]

Hey guys I'm at work and I'm loving how this post has taken off. I stated earlier that I do work for the City of Raleigh and it is legit. I sent an email out to a colleague and I am hoping for a response soon. She will hopefully know what came of the situation as it happened. This pipe it was found in is very old btw. Also, to address the rats eating it scenario, I have never once seen a rat in the sewers since I have been working here. Cockroaches yes, rats no. I got to get back to work but I had to say I'm still following this and trying to help out.

Sorry for being silly here, but after coming across the close up pic of a tubifex worm I had to make this.

Originally posted by donrico
Hey guys I'm at work and I'm loving how this post has taken off. I stated earlier that I do work for the City of Raleigh and it is legit.

Donrico,

Quick questions

1) Does your cam have wheels or is it the articulated boroscope style?
2) Does it have a UT probe for wall thickness measurement?

I've used many different types in natural gas pipelines before but never worked with sewer lines. I was thinking that maybe it was reacting to being bumped by the camera unit not to the light. Also if it had an ultrasonic probe it could be reacting to the sound waves.

Another question to add to that list, were those pipes cut off from the water flow in order for this robotic camera to enter and examine them or is that the usual water level?

If they are usually filled with water it may make a little more sense that the membrane developed for a long time and then when the water was cut off it was so thick that it was able to suspend a mass of worms to the side.

But then again if there is a high volume of flowing water it wouldn't really make sense for the worms to stay in one place long enough for the membrane to develop...hmmmm.

I don't know, just a question I was pondering.

reply to post by scubagravy


Like Scubagravy said this reminds me of that X-files episode from early 1994. A flukeworm was born in radioactive waste and was flushed out to sea then ended up in a city sewer. It was humanoid and planted flukeworms in people killing them.

(possible nightmare fuel... then again so is everything on this board)


(this was an early x-files episode and some of them were based on old fbi case files.... so who knows maybe there was a sewer monster like the one in this topic before)

[edit on 1-7-2009 by Aron1138]

reply to post by exile1981


I wish I knew more about the camera but I do not. I haven't seen one of these cameras in action yet. I do know that our camera has wheels, but I'm not sure if it was our Public Utilities department or a private company who found this. I'm still working on answers myself.

Edited to answer another question:
I also do not know if the flow was diverted for inspection. It is a common practice to do this, but usually its only needed for high flow pipes.

[edit on 1-7-2009 by donrico]

I'm no vivisectionist, so an aged Rattus not too far from expiring needs to be put in an isolation tank with one of these things to see how they react to other mammalian lifeforms.

If it shows indication of attraction or something worse like a stinger attacking something it senses as a potential threat etc, that requires some definite and cautious research and we have to ask how it could evolve further.
[Hopefully volunteered brave Rattus will be fine and die a natural death, but some mammal needs to see how these react to them, i'd volunteer to do it but i'm other side of the pond.]

What was the last date of inspection to this pipe, can we establish a perimeter time frame for these things appearing, are these pipes inspected yearly for instance, which would indicate a possible fast evolutionary cycle perhaps, what will they be like in 2 years, 5?

If this is simply eradicated by pest techs with no live specimen for study, whoever tasked the action should be sacked imo.

It could be something dangerous and appearing elsewhere just not observed by anybody yet, i mean a maintenance hog came across this lot, as time goes by more may come to light, it could be harmless and benign and useless or may hold a cure for cancer, whatever, if it is somehow sentient and proves harmless then this poses ethical questions if it should be harmed and/or exploited, etc

If this is something very new and previously unknown, terrestrial mutate or otherwise (Doubtful but possibility exists that something managed to get through intact via meteorite storm and washed into sewer network and this is propagation/gestation cycle unknown.), it has to be studied.

As already said, if nothing else the genomics require documentation.


IMO! Tubifex, nonsense, nothing of the sort!

Paxus.







[edit on 1-7-2009 by DeltaPan]

It's.....super AIDS.

or the Blob.

but seriously, what the hell?

source: www.kdvr.com...

An aquatic specialist from the DOW confirmed that what the camera had discovered was actually a Bryozoan, a primitive life form that, as a species, is over 350 million years old. The Bryozoans are collections of smaller organisms that filter food out of the water supply, and they are an extremely primitive "animal" life form. Bryozoans aren't harmful, although they can occasionally clog water pipes.

I was reading through this thread and i was interested it what that actually was. But apparently it is

An aquatic specialist from the DOW confirmed that what the camera had discovered was actually a Bryozoan, a primitive life form that, as a species, is over 350 million years old.

The Bryozoans are collections of smaller organisms that filter food out of the water supply, and they are an extremely primitive “animal” life form.

blogs.howstuffworks.com...

sorry some of the you tube links on the site dont work, here are the working links:

www.youtube.com... ra-or-how-bryozoa-work%2F&feature=player_embedded

www.youtube.com... ra-or-how-bryozoa-work%2F&feature=player_embedded

[edit on 1-7-2009 by Dr.Creagula]

You can't always take somebodies word..

Perhaps this IS an alien life form, but it is very big and it is just one of its tentacles that poked through the sewer pipe. It is one giant alien life form that lives underneath us.

Its a colony of Tubifex.
I looked at the movie a few times and I am convinced.
It dont look like the Tubifex from the pics that are taken under water: there you will see the individual worms moving separately.

As a aquarist working in a aquarium store for 2 years Ive sold and transported large portions of Tubifex. The retraction of the cluster of worms is very typical for Tubifex. We kept it under flowing fresh water all the time and vibration and light cause it to retract, looking its one organisme wich isnt ofcourse.

Later working in a big public aquaria for 20 years I saw it every now and then but lately its not fed to fish anymore: its very fat and lots of pathogenes in it cause its collected by sewarrds.

I would like it to be a new species or even ET but I am afraid its just a lot of worms.

I too saw the mass of worms but how are they sticking to the wall in a large mass like that?

EDIT:
source: 4chan's X board

The reason they are in a cluster like that is because they aren't in their proper habitat and they stick close together to survive. The contractions you see is just one of the worms in the cluster contracting and then the rest do it too since they're in a cluster and worms are known for falling for pier pressure.

sounds reasonable to me

case closed



[edit on 1-7-2009 by Aron1138]

reply to post by TwiTcHomatic


I wonder what happens when and if this thing evolves into a more complex organism?? "wow: Begin the Sewer Wars......

Here's the only sense I can make of this. This creature has gone through some rather crude mutations in a short period of time in order to survive in the sewers. I don't really know what it might have mutated from...but I did notice something...as someone earlier said...IT HAS EYES...well the last one does...I also noticed it extended some sort of pole as it contracted violently and it's eyes opened. It sort of contracts giving us a better view of it's head and suddenly opens it's eyes wide as it quickly extends this pole...which I'm guessing might be a stinger...or maybe it releases something...but I think it is trying to protect it's young...because it is pregnant...they all are...maybe they use asexual reproduction to propagate...I suspect the contraction is used in order to harden their "shell" and protect their young...but I wonder what that pole thingy does...This is the sewer monster in question:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/63b808eb2de3.jpg[/atsimg]
In this pic the sewer monster is just starting to contract but we can still see it's eyes:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/776b38de43b8.jpg[/atsimg]
Here it starts to contract:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/80daedce352d.jpg[/atsimg]
It then suddenly opens it's eyes wide and extends the pole thing:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/55adc572857a.jpg[/atsimg]
It then lowers the pole:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ebc05370d568.jpg[/atsimg]
And then extends it again:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/bd4b77ac7fe0.jpg[/atsimg]
And finally lowers it again and the camera pans away.

EDIT: Get me a stick...seriously though...someone REALLY needs to get a specimen of this thing...by looking at that video and reading through this thread...that thing requires further investigation.

[edit on 1/7/09 by CHA0S]