Mysterious "golden orb" found in deep sea in 2023 is finally identified

U.S. Mysterious "golden orb" found in ocean depths off Alaska in 2023 is finally identified By Kerry Breen Kerry Breen News Editor Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University's Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News' TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use. Read Full Bio Kerry Breen Updated on: April 23, 2026 / 10:41 AM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Scientists have solved the mystery of a "golden orb" found thousands of feet underwater by researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in 2023, the agency said on Wednesday. The orb was found in the Gulf of Alaska, by a remotely operated underwater vehicle. The device was over two miles underwater when it spotted a "strange, golden, mound-shaped object with a hole in it, stuck to a rock," NOAA said. It was collected and sent to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History for study. Allen Collins, the director of NOAA Fisheries' National Systematics Laboratory and a zoologist, said that he thought "routine processes" would allow scientists to identify the object. But the orb proved trickier.  Scientists with NOAA discovered an unidentified golden orb-like organism while operating a remote deep-sea diving vessel off the coast of Alaska on August 30. NOAA "This turned into a special case that required focused efforts and expertise of several different individuals. This was a complex mystery that required morphological, genetic, deep-sea and bioinformatics expertise to solve," Collins said. First, scientists studied the physical structure of the orb. They found it wasn't an animal, but that it was a "fibrous material" covered with stinging cells, like an anemone or coral might be. Those cells were identified as spirocysts, a specialized cellular structure that can capture prey. Such cells only exist on one group of aquatic invertebrates, called cnidar...