A huge and mysterious fish recently washed up in Santa Barbara, California, leaving scientists confused over what it was.

After testing tissue samples of the species, the baffled researchers were confused over how the fish, which is believed to live in the Southern Hemisphere, traveled across the equator all the way to the other end.

The alien-looking 7ft long fish was later confirmed to be a hoodwinker sunfish, which an extremely rare species and has never been discovered in the Northern Hemisphere before. The fish, as described by the researchers, has no tail, and since ‘all of its teeth are fused, so it doesn’t have any teeth. It’s just got this big round opening for a mouth’, reported Daily Mail.

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One of the researchers who found the fish said, “There are rare finds, and then there are out-of-nowhere, first-ever discoveries that send scientists’ hearts aflutter.”

The sea creature is so rare that it was for the first time discovered only in 2017. Marine scientist Marianna Nyegaard who actually discovered and named the fish told CNN, “When the clear pictures came through, I thought there was no doubt. This is totally a hoodwinker. I couldn’t believe it. I nearly fell out of my chair.”

Describing the sunfish, Nyegaard told The Conversation, “Sunfish are huge, largely solitary and fairly elusive, so you can’t just go out and sample a heap of them to study. They aren’t particularly rare, but it’s tricky to study them as they simply live in parts of oceans most humans don’t go.

“They dive hundreds of meters to feed, and then rise to the surface to bask in the sun on their side, hence their name,” added Nyegaard.