The fear of an upcoming natural disaster is doing rounds in Japan, after the sight of a deep-water species of fish. Oarfish, the deep-water fish is believed to be a harbinger of earthquakes and tsunamis.

This Friday, two Oarfish were discovered in Toyama off the northern shore of Japan. One fish is found on the shore while the fishermen discovered other one in the fishing net. This season, so far total seven Oarfish were found in the area.

The size of the two oarfish caught were, a 3.2-meter (10.5 foot) oarfish, which was washed up on the shore of Toyama Bay, while another one a 4-meter (13 foot) long oarfish was caught in a fishing net off the port of Imizu. The oarfish live between 200 and 1000 meters (650 to 3,200 feet) deep and are characterized by silvery skin and red fins.

The Oarfish is traditionally known as “Ryugu no tsukai” in Japanese, which means the “Messenger from the Sea God’s Palace”, as the legend goes, the fish came on the shores ahead of underwater earthquakes. But scientists don’t endorse such traditional claims.

Kazusa Saiba, Keeper of Uozu Aquarium says, “There is no scientific evidence at all for the theory that oarfish appear around big quakes. But we cannot 100% deny the possibility. It could be that global warming might have an impact on the appearance of oarfish or a reason we are just not aware of”. He also agrees to one possible scientific explanation and that is the subtle changes in the crust of Earth at the bottom of the sea, just ahead of an earthquake, “might cause the current to stir and push creatures at the bottom to the surface”.

While Osamu Inamura, the director of Uozu Aquarium had a more scientific theory about the sighting of the Oarfish at Toyama Bay. According to him the movement of their food supply, a kind of micro shrimp is the reason for the sight of the Oarfish. Inamura said, “When the shrimp supply rises toward plankton during the daytime, the oarfish may sometimes follow and get caught in fishermen’s nets”.

The myth of oarfish as a harbinger of destruction gained more attention after the 2011 earthquake in Japan’s Fukushima, which was followed by a subsequent tsunami that killed more than 20,000 people in Japan. It is believed that at least a dozen oarfish had washed up onto Japan’s coastline in the year prior to the disaster.