Man terrified after spotting 'alien' creature with tentacles on his ceiling

28 October 2023 , 14:00

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Man terrified after spotting 'alien' creature with tentacles on his ceiling

A horrifying creature that looks like an "alien" has left one man terrified after he spotted it lurking on his ceiling. The oddity was spotted in the man's home in Bali, Indonesia, and has been referred to as looking somewhere between a transparent cricket and a hairy jellyfish.

The man who spotted the creature, Hari Toae, said when he saw it in 2019 that he believed it had made its way into his home to avoid the rain that evening, but he admitted he had no idea what the terrifying-looking animal was, or where it had come from. He said he didn't think the beast was native to his area as he'd never seen one before, and joked it looked like it was from out of this world.

The horrifying creature spotted on a man's ceiling

Speaking at the time of his discovery, he said: "I will let it stay in my house, but only for the night. I don't want it to scare my guests away. 'It's not something I've ever seen before. I don't think it comes from this neighbourhood.''

While the animal does look like something you'd find in a horror film, it's apparently just a moth - a creatonotos gangis to be precise, which is a species of arctiine moth. Arctiine moths are named for their hairiness, and many species have equally hairy caterpillars which are sometimes known commonly as woolly bears or woolly worms.

The creatonotos gangis is native to parts of Asia - including Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Japan, and Thailand - as well as Australia, and is distinct from other moths thanks to the four (slightly horrifying) hairy tentacles that are visible at the back of its body.

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In actual fact, the tentacles are known as coremata and are only found in the males of the species. The coremata can exceed the length of the abdomen when fully inflated and are used to secrete pheromones that attract mates. Interestingly, the amount of pheromones produced, and the size of the coremata that produce it, depends on the diet that the moth experienced when it was a caterpillar.

So, while the animal found on Hari's ceiling might give you a fright if you've got a fear of bugs and especially don't like bugs with weird wriggly tentacles coming out of their backs, it's actually harmless. And, somewhat disappointingly, it's definitely not from another planet.

Zahna Eklund