A GIGANTIC creature with "eyes the size of dinner plates" was spotted near St James Bay in the US state of Alaska.

Local fisherman discovered the washed-up creature and believed it to be a giant squid.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration inspected the corpse of the 'globster' - a term used to describe a creatures with "no visible eyes, no defined head, and no apparent bone structure" - and revealed it to actually be a decaying humpback whale.

Biologist Johanna Vollenweider, who inspected the corpse, understands why the fisherman might have misidentified the animal.

She said: "Fishermen mistook the animal as a giant squid likely because they could not get very close to it as it was hung up on a rocky reef very near the shore.

"The animal was highly visible to our gillnet fleet, which was actively fishing in the area. From a distance, the animal could look like a squid."

She added: "The body was very soft because it was so rotten and there were long, orange stripes along the body which are the pleats of the expandable throat of the humpback whale.

"Perhaps these looked like tentacles from afar."

Fisherman first described the 30ft 'globster' as having "eyes the size of dinner plates".

The eyes, however, were actually the rotting socket joint of the whale's pectoral fin.

'Globsters' have such a peculiar appearance because of how they deteriorate.

"The blubber gets real soft and gooey when it rots," said Vollenweider.

The animal was also probably mutilated by hungry animals.

The scientists suspect that the whale might have washed up on a beach and been eaten by eagles and brown bears.

It is believed that the animal was killed by a ship strike - the evidence points towards blunt force trauma to the body.

In May 2018, a 20ft 'globster' washed up in The Philippines and many locals saw it to be an omen for impending doom.