On Oct. 23, 2024, a Reddit user posted a photo that purportedly showed two Australian men posing after catching a “doomsday fish,” also known as an oarfish.

The image had amassed more than 102,000 upvotes as of this writing and had been commented on more than 4,900 times.

Two fishermen in Australia have caught a bizarre “doomsday fish”byu/Eternal__Void ininterestingasfuck

Similar posts appeared elsewhere online in October, and across social media, including on X, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. One particularly popular X post had garnered more than 32.4 million views as of this writing.

The picture shows the two men holding a long, narrow, silver fish with bulging eyes that, if held vertically, would dwarf them in size.

Some social media users even speculated that the “bizarre looking” fish’s capture could indicate an impending catastrophe.

In short, though the so-called “doomsday fish” is a genuine species of fish, this photograph does not …