Creepy sea creatures caught on video in ‘worm invasion’ in Canada. ‘’The Thing’ vibe’
A man in Canada felt like he stepped onto another planet when he came across a “worm invasion” while walking his dog in the park.
Greg Gilks was with his French bulldog in Macaulay Point Park in British Columbia on Feb. 2 when they stepped out on the dock and looked down into the water, according to Gilks’ Facebook reel.
As he shined his light on the water, large, worm-like sea creatures appeared to be swimming around, the video shows.
At first, a single animal appears in the video. Then, more and more come into frame as Gilks pans the camera out toward the water.
“Reason 763 to never swim in the ocean: hundreds of nightmare fuel water sea centipedes,” he said in the reels’ caption.
Gilks is heard wondering what the creepy critters are in the video, and commenters shared in his wonder.
“Why? What? I have never seen that before,” one commenter wrote.
“I know, I’ve been going to see these docks near daily for like 4 years and never seen anything like it!” Gilks responded.
“Shivers,” another said.
But the “worm invasion” had just begun.
On Feb. 4, Gilks was back in the park and walked down to the boat ramp along the water, a second video shows.
“Day 2 of the worm invasion. They made it to land,” Gilks said in the reel. “With the weather lately this has a real ‘The Thing’ vibe to it.”
The video shows the sea creatures on the rocky surface, some wriggling along and others appearing lifeless. Many try to move toward the water as the small waves push them onto the shore.
But what are they? And why did they suddenly appear en masse?
The animals are not aliens, but giant pile worms, large marine worms that are typically found on the seafloor, but will swarm at the water’s surface to mate, Benjamin Neal, biologist and assistant teaching professor at the University of Victoria, told Saanich News.
“They are common around here, especially west of town, around Sooke and farther up the west side,” Neal told the outlet.
Once a year, the worms are called together by the tides, lunar cycle and pheromones to release sperm and eggs into the water for fertilization, after which they die, Neal said.
“It is a very coordinated event — there’s a lot going on,” Neal told Saanich News. “Success depends on them coming up in a swarm, because if one individual goes up and releases their gametes, it’s not going to work. So you want to make it count.”
It’s not the first time this annual event has been spotted in Victoria.
In 2021, members of the Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island Facebook group posted photos of tons of giant pile worms at the surface of the water, Victoria News reported.
The worms spend much of their life buried under the sand, biologist Louise Page from the University of Victoria said in 2021. But some giant piling worms are found around deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
“When these worms were first discovered, it was amazing. They were huge, about one metre (3 feet) long. When we dissected them, they didn’t have a gut, just massive tissue inside,” Page told the outlet. “It was worked out that this massive tissue had bacteria in it. Those bacteria have an amazing metabolic pathway where they can oxidize the hydrogen sulphide.”
The chemical process is similar to how plants create their own carbohydrates, adding to their alien-like reputation.
Macaulay Point Park is in Victoria in southern Vancouver Island, just north of Washington.
This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 3:01 PM with the headline "Creepy sea creatures caught on video in ‘worm invasion’ in Canada. ‘’The Thing’ vibe’."
