Like badly kneaded dough. Mysterious goo on the beach

A mysterious white substance has been spotted along the shores of Placentia Bay on the southeastern coast of Newfoundland. One of the inhabitants of this Canadian island, a local ecologist – Stan Tobin – said that it resembles badly kneaded bread dough.

“Like someone trying to bake bread and doing a lousy job,” Tobin told the BBC. – It smells like vegetable oil – he added.

Beachgoers visiting the southeastern coast of Newfoundland began reporting the presence of a strange substance to authorities in early September. The BBC contacted officials in Ottawa for comment but did not receive a response.

As the BBC writes, photos of strange goo began to appear on an online group of beachgoers, sparking speculation that it is a fungus or mold, palm oil, paraffin, or even ambergris – a rare and valuable substance produced by whales and used in the perfume industry.

One Internet user suggested that the substance resembles the dough used to make “Toutons” – a regional dough dish, often fried in pork fat.

A spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Canadian government's environmental and climate agency, told the Globe and Mail that the substance is not a petroleum hydrocarbon, petroleum lubricant, biofuel or biodiesel.

A marine ecologist from Fisheries and Oceans Canada told the Globe and Mail that the strange goo is not a sea sponge and does not contain biological material.

Stan Tobin encountered mysterious “white spots” while walking last month. At first he thought it was Styrofoam. Since then, he has come across hundreds of such spots – large and small, most of which were about 15 centimeters in diameter. When he called the Canadian Coast Guard to report his discovery, he was informed that what appeared on the beach was not a substance. “Someone knows where this came from and how it got there,” Tobin said. – And she knows very well that she shouldn't be here – he added.