Move over Loch Ness monster, there's a new mystery creature in town. What is being described as the body of a horned sea monster has been found after an unidentified carcass washed up on the shores of a Spanish beach.

"A lady found one part, and we helped her retrieve the rest," Civil Protection coordinator Maria Sanchez told local media outlets. "We have no idea what it was. It really stank, as it was in the advanced stages of decomposition." 

So far most people who have seen the supposed monster are, well, stumped. There are horn-like protrusions on one end of the body with the other end appearing to be some sort of a tail. One thing is for sure: nobody has seen anything quite like it before.

"It's hard to know what we're dealing with. It is broken up and we can not identify what ii is. Maybe it's a bull fish," joked Paco Toledano, spokesman for the Protection of Marine Life Program (PROMAR). Perhaps if we were able to analyse the bones we might know more, but for this specific genetic analysis it is very expensive and who would pay? We've certainly never before seen anything like this."

Florida State University ichthyologist Dean Grubbs has already posited the theory that the 'horns' are actually an exposed part of a larger animal's inner body. That theory says that the horns are actually the scapulocoracoids that support the pectoral fins in sharks. So far, at least one other expert agrees with the shark theory.

"It's hard to tell," said David Shiffman, a University of Miami shark researcher who blogs about marine biology on Southern Fried Science, "but the official guess that it could be a thresher shark seems plausible. Certainly the tail looks oarfish-y. It maybe could be a thresher shark -- but nothing else." 

The oarfish seems like the other popular theory, as they are extremely large, narrow fish that can grow to over 30 feet in length. The carcass is roughly 13 feet long, but the horns still remain a mystery. Unfortunately, we may never know the truth behind this sea monster, as officials have already buried the body due to the stench its decomposition was causing.