Decemystery 19: The Giant Shrimp in the Laundry Room

It's a shrimp.

This reads like a Weekly World News article, but without Hillary Clinton adopting an alien baby being involved in some capacity. Nonetheless, the Giant Shrimp in the Laundry Room is indeed a story that exists. It's also one that I think warrants being told due the vast majority of this miniseries being very serious in nature. Not all unsolved mysteries involve murder and disappearances. Some involve gigantic shrimp.

This story takes place in 1948 and was published in the sixth issue of Strange Magazine. It's told by a woman named Virginia Staples, who lived in an apartment house on Washington state. The apartment house, according to her, had an enormous basement that had holes in it; the apartment house manager apparently saying that they led to the water. Well, Virginia claimed that when she went down there on one particular day to do her laundry, she got the feeling of being watched. The feeling persisted until she finally turned around and froze.

Standing five feet tall with orange skin and spider-like legs, and large antenna that repeatedly moved in and out was a giant shrimp. Oxymoron incarnate!

The giant shrimp started towards her, to which Virginia fled her basement and wasted no time in moving out, opting to live with her cousin in Seattle. She then went to an aquarium to see if she could figure out what she'd seen. To her bamboozlement, she only found a shrimp. It didn't make sense to her.

Decades later, Virginia returned to the apartment complex, but the United States Navy had expanded and the apartments were all torn down. She swears up and down the story's real. But is it really? Let's discuss.

Our first explanation/theory is it was an alien. Shrimp-aliens aren't exactly the most likely thing as they'd be seen as delectable to many and they'd be eaten after being deep-fried. So let's consider this not likely unless you're Alex Jones.

Our second theory is it was really a giant shrimp. It isn't stated if the “holes” connected to the ocean or not. Assuming that they did in some way, it's plausible that a giant shrimp somehow got there and was spooked by Virginia's presence. I will say that I'm unsure if shrimp can survive out of water for extended periods of time, but let's presume that they can. Is it likely a giant shrimp can exist?

Well, well over 90% of the ocean hasn't been explored. There are new species of many animals are discovered each year. Plausibly, I'd say yes: it is possible—perhaps even likely. Who wouldn't want all that shrimp to munch on?

However, in the way of one making its way into the basement of some poor woman? That's a very long stretch. That requires the shrimp getting lost and nobody having ever seen it prior to this and having screamed they just saw a five foot tall shrimp. Now unless you're appetite rivals that of Homer Simpson, I've got many questions and they're all “why do you not report this”.

The third theory is it was a hallucination or ghost. I'm merging these two together as they feel as likely; that is to say not likely. I've never heard of someone hallucinating a giant shrimp and a ghost taking on the form of one is as believable as the story I heard of kids seeing the ghosts of dinosaurs.

The fourth and final theory is that it's all fake. Although it's the most boring, it's probably the most realistic. Unless we assume the shrimp was eaten by a predator when it left, the likelihood of it being real is slim.

Is the Giant Shrimp in the Laundry Room… real? I don't know. Plausibly, it's likely. However, beyond that, I believe it's only the wet dream of a seafood lover.