To be fair to the jellyfish, I think this is an edited image. A Lion's Mane Jellyfish is less wide and much longer.
Humans of this era are bred to fear sharks. While sharks are a good thing to be afraid of, they are not the only beasts from the deep who could come up and say hello.
New England, and Massachusetts in particular, have recently had sightings of Lion's Mane Jellyfish. The LMJ is perhaps the longest creature in the world, topping out among 36 meters or so. That jellyfish was measured off of Massachusetts, if that enhances the story for you somewhat.
His only rival is the Bootlace Worm, which owns the (disputed) record via a 55 meter monster who washed up on a beach in Scotland. The Blue Whale, which maxes out around 25 meters, is the heaviest thing on the planet, ever, at 400,000 pounds. That is equal to 20-40 bull elephants, or 2,000 Amy Schumers.
The LMJ is also poisonous. It most likely won't kill you, unless you are allergic or the pain debilitates your swim game to the point where you drown. It will, however, bring the pain.
It doesn't hunt humans. Like some whales, it favors plankton. It also eats small fish and other jellyfish. It stuns them with poison, then feeds them into the mouth. They digest food very quickly.
It has 1200 stingers, about 150 per lobe. It would be hard to get stung 1200 times, but you only need a few to be hurting. The stingers work for quite some time after being removed from the main body, a theme we will return to in time.
They only live a year, which is amazing for something that can push 120 feet. That's some fast growth. Primarily pelagic and dependent on currents to move great distances, they generally are pretty large by the time they near coastlines.
This monster isn't really monstrous. It won't sneak up on you, snap out a tentacle, seize you, drag you into a maw full of teeth and make you watch it eat your liver.
Your big threat with this is running into the surf and splashing into one. This will release stingers everywhere, so not only do you get it, anyone nearby gets it.
This is exactly what happened in Rye, New Hampshire in 2010. Some poor SOB jumped right into one and got stung. Officials sent out a guy to kill the jellyfish. A lifeguard dragged it ashore with a pitchfork, not knowing that the tentacles release the stingers on contact. The water filled with near-microscopic stingers , and 150 people were injured. They say it was just one jellyfish that did this.
Unfortunately, they are now turning up off of local beaches. Nahant closed the beaches after one was seen in the surf. Hull and Duxbury both had sightings. A jellyfish 5 feet wide washed up in Maine at the end of May. The one off Nantasket was 5 feet across, tentacle length unknown, and yes, my phone did try to autocorrect that into "testicle."
The 120 foot jellyfish measured off Massachusetts (I can't find out which town holds this distinction, every source I check says "off Massachusetts" or "Massachusetts Bay," which would imply Cape Ann and is thus some other writer's problem) was 7 feet across. The five footers we're seeing now would have remarkable tentacle length.
The one in Maine was longer than three children laid head to toe next to it, which sounds like 12 to 15 feet... unless the family in question was Shaquille O'Neal's family, or the Klitschko brothers. We'd be talking 18 to 21 feet, then.
If you lose the sea water lottery and get stung, rinse the afflicted area with vinegar for 30 seconds... because everybody brings a gallon of vinegar to the beach.
Here is a map of currents around Massachusetts. These benthic beasts travel with the currents. See you at the beach!
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