There is a fish that looks like a pigeon, people. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is NOT A DRILL.

Forget gravitational waves or gene-editing, for this is surely the greatest scientific discovery of our time. There will no doubt be a Nobel Prize awaiting the discoverer of this fantastic creature, perhaps the remnant of a bygone age when fish flew in the skies.

The fish/bird/bird-fish was discovered in Guizhou, southwest China, reports the Daily Mirror. It was found by a fisherman, who reeled the creature in on Tuesday, June 5.

It didn’t have a great time after getting caught, however, as footage showed it gasping for air on the ground. Thankfully, the fisherman returned the creature to its natural habitat soon after, although it’s not entirely clear if that meant putting it into the water or releasing it to fly free in the sky.

We do have some additional shocking news, though; fish pigeon may not actually be a fish pigeon. It’s thought that the creature is actually a grass carp, which is native to eastern Asia. The bird-shaped head, shock, may just be an abnormality.

“One possibility is that the embryo was damaged when it was growing; another possibility is that the lack of oxygen in water – due to over-crowded fishing farming – caused the fish’s head to be deformed,” Yang Xing, an expert from the Guizhou Fisheries Research Institute, told Guizhou Urban Daily.

Sadly, this means that we may still be awaiting the actual discovery of a true fish pigeon. Questions remain though, such as what did these animals eat? Could they shoot lasers from their eyes? And why haven’t we found a pigeon with a fish head?

These are questions we may never know the answer to. Good luck fish pigeon, wherever you may now be.