Rough seas on the Monterey Bay on Wednesday coughed up what few, even the most dedicated of marine researchers, have ever seen -- the fabled giant squid.

The bruised and bitten remains of what is thought to have been a 25-foot-long squid bore only a vague resemblance to the big-screen adaptation that has choked ships and strangled men. But the animal's mythic proportions and elusive ways were not lost on the crowd of biologists gathered at Santa Cruz harbor to greet the discovery.

"This is a rare find," said John Field, a fishery biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Santa Cruz.

Field later said only four or five carcasses have ever been found in California waters.

Santa Cruz researcher Sean Van Sommeran and his crew with the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation discovered the giant squid, or Architeuthis, Wednesday morning, floating roughly 20 miles off the coast of Santa Cruz...