One of the coolest things I ever saw on TV when I was a kid — “coolest” in the sense of “scared the hell out of me but in a good way” — was the famous scene of the giant squid attacking the Nautilus in Disney’s 1954 masterpiece 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Now here’s something even cooler: Japanese scientists have taken the first-ever photos of a real-live giant squid in the wild. Previously, the only evidence we had that these things even existed was an occasional corpse washing ashore, so seeing a living one is truly remarkable.
From the linked article:

The animal — which measures roughly 25 feet (8 meters) long — was photographed 2,950 feet (900 meters) beneath the North Pacific Ocean. [The] scientists attracted the squid toward cameras attached to a baited fishing line.

The most striking of these images are here and here. Simply fascinating…