Officials also thought squid looked like a hand

Judge for yourself whether you would have called authorities if you saw this object lying on the shore.

That’s what one family is asking the public to do after its members discovered what they thought might have been a severed human hand at Mokuauia Seabird Sanctuary, also known as Goat Island, just off of Malaekahana in Laie.

After law enforcement officials with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Homicide Detail of the Honolulu Police Department were called to the scene, it was determined to be a dried squid.

The story went viral as bloggers poked fun at how anyone could mistake a squid for a human hand.

The woman who is the grandmother and aunt of the teens and young adults who found the object defended the decision to call authorities.

At first, the family wasn’t sure what they were seeing, said the woman, who asked not to be identified because family members felt embarrassed by online commentators who ridiculed them for making the report.

The woman said that when several family members went back on Thursday, they noticed what appeared to be a long bone sticking out of the top of the object.

At that point, she said, it appeared to closely resemble the hand of a child.

She said while at first the youths were reluctant to report the finding, she urged them to tell authorities.

"I told them, ‘What if it was your child whose hand was missing?’"

DLNR officials who swam out and saw the object agreed the object looked suspicious and called out HPD’s Homicide Detail.

"They were just trying to be good Samaritans," the woman said.

Leisa Weaver, a family friend of the woman who submitted the photo to the Star-Advertiser on her behalf, said it looked plausible to her.

"Until you see the picture, you wonder how someone could possibly think a dried-up squid could look like somebody’s hand," Weaver said. "It is unusual."

So what happened to the handlike squid?

"I don’t know," the woman said. "We never went back. We never touched it."