Tons of dead herring that washed up on a Norwegian beach on New Year’s Eve are now gone, and no one is sure how they got there or where they went.

Local resident Jan-Petter Jorgensen told Norway’s TV2 he went to look at the thousands and thousands of fish after seeing a Facebook posting about them, according to a report on The Foreigner.

Joregensen said it was fortunate the icy cold prevented the mass of dead fish from raising a stink.

“It is 15 degrees below zero today, so the cold means they don’t smell. Nevertheless, the smell will be pretty intense in the long run,” he said, according to The Foreigner report.

Turns out that wasn’t a problem. Views and News from Norway reports that as of Tuesday, most of the dead fish were gone, perhaps pushed out to sea by tides and winds. The local mayor said they’ll likely sink in the ocean, according to the report.

Why they came to be on the shore remains a mystery.

Jens Christian Holst of the Institute of Marine Research in Norway told Norwegian Broadcasting the herring may have been chased ashore by predators, the Views and News report said.

“In this area, we know there is a lot of (pollock) that graze on (herring),” he said.

Seems like a reasonable explanation.

Of course, on the Web there are always more troubling theories around, including that the deaths could be the first sign the end of the world is coming in 2012, as some believe ancient Mayan prophecy predicts.

from:    http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/04/tons-of-dead-fish-appear-on-then-disappear-from-norwegian-beach/