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The first ever video footage of a giant squid swimming in the ocean depths is "an enormous breakthrough," according to a prominent marine conservationist who wrote a book about the quest to find the mysterious creatures.

"People have been searching for them for hundreds of years, literally," said Richard Ellis, the author of "The Search for the Giant Squid: The Biology and Mythology of the World's Most Elusive Sea Creature."

Scientists and television broadcasters released images this week of the 10-foot-long giant squid they had filmed deep in the Pacific Ocean, far off the coast of the Japanese mainland, during hundreds of hours of underwater research.



The discovery is significant for both science and mythology, in which giant squids have long played a notable role, Ellis said in an interview on CNN.

"We're going to learn how this thing moves," he said. "How it swims, what it does with its arms when it swims."

The mission that finally tracked down the creature involved 55 dives in two special submersible vehicles that spent a total of more than 285 hours far beneath the waves. Some of the dives went deeper than 3,000 feet.The stories can be found in numerous articles today

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