Moment a flying fish picks a woman’s pocket, takes her phone: ‘So unexpected’

The call of the sea.

Apparently not even the middle of the ocean is safe from pickpockets: Video captured the astonishing moment a flying fish leaped into a boat and “made off” with a woman’s smartphone, proving you don’t have to be an angler to have a fish on the line.

“What happened was so unexpected,” the woman’s relative Cha Ursal told Jam Press of the freak accident, which occurred on June 19 off the coast of Leyte province in the Philippines.

Ursal and the victim Neressa Ursal Maquilan had embarked on a boat expedition to pay respects to their dearly departed aunt at a cemetery.

That’s when a scaly gatecrasher decided to spoil the party. In the wild clip, shot by by a friend, Cha can be seen posing for a pic with Maquilan, whose phone is resting precariously on her lap.

Their maritime photo-op is ruined after a 10-inch silver fish leaps aboard, crashing into the pleasure boater’s handset and sending it overboard, after which the finny photobomber follows the device into the deep. No word as to whether it used it to heed the call of the sea.

The clip ends with Maquilan looking down, perplexed at where the phone had vanished. She eventually found out the truth after watching the video back.

Cha said they alerted the boat captain, who dove overboard to try and find the phone, but to no avail. It’s yet unclear if they could hear the ocean by dialing the old device.

It remained missing until that evening when the phone was discovered ashore. “Later that night, it was low tide,” Cha recalled. “Someone found the phone on the shore and was returned to us.”

As the device was damaged beyond repair, Cha’s cousin’s sister-in-law bought her a new one — leading her to dub the maritime mishap a blessing in disguise.

“It’s rare for something to happen like this, so we feel special,” she exclaimed.

This isn’t the first time an ill-timed fish jump has resulted in catastrophe.

In 2022, a tourist was left in serious condition after a needlefish impaled him in the neck while he was swimming in Thailand.