It was a crab like no other for one Washington state park ranger when she caught something she wasn't expecting during a normal crabbing expedition.

Regis Swanson revealed to KIRO-TV how she nearly did a double take when she flipped over an ordinary crab only to find something extraordinary on its underside - the face of Jesus!

And it was an eleventh hour discovery for Regis and her friends as she told the station they hadn't found much of a catch in their pots before then.

"We dropped several crab pots but didn't have any keepers until this pot was pulled up," Regis Swanson told KIRO-TV. "The crab was crawling up the cage and flipped over showing her belly when I noticed the Jesus face!"

The humor of the discovery wasn't lost on Regis who tweeted to her friends later: 'Went crabbing. Found @jesus'

Not the real Jesus unfortunately, but unlike other 'sightings' of the Savior where you might have to squint or use your imagination, the image on the unsuspecting crab will surprise even the most skeptical believers.

Regis made the unexpected discovery while showing a French exchange student around a beauty spot in Whidbey Island, Washington state, when she noticed the crab in the pot.

Happily for the crab, it got a second chance at life as instead of taking it hope for dinner, she simply took a souvenir photo of its distinctive underbelly instead before throwing it back into the water.

The face of Jesus has been spotted in all kinds of places, many of them ordinary - and some have gone on to sell for anything but ordinary prices.

One woman who claimed her 10-year-old grilled sandwich looked like the Virgin Mary managed to make $28,000 when she sold it on eBay to a casino back in 2004.

An Australian man earned a far more modest sum for his three-cheese pizza apparently showing the face of Jesus, which went for only AUS$153 on eBay.