Spiral morphology-dependent resonances have been observed in a tilted optical fiber. The polarization-preserving and the cross-polarized elastic-scattering spectra for plane-wave illumination show that the wavelengths of the resonances are blueshifted quadratically as the fiber tilt angle increases. When a focused Gaussian beam illuminates the fiber at its edge, the resonances are blueshifted and broadened as the detector is offset from the scattering plane with the maximum scattering intensity. The blueshift with focused beam illumination is also a consequence of the spiral resonances. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.