Those who work in different fields all have their respective anecdotes that are sure to keep listeners engaged.
But certain jobs that keep employees away from land are sure to have the most intriguing stories to share.
Seafarers shared their unique experiences bordering on hair-raising phenomena when Redditor tylo144 asked:
"For those who have careers that keep them out at sea for long periods of time, what is the creepiest thing you’ve seen out in the water?"
Mariners shared their wildest stories from their time out at sea.
Fierce Gale
"Not so much what I saw but what I experienced. I was once underway in the Gulf of Alaska during a November gale. Waves were up to 35 feet with some rollers hitting 45. An uncommon occurrence on the diesel electric ship I was on was a cyclo-converter tripping. When this happened the ship would temporarily completely lose power and propulsion until some electricians could reset everything. This happened during that gale. I simply can’t explain how strange it is for the boat you’re on to all of a sudden go so quiet, that you can clearly hear waves slapping the ship and metal bending and flexing. Knowing you’re completely at the mercy of the sea. Knowing that if the ship lost its bearing and went beam to there was a real possibility of capsizing. It’s easy to forget when you’re at sea that the only thing keeping you alive is a bunch of steel welded together. At that moment I was fully aware and it humbled me. Thankfully we trained frequently for this and had everything fired back up relatively quickly."
"Another time I recall was when the ship took a rogue wave. They are absolutely real and I believe they account for a massive number of shipwrecks. It was late at night and I was on the bridge. We were passing through a storm and we’re taking the waves off the bow with no visibility. As the ship moves there’s normally a pretty standard pattern. You ride up a wave for a bit and then you fall down the wave for a bit. Well we started riding up a wave and got to the point where we should have been starting or ride down…but we just kept climbing and climbing. And then it happened. We started our ride down the back of this massive wave. All of us braced ourselves and tried to find something to hold on to but we all fell to the deck any way. Anything that wasn’t secured for sea fell down all around us. Manuals, tables, computers, printers, you name it. Our captain who was sleeping called up to the bridge asking if we hit something. It woke the entire crew up. Rogue waves are real, and they’re terrifying. I can’t imagine being in a smaller boat or taking one of them broadside."
– red_pimp69
Series Of Bizarre Events
"I was in the US Navy for about 10 years, and have 10s of thousands of miles at sea in an aircraft carrier. Countless nights on the flight deck in the middle of the night and middle of the ocean..."
"Creepiest: A HUGE patch of the ocean glowing. Like nuclear waste in the Simpsons glowing. I've seen bioluminescent algae of a few kinds and this was nothing like it. I've never seen anything like it before or since."
"Weirdest thing: hundreds of mile out to sea from land and there was a MASSIVE fire on the water. It was like the top of a gas refinery, but on the water with nothing under it but water. Flame going a few stories into the air."
"Funniest: 2 flying fish collide mid-air. I was smoking when we were in the Persian Gulf and saw the fish fly from a pretty far distance towards each other. I remember thinking 'there's no f'kin way they're going to hit' them SPLAT SPLASH! I was in tears laughing but no one saw it. Everyone just thought I was a weirdo, but I got to see a miracle of nature lol"
– BBQQA
Lone Yacht
"Some 20 years ago..."
"On the MV Explorer (since sunk) down near the Antarctic circle, sailing around the 'bergs and occasionally making landfall..."
"We rounded into a small bay area, and there, amongst the ice and coast was an unmarked sailing yacht. Which is odd as generally yachts have some identifying markings on them."
"To add to it, they didn't respond to any radio contact, and whilst I wasn't privy to the conversation (and it was a long time ago), some crew went across via Zodiac and were refused boarding."
"So basically a yacht, not a particularly large one, that was unmarked was hanging around in the inhospitable waters of the Antarctic and didn't want any help or contact."
"Proper weird."
– ThanklessTask
These Redditors have fearlessly plunged into darkness.
Dark Dive
"I used to be an oilfield diver in the Gulf of Mexico. I'd say about 80% of the dives I logged were at night. Mostly 500 ft and under DSV's."
"It's very eerie feeling sitting on the downline doing in water decompression in the middle of night. I'd always ask topside to turn off my headlight."
"Like a worm on a hook. Just bobbing in the darkness."
– Comrade_Fuzzybottoms
A Dark Calm
"Not even nearly as extreme as your story but it evoked a memory, I did a scuba diving open water course and then did the advanced course which included a night dive in a freshwater lake."
"I was only 5m underwater, pitch black darkness with two other guys, we were on a platform and we could either face the dam wall or the open water, and I turned to the open water while the other guys were behind me, I turned off my light (we did have little lights on our backs)"
"Just the deepest, calmest dark I’ve ever felt and seen. Not a single source of light anywhere, just immense darkness. Still remember that feeling and it was like 15 years ago"
– circleinsidecircle
Things get more interesting.
Water Glow
"The bioluminescent animals (or whatever they are) in the water is pretty amazing. Our toilet would fill up with seawater and if you took a piss in it in the middle of the night it would agitate the water and it would glow sometimes."
– Tub-a-guts
"Ominous Red Snow Angel"
"Always love the bio-luminescence flickering around the hull at night. They're almost like a cushion of little stars guiding you safely along. On those really dark, moonless nights, I'd almost beg for them to arrive."
"I sailed 70ft yacht around the world a few years back. Southern Ocean, Cape Horn, Good Hope, Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, two equatorial crossings; the full deal. Plenty of terrifying moments, boring moments, funny moments and beautiful moments."
"A creepy moment that is burned into my memory involved a near catastrophe halfway between NZ and Cape Horn. We ended up hitting really bad weather and absolutely huge seas - 50ft swells with massive troughs in between. We were running with the swells for days as they grew, skidding down them like a bloated surfboard, always worrying that the next wave would break behind us and roll us over."
"At night it's pitch black down there in bad weather - the sky and sea just form a huge black mass. The most terrifying thing is the sound of an invisible wave breaking behind you. At night, you run red light to preserve night vision, so there's basically just an eerie red glow emanating from below deck."
"At about two in the morning, I was at the helm when a monster wave broke directly over the back of us without a seconds warning. Time slowed down like it does in those moments, and the last thing I saw was my own silhouette in the wall of water, lit up like an ominous red snow angel - and then nothing but cold blackness as the boat sunk into the sea."
"Fortunately, she popped straight back up like a cork after a few eternal seconds - almost like a submarine surfacing - and we were still in one piece. Still cant forget that glowing red apparition of myself though. The memory of it has woken me up in a cold sweat more than once."
– Le_Rat_Mort
Coming Up For Air
"Somewhere in the Atlantic, nice cold as f**k night, decided to step out and look at stars. About ten minutes on and a boats mast pops up, sits there a few minutes and then back under. No alarms, nothing. Just some sub boys getting a bit of late night o2 in the middle of nowhere next to some friends."
– MyMomsSecondSon
When I worked on cruise ships, I was always captivated by the green flash on the horizon.
The optical phenomenon occurs just as the sun goes down or before sunrise, with the tip of the sun barely visible.
It emits a flash of green light that I found absolutely thrilling to witness every time.
It's not necessarily creepy, but still a wonder for sure.
The ocean is a sea of mess.
Feed Me
hungry feed me GIFGiphy"The largest biomass migration takes place every night when deep sea animals come up to feed."
Supraman83
Pitch Black
"I remember watching a YouTube interview with a military diver. He described how when you’re doing a covert op you spend a lot of time just underwater doing nothing with no lights on until it’s time to move. He specifically mentioned how he had to get used to having large things bump into him in the pitch black."
Freaked_The_Eff_Out
Sonar
"The sonar we use for deep sea mapping really screws up a number of species especially whales, dolphins and porpoises. Imagine walking around and a tornado alarm decibel-level noise triggers right next to you. We do that every time we use that high-powered sonar and it basically f's up their own sonar abilities causing them to be unable to communicate and navigate."
Reyltjj
Scattered
"Once did a night dive where we covered our lights while resting on the floor at about 50'. You cover your light and wave your hand and you can see bioluminescent bacteria in the water. Well I was looking up when we uncovered our lights, there were hundreds of barracuda between us and the boat. They scattered from the light though."
bwtaha
Gone
Looking I See You GIF by Shark WeekGiphy"Lost sailors in the sea who cling to wreckage basically have their skin dissolved by salt water after soaking for more than 3 days."
SnooOranges4231
At this point I feel like a shower may even be dangerous. Water issues...
Hot Bubbles
hot tub jacuzzi GIFGiphy"'Hot tub of despair' is a lake under the ocean, in the gulf of Mexico. It is highly concentrated with salt and has dissolved methane. Any creature that enters dies."
Abathur11235
the bottom...
"There are perfectly-preserved shipwrecks from ancient Greece preserved at the bottom of the Black Sea. The water is so deep that it becomes anoxic (oxygen free), which preserves organic materials like wood. Shipwrecks are cool, but I find the phenomenon a little disturbing, since there is probably no life down there."
"Here's an article from a few years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/23/oldest-intact-shipwreck-thought-to-be-ancient-greek-discovered-at-bottom-of-black-sea"
colorforge
When you bleed...
"The ocean is blue because all the other pigments are absorbed. So after a certain distance down everything thing becomes a monotone blue color, unless you have some other light source. The freaky part is if a diver gets cut underwater the blood looks black, like ink. All the red has long since been absorbed so there’s no wavelengths left to show you a red color when you bleed."
Lord_of_the_Canals
Not a Care
"I tell new scuba divers this: The ocean doesn’t care about you. It’s not actively trying to kill you. But it will do a lot of things on its own that will absolutely kill you if you’re not prepared and paying attention. I realize this could apply to any natural environment but it feels much more apt when talking about the ocean. One wave that you weren’t prepared for can make your day pretty bad. For the ocean it’s just business as usual."
bg-j38
Poison
Marine Life Sea GIF by BBCGiphy"Just one millilitre of coastal water taken from the ocean's surface can contain up to 10 million viruses. The number of viruses decreases further offshore and deeper into the water."
SuvenPan
No Air
"There are parts of the ocean which are dead no oxygen in the water which means nothing can survive, no fish no plankton nothing at all. They are spreading exponentially. Whilst they are tiny now and have been. At the rate of growth. They’ll cause serious problems before the end of the century."
Emergency-Tiger4339
The Fisher Items
"Most of the plastic pollution in the ocean is not from straws, shopping bags, or consumer items as most of us were led to believe. It’s from fishing nets and fishing gear."
TheSheekGeek
Heartless Lover
"It doesn't hate you. It doesn't love you. It doesn't even know you exist. When it destroys/capsizes your boat your boat didn't even cause a change in its movements. I am a sailor and I am in love with a cold heartless *itch who couldn't care less whether I live or die."
Intelligent-Lie-7407
Swimming Dead
twd GIF by The Walking DeadGiphy"When sea creatures die in the ocean and their bones sink to the deep ocean floor, zombie worms eat the bones. The skin secretes an acid dissolving the bones, digesting the remaining fat and protein left behind."
creeeeaaach
Remains
"Well Crippin should have dumped his wife's remains in the ocean because not an ounce of food goes to waste including the bones. If you need to get rid of a mass grave don't bury dump at sea and the entire body will be eaten which will actually be beneficial to the ecosystem as a whole. We shouldn't be burying people but dumping them at sea."
TwistedDecayingFlesh
Dipped
"When you dip your toe in the water you are no longer at the top of the food chain."
Kermitsfinger
"Isn’t that true on land as well? If you go hiking, grizzly bears and mountain lions could still mess you up. Same thing if you go to the savannah. There are plenty of animals there that are higher than you on the food chain."
outofdate70shouse
Giant Squids
"We don't really know whats it in I can say that for thousands of years we drew sea monsters believing they lived in it. Surprising a lot of stuff we found in those pictures were in the ocean. (Giant Squid recently ). Just makes you think what else is actually down there that we don't know about."
ghigoli
the 1%
Mr Bean Beach GIF by Working TitleGiphy"Only 1% of its floor has been explored. It’s pretty common knowledge by now, but most people don’t understand how absolutely insane it really is. We know more about the surface of mars than we do our oceans floor."
LandscapeLost992
Underwater
"I’m a scuba diver and one thing that really scared me when I first started off diving, you hear SO MUCH more underwater then you ever will above on the surface, I’m not even talking about like the shifting or just the water itself moving, your hear things like fish clicking and other things like that, cuz underwater sounds move and travel a lot more so you hear a lot more and much quicker, was pretty out of nowhere when I first went under."
Cogburn____CG
This is why I hate the beach. I'm staying on dry land forever.
I love the ocean. I love the sea.
But it freaks me out. I hate going to the beach at night because you never know what is lurking in the dark waters.
That's why I could never be a sailor or in the navy. I'd be too nervous about what lies beneath.
Sailing was made fun by Johnny Depp, but you'd have to be as drunk as Jack Sparrow to navigate the life at sea.
We have no idea really about the waters that surround us.
Redditordeaddamselwanted to hear from all the sailors out there, tell us some stories.
It was asked:
"Sailors, what's the creepiest thing you've ever seen or experienced at sea?"
I once was on a fabulous cruise.
I loved the days at sea, but I had a few moments where I feel like I saw and heard some things on the open waters that were questionable.
Especially at night.
Slither
"Hundreds of sea snakes feasting on the bloated corpse of some kind of animal." ~ goat-of-mendes
GiphyAlaska
"On a boat in Alaska recording humpback whale sounds, we picked up an odd, rhythmic noise on the hydrophone. We were on a 100 ft schooner around Admiralty Island, near Juneau."
"Nothing seen on the surface, just this odd repetitious mechanical sound. The skipper contacted the local authorities who seized the tape and spent several hours interviewing him. Not that scary, but surely weird." ~ dvmdv8
Shine
"We had a noise "shine" down on us my second time out. We were smoking and our bridge also saw/heard/ confirmed it."
"It was a pretty bright starry night, but this one area was a little brighter and had this dull washed out shaft appearance to it, a lot like seeing the Milky Way overhead in the sky."
"We passed right by it and there was a cyclical sound like 'WEEwahwahwahWEEwahwahwah' somewhere between a humming and a sort of siren. It wasn't loud, almost more of a frequency, about 3 or 4 miles wide maybe, coming down not quite vertically."
"We could see it every time we checked for over an hour behind us, then we checked and it was totally gone."
"I wasn't horrified or anything, but the creepy part was how quiet everyone was. We all just kind of looked at each other and cracked a few nervous jokes."
"Not as juicy as seeing The Flying Dutchman or something like that, but I still think about it every time I see the night sky."
"Scariest thing? No doubt the 40-50-60ft crests and being at a 45 degree angle for like 10 seconds at a time." ~ AlienSasquatchhunter
floating at the top of a big nothing...
"Not a sailor, but I've spent more time out at sea than most because of my fondness for most boat related stuff. Even though I enjoy being out there, it always has kinda of an eerie feel. I live in the south of Norway, and the North Sea is really dark, even on the most beautiful days you can max see a meter down."
"Well this one time I was out by myself, in a pretty small, about 14 feet boat. It was one of these "not sunny" but still adequate weather days. Well, long story short I lost control over the engine and my boat spun around, landing me just underneath it."
"As I saw mentioned in another post, I have never felt as vulnerable as just then, floating at the top of a big nothing. You know there is nothing for possibly hundreds of feet underneath you."
"Probably the worst part of it is when you have to duck under the boat to get up and away. You just stare down into the abyss. You can choose not to look, but then it's almost just worse. There are no big sharks or that sort here, but still."
"You feel like there is just something, down there in the dark. I managed to keep calm and after about half an hour someone must have spotted me, cause I was soon picked up by the local SAR boat. I still don't like to look down into water, but I will continue enjoying the sea, as long as I am above the surface." ~ VelocityTM1
Flashed
"Not creepy, but saw the Green Flash one morning when I was in the Navy." ~ DEdwardPossum
GiphyFree Willy is not out there just waiting for us.
That was one whale in one movie.
There are a lot more dangerous creatures swimming about.
Noises Off
"Sailing at night and hearing the dolphins surround the boat. You can hear their wakes and blowhole sounds all around you, but you can't see them. It's creepy." ~ upeepsareamazballz
GiphyThe Shape
"Was sailing on a tall ship in the open sea. Good breeze so making 12+ knots and heeled over so hard that, over the rail, you were almost looking straight into the water."
"Out of nowhere a dark gray shape, maybe 20ft long, pulls right up along side us. Just paces us, for 1-2min, right over that starboard rail and keeping up like it's nothing."
"Then it rolls over and we see a bright white belly before it disappears under the waves. To this day I have no idea what it was." ~ Nephroidofdoom
Hallucinations
"I woke up to take a piss. Head was occupied, went to the stern. The entire sea behind the boat was glowing glowing blue."
"My piss stream made these beautiful colors of aquamarine and violet. Thought I was hallucinating or dreaming and went back to bed."
"I stayed awake petrified I had died and was in some sort of alternate reality or something. Told no one for years."
"Found a video online, apparently it's a type of bioluminescent algae. It f'ked with me for far longer than it should." ~ the-goku-special
The Ship Speaks
"Leading Seamen here, nothing scarier then doing a round (walking around exterior decks checking rooms for fires and such) when the ship is under way at night so it's pitch black and only a red flashlight for light and the ships engines are very loud, I always get the sense there's something following you in the dark/if you fell in no one would know for at least 20 minutes or much more." ~ DistributionUpper634
History
"My great uncle never talked about his time in the Navy, but I can absolutely answer this for him. He was at Pearl Harbor during the attack. He also participated in the shelling of Iwo Jima." ~ Abadatha
war hbo GIF by Game of ThronesGiphyI'm good on dry. land.
But mad props and thanks to the people who make their living on the sea.
We need sailors and fishermen.
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