While most people can’t wait for summer to start so they can finally have a refreshing dip in any body of water available and leave all their worries behind, some have seen the not-so-pretty side of nature.

So anyone with thalassophobia, a type of specific phobia that involves a persistent and intense fear of deep bodies of water such as the ocean or sea, may want to skip this post because today we’re diving into real-life ocean horror stories. Think of submarine scientists, scuba divers, surfers, Navy seals, sailors and anyone who’s no stranger to deep dark waters who all shared some of the most disturbing and unusual experiences they had out there.

“Sailors, scuba divers, surfers, and others… have you seen or experienced anything on or in the water that gave you the creeps? What is your creepiest ocean-related experience?” someone asked on Ask Reddit, and below we wrapped up the responses that are virtually impossible to read without your heart rate speeding up.

#1

I’ve dove a number of wrecks that were graves (many lives lost / remains still in the wreck). Spookiest though would be diving through a large ship that was lying on its side (so easy to get disoriented). Inexperienced diver in front kicked up a bunch of silt so even with a torch it was black-out conditions and no chance to see where the guide was or know the way out.

Image credits: anon

#2

I’ve posted this before but it’s been a year, so f**k it haha

So this is proper babby’s first free dive material and I’ve since learned I’m terrified of the ocean, so this probably isn’t that scary to most people. However…

I was on a boat tour that stopped off in a small bay with f*****g beautiful, crystal clear, light turquoise water and nearly white sands. We’d just finished swimming with some sting rays when the tour guide offered to take some of us out for a swim in deeper water.

I was hesitant as he said the current can get quite strong and I’m not the best swimmer, but he said I could join them for as long as I felt comfortable, so I came along.

There was a small group going at a leisurely pace that I could clearly see, so I decided to do some free diving. As I said, the water was gorgeously clear. I was diving down to these little reef outcrops and checking out the fish and had barely looked ahead of me other than to check on the group.

I finished inspecting another little coral group and turned around to see where the group were and suddenly saw the sandy sea floor disappear over a knife sharp drop off. The water was so deep and inky blue with no sea floor in sight and my stomach somehow dropped into my a*s and jumped into my throat at the same time.

I surfaced ASAP and got as far away from the drop off as possible and tried to pretend I never saw it.

Image credits: ChrissiTea

#3

Pretty much anything that moves under the water is creepy if my head is above water. Under the water it’s the opposite. Nothing bugs me. I’ve gone diving with sharks many times. They don’t make me nervous at all. Jellyfish do though, especially in southeast Asia.

The one time I was really spoked was skin diving in the Galapagos. I went down quite deep (for me), maybe 6-7 meters. I see an absolutely massive manta ray lying on the sea floor. Bigger than me by maybe 40 kilos, maybe more. Continued on my way, looking at the colourful fish. When it came time to ascend, I turned towards the manta again. It had been tracking my movement and moving towards me. When I looked at it, it stopped. I felt like it was up to no good. It felt very threatening. It didn’t like me being there or something. Maybe it thought I was lunch. Dunno. I got the f**k out of the water and went to have a beer to calm my nerves.

Image credits: sbenzanzenwan

#4

Shine a torch over the side of the boat at night, 5km from the land, and 100s of tiny sea snakes. Everywhere I point the torch was a writhing mass of snakes.

Image credits: cakathree

#5

a large Octopus came and huged me from behind while i was free diving. i tried to take it away from me but it keeps making more pressure till its gone.

it dosent sound that creepy but i was really freaked out when it did, because i didnt even see it coming.

Image credits: Hamdi4002

#6

I do a fair bit of cave diving in North Florida and help out with exploration projects. I’ve got a couple. One is mine, one is a friend’s.

So my friend was checking a lead in an offset sink to see if there was any going cave one afternoon. Offset sinks are physically distant from the main cave conduit, so while a primary trunk passage may have lots of clear ground water, an offset sink won’t get much water circulation, so rainwater and runoff will tend to stay there for a long time. They’re typically very murky and brown, clearing as you approach main cave passage. He’s about 100ft in at a depth of 40 or 50ft. Nothing insane, but it’s braille diving. Trying to feel his way around while running a line to see if anything goes. He comes across a wall about a foot in front of him that looks a bit unique. Often times you’ll see cool patterns of mineral buildup in cave walls/floors/ceilings. So he’s appreciating this cool pattern when that pattern opens its mouth and shows off its teeth and tongue. Turns out a not insignificantly sized gator lived in that sink and wasn’t happy about the home invasion. He set a new speed record getting back to the surface of that particular sink. Gators aren’t uncommon down there and they usually leave you alone, but not when you get that close to them in their own territory.

My story was a bit less exciting but pretty somber. I was doing a dive in the back of a fairly regularly traveled cave system, but in an area where a body had been recovered from about a mile back the week prior. That area isn’t as regularly dived due to the logistics and cave passage geometry. It’s not a small dive to get back there. The recovery was really challenging and there were signs of damage to the cave as we swam along where the body had been forced through restrictions, through mud, etc. But the real reality check came when we found his mask in the mud several thousand feet back. It had been dislodged (along with his nose) while the recovery divers tried to force him through a small area. It really drove home the reality of where I was and what I was doing and the respect necessary for the environment.

Image credits: helodriver87

#7

I was diving off of the coast of Okinawa (a relatively small island south of Japan) at night with a couple of buddies. We were making our way down approx 150ft when we hit the bottom and see a four door sedan just sitting down there. We all kinda gurgled at each other in surprise and made our way over to it. Inside was a brief case, a kids school backpack (in Japan all of the kids wear the same style of backpack and its very distinctive), and a couple of coffee mugs but no bodies or anything. I was familiar with the model of car and it wasn’t more than 5 years old. Everything was pretty well preserved too. In retrospect i wish I had open the potato box to see if there was paperwork for the car but it didn’t feel right to disturb the well preserved scene.

After we made it back to shore, i started doing to research into accidents in the area but there was absolutely no record of anything related to what we found. Kinda creepy but also cool. I’m glad there weren’t any bodies.

P.S. we did let the local police know about it and give them the coords on our way out of the area but we never heard anything else about it.

#8

This isn’t really that bad, but I was on a night dive and both my flashlight and my backup light went out. Had to literally hold onto my buddy for the duration of the dive. Total blackness except for the bobbing of his tank light.

#9

Not creepy but a basic straightforward scare: was descending for a wreck dive in Roatan, Honduras when a really large moray eel emerged from the wreck and made a beeline to me and my husband. We were startled and swam away. It followed us, then dropped back.

Next, we watched it approach our dive master, who was facing the other way and distracted helping another diver. We were desperately trying to get his attention about the imminent attack. Then we saw it wind itself through his legs and twirl around him for a few pats and discovered it’s a friendly eel. We learned later that other people had been feeding it and it was habituated to humans. That’s info I would have appreciated upfront so we wouldn’t have been so scared lol.

#10

I was in the Navy. Going through the Bermuda Triangle there was this intense storm. They called away low visibility watch in the middle of the night. So different people go to different places on the ship to see ahead or behind and tell the bridge if they see anything. I was in the HCO tower Aft looking over the flight deck. (Destroyer). The lighting was so intense that there were no breaks. It was like daytime. Torrential rain but the water was a smooth as glass other that the rain hitting it. It was weird.
Also, our magnetic instruments went haywire.

2. Somewhere between Oahu and Kuwaiti (spelling?) A green object appeared at night so bright that it lit up the inside of the bridge and then followed the ship. I was asleep and heard about it from the bridge watch the next day. It was logged so it happened. I will tell you that it got a lot of talk going and I learned from more senior sailors that most of them have a UFO sighting story and that for anyone that has spent a long enough time on sea duty.m, they all have seen something.

#11

Scuba Diving in Vanuatu on the President Coolidge, very famous wreck dive that you can walk from the shore and dive the bow from 15 meters all the way down to 70 meters.
I was 14 at the time and my parents were life long divers, we dived the Coolidge twice that day already and our guide offered a night dive to us.
We were supposed to only dive down to a depth of 25 meters and check out these flashlight fish that would school together in a cargo hold, they had these really bright green eyes that looked amazing and lit up underwater. I still don’t really know what happened that night but it felt like we were staring at these fish for forever. Suddenly I didn’t feel right, my breathing felt funny, I tried to grab my gauge to check how much air I had left, it took every bit of muscle I had to reach for my gauge connected to my waist, I slowly grabbed it and read that I had about half a tank left, relived for a split second but still concerned something was wrong I reached for my mum to signal her something wasn’t right, I grabbed her arm but couldn’t hold on, I just started sinking to the bottom. My mum quickly grabbed my arm as I fell but I had no leg movement, so I started dragging her to the bottom with me, my dad now realises somethings wrong and grabs my mum trying to pull us all up. The dive guide now is freaking out and trying to make sure everyone is alright, they all start swimming me back up and in to shore. Once we got up closer, I started to feel normal again but abit dazed and confused. Turns out I had nitrogen narcosis, and had dropped to 40 meters when I couldn’t swim anymore. For those of you who don’t know what nitrogen narcosis is, it’s when you have to much nitrogen in your body and it gives you a intoxicated effect.
Nothing to hectic but still a vivid memory of thinking I was gonna sink to the bottom of the ocean not being able to do anything about it.

Image credits: stabmegod

#12

I was surfing scripps pier in San Diego about 6 years ago. It was flat, onshore wind, really messy conditions but I spent 40 min driving there and said “ I’ll just get in the water and paddle around a bit”. There was nobody in the water.

I decided to paddle around the pier, going from the north side to the south side. When I reached the last pylon, a HUGE fin popped up about 5 feet in front of me. I knew instantly it was a massive white shark (12-15ft based on the size of the fin)- I’ve been surfing my whole life, I’ve been in the water with dolphins many times. This was 100% not a dolphin.

This fin was more triangular with a serrated back side (almost like a steak knife) with a sandpaper looking texture. Dolphins have more scoop in their fin and very smooth texture on their skin.

The way it swam gave me instant chills- fishy, more side to side and straight than the classic up and down, coming up for breath dolphin.

I froze. Trying to control my panic, waited for it to disappear and as smoothly as possible, turned my board around, paddled through the pier back to land.

It was absolutely checking me out but didn’t show any interest towards me. Since then, I’m not that afraid of sharks but I still get the chills thinking about that day.

Image credits: drbdrbdr

#13

Super tame compared to the rest of these but I was night snorkeling in the maldives with a torch on the reef, far enough from the island that it would have been pitch black without the torch. Really fascinating wildlife down there at night. Decided to enjoy some sensory deprivation so I turned off the torch and just floated for a bit. When I turned it back on the first thing I saw was a huge reef shark headed straight for my face. They’re pretty harmless but that took a sec to register

Image credits: KYC03D

#14

I remember a couple years ago, a buddy of mine had rented a boat out for my birthday to go out in the sea with. It was going perfectly fine, the boat was super nice, good for fishing, had a great deck. When he told me he was going to rent one, i thought to order a new fin to scuba with. It was a mono fin since i had never gotten a chance to use one. I’ve been practicing with it, so it was perfect to use it out in the sea.

We started to go out off the coast of the cape and the water was a bit chilly, but not ice cold. we were maybe 22 miles out from the coast while still having an eye sight of the shore. My friend brought fishing baits and rods for us to use later on, but after i was finished scuba diving. I was ready to get off the deck of the boat with my wetsuit and mono fin, my tank resting on my arm before i was going to dunk in. After a couple minutes, i had this really weird chill down my spine. Not paranoia, but superstition. I brushed it off and put my tank on my back, followed by my goggles.

I felt that weird superstition feeling again but it quickly switched to paranoia when i saw a pair of glistening eyes in the ocean. At first what i thought was a shark, it had not been a shark. I’ve had my fair share of training for 6 years with sharks and other deep ocean water creatures, so i thought i’d be able to handle this. It slowly started making it way towards me when i got a better glimpse at it, it was HUGE and i mean massive, it’s teeth were poking on the side of its jaw and even had razor sharp fins. And how i know this wasn’t a shark because they have a more smooth rubbery type of flesh, this one had scales like a snake. Blood was pouring out of its mouth, it looked like it was ready for its next meal.

I attempted to hurry, but i was in shock and i thought i was to die from shock or from this thing eating me. I finally cut out of shock the moment it started to swim more swiftly, but the mono fin could only go so fast in the water. My buddy was getting a little suspicious that i hadn’t come up with anything from the depths of the ocean. He looked over the boat deck and i guess could see me attempting to swim for my life as a dark shadow was inching closer. I eventually reached the boat and out of breath i told him to book it. we ended up not using the boat for the rest of the day and went home. To this day, i have no idea what it was, but in all my years of experience, i dont want to find out.

Image credits: Far-Ad-8219

#15

I dive every once in a while, and I once saw a bobbit worm

Do not look it up if you want to sleep

Image credits: SomeHorologist

#16

Was doing a deep dive certification with an instructor in Dahab, Egypt. We went down to 40 meters and i did a math test to check if i was thinking straight or narced on nitrogen. I aced that test! Performed it faster and better then on the surface in the comfort of an air-conditioned classroom. My instructor was happy and we carried on with the slow ascend. Little did i know that i was completely narced and confused the button that blows the BCD up with the one that dumps the air. Basically i was sinking vertically without even understanding my mistake. That’s when the instructor came to my resque and everything ended up well. Best part of the whole experience – it was all on film and the people in the dive center saw it and kind of congratulated me on being alive. When i saw the video i was amazed at how happily stupid i looked. Smiling and kicking my fins thinking i am going up while actually descending deeper. That was a good lesson for me not to underestimate the nitrogen narcosis and the effects it has on the mind.

Image credits: MrZmei

#17

Asked my scuba instructor this question years ago. He liked night diving. Found a cave that he measured using his divelight, moving it 3 times around to get the entire view. Seemed to look like a prehistoric turtle chilling inside.Then we went river diving.

Image credits: burnsidequest

#18

Scuba dive at night. Started feeling a tapping on the back of my head. What exactly could be doing that 30ft under water?

Turned around and was face to face with a Hawksbill turtle. Guess my hair looked like an anemone or jellyfish tendrils, one of its favored foods.

Image credits: que_he_hecho

#19

The creepiest for me was seeing a 12 ft tiger shark swimming in the distance when I was diving in Hawaii. The water was clear but there was a little haze. It was just far enough away that i kept losing track of where it was. Then i would turn my head around and see it behind me again

Image credits: verac23

#20

I encountered a moray eel chomped in half on a night dive. Eel was still swimming.

Image credits: alexnewberry

#21

Not a professional “water person” and not horrifying but when I was kayaking on a lake somewhere in south Dakota there was a gigantic floating tree trunk with massive roots I thought it was a kraken and nearly fell into the water

Image credits: CheeseMan196

#22

I was Scuba diving at a shipwreck, awesome experience. Very dark though which had me on edge. Not a very well preserved wreck but it was awesome to see everything down there.

There was a huge expanse of open water to the side of the wreck that kind of began to slope off, and as we left the wreck we saw a huge tiger shark floating in that open water. My friends and I just swam back to our ship slowly and it didn’t really follow, but if you know anything about tiger sharks, you know how aggressive they can be, and how menacing one would look in dark water.

Seeing something like that, in that environment, with that level of darkness (it was the evening) is terrifying. The fact that it could hurt you if it wanted and you can’t do anything about it makes it 10x worse. All you can really do is keep calm and keep your distance. Remembering this around large dangerous aquatic creatures has always worked for me and I’ve never been harmed. In hindsight, it was a very beautiful moment but I def didn’t think that at the time.

Image credits: djbognor

#23

I went surfing at Malibu pier one night. As I was suiting up, a bunch of guys hanging around a uhaul truck kept eyeing us. A little creepy, but f**k it, I paddled out. Not ten minutes later I heard a motorboat out of nowhere going fast as f**k with no nav lights. Crashed right onto the beach, only to be met with a bunch of dudes with flashlights. I was worried but seemed like it was being taken care of. Got out of the water a little later and the boat was abandoned and the uhaul disappeared. Turned out it was a cartel drug run from Mexico. Just happy they let me be.

Image credits: lordfawqua

#24

Had a pod of dolphins swim under me and my friend, grazed our legs. The waves sucked, we were just hanging out on the boards.

Immediately thought bull shark or nurse, checking if we were food. Then we saw dolphins popping up. They were just passing through I guess.

Image credits: iBelieveInSpace

#25

There were days/nights out on the Persian gulf when the sea was perfectly calm and looked like glass. The stillness always gave me the creeps for some reason.

Image credits: T0BYs_Grundle

#26

Re-commenting from an old post, but here’s mine:

I was in the Gulf of Tehuantepec (western Mexico) about 60nm offshore in a 31ft cutter. It was DARK, right before one of the worst storms I’ve ever encountered, at probably 1 or 2 in the morning, and off of my port quarter I heard the faintest sound of a small outboard engine. Like a small panga engine. No running lights or anything. I heard it for about thirty seconds before the sound of the approaching thunder overtook it. I was genuinely concerned about pirates/cartel in that area but it was probably just a fisherman checking his long lines.

#27

Surfing in Southern California it’s very common to see dolphins or have them swim right underneath you. I had recently moved there so it was all new to me, but I had seen them in the water with me previously. The break was pretty far out so I’m just floating peacefully alone waiting for a set of waves. I saw a large set of swells coming so I got down on my board and started paddling. Just as I’m about to pop up onto the board I take a final quick glance back to make sure all is good and a huge creature explodes out of the face of the wave right next to me. I panic and bail, scared sh*tless, and if felt like I did a cartoon run on top of the water how fast I got all the way in to shore. On the beach it there are people watching and talking about it as it was still out there playing in the waves. It looked like a huge dolphin but people thought it might be a pilot whale.

#28

Not really creepy, but still kinda weirds me out.

First deployment on a submarine. Reactor scram drill. Lost propulsion. I get backup propulsion on line and they start restarting the reactor. Supervisor says “You feel that?” “No..?” “We’re sinking out.” They get the reactor back up and the engineer announces to expedite getting main propulsion on line. Normally calm but there’s a hint of panic in his voice. Shifting back is a bit touchy for technical reasons, so normally you do it a bit slowly. Supervisor shoves me out of the way and does it so fast smoke literally came out of the panel. All gets well soon, but I hear later that a bunch of people were watching the depth indicator (looks like an odometer) just spinning as we went down. As I heard it, we did slightly exceed max operating depth.

Also, hearing active sonar from inside the boat is kinda creepy.

#29

I did a cave dive called “El Pit” a few months ago. It’s about 150ft deep, and freaking awesome but absolutely existentially horrifying as you’re slowly descending into this black void. The mouth of the main cave is at the bottom so after descending through this medium sized hole, you’re greeted by this sudden MASSIVE opening with jagged stalagmites and stalactites. It looks like a monster that’s been frozen in rock. Loved every second of it, also nearly s**t my wet-suit looking at it.

#30

Was doing a treasure dive in a river water visibility was s**t as you could imagine, anyway looking for lost things (phones rings, watches, guns) pretty normal s**t, but this dive wasn’t particularly normal, about 30 minutes into the dive I come across a car with a body in, that s**t looked horrible.

#31

Swam around a coral structure to find my face right up against an eyeball as big as my head. Was a goliath grouper in the Florida keys, before those disappeared from hunting.

Also felt the hairs on my body surge forward then back from the displaced water of a great white passing by on the Sonoma coast in California. Very sharky waters over there. Ominous.

#32

Great Barrier Reef swimming past the edge and seeing the dark blue all of a sudden. And the giant clams. Swimming off Kona in the middle of a pod of dolphins. Chasing sea turtles off Maui. When I was in high school we’d swim to the buoy off Santa Cruz beach – god only knows how close we were to being eaten.

#33

Sat right out waiting for waves in Morro Bay, looked behind me saw a huge black fin about 4 feet away. I screamed, paddled in, looked back and saw a huge seal looking at me. My girlfriend, now wife, laughed at me for being scared of a seal, I pointed out I’m not a marine biologist.

Was terrifying

#34

Submarine sonar tech here….sooo many horrifying sounds in the ocean.

#35

I was going to grab what I thought was a bag as a kitesurfer, only to realize it was a Portuguese man o’war. Never felt the urge to not fall and get the f**k away as much as that time.

#36

Snorkelled into a school of blacktip sharks in the Great Barrier Reef, gave me a shock how many were there.

Got pulled from the water at another island, baby turtles were hatching and crawling their way from the sand into the water. Was a pretty amazing sight but as a safety precaution they took everyone from the water. Kind a creepy to think that in the waves just off the shore this might be a buffet for waiting predators.

Scuba diving just off the coast of Cambodia was also rather creepy in some spots: instructors told us the navy had tested ordnance in the area, like a barren desert within the sea, all the reef had been blasted into sand. Curling into a ball it was difficult to tell just how fast we were being pulled out thanks to how completely featureless it was or where the rock formations started/how quickly we were pulled toward them.

#37

I was young (maybe 2nd grade?) and was out on a lake with my friend. At the time, I was really into fishing, so that’s what we were doing. I was leaning down over the water to take a look at what was going on in there, and a MASSIVE gar pike came right up to the surface and charged past us. I still think about it.

#38

Worked as part of a LE dive squad.

Tasting the change in the water when you’re near a body. Takes a few whiskeys to cleanse the palette.

#39

Surfing – jumping of the board and landing on something large and alive …no idea what it was

Snorkeling – noticed in my peripheral vision a massive moray eels that was longer than me 6’ and about one foot away from me just swimming beside me , it was no threat but scared the c**p out of me at first ,more than seeing a shark in the distance

Boating – not the boat I was on but the next one over moored in a very still bay no currents no wind or anything else , all of a sudden the next boat looked like a giant was spinning it around by the anchor chain for about 3 minutes all the other boats were facing the same way still . That weekend was the last time I swam there

#40

When a 10ft Mako swam past as we were diving with lemon and nurse sharks. A little bit of poop came out.
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