For deep-sea fishermen and
sea captains, the sea is home. But the briny deep is home to
danger, mystery - and terror. Here are some of the strangest and
creepiest things ever found underwater. Fishermen are hunting for a valuable catch,
but they’re more likely to fish out trash in some places. Who hasn’t seen the cartoons
of the fisherman plucking an old boot out of the water? But one fisherman, only known as
TheLightningCount1 when he posted this story on Reddit, found something much creepier. He pulled
an old briefcase out of the water, and opened it thinking it may contain something valuable.
Instead, it held multiple old, damaged children’s shoes. Was this the quarry of a traveling
shoe salesman...or something more nefarious? The ocean is full of strange things
- some that can’t be explained. If you’re fishing or sailing solo, being
on the open sea can be incredibly lonely. So it’s not a surprise that many fishermen have
reported odd experiences - hearing strange sounds or voices that can’t be explained by any
logic. This has led to many people believing that the ocean is haunted, but one fisherman
thought the spirits may be trying to save him. He was alone on his small fishing boat when he
suddenly heard a loud voice - “Move Over” - when there was no one within a half-mile. Was it his
mind playing tricks on him, a territorial ghost, or a warning? He didn’t stick around to find out. The ocean can be dangerous -
sometimes for what it doesn’t do. A Marine Corps veteran only known as chadywacker
on Reddit did a tour of duty, spending a lot of time on ships. He was sailing through the Pacific
when suddenly everything went eerily quiet. The wind stopped completely. Looking down at the
water, it looked like a perfectly smooth pane of glass only broken by the moving ship. While this
wasn’t a threat at all to the powerful military ship, it was a chilling reminder of what happened
to many ships in the past - a sail-powered ship that found itself in the doldrums could have
easily become stranded with little hope of rescue. But as we go deeper, things get stranger. The oceans are full of litter, but few are more
memorable than the next item. When Neil Armstrong launched into space on the Apollo 11, the engines
from the rocket fell away as planned and landed in the ocean not far away from the launch site
in Florida. And that’s where it stayed until decades later - when a man with deep pockets
decided to recover this piece of living history. Jeff Bezos funded a deep-sea search,
recovered the now degraded engine, and kick-started his ongoing mission to
conquer space with the power of Amazon. And it’s not the only industrial
machine you’ll find below. World War I and World War II were the most brutal
wars in human history, and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were home to some of the most
intense combat. That left the seas littered with the metal skeletons of what were once
powerful war machines. The remnants of planes are the most common, frequently being shot down
high above the sea. But explorers will also find massive submarines sunken by their fellow ships,
along with occasional tanks and trucks that met unfortunate fates. But no matter their original
purpose, they’ve all been reclaimed by the sea. And that’s what happens to just about
anything brought to rest in the deep sea. It’s one of the creepiest sights you’ll
encounter in the seas - what looks like a person, frozen deep below the water and covered in
barnacles and rust. But it’s not a person at all - it’s a statue. How does a statue wind
up under the water? Some were built a very long time ago and the city they were a part of now
rests underwater after a disaster. Others may have fallen off-board from a ship. And others may
have actually been built or placed underwater, like the famous Christ of the Abyss, built
in Italy to memorialize a fallen scuba diver. But even stranger than finding one odd thing under
the ocean - finding a lot of them in one place. Ah, New Jersey. Who doesn’t love the Jersey shore,
where you can find boardwalks, cheesesteaks - and a mysterious train graveyard. It was 1985 when a
group of divers found a collection of old train cars deep below the water. Even odder, there was
no record of how they got there. Could they have fallen off a destroyed barge? Were they jettisoned
off a ship to make it lighter during rough seas? Or was there crime involved? The early
steam trains were dated back to the 1850s, are still in good condition, and remain
a popular location for divers to explore. But one wreck has even more reason
for people to keep coming back. Large destroyed ships at the bottom of the ocean
are nothing new, and the search for the Titanic captured the public’s attention. But one ship
still has people fascinated. The RMS Republic sank after a collision years before the Titanic,
although only six people died. It wasn’t found until 1981, its ruins near Nantucket Island. So
why are people still determined to explore it today? Simple - money. Many reports indicate
that the Republic has massive amounts of money on board, in the form of gold coins. Some
reports say $250,000, others say three million. But that was in 1909 dollars - which would
multiply the value of any cargo by roughly thirty. What’s larger than a massive ship
underwater? How about a whole city? The city of Heracleion was one of Egypt’s key
cities during the last days of the Pharaohs, but much like that reign, it didn’t last forever.
Natural disasters including earthquakes and tsunamis damaged the city until the soil under
it liquefied, leading much of the city to sink into the sea. There it stayed - until 1933, when a
British pilot sighted the ruins deep in the water. Explorers have since found countless remnants
of the ancient civilization including coins, pottery, boats, and even a small Greek
temple. The finds have been described as the closest thing to discovering
the legendary sunken city of Atlantis. But undersea architecture
doesn’t have to be ancient. Imagine you’re drifting through the waters off
the coast of France, and you see a bizarre sight. It looks like an underwater high-rise office
building, and it does have countless residents - but none of them are human. This is an artificial
coral reef, designed to help the valuable ocean lifeforms rebuild after human damage to their
habitat. They start out looking like sleek metal structures in different forms, and then have
marine life attach to them. They grow on them, transforming the object into a permanent reef
that provides food and hiding places for fish. But really, humans don’t have to provide
bizarre or creepy things to the ocean. The ocean does just fine with that on its own. How do you find a river...deep under the water?
It might look like magic, but the Cenote Angelita Cave is actually a strange natural phenomenon.
The massive cave looks like it has a stunningly clear water flowing through it, the result of a
cloud of hydrogen sulphide released by organic debris in the cave. It causes the seawater to
separate from the fresh groundwater in the cave, creating the illusion of two different streams of
water flowing through the same underwater area. If this was a video game, following the underwater
river would definitely lead to a bonus level. This next strange phenomenon
will “point” you right to it. It’s a common site in a cave - a rock formation
pointing downwards. You’re used to seeing them made out of ice, hanging from the rafters. But
located in the ocean? It’s called a brinicle, and these dagger-shaped ice formations are
surprisingly common. Seawater freezes in the cold polar oceans, and this means the salt particles
are expelled from the ice. That creates a powerful blast of dense, cold, salty water that freezes at
a lower temperature. When it hits the ocean water, ice forms around it - creating a long, sharp,
hollow icicle that looks a lot like a finger. But there’s nothing scarier under the water
than something you just can’t identify. It was 2011 and treasure hunters from Sweden
were searching the floor of the Baltic Sea. They weren’t prepared to see something genuinely
bizarre - a circular-shaped object at the bottom that had indentations in the front that made it
look a lot like the famous Millennium Falcon from Star Wars - a spaceship. Could this be a sunken
UFO? Anything’s possible, and tabloid magazines immediately latched on to the story. While
geologists analyzed it and said it was likely a glacial formation, that hasn’t stopped conspiracy
theorists from latching on to every image. Of course, sometimes the scariest
thing about the ocean is its residents. Remember those pillbugs you saw as a kid?
Little bugs that would curl up into a ball when you touched them. They were kind of cute
- but they’d be a lot less cute if they were up to two feet long. They look more like giant alien
monsters that are the first wave of an invasion, but they’re a lot less menacing than they look.
These sea-bed scavengers are an essential part of the ecosystem, eating organic debris
that would otherwise pollute the ocean, and they can be found scurrying along
the bottom of any large body of water. They’re completely harmless to humans,
so maybe just give them a wide berth. When it comes to ocean creatures,
sometimes size is the most disturbing part. The jellyfish is a pain in the butt in the best
of circumstances, delivering painful stings to any diver who comes too close. Some can even be
deadly. But most are small and easy to avoid. Not the Lion’s Mane Jellyfish, a massive
moon-shaped creature that can be seven feet across - and that’s before you look at the
tentacles. It pulls a massive web of tentacles behind it that can be over a hundred feet
long. Their sting isn’t particularly deadly, just painful, but their massive body can cause a
lot of stings - even after they’re dead. In 2010, 150 tourists were stung by chunks of a
dead Lion’s Mane on a New Hampshire beach. For a lot of deep sea creatures, this next
creature is the last they’ll ever see. The deep sea is full of bizarre creatures,
but few as terrifying as the anglerfish. Fish see a small, glowing light in the distance,
float towards it - only to discover it’s attached to a hungry fish that reveals a mouth full of
sharp teeth and - gulp. The anglerfish is one of the best predators of the deep sea, but
its size surprised many deep sea fishermen. This fish can grow to almost four feet in
length and over a hundred pounds - meaning it might not be only a threat to deep sea fish.
Whatever you do, don’t go towards the light… But no mystery under the sea
captivated people quite like this one. The year was 1901, and the discovery of a
shipwreck near the green island Antikythera revealed something shocking. Buried deep within
the wreckage was a massive piece of machinery, full of gears and inscriptions. It was
obviously a highly advanced machine - but it dated back to ancient Greece. It puzzled
scientists, and many readers wondered if it had come from a lost civilization - or even
aliens. It would be decades before a full understanding of the machine became possible, and
it’s now known as the first analogue computer, used to track astronomical positions and
eclipses, as well as the Olympic cycle at the time. Reconstruction efforts are still
ongoing, and the machine now known as the Antikythera Mechanism remains one of the
biggest mysteries in the ocean’s history. For more bizarre mysteries, check out “Weirdest
Unsolved Mysteries”, or watch “Real Life Ghost Story - Mystery of the Mary Celeste Ghost
Ship” for another eerie tale of the seas.
