In the deep ocean, there are creatures that are
truly the stuff of nightmares. The water, pressure and darkness have all forced them
to adapt in unique and horrifying ways, many of which seem to be almost
alien-like in appearance. So in today's video, we're gonna go over two stories
about the deep, dark ocean and why it is one of the scariest places
anywhere on Earth. As always, viewer discretion is advised. [music] This video is brought to you by Babbel - one of the
top language learning apps in the world. When I started this channel,
one thing I never considered was how many unfamiliar names and words
I would need to pronounce. Like for example, many of the videos in my
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Because right now, Babbel is offering 60% off a subscription
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money back guarantee, so there's no risk in giving it a try. I'm gonna put the link on screen now
or in the description below. Historically, there have been a lot of bad jobs,
and not just boring bad, I mean super dangerous,
lose-your-life-or-your-limbs bad. For example, railroad work is one of these jobs that is typically considered to be a
dangerous job even today. And this is even more true historically
when workers used to have to go in between moving cars to couple and un uncouple
them from one another. If anything went wrong, if workers
slipped or made a small error, they could easily fall underneath
and get run over or get squished in between the
two massive cars. In fact, some railroad companies even had
surgeons on site at all times, because of the likelihood and severity
of the injuries. And unfortunately, railroad work
is not unique in this. During the industrial revolution, job conditions were
exceptionally bad compared to today's standards. All of the new equipment in machinery hadn't
been perfected yet or made very safe, so things would frequently catch fire. There were also no safety covers
or safety fences, meaning that you constantly ran the risk of
losing an arm or leg, or worse. Pre-workplace safety and pre-modernization, there was essentially nothing to
protect the workers, so people worked 12 to 16-hour days,
six days a week, often in just dim light from the windows
in the factory, because there weren't even any
light bulbs yet. These factories' machines were also powered
by steam, created by fires, so there was often smoke everywhere, causing many workers to suffer from lung
and eye issues later in life. And these conditions were more or less
the norm for decades. The Industrial Revolution started in the
1760s in England, giving birth to these awful conditions. And there would be no major changes to safety
standards until 60 years later in 1833, as response to just how many injuries were
occurring in the workplace. Unfortunately, these improvements were only
the first of many that would take over a century to get us
to where we are today. And even then, significant improvements
to workplace safety were still occurring in many places
well into the 20th century. Now, based on the analytics of my channel, it seems that the majority of you
are from the US. With the next significant segments coming
from other developed countries around the "West", which makes sense, given that you probably need
to understand English to understand my videos, and you need easy access to the open internet. This also means that the majority of us,
myself included, are very fortunate to live in countries where
safety regulations are what they are. Many of these horrifically dangerous jobs still
exist worldwide in some capacity. But even in the developed world, there are still
some jobs that are inherently risky. These are jobs that much like the
Industrial Revolution, the technology simply does not exist yet
to perform them more safely. One of these jobs is commercial diving. In particular, something known as
saturation diving. Occasionally used for scientific work, saturation diving is primarily used in the oil and gas
industry to set up and maintain oil rigs. This includes tasks like welding,
tightening bolts, or even just switching large valves on pipelines. If you've seen some of my other diving videos, you're probably familiar with the fact that when
scuba divers breathe gas at high pressures, some of these gases dissolve into
their blood and tissues. When the divers resurface, these gases then diffuse
out of the tissues again but crucially, this takes time. If divers ascend too quickly, these turn into large bubbles
like a shaken and then opened pop bottle. This can cause several physiological effects, ranging from mild decompression sickness to
serious life-threatening conditions. When severe enough, these bubbles can
cause tissue damage and block the veins and arteries,
leading to vital organs, which can then be fatal. To combat this, divers ascend in stages
based on the time and depth of the dive to allow all the gases to diffuse safely. In commercial diving, the depths and times
required for the work to be completed make it entirely impractical to go through the
normal decompression following each day. For example, just a single hour
at 250 feet (76.2 m) of depth requires five hours of decompression. So you can only imagine how much would be
required for a full day of work. Instead, commercial divers enter a metal chamber
known as a dive bell. This chamber is actually a living quarters
attached to a large cable that is then lowered into the water. The cable supplies the living quarters
with gas and electricity, and the dive bell has weights on it so that
it'll sink to the correct depth Saturation divers will then live and work for
up to a month at a time in this tiny metal chamber on the sea floor. This is more practical because eventually, the
dissolved gases fully saturate the tissues around the body, meaning that after a certain period
of time at depth, the decompression time is the same,
regardless of how long you're there. Theoretically, divers can live and work
at depth indefinitely and always have the same eight-day
decompression period. And yes, you did hear that correctly. It takes eight days to fully decompress
after full saturation. And although saturation divers are quite
well paid for what they do, these conditions are obviously incredibly bizarre,
bordering on horrifying. The space itself is cramped, hot and humid. There's usually no natural light,
because these typically occur at depths of between 65 and a thousand feet. But the condition on the dives themselves are,
in my opinion, much, much worse. In the pitch-black water,
light barely travels any distance. On top of that, there are particles in the water
that give it in almost smoke-like appearance. It's been described as being in a void with the
only thing that exists are you and the rig that you're working on. And if that wasn't bad enough, the combination of pressure, nothingness
and the mixture of gases can make the diver senses a bit
weird on occasion, adding to the already surreal experience. Not to mention the fact that divers will
frequently catch glimpses of large sea creatures moving quickly just at
a view of their lights. It's almost as if they're being watched
or hunted at all times. You can't quite see what's out there, but it feels
as though you're being watched. And occasionally, you can feel the water shift
rapidly around you and behind you. And finally, if all of this wasn't
already bad enough, the soundtrack to this nightmare is the deep
groaning of the rig and the sea floor, creating an ominous bass drum-like noise. Truly the stuff of nightmares. As you might imagine, if something
goes wrong at these depths, the divers are completely trapped because of the
decompression sickness they'd experience if they were to be brought up quickly. And depending on where these dives are
taking place and how deep they are, the water can be very cold, adding the risk of
hypothermia to an already dangerous situation. It's for this reason that commercial diving has one of the highest fatality rates
of any profession. Divers can become tangled in the lines, drown, panic, and obviously suffer from
severe decompression sickness. Another horrifying one to think about is
dives that are conducted that are not directly on the sea floor. This would be a situation where the dive bell is sort of hanging part of the way down the rig. It's theoretically possible the diver
could become untethered and accidentally fall away from the rig only to plunge into the abyss below to the
pitch-black sea floor. In any case, on January 16th, 1974, two men were working on a rig
in the North Sea. The North Sea is a fairly cold body of water with surface temperatures ranging from 13 to 18 Celsius,
or 55 to 66 Fahrenheit. The upper end of that range can easily
induce hypothermia in swimmers and the sea floor is often much colder than that. The two men were working at a depth of
250 feet or 76 meters and were on their first dive of the operation. They slipped into their gear and then proceeded
to get the dive bell ready by opening and closing all of the appropriate valves
for chamber pressure and other functions. Then, they popped open the bottom hatch and
hopped into the water to start their work. At first, everything seemed to be normal, except that particular dive bell had been modified. But the instructions for its operation
had not been updated. This meant that one of the valves they moved
was in the wrong position. As they started their work, pressure was
slowly building inside of a locking mechanism, holding the weight to the bottom of the dive bell. This weight keeps the dive bell negatively buoyant so eventually, when the pressure
was high enough, the locking mechanism opened and
let go of the weight. This then caused the dive belt to rapidly ascend, dragging the divers with it all the way
up to the surface. By the time the dive bell reached the surface, the men had died due to a combination of drowning
and severe decompression sickness. And this was unfortunately, one of the many
deaths that occurred early in the history of saturation diving
due to the newness of the technology. It is now no longer possible to accidentally
release a dive bell the way like they did. This was also not the first or last
saturation diving death. There are some recent and particularly
horrifying instance that have gotten a lot of attention. There are also some older,
lesser-known incidents, both of which I plan to cover in future videos. Scott Cassell is an American explorer,
underwater filmmaker and ocean pioneer who's worked with several large productions like Disney, MTV, Discovery, Animal Planet,
and the History Channel. Known largely for his expert diving, Scott has recorded over 13,000 hours
and 20 years of experience in the water. During that time, he set several records, including the record for the longest distance traveled
by a diver at a total of 52 miles (83.7 km). Growing up in California, Scott worked as
an underwater welder in his teens and has continued diving ever since. At some point, he got into film and television
and was able to combine it with his skill and passion as a diver. During this time as well, he developed a fascination
for the Humboldt squid and would spend a decade working on
various projects involving them. And it's easy to see why he would be
so fascinated by them. The Humboldt squid, also known as the
Jumbo squid, but not to be confused with the Giant
or Colossal squid, is a predatory cephalopod that lives primarily
in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Their bodies typically reach about five feet
or 1.5 meters in length or so, and their tentacles usually add another
several feet in length. Like other members of the species, the Humboldt squid can change colors instantly
between shades of white and red and typically live at depths of between
660 feet and 2,300 feet (201 m and 701 m). They also live just one to two years on average, which is incredible, considering how big
they get in that time. It's possibly for this reason that they've developed
a reputation for being voracious predators. It's thought that these squids routinely eat
30% or more of their body weight during their first life cycle, which occasionally
includes members of their own group. When food availability is low, the squid are known to cannibalize the smaller
individuals of the species. Unsurprisingly, they also have a reputation for
being aggressive towards humans when they're feeding, which is pretty horrifying when you consider that they
can travel up to 15 miles per hour or 24 kilometers per hour. Once they've caught up to you, they can grab a hold of you with their eight arms
that have a hundred to 200 suckers each, that are also lined with up to 36 teeth. They also have two longer additional tentacles
for feeding on top of that, which amount to tens of thousands of teeth
to grab a hold of something. And instead of having teeth in their mouth, they have
something that might be worse, which is a large parrot-like beak. Each bite from this beak can take a fist-sized
portion of flesh and is known to bite right through the thick bone
of a tuna's head like nothing. Theoretically, a bite from one of these beaks could
fairly easily amputate your hand from your arm if a Humboldt bit your wrist in the right spot. Even worse, they're also known to hunt
in groups of dozens or more. Typically, one squid will come and check to see
if something is prey and vulnerable, and if it determines that to be the case, the entire group
will descend on the animal ferociously. Now, for whatever reason, the first time that Scott
got in the water with the Humboldt squids, he wasn't properly informed about the risks. After jumping into the water, he started
looking through his camera when suddenly, a squid came from behind him
and yanked on his camera. The force of the pull was so strong that it
immediately pulled his arm from his socket. Then, as he was reeling in pain from the bite, two other squids grabbed his fins and started
pulling him deeper into the water. This happened so quickly that one of his eardrums
actually burst from the rapid increase in pressure. Still sinking, Scott was viciously fighting back, hitting the squid and using his camera
to fight them off. He was finally able to break free and get
back up to the surface where thankfully, the squids seemed to
lose interest. In the attack as well, one of the squid had also
taken a bite of his wrist and broken it five places, which I guess is lucky, considering how much worse
it could have been. A few years later, now about five years into
studying the Humboldt squid, Scott was preparing to make a dive in the
Sea of Cortez in the Gulf of California, filming for a documentary known as
the Man-Eating Squid. By then, he was well aware of the dangers
of diving with Humboldts, and this was only strengthened by talking
to the local fishermen who frequently encountered them. In fact, in that area of Mexico, the Humboldt squid
is known as Rojo Diablo, which translates to Red Demon. The fisherman explained to him that there
were plenty of stores of people accidentally falling into the water and then getting
pulled into deep water by the squid to be eaten. Coupled with his own herring experience, Scott took every precaution in
preparation for the dive. He'd even developed special equipment to
ensure his safety. This included an armor suit that covered
most of his body, armor plating for the vulnerable areas of his
gas tanks and rebreather, chainmail gloves, and a 250-foot steel cable
attached to him from the boat. Then, in late afternoon, he rolled off of the side
and into the water. At about 45 feet (13.7 m), the water
began to darken. Off in the distance, he could sort of see
the squid moving around as they disturbed bioluminescent plankton. As he approached 80 feet (24.4 m), it looked almost
as though he was approaching the sea floor, but this was actually a massive cloud
of plankton. His fans gently brushed through the cloud
as he descended. But then just as he hit about chest level, a large squid had popped out of the cloud
not too far in front of him. Before his vision was obscured by the cloud, he watched as a squid flash from white
to an ominous deep red. Once he was fully engulfed in the cloud,
his vision was essentially zero. Turning on his headlight made no difference because the light reflected right back off of them
and blinded him. He just had to wait blindly as he slowly descended
to the other side of the plankton. When he finally exit the cloud,
the water was darker as less and less of the light filtered from above. As he estimated visibility to be about
65 feet (19.8 m) or so, he noticed a large trail of bubbles
rising from below. This meant that some large animal was swimming
somewhere deep below him and letting out air. It was possibly a whale or some
other large mammal, but the scariest of all to him was the
Pseudorca or False Killer Whale. Of everything he didn't want to run into,
the False Killer Whale was highest on his list because of the
danger it could post to him. And as he sat there thinking about the ominous
trail of bubbles, a group of 30 or so humbled squids came flying
at him and then passed him. He sort of watched as they went by him
and then whipped back around, worrying about what could have
caused them to do that. He quickly scanned the direction they came from,
trying to see if anything was there. But then, his brain caught up to the glance
that he made behind him and realized there had been a large shape in the
water, sitting motionless in the distance. He slowly turned around to realize he was face to face
with a huge Humboldt squid about 10 feet away. Scott sat there frozen, looking at the large creature,
not sure what to do. Then, as he slowly lifted his camera,
hoping to get a shot, the squid rushed directly at him and
slammed into his chest. The force of the blow knocked the wind out of him
as the squid then wrapped its arms around him. All he could hear was the sound of its beak
grinding against his chest plate. Finally, it let go and backed away from him,
almost as if it was serving to see if it had done any damage. Behind this massive squid now, there were dozens
of smaller ones that seemed to be watching and waiting for a signal to attack. As the squid watched him, Scott noticed that
it had scars all over one side of its body, and it was missing part of one
of its tentacles. He briefly wondered what had caused that, and also noticed just how much larger it was
than the rest of the squid. He estimated that its body was close to seven feet long
(2.13 m) and at least three feet (0.91 m) to the ground. It also looked to be well over 200 pounds (90.7 kg),
compared to the average Humboldt, which is only around a hundred pounds (45.3 kg). Upon noticing this, he was acutely aware of the fact that it could still probably kill him if it
launched an all-out attack. The plating he was wearing had weak points, so if it just started biting at random, it would start
to get through to his flesh. As Scott sat there with his heart pounding, the squid started slowly swimming in circles
around him, almost as if it was scanning him. As it did, this waves of white and red
rippled across its body and each of them stared back at
one another for a long while. In fact, this would go on for about 10 minutes as more
and more squid gathered in the area. At some point, the squid became interested in Scott's
camera, so he held it out and let it examine it. In response, the squid wrapped its tentacles around
the camera and tried to bite the lens. Finally, after a long while of swimming
slowly around him and feeling different parts of his body
and equipment, the squid hovered a few feet away and flashed
a deep red, then a bright white. Over his years of studying the Humboldt squid, he'd frequently seen this right before
squid left after an attack. This would prove to be true once again, as the squid then turned upside down and then
accelerated away down into the darkness. Scott watched an amazement as it slowly
disappeared out of view. Suddenly, one of the other squids
slammed into his chest. Then, another bit his wrist. Then,
others grabbed at his fins. Then, it seemed as though there were dozens
attacking him all at once. Thankfully, they were smaller, so they
weren't doing much damage, but fending them off was quickly
tiring him out. With that, he decided he should probably end his
dive and head back to the surface. He got back up to the cloud of plankton and the squid seemed to have a hard time tracking him
as he made his way through the cloud. Then, by the time he exited, they had lost interest entirely as another school
of sardines had caught their attention. From that point onward, his decompression
stops were uneventful as he watched the Humboldt squid hunt the
sardines until he finally resurfaced. This experience really makes you wonder
what might occur during an encounter with some of the much
larger squid species. In particular, the largest species of squid,
the Colossal squid, are almost horrifyingly large. The largest ever confirmed Colossal squid
was 1091 pounds (495 kg), which is roughly 10 times the size of the
average Humboldt squid. However, beaks found in the stomachs of
whales suggested they might grow even larger, to between 1,300 (589.7 kg)
and 1,500 pounds (680.4 kg). Colossal squid also reach lengths between
33 (10.05 m) and 46 feet (14 m), and have the largest eyes of any living creature
to ever exist on Earth. It's because of this squid and the
other large species the giant squid that the myth of the
Kraken even exists. It's not hard to imagine these massive tentacles
coming out of the ocean and wrapping around people
or smaller boats, although these instances are
exceptionally rare. Their main predators are Sperm whales and Sperm whales often have large scars
on their backs, which are thought to be the result of the massive hooks
on the tentacles of these squids as they fight off the whales. There is something uniquely terrifying about
the image of the deep ocean 6,000 feet (1,829 m) down in complete darkness. Around you, somewhere in the darkness
is a 40-foot (12.2 m) monster and it's massive dinner plate-sized eye watching
you and deciding if you're food. Hello everyone. My name is Sean and welcome to
Scary Interesting. This is part three of my Diving Gone Wrong series, so you may wanna check out the
other videos in the series. Thank you so much for watching and hopefully,
I will see you in the next one.
