TOP 15 Strangest Things Found By Deep Sea Divers

so much of the world's oceans remain unexplored this means that you never quite know what you might discover when you take a look beneath the waves on occasions people find some truly unusual things from fragments of spaceships to lost cities and strange formations let's take a look at 15 strange things found by deep sea divers 15 apollo 11 engines one of the ways that modern space companies are reducing costs is by designing their rockets to be reusable that wasn't always the case however and the most powerful booster rockets ever built that saturn 5s were designed to send the apollo missions into orbit and beyond were jettisons once their fuel was used up and left to plummet back down to earth in the ocean as far away from human civilization as possible from where they sank deep into the ocean floor where they were all but forgotten jeff bezos the founder of amazon and who has space exploration ambitions of his own has always regarded these rockets as an important part of history and in 2012 he launched an expedition to try to find them amazingly sonar skins found debris in the exact part of the ocean where they were expected to be the following year he was able to retrieve a series of decayed parts from a depth of around 14 000 feet in the end the team brought back enough to reconstruct two of the f1 engines because of the way the salt water has eroded the metal it may prove impossible to know whether any of the pieces were part of the engines that took apollo to the moon number 14 the lost city there have long been legends of lost cities that were once at the forefront of civilization but were ultimately consumed by the waves while many of these are believed to be merely stories it certainly did happen on a number of occasions heracleon was a thriving port city in the ancient egyptian empire located on the coast with the mediterranean and handling most of the trade that came from europe but at some point around 2200 years ago rising sea levels are believed to have caused the ground it was built upon to become unstable and it fell into the water over the following millennia only a few mentions of the city survived and researchers weren't sure whether the tales were even real let alone where the city once stood this all changed in 1933 however when a british raf pilot was flying over the abukir bay and noted that he saw what looked like ruins in the water it would be another 60 years though before a team of divers would visit that site and after five years of exploration they finally found the ruins of the city and what remains one of the greatest underwater archaeological discoveries ever made with pottery coins and weapons having been retrieved as well as countless remains of buildings ships temples and other structures there's now no doubt that this was heraklion and all the signs point to it having been a much more important city than anyone had previously imagined number 13 f4u corsair aircraft during the second world war aircraft weren't anywhere near as reliable as they are today and it wasn't too unusual for one to develop problems that resulted in it having to crash land and be abandoned of course most planes during that time were lost to fighting but there was one an f4u corsair that took off from hawaii a few years after the war it ended in 1948 and soon began to encounter difficulties with the engine sputtering the pilot had no choice but to make a gentle landing on the surface of the ocean and amazingly the plane didn't suffer any damage the pilot was rescued but it proved to be impossible to retrieve the craft from the water so it was left to sink into oblivion stories of this crash still abounded though and several decades later a team of divers went in search of it to their surprise it didn't take them very long to find what they were looking for they soon found themselves looking at a world war ii fighter aircraft the salt water hadn't been so kind to the plane though and a wreath had begun to form around it along with a large garden eel population so rather than trying to lift it back to the surface the decision was made to leave it and it has instead become a popular dive site at a depth of 115 feet or about 35 meters it's considered to be an advanced dive that's made even more tricky by unpredictable currents but it's an incredible piece of history that will likely remain there for the enjoyment of divers for many decades to come 12 crop circles crop circles are bizarre enough in the fields of farms around the world and have spawned countless theories of the work of aliens or of mischievous teenagers but you can only imagine a surprise to divers off the coast of japan and australia who in recent years have discovered what looks like crop circles in the sand of the seabed found at a range of depths from the shallows to 426 feet they're made up of seemingly perfect circular concentric patterns first discovered in japan it was a mystery as to how they got there for a number of years before a film crew managed to catch the culprit in action it was one specific species of puffer fish that was responsible for them the patterns formed in the sand were part of an elaborate cording ritual whereby the larger more complicated and most perfect designs were the ones that won the affections of a mate this species though isn't thought to live in the waters of australia so when patterns were found there too it was almost as if the mystery had been opened up again marine biologists know this time of course that it's a behavior exhibited by at least one fish so the race is now on to find out if there's another species that does the same thing number 11. giant jellyfish based on those that are found washed up on beaches it's easy to be under the impression that jellyfish only grow to a certain size but the truth is that in the depths of the ocean some species can become gigantic and it's always a nervy but exciting ordeal for any deep-sea divers that encounter them one of the largest species of all is the lion's mane jelly which is native to the cooler waters in the arctic atlantic and northern pacific oceans often seen in the english channel the north sea the irish sea the baltic sea and around scandinavia they're also sometimes seen further afield and it's usually these ones that reach monstrous proportions the largest lion's mane jellyfish ever recorded was captured by an american scientist named alexander agassi off the coast of massachusetts in 1865. the bell of this specimen measured seven feet or just over two meters across and its tentacles were around 120 feet or 36 meters long these are of course designed to trail deep in the waters and capture small morsels of food that are passing by but they've also been known to tangle divers and can cause serious problems especially if they're stung too lion's mane jellies aren't the only large species though while it's a phenomenon more associated with colder waters just one of the many hazards that deep sea divers have to constantly be on the lookout for number 10 an underwater river we're all aware that beneath the surface of what looks like calm water there's always the possibility that powerful currents are flowing but in mexico there's a place where divers have discovered what appears to be an underwater river the landscape of the country is covered in sinkholes and ancient cave systems that have since been flooded the holes themselves are known as cenotes which means sacred well and mayan because the civilization saw them as holy sites and in recent times they've become popular places for divers to explore because of the vast caverns and strange underwater structures that are there to be found one of them called the angelita cenote which is near the ruins of the mayan city of tulum has become of particular interest at the surface the 200 foot or 61 meter wide pool seems to appear out of nowhere amidst the dense jungle but things get even stranger the deeper you go near the bottom of the pit it looks as if there's a river flowing across and while it isn't actually your case it brings attention to an unusual phenomenon the effect is caused by the cenote having a number of different water sources which each have varying levels of salinity instead of blending with the surrounding water this particularly dense water falls to the bottom and begins to behave independently number nine ss city of cairo the ss city of cairo was a 449 foot or about a 137 meter long vessel that was originally built in 1915 to be used as a passenger ship by the time the second world war had begun though it was commandeered to help transport supplies to the uk and on a fateful voyage in 1942 after departing cape town in south africa she was torpedoed by a german u-boat and sank in the middle of the atlantic ocean of the 311 people that had been on board at the time 207 survived and were ultimately rescued while the remainder died either during the attack or because of the time it took for the rescue ships to arrive on scene none of the cargo was salvaged though since the ship was carrying 2 000 boxes of silver coins as well as various supplies and weaponry it's long been a target for ocean salvage companies history had almost completely forgotten about the ship when in 2015 it was announced the deep sea exploration team had actually managed to find the wreckage a few years earlier it was lying on the seabed at a depth of seventeen thousand feet or about fifty one hundred meters which is far deeper than a person can swim but within the range of submersible robots by the time the discovery was announced the crew had already managed to retrieve 46 million dollars worth of silver coins and the total salvaged assets are expected to have risen to around 60 million which makes it the most valuable deep sea salvage operation to have ever been undertaken number eight bimini road in september of 1968 a group of divers were swimming in about 18 feet of water off the coast of north bimini island in the bahamas when they noticed something very unusual beneath them what at first appeared to be a rock formation was beginning to look much more like a pathway or road that had been made out of carefully cut pieces of stone that have been arranged in a half mile long stretch the question that's baffled everyone's sense is whether this truly was something created by people in which case why would they build something like that there and it does indicate a lost civilization or could something that seems so rectangular have simply been made by the forces of nature since the original discovery countless teams have conducted their own investigations at the site employing various scientific techniques to try to understand what it is there are still some groups to this day who remain convinced that the formation could only have taken on this structure if it was placed there by someone on purpose but the general consensus is that it's a natural feature made up of pieces of beach rock that cracked and formed sharp edges as it fell from the island into the water number seven human skull when you're diving in water you can expect to see all sorts of pieces of garbage detritus and even the remains of various animals but in 2007 while exploring a cave network in the yucatan peninsula of mexico a team came across something that would startle even the most experience of divers a child's skull the area where they had found it was littered with ancient artifacts so they knew they hadn't inadvertently discovered evidence of a recent crime and the decision was made to leave the skull along with other bones where they were unfortunately subsequent divers began to move objects around at the site so a couple of years later the remains were removed so they could be studied and preserved it soon transpired that this was one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the americas and provided information of what the first settlers on the continent were like found to be the remains of a young girl who's now referred to as naya it is thought she would have been in her mid-teens and lived in the region around 12 000 years ago with signs of malnutrition and stress as well as having been pregnant before her death which is likely caused by falling into the pit where she was found her remains paint a picture of a hard life being experienced by those first people number six ms zenobia built in 1979 the ms zenobia was a challenger class ferry designed to carry passengers and cargo over routes throughout the mediterranean something had gone terribly wrong in construction however and her maiden voyage in mid-1980 would be her last laden with 104 tractor trailers and a full crew compliment the ship sailed into the mediterranean past gibraltar and made the first stop at heracleon in crete after unloading some of the cargo she then proceeded towards athens and it was then that the captain started noticing issues with the steering as soon as he began to try to compensate for this the ship started listing to its port side and it was found that this was happening because the ballast tanks weren't filling up correctly seemingly having fixed the issue the ship continued on its route but later on in the journey after leaving a port in cyprus the issue began again and this time after being moored out at sea to prevent her from blocking the port she sank luckily the crew had been evacuated before this happened so no one was injured but the ship and its estimated 250 million dollars worth of cargo sank 138 feet beneath the waves while the exact location of the sinking has always been known it was a few years before the first team of divers went to explore the site they couldn't believe what they were seeing with the ability to actually enter the superstructure of the ship and explore the lower car deck and the engine room they reported back their findings and it's since become regularly ranked as one of the 10 best recreational dive sites in the world with thousands visiting each year [Music] number five ancient mine the cenotes in mexico have regularly turned up surprising discoveries such as artifacts from ancient civilizations but a team of divers found something in 2017 that's completely rewritten the history books and fundamentally changed what we thought we knew about how the first cultures in the region lived the caves haven't always been flooded and that's why skeletons and objects are often found deep within them but the latest find in a cenote along the eastern coast of quintana roo is very different the divers realize that the caves they were swimming through didn't look the same as the others they had explored and the only reason for this was that they had been altered in some way by prehistoric humans when the caves were accessible further investigation suggests that these ancient people likely used the site as a mine from which they extracted tons of okra and probably set up campfires along the route to illuminate the space with objects such as tools extraction beds the markers have been found it's now believed the cave was used as a mine for two thousand years with work beginning around twelve thousand years ago this makes it the earliest known mine in the whole of the americas and suggests people were digging the ground for useful materials many thousands of years earlier than had previously been thought number four the ghost fleet of truck lagoon the second world war saw battles breaking out around the entire globe and things soon became as intense in the pacific region as they were in europe where hostilities had started the empire of japan's main naval base was in a place called truck lagoon which is around 1100 miles to the northeast of new guinea and allied forces knew that they wanted to deal a substantive blow to the enemy this would be the place to do it in 1944 after capturing the marshall islands the american-led operation hailstone began which saw a three-day assault launched from aircraft carriers against the fortification and resulted in the destruction of 12 japanese warships 32 merchant ships and 275 aircraft in that single campaign the lagoon became known as the single largest graveyard of ships in the world as a remnant of the war it was forgotten about and for 20 years no one returned in 1969 though jacques cousteau and his team arrived at the lagoon to explore the site filmed a documentary showing just how mystical ghostly and alluring the wrecks are submerged in virtually crystal clear water some are only 49 feet beneath the surface and are easily accessible you can still see the remains of vehicles and equipment that were on board the ships during the attack and one of the most important discoveries was that of i-169 shinohara a submarine that caused extensive damage during the assault on pearl harbor [Music] number three manganese nodules with so little of the world's ocean floors having been explored there's a mystery that's been regularly discovered by deep sea divers that's becoming increasingly strange and still there's no fully accepted explanation from the shallowest regions to the deepest depths the seabed appears to be covered with objects called manganese nodules which are made up of concentric layers of iron and manganese oxides varying in size between virtually microscopic to more than eight inches they're mainly a similar size to a chicken's egg the surprising thing about them though is their sheer prevalence it's not that they cover at least 70 of the ocean bed which makes it even more bizarre that we don't understand the process that creates them even so mining companies are looking at them with interest because it may not be long until it's economically viable to troll the oceans to collect these nodules to process number two the cesarean sunken treasure everyone's dreamed of one day finding hidden treasure of their own but while it's a rare occurrence it does typically happen in february of 2015 zvika fair was diving in the water off the coast of caesarea an israeli port and noticed something shiny in the sand below he reached out to grab it and found that it was a gold coin with arabic script written onto it as he pushed more sand aside he kept finding more coins and realized he needed to report the discovery to authorities believed to have been the cargo of a ship traveling through the region that is thought to have been sunk by a storm more than 2 000 coins have now been recovered each of which is more than 95 pure 24 karat gold they are at least a thousand years old what's truly unusual is that despite their age the writing on the coins is still legible and this is probably because of the unique combination of temperature and salinity of the water in that part of the mediterranean had it been anywhere else it would have more than likely decayed beyond recognition number one the baltic sea anomaly possibly the strangest thing found by deep sea divers is known as the baltic sea anomaly something that continues to divide experts as to whether it's a natural formation or could potentially have extraterrestrial origins in 2011 a swedish exploration team was scanning the floor of the baltic sea they took images that appeared to show a 200-foot circular object with what looked like ramps and staircases around it straight away they sent the images to experts around the world to try to understand what it was theories soon began circulating that the team had discovered a crashed ufo with such an unusual shape it's no surprise that people initially assumed that it must have been created by someone because natural forces don't usually form straight or curved edges in that way despite the protests of those who wanted to believe however the scientific consensus is that it actually is a naturally occurring phenomenon the baltic sea in particular is a place that has gone through a huge amount of glacial erosion throughout history and it's most likely a large piece of rock that was transported there by an ice floe that has been gradually smoothed by ice and ocean currents ever since watch our binge watching playlist if you'd like to watch all of our most popular top 15 videos grab a drink grab a snack and get ready to binge you

Channel: Top Fives

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Keywords: Strangest Things Found By Deep Sea Divers

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Length: 19min 52sec (1192 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 27 2021