15 creepy and curious stories from fishermen, sailors and divers (16 photos)

Representatives of the maritime professions gathered on Reddit to exchange both creepy horror stories and simply fascinating stories from their careers. That's it, sailors know how to tell tales!





1. “One night while fishing we heard something hit the boat. Of course, it often turns out that these are just some representatives of wildlife who cannot see well in the dark, but we decided to check anyway. I shined a flashlight into the water and saw a corpse floating face up in the water. Of course, I took a shit and almost dropped the flashlight. We reported the find. The police arrived. We never found out what happened, but we had a theory that it was related to some kind of sunken ship, since the body was wearing a life jacket.”



2. “Going to sea was definitely one of the best experiences I've had in the Navy. I saw the northern lights, a meteor shower and a blood moon. My favorite pastime was searching for constellations. As a result, when I studied many constellations, I could already tell in which direction we were moving. I'm seriously very grateful that I got to experience all of this."





3. “I was standing watch on a dark night when the sky suddenly burst into flames. In the space of about three seconds, something approached that illuminated all the open decks like daylight. This caused a strong reaction on the bridge and in the engine room. We were at the forefront during the war, although not in an area where active hostilities were expected. For a moment, people scattered, fearing that we had come under surprise rocket fire. Then the sky darkened again as suddenly as it had lit up, leaving us safe and alone again. There was still a lot of noise on the comms, all the noise seemed to boil down to "Whisky Tango Foxtrot" [WTF, in other words, "What the f*ck?"]. The only crew member who saw what really happened was me: “It's a meteor. This is a meteor. It's a meteor."



4. “We were fishing near the island and saw something orange in the water. My buddy thought it was just trash until this "garbage" reared its head. It turns out it was a fox. She approached the boat and I grabbed her and lifted her aboard. The poor thing must have been flopping around in the water for ages because she immediately fell asleep in my arms. We released her on land after she woke up."



5. “Giant spears sticking out of the sea. I've seen some crap in the Gulf of Alaska, but one of the scariest things I've seen in my life is what can happen to some of the logs left over from the lumber trade. Sometimes, when a large log comes loose from a raft, it partially sinks and floats up with the narrow end up. And so it turns out that you have a telephone pole with a diameter of 1.2 meters sticking out of the water 12 meters away. It's OK. It is visible on radar, so it is easy to spot.

Now let this pillar float for 20 years or so. It rots, wears away with wind and waves, and takes on a truly menacing appearance. Now put it in a storm with 7-meter waves.”



6. “Intrusive thoughts of jumping into the water. I used to work on a yacht, and when I was on night duty, I was constantly haunted by these thoughts, I thought that something was wrong with me, but now that I see your comments, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one, lol."



7. “I was diving in the Galapagos Islands and it was like a parallel universe. Marine iguanas two meters long swim next to you to the surface of the water, baby seals dance with you and poke you, little penguins blow bubbles, jumping around you like in a Disney movie, birds land on your head when you stick your head out of the water ..."



8. “My father competed in marlin fishing competitions near Weepa (the pointed tip of Australia). I fought with the fish for 4 hours (they catch and release the fish). As the marlin approached the boat, the crew prepared to lift it aboard, with a camera crew hanging over the side to get the shot.

The marlin emerged from the water, and then a great white shark emerged from under him. Full height above the water, a couple of centimeters from the faces of the crew. The shark grabbed the entire marlin, plus a large piece of the boat. Everything was caught on camera. For some time after this, everyone was shocked. I’ll never forget the pictures of the bite mark, just like people biting into crackers: every tooth is visible, but it’s more than a meter wide.”



9. “Once I saw a rainbow in the moonlight. Unfortunately, this was before digital cameras, so I didn’t have a chance to take a photo.”



10. “The creepiest thing happened on October 31, it was Halloween weekend, about 25 kilometers off the coast of Florida near Miami. The observation deck spotted a floating white house that seemed to be just drifting. So we moved in with our response boat to contact the people on board. Nothing, no one answered, although we used the radio, speakerphone and ship's whistle.

Then the captain said, let's lower the boat and go on reconnaissance. During the lifeboat mission, I reminded everyone that it was Halloween and it all sounded like something out of a horror movie. So, the boat comes up and the crew gets on board. The doors were closed, but, fortunately, they gave way. The boarding party slowly searched the house for the crew.

Basically, this houseboat was just bobbing on the ocean waves, no land in sight, abandoned. So the boarding crew marked the vessel with spray paint and abandoned it. Now this house is probably already in Europe, if it was not swallowed up by the merciless sea.”



11. “It so happened that I ended up working on an oil platform, and one fine morning sharks were swimming under the main platform, as always, but among them there were two dead sharks, the next morning three more dead ones, and the next day - four more. Then four or five a day for a week or two... they floated up under a transparent deck, much like a metal colander. The crew had to knock them down with a long pole so that the current would pick them up.

What was really strange was that they looked like they had a heart attack or died in their sleep, no marks, bites or anything. The guys on the platform had all sorts of theories. Then one morning, sitting in a meeting in a room that was completely underwater and had a beautiful view... we all saw the reason why the sharks were dying, as if we were watching it on a movie screen.

An octopus settled between the base of the platform and the deck. A shark swam by, and we saw with our own eyes how these tentacles grabbed it right in front of the glass and broke it like a stick.”



12. “Pitch darkness of the night, you are in the middle of the vast void of the sea and you see how the stars fill the skies and the falling stars, much more than you expected to see, rush to the earth with their fiery tails. When your gaze drops to the water, you discover that the ocean is somehow much darker and more desolate than the sky. You strain your eyes, trying to see anything, but in the end you can barely make out the silhouettes of strange and mysterious creatures that swim smoothly just below the surface, occasionally peeking out or causing flashes of bioluminescence that disappear as suddenly as they appeared.



13. “When you stand at the stern in the pitch darkness of the night during a thunderstorm. It's like someone is repeatedly turning the light off and on again. Quick flashes of the ocean, as far as the eye can see, and then everything goes black again.”



14. “I was on watch, and the lookout reported a burning ship on the horizon. I looked through my binoculars and saw what it was about. It looked like a plume of flame very far away, right above the horizon. I went and checked my astronomy books and found that it was just the moon rising.”



15. “Went to a catamaran race in the Gulf of Mexico and every water in sight was purple with BILLIONS of jellyfish.”