Diver's What's Your Most Horrifying Experience Under Water

Diver's What's Your Most Horrifying Experience Under Water

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Story one. I never thought a dive in the dark
waters off the coast of Maine would become the most
bone chilling experience of my life. My name is Lena,
and I've always been drawn to the murky depths, a
passion that started in my hometown and grew into an obsession.
It was early autumn, and I had arranged a dive
with a small crew, including my longtime dive buddy Mark,

(00:23):
who had grown up hearing tales of the eerie legends.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Of our local waters.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Little did I know that one fateful descent would leave
me questioning everything. The day was overcast, the sky a
heavy gray, mirroring my unsettled mood. As we prepared our
gear on the creaking deck of an old research boat.
You sure about this, Mark asked, his tone half joking
but laced with genuine worry as he tightened his equipment. Absolutely,

(00:48):
I replied, my voice steadier than I felt. We had
done countless dives together, but there was something unusual about today.
The water's surface was rippled by a brisk current, and
the wind seemed to whisper secrets I wasn't ready to understand.
Without delay, we plunged into the cold Atlantic, the water
swallowing our shapes and numbing our limbs. We descended along

(01:10):
a guideline, a routine we trusted implicitly in low visibility dives.
But as we dropped below forty feet, a strange sensation
gripped me, an unsettling feeling that the depths were watching us.
You feel that, I murmured to Mark, who was scanning
the darkness ahead. His only reply was a tight nod,
his expression shadowed by a flicker of fear. At around

(01:33):
fifty five feet, the familiarity of our group vanished. Mark
and I exchanged uneasy glances, and the silence between us
grew dense with unspoken questions, where is everyone. Mark's voice
was a low whisper that barely carried through the oppressive water.
We lingered at the bottom of the guideline, our pulse
racing as seconds stretched into minutes. The usual chatter of

(01:57):
our dive group was nowhere to be heard. Instead, the
only sound was the relentless pulse of our own breathing
and the distant echo of water against metal. Time became
a torturous loop. I checked my depth gage and regulator,
every instrument, affirming that nothing was wrong. With our gear,
yet an overwhelming dread clawed at my insides. Lena, this

(02:18):
isn't right, Mark finally said, his eyes darting to the
faint outline of the guideline disappearing into the void. I
could only agree silently. We needed to abort, but something
compelled us to wait, a hope, misguided, perhaps, that our
companions would surface any moment. Then it happened. A faint,
muffled sound, as if someone was calling out from beyond

(02:40):
the veil, reached our ears. Hello, I called, my voice,
trembling as I tried to pierce the dense obscurity.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
There was no answer.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Only the sound repeated in my mind, like an echo
from another world. Did you hear that? Mark asked, his
face contorting in confusion. I nodded, and our eyes met
in a shared silent terror. After what seemed like an eternity,
we ascended slowly, our movements mechanical and desperate. Breaking through
the water's surface, we were met with a disquieting sight.

(03:13):
The boy was adrift, and there, slumped against it was
one lone figure from our team. His eyes were wide
with disbelief as he stared blankly at the horizon where
our boat should have been the boat. It's gone, he
whispered in broken sentences, his voice cracking with panic. The
shock of it all struck me hard. Only moments ago,

(03:36):
I had believed in the safety of numbers, in the
comfort of routine, now uncertainly loomed like a specter over everything.
Within minutes, our minds raced through the possibilities. Had we
been abandoned by a careless crew? Was this some twisted prank?
Mark tried to calm us down, suggesting that maybe the
boat had drifted away due to the swell, leaving us

(03:57):
temporarily stranded, but his words did little to soothe the
terror that gripped us. As we clung to the buoy.
Each wave seemed to carry away a piece of our sanity,
the cold water now mingling with an even colder dread.
In those final moments of isolation, I found myself alone
with my thoughts in the vast, indifferent ocean. Why are

(04:18):
we here, I whispered aloud, unable to shake the feeling
that something far more sinister than.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
A lost boat was at play.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
The water around us churned ominously, as if in response
to my questioning.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
I could almost believe that the depths had decided.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
To reclaim us, pulling us into their eternal abyssal embrace.
It was then that the unexplainable struck. A sudden, inexplicable
current surged beneath us, tugging at the buoye as if
guided by an unseen hand. Mark grabbed my arm with
a desperate strength, his eyes wide with terror, Lean a
hold on, he shouted, through gasps and frantic splashes. The

(04:56):
buoy That small marker of hope in a vast sea
of dark barakness began to drift rapidly. The lone figure
at the boy faded into the growing distance, and we
were left clinging to our rapidly vanishing lifeline. Panic had
taken complete control. The cold was now a secondary concern
to the terror of being lost in an endless, indifferent
blue void. Every muscle tensed as we struggled against the

(05:20):
pull of the current. Our frantic strokes almost synchronized in
their desperation. It was as if the ocean itself had
turned hostile, determined to erase all traces of human presence.
I could hear Mark's panic breathing and the splashing of
our limbs, Each sound magnified a thousandfold in the oppressive
silence of our isolation. For what felt like an eternity,

(05:43):
we battled the unseen force, our minds oscillating between a
desperate survival instinct and an overwhelming, paralyzing fear. It was
not a situation that could be solved by reason or logic,
a primal horror that left little room for explanation. Each
was a torment, every moment a battle against the inexplicable.

(06:04):
In our struggle, the familiar rhythm of our hearts was
replaced by a cacophony of rapid beats echoing in the
hollow of our chests. In a final desperate surge, we
managed to regain enough control to pull ourselves toward the
disoriented figure who had now reappeared briefly near the boy.
His gaunt face and wild, unseeing eyes spoke of an

(06:24):
experience so profound that it had shattered any semblance of normalcy.
Something's not right, he stammered, his voice barely audible over
the pounding of our hearts. We exchanged one last look,
a mixture of fear, regret, and an unspoken acknowledgment that
we had witnessed something beyond our understanding. Then, as abruptly

(06:46):
as it had all begun, the water stilled, The relentless
tug of the current eased, leaving us suspended in a quiet,
haunting calm. The boy drifted lazily on the surface, and
the lone figure, as if if released from a nightmare,
began to stir, his movements, robotic and devoid of the
terror moments before. Without warning, the world above broke into

(07:09):
a haze of light and color, as rescue boats materialized
on the horizon, their engines thrumbing in the distance, relief
and bewilderment ward within us, the surreal nature of the
moments before still haunting. Every fiber of our being known
in the unexplainable is razor thin, and sometimes it is
best not to cross it at all. And with that

(07:29):
final thought, the incident ended as abruptly as it began,
leaving behind only a lingering terror, an eerie void, and
the unmistakable knowledge that some parts of our world remain
forever shrouded in darkness.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Story two. I'm Nate.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
I live in Jupiter, Florida, and I've been diving since
i was sixteen. I'm thirty two. Now what happened on
That dive of last summer still makes me feel sick
when I think about it. It was a solo morning
off a wreck i'd been to dozens of times, the
Coral Queen. It's a sunken casino boat about five miles offshore.

(08:05):
Depth bottoms out around ninety feet. Visibilities usually decent if
you go early and beat the tourist charters. That morning,
the water was like glass. I remember feeling calm, like
it would be a good dive. I dropped in just
after sunrise. Everything was normal. I followed the line down, equalizing,
breathing easy. The Queen came into view like a ghost

(08:28):
out of the blue. Its frame looked peaceful, fish sliding
through rusted windows. I clipped my torch to my BC,
just in case. It's always darker inside the wreck. I
planned to do a quick pass through the main lounge,
check out the staircase, then loop back out. I wasn't
trying to be a hero. I'd done this before. The

(08:48):
entrance was tight but familiar. The lounge was full of
silt and shadows. Fish scattered in my light as I passed.
It was quiet still. I kept an eye on my
pressure gage. Everything was smooth and then I saw the curtain.
That's what stopped me. On the far wall, right above
the old bar counter, there was this red velvet curtain. Heavy.

(09:12):
It swayed slightly like there was a current inside. But
there wasn't, not in the wreck, not like that. I
knew immediately something was wrong, because that curtain shouldn't have
been there. I'd never seen it before, and I'd been
through that exact room a dozen times. The wreck had
no fabric like that left. Most of it was stripped
or rotted long ago. I hovered staring at it. My

(09:35):
light flickered just once, and I swear to God, behind
that curtain, I saw a movement. I'm not talking about fish.
Something pulled the fabric back just an inch or two,
just enough to see what looked like a hand, pale,
wet human. I froze. I remember holding my breath out

(09:56):
of instinct, even though that's the last thing you should
do with a regulator in your mouth. I didn't blink,
I didn't move. The hand didn't move either. It just
stayed there, fingers slack, like it was resting or waiting.
I blinked, and it was gone. The curtain settled, no current,
no sign of anything. I thought, maybe I imagined it,

(10:19):
Maybe I had nitrogen narcosis, though I was only at
sixty five feet and it had never hit me before.
Then my torch died. One second I had light, the
next I didn't. Black. I flicked it, tapped it nothing.
I reached from my backup, clipped it off my chest,
clicked it on. It lit for maybe half a second

(10:39):
before flickering out too. Now I don't scare easily underwater.
I've been tangled, bumped by sharks, cotton currents. But this
was different, This was wrong. I turned slow and careful,
trying not to stir silt. I could barely make out
the exit through the faint light filtering in from the
rex open windows. I started heading for it, and then

(11:01):
I heard it, clear as day, even through water and regulator.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Nate.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
It came from behind the curtain. That same soft, wet
voice repeated, Nate, you're here. I wanted to bolt, but
my limbs wouldn't move. I felt like my body didn't
belong to me. My hands trembled, my fins scraped rusted floor.
Then something stepped out from behind the curtain, not swam stepped.

(11:28):
It had legs. I couldn't see its face completely, just
the outline. It looked human, but swollen, bloated skin like fish, belly, hair,
floating in a dead way, like it wasn't really underwater.
And its eyes, Jesus, they were wide open, like it
had drowned mid panic, pupils fixed in milky. It raised

(11:51):
one hand toward me, still not swimming, just walking like
it was walking on dry land. Nate, it said again,
this time, you shouldn't be here. I panicked, finally moved
kicked backward. My tank clanged against a rusted beam, and
I dropped down, scrambling, stirring silt. Couldn't see, couldn't tell

(12:14):
where the thing was. Then a hand touched my shoulder,
cold solid. I screamed into my rag, spun around. Nothing there,
no hand, no curtain, just silt and shadows. I bolted.
I don't remember how I got out. I honestly don't.
Next thing I knew, I was outside the wreck, kicking

(12:35):
up toward the light, my heart hammering in my ears.
I did my safety stop at fifteen feet, shaking so
bad I thought I'd pass out. I kept looking down,
waiting for it to follow, for that voice, but it
didn't I surfaced, hauled myself onto my boat, ripped off
my gear, and puked over the side. I sat there

(12:56):
in the sun, wet suits, soaked and sticking to me,
just staring at the water. It looks so calm, like
none of it had happened. Story three. I live in Kingston, Ontario,
right near the edge of the Saint Lawrence River.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Lawrence River.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
It's a small city, peaceful mostly, but if you dive,
you know this place is different. Beneath the surface, the
river holds onto things, not just wrecks, not just history things,
and I think I touched one. This happened two summers ago,
late August. The water's just warm enough to be bearable
in a seven millimeter wetsuit, and the visibility surprisingly decent.

(13:38):
I was diving the Wolf Islander two, a scuttled ferry
that sits in about eighty feet of water. It's a
popular wreck, straightforward, good for intermediate divers, but the current
rips through there fast, especially because it's smack in the
middle of a shipping channel. You get careless, you drift
right into the path of a tanker. That day, I

(13:59):
was diving with Mike, my regular buddy. We've done dozens
of dives together, same gear configuration, same signals, same predive checks.
We briefed like usual, clipped into the down line, and
started the descent, no problems. The wreck came into view
around forty feet, shadowy and silent, like it always is.

(14:19):
We didn't penetrate, just to circuit around the upper deck,
checking out the wheelhouse, poking around some door frames. Everything
normal until it wasn't. We were heading back to the
line around twenty five minutes into the dive. Mike was
in front on my long hose seven feet so he
could lead, and I'd keep a hand on his calf

(14:40):
to stay in contact. The current was nasty, but manageable.
He was breathing off my octo because just a few
minutes earlier he'd signaled that his primary was empty. I
checked his SPG myself bone dry. That alone should have
rattled me more. He should have had at least a
third of his tank left, but we'd have issues with

(15:00):
a leaky SPG once before, so I shrugged it off.
My tank was still good, plenty of gas. I thought
we were fine. We were halfway to the ascent line
when I let go of his leg to clear a
jammed bolt snap on my waistder ring maybe three seconds max.
When I looked up, he was gone. I whipped my
head around, felt the current tugging at me harder now,

(15:23):
like it had picked up in those few seconds. I
spotted him downstream, maybe twenty feet off, flailing upside down,
both fins above his head, like he was caught in
a windstorm, and his regulator was gone. My heart bottomed out.
He'd ripped it from his mouth when he got pulled.
I watched him grab one of the midlines strung between

(15:43):
the wreck and the ascent line. He held on barely,
his body bending backwards, like the river was trying to
break him in half. I kicked hard toward him, fighting
the drag. My mask almost flooded from how fast I
was breathing. I reeled in the long hose as I
went seven feet of it, trailing like a lifeline. He
was still upside down, mouth open, eyes wide as hell.

(16:06):
I jammed the regulator between his teeth. He bit down hard.
It hissed, but something was wrong. He shook his head,
clawed at it. I realized it was upside down. He
flipped it himself just in time, but in the process
he lost his grip on the line, he flew backward.
I caught his BCD by sheer luck, but that tore

(16:27):
me off the midline too.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
We spun together, tumbling.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
I wrapped both legs around the line like a python,
hooked my ankles anchored us.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
We hung there, him.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Hyperventilating, me shaking so bad I couldn't check my own air.
Then everything went wrong in a way I still can't explain.
The water got dark, not low visibility dark, something else
like it thickened. Everything beyond five feet turned pitch black,
like we were sitting in ink. Mike noticed two. His

(16:57):
head snapped around, then locked onto some passed my shoulder.
His eyes they changed. I've never seen that look in
a person before. It wasn't panic. It was like he
wasn't seeing the river anymore. He was seeing something else.
He tried to speak regulators, still in just a garbled moan.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
I turned. I swear on my life.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Something was there, hanging, just at the edge of the dark,
not swimming, not drifting, hanging. It looked like a diver,
but wrong. No bubbles, no movement, just hovering, maybe fifteen
feet away. The suit was old, not vintage, ancient canvas
maybe like early nineteen hundreds hard hat gear, only there

(17:43):
was no helmet, just avoid where the head should have been.
It moved, not toward us, just a slight shift, like
it was acknowledging us. My guts twisted, my chest started cramping.
My arms were locked holding onto Mike in the rope,
but I couldn't move anything else. Then the current died,
not slowed, just stopped. The river was still. That thing

(18:06):
started drifting forward. I don't remember unclipping my reel. I
don't remember what I did with the rest of the hose.
I just remember digging my gloves into the rope and
kicking for the ascent line with everything I had. I
pulled Mike with me. He wasn't kicking, he was just
staring over my shoulder, paralyzed. We hit the line and

(18:26):
didn't stop. Blew our safety stop came up too fast.
I don't care. We surfaced just off the stern of
the dive boat. I screamed before my regulator was even
out of my mouth. The captain yanked us up, swearing
at us the whole time, said we came up like torpedoes.
Didn't care. We stripped gear on deck, Both of us
puking over the rail. Mike didn't talk, not on the boat,

(18:50):
not in the car, not for two days. When he
finally did, all he said was it looked at me.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
That was it. I checked with other local divers.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Nobody's lost a diver in a canvas suit down there,
no local wreck matches that kind of gear. But one
old timer at the shop said something weird. He told
me there were rumors, stories passed down from the freighter
cruise about something in the Saint Lawrence that wasn't a
wreck or a fish story.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Four. I'm Rick.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
I live in Newcastle, UK and about thirteen years ago
I went to Australia to do my pad I Open
Water certification. It was meant to be this big adventure
sun reefs, clear water and a couple of pints with
Aussie's at the end of it, you know, bucket list stuff.
I wasn't new to swimming or the sea, but diving
was different, more intimate. I guess you feel like you're

(19:43):
inside the ocean's lungs. This happened on the second day
of training. We were near the Witsundays. Water was stupidly
clear and everything went smoothly at first, barracuda zipped past.
Some clownfish peaked from a coral cluster, and a sting
ray flapped its wings beneath us like a ghost. Everyone
was loving it, all thumbs up in hand signals, but

(20:05):
I was struggling to equalize. It started subtle, just a
pressure in my right ear. I tried the usual pinched
my nose blue, gently swallowed, got a small pop, but
the pressure didn't go still. I figured I could muscle
through it. Probably stupid, but I didn't want to be
that guy who aborted the dive, not when I'd flown

(20:27):
nine thousand miles for it. The rest of the dive
went fine. We hit about twelve meters, floated through canyons
of coral, came back up slowly. By the time I surfaced,
the pressure was still there, only now it had turned
into this sharp, itchy throb.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
I got back on the boat, sat.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Down, pulled off my mask and said to the dive master, Hey,
I think I've got something in my ear. He barely
looked up. Just water trapped in there, mate, happens all
the time. Doesn't feel like water, I said, feels like
something's jammed in. Use a cotton bud. When you get
back to the hotel, it'll sort itself. So I tried

(21:06):
to leave it alone. Everyone else was drying off, laughing
about a jellyfish someone nearly sat on. But the pain
in my ear was getting worse, dull but deep, like
something was moving behind the ear drum. I kept sticking
my pinky in against my better judgment, and I could
feel something not liquid, not air, something solid. It didn't

(21:27):
hurt when I pressed in, it hurt when I pulled
my finger back out.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
I tried again.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
This time I felt a resistance, a texture like wet
paper or maybe cartilage. It shifted just slightly, and then
something scraped. I jerked my hand away. There was blood
under my nail. I told the dive master again. He
looked annoyed. You've probably scratched yourself. Don't poke around in there.
That night, the pain got worse. I couldn't sleep. It

(21:56):
wasn't just the ache. It was this crawling sensation, like
something was shifting just behind the drum, like something was alive.
Next morning, I skipped the dive and went to a clinic,
small places, bare walls, buzzing overhead lights. The GP checked
my ear with the outoscope and instantly recoiled.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
What's that, I asked.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
He didn't answer it first, just told me to stay still,
then went to grab tweezers. He put on gloves and
leaned in again. I think there's a foreign object, he muttered.
Might be a bit of coral, maybe some shell strange.
The tweezers went in. I held my breath and then
I screamed, not because of the pain, though it was bad,

(22:40):
but because I felt it pull back whatever was in there.
It retracted deeper into the canal on its own. The
doctor jerked away, Okay, okay, we're not doing this here.
I'm referring you to Karen's Base Hospital. You need an
e NT specialist. I never made it to Karen's that night.
I was back at the hostel, trying to keep calm,

(23:01):
lying on my side with my bad ear up. The
pressure kept building every few minutes. It felt like something
was tapping from inside, not like a heartbeat, like fingernails.
I sat up around two am, dizzy from the pressure,
looked in the mirror, pulled back my ear, shined a
torch into the canal. I saw a movement. It wasn't

(23:23):
a reflection, it wasn't fluid. There were legs, thin pale legs,
like an insect, but translucent, and something else, curved like
a hook, pressed against the skin, just inside the entrance.
I don't know what made me do it, but I
grabbed the tweezers from my bag, sat on the bathroom floor,

(23:44):
head tilted, hands shaking like hell. I slowly pushed the
tweezers in, aiming for the shape I saw. When I
touched it, it moved. It didn't retreat this time, it
surged forward. The pain was indescribable. It didn't burst out.
It climbed out, first a segment of something, then a bend,

(24:05):
then the rest unfurled, a wet, translucent thing about the
size of a pinky finger, segmented with tiny cilia or legs,
thrashing at the sides. I screamed, dropped the tweezers. The
thing hit the tile and skittered fast as lightning, toward
the drain. I saw it, really saw it under the light.

(24:26):
It didn't look like anything I'd ever seen in books
or videos. Not a shrimp, not a worm. It was
more like a cross between a leech and a centipede,
but jelly like and almost featureless. No eyes, just a
curved appendage at the front that looked like it could
hook and hold. I tried to stomp it, but it
was gone before I even stood, slipped right down the

(24:48):
drain and then nothing, no pain, no blood. My ear
felt empty, hollow. I sat there for an hour, breathing
through my teeth, listening, but the tapping was gone.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Story five.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
I live in a flat above a coffee shop in Open,
on the west coast of Scotland. I've worked as a
dive guide for eight years, mostly taking tourists around wreck
sites and sea locks. We get these eerie mornings, sometimes missed,
curling over the harbor, like it's hiding something. But that
Thursday was different. It wasn't just fog. The air felt wrong.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Still.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
We had a group booked for the Breide wreck and
I wasn't about to cancel because of a weird feeling.
I was leading two Dutch tourists, both experienced divers. We
dropped in at ten thirteen am. I remember the time
exactly because of what happened next. The water was colder
than usual, not just cold. It bit into my skin
through the suit. I chalked it up to nerves and

(25:49):
shook it off. The SS Breida sits about thirty meters down,
split down the middle from bomb damage. It's a peaceful dive,
normally surrounded by silt and curious pollock. Drifted through a
brake in the hull, my torch light sweeping over crates,
tangled steel and collapsed beams. I was a few meters
ahead of the others, weaving through a tight corridor of rusted.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Metal and shadow.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
That's when my tank clinked against the ceiling, barely touched it,
and suddenly my buoyancy compensator vests started to inflate. At first,
I thought I'd hit the inflator hose, but the button
was untouched. The vest kept swelling. I tried dumping the air. Nothing.
I pressed the deflate button again and again. No hiss,

(26:34):
no change. Panics set in real fast. When your vest
inflates uncontrollably, you shoot to the surface like a missile,
and from thirty meters that can mean an embolism. You
don't get second chances with that. I kicked downward hard,
pushing against the sudden lift, grabbing at a beam to
anchor myself. I waved at the others, but they didn't

(26:54):
see the light from my torch shook wildly. I fumbled
for the manual inflator too, and tried again to release
the air, but the vests just kept growing tighter around
my chest. Then the pressure in my ears changed fast.
I was rising, my regulator almost yanked from my mouth.
My legs thrashed. I remember screaming into the mouthpiece, not words,

(27:16):
just instinct. I twisted to grab something, anything, but the
wreck slid away beneath me. All I could see above
was green, black haze and my own bubbles. Rushing faster
than I was. I had maybe ten seconds before I'd
hit the surface. Then something yanked me down. At first
I thought it was a beam from the wreck, maybe
I'd gotten snagged, But when I looked down, there was

(27:38):
nothing there.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Just water, no rope, no metal, no hand.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
But I was dropping faster than I'd ever moved underwater,
like someone had filled my suit with lead. My ears
screamed as the pressure surged back. I flailed in the dark,
heart hammering. The world spun. When I leveled out, I
was back in wreck, back in the same corridor, but
something was off. The silt was still too, still, like

(28:07):
it hadn't been disturbed, like I had never been there.
My torch flickered, then died. In that blackness, something brushed
my arm. It wasn't a fish, it was cold and dry.
I turned sharply, bubbles escaping from my regulator in a
sharp hiss. I reached for my backup torch, hands trembling,

(28:28):
snapped it on the beam, landed on a face, not
a diver, A man, pale, bloated, suspended inches from me,
eyes open but dead. His mouth was wide, too wide,
like it had been torn. His skin moved, something was
underneath it, then his arm twitched. I kicked back so

(28:48):
hard I slammed into a beam. Pain lit up my spine.
My mouthpiece almost slipped out. The figure drifted forward, arms
slowly raising, not from buoyancy deliberately.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
I didn't wait.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
I turned and swam, blind and fast, crashing into the
wreck sides, scraping my gear, not caring. My vest was
still overinflated, but I didn't stop to fix it. I
didn't stop at all. I just wanted out. I reached
the exit hole in the hull and pushed through my torch.
Caught a glimpse of the Dutch divers. They were ahead
of me, now swimming toward the boat. They hadn't seen

(29:24):
a thing. I floated up carefully, this time, manually releasing
air from my vest. As I rose, one hand clenched
around my knife, though I didn't even know why.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Every shadow under me felt like it moved.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
When I broke the surface, I ripped off my mask
and shouted to the boat crew, waving frantically. My voice cracked.
I don't even remember what I said. Later, back on shore,
I checked my dive computer. It logged the incident. Sudden
ascent followed by an abrupt descent of exactly eleven point
two meters in less than three seconds, impossible unless something

(30:00):
pulled me. The data was there. I didn't imagine it.
I never told the tourists what I saw. I don't
take people to the Braido anymore. I haven't dived since.
Whatever was in that wreck, it wasn't a hallucination. It
wasn't nitrogen narcosis. Story six. I live in Reno, Nevada,
but this happened off the coast of Belize about six

(30:22):
years ago. I've only talked about it once to my brother,
and I made it sound like a panic dive. But
that's not the truth, not even close. I was on
a dive trip with my girlfriend Alana. We'd been together
about a year. She'd just gotten her open water shirt,
and this was our first dive vacation together. We were
staying on a tiny island resort that catered to divers,

(30:44):
just one dive shop, a few bungalows, and not much else.
No phones, no internet, just the reef. We'd done a
few shallow reef dives already. The last dive on the
third day was the big one, the Blue Hole. It's
famous giant sinkhole, hundreds of feet deep, surrounded by reef.

(31:04):
We weren't going all the way down, only to about
one hundred and thirty feet, but even that's serious, especially
for someone new. Alana was nervous. She kept asking me
about nitrogen narcosis and what happens if your regulator fails.
I tried to keep her calm. Just stay with me,
I told her. We do the safety stop and we

(31:25):
come up slow, it's all good. The dive itself started fine,
flat seas, clear water, a little current, but nothing unmanageable.
There were six of us in the group, plus the
dive master. We descended along the reef wall, the light
fading fast As we dropped about ten minutes in, Alana
tapped my shoulder. Her mask was flooding. I saw the

(31:48):
panic in her eyes immediately. She was trying to clear it,
but she wasn't doing the proper technique, just flailing. I
swam over and made the hand sign to stop pause,
shook her head. She was rising fast. I grabbed her
BCD and pulled her down. We were still at around
sixty feet, too deep for an emergency ascent. I deflated

(32:10):
her BCD to stop the rise, and she started kicking
at me, actually kicking. I remember thinking she's going to bolt,
She's going to get the bends, or an embolism or worse.
Then something else happened. We were both hovering maybe fifty
feet down. I saw her eyes shift, not at me,
but past me. Her arms stopped flailing. She went completely still.

(32:33):
I turned to look behind me, expecting the group or
maybe a big fish. There was something in the water,
maybe fifteen feet away. No bubbles, no tank, just a person,
no gear, no mask, nothing, just a pale figure floating vertically,
arms down at its sides, staring right at us.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
At first I thought it was a dead body.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Then it moved, not swimming, drifting but against the current
toward us. I grabbed Alana's arm and shook her, trying
to break her stare. She didn't move. I turned back.
The figure was closer, too close. Its face wasn't right.
It looked human, but the features were off. The mouth

(33:18):
was open but not breathing. Its eyes were black like
they were full of ink. I grabbed my dive light
and shined it directly at it. Nothing, no reaction, no flinch,
just hovering there, inches from me now.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Then Alana bolted.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
She kicked upward hard, no control, inflating her BCD as
she went. I tried to grab her fin but missed.
I went after her immediately. As I rose, I looked
down one more time. It was still there, but now
it was moving again, fast upward, following us. I caught
up with Alana around twenty feet. She was coughing in

(33:54):
her regulator, her eyes wide and leaking. I tried to
slow her ascent, held on to her. Dumped air from
both our BCDs made her look at me. We hovered
at fifteen feet. Did the safety stop or tried to,
But the moment I looked down again, it was there,
just below us. Looking up I could see its mouth

(34:14):
now wide open, more than humanly possible. Not a scream,
not a breath, just void, like staring into a drain.
I remember yelling into my regulator, but it came out
as bubbles. I kept watching it, trying to make sense
of what I was seeing, and the longer I looked,
the more I felt this pulling, not physical, but like

(34:38):
it wanted me to follow. It felt like gravity in
the wrong direction. Alana grabbed my arm and yanked me
toward the surface. We ascended too fast, way too fast.
I felt it in my chest, the pressure shift, the panic,
But all I could think about was getting out of
the water. We broke the surface like we were shot
out of a cannon. The boat was about thirty feet away.

(35:00):
Alana didn't speak, just swam hard for it. I followed,
checking over my shoulder every few seconds. I swear to you,
I swear on my life it was still there, just
below the surface, watching. When we got on the boat,
we were both coughing, half crying. The dive master was
yelling at us, asking what happened, why we surfaced early,

(35:22):
why we didn't finish our stop. Alana looked at me
like I was a stranger. I thought you were trying
to drown me. She said, what, You grabbed me and
dragged me down. I thought you were trying to kill me.
I tried to explain, but she shook her head. I
didn't see anything, just you. That's the worst part. She
doesn't remember it. Story seven. I live in Cape Coral, Florida,

(35:46):
grew up around water. By the time I hit twenty four,
I already had over eighty dives logged that year. I
booked a solo weekend dive trip down to Key Largo
just to clear my head and get under for a bit.
I'd been through a rough breakup, and the water's always
been my reset button. I wasn't looking for anything deep,
just reefs and maybe a wreck or two. The second morning,

(36:09):
we were scheduled to hit the Spiegel Grove big shipwreck,
five hundred and ten feet long, sunk intentionally in two
thousand and two. It's popular sometimes crowded. That day, the
water was flat, sun like a torch overhead, visibility supposedly excellent.
There were eleven of us on the boat, all strangers.
I didn't have a buddy, but I struck up a

(36:30):
conversation with this guy, Mark said he'd log thirty.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Dives but never done a wreck.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Before new gear fresh certification, his confidence seemed to outweigh
his experience. Dive Shop required him to take a guide.
The guide, a local instructor named Henry, had two students
with him doing their advanced open water checkouts. Mark was
assigned to tag along with Henry, and I figured I
might as well join that group. Safety in numbers. Before

(36:57):
we entered, Henry laid out the plan. He'd then the
mooring line first, then the students, then me, then Mark.
We'd regroup at the bridge of the ship around seventy
feet down. Standard stuff. Now before the dive, Mark and
I double checked gear. Everything looked okay, but his tank
strap felt a little loose. I mentioned it and he

(37:18):
tightened it without much thought. Looking back, I should have
pressed harder. We dropped into the water and hit current
like a freight train. It was ripping sideways. I had
to white knuckle the descent line to stay on course.
Took longer than usual to reach the deck. When I
got to the bridge level, I stopped. Something wasn't right.
Henry and the students weren't there. I hovered waiting, then

(37:41):
Mark descended and floated next to me. His eyes were
wide behind the mask, his regulator bouncing from heavy breathing.
I gave the okay signal. He returned it. Then I
saw it. His tank was half slipped out of his
BCD strap and swinging behind him in the current. I
grabbed his shoulder and turned him at the tank. He

(38:01):
didn't realize it had slipped. I moved behind him and
started working the strap, trying to loop it back around.
It had somehow knotted around his first stage and was
twisting every time he moved. We were at seventy feet
current yanking at us, and I was burning through air
faster than I liked. After a few minutes, I managed
to get the strap around the tank, not perfectly, but

(38:23):
enough to hold. A plastic piece was missing, probably floated off.
I didn't want to take any chances. I gave him
the thumbs up and time to go back up. He nodded.
We ascended slowly, hands tight on the line. A few
meters up, I noticed Mark's breathing sounded strange, sort of bubbly,
like wet gurgling. I made eye contact and he looked panicked.

(38:46):
He yanked his regulator out shook it, put it back
in more bubbles. His second stage had cracked. Water was
leaking into his mouthpiece. He motioned something frantic. I held
up my alternate and he took it. His breathe thing
steadied a little. We surfaced after a slow safety stop,
hauled ourselves back onto the boat. I expected Henry to

(39:07):
be up already, but he wasn't. The other two students
were back chatting quietly in the corner. Mark coughed salt
water out of his lungs. I asked him if he
was okay, and he just nodded. Ten minutes past then
twenty Finally Henry surfaced, calm slow climbed up like it
was just another dive. He didn't even ask Mark how

(39:29):
he was doing. Mark didn't say much, just stared at
his tank like it had personally betrayed him. Now, that
should have been the end of it, but that night
I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about how Henry and
the students weren't at the bridge. I hadn't seen them
at all during the dive. That's not normal. Even if
visibility was lower than expected at that depth and distance,

(39:52):
we should have crossed pass. I went to the dive
shop the next morning to drop off my rental gear,
and casually asked one of the instructors, so Henry's group
go back down again today?

Speaker 2 (40:03):
She looked confused.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Henry, Yeah, a guy from yesterday took a couple students
out with him to the grove. She paused, Henry hasn't
worked here in almost two years. I laughed, thinking she
was joking. But she wasn't. She told me Henry went
missing in twenty twenty three. Last scene diving the Spiegel
Grove with two students. The whole group never surfaced. Coastguards

(40:27):
searched for days, never found the bodies. They found all
their tanks still clipped to the mooring line. I felt
my stomach drop. I pulled up my go pro footage
later that day, just to make sure I wasn't going crazy.
I'd clipped it to my chest for the descent. Most
of it was shaky current pulling me hard, bubbles in
the way, But around the seventy foot mark, when I

(40:50):
hovered near the bridge, when I was supposed to be
looking at Henry and his students, there was no one there,
no fins, no bubbles, nothing. But if you freeze frame
at two forty three. Right when I turn to look
at Mark and signal his tank is loose, there's something
behind him, way off in the distance. It doesn't look

(41:11):
like a diver, more like someone crawling along the hall,
not swimming. Crawling, no bubbles, no gear. The shape turns
just barely like it noticed the camera. Then it slides
behind the port side and disappears. I didn't show Mark,
I didn't tell anyone. But I've never dived the grove again.

(41:32):
Story eight. I live in San Jose, California, and I've
been diving off the coast for about eight years. I'm
not a professional, just a weekend guy who loves the ocean.
My most disturbing dive happened last October on my birthday,
when I joined a charter out of Monterey Bay. It
was a full day outing, two boat dives during daylight,

(41:54):
and then a night dive for those braver stupid enough
to stay.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
I was the latter.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
My two buddies had backed out of the night dive,
said they were too wiped after the second descent. Honestly,
I was beat two, but one of the other solo divers,
guy named Mark, offered to buddy up.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
I figured I'd regret skipping more than I'd regret being tired.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
The plan was simple, a controlled descent into the kelp
forest off Point Lobos, thirty feet max, slow loop, then back.
We went down just after sunset, with lights on in
full tanks. I followed Mark's lead. At first it was beautiful,
still water, our beams catching fish darting between swaying kelpstalks.

(42:35):
It had that weird, calming feel you get on a
good night dive, quiet like the whole oceans holding its breath.
About fifteen minutes in, I noticed I was breathing faster,
not panic, just that creeping discomfort, like something was off.
My light flicked past something that didn't belong. A shape, pale,

(42:56):
human sized, hanging vertical in the water, motionless behind the kelp.
I froze Mark, I said through my rag, even though
I knew he couldn't hear me. I pointed, trying to
get his attention, but he was about ten feet ahead,
shining his light along the seafloor. I turned my beam back.
Nothing just blades of kelp drifting like fingers, I told myself.

(43:19):
I imagined it just light bouncing.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Weird.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
I've seen tricks like that before diving messes with your perception.
But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching.
My chest felt tight, and I couldn't tell if I
was cold or just scared. Then my tank snagged kelp,
not unusual. I turned slowly and reached back to untangle it,
but my fins bumped something, something soft. I whipped around, light,

(43:48):
flailing through the water. It was a face, a woman's face,
pale and dead, maybe two feet from mine. Her eyes
were open black, her skin was almost translucent in my light,
like jellyfish flesh, and her hair floated in dark strands
around her mouth slightly open, no regulator, no mask, just there.

(44:11):
I screamed, bubbles everywhere. I backed up instinctively and got
more tangled in the kelp. My heart slammed so hard
I thought I'd pass out. My light flickered and cut off,
pitch black. I was gasping full panic. Couldn't move. I thrashed,
trying to find my backup torch. I clawed at the kelp,

(44:31):
but it only wrapped tighter. I felt something brush my hand,
cold soft skin. She was still there. I think she
touched me. The backup torch finally clicked on and I
aimed it straight ahead. Nothing, no face, no body, just water.
But the kelp around me had coiled unnaturally tight, not

(44:52):
just snagged, wrapped like rope. I started slicing at it
with my dive knife, barely aware of where Mark was.
I didn't care. I need it out. Then behind me,
clear as day, I heard it a voice, not through
the water, in my head. It was a woman whispering,

(45:12):
let me up. My chest locked. I screamed into the
regulator again and hacked at the kelp until I broke free.
I didn't even try to find Mark. I kicked up
as hard and fast as I could, risking a dangerous ascent,
but I didn't care. I just wanted to air an
open sky. I broke the surface and yanked my mask up, gasping.

(45:32):
The dive boat was maybe twenty yards away. Someone saw
my light and waved Mark's surface. Two minutes later he
swam to me, yelling, what happened? You shot up like
a rocket. I couldn't answer. I couldn't speak Back on
the boat, I sat shivering, not from the cold, just
trying to make sense of what I saw. Mark said,

(45:52):
I got tangled and panicked, said I must have imagined
the face. I didn't argue, But that night, in my
motel room, I found something in my wet suit hood
A piece of hair, long black, not mine, not synthetic,
not from the suit. It smelled like salt and rot.
I flushed it. I haven't dived at night since, and

(46:15):
I never will again. Story nine. I don't talk about
this often. It makes people uncomfortable. But I know what
I saw and I know what I felt. My name's Gavin.
I live in Monterey, California. Been diving for over fifteen years,
mostly around the Bay Point Lobos, Lover's Point, Carmel River.

(46:37):
I've logged hundreds of dives. That day, everything was normal,
cold water, solid visibility. It was supposed to be a
solo deep dive along a kelp wall I knew well
near mackaybe Beach. It was late October, gray sky overhead water,
around fifty two degrees fahrenheit. I went in just after dawn.

(46:59):
The sun hadn't made it through the clouds, which made
everything underwater look a bit dimmer. Even with my light,
kelp swayed slow and steady above me, like tall underwater trees.
I dropped to about eighty feet That's when I noticed
the sand looked wrong. The bottom was torn up, like
something massive had bulldozed through the area. Sea stars overturned,

(47:22):
giant holes where abalone should have been clinging. No sign
of fish, no sign of anything really, just this long
path of destruction that.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Cut through the kelp like a scar.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
At first I figured it was poachers or maybe a
storm surge, but it didn't look like either. The pattern
was too clean and too fresh. Sand still clouded parts
of the water, like whatever had done this had just
passed through. I hovered, checking my gauges, all good, My
heart rate was a little up, but I told myself
it was nothing, just eerie. Maybe a sea lion stampede.

(47:57):
I'd seen them do weird things before. Then I heard it.
It sounded like a low moan or maybe a groan,
muffled through the water, not mechanical, organic. It didn't come
from above, it came from deep in the sand trench.
I turned, scanning with my dive light, thinking maybe I'd
see a trapped animal, but there was nothing, just that

(48:20):
strange moaning, again, low and drawn out. My gut twisted.
I've heard whales through the water before, even infrasound but
this was closer, much closer, and wrong. I should have surfaced,
that's on me, but I was too curious, or maybe
just too stupid. I followed the disturbed trench. It led

(48:43):
toward a drop off I'd never seen before. That's when
I noticed the water temperature dropping fast. I checked my
dive computer. From fifty two degrees fahrenheit to forty three
degrees fahrenheit in less than a minute. I hadn't changed depth,
and the light my dive torch started dimming. It was
fully charged. I tapped it. It flickered, then went out

(49:05):
total blackness. I still don't know why I didn't panic,
Maybe shock. I reached for my backup light clicked it on.
It worked, but the water around me looked murkier, like
shadows were moving in it. Then I saw something rise
from the trench. It was long, that's the only word
I can use. Long and slow, not swimming, rising like

(49:29):
it had been lying beneath the sand for a long time.
And decided now was the time to wake up. The head,
or what I thought was the head, emerged first. It
wasn't shaped like anything I've seen, almost like a stretched
eyeless seal skull, no mouth, just folds of pale, sagging skin,
and something under the skin that pulsed. The body followed

(49:51):
whiter than a man's torso, ribbed like a centipede, but
smooth like whale skin. It didn't move with muscle, It
just flowed codd. I froze. I couldn't move. It passed
ten feet from me and never turned, never paused. But
I felt it see me. I swear to you, I
felt it look inside me. My dive computer alarmed depth warning.

(50:17):
I had dropped fifteen feet without realizing my buoyancy was shot.
My ears were screaming from the pressure change. I looked
back up and couldn't see the surface anymore. The kelp
canopy had gone dark, like something massive had blocked out
the light above me.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
That was the moment. That's when it hit me.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
Pure hard fear, not just fear of death, fear of understanding,
Like my brain finally caught up and realized I was
looking at something I was never supposed to see, something old,
older than the ocean. The thing disappeared into the darkness below,
back into the trench, gone without a sound. I shot

(50:58):
back up too fast. I know it was a dumb move,
but I had no control anymore. My brain just screamed up.
I breached the surface, coughing and ripped my mask off, gasping.
No one else around boat was fine, sky still gray.
I was only down for twenty six minutes, but it
felt like hours. I've never been back to that site.

(51:20):
Story ten. I live in Huntington Beach, California, about a
mile inland. I'm thirty one now, but this happened when
i was sixteen something. I've never been able to shake
even after all these years. I've only told a few people.
No one really gets it unless they've been underwater in
total darkness, with nothing but your breath and a flashlight

(51:40):
between you and whatever else might be down there. I
was working toward my advanced open water Peaudoisert at the time.
One of the electives was night diving. I'd already chosen
deep diving and fish identification. My instructor offered to let
us double up, so we scheduled a deep night dive
off Catalina Island.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
I was pumped. Night dive and deep dive in one go.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
More fish to log, and I figured I'd be a
step closer to rescue diver. The group was mostly kids,
around my age. Four of us plus the instructor Rick
solid guy ex Navy calm as a statue. The plan
was simple to send to one hundred and twenty feet
follow Rick's light, no wandering, no hero stuff. Catalina is

(52:25):
beautiful during the day, clear water, thick kelp forests, curious
sea life. But at night it's something else. It's not
pitch black, not exactly. Your light cuts about ten feet ahead,
but it's like floating in ink. Quiet, too quiet. You
can hear your breath louder than anything else. We dropped

(52:45):
just after nine pm. Everything went fine at first. I
logged two scorpionfish, a giant kelpfish, and an octopus in the.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
First twenty minutes.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
We were cruising low through the kelp canopy, flashlights swinging slow.
Everyone was chill until Eric, one of the guys in
our group, started drifting out of formation. I saw him
kick a little too hard, spinning slightly toward a slope
in the rock wall we were told to avoid. Rick
flicked his light fast in the no pattern. I could
see it clearly. Eric must have missed it or misread it.

(53:17):
He turned and swam deeper into the kelp, toward a
shadowed crevice in the rock. I thought maybe he saw
something interesting, octopus maybe, but he wasn't supposed to leave
the formation. I turned to signal Rick, but he was
already heading after him. I followed, and the other two
stayed where they were hovering in place.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
He got tight fast.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
The kelp started thickening around us, and I had to
hold my light with both hands just to push through
without tangling.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
My heart rate kicked up.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
I couldn't see Eric anymore, just flickers of his fin light,
maybe twenty feet ahead. Then Rick's light dropped out of
sight gone. I froze, not like a metaphor, I literally
couldn't move for a second, just me the sound of
bubbles and black water pressing in on all sides. I
blinked hard and kept moving slowly. When I found the crevice,

(54:09):
it didn't look natural. It wasn't some little nook in
the rock wall like you see sometimes where the reef
folds in on itself. It was this long, narrow opening,
too symmetrical, perfectly oval, no jagged rock, just a smooth darkness.
I could see Eric's fin light inside it, motionless, just
hovering there. I flashed my light into the opening, it

(54:32):
didn't reflect back. It felt like the beam just disappeared,
like I was pointing it into a tunnel made of velvet.
Then Rick appeared out of nowhere. His light snapped on
next to mine and lit up Eric. The dude was frozen,
staring straight ahead regulators still in mask on, but not moving,
not even blinking. Rick swam up behind him and touched

(54:54):
his shoulder.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Nothing.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
I watched Rick try again, harder this time. Eric finally
twitched like he'd just woken up. Then he bolted, I
mean full panic mode. He kicked so fast he nearly
knocked Rick's mask loose, shot right past me into the kelp.
Rick signaled for me to stay. I nodded, breathing fast.
He swam a little closer to the crevice, maybe five

(55:18):
feet away, and aimed his flashlight inside again. Then something happened.
The water shimmered, not like a currant or silk cloud.
It shimmered like heat does above asphalt, but underwater and
only inside the crevice. Rick's beam flickered, and the kelp
around us suddenly started swaying like there was a surge.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
But there wasn't.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
My pressure gage read steady, My compass started spinning, just slowly,
turning like I was moving, but I wasn't. And then
Rick dropped his light. It just slipped out of his
hand and sank no reaction. He hovered there, frozen like
Eric had been. I reached for him, but stopped. He
was mouthing something, not talking, mouthing like he was trying

(56:05):
to scream, but no sound came out. His eyes were
wide behind the mask. He turned slowly toward me, and
I swear to God, his pupils were dilated all the way,
no color left, just black eyes.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
I didn't wait.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
I kicked upward as hard as I could, not caring
about safety stops or ascent speed. My lungs felt tight,
my head light but I couldn't stay down there. The
kelp scraped past my arms and mask like fingers. I
didn't look down once, not even when I felt something
tug lightly at my fin I breached maybe one hundred

(56:40):
yards from the dive boat, threw off my mask and screamed.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
The deckhand hauled me up.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
I kept yelling Eric, Rick, there's still down there, something's
down there. They pulled Eric out five minutes later. He'd
surfaced on the opposite side, shaking so bad. They had
to tie him down to get his gear off. He
wouldn't talk, not for hours. Eventually he just said, I
was inside something. I don't know what it was. Rick

(57:06):
came up last, almost twenty minutes after we did too long.
He was conscious but vacant. EMTs took him to a
hyper barrack chamber immediately. I visited him a week later
in Long Beach Memorial. He looked at me once, then said,
don't ever go back there. It's not a cave. I
asked what he meant. He just kept repeating, it's not

(57:26):
a cave. It's not a cave. I haven't gone diving since,
and I never will