35 ‘Horror Stories’ From People Who Have Seen Things In The Ocean They Wish They Could Forget

20 years in the Navy. Back in 2014 we were getting ready to do a live fire exercise. I hailed a small boat that was near the area we were going to conduct the live firing and asked them to increase their speed by 4 knots to safely leave the area. They responded to me that they could not increase their speed because they have 30k lbs of seasbass on their boat. Well all of the sudden all of their lights went off and they wouldn’t respond to me. Then I see an amber light. I look through my binoculars and couldn’t figure out what it was. Then the light got brighter and we can see that the boat was on fire. We saw their life raft in the water and started sailing towards them. As we got closer, it was like a scenes out of a movie when this boat exploded. Not just any explosion, it was HUGE! We rescued the “fishermen” and found out later that the boat was a floating meth lab. Of course this was off the coast of Florida… 😂

I was drinking in an airport bar and met a woman who worked as a commercial fisherman, on her way to SE Asia for R&R with her family. Real salt-of-the-earth lady. She regaled me with stories about her work, all the good stuff about working in her world, all the reasons she kept doing it for decades.

I asked her what the scariest thing she saw out on the open ocean was and, without any hesitation, she said "Oh, an underwater UFO. I saw one rise up out of the ocean next to my boat and fly off into the sky." The matter-of-fact-ness of her answer bothers me to this day.

Was on a two week cruise on a huge ship and one morning there was a tonne of commotion coming from one side of he ship. It looked like a woman had fallen off the ship and was in the water below, face down in a summer dress - her hair sprawling around her as she lay face down and completely motionless in the water bobbing up and down as she was carried by the gentle waves of the ocean. You think you're tough until you see some s**t like that. People were crying, taking their curious kids elsewhere, others were frantically trying to find staff to go rescue her. As it turns out a woman had left her sun dress and wig out to dry on her balcony the night before and the wind that morning had blown it into the water. An announcement was made and everyone was so relieved and there was a lot of laughter. It was surreal to see everyone going from such worried, sad expressions (some were outright bawling their eyes out) to completely in hysterics laughing and hugging one another. I think we were all reminded of how precious life was that day, and it really was a HUGE relief. It was terrible in the moments where we thought it was an actual person. What made it believable is that you're up so high on this ship it's hard to see details down below because of the distance along with the waves and water obscuring finer details. My friends and I, who were on the cruise together, drank and laughed a lot that night. It was a very sobering event.

I was in a glass bottom boat in the 1970’s off the coast of Oahu. We were going out to see a pod of whales. The boat Captain was a grizzled old Hawaiian sun baked to the color of Mahogany. It was an older boat, retrofit with a glass bottom and bench seating. He was narrating over a PA as we left the dock.

We motored out for about 30 minutes and the view out of the bottom of the boat was disappointing, just long streams of bubbles obscuring the view. Finally he stopped the boat, and the view was simply amazing. The Captain pointed out a pod of whales about 1/4 of a mile away. They were cavorting about, diving and jumping. The Captain was explaining their behaviours, but keeping his distance. It was pretty cool.

All the whales suddenly dived and disappeared, emerging moments later, right next to our boat. They were swimming all around us, diving and jumping and splashing us with water, children were laughing, everyone thought it was part of the show. They were right there, almost so close that you could touch them. The Captain told us how lucky we were, to see them up close.

Suddenly, the mood changed when they started bumping up against the hull of the small boat. People were sliding all over the place, some fell onto the floor, children were crying. Most telling, the Captain had stopped narrating and had a look of abject terror on his face. I remember thinking what it must take to make this guy scared, and as he looked terrified we should probably be too.

Suddenly, as quickly as they appeared, the whales disappeared. They were just gone. People picked themselves up and sat back down, mothers consoled children, we started back to the dock. The Captain got back on the PA and tried to downplay the seriousness of the what just happened, but there was a definite quiver in his voice as we headed back to shore.

I was underway from the Port of Houston to Cartagena, Columbia. The vessel cuts all lights off on the outside of the boat, so it's pretty dark outside. I would always go and sit out on the deck and listen to my headphones, and look at the stars. Well one night, somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean sea, I noticed a swarm of lightning bugs cross the boat. Totally blew my mind to see light out or nowhere. At least I think it was lightning bugs.

On the same trip heading back to Houston from Columbia, I witnessed a satellite crashing. At least, that's what I think it was. It steadily strobed and lit up the night sky and water for about 15 min till I couldn't see it anymore.

And on a different trip, I was in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. No moon, no clouds, no light pollution, the amount of stars that I saw made me cry. Never thought starlight alone could cast a shadow. Definitely mesmerizing I still remember it like it was yesterday.

USN Sailor. I have seen a lot of remarkable things, but the creepiest was a great white shark that swam (more like drifted) inbetween the two ships during an underway replinishment off the coast of Australia. I could make an educated guess on how big it was, but just let me tell you it was way, WAYYYY bigger than the biggest sharks I've seen on the Shark Week shows. Much longer and twice as massive as the "biggest shark ever seen" on the youtube videos I've seen. It didn't move a single inch... it just floated, mouth open, inbetween as everyone on the bridgewing exclaimed "Holy f*****g S**T!" It's teeth were as big as a man's head. And it had massive scars down its' back and tail from a ships propeller. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it with my own eyes.

I am a recreational sailor who travels for weeks at a time at sea. I once saw a flame on the water not ten yards from me. Just freaking burning at midnight.

Former comercial fisherman. One morning we had a Russian Submarine surface about a quarter mile off the stern with it's periscope fully raised. We had a marine biologist from the state as an observer, and I'll never forget him saying "is that a god damn submarine". We were drinking coffee early in the morning when this happened, and the captain kinda just pretended it wasn't there. Didn't call it in on the radio or anything. In fact we assumed it was an American sub as we were near a US navy base. Coast Guard showed up and started trying to hail the sub via the radio, which the captain had left on an emergency channel to listen in. I'll never forget our faces as we hear "Russian submarine victor leonov please respond".

Nothing too extensive like some of the stories here, but I worked as a tuna fisherman for a tiny bit, where I’d spend 3-4 weeks out at a time, taking around 3 days of 24 hour travel to get where we (me and one other person - the captain who was a 5th generation fisherman) were fishing.

So many stories of insane things that I could be here all night - but one was near the end of the season, and we pushed out farther than we should have (over 100 nautical miles) where we had NO business being as a 37 foot trawler. And then we’re caught in a bad storm.

I had barely enough time to, very carefully, board up all of the windows before the boat started “scooping” when coming down one of the 12ft waves, the first third of the boat dives underwater before popping back up, only to travel up another wave and do it again…and again…as waves got larger and things got worse.

Basically, the captain and I stayed the cabin, bracing ourselves with each wave, staring at the radar in hopes we could stay in the position of taking the waves head-on and avoid being capsized. After a few minutes, and the fear that this 5th generation fisherman was exuding, I just accepted that I was going to die there - and the experience of that acceptance, and the event itself, had a profound effect on my perception and the way I’ve lived life afterward.

We eventually made it out, and didn’t say a lot to each other afterward. Lots of stories from that time, but this was the “creepiest”, I’d say!

I was on a 32ft speedboat and got caught by nightfall in between islands. No night lights on the boat, navigating using gps and depth finder. Captain knew the way like the back of his hand since he’d sailed those waters since he was a kid but for me it was my first time in the middle of the ocean at night. Pitch black but for the stars. As above so below, it seemed as if the boat was floating in the blackest void of the universe. Years later I saw the movie Life of Pi and the scene where Pi is in his lifeboat floating in the dark among the stars no above no below : it was exactly like that. I still have dreams about that night. . The engulfing dark and the silence that was not silent. Surreal.

We made it safely to port. Captain fitted the nightlights on that boat the day after.

It was 1998, I was only 11, was out for a quick boat ride with some family. Swiss Air Flight 111 had recently crashed a bay or two away. We saw a suitcase floating from afar, my dad quickly turned the boat back to shore.

Floes of ice passing by, covered in blood - then i remember that polar bears exist

Legitimately though, calm water and flat light. You can’t see where the sea and sky split, it’s really dangerous for helicopters and generally unsettling

I was in the USN back in the late 80s and early 90s. Cruising through the Indian Ocean in 100% blackness then waking up the next afternoon and looking over the rails and seeing 100s of sharks swimming alongside of us constantly. Every now and then we would get a "man overboard" alert. They never recovered even one of them at night. They were usually s*icides.

A toilet. I mean a literal regular household toilet floating hundreds of miles from land…and why was it floating? I’ll never know.

Somewhere in the Atlantic, nice cold as f**k night, decided to step out and look at stars. About ten minutes on and a boats mast pops up, sits there a few minutes and then back under. No alarms, nothing. Just some sub boys getting a bit of late night o2 in the middle of nowhere next to some friends.