Divers Reveal 50 Disturbing Discoveries Underwater They Will Probably Never Be Able To Explain

I was diving off the Florence, OR coast with some friends and we found a body on the ocean floor in the creepiest condition possible. He was a surfer who'd gone missing a few days prior so he wore a wet suit with his legs, arms, and head exposed. Crabs had eaten the flesh from his exposed bits so basically he was a torso with a skull and skeletal limbs.

The creepiest dive of my life though, two buddies of mine and I were on a night dive in the Pugeut Sound hunting prawns. It was about 1am and we're a good 100ft deep, the pitchest black you could imagine. We used to do this thing on night dives where we'd get in a circle, turn off our lights, then stir up the water and watch the bio-luminescence float around us like floating stars in a black watery space. Beautiful. Only this one time we turn off our lights, stir up the water, and the water glows just enough to reveal a fourth person sitting in our circle.

We were at a dive resort so it wasn't so odd to see another diver, only it was 1am--we'd seen no one else prepping a dive at the dock. He was also alone which was odd considering the dangerous conditions of a night dive in those waters, and he had no fins or gloves. I don't know how he swam so well without fins or didn't get hypothermia without boots or gloves. We wore drysuits because it was so cold but this dude was in a wet suit with exposed skin and we thought we saw a giant gash in one of the legs.

So the three of us all notice him and we're too f*****g scared to move, I can hear my buddies panting in their regs, and the guy just smiles and waves, then swims away.

That was 100 times creepier than skeleton dude. Whenever you think you're alone and someone just shows up, like in an alley at night, it's weird as f**k. 100ft under water at night is terrifying.

I don't know if this counts but I'm a water lover, so maybe so.

While water skiing in the lake one time (Louisiana) when I flew off I landed like pretty much on top of an alligator. I kinda felt my leg hit him and we were like eye to eye when I gasped for air. Then he went under. The moments after that were the most terrifying moments of my life because I was so certain Id feel him bite my foot any second and drag me under. I started screaming and couldn't stop until the boat was back to me.

You don't realize how long 2-3 minutes is until you're alone in the open water.

Never again for me.

Surfing off the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Sitting there waiting for waves when this big dark shape slithered underneath me and my board. I quickly went to a kneeling position on my board with an audible 'holy s**t balls.'

moments later the friendliest face poked up out of the water in front of me. A big curious Seal. Curse you Seal....you scared the p**s out of me that day.

I was diving of the coast of manly island, near sydney, on my gap year. We were told to stay away from caves and whatnot because common sense, what with sea snakes and such. Me and 3 friends jump in and swim for a bit. We're were at the edge of a reef and just checking out some coral and junk. Me and another guy swim to the very edge of the reef to check out the deeper bits (not going down too far of course), and swim past a small crevice. It was so small we didnt even notice it. I turn my back to it for a bit to check where the other guys are and my buddy starts shaking the begeezus out of me and is franticly pointing towards the crevice. I turn (already expecting a demon or some monster) and squeezing out the crevice comes this f*****g enourmous blob of maroon flesh and suckers. At this point i wet my pants (no lie). So basically it was a octupus with the arm span of a paddling pool and it lunges and the other guy, squirting him with ink and dissapearing. I thought it was gone cause i couldnt see s**t. I saw his arm flailing out of the blackness and i thought he was swimming to safety and i was ready to get the f**k out of the ocean forever. From a distance i saw that the octopus had him by the right leg and was groping him in a mass of inky horror. I had no idea whether or not to help him, i had never been more scared because i knew octopus can kill people. I was so scared i could barely breathe. I tried to go help him and when i got close to him the octopus scarpered further down into the reef. I had never seen a man look so frightened in his life. He swam so fast up to the boat with me in pursuit and the guy didnt need a ladder to get up to the boat, he just breached the surface and hoisted himself by his arms on the edge of the boat. I called the driver over and he ran over. My buddy had a chunk of flesh the size of a tennis ball out of his calf. He still has marks from the suckers (those mofos are strong). To this day he has never even been to the beach, and he's even scared of baths.

I was diving in bermuda, 85 feet down, coming out of the wheelhouse of an old fishing boat. I felt something start tapping my hand, turn my head with thoughts of all kinds of horrible terrifying sea creatures reaching out to grab my hand and see a tiny little fish flinging itself into my hand and waving it's fins at me as if to say "get out of my house! go on scram!"

That was when I discovered you could laugh through a regulator

Rescue diver in the Bahamas... [I was] diving in a submerged blue hole (the entrance is below sea level) and a diver went missing.

After an hour or two of searching, went back into the blue hole to see if there were any signs of him. Saw the glint of his watch and his arm sticking out near the bottom.

Start descending down to the bottom to recover the body. On the way down realized that the "bottom" was a school of sharks that must have been there for breeding. So many sharks that they blocked the view of the actual bottom.

Descended into the darkness, grabbed his arm (couldn't stand to look at the body) and started ascending. The sharks followed. And were circling the both of us. Had to take a break halfway at around 65 feet as to not get the bends. Scared sh*tless. The entire time waiting to normalize scared sh*tless. He was struck by a passing boat.

Years ago I was having a fun day snorkeling in the lagoon in Diego Garcia. On the way back across the lagoon a pod of dolphins came up and were jumping around the boat. Shut off the motor real quick and jumped in. I'm pretty good - usually dive down 15-20'. It was amazing... Dolphins all over the place. I went down about three times. Next time I went down.. Nothing. I looked around... And then there they were. Hammerheads. Hundreds of them. All around me. Blood went cold. Panic sets in. Some small... Some as big as me (over 6') some were just monsters... I didn't panic - slowly drifted back up to the surface. When my head broke the water I suddenly realized that I was surrounded by death incarnate - and couldn't see a single one. I've never felt fear like I did in calmly trying to climb back into the boat... It was amazing. It was incredible. It was utterly horrifying....

I was diving a spear fishing spot about 30 miles off shore. I was 60 feet under water. There I was swimming along when I noticed them a school of Mahi Mahi. There were about 30 maybe 40 of them. These fish where all between 2 and 5 feet long. They were so beautiful with their sides flashing all different colors. That's when I felt the tug on my leg. I looked down at my legs to see a 12 tiger shark pulling on my dive fin and taking me along for the ride. In a second he had ripped the fin off my foot. The shark then swam away but kept circling just at visual range. I think he was still curious about how I tasted. I kept an eye on him the whole time I was swimming back to the boat. Scariest moment I have ever had in the water.

I grew up diving, as my family owned a dive shop. I've dove all over the globe, but the thing that creeped me out most happened on my local lake. I was about ten, and had taken our ski boat from the dock to a secluded cove to look for an abandoned cemetery (the lake was created by TVA in the 30's and displaced an entire town, leaving several places like this lost in the trees with no access). When I got onto the shore, I found a blanket with all the edges tied together to make a bundle. I didn't open it, but did some exploratory poking. There was obviously a cinder block in there, and the rest was just squishy. After a particularly vigorous poke, blood started seeping through the blanket. I hauled my little a*s back to the boat and never looked back. Decades later, I still think about that and wonder what was in there.

On a lighter note, our shop got a lot of business retrieving dropped items and speed boats that idiots would sink. My dad was the shop's master instructor and normally passed these jobs on to me or one of the regulars. However, he took one job in January to test his new dry suit and took along one of his friends. I was their gear-tote, and waited on shore. Dad came up first, and started telling me about this weird looking fishing lure he'd found while sifting through the silt. About that time, the buddy surfaces and asks dad why he was playing with that tampon for so long.

I had an awesome childhood.

I was leading a group of 8 students on a night dive off of our liveaboard dive boat in Egypt. Every few minutes I'd turn around and just make sure everyone was still there and hadn't gotten lost.

About 30 mins into the dive, we all settled onto the bottom in a circle to turn off our lights and check out the bioluminescence . After we turned our lights back on I scanned the circle quickly to count everyone.

Kneeling off to one side of the group, alone, with no dive light, 45' underwater with no other boats in sight on the surface, was a single unknown person - fully geared up, breathing steadily, and making eye contact with me.

I panicked a bit right then because I had NO idea who the f**k this person was or where they came from or what they were doing down there... and so I did the only logical thing: lead my group back to the boat, and never mentioned it to any of the kids.

Still creeps me out.

My grandpa was in the Royal Australian Navy during the Vietnam War. They were taught to shake the hand of dead sailors when recovering the bodies to make them more comfortable and familiar with handling a dead body. On my grandpa's first recovery dive, he shook the hand of a dead sailor and the arm came off the body. Had to keep his cool and bring the body up, but still pretty messed up.

I was snorkeling in the Bahamas when I came across a barracuda that was at least 2 metres long. Eerie looking creature, just sat there with its teeth poking all grumpy looking. Turns out after speaking to the locals, this particulate barracuda is called Henry and these waters have been his territory for years.

I was diving with some friends and found a fisherman's glove with a hand still inside it. We brought the glove to the local police and they told us that they hadn't received any kind of report of a guy with a missing hand.

On one of my night dives at the Flower Garden Banks Marine Sanctuary in either 2005 or 2006, had my first encounter with a Beaded Sea Cucumber. I thought I stepped out of the real world and into a science fiction/fantasy world seeing this long worm with tentacles surrounding it's mouth like a cross between a snake and an octopus. Very scary initially, now I look for them because they are pretty cool.

On a more recent dive (this spring), although I knew I was going to see it (the whole purpose of the dive after all), finding the 3 year old 80 lb golden lab that had been swept away in the spring floods and trapped in debris under a bridge scared the heck out of me when I first found her body visually. Knowing you are looking for it, and actually finding it are two different things. But at least I was able to bring her body home for her family.

While in Egypt I decided to go snorkeling in the ocean.

Water was maybe hip deep and I am floating around just enjoying the view and the atmosphere, when I come by a sea anemone.

Not expecting anything bad, I just want to float by, when this freaking Nemo (clown-fish) attacks me and hit's my goggles.

I am so scared, I scream, which is a bad idea as screaming under water leads to water in your lounge, leads to almost dying, until I finally remember to just freaking stand up and take a deep breath.

Stupid fish scared the air out of me.

Nemo is a ruthless killer, do not let the movie tell you otherwise.

It was my first deep wreck dive, and I was venturing in the hold of a sunken fishing trawler. At the bottom of the dark hold, I found a full size skeleton. My wife and dive buddy freaked out, and swam straight into the wall. She dropped her dive light, which settled 20 feet below between the skeleton's legs.

I dove down alone to get it, because SCUBA gear is expensive. Up close, that skeleton was an obvious plant.

Divers in one area of Honduras took to feeding an eel. It was a big a*s moray eel, and it got to like divers, because they always gave it food.

One day I was on a dive and nobody gave it food, and the dive master didn't really mention it. Next thing you know this tame moray eel is swimming furiously after a half dozen divers, and they are scared as s**t. I hovered about 20 feet above them and watched the mayhem unfold. These people all thought they were going to die, but really that six foot moray eel with razer sharp teeth only wanted his doggie snacks.

Surfer here. Grew up in Southern California now live and surf on the east coast. In the outer banks area of North Carolina, there are tons of sharks which are usually not aggressive so I have no problem surfing around black tip sharks and such. Was out on the water for a sunrise surf session when a fifteen foot manta ray literally jumped over me. His (her?) wing slapped me on the back and knocked me into the water and all I could think of was how Steve Erwin died and I literally crapped myself.

This happened when I was doing my 2nd dive on the entry level course to a scuba diving organization (I can't recall the name).

So we're about to descend to the ocean floor to do some basic exercises (e.g. letting water into your mask and getting it out again). My friend, let's call him Daniel, was the first diver that descended all the way with the instructor, but when his flippers touched the ground there was a hidden wobbegong shark. He hit it, and it RUSHED towards and bit Daniel in the thigh. Daniel was scared and ascended WAY to quickly (ascending to quickly without proper "form" can kill you). He was scared shitless, and so was I as I was right next to him. I grabbed his calf and tried to push him down and he kinda realized what he was doing. At the moment I was scared, but 10 minutes later on the boat we nicknamed him "The Shark Tamer" - everything really does want to kill you in Australia huh.

This was a long time ago, but okay. It was a training dive under the ice: Enter via a bubbler keeping ice from a ferry, swim out to a sunken wreck via lines, stick to cave protocol the whole time. Five tank dive, each, with mixed gases and O2 for decompression. On the way back, well over 90 minutes in the water, [a fellow diver's] reg explodes into a free flow.

No problem: Swap onto another, kill that tank at the valve, stow it and keep going. Two minutes later it happens again. No problem - we keep going. Then again. Sh*t is serious now, and we've all got extra regulators at the ready. Buddy is getting a little shaky, and suddenly he hits his drysuit inflator and flies upward.

We followed as fast as we could without blowing our deco and endangering more people, and pass through a cloud of blood. Found him wedged in a crack about five minutes later, already gone.