5 Creepy Tales of Strange Things at Sea

From rogue waves to sudden storms, there’s plenty to fear at sea. But sometimes the threats aren’t natural. These five creepy stories from Reddit.com will make you want to stay far, far away from the ocean.

The Hands That Reach 

“My great grandpa was a Frogman (predecessor to the Navy SEALs and EOD) in the US Navy during World War II. He claimed one day when he was on the deck of a ship before a mission, he saw thousands of hands reaching out of the water. A few hours later, while he was on shore, the ship was attacked and lots of sailors aboard died. He didn’t believe in ‘visions’, and he always said it was because of the stress of running missions non-stop for the last month, but the rest of my family thinks he saw a few hours into the future.”

It Came From Above 

“I work on a research vessel, and in the North Atlantic, around 2011, we saw an extremely bright object fly into the water. Not fall, but with a trajectory and no sound. It was blinding to look at and bright neon green which illuminated the entire sky. It split the low lying clouds like a sheet and continued to glow until it reached a depth where the light couldn’t escape to our vantage point. Me and the other watch standers all saw it, and there was much debate and confusion with no answers.

The next night, it was like we went into a bird portal. Literally all kinds of sea birds just in a confused tumult, smacking into our radars and falling from the sky. Even some that I wouldn’t think could be out so far out to sea. Shit creeped me out to no end. I still tell the story from time to time as it is the most singular thing I’ve seen in a decade of sailing the deep sea.”

Sleepwalker 

“US Marine here. During a float on a boat to Operation: Top Secret, Destination: Unknown, one of our own was lost at sea. I guess they just jumped overboard at night or something. Kinda depressing, that’s a shitty way to die.

Anyways, their coffin rack was adjacent to mine, and we left the rack made. But for some reason, the sheets kept  getting messed up every day. It was pain in the ass to keep making the sheets, so we stripped the rack. And we figured that no one should be sleeping in there since there were plenty of other vacant racks in the berthing. But someone would keep making the rack, and messing the sheets up in the morning.

There’s no way someone would be sleeping there, because we’d notice someone climbing up on the top bunk, and the duty would have been posted at the entrances to the berthing. It was just creepy seeing the rack being made neatly and then messed up in the morning.”

Night Light 

“While standing a lookout watch at night on a patrol somewhere in the middle of the Bering Sea, I saw a light appear on the horizon. The light rose until I could tell through the binoculars that it was clearly a circle of light — a glowing orb of some sort. It rose quickly and steadily and hung in the air, motionless from my perspective, for a short period of time, but long enough for me to report the sighting and for folks on the bridge to puzzle over it. Then a few minutes later, it dropped quickly and was gone for good.

So, two things we knew: 1) It was over the water. The nearest land in that direction was so far that the damn thing would have had to have been the size of Connecticut if it had shot up from land. 2) The United States government didn’t have a clue what it was (or, had no interest in telling us).

It was weird. I do not believe it was extraterrestrial or the result of anything supernatural. But it was weird.”

Merman

“After a huge storm, we were all on deck, working lines, checking damage, etc., while the bay around us was choppy and churning and foaming. Old-timey sailors often used the saying, ‘the sea is confused.’ I looked about 15 feet off the starboard side and something swam up, broke the surface, looked at us, then submerged again.

It resembled a thin man. It had a humanoid shape, arms articulated like a man, and a human head, but its skin was covered in scales like a snake. It looked at us, blinked its weird, heavy-lidded eyes, then dove back under.

So maybe you need to know a few things about me at that moment. No drugs, no alcohol, no injuries. I was elated because I was glad to be alive, but my senses in that situation were sharpened, not dulled. I had, at that time, about six years experience on ships and fishing boats, and had seen squid, octopi, flying fish, sharks, skates, etc. all around the world. I was not the type of guy to see a patch of seaweed and call it a sea monster.

I made an instant decision that I was not going to say anything. The men on this boat were all mechanics and engineers and professionals. Why get a reputation as a flake? At the time, it was important for each of us to get “D” skipper or OOD qualifications, and saying something like that would be frowned upon.

And as I stood there in my life vest, soaking wet, hooked onto the steel lifeline, glad to be alive, one of the other sailors, a USN Captain with over 30 years experience in the surface navy, piped up and said:

‘I just saw a brown thing pop up on the surface! It looked like a lizard man, with a scaly face. It blinked with these big eyes and then went back under!’

‘Yeah, I saw it too,’ I said. No one else said that they had seen it.

We sailed back to the pier later that day and didn’t speak of it again.”

Have you had a creepy experience out at sea? Send your stories to ghostsghoul@gmail.com!