Stories

<p>The ocean is a vast, creepy, and mysterious place that seems to defy the laws of science and logic (how else can you explain animals the size of literal houses that just swim around <em>singing</em> to each other?!). Most of us only experience the ocean peripherally, via daytrips to the beach or an occasional cruise or sailboat ride. But sailors and other people who spend a lot of time at sea can verify that it really is an other-worldly place where supernatural, creepy, and inexplicable things are prone to happen.</p><h2>Someone <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/mys719/serious_sailors_seamen_and_overall_people_who/" target="_blank">asked</a> sailors of Reddit: &quot;Have you ever witnessed something you would catalog as supernatural or unusual? What was it like?&quot;</h2><p>These 15 sailors and others who have spent significant time at sea share their creepy and inexplicable stories, so hold on to your sailor hats:</p><h2>1.) The last thing you want to hear while at sea.</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/imarriedanarcissist/">imarriedanarcissist</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>In the Gulf of Aden having been at sea for a while and with absolutely blistering heat, I heard my nickname called 3 times. Clearly and loudly. It was my first time with this particular crew and none of them knew my nickname. My best guess is dehydration and stress but I&rsquo;ll never forget it.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>2.) When life imitates an M. Night Shyamalan film.</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/sanesteve2020/">sanesteve2020</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>Flew helicopters in the Navy for a few years. On my first deployment to south east Asia I was flying over the Sea of Japan and saw a large pulsing aura of red light far enough below the surface I could not make out a source. We were 30ish miles from shore and had not been briefed on any assets in the area that might make something like that make sense. No erroneous indications on instruments or radio chatter. Just slow steady pulsing red light.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>We saw it, circled it a few times, made a note of the time and location we encountered it and my crewchief asked if I wouldn&rsquo;t mind getting the hell out of there. So we finished our transit and I made a note of everything in my debrief. I passed it up the chain of command but they basically wrote it off as some sort of visual phenomenon we had from a long day of flying in dry suits. It&rsquo;s always been hard to imagine our entire crew hallucinating the same thing.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>3.) &quot;The feeling you get when someone&#39;s watching you.&quot;</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/praxis4/">praxis4</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>When I was roving patrol on a submarine I always thought I saw someone walking parallel to me down missile compartment upper level. If I was on the port side then I saw them on the starboard side and vice-versa. I always chalked it up to pipes and valves creating weird shadows. Additionally, it felt &quot;heavy&quot; on that level like there was some sort of presence - the feeling you get when someone&#39;s watching you.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I never told anyone, then one day a few weeks into patrol, one of the other rovers asked me if it felt &quot;weird&quot; up there. He specifically said that he saw someone up there too just like I had. We shared stories and then talked to the third rover and he said &quot;I only go up there to do my rounds every hour then get the f**k out of that haunted level&quot;.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>4.) If you see something, say something.</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/High-Heels_and_Books/">High-Heels_and_Books</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>I crewed on a tallship and we were anchored with a bunch of others in a harbor. We had to take shifts at night because it was an old boat and did weird things. I was on shift in the little steering cabin when I heard someone running around the deck. I thought it was one of the other crew so I poked my head out and told them to knock it off. They kept running and I was afraid they&rsquo;d slip so I followed them.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>We went around the whole ship twice before I caught up with a shapeless shadow which stopped and flew directly up into the air. Convinced it was a prank I walked back to the end of the boat when I saw we had drifted on anchor and were almost under the bow of a much larger ship. I called the rest of the crew and we sorted it out. But I might not have noticed until too late if it weren&rsquo;t for the weird shadow.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>5.) Not all hallucinations are fun hallucinations.</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/hoppappa/">hoppappa</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>My Dad&#39;s done some trips into the Atlantic single handed, he&#39;s reported many hallucinations.</p> <p>Mostly auditory, like hearing people call his name etc. But more scarily once he thought he saw a container ship about to run him down.</p> <p>You can&#39;t really sleep properly for the first few days because of all the coastal fishing boats, so it was probably just down to sleep deprivation.</p> </blockquote><h2>6.) Seriously, how are whales real?!</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DetectiveTank/">DetectiveTank</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>Have you ever seen ~30-40 (as best as I could determine) Humpback whales feeding together? I know this isn&#39;t supernatural but one whale is so seldom seen by people, let alone 30 scooping up krill at the same time. I&#39;ll never forget that.</p> </blockquote><h2>7.) Fog is no joke.</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/vikrambedi/">vikrambedi</a>:</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>Fog. I don&#39;t care what anyone says, there is something IN that fog.</p> <p>A dead calm with thick fog is creepy and will drive you to wild hallucinations. I imagine it&#39;s not dissimilar to a sensory deprivation chamber.</p> </blockquote><h2>8.) When one minute is way too long.</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SicarioCercops/">SicarioCercops</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>The closest to supernatural or at least something I can&#39;t explain, happend half way between Cornwall and the Scillies. We were sailing in a fresh breeze, 5-6 ft. swells maybe. That&#39;s perfectly fine sailing weather but the boat will rock and there will be quite a bit of noise from the wind, the sails and waves. So we sail happy along when suddenly the sea is perfectly flat and every thing is quiet, like somebody turned the sound off. I look around and the water is pitch dark. It only lasted for a minute and then everything was back to normal but I got a really eerie feeling.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>9.) &quot;It was impossible to tell where the water ended and the sky began.&quot;</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/rosso222/">rosso222</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>I was standing in the hangar bay waiting for morning muster at dawn somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Looking out at the ocean, I was intrigued by how smooth as glass the water was reflecting the clouds in the sky. Then the most beautiful, confusing, mesmerizing, and terrifying thing I ever saw happened. The water, for a moment, was so smooth that the horizon disappeared from view. The water was so smooth and reflective that it was impossible to tell where the water ended and the sky began.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I honestly got dizzy knowing I was in the middle of the ocean floating on water, but my eyes were trying to convince me the ship was floating on nothing. Then the water started slightly rippling and the horizon was visible again. Every morning at sea after that I looked at the horizon hoping it would happen again, but it never did. I&#39;ve never found out what caused this scientifically. The closest thing I could ever find was it was some sort of variant of the fata morgana mirage.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>10.) Hips don&#39;t lie. But ears do!</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/FishGutsCake/">FishGutsCake</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>Lots of auditory hallucinations. You&rsquo;re All alone in the middle of the ocean, and you hear your name being called all the time. Or you&rsquo;re down below, and hear someone running on the deck.</p> </blockquote><h2>11.) And eyes lie, too.</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/wolf-bot/">wolf-bot</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>I was a sailor in the navy. While I was on lookout duty on the bridge at night, a dude walked and stood beside me, breathing hard. I was looking out at sea and I was blocking the stairs going down, so I turned around to whisper &ldquo;sorry&rdquo;, and what do you know, there&rsquo;s no one. I was tired so I chalked this up to hallucination, but it felt real.</p> </blockquote><h2>12.) &quot;We both saw a black figure/shadow pass in front of the camera in the children&#39;s play area.&quot; SHUDDER.</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MarineSecurity/">MarineSecurity</a>:</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I work security on different ships: one time during night shift on a cruise ship, my colleague and I were in the security office watching the CCTV cameras and just talking shit to pass the time. At the exact same time we both saw a black figure/shadow pass in front of the camera in the children&#39;s play area. We both got super freaked out but kept watching the other cameras in the vicinity to see if whatever it was passed by those, as it was the only way it could go from where we saw it and there was no way it could leave the area without passing by in front of one of the cameras.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>It never did, so we went to the area to check it out but obviously found nothing. Afterwards we went back to review the footage and didn&#39;t see any shadow moving in that camera again. Even though we both saw it the first time in the live feed. Needless to say we kinda started avoiding the kids area at night after that. A lot of death happens out at sea.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>13.) &quot;Sleep deprivation is a hell of a thing.&quot;</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/RedFox3001/">RedFox3001</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>On a yacht delivery from France to Greece, after a couple of nights of no sleep, on the third night we were in the Bonifacio straights. All around in the sea I could see drowning people. Waving and shouting for help. We moored up the following morning. Sleep deprivation is a hell of a thing</p> </blockquote><h2>14.) UFO sighting #1.</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/chickencatqueen14/">chickencatqueen14</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>I was in the USN 2010-2014 and deployed twice. There was a span of time were we were just sailing around in open waters not near any land what so ever. I was one of the topside watch standers meaning that I was responsible for reporting any other sea or air activity (ie other boats or airplanes). The area we were in was so incredibly remote that there was almost no activity anywhere, didn&rsquo;t see a single boat or plane for days.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>One night I was standing the midnight to 4am watch and had just switched to the forward lookout. So I&rsquo;m standing at the bridge of the ship on the outer deck looking forward. It must have been about 3:45 am because my relief just came up to let me know he would take over from here. We talked for a few minutes when all of a sudden I got a call from the bridge. The officer on duty was asking me what &lsquo;that&rsquo; was. Me and my watch relief look forward and there is this giant light coming out of the ocean.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>This thing was huge probably the size of two mobile homes put side by side. It comes up from the ocean and then passes overhead maybe 70feet from the top of the ship and there was absolutely NO sound.</p> <p>Everyone started freaking out. And the craziest thing is that none of our radars picked up any activity what so ever. We all were just in awe. And no one had any explanation, but we all agreed that we witnessed a UFO.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>15.) UFO sighting #2.</h2><p>From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ImmaculateJones/">ImmaculateJones</a>:</p><blockquote> <p>I was in the US Navy and worked in communications. We stood 12 hour watches from 7pm - 7am. Around 2am I hear some chatter over our internal speaker system. It&rsquo;s the bridge asking combat if they see anything on surface or air radar, maybe 10 miles out to our west.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>One of my buddies points me over to the port side and we walk over. There&rsquo;s about five or six circular shaped lights about 10-15 miles out in the clouds, pretty large. They aren&rsquo;t moving or flying around but just looking stable. These lights are also casting lights downward on the ocean, and you can see the light refracting back at the water, almost as if it were a spotlight or a beam. From what we could see, it didn&rsquo;t appear to be lights shining up from the water because they wouldn&rsquo;t pass through the clouds. The clouds also weren&rsquo;t super thick, it was lightly overcast, and it was the middle of the night with no other light pollution on the water.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>There was nothing in message traffic about any ships, subs, or aircraft in the area. We were hundreds of miles from land and the last report of any unusual weather patterns was a water spout a few hundred miles away. We tried to take pictures with our onboard digital camera, using a long exposure, but we couldn&rsquo;t capture the phenomenon. After about 90 minutes the lights slowly faded, one by one, and within fifteen minutes they had completely disappeared.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m sure there&rsquo;s some sort of weather or atmospheric condition for what we saw, but for all intents and purposes, it fit the description of a UFO. Unidentified Flying Object.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

15 sailors share the creepiest 'supernatural' experiences they've had at sea.

The ocean is a vast, creepy, and mysterious place that seems to defy the laws of science and logic (how else can you explain animals the size of literal houses that just swim around singing to each other?!). Most of us only experience the ocean peripherally, via daytrips to the beach or an occasional cruise or sailboat ride. But sailors and other people who spend a lot of time at sea can verify that it really is an other-worldly place where supernatural, creepy, and inexplicable things are prone to happen.Someone asked sailors of Reddit: &quot;Have you ever witnessed something you would catalog as supernatural or unusual? What was it like?&quot;These 15 sailors and others who have spent significant time at sea share their creepy and inexplicable stories, so hold on to your sailor hats:1.) The last thing you want to hear while at sea.From imarriedanarcissist: In the Gulf of Aden having been at sea for a while and with absolutely blistering heat, I heard my nickname called 3 times. Clearly and loudly. It was my first time with this particular crew and none of them knew my nickname. My best guess is dehydration and stress but I&rsquo;ll never forget it. 2.) When life imitates an M. Night Shyamalan film.From sanesteve2020: Flew helicopters in the Navy for a few years. On my first deployment to south east Asia I was flying over the Sea of Japan and saw a large pulsing aura of red light far enough below the surface I could not make out a source. We were 30ish miles from shore and had not been briefed on any assets in the area that might make something like that make sense. No erroneous indications on instruments or radio chatter. Just slow steady pulsing red light.  We saw it, circled it a few times, made a note of the time and location we encountered it and my crewchief asked if I wouldn&rsquo;t mind getting the hell out of there. So we finished our transit and I made a note of everything in my debrief. I passed it up the chain of command but they basically wrote it off as some sort of visual phenomenon we had from a long day of flying in dry suits. It&rsquo;s always been hard to imagine our entire crew hallucinating the same thing. 3.) &quot;The feeling you get when someone&#39;s watching you.&quot;From praxis4: When I was roving patrol on a submarine I always thought I saw someone walking parallel to me down missile compartment upper level. If I was on the port side then I saw them on the starboard side and vice-versa. I always chalked it up to pipes and valves creating weird shadows. Additionally, it felt &quot;heavy&quot; on that level like there was some sort of presence - the feeling you get when someone&#39;s watching you.  I never told anyone, then one day a few weeks into patrol, one of the other rovers asked me if it felt &quot;weird&quot; up there. He specifically said that he saw someone up there too just like I had. We shared stories and then talked to the third rover and he said &quot;I only go up there to do my rounds every hour then get the f**k out of that haunted level&quot;. 4.) If you see something, say something.From High-Heels_and_Books: I crewed on a tallship and we were anchored with a bunch of others in a harbor. We had to take shifts at night because it was an old boat and did weird things. I was on shift in the little steering cabin when I heard someone running around the deck. I thought it was one of the other crew so I poked my head out and told them to knock it off. They kept running and I was afraid they&rsquo;d slip so I followed them.  We went around the whole ship twice before I caught up with a shapeless shadow which stopped and flew directly up into the air. Convinced it was a prank I walked back to the end of the boat when I saw we had drifted on anchor and were almost under the bow of a much larger ship. I called the rest of the crew and we sorted it out. But I might not have noticed until too late if it weren&rsquo;t for the weird shadow. 5.) Not all hallucinations are fun hallucinations.From hoppappa: My Dad&#39;s done some trips into the Atlantic single handed, he&#39;s reported many hallucinations. Mostly auditory, like hearing people call his name etc. But more scarily once he thought he saw a container ship about to run him down. You can&#39;t really sleep properly for the first few days because of all the coastal fishing boats, so it was probably just down to sleep deprivation. 6.) Seriously, how are whales real?!From DetectiveTank: Have you ever seen ~30-40 (as best as I could determine) Humpback whales feeding together? I know this isn&#39;t supernatural but one whale is so seldom seen by people, let alone 30 scooping up krill at the same time. I&#39;ll never forget that. 7.) Fog is no joke.From vikrambedi: Fog. I don&#39;t care what anyone says, there is something IN that fog. A dead calm with thick fog is creepy and will drive you to wild hallucinations. I imagine it&#39;s not dissimilar to a sensory deprivation chamber. 8.) When one minute is way too long.From SicarioCercops: The closest to supernatural or at least something I can&#39;t explain, happend half way between Cornwall and the Scillies. We were sailing in a fresh breeze, 5-6 ft. swells maybe. That&#39;s perfectly fine sailing weather but the boat will rock and there will be quite a bit of noise from the wind, the sails and waves. So we sail happy along when suddenly the sea is perfectly flat and every thing is quiet, like somebody turned the sound off. I look around and the water is pitch dark. It only lasted for a minute and then everything was back to normal but I got a really eerie feeling. 9.) &quot;It was impossible to tell where the water ended and the sky began.&quot;From rosso222: I was standing in the hangar bay waiting for morning muster at dawn somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Looking out at the ocean, I was intrigued by how smooth as glass the water was reflecting the clouds in the sky. Then the most beautiful, confusing, mesmerizing, and terrifying thing I ever saw happened. The water, for a moment, was so smooth that the horizon disappeared from view. The water was so smooth and reflective that it was impossible to tell where the water ended and the sky began.  I honestly got dizzy knowing I was in the middle of the ocean floating on water, but my eyes were trying to convince me the ship was floating on nothing. Then the water started slightly rippling and the horizon was visible again. Every morning at sea after that I looked at the horizon hoping it would happen again, but it never did. I&#39;ve never found out what caused this scientifically. The closest thing I could ever find was it was some sort of variant of the fata morgana mirage. 10.) Hips don&#39;t lie. But ears do!From FishGutsCake: Lots of auditory hallucinations. You&rsquo;re All alone in the middle of the ocean, and you hear your name being called all the time. Or you&rsquo;re down below, and hear someone running on the deck. 11.) And eyes lie, too.From wolf-bot: I was a sailor in the navy. While I was on lookout duty on the bridge at night, a dude walked and stood beside me, breathing hard. I was looking out at sea and I was blocking the stairs going down, so I turned around to whisper &ldquo;sorry&rdquo;, and what do you know, there&rsquo;s no one. I was tired so I chalked this up to hallucination, but it felt real. 12.) &quot;We both saw a black figure/shadow pass in front of the camera in the children&#39;s play area.&quot; SHUDDER.From MarineSecurity: I work security on different ships: one time during night shift on a cruise ship, my colleague and I were in the security office watching the CCTV cameras and just talking shit to pass the time. At the exact same time we both saw a black figure/shadow pass in front of the camera in the children&#39;s play area. We both got super freaked out but kept watching the other cameras in the vicinity to see if whatever it was passed by those, as it was the only way it could go from where we saw it and there was no way it could leave the area without passing by in front of one of the cameras.  It never did, so we went to the area to check it out but obviously found nothing. Afterwards we went back to review the footage and didn&#39;t see any shadow moving in that camera again. Even though we both saw it the first time in the live feed. Needless to say we kinda started avoiding the kids area at night after that. A lot of death happens out at sea. 13.) &quot;Sleep deprivation is a hell of a thing.&quot;From RedFox3001: On a yacht delivery from France to Greece, after a couple of nights of no sleep, on the third night we were in the Bonifacio straights. All around in the sea I could see drowning people. Waving and shouting for help. We moored up the following morning. Sleep deprivation is a hell of a thing 14.) UFO sighting #1.From chickencatqueen14: I was in the USN 2010-2014 and deployed twice. There was a span of time were we were just sailing around in open waters not near any land what so ever. I was one of the topside watch standers meaning that I was responsible for reporting any other sea or air activity (ie other boats or airplanes). The area we were in was so incredibly remote that there was almost no activity anywhere, didn&rsquo;t see a single boat or plane for days.  One night I was standing the midnight to 4am watch and had just switched to the forward lookout. So I&rsquo;m standing at the bridge of the ship on the outer deck looking forward. It must have been about 3:45 am because my relief just came up to let me know he would take over from here. We talked for a few minutes when all of a sudden I got a call from the bridge. The officer on duty was asking me what &lsquo;that&rsquo; was. Me and my watch relief look forward and there is this giant light coming out of the ocean.  This thing was huge probably the size of two mobile homes put side by side. It comes up from the ocean and then passes overhead maybe 70feet from the top of the ship and there was absolutely NO sound. Everyone started freaking out. And the craziest thing is that none of our radars picked up any activity what so ever. We all were just in awe. And no one had any explanation, but we all agreed that we witnessed a UFO. 15.) UFO sighting #2.From ImmaculateJones: I was in the US Navy and worked in communications. We stood 12 hour watches from 7pm - 7am. Around 2am I hear some chatter over our internal speaker system. It&rsquo;s the bridge asking combat if they see anything on surface or air radar, maybe 10 miles out to our west.  One of my buddies points me over to the port side and we walk over. There&rsquo;s about five or six circular shaped lights about 10-15 miles out in the clouds, pretty large. They aren&rsquo;t moving or flying around but just looking stable. These lights are also casting lights downward on the ocean, and you can see the light refracting back at the water, almost as if it were a spotlight or a beam. From what we could see, it didn&rsquo;t appear to be lights shining up from the water because they wouldn&rsquo;t pass through the clouds. The clouds also weren&rsquo;t super thick, it was lightly overcast, and it was the middle of the night with no other light pollution on the water.  There was nothing in message traffic about any ships, subs, or aircraft in the area. We were hundreds of miles from land and the last report of any unusual weather patterns was a water spout a few hundred miles away. We tried to take pictures with our onboard digital camera, using a long exposure, but we couldn&rsquo;t capture the phenomenon. After about 90 minutes the lights slowly faded, one by one, and within fifteen minutes they had completely disappeared. I&rsquo;m sure there&rsquo;s some sort of weather or atmospheric condition for what we saw, but for all intents and purposes, it fit the description of a UFO. Unidentified Flying Object. 

The ocean is a vast, creepy, and mysterious place that seems to defy the laws of science and logic (how else can you explain animals the size of literal houses that just swim around singing to each other?!). Most of us only experience the...