The Ocean Is A Ridiculously Scary Place, And These 27 Horrifying Stories That Confirm It
I probably don't have to remind most of you that the ocean, and other bodies of water, can be truly scary places — case in point, the recent catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible.
So, when I decided to go searching for creepy Wikipedia stories about the ocean and other watery places (as one does), to no one's surprise at all, I found some truly nightmare-worthy results. Check it out:
Note: graphic and potentially disturbing content ahead. Also, a reminder that Wikipedia may not always be factually correct, so take this info with a grain of salt.
1.The disappearance of passenger flight Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 somewhere over the Indian Ocean in 2014, which resulted in the loss of all 239 people on board.
On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to Beijing Capital International Airport with 239 people on board. The flight was lost on air traffic control radar but picked up by military radar, hundreds of miles off course from the planned flight path. The flight never arrived at its destination. Although various pieces of plane debris have been found in the years since, most of it is unconfirmed to have actually belonged to MH370.
2.The 1973 Mount Gambier cave diving accident in Australia, which killed four recreational scuba divers.
The four divers, two of whom were siblings, went exploring at a large sinkhole known as "The Shaft," the total length of which is still unknown. The divers apparently went beyond their planned limits and without the help of a guideline. As a result, they got lost and likely disoriented as their oxygen ran out. Two ended up in a dome area with no exit, one was seen swimming further down in the wrong direction, and the fourth was believed to have been lost beneath a cave ceiling. All four eventually ran out of air and subsequently drowned. It took a year for all of their bodies to be recovered.
3.The Disappearance of Amy Lynn Bradley while on a cruise in the Caribbean.
Bradley was on a cruise in the Caribbean with her family when she went missing on March 14, 1998. When Amy's father, Ron, got up early to check on his two kids, he saw that she was apparently asleep on a lounge chair on their cabin's balcony. However, less than an hour later, at 6:00 a.m. she was gone. After a brief search, her family reported her missing to the crew. However, the response was that it was "too early" to make a ship-wide announcement. The crew and staff did eventually search for Amy and then a four-day search by the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard was conducted, but she was never found. There have allegedly been a number of sightings over the years since.
4.The sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis that left crew members floating alone in the ocean...with sharks.
Apparently, the sinking of this ship resulted in the most shark attacks on humans in history. It was so bad that some survivors killed themselves or even other crew members in various states of delirium and hallucinations.
5.The wild 1961 story of Terry Jo Duperrault, aka the "Sea Orphan," who was rescued out at sea after floating without food, water, or shelter for three and a half days.
Terry Jo Duperrault was just 11 years old when she was found floating in the ocean on a small raft. It turned out that Terry had been on a boat just a few days before with her family and a man named Julian Harvey...who had, himself, been recently rescued out at sea.
The twist is that Harvey had actually tried to kill Terry and her family. He had been hired by Terry's family to captain a yacht for a once-in-a-lifetime around-the-world trip. But, instead, he murdered everyone on board and left Terry on the sinking yacht to drown before he escaped.
When Terry was found alive, Harvey (who did not expect her to survive his ploy), was notified. Just hours later, Harvey died by suicide.
6.The death of three crew members onboard the ship, The Ocean Challenger, which was featured in Season 3 of the show Deadliest Catch.
The ship was crewed with four men who abandoned ship after it capsized and took on water. Only one survivor made it out. Rescue missions also found two dead crewmen floating in the water and one empty survival suit.
7.The disappearance of Andrew McAuley, a kayaker whose distress calls were later found on a recovered memory stick.
McAuley was an Australian kayaker who attempted to cross the Tasman Sea in 2007. He slept in the kayak using a sea anchor and a capsule that enclosed him into the kayak's hatch. When his kayak was recovered, the capsule was missing. In the aftermath, footage was found on a memory stick in his camera and shows him making distress calls saying he was sinking and needed a rescue.
8.This entire article dedicated to the phrase "Man overboard!," which also includes some nightmarish statistics about how many people go overboard.
According to the section about "overboard statistics," since 2000, 284 people have gone overboard or fallen off of cruise ships, while 41 people have fallen off of ferries. And, apparently, "in any given month," roughly two people go overboard, while only 17 to 25 percent are rescued.
9.The Lake Bodom murders, one of the most infamous unsolved homicide cases in Finnish criminal history.
In June 1960, four teens decided to camp on the shore of Lake Bodom. Three of the teens were stabbed and bludgeoned to death. The only survivor, Nils Gustafsson, sustained a concussion and some facial fractures. He claimed to have only gotten a glimpse of the attacker. Gustafsson was later tried for their murders but acquitted.
10.The Disappearance of Rebecca Coriam who was a crewmember on the cruise ship Disney Wonder.
Coriam missed her shift one morning aboard the Disney cruise in 2011, and couldn't be found in her room or anywhere else on the ship. However, investigators did find CCTV footage of her (at 5:45 a.m.) having a phone conversation and appearing emotionally distraught. This was the last record of her presence aboard the ship and her body has not been found.
11.Roopkund or "Skeleton Lake" where you can see hundreds of human skeleton remains.
This shallow lake in India is famous for having hundreds of human skeletons at the edge, which you can see when the snow melts. According to researchers, the bones are the remains of people killed in a sudden and violent hailstorm in the 9th century.
12.The Diving bell spider — a species of spider that lives almost entirely underwater and is native to Europe and Asia.
Found in clean fresh water (like lakes, ponds, and more), this is the only known spider that spends almost all its life underwater. It only comes above the surface to briefly replenish its oxygen supply. Their bite is very painful and can cause vomiting and feverishness. Just one more reason to be afraid of water. 🙃
13.The case of Harold Holt, a former Australian prime minister who disappeared while swimming at Chevion beach in Australia.
Holt was still in office when he went missing in 1967, and the case spawned several conspiracy theories — including wild ones like that he'd been taken by a Chinese submarine. Although his body was never found, Holt was later presumed dead.
14.The Murder of Helle Crafts in 1986, a flight attendant whose chopped-up remains were found in a lake in Connecticut.
After Helle Crafts's disappearance, a snowplow driver reported seeing her husband using a woodchipper near the lake on the night Helle was last seen. In and near the lake, police found pieces of metal and human tissue including a tooth, a fingernail, bone chips, human hair, fingernails, and blood that all matched Helle. Police concluded her remains had gone through a woodchipper.
15.The Lady in the Lake trial about a woman whose body was discovered by amateur divers at the bottom of a lake.
Carol Park's body was discovered at the bottom of Coniston Water in North West England. She had been wrapped in a pinafore dress and plastic bags, and weighed down with lead piping. In a post-mortem, it was discovered that her face had been smashed and that the murder weapon was an ice axe. Her husband, Gordon Park, was eventually found guilty, but there was a ton of controversy surrounding the case.
16.The Salish Sea human foot discoveries.
Since August of 2007, there have been at least 20 DETACHED human feet discovered off the coasts of British Columbia in Canada and Washington state in the US. There are a ton of theories as to why JUST feet have been discovered — ranging from boating accidents, plane crashes, suicide, foul play, and even the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
17.The disappearance of Amelia Earhart over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
Earhart was an aviation pioneer who, at just 39 years old, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 while attempting to become the first woman to fly around the globe. Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were last seen taking off from New Guinea on July 2, 1937. And her last contact was a message to a Coast Guard boat saying, "We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet.” And, finally, an hour later, “We are running north and south.” A rescue attempt and search were made, scouring 250,000 square miles of ocean, but it was called off on July 19. Although there has been a lot of speculation over the years, no one actually knows what happened to Earhart and Noonan.
18.The Lake Nyos disaster that killed almost 2,000 people.
This 1986 eruption in northwestern Cameroon triggered the sudden release of about 100,000–300,000 tons of carbon dioxide. It's believed that most of the victims had been poisoned by a mixture of gases that included hydrogen and sulfur. Among eye and nose pain, victims also suffered asphyxiation similar to being strangled.
19.Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee, an unidentified young woman found murdered in Florida.
This Jane Doe was discovered partially submerged in Lake Panasoffkee in Florida. The victim was fully clothed, with a ring on her ring finger (suggesting she may have been married), and with a man's size 36 belt fastened around her neck.
20.The Lava Lake murders, one of the oldest unsolved murder cases on Oregon's history.
This was a triple murder that occurred at Little Lava Lake in Central Oregon's Deschutes National Forest almost 100 years ago, way back in 1924. Three friends had planned to spend the winter in a log cabin, working as fur trappers. After going missing, blood, human hair, and teeth were found leading to the lake where their bodies were eventually discovered as the frozen ice thawed.
21.The MV Joyita, a ship whose crew and passengers mysteriously disappeared.
This merchant vessel set sail in the South Pacific in 1955 with a crew of 25 but was found adrift five weeks later with no one on board and in bad condition. There are many theories about what happened, especially since the ship had been called "unsinkable."
22.The existence of bog bodies — i.e. human cadavers that have been naturally mummified in a peat bog.
The preservation of bodies in bogs is a natural phenomenon, i.e. not a result of humans purposefully doing it. The bogs' acids, with pH levels similar to vinegar, conserve human bodies in the same way as fruit is preserved by pickling.
23.The Abyssal zone, the part of the ocean that remains in perpetual darkness.
This layer of the ocean comes from the Greek word meaning "bottomless," and makes up over 83% of the ocean and covers 60% of the Earth. Since there's no light, there are no plants to produce oxygen which results in a death trap for organisms that can't quickly return to oxygen-enriched water above.
24.Oba Chandler — a murderer who threw his victims into the water while still alive.
Chandler murdered a woman, Jo Rogers, and her two teen daughters in Tampa Bay, Florida in 1989. The victims' bodies had water in their lungs, proving they'd been thrown into the water while still alive and were initially tied down with concrete blocks. However, because the bodies were bloated from decomposition, they floated to the surface where they were found. Chandler was executed on Nov. 15, 2011, at Florida State Prison in Raiford.
25.The story of Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli, who floated out over the ocean and disappeared from contact after being tied to 1,000 balloons.
Although the priest — who was making an attempt at "cluster ballooning" (a form of ballooning where people are literally harnessed to a cluster of helium-inflated rubber balloons) — had been equipped with all kinds of gear like a radio and a GPS tracking device, he was lost for months, and his corpse was eventually found in the ocean.
26.The Arctic lamprey and its PARTICULARLY terrifying mouth.
27.Finally, this very long List of Bermuda Triangle incidents.
There are at least 923 fatalities attributed to the Bermuda Triangle including many missing planes, incidents at sea (allegedly Christopher Columbus and his crew even saw strange lights there), and one incident on land where two lighthouse keepers went missing, never to be found.
