The Creepiest Things People Have Witnessed While Working Out At Sea

Myths and legends abound involving the open waters of the Earth's oceans and seas. Monsters, mermaids, and ghost ships were commonplace during the age of travel by ships with sails.

Most of the legends and myths were debunked over time. Or the stories went from current events to distant past.

But does that mean life at sea is all smooth sailing and calm water now?

Reddit user Ready_Smell_3032 asked:

"People who have worked out at sea, what’s the creepiest thing thats happened?"

Going Rogue

"Rogue waves freak me out quite a bit—never got to see them because I worked down in engineering."

"But I remember we got slapped by one beam-to at like 3am and it almost threw me out of my rack, knocked a bunch of sh*t that wasn't strapped down onto the deck, almost broke our TV, and then it went right back to being pretty calm out."

"Everyone in my room woke up, nobody got hurt, but we alljuast stared at each other like, 'WTF‽‽ Did that just happen?'."

~ LemonScentedDespair

Pirates of the Arabian

"Was traveling through Bab al-Mandab Strait [between Yemen on the Arab Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden]. The sun had set about an hour before when all of a sudden, we picked up 4 speedboats pacing us on radar with no running lights, and there was no moon, so it was dark."

"We top out at 20 knots. They sped to us at around 35-45 and came within 6 nautical miles before leaving us be. The atmosphere on board completely changed."

"The old man got called to the bridge and we were getting ready to call it in when they turned away and let us be. I was aboard the Maersk Carolina which is a sister ship to the Maersk Alabama [of the film Captain Phillips fame] and on the same route where they got taken a year later."

"We had no armed security on board. This was in summer of 08. No American ship had been hit up to that point, but Somali pirates were taking other ships for ransom."

~ An0pe

"I was sailing counter piracy ops in the Gulf of Aden with the [Royal Canadian Navy] in ‘08. We responded to several distress calls, even scared off some pirates with our Sea King helicopter."

"I remember heading to the straits of Bab al-Mandab as we were going off station, with an informal convoy of merchant ships all around us, this giant LNG carrier ship followed us all the way to the Suez Canal."

"That was a crazy time."

~ Sir_Lemming

Unhappy Day

"My Dad and I were fishing and thought we saw a sea turtle with its head sticking out of the water. My Dad told me to get our camera out (back in the 90’s) and I was ready to take the shot."

"As we got in range we realized it was a body floating belly up with the arms straight up in the air."

"Turned out the poor guy was fishing a few days before with friends, when a storm blew in and capsized his boat in the Long Island Sound—anchor off the back next to the engine with waves hitting the front flipped it."

"He didn’t get his life jacket on in time. His three friends made it to shore, he did not."

"We drove back to the marina (radio wasn’t working that day) and reported it. A few other boats had also reported it, and they were in the process of recovering the body."

~ jpetros1

Storm At Sea

"Not a worker, but when I was younger my family took a trip to the Florida gulf. A couple cousins and I went deep sea fishing about 20/30 miles off the coast."

"I got horrendously seasick and was bench ridden the whole time and was taking a nap. When I finally woke up, a storm had started to roll in."

"I remember looking out at the back of the boat and seeing the sky turning an ominous dark grey and the water just turned BLACK. The waves were starting to get pretty intense and the captain was all 'alright we really need to get back before this gets to a point where we can’t'."

"I never liked open water and that experience, seeing the sky and the water turn dark, just made it all the worse."

~ supr-fut

Vicious Cycle

"Working on boats, I've seen more people drown than I would consider reasonable. It's always the same cycle."

"People get overconfident and don't bother wearing protection (PPE), then one day someone slips and falls to the water, their survival 100% depends on the weather."

"Port reacts like a beehive. Suddenly, everyone is hyper-aware of PPE."

"But one month later, everyone has forgotten, and no one wants to bother with the tedious process of properly fitting a life jacket... until someone falls again, and we repeat the loop."

~ fity0208

The Almighty Dollar

"I spent a summer on a fish processing vessel about 2/3 of the way out on the Aleutian island chain in Alaska. Most of the way to Russia."

"We were buying fish from a large tender, and some of the older hands on my processor boat were grumbling. I asked why and they told me a story."

"Turns out the year before, there had been a fire on the boat I was serving on, and this fire occurred while they were tied up to the same tender we were buying fish from right then."

"When the guys on the tender saw smoke coming up from our boat, they took axes and cut the lines instead of getting our guys onto their boat."

"A fire at sea is one of the worst things imaginable."

"Those pricks cut our boat loose without rescuing any of our crew. A year later, my bosses were still doing business with them. If I was in charge, I would’ve told them to go screw themselves."

"Nobody on my processor boat got hurt, but it could’ve gone the other way very easily. And the guys on the tender would’ve just watched it happen as they sailed away."

"Oh, they probably would’ve called it in to the Coast Guard, but otherwise: see ya! best of luck!"

"It speaks to the intense greed of the commercial fishing industry."

~ palbuddymac

On Ice

"Not necessarily at sea, but I worked on a research ship in the Arctic. We were slowly pushing our way through an ice fog and a friend and I were on deck having a smoke, just watching the ice slowly float by, when a large seal laying on the ice came into view."

"It was obviously dead, as the skin had fallen away from its ribs, but otherwise it was perfectly preserved. Just as the seal started to disappear back into the fog, a polar bear appeared out of the same fog, crouched down on the ice as though it was stalking the seal."

"It was also dead, the fur on its extended front leg had fallen away, exposing the bone, otherwise it was also perfectly preserved. Almost in unison, my friend and I look at each other and said 'WTF‽‽'. It's like they were flash frozen."

~ Luking2thestars

Ghost Ship

"Not out at sea, but I remember a 'ghost ship' being found when I lived in Marathon in the Florida Keys in the 70's—I was 7 years old at the time. It was actually dragged in to the Coast Guard base which was about 2 blocks from where I lived."

"It was completely covered in barnacles and seaweed, the kind like shag carpet that grew on piers and columns. It was creepy as hell to see—just a green slime-covered mass in the shape of a yacht or trawler."

"The story that came out the next few days was wild. Apparently it was found wedged in a mangrove island after a terrible storm, where boaters swore it wasnt there the day before. When the registration numbers were located, it was determined that it was a yacht that had been declared lost 2 years before with a crew of 4."

"Bones were found in the hold, but I can't recall if it was whole skeletons or whatnot."

"The thing that stuck out to me was it was declared by the Coast Guard that based on the condition of the seaweed, barnacles, and overall structure, that the boat HAD to have been underwater for the majority of the 2 years."

"How does a huge yacht go missing, apparently underwater, and then ends up in a mangrove island in 7 feet of crystal clear water having not been seen anywhere in the vicinity, seemingly overnight?"

"Where had it been for 2 years? If it was under water, how did it end up in shallow water overnight?The water surrounding Marathon was shallow, absolutely clear, and would show a dingy if it was underwater, forget a yacht."

"Still sticks with me."

~ Ok_Recognition_8839

Ornithological Research? Spy Outpost?

"The only time I was ever on a ship was actually a cargo ship and it was for a program for my business class. Basically you got to shadow several people and see a product's full journey."

"Like I started at a farm, went to a trucking depot, then a dry goods warehouse, then a cargo yard, then finally a cargo ship to China—can't get off the ship when it gets there, so that was the end—then catch a ride back on another cargo ship. Trip was very informative."

"The creepy thing though was it's 6am and the ship blares it's horn. We are out somewhere in the Pacific and then the ship slows down over the next 20 minutes."

"I made my way up to the guy that was running the program, and he's talking to the captain, and the captain is clearly pretty freaked out. This is the absolute middle of nowhere, and there's a tiny coral island with no trees or vegetation, just a load of birds... and a cargo container next to a tent."

"The ship is hardly moving at this point, and the captain calls out over a megaphone to see if anyone is there. After a minute, a guy who's clean shaven, but wearing clothes worn to rags sporting a deep, deep tan wobbles out of the cargo container."

"Captain yells out, asking if the guy needs help. He says something, but they can't hear it. So a guy volunteered to go out to him on an inflatable boat."

"He climbs down the rope, gets on the boat, meanwhile the guy is just sitting on a bucket next to his tent. The crew member goes all the way over within 20 feet of the guy."

"They talk for a few minutes and he comes back. Climbs the ladder, and goes to the captain. Captain asks what the guy said.

Crew member goes, 'he said he's good'."

"Guy gave no info, no plans, had no food but dried fish and some water distilling thing, is out 100s of miles from another living person, has no boat, and says 'I'm good'."

~ joebluebob

"He was good, but now there's a 250% tariff on his island."

~ raubesonia

Nature's Might

"Down in the Caribbean, there was a 90-foot commercial fishing vessel sitting on top of a 100-foot cliff where it had been tossed like a tubby toy during a hurricane."

"Hurricanes don’t f*ck around."

~ TwinFrogs

"I may live where the wind hurts my face in the winter, but I'll take that all day long over having to live through a hurricane."

"Nooooo thank you."

~ CLOWNXXCUDDLES

Jellies Don't Swim

"On a drill ship off the coast of Nigeria. One evening the entire surface of the ocean was covered with jellyfish as far as the eye could see—you literally couldn’t see anything but jellyfish."

"Then an hour or so later, they were all gone."

~ SuperShoebillStork

"I’ve seen this sailing before. It was so bizarre. It looked like the water was PURPLE."

~ Random-Mutant

Cast Adrift

"So it's actually pretty common, but you'll see 'ghost vessels' that are undamaged in open water. They have no souls on board, but they're in the middle, and I mean MIDDLE, of the sea."

"The reason for these tend to be pretty dull. They are normally people's private boats that had bad weather while no one was onboard, snapped their lines, and just drifted out to sea."

"Still is creepy when one goes past in the middle of the night hundreds of miles from land, though."

~ No-Link6286

Calling All Hands

"Prior Navy here, saw a few intense things during that time, but this was afterwards doing a security job. Navy stuff is mostly just injuries and stuff like that."

"I'll start by saying I'm not a superstitious person, not religious, don't believe aliens are here on Earth or anything like that. I'm a game designer and engineering masters degree student. I believe in what can be proven through science... but maybe believe science hasn't explained everything yet. Empirically, it hasn't explained everything yet. But I have no worldly explanation for this story."

"The post was basically a fire watch; stay up all night, do rounds to make sure the ship doesn't sink or catch fire. Ship was in port for a major overhaul. They had completely ripped out the wiring and the old 'all hands' P.A. system for modernization."

"The old one was your typical megaphone-looking loudspeakers mounted to bulkheads throughout the ship. The loudspeakers themselves were still attached to the walls, but the wiring was literally cut and the system itself was completely gone."

"Around 3am one night, I heard the all-hands whistle (imagine your typical boatswain whistle) and then some mumbling like someone was trying to talk through the speakers. I was a little confused because I could clearly see the cut wires, and I knew I was alone on the ship. But I chalked it up to possible interference in the magnetic speakers picking up radio waves or something like that."

"On my next rounds, I discovered a shipyard worker had left a soldering iron on, and it had practically melted a hole in the deck; not a fire, but a bright red spot and some smoking. I called it in and it was handled by the shipyard damage control people."

"In the morning, when the crew arrived, I was discussing it with a member of the crew assigned to be the OOD for the day. When he asked if anything else had happened overnight, I casually brought up the weird experience with the loudspeaker incident as a joke."

"He responded completely deadpan that it was the former XO of the ship who apparently dropped dead at the intercom station. He said they'd experienced it a few times before, and it always preceded some kind of incident that could have gotten a crew member injured or endangered the ship."

"I wasn't sure if he was messing with me or if this was just typical sailor superstition that I've experienced before. So I was just polite about it and acted surprised/impressed."

"Fast forward a few shifts later, and I get the whistle and weird crackling again. So, out of pure paranoia, I decide to start my next rounds early. Sure enough, the seawater coolant system in the engine room is leaking into the compartment. Not a large leak, but if left unchecked, who knows what damage could have been done."

"About a year later, I ran into that same officer, and he told me the captain had requested the old loudspeakers be left up even though they were disconnected. He said he'd left the crew shortly after those incidents, so he wasn't aware of any new cases."

"I've never had anything like this happen before or since, but I still think about it all the time. I keep telling myself there's a logical explanation and it's just a weird coincidence... but I can't shake the eerie feeling from it all."

~ Getto_Gaming

Lost In Space

"Maybe it's just me, but on still, clear nights, the stars are above you in the sky, then they are reflected beneath you in the water, and you lose the horizon and you are floating in space."

"You can lose yourself in that place."

~ Bright-Arm-7674

Do you have any experience on the open ocean? Did anything strange or creepy happen?