Navy Personnel Share The Creepiest Things They've Seen On The Job
The sheer depth and vastness of the ocean make it a breathtakingly beautiful but also mysterious phenomenon. Perhaps more than most people - and certainly more than anyone with an office job - those lucky enough to work at sea for long periods of time encounter strange and unusual sights while on the job. Navy personnel, working on massive ships that can lead to additional strange encounters, seem particularly prone to seafaring weirdness. According to Reddit, they have some seriously creepy stories to tell.
This list compiles some of the strangest and weirdest stories from navy sailors who have traveled the world witnessing incredible sights and sounds.
They Found Human Remains In A Floating Refrigerator
From Redditor /u/bikish:
My brother is in the navy and was showing us a DVD of one of his tours. There was one shot where all you saw was a box floating on the sea. If you didn't know better you might think it was fallen cargo or something. My brother paused the DVD and told us what it actually was.
They got down into the water and found out it was an old fridge that was locked... [I]t had a very [expired] human body inside it. Worse than that, it had clearly been scratched from the inside. They were pretty far out from land at that point, so [they had] no idea how long the body had been floating around.
They Saw Three Motionless Men In A Boat
From Redditor /u/EdRooneyRulesOK:
My dad was in the merchant navy for several years in the '70s. He has a ton of stories, but he said the weirdest time was when his ship was traveling through the Bermuda Triangle, famed for strange or supposedly paranormal events occurring within it.
They were traveling at a low rate of knots through fog and suddenly came across a small boat with three... men in it. The men were all standing to attention and saluting but not responding to my dad and the crew when they began shouting to see if they were okay. Not once did they move or shout back.
My dad and the crew wanted to drop anchor and bring them in, thinking they were traumatized or at least spooked in some way. The captain didn't want to stop and told the engine room to carry on, which didn't go down well with his crew. Apparently, the captain had to leave the ship when it reached port as the crew were on the verge of a mutiny. It hadn't been the first time he made what everyone else thought to be a stupid or unexplainable decision.
They Saw The Ghost Of A Fallen Sailor
From Redditor /u/bennett93ish:
Not me... but a great-uncle... in the merchant navy in the '50s to the '60s.
He was in the engine room cleaning up, heard something from one of the pieces of machinery, turned around, and saw a guy he didn't recognize standing on top of it, waving.
He was new to the ship and didn't know everyone, but couldn't think how the guy got up there. Told the guy to get down, but [he] didn't, so my great-uncle [went] off to get his senior officer...
[He] told his boss, and they both went in to see the guy... Gone!
My great-uncle described the person he saw. The boss went white as my great uncle described the guy he never met before, who'd fallen and [perished] on the previous voyage.
TL;DR: great-uncle saw a ghost and told him to get lost.
They Saw Mysterious Lights
From Redditor /u/cacti147:
Being in the navy we stood a lot of watch. One night I'm on aft lookout and I see this light pattern... The left light goes out; a right light comes on. All the lights stay stationary...
We called it in [to] the bridge/CIC [command information center]. There was nothing on the radar. But I had a witness with me.
They Saw Hands Reaching Out Of The Water
From Redditor /u/Blue-eyed-lightning:
My great-grandpa was in the navy during WWII and he swore... that one time he looked out at the water and saw countless hands reaching up out of the water.
They Saw Water Glow In The Bermuda Triangle
From Redditor /u/tarzan322:
During my time in the navy, we once transited through the Bermuda Triangle at night. Being the navy, there was plenty of people playing on the whole errieness of our location as it was. But at one point I stepped outside to have a look.
It is typically quite dark on a navy ship in the middle of the ocean at night, so it was quite a shock to see the water actually glowing green where we were. It looked a lot like we were sailing through an ocean full of the chemicals you find in light sticks. It's pretty wild to see, especially in the triangle. I found out later that it was most likely bioluminescence from plankton in the water.