18 People Who Work At Sea Share Their Creepiest Stories

Warning: This article contains mentions of suicide and death. Please proceed with caution.

"At night it's pitch black down there in bad weather — the sky and sea just form a huge black mass. The most terrifying thing is the sound of an invisible wave breaking behind you. At night, we run a red light to preserve night vision, so there's basically just an eerie red glow emanating from below deck.

At about 2 in the morning, I was at the helm when a monster wave broke directly over the back of us without a second's warning. Time slowed down like it does in those moments, and the last thing I saw was my own silhouette in the wall of water, lit up like an ominous red snow angel...and then nothing but cold blackness as the boat sunk into the sea.

Fortunately, she popped straight back up like a cork after a few eternal seconds, almost like a submarine surfacing, and we were still in one piece. Still cant forget that glowing red apparition of myself, though. The memory of it has woken me up in a cold sweat more than once."

—u/Le_Rat_Mort

—u/Bipdisqs

This sounds like an ocean fire, which — according to American Oceans — is "a rare phenomenon that occur when flammable gases seep out of the seafloor and ignite upon contact with oxygen in the water." In turn, the oceans surface is, in fact, on fire. Other causes include oil spills, lightning, and volcanic activity.

"I was convinced we were in the desert at one point with sand all around us and mountains in the distance. Another crew member freaked out and told us we were about to run into an apartment building. The creepiest thing I saw was an all-black flying pig with red eyes on the bow. I think the scariest, though, was when someone was convinced we lost part of our crew overboard. It turned into a massive, delirious argument over where everyone was even though we were all accounted for. That trip was brutal, and the captain put us all in a terrible situation due to sheer incompetence."

—u/MAGNAPlNNA

"I thought, 'Shit, I've been up waaay too long and I'm fucking hallucinating.' Then out of nowhere, this tree trunk shoot directly up into the sky from the water. This thing had to be 60ft tall and was about 30ft off the bow, dead center. I damn near shit myself. I pushed to port and rubbed the 'tree' with the right side of the ship. We were at a good 14knot clip, which is fast as hell for an almost fully loaded trawler. Then it shot down and disappeared about midship.

I later learned that these are pretty uncommon in the Aleutians, where we were fishing. They're called 'deadheads' and only two of the guys on the boat had seen them before. They float vertically, and bob straight up and down. These things were known to destroy older wood boats and kill crews. I'm just glad I wasn't dragging the net, as it would have cost us in the ballpark of $100k.

I've seen what most people would consider worse, but the fear that a huge bobbing tree in the middle of Alaskan waters come out of fucking nowhere tops my list."

—u/BMXellence

"I wish I had a more interesting conclusion than that. I actually don't even remember going back to my cabin that I shared with two others in the stew crew. The next morning I didn't talk about it, but then a few days later, I brought it up. No one thought much of it except one of the deckhands that had been working at sea for a long time. He said he had felt the same thing and seen the same thing several times, but only at night, and only when he was alone. I have no idea what to make of it, but I really feel in my heart it was not an animal."

—u/IcelandLady

Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.