10 Eerie Stories from Sailors That Prove the Ocean Tests Even the Strongest

Seas and oceans are so vast that the human brain can hardly fathom the treasures and secrets they conceal. In the article below, 10 sailors share the most bizarre and supernatural experiences they've encountered, along with disturbing incidents they've faced in those depths. From strange sea creatures to eerie occurrences, their stories reveal a side of the ocean that few ever glimpse.

• I used to hear a woman whisper my name at night. I’ll never forget the chills I felt, and I couldn’t sleep at all for weeks. One morning, an elderly boater noticed my exhaustion and asked if I was alright.
  I didn’t explain, not wanting him to think I was crazy. But he said, “You know, if you hear her too, it’s okay. She won’t hurt you. She is nice. She watches out for us.”
  Later on, I talked to the other boaters who had parked in that marina for years, and they had heard her too. I finally saw her one night, and she was a Taino Indian. She was beautiful... and faded away as I gasped. © fireflyy_stx_ / Reddit

• During my time working on cruise ships, I lived on the 11th deck. One night, we unexpectedly slowed down and came to a halt, which was out of the ordinary. Intrigued, I stepped out onto the deck to see what was happening.
  A spotlight was shining on a small boat drifting in the dark waters. It was taking on water, and the passengers—crammed in tightly—were frantically trying to scoop it out with small buckets. To make matters worse, enormous hammerhead sharks were swimming around the boat. They were nearly as large as the vessel itself, and if I could spot them from that distance, they were truly colossal.
  Fortunately, the captain had a small speedboat, and one of the officers was able to reach the stranded passengers just in time to save them. If they had been left there any longer, it could have ended tragically. Seeing those sharks circling so close to the people in that tiny boat was the eeriest experience I’ve ever had.

• I was on a research vessel in the early '90s, about 200 miles off South Carolina. We could hold our position within a few dozen meters using a satellite system that predates GPS, so we stayed parked for days at a time. Sargasso seaweed would drift past us on its way to Europe.
  One time, the bridge called out that there was an oil slick. In actuality, it was a pod of killer whales that had been hunting and were now drifting past, about to pass half a mile (or so) off our port side. Before we reached the slick, two whales came over and patrolled our vessel from stem to stern, maybe 30 feet off the port rail, while the rest of the pod stayed with their kill.
  When the kill was even with us, two more whales joined the first two, taking two complete laps altogether. Then, the first two left to rejoin their 'lunch party,' while the new squad stayed with us. After a while, those two left, and we never saw any of them again. At no time did they go to the starboard side, and they never went far beyond the ends of our ship.
  It was an organized guard patrol, and their message was very clear: no one aboard denied that we had been warned off. We never did figure out what was on the menu for them that day, but whatever it was, it was large enough to form that huge oil slick. © somewhereAtC / Reddit

• Former navy here. Somewhere off the coast of Italy, we saw a very, very small boat, not much bigger than a rowboat, about 9 or 10 miles offshore. This was sometime around midnight. There was no light from land, and no other ships around.
  The boat had a light. Our ship captain said it was a fisherman, and the fish would be attracted to the light at that time. Imagine being in a rowboat about 10 miles offshore in the middle of a pitch black night, waiting to see what finds you. © fd1Jeff / Reddit

• We were in the ocean around an island when we spotted a man floating on a life ring in the middle of the water. He hailed us, asking to be brought aboard. Instead, our captain threw him a rope, saying, "We'll tow you over to the open water and THEN welcome you aboard." The man scowled and replied, "Never mind, then."
  So, folks, don’t stop around islands in pirated waters. © Ok_Yard_9815 / Reddit

• Submariner here. I was a sonar technician, and we were out on a mission with the towed sonar arrays deployed. We were deep when it picked up a couple of 'bios,' like shrimp and whales. It was quiet for about 20 minutes after we passed them.
  All of a sudden, we heard a screeching noise that sounded like metal on metal. We thought we had run into another submarine. The whole boat went to battle stations (i.e., each crew member went to their assigned position in case of an emergency), and we woke up our SME (Subject-Matter Expert) riders to determine what that sound was. It went on for about five minutes, just in and out. It sounded like a song on repeat.
  The whole thing was recorded, but the acting SME couldn’t determine what it was, nor could the sonar chief. A message was sent out when we went to periscope depth, and the recording was forwarded to our squadron and the Office of Naval Intelligence once we pulled in. I do not know what happened afterward.
  To this day, I still don't know what it was. Everyone was sure it was a bio—most likely an animal we had yet to discover. At the time of this occurrence, only military submarines were capable of going that deep, so we ruled out anything mechanical. © Due-Exercise2751 / Reddit

• I saw something that appeared very serpentine and enormous, undulating in the waves of our wake on a dark, cloudy night en route from Florida to NYC. It was glowing faintly green just beneath the surface and looked like a huge, fat snake swimming alongside us, with a body roughly 1.5 feet in diameter. It was mesmerizing, trying to rationalize what I was seeing. Later, I realized it was just a dolphin playing in our wake, its undulating body illuminated by bioluminescent plankton. © only_1_ / Reddit

• I was out on a ship in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by darkness. You could look in any direction (besides down) and see stars. It was so dark I couldn't see my hand an inch away from my face, yet I could see stars that seemed to hang just above the water on the horizon, like a dome. It made me feel very small and insignificant. © XN28thePOS / Reddit

• I was standing on the bridge, watching the Mediterranean Sea. It was 1996, and we were probably 50 miles north of Tunisia.
  At 2:00 a.m., something streaked down from the sky and exploded. It was absolute daylight for a few seconds—bright enough that we were seriously concerned a nuclear explosion had occurred. It was probably just a large meteorite or something similar exploding, but it was surely something to see. © capty26 / Reddit

• I was on a night dive at a site I was familiar with, and as is common practice, the captain had fixed a steady strobe light at the anchor line of the boat so we could find our way back. As I was getting ready to complete my dive and ascend, I wondered why the strobe was no longer blinking and was now just a steady beam.
  Looking at my compass, I was doubly confused by how I had gotten my navigation so wrong. I felt foolish—had I been cocky and overexcited because I was comfortable with this site? How could I have miscalculated my direction? It’s a dangerous mistake at any time for a diver, much more so at night.
  But as I was ascending, the brightness of the light really irked me. Why would the captain change the strobe on us? Was something wrong? Then it hit me. I wasn’t swimming toward the boat at all; I was swimming toward the moon.
  The water was so clear and calm that I had mistaken it for a light. Luckily, I hadn’t ascended fully and wasn’t too far off. I was able to redirect to my original navigation, eventually finding the strobe, the boat, and a renewed respect for the ocean’s ability to make you second-guess yourself. © NJshore_77 / Reddit

In this article, experienced sailors recounted their extraordinary experiences at sea, with some stories worthy of being turned into films.