Back in the early 1990s, my uncle worked onboard a commercial fishing vessel out of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It was a 95-foot trawler, operated by a seven-man crew, and would take regular runs anywhere between a few days to a week out at sea. It was a dangerous job. The North Atlantic was a cold, cruel place. When you’re a hundred miles from shore in the middle of a storm, with waves battering the rusted hull of your boat–your only protection from the fury of the sea–you really feel true isolation and terror.
For those who aren’t familiar, trawling is fishing method which involves casting a net into the ocean and dragging it steadily through the water, picking up anything that gets caught. The net would then be pulled out of the water and the crew would sort out which fish to take to market and which to throw back. Bycatch was very common. Oftentimes, other animals would inadvertently get caught in the net, such as dolphins, sea birds, small sharks, seals, and sea turtles. Those would be released back into the sea, but not without almost certainly being injured or killed by the net. It pained my uncle to see these creatures like this, but he was young and had to put food on the table for his new family.
However, the ocean does not make it easy to do this kind of work. Commercial fishing was a risky endeavor. It wasn’t uncommon for entire crews to die out there. That was a possibility that weighed on my uncle’s mind every time a storm was brewing while he was at sea. One such trip finally made him quit, and to this day, the memory of his former friend and crew member still haunts him.
It was supposed to be a short three-day trip to bottom-trawl for halibut. Being the dead of winter, the crew did not want to be exposed to the unpredictable weather for too long. The quote often goes “If you don’t like the weather in–insert place—just wait five minutes and it will change.” Everyone says this about their region, but the quote was first penned by Mark Twain, specifically about New England. The trip started on a brisk but sunny morning, but as the day went on, dark storm clouds gathered and stayed in the region for the entire duration. Out there, scattered showers pelted the crew and towering waves rammed and tossed their boat. The cold and the wet chilled their fingers to the bone, making a difficult job even harder.
Then they began to notice barnacles spreading across the hull, starting at the bow. They were few at first, staying well below the water line. But as the day progressed, more and more appeared, growing unusually fast. Their captain, Mateo, was puzzled, for the crew had recently removed all of the barnacles before heading out. How could they return so quickly? But since that was an issue that was much lower on their list of priorities, they chose to ignore it for the time being.
That first night, while my uncle was enjoying his four hours of sleep, he had an unusual dream, one where he was standing at the bottom of the ocean, looking up at the surface far above him. Though he was underwater, he was breathing perfectly fine. The light above was a pale pink-purple hue, shifting and pulsing with the flow of the water. All around, the carcasses of fish, squid, whales, and other sea creatures rained down in slow motion, leaving trails of bubbles in their wake. Then, the sea grew darker, enveloping him in a shroud of complete blackness. With it, came a long, deep rumble in the distance, which caused his entire body to vibrate. The light coming through from the surface faded, and right when the last inkling disappeared, he woke up.
In the morning, he casually mentioned his unusual dream to the others, thinking nothing of it. But when they heard his story, their faces went flush and they reluctantly admitted that they too had experienced similar dreams. Though not exactly like my uncle’s, they each saw their own version of it. Lancaster, the fisherman whom my uncle was closest friends with, said that in his dream, instead of standing on the ocean floor, he was hovering, with hundreds, even thousands of feet of water above and below him. He couldn’t even tell there was a floor to begin with. Then, as the darkness closed in around him, and the grinding, bellowing noise came, he looked down. Slowly, the ground opened up, a yellow glow emanating from the newly-formed fissure. As the fissure grew wider and wider, he suddenly realized what he was looking at was an enormous eye.
Despite this, Lancaster and the others, being the tough-as-nails blue collar men that they were, did not let their demeanors falter in front of each other. They brushed the dreams off and stayed focused on the work ahead. They still had several tons of fish to catch and a fat payout to chase. Lancaster however, was especially quiet after that.
That day, they were at the mercy of the waves, which came with more aggression than before. Some were nearly ten feet tall and hammered the deck, soaking the men in freezing cold water. The barnacles had grown even more, and by now, they were beginning increase drag on the vessel. It was when the crew approached the continental shelf that things would take a turn for the worse. Right before the drop off, the crew lowered the drag arms and tossed the trawl nets down, cruising at a steady 3 knots to drag the nets on the bottom of the ocean. All went well at first, until the starboard net had suddenly been caught. This was not usually a concern, but as hard as the crew tried, they could not pull it free. On the sonar, they saw a large, indistinct shape in the water, right behind their trawl. The outline of it was hazy; they couldn’t determine what exactly the shape was. At first, they thought it was a shoal of fish, but that didn’t explain what was keeping their net from moving. As they watched, the shape grew larger and larger. Mateo scoffed that the transducer must have been malfunctioning. They tried to reel the net in, hoping to cut their losses before it took too much damage, but the winch wouldn’t budge. Whatever was holding the net in place, it was too strong for the winch to pull.
By now, the engine was straining, and the stronger they pulled, the more the boat’s starboard side was pulled down, tipping it dangerously into the water. Black smoke billowed from the exhaust as the engine began to shut down. In all the chaos, my uncle looked over at Lancaster and noticed he had completely blanked out. At first, my uncle thought he was frozen in fear, but that didn’t make sense, because Lancaster had more experience than him, and was no stranger to high-intensity situations like this. He remembered how shocked Lancaster was in the morning, and realized something must have really gotten to him. But this was no time to ask.
My uncle grabbed him and had him assist in hand-pumping diesel fuel into the engine until they could get the air out of the line. If the engine failed, they would be stranded at sea. Whatever it was that had a hold of the trawl net, it was unfathomably strong. Then, after struggling for what felt like forever, the net finally came free and the men were able to reel it in. On the sonar, the shape quickly withdrew, as if it was just an anomaly on the screen. They managed to revive the engine, and sped away from the area, not wanting to stick around any longer.
The drag arms brought the nets up onto the deck, and the men quickly sorted through their fresh catch. Immediately, they realized among the creatures they had dragged up, was an enormous oarfish. An absolute monster from the Deep. It looked to be about 30 feet long. Though it was dead, the body was still fresh, meaning it couldn’t have died too long ago. One crewmember, Isaac, wondered if that was what caught the net, but the idea was quickly dismissed because there was simply no way an animal could have done that, and the thing detected by their sonar was much, much bigger.
Still, the men were puzzled by their very unusual find. Oarfish typically lived at depths of up to 1000 meters, and would only come to the surface if they were sick or dying. On rare instances, they were caught by fishermen, or their carcasses would wash ashore. Another crewmember, Ortega, warned that oarfish were bad omens, and that they should throw it back as quickly as possible. The others, including my uncle, objected the idea, and reassured Ortega that everything would be fine. They decided to keep the oarfish as a memento. After putting all of their catch on ice in the hold down below, they put the oarfish on a hook and hung the carcass with cordage from one of the drag arms.
Looping their course back to shore, my uncle realized that Lancaster had been silent the entire time, and when his eyes weren’t locked in a dead stare, he was constantly taking nervous glances at the oarfish. My uncle asked him what was wrong, but Lancaster didn’t know. He just felt that there was something off about the carcass. A looming sense of dread that he couldn’t explain.
“We really should have thrown it back,” he finally said.
That night, the two were working together, as the others slept. Lancaster had grown increasingly distant, barely responding to my uncle, and when he did, he merely gave quick one-word answers. Multiple times my uncle caught him leaned against the railing, staring off into the inky blackness of the ocean. In one final instance, his head stuck out so far that it looked like one bad wave could send him overboard.
My uncle had to stop him. He grabbed Lancaster by his shoulders and demanded, “What has gotten into you??”
Lancaster, unphased by the jolt he had received, asked in a calm monotone, “Do you see it?”
“See what?” my uncle replied. Lancaster’s behavior made him finally admit there was something deeply wrong with his friend. Maybe the sea was finally getting to him? Or was it something worse? He struggled to stop his mind from tumbling down the slope of possibilities he did not want to go.
Lancaster simply continued staring, his gaze as empty as the endless void below them, as if to say that his silence was the answer. My uncle felt a chill run down his spine. He let go, afraid and unsure of what to do. “Sit tight,” he said, shivering. The air was freezing cold as it had been the entire trip, but he did not feel it biting into him until this very moment. “I’ll get Mateo, ok?”
Lancaster didn’t respond. Instead, he turned back to face the sea again. My uncle rushed below deck to wake the captain, who was a bit grumpy at first for being interrupted from what little sleep he had, but obliged to go up and help.
Stepping out of the cabin, they stopped. Lancaster was gone. All that met them was the wet, limp body of the oarfish, swaying back and forth with the gentle rocking of the vessel. Its silvery scales reflected hauntingly in the pale yellow deck lights. Along its body was a massive gash, revealing its hollowed-out insides completely void of internal organs, like an empty discarded husk.
They woke the rest of the crew, and soon all six men were desperately searching for Lancaster. They searched the entire vessel and shined their lights into the water in case he had gone over board. Mateo swung the boat around, frantically scanning the water for any sign of him.
Taking a closer look at the oarfish, their stomachs dropped when they realized it didn’t look like something or someone had cut it open and gutted the carcass. It looked like something inside had torn its way out.
Not taking any more chances, the crew cut the oarfish loose and tossed it overboard to be reclaimed by the sea.
Following the disappearance of Lancaster, the Coast Guard led a massive search effort to find him. Sadly, they had to admit that, judging by the conditions of the sea at that time of year, he would have died very quickly from hypothermia shortly after entering the water. After that, scavenging marine life would have picked the body apart. Their only hope was to recover any human remains they could, any trace of him to bring back to his family. Sadly, nothing was ever found.
My uncle expressed his condolences to Lancaster’s family, and to this day, he deeply regrets leaving his friend all alone on that cold night.