It’s been 2 months, since our last discovery. I don’t think I ever want to go back down that trench. Not even for a billion dollars. I could even get in trouble for this, since our government decided no one is to know about the existence of these things. Sure, people claimed to have recorded them, even got a supposed ‘authentic’ piece of evidence of their existence. But at the same time, you can’t say for sure that the evidence is actually real, or could be well-designed in a way that it looks authentic. But I’ll be putting my life on the line anyway, if it kills me.
Before I explain my findings, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Seth Miller, and I’m formerly a marine biologist. I worked for a government-funded organization, dedicated to finding undiscovered marine life. During my time researching underwater, I came across endangered species of marine mammals, such as the Sei Whale, the Hawaiian Monk Seal, and the Australian Sea Lion. On occasion, I encountered a few rare species of fish. I used to enjoy my job, researching our world’s vast oceans, hoping for undiscovered species to be found. Emphasis on ‘used to’ as it was something I once loved doing, but now such a thing frightens me, and I’ll tell you why.
It all started with the decision of our organization to investigate the Mariana Trench. After the agreement was made to go there, my team and I were tasked with going to the trench, and diving down to search for marine life. This was a task I should’ve declined, and I never would’ve had the displeasure to encounter those things in the trench. But before my encounter, we took a huge ship that carried a small submarine which can carry only 3 people. Out of the ten people on our team, I was given the task to man the submarine’s navigation controls. With me were two of my former colleagues, Yuki and Samuel.
Samuel was from the United Kingdom, who was a technician that once served in the military, before being honorably discharged from service, and moving to the United States. Yuki is a full-time student from Japan, who was transferred to the U.S after receiving her Associate Degree in Marine Biology, and is now pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree. Because of this, she was transferred to America, and was given the opportunity to join us in our search for undiscovered marine animals. I felt bad for her, knowing she was traumatized as much as I was.
Then there’s also Eric, Sherry, and Daniel, who were tasked to dive down there along with 2 others. I didn’t know the names of the two divers, since I haven’t got to meet with them face to face. I did get to meet the last two: Yuri, who moved from Russia a few years ago and was our submarine and ship technician, and Aleksei who was a full-time student from Finland, also majoring in Marine Biology. Both of these two were tasked to stay on board the ship, so they were the lucky ones. I’m not surprised to see Samuel, Yuki, and myself being the only ones who made it back alive. I hope God rest the souls of those divers, since that horrifying encounter. Once the ship was above the trench, we got into the submarine to prepare for the expedition.
“Submarine is fully operational and the power is at maximum fuel. All systems, go.” Samuel said.
I was delighted to hear this, as I got the navigation system ready. Eric was the head of our team, and he and his divers were tasked by our organization to lead them, and they all got prepared to dive into the trench. They all had black diving suits with mounted underwater headlights, and were given underwater GoPro cameras. Perhaps they would’ve made it back if they also had weapons of some kind, to defend against any marine life that would threaten them. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I tend to think it was just a suicide mission because of that.
“As you all know, our task is simple: We search for undiscovered species of marine life. Keep in mind, our suits have 4 hours of oxygen in them, and our 3-man submarine has 6 hours of battery life, and our search will be no more than 2 hours down there. Understand?” Eric spoke, and everyone agreed.
“Are we going to the bottom of the trench in search for marine life?” I asked, thinking about what will happen if they were tasked to do just that.
“No!” Eric said. That brought delight to my ears, since going to the bottom of the trench wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. However, I wasn’t so lucky as I had hoped, and it should’ve been obvious to me.
“That’s why we have you guys! Our divers and I won’t be at the bottom of the trench, so that’s where you and your submarine comes in. Your submarine is capable of handling the pressure down there. It was designed to protect you, so you’ll be safe when you enter there.” he further explained. I admit, I wasn’t pleased to hear that, and I wish I didn’t force myself to agree to that task.
“Let’s go!” Eric said, and we began our descent into the trench. Once we got our submarine ready, it was hooked up to a reel which was capable of lifting our submarine up and slowly moving us over the water, and lowering us into the ocean. Damn, I just wished they had a better means for us to get into the water than to be lifted up and lowered down at a slow pace. Too bad we didn’t have one of those ships with a moon pool. I would think that the funding for our organization would afford that, but sadly the funding wasn’t as great as I expected, so there wasn’t enough money to afford such a thing. Because of the slow pace and how heavy our submarine was, we turned off the submarine just to not waste any power. It took almost five minutes for the submarine to touch seawater, but we eventually got into the ocean.
We re-activated the submarine and went down to the bottom of the trench. From my point of view, I would assume this would take 3-4 hours to reach the bottom, longer than what was expected of our task. But to my surprise, this thing was fast as fuck. It took us a little less than an hour to reach the bottom, more so about 50 minutes. But before we went to the bottom, our lights went on and our mounted underwater camera was activated to record the events.
The one thing that crossed my mind was, where the fuck are the divers? “Where is everybody?” Yuki asked, and I had the same question in mind. “Maybe they went further down. They couldn’t have gotten far.” Samuel said. Yuki configurated the lights to become brighter, and I descended the submarine to go further down. However, after four minutes of our descent, there was still no one in sight. Even with the lights on and more powerful, we couldn’t see any divers in the distance. I began to worry that something happened to them while we were still above the ocean. “Damn, where the fuck are they?” Samuel asked, looking all over the place. The submarine we piloted, had a clear glass-like structure in the front, which allows the three of us to see all around. Despite this, there was still no diver to be seen.
“Seth. Yuki. Samuel. Are you there?” I heard Aleksei call on the communications system. “Yes. We’re fine, but it seems our divers are nowhere to be found.” I explained. “Then keep looking, they may have dived down while you 3 were being reeled over.” he said. “Affirmative.” I said, before cutting communication.
“I hope they didn’t go down too far. The pressure’s starting to get high.” I said. Once again, we went further and further down into the trench. After what felt like a few minutes, I slowed the submarine to get another look around. Still, there was no diver to be found. I looked to see Yuki, who seemed visibly worried that the divers had gone missing. When I turned to look atSamuel, I saw that his attention was diverted elsewhere, looking to his right.
“Samuel.” I called to him. There was no response. Whatever caught his attention, had him fixated and unable to respond to my call.
“Samuel!” this time I yelled, trying to get his attention. That also failed to work.
That’s when Yuki decided to get his attention by placing her palm on his shoulder. Once she did that, I noticed Samuel immediately jump in fright, screaming while facing us. Yuki had her mouth covered. I on the other hand, burst out in laughter at the ordeal.
“Shut the fuck up, mate!” Samuel said to me.
“I was calling you, man! Why weren’t you responding!?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. I thought I saw someone, or something in the trench.” he said. I was excited to hear his words, thinking he might have seen one of the divers. “That’s good! That means they’re actually here with us, so we can continue!” I said, ecstatically. Samuel on the other hand, had a worried expression. “Do you recall our divers having spears?” he asked. That was a strange question. If I recalled correctly, none of our divers were allowed weapons. So, why the hell would they be holding spears?
“What do you mean, spears? When did they get weapons?” I asked.
“While we were going down, I caught a glimpse of someone, or something, watching us. It looked like a diver, until I got to focus on it. It didn’t look right. It was holding what looked like a white, bony spear and it had a pinkish-color to its body. But if I remember, our divers are all wearing black suits.” he said.
“What? A mermaid?” I asked. This was meant to be a joke, of course.
“I don’t know. When I tried to look at the thing carefully, it looked like it had a huge fin beneath it. Once I tried to get a good look at its face, it swam away at quick speed.” Samuel said. “Seriously bro, shut the fuck up. I think you’re just fucking with us right now, or you took something before being in the sub with us.” I said, trying to process this as a joke, even though my gut instinct kept telling me he was speaking the truth. “Go fuck yourself, mate. I ain’t on drugs and I’m hard-headed as an ox. I know what I saw, and that thing didn’t look like a diver.” he said. Yuki, look frightened. “Please, stop fighting.” she said. After that, I tried to calm myself down. “My apologies for not taking this shit serious. I’m just not in the mood for jokes right now, alright? Our divers are gone.” I said to him. “It’s no joke, bloke. I saw that thing, and I’m telling you exactly what it looked like.” he told me. I didn’t want to say anything to him after that, in order to not start another argument over this.
Eventually, after what felt like 50 minutes traveling, we reached the bottom of the trench. Luckily, our submarine had a hydrophone mounted on it, so we would be able to pick up sounds at the bottom of the trench. During our time there, I was hoping we could get the sound that was called the ‘Western Pacific Bio-twang’ which to this day, is not identified of its source or origin. If we can hear it again, we would be able to track the sound to its origins. Upon observing the bottom of the ocean, we came across some debris of plastic and other man-made junk left to be thrown away.
Fucking people. The last thing I want is this trench being used as another dumping ground. Other than debris of man-made waste, I did see some species of fish, fish you most likely won’t find anywhere above the trench. Some of these fish, looked strange and terrifying, but at the same time, mesmerizing. One of them seemed to glow a beautiful, blue bio-luminescent color. It resembled a squid, yet slightly bigger than what we’d normally see above the trench. I’m amazed how such creatures could even exist. “I think I found an undiscovered species of marine life.” I thought to myself, just looking at the thing.
My mesmerized sensation turned into a sensation of pure terror, when I heard it.
It sounded like a strange screeching sound, which caught my attention. We tried to pinpoint where the sound came from, and to our shock, the sound was detected to come from what looked like some sort of underwater cavern at the bottom. I was surprised to find out our previous subs hadn’t caught this sound, nor had they caught a glimpse of what we saw that followed the sound. I decided to put my attention to the bio-luminescent creature once again. But to my dismay, it was gone, along with all the other fish we encountered. It’s as if whatever made that horrible sound, scared them off.
Then, I had this strange and grave feeling that something outside of the sub to my left, was watching me. In my peripherals, I noticed a face peering at me to the side of the submarine through the glass dome. I didn’t dare turn to face it, as I think this thing would try to get out of view if I did. When I focused more on my peripheral view of this thing looking at me, I began to breathe rapidly, out of fear and terror of what I’m looking at. This thing, didn’t look human. In fact, despite having a human-shaped head, it had what looked like two ape-like eyes as well as a face that appeared pinkish-brown and a mix between scaly and fleshy. I could see it blinking. That’s when I finally turned my face to look directly at the thing, and I got a good look at its face before it tried to swim away. As soon as it turned, I was able to see its huge fin for a split second before it was gone.
Then, I heard screaming. Yuki was in terror, pointing in the direction of another cavern. When she got the lights to face it, we were met with a horrifying sight. What Samuel described, matched everything we were looking at. This ‘thing’ resembled what I assumed to be a mermaid of some kind, but it was far from pleasant to look at. It certainly didn’t look like Ariel, or having the top part of a human body. No, this thing looked exactly like how you would expect sea creatures to look. Then, it turned its face and saw us looking at it. It opened its mouth, and we could hear it through the hydrophone, giving that same horrendous screech, before swimming quickly into the cavern.
“We need to get the fuck out of here!” Samuel asked.
I immediately agreed to this, as I got our submarine facing up and ready to leave at full speed. But as the submarine was faced up, we got another look at, these things. There were over 30 of them, and I noticed they were all swimming around in a circular pattern. One of them immediately charged at us, holding the tip of its spear, pointing at the sub’s dome. Once it hit, I caught a more clear view of its facial features. This thing was horrifying as fuck, and Yuki was screaming in terror. “Get us out, quick!” she yelled, and I continued getting the submarine out at full speed. I was lucky to see that the spear only left a slight scratch on the glass structure of the submarine. I guess this thing really was made to withstand the bottom of the trench let alone objects coming at it, and I was grateful of that. More and more spears kept hitting our submarine, and I could tell from the loud ‘tapping’ noises all around us.
Unfortunately, another sound was heard. Yuki screamed in terror, and I saw her looking up. It seemed that these creatures were now chasing after us, with one of them holding onto one part of the sub. So it was going to the surface with us. Upon ascending, I noticed a familiar sight. It was one of our divers, Sherry. She swam to the front of the submarine, before hitting against the front view. I started to think she had gone mad, as she was trying to get in by pounding on the glass structure, where the spear had struck. Upon looking at her, she looked like she was mauled by something. Blood was coming out of her from around her body, and she looked terrified as all hell. We could hear her muffled screams. Even though I couldn’t understand what she was saying, Samuel could make out what it was.
“She’s saying those mermaids killed everyone else. They’re gonna kill her next. She wants us to let her in.” he said, understanding Sherry’s words. I wanted to help her out, but there was nothing we can do. What we could do for her at least was allowing her to surface at the top with us as long as she stays against the front view of the submarine. However, this idea wasn’t clear in her head, as she kept continuously pounding into the glass. I don’t think she realizes we’ll all die with her if she successfully creates a ‘hole’ through the scratched surface, but I guess that’s what happens when fear and panic kicks in and you lose all sense of reason, desperately trying to survive.
Unfortunately, she was eventually grabbed onto by the mermaids who followed us, and she started to scream in terror. I felt sorry for her, knowing she’s about to die down there with the other divers who didn’t make it out. Most of those creatures went away, taking her with them, while only a few remained chasing us. As they kept chasing us, we reached the top of the trench and came upon sunlight shining through the ocean and we could see the ship. As we got closer and closer to the ship, the creatures turned away and went back down the trench. I was grateful that they weren’t going to chase us all the way to our ship, but knowing that we lost five of our crewmates was still saddening.
When our submarine emerged above the water, Yuri and Aleksei were surprised to see us. Then, we were speaking through the mic.
“Hey, our task isn’t completed yet. We still have about an hour left to do our task.” Yuri said to us. Aleksei spotted Yuki through the glass of the submarine, crying. “What happened?” Aleksei asked. Yuki told them everything. “There are things down there trying to kill us. They had weapons.” she said. I noticed Aleksei through the glass, giving an expression as if he wasn’t buying the story. He must’ve thought something else had happened. Yuri went to check on the submarine, to see if it needed repairs. That’s when he saw the scratch on the glass the spear made. “Did you guys do that?” Yuri asked, before speaking again. “Actually, never mind. It would have been impossible for any of you guys to do. You would need lots of strength and the ability to do such tremendous force to put a scratch like that. The glass on this submarine is twice as hard as diamond, and designed to be impenetrable.” he said. After that, they had us slowly reeled back onto the ship, and once back on the ship, we exited the submarine and continued explaining to Yuri and Aleksei of the incident.
As for Aleksei, he was surprised to hear Yuri’s words, and started asking what happened. “So what did you guys see in the trench? Were there massive sharks that tried to eat you guys?”
“No.” I said. “You would laugh if I told you that we saw what we assumed to be mermaids down there, and they chased after us.” I explained. “That’s funny, Seth. But seriously, what did you guys see down there?” he asked again. “Exactly what the fuck I’m telling you we saw, Aleksei. I’m dead serious. That’s why I’m not going the fuck back down there!” I yelled. Samuel chimed in. “He’s telling you the truth. I saw it too. We all saw it. Even poor Yuki here saw it.” he said, pointing at Yuki who’s a crying mess for the horrifying experience she got. I was right to assume that she’s afraid to go on another submarine expedition to find marine life, muttering to herself that she wishes to stay on land from now on. Can’t say I blame her. Even I didn’t want to continue anymore. Aleksei still believe us on the other hand, and he said this little gem. “So I take it you guys actually saw a marine carnivore in the trench, or you’re covering up a crime you committed. I’m not buying the whole ‘mermaids’ story.” he said.
“Then go take a look at the recording, you fucking twat!” Samuel yelled, pissed off at Aleksei. I was about to laugh at this, when Yuri screamed. “Look!” he said, pointing at the direction of the ocean. What we saw, made me excited at first. Eric made it back alive, or so I thought. He didn’t swim to us. Instead, he was just floating there. Nevertheless, I was still excited to see him. I got to him, and pulled him out of the water. As I did, my excitement turned to horror. His left leg was gone, and his right leg had two of those strange spears pierced in it. Upon examining them, they seemed to be made of some kind of bone-like material. Eric’s face looked like his nose was ripped right off, and he didn’t have any eyes.
I realized at that moment, that he was dead. I wasn’t surprised that his GoPro camera didn’t come with him as evidence, probably because it sank, or those things have it. “What the hell happened to him!?” Aleksei asked. “So now do you fucking believe us!?” I told him. “But that’s impossible! None of the previous expeditions caught those things!” he yelled. “But we fucking saw them, alright!” I screamed back at him, trying to make him see the truth.
“All of you, shut the fuck up!” Yuri said, irritated with the arguing. “Let’s check the recording to see the truth. That way, we can squash this argument and move on.” he spoke. After that, we got the sub taken in for Yuri to repair for damages while we observed the footage we caught from our camera. Viewing the footage, there was nothing happening as much, which was expected. I was delighted to see that bio-luminescent squid-like creature in the footage, and Aleksei was shocked to see that such a creature exists.
When we got to the last part of the footage, it was confirmed. Even Aleksei sat there, not saying a word, and he looked horrified of what he’s seeing in the footage. It was one of the creatures, and the camera caught a clear view of its face. Even though it wasn’t facing the camera, we could see it looking up at the sub, and it seemed to be holding a bony-white spear in such a way that it was getting ready to throw it. Aleksei simply got out of his seat and walked away. Shortly after that, Yuri came in to see for himself what we caught. His eyes went wide with what we’re seeing in the footage. After that, he pointed at the spear the thing was holding and said:
“That would explain the strange scratch marks and dents on the submarine. You guys wouldn’t have been able to do that kind of damage.”
Looking at the spear, it was clear to him what had made the marks on the sub. “Mermaids!” Yuri said. “You guys found mermaids! Imagine the national headlines we’ll make in discovering this!” he further explained. I admit, I wouldn’t mind becoming famous for catching a first, authentic, clear recording of a mermaid. However, after we revealed to our organization of our finding, things took a dark turn for us.
The government who was funding us, stepped in after being notified of our findings, and confiscated the evidence, and the submarine as well, knowing it had marks that could also be counted as evidence of our encounter. The weapons that pierced Eric’s leg was also confiscated, and so was his body which according to the officials, claims his body might be contaminated with bacteria or diseases we’re not immune to. We were also told not to speak about this, or we risk losing our jobs in the organization. But that didn’t matter to me, because I quit my job after that incident. The rest of our diving team, are considered M.I.A, which disgusted me because I know what really happened to them.
So now, here I am, typing this message to you about what we saw. I never saw my former colleagues again after that incident, so I’m hoping they’re not going back down there, unless they’re insane. Let this be a warning to any of you who wish to go diving down in the ocean. If you ever decide to dive in the Mariana Trench, be extremely careful. Who knows if those things, are still down there?