Another summer season, another successful shark movie to make people fear the water for the next few years. Okay, maybe it is not every summer, but it sure does feel like it sometimes, especially when the Sharknado movies start showing up. However, it does bring up a lovely point about the watery shores we live by. We’ve allegedly know more about what is above in space than what lies below in the oceans, and those oceans make up roughly 75% of our planet. The oceans make every dark forest seem mundane in comparison, think of how long the giant squid were able to be in hiding, The only clue we had was that large squid bodies started washing up on more inhabited shorelines as for the most part, people dismissed these squid as just another story. It makes you wonder what we don’t know that lives down there. What creatures unseen swim its waters? What secrets live among the kelp and seaweed? What things might show up on the shore one day and change the way we think of our planet? That’s what we are investigating this week, so let’s dive in, shall we?
Of course, the first thoughts on everyone’s mind when it comes to the sea and horrors is sea monsters. The creatures that we do know that live in the depths are strange enough and demented in construction, like the anglerfish that has a large light in front of its head and will have male versions of the species fuse to their bodies in order to supply females with sperm. A true body horror of a creature if I have ever heard of one. This year’s blockbuster, the Meg, proposed the idea of a prehistoric shark called the megalodon surviving extinction and having been hiding in our deep oceans. Indeed, a few within the cryptozoology field think that some lake and river monsters may be plesiosaurs but I find that theory far fetched, however, I could see one living deep below the sea. Deep ocean seems a better place to hide one than Loch Ness, sorry to all the Nessie fans out there. We’ve already touched on Lovecraft’s ideas of deep sea old ones that sleep in various oceans, Cthulhu is currently taking a nap near South America if I remember the stories correctly. Yet anything could live down there, anything your mind or other minds could come up with. The ocean’s inhabitants are a blank canvas for us to paint with a black brush.
Growing up in Michigan, you hear about the various shipwrecks that have happened within the Great Lakes. You may have played in those lakes, but you know also there were ships buried within their depths, especially in Lake Superior where the most famous shipwreck of recent memory, the Edmund Fitzgerald. While it’s mostly known for the song by Gordon Lightfoot, it was a tragedy familiar to any body of open water: a whole ship of men, 29 in all, completely swallowed by the lake. The wind and the waves can turn on a ship on a dime, and while nowadays we have radar and various communications, there will always be those caught in the sea’s grasp. Tragic souls left behind in waters where their souls may never find rest. Is it any wonder then that ghostly tales of ships come off the lips of sailors and lighthouse keepers? With stories like the Ourang Medan, a ship giving out a horrid distress message that haunted those who picked it up, filled with all the crew dead with their faces contorted in horror, and an explosion that left the ship as a sunken wreck, you wonder exactly what happens out in those waters.
“All Officers, including the Captain, are dead. Lying in chart room and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead. … I die.”
No one knows what happened to the ship, many think it might have been a tall tale, but plenty believe the story happened as truly as the Edmund Fitzgerald. There are as many legends as there are ships in the sea today, but one more I will indulge you with is a tale of not a ship, but a lighthouse. The Flannan Isles lighthouse was only a year old when, for uncertain reasons, three of the lighthouse keepers vanished without a trace. After a slight delay due to weather, supplies were sent to the island along with a few to relieve the keepers of their duty on December 21, 1900. The first sign of something wrong was that there was no flag flying at the lighthouse to signal that they saw the incoming ship. The relief went onto the isle and when they walked into the lighthouse, no one was there. The clock on the wall was stopped, the fireplace was cold, and food was left untouched. No one could find the men. It is assumed that they fell into the ocean during a storm mentioned in the lighthouse log, but protocol said that the men had to have one person inside the lighthouse at all times. Protocol could have been broken, but it does leave some mild suspicion and a wide variety of different possibilities.
Know any other good tales of the sea? Do you prefer sea monsters, shipwrecks or mysteries of the deep? I personally love the mysteries more, because while some are obviously fake or embellished, there is often some tiny bit of truth to them. Also if you use one as a background for a horror story, you can go in so many different directions with what caused the disaster to really happen. Let me know what you think in the comments below, and I will see you all next Food Thursday.
