Although the oceans occupy 70% of the Earth’s surface, they turn out to be an almost unexplored territory for the human being. Its magnitude and depth mean that we only know a small part of the underwater world, and although technological advances have allowed us to study it, we are still a long way from knowing it completely.
There are many mysteries of the ocean that science has not been able to explain. Mysterious creatures, disappearances, and strange sounds have been studied without reaching any conclusion. We tell you the top 10 mysteries of the ocean, which will keep you up all night:
1. The ghost ship
The Kaz II was a ship that set sail in 2007 from Australia, manned by three sailors. She was found adrift with the engine still running, a laptop on and a table set for dinner… BUT NO TRACE OF THE CREW. Coroners have speculated about what happened to the men, but nothing could ever be proven.
2. The Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench is the deepest point in all the oceans, reaching a depth of 11,034 meters. That’s right: you could put Mount Everest at the bottom and it would be completely covered in water, with an extra 2,134 meters of water at the top. Due to the size and pressure, only four expeditions have successfully landed. Who knows what’s down below?
3. The Baltic Sea Anomaly
It is a formation or object similar to that of a flattened mushroom, about sixty meters in diameter, detected at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. It was discovered in 2011 by two researchers using a side-scan scan, at a depth of about 91 meters. The strange shape led many to believe that it was some kind of spaceship that had crashed or a strange natural formation. Some even speculate that it could be some kind of secret war technology.
4. Unexplained sounds
Do you know the feeling of hearing a strange noise in the middle of the night? Imagine that, but in the middle of the ocean. There are several unexplained sounds that have been recorded in recent years, and two of the most popular are called “The Bloop” and “Julia”. These sounds must have been made by very large objects (or possibly creatures), although most scientists believe they come from large icebergs scraping the ocean floor. But nothing is certain.
5. The disappearances of 1968
Four different submarines inexplicably disappeared in the same year. These were the American Scorpion, a Soviet one called K-129, a French submarine called Minerve, and the Israeli Dakar. The last two disappeared just four days apart. The Minerve has yet to be found, even though it disappeared an hour from its home port. Was it just a coincidence that four giant machines suffered misfortune in the same year, or was it something more sinister?
6. The giant snake
The crew of HMS Daedalus, a British Royal Navy warship, claimed in 1826 to have observed a 30-meter-long dragon-headed snake swimming near their ship for 20 minutes. You don’t trust the Daedalus crew? It was seen a second time in 1848 by the American brig Daphne, whose crew even shot at the creature and unsuccessfully tried to follow it. Scientists today think they have most likely seen a whale, but wouldn’t a group of experienced sailors know the difference between a whale and a snake?
7. The Bermuda Triangle
Named for the triangular shape of some 804,672 square kilometers of ocean between Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico, the Bermuda Triangle is one of the most notorious marine legends. When Christopher Columbus first sailed into the area, he claimed to have seen a giant ball of light in the sky that crashed into the horizon and made it glow. Then all kinds of strange occurrences began to be reported in the area, including several boats that disappeared without anyone issuing a distress signal. In one incident in 1945, an entire squadron of American torpedo bombers completely vanished.
8. Ghost Island
An island named Bermeja was found on various maps and charts from the 16th century to the present. However, when researchers went to explore the area in 2009, the island had mysteriously disappeared. This occurrence is called “Ghost Islands” and it has happened with many different marked map locations over the years. Did the islands never exist? Did some government blow them up to make a profit? Did they sink underwater? We may never know.
9. Devil’s Sea
The Devil’s Sea is a region of the Pacific around Miyake Island, approximately 100 kilometers south of Tokyo. It is one of the twelve Fel Vortexes in the world. In this place planes fall from the sky like birds, and large deposits of methane cause gas explosions. It’s also where the United States lost more than 20 submarines during World War II, and ships that were twice the size of the Titanic.
10. The Kraken
Imagine a school bus. Now imagine a squid that size. In 1870, a giant squid appeared in New Zealand, and local villagers reported that it was the same animal that had previously seized and sunk a canoe. The squid’s mantle (the cone-shaped thing on top of its head) was almost 10 feet long. A scientist today has concluded that this means that giant squid could reach lengths of between 5 and 6 meters long. In any case, he affirms that there may be squids of up to 20 meters.