What is not known or understood even today is what may be lurking in Challenger Deep or for that matter any other part of the Pacific. And naturally when places go unexplored (as many still are), myths and legends are commonplace.
Every large ocean of Earth has its mysteries. The Atlantic has the Bermuda Triangle, the Arabian Sea the lost city of Dwarka and the Baltic Sea the supposed carcass of a scuttled UFO. But what makes the mysteries of the Pacific so compelling is that many of them are yet to be discounted even by our most venerated scientists.
15. A Purple Orb: Type Unknown
In 2016 scientists on board the exploration vessel Nautilus scoured the sea bed 30 miles from the south western coast of California. Their objective as always: “to explore, locate and describe new habitats, geological processes, cultural sites, and unknown phenomena, establishing a rich foundation of information to catalyze further scientific efforts” (nautiluslive.org, 2017).
But this particular expedition yielded more than they bargained for. As one of the mother ship’s ROVs descended into the Arguello Canyon operators were astonished to discover a small bright purple orb nestled beneath a rocky outcrop. Brought on board, the orb split into two distinct halves measuring around two inches across. A new creature it may have been but as to its true identity no-one on board knew. The story takes an odd turn after the creature was sent off for analysis: there is still no answer, one year on.
14. Japan’s Lost City
In 1995 a Japanese diver decided to investigate an area of sea a few hundred miles to the south west of Japan. Expecting only to find marine life and noteworthy geological formations he stumbled on what could be a 10,000-year-old lost city. After he publicized his find, archeologists from around the world descended into the maze of archways and stone steps that many believe are undeniable bodies of proof of a giant sunken city.
The city’s ruins consist of stone walls, archways, temples and streets which all appear to have been carved carefully out of the side of an underwater mountain. Such submerged wonders are not surprising in a region beset by violent earthquakes and tsunamis (divers mapping the area of the ruins found five other sites of interest). One suggestion is that the city belonged to an ancient and impressively advanced civilization called the Jomon, about which very little is known.
13. Mark-IV Nuclear Bomb Never Exploded
In 1950 a Canadian Air Force bomber with a nuclear bomb onboard left its base in Alaska bound for San Francisco. A few hours later, three of the bomber’s six engines caught fire, leaving the crew with no alternative but to bail. The pilot set the autopilot for a slow decent into British Columbia and joined his crew in a collective parachute from the stricken machine.
But before they left the aircraft the crew decided on the added precaution of releasing the large nuclear bomb they were carrying. Luckily it wasn’t filled with radioactive isotopes due to it being only a simulated device: the mission was in fact part of the Air Force’s training regimen for nuclear weapon deployment. In 2013 diver Sean Smyrichinsky discovered what he thought was a UFO. The Canadian government however said that it was more likely to be the unexploded bomb (although they haven’t confirmed that yet).
12. Every Time You Hear The Bloop…
An official explanation for a gigantic Bloop sound in the Pacific Ocean has done nothing to quell rumors of it being something mysterious. A recent statement handed to the press from scientists at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “confirmed” the source of the Bloop as the sound of an “icequake”. Admittedly, icequakes do occur at the polar edges of the sea and the sound produced can travel thousands of miles underwater.
However, others deemed the explanation too simplistic and cite various characteristics of the sound as being more organic in quality. That led to many theorizing that the sound comes from a giant sea creature. The fact that the NOAA has officially denied this explanation only piques the interest of those who are more certain that the Bloop emanated from an animal of epic proportions.
11. Disappearances Aplenty
Obviously, flying across open water presents challenges, least of all for the pilot’s landing if their plane gets into trouble. When a plane hits the sea it more often than not disappears from view very quickly. This was shown to be the case only recently with the disappearance of the Air France Flight 447 in the mid-Atlantic in 2009 and Malaysia Airlines MH370 in the Indian Ocean in 2014.
One of the biggest mysteries of the Pacific involves pioneering American aviator Amelia Earhart. She had planned to circumnavigate the globe in 1937 but just hours after taking off her plane disappeared and she is believed to have crashed into the sea south west of Hawaii. The mystery is though that garbled messages were heard after the assumed crash, which led investigators to conclude that the plane did not ditch in the sea, since the electrics would have shorted.
10. Lights Glow Beneath A Plane
In 2014 pilot JPC Van Heijst and his crew flew a Boeing 747 out of Hong Kong for a long-haul flight to Anchorage, Alaska. After five hours the flight had been routine, uneventful, perhaps even a little boring. But as the crew reached just south of the Russian peninsula Kamchatka they spotted something that they couldn’t explain (nor has it been explained since).
Now at their cruising altitude they noticed dead ahead a vertical bolt of lightning, come straight up from the ocean beneath the clouds as if rising into space. Roughly 20 minutes after seeing the lightning, they could see beneath the clouds vast numbers of orange, white and red glowing patches of light. “The closer we got, the more intense the glow became, illuminating the clouds and sky below us in a scary orange glow,” recalled Van Heijst (Daily Mail, 2014).
9. Mystery Shark Seen In The Dark
As if the slow-black depths of the Pacific didn’t fire up our imaginations enough, in 2016 a Japanese scientist believes he caught a glimpse of a shark that could be as large as the prehistoric Megalodon. The Megalodon was known by fossil records to have grown to around 80 feet in length. Although the creature the scientist saw was not quite as big, it wasn’t far off.
Seen at a depth of around 8,000 feet the shark was caught on an underwater camera gliding over a bait cage. Although the pictures are sketchy the investigation team was able to estimate the shark’s size by comparison with the cage to be around 60 feet in length. Some have argued that it is impossible to correctly gauge the size of the shark from the point of view of the camera and while its size cannot properly be confirmed it’s obvious that it is a gigantic creature.
8. Super Squid Or Not
Staying with giant creatures for a moment, one of the mysteries of the Pacific which is as yet unexplained is the presence, or not, of the super squid. Over the last 100 years sightings of large squid have been reported by war ships, explorers and scientists. One such sighting was made by a Maldives resident who was sailing a 175-feet-long boat during World War 2. He saw a squid swimming next to the boat that was the same length. Its tentacles, the man claimed were two feet wide.
A giant squid was washed up on a beach in 1924 and although had various pieces missing from its body it was estimated at 115 feet long. More recently, in 2008 a South Korean research vessel in the Antarctic Sea filmed a squid beneath their ship bearing all the hallmarks of the colossal squid or Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni.
7. UFO Base Off Mexico’s Coast
Although some undersea pyramids have been debunked as merely hoaxes or geological formations there is no denying that the shape off the coast of Mexico is not natural. Sea water levels rising over the last 10,000 years have submerged cities, sepulchers and fortifications which you may think includes this Mexican pyramid. But scientist Sandra Elena Andrade believes this pyramid is extra-terrestrial in origin.
The sides of its base measure between 8 and 11 miles, and it appears at times to have a light emanating from its peak. Andrade believes this pyramid is either an alien craft or a base. Not so far-fetched when you consider that Unidentified Submerged Objects are being reported on a regular basis by the public and navies across the globe. Andrade even suggested it was, “reminiscent of the ‘Malibu anomaly’ discovered in 2014 off the coast of southern California” (www.inquisitr.com, 2017).
6. The Submarine That Never Was
In a cruel twist of fate, the suspected loss of all those on board a United States WW2 submarine seems never to have happened. The USS Willard Keith was patrolling the Pacific Ocean in the vicinity of San Francisco when their sonar operator reported a submarine target. The captain of the Willard Keith attempted to contact the submarine crew but after several unsuccessful attempts assumed it was Japanese. He ordered his crew to launch depth charges and sink the sub.
One of the seamen on that day was Bill Anderson. He was doubtful that it had been a Japanese sub and several years later secured the ship’s log to find out what communication had actually been sent. There was no record of a submarine target or the engagement. Anderson believes it was a US sub sunk in error, something the military then covered up.
5. Devil’s Sea, A Vile Vortex
In the 1940s Scottish biologist Ivan T. Sanderson came up with the idea that across the globe there are 12 “Vile Vortices”, areas in which mysterious disappearances and sightings abound. The Bermuda Triangle is one such vortex; the Devil’s Sea near Japan is another. A line drawn between each vortex also shows an odd geometric pattern similar to a pentagram. But Sanderson’s interest was not from a paranormal point of view. He saw real patterns in the events associated with each and deemed the vortices to be caused by aberrations in the Earth’s electromagnetic fields.
The Devil’s Sea sits in a triangle between Japan and the Islands of Bonin. Here ships and planes have disappeared just as they have in the Bermuda Triangle. An explanation for the disappearances has still not been given. The phenomenon was also explored by ancient Greek philosopher Plato.
4. Super-Gigantic Beast
Early in 2017 a creature washed up onto a Pacific beach in Indonesia. The identity of the beast is still uncertain. At 45 feet long locals at first thought it was a boat, then a giant squid, but on closer inspection they could not determine its true nature. Even now, scientists are struggling to say what it is with any degree of certainty. What is clear is that it is not a whale or a squid and that it died around three days before reaching land.
It isn’t the first of its kind to be swept along Westwards by the warm currents of the Pacfific. In 2015 a creature was washed up that had a long beak and furry tail, according to The Independent in 2017. This larger type, who some have suggested is a gargantuan dolphin has stumped investigators to an equal degree.
3. What’s Down There?
Any of us that have scoured Google Earth for a glimpse of something odd will know how easy it is to mistake an innocuous object for something more mysterious. But in 2017 scientists looking at the sea bed relief of the Pacific saw something that definitely required further investigation. And that’s exactly what a group of crypto-investigators called SecureTeam10 is currently doing.
A sonar image of the seabed off the coast of California shows a large circular object that has apparently moved 41 miles over the course of various sonar passes. The object is thought to measure around 2.5 miles in diameter and appears almost perfectly circular, causing experts to wonder what it is, and why it is moving. A spokesman for SecureTeam10 said, “We see a large circular object and an obvious path or trail created by it – and it disappears into a blurred out area – how convenient” (express.co.uk, 2017).
2. The Case Of Sarah Joe
Leaving a small Hawaiian port in February 1979 five men embarked on a leisure trip. None had much sailing experience but according to locals had often chartered boats before. This time they were on a boat called the Sarah Joe which unwittingly became the center of a mystery spanning decades.
A few hours after leaving the port of Hana the boat was hit by a massive storm and it was assumed, when the men never returned, that the Sarah Joe had been hit by a massive wave and all souls on board were lost. However, a decade later a zoologist working on Taongi atoll found a boat which seemed to match the description of the Sarah Joe. Close by was a cairn denoting the site of a burial of one of the men, Scott Moorman. The question remains: what happened to the rest of the crew?
1. A Face On The Ocean Floor?
An odd discovery has recently been written about by author Lloyd Stewart Carpenter. He has studied topographical maps of the Pacific Ocean sea bed and has discovered that it resembles the profile of a man looking upwards, as if to heaven. Carpenter is a devout Christian and yet has studied the anomalies of the ocean for several years. Whether it can be believed or not, his theory of its message is shared by theologians and scientists.
As the summary of his book states: “He appears to be weeping. His tear track is the East Pacific Rise, the largest mountain range on Earth. Find out exactly why the FACE on the Pacific Ocean Floor is weeping and exactly what it is that he is looking at. Also see the Devil on the South Atlantic Ocean Floor, the Dragon on the North Atlantic Ocean Floor and the Angels on the Indian Ocean Floor” (spiralupdatenews.com, 2017)
