Secrets of the oceans and seas or disappear without a trace. Secrets of the ocean depths

I was at sea in the evening, about 5-6 kilometers from the coast, - a fisherman Tony Pamaka from the seaside town of Tronte, Adriatic, told the correspondent of the Europeo magazine on November 14, 1998. - At about four o'clock in the morning, when I was choosing gear from the depth, I suddenly saw a red light coming from under the water. As soon as I took out the tackle, I hurried away from that place, but the red light moved after me, then rising to the surface and scattering over large area, then sinking to the bottom and turning into a crimson star. I don't remember how I got to the shore. It was terrible, terrible, I lay in chills and convulsions from fear for more than two hours and did not go to sea for a week. Now I'm afraid to sail further than 200 meters ... At first, relatives and friends took the poor man's story as a hallucination or fantasy, but soon abnormal phenomena in the sea began to repeat. Mysterious glow, red and green rays, the turbulence of the sea, huge columns of water that suddenly rise to a good hundred meters, mysterious "beards" on the surface, fixed by the air coast guard ... What is it? Of course, there can be no talk of any accumulations of microorganisms and deep-sea creatures that form bizarre "fiery" forms. What then? ... Cuba, northeast coast, August 3, 1999. At 27 miles from the coast, the crew of the Hermes tuna was struck by an incredible sight: in the twilight, first in front, then to the right, to the left and behind the vessel, some disturbing light stripes appeared, as if searchlights connected together flashed from the depths. The ship with the numb fishermen found itself in a luminous ring. “What was happening was so terrible, we felt so helpless away from the coast and in the face of clear danger that we were completely at a loss. Young boys cried and prayed. Suddenly, very close to the water, with the sound of an opening bottle of champagne, a luminous drop-shaped object flew out and approached the ship with lightning speed, hovering at a height of 50-100 meters. Having made a circle, he descended to 20 meters and filled us with soft green light. Then, just as lightning, he took off and, flying off on 2-3 cables, abruptly went under water ... I radioed to the base and ordered to head home, ”said the captain of the fisherman Valentino Peyra. The Japanese dry cargo ship with a displacement of 80,000 tons was heading for San Francisco. A day after leaving the home port, a strange thing happened at night - from hard hit the ship shuddered, rose, and again stood on an even keel, several times swaying beautifully from side to side. The watch officer raised the alarm. However, the sea was calm, the ship continued to move on its course, no leaks were found in the holds. But the terrified team demanded an answer from the discouraged captain: what made such a colossus jump on the water like a rubber ball?

I decided that the cargo ship had hit a reef or a sand bank, - the captain reported to the team, - but then I changed my mind - in this region of the ocean, where the depth reaches 4-5 kilometers, it is impossible to talk about any banks. Having assembled the team, I outlined a personal, purely subjective, theory that we were thrown by some huge, floating or "frolicking", underwater undefined object. No underwater superboat of terrestrial origin, and, moreover, a marine animal, could not do this with a colossus of 2.5-centimeter steel ... The captain's version was actively supported by numerous UFO supporters. The sailors of the Troza fishing vessel, who were fishing for halibut in the Grottamare area, 6 miles from the coast, recorded on the radar a large underwater body resembling a “very long tongue”. Here is how boatswain Pietro Ferres, 47-year-old sea wolf, describes the event: “The cars were choosing a deep-sea trawl, and suddenly at some point the compass became very worried, the cables were stretched and the ship rushed forward at high speed. Another minute or two - and we would have turned over, but somewhere in the depths the cables burst, the trawl disappeared, and the ship, like a cork, swayed on the water. What happened is unbelievable. We were all terrified." What huge steel object (otherwise why did the compass worry?) deprived the fishermen of the trawl? Submarine? Alien submersible? These questions were not answered. True, some skeptics claim that such underwater objects are nothing more than the latest spy devices from the United States and Russia. However, this is unlikely - no modern terrestrial mechanism can move under water at a speed of 100 or more kilometers per hour, according to technical experts. F. Ritchie, the commander of the Federico Padre ship, recalls: “We were about 15 kilometers from Pedaso (Mediterranean), when suddenly a huge column of water rose 100-150 meters straight ahead; meanwhile, the sea around was perfectly calm. It could not be an underwater missile launch, as no underwater object appeared on the radar monitors. Try to find yourself in our place - mentally, of course, and you will feel the horror we experienced ... ”In 2003, sensational research results were published in the United States Mariana Trench. Scientific researchers plunged into the most deep place oceans (depth 11045 meters) a special device - an unmanned platform equipped with powerful searchlights, very sensitive television and video systems, microphones. The platform was lowered on six steel cables of an inch section. At first, the technique did not give any unusual information. But a few hours after the dive, silhouettes of strange large objects (at least 12-16 meters) began to flicker on the screens of television monitors in the light of powerful searchlights, and at that time the microphones transmitted sharp sounds to the recording devices - the grinding of iron and dull blows on metal. Uniform strikes, can you imagine? When the platform was raised (never lowered to the bottom due to incomprehensible interference that prevented the descent), it was found that the powerful steel structures were bent, and the steel cables seemed to be sawn. A little more - and the unique platform would forever remain in the deepest underwater cavity on Earth. Scientists and experts refused to give clear comments, but popular science magazines commented on the sensation unequivocally and unanimously - someone exists at an incredible depth. Intelligent, at least skilled in metalworking technology. And once again the question arises: is man the only "owner" of the planet Earth? Or maybe, along with our terrestrial civilization, there is another, underwater, and much more ancient? Or maybe the really "strangers" created their underwater bases in the depths of the oceans? Do they study us, make their space travels from there? Or are they gradually preparing the colonization of the Earth? Or maybe in the near future scientists will offer their reasoned versions and conclusions?

I. Trano, Focus, USA

Secrets of the Ocean updated: November 14, 2018 by: cross

Do you know that the water element has been studied by scientists almost as badly as the space expanses? We do not know what monsters can inhabit the depths of the seas and oceans. However, there are numerous ancient legends that claim that the sea element poses a considerable danger to humans!

For example, many legends tell about giant octopus krakens. These mysterious creatures are so large that the sailors at first mistook them for drifting islands! Kraken has not only powerful suction cups, but also a terrible "beak" that can break through the side of a wooden sailboat!

Another most curious phenomenon is the killer wave, which appears as if from nowhere, and disappears into nowhere. Such a shaft can reach a height of 30 meters (which is approximately the height of a nine-story building). But the water element can generate not only giant waves, but also dangerous infrasound, which causes hallucinations and vibration in a person. internal organs. Too strong infrasound is a rare phenomenon, but it can kill a person or drive him crazy.

Buildings and entire cities of ancient civilizations that lived on our planet and then went under water can be hidden under the water column. Some researchers even hope to find traces of the sunken Atlantis there. However, research is very difficult to conduct for several reasons. Firstly, at the bottom, the pressure of the aquatic environment becomes simply enormous. Secondly, many researchers disappear without a trace...

Since ancient times, man has been interested in what is happening in the depths of the oceans, trying to penetrate its secrets. The vastness of the underwater world has always attracted people.

Sometimes scientists joke that the waters of the oceans have been explored much worse than back side Moon. They are partly right, because at present the world's oceans have been studied by only 5 percent.

One of the Sumerian legends says that Gilgamesh went to the bottom of the ocean in search of algae that could give him immortality, but he was not lucky. Since then, interest in the ocean floor has not subsided.

Long before man began to explore space and explore the mysteries of the universe, the study of ocean depths. Many bathyscaphes, autonomous underwater vehicles, underwater surveillance cameras were built.

After Yuri Gagarin made the first flight into space in 1961, the attention of mankind switched to the study of the air ocean, because its secrets began to seem more accessible than underwater ones.

The study of the sea depths was suspended, however, scientists became aware that on ocean floor there are real underwater rivers - areas where methane, hydrogen sulfide and other hydrocarbons seep through cracks and mix with water, after which, like rivers, they begin to move. This phenomenon has been called "cold seepage", but the epithet "cold" does not mean that the temperature of these so-called rivers is lower than the water that surrounds them.

In addition to underwater rivers, there are also underwater waterfalls at the bottom of the ocean, most of which are much larger than land-based waterfalls. There are currently 7 known to exist. underwater waterfalls. They arise as a result of the difference in temperature and salinity of water in different parts of the ocean, as well as the complex topography of the bottom. In the presence of underwater slopes and different conditions at the boundary of water areas, dense water tends to replace less dense water at the bottom.

Sometimes you can observe such a phenomenon as "milky seas". These are large areas of the ocean that glow. Despite the fact that scientists managed to take a lot of photographs of such seas, they could not explain their origin. One of the many versions says that the milky sea is the result of luminescent bacteria that create a continuous glow over large areas of the ocean.

In addition, science knows cases of detection of a false bottom in the ocean. For the first time such a bottom was discovered in 1942, when a group of specialists in acoustic sounding discovered a strange layer at a depth of about 400 meters that reflected sound waves. Later it was found that at night this layer rose to the water surface, and during the day it descended to the depth. Then it was found that a false bottom can be formed by living organisms that avoid daylight, as it was found out later - squids. In flocks, they are able to evenly distribute, thus forming a dense mass that prevents the penetration of sound.

At the same time, strange sounds are periodically heard from the bottom of the ocean. These sounds can be captured using acoustic systems that came to science from the military. In the 1960s, the US Navy installed a global network of hydrophones (that is, instruments that can receive sound underwater) in the ocean. This network was aimed at spying on Soviet submarines. Such a system made it possible to detect the place of death in May 1964 of the US nuclear submarine Scorpion. As shining example the accuracy with which the sound signal can detect the place of the tragedy is most often cited as an example with the death in 1968 of the Soviet submarine K-129 in the waters Pacific Ocean. However, in this case, as it was established, such detection accuracy is due to the fact that the American Swordfish submarine (which was a participant in the collision) recorded the coordinates of the tragedy ...

In 1991, civilians were allowed to use the acoustic system, but no big discoveries followed, except for the discovery of “songs” of whales, peals of underwater earthquakes, friction of icebergs on the bottom and each other, and the hum of submarine propellers.

But back to strange sounds. They were caught in the ocean depths in 1991-1994. Then this phenomenon suddenly disappeared, but a decade later it reappeared, becoming stronger and more diverse.

All scientists who tried to understand the nature of these sounds only shrug their shoulders, because they could not establish whose signals they were, or where they came from.

In general, besides these strange sounds, the ocean holds many secrets in its depths. But there are places in the ocean where fear simply rolls over: planes and ships disappear along with their crews, luminous circles and huge whirlpools appear.

The most interesting thing is that there is a place in the world ocean where all these phenomena are present and exist simultaneously. This is the famous Bermuda Triangle. Its area is approximately one million square kilometers. For the first time, the disappearance of aircraft and ships in this zone was discussed in the middle of the last century. In December 1945, five Avenger bombers did not return from flight. Before disappearing, the pilots transmitted a message that they were completely disoriented. A seaplane was sent to rescue them, but it also disappeared. Until the end of the century, about fifty cases of the disappearance of aircraft and ships were recorded in this area.

Over the course of 50 years, many theories have been put forward, from fantastic and pseudoscientific to otherworldly forces and aliens. The most reliable theory belongs to the Australian Joseph Monaghan, who said that there are large reserves of hydrogen sulfide and methane at the bottom of the ocean. Methane in the conditions of tectonic activity passes from a solid state into a gaseous state and breaks upward in the form of a bubble. Then it concentrates near the surface, which can cause malfunctions in the control of aircraft and ships. And since the density of water in places where gas accumulated changed dramatically, this led to the flooding of ships.

The Bermuda Triangle has other oddities that are much more difficult to explain. For example, the effect of the "flying Dutchman", when the ship remains undamaged, but the team completely disappears. According to scientists, the explanation should be sought in infrasound, which is created by the same gases at a frequency dangerous to humans. Under the influence of infrasound, a person develops a feeling of unconscious panic and fear, and sailors rush overboard to get rid of this feeling. But it remains unclear why, in this case, the disappearances of crews stopped in the mid-1980s.

In addition, significant deviations in the force of gravity were recorded in this zone, which is much greater here than on the entire planet. This also determines the formation of the warm Gulf Stream and its movement to the European north. As for the reduction in the number of disasters in the area of ​​the Bermuda Triangle, many explain this by improving the technical equipment of aircraft and ships and the advent of space navigation.

Another anomalous place in the oceans is the Sargasso Sea, which is often confused with bermuda triangle. The phenomenon of this area is that the ocean currents here move clockwise, forming giant funnel. The water temperature there is much higher than outside the sea. It is almost always calm here, sometimes you can observe mirages, for example, when the sun appears in the east and west at the same time. This area is very seismically active. Of course, for a long time none of the sailors has been saying that the algae in this place are carnivorous and eat people, but scientists have proven that a giant whirlpool that generates small whirlpools generates minicyclones in the air that can sink small planes.

There is also a place in the Pacific Ocean called the Devil's Sea. It is not on any map of the world, but, nevertheless, sailors bypass it. In this area, storms suddenly begin, which are replaced by dead swells. There are no fish or birds here.

The Devil's Sea is extremely seismically active. The bottom here is in the process of formation, and the appearance volcanic islands here it happens suddenly and very quickly. A large number of shipwrecks in the area are attributed by experts to navigational errors. But there is another reason - a very high cyclonic activity. Typhoons and tropical cyclones rage here, which originate in the Western Pacific Ocean, near the Philippine and Mariana Islands.

And here is another place that enjoys a bad reputation. It is located off the coast of West Africa and is called the Strait of Good Hope. For several hundred years, many ships have been wrecked here. The main reasons for them were unstable weather and large waves, which oceanologists also call episodic. These are waves of great height, which can reach 30 meters. Their formation is associated with the superposition of waves one on top of the other, and the height of the episodic wave is equal to the sum of the heights of these coherent waves. Episodic waves do not change their shape, and can propagate over long distances with the conservation of their energy. Similar large depressions form in front of the waves. Of course, there are still many places in the ocean where such gigantic waves appear, but they are especially dangerous near the Cape of Good Hope.

The Maelstrom whirlpool exists in the Norwegian Sea. It is not as big as in the Sargasso Sea, but it also terrifies sailors. The whirlpool occurs twice a day. A depression appears in the center of the funnel, in which the water level is tens of meters below the ocean level, and the energy of the whirlpool, according to oceanologists, is ten times greater than the energy of the usual current. But that's not all: about once every six months, the whirlpool changes its direction.

And in the Persian Gulf there is a place where NGO - unidentified underwater objects are seen. Few people have heard about them, but history knows many cases of meetings between sailors and travelers with NGOs.

This area is characterized by the fact that giant luminous and rotating circles appear periodically on the water surface. Previously, there was a hypothesis that the appearance of these circles is associated with underwater earthquakes, which excite the glow of plankton. But in recent years, this theory has been criticized due to the fact that it cannot explain the logic in the transformations of these circles, scientists cannot explain the nature of the correct circular shape and the rays that emanate from one center, and the enormous speed of rotation of these formations. Therefore, the version about NGOs is being seriously discussed.

That's not all mysterious places and phenomena of the world ocean. Probably, one should not even dream that in the near future he will reveal all his secrets to humanity.

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Huge body of water from the shores of America to the shores of Eurasia, Oceania and Australia was discovered by Europeans only in the 16th century. The culprit of this greatest historical event became Portuguese and spanish navigator Ferdinand Magellan(1480-1521). In the autumn of 1520, three sailing ships under his leadership rounded the southern tip of the South American continent and, having filled the sails with a fair wind, fearlessly rushed into the sea distance alluring with uncertainty.

Swimming lasted more than three months. It was hard and difficult. Already by the middle of the journey, food and water supplies began to run out. The daily allowance was halved, then tripled; sickness began among the crew members. Soon the first dead appeared. Their bodies were sewn up in canvas and thrown overboard. Somehow, imperceptibly, death became a daily ordinary event, and the canvas was over.

Only in the spring of 1521, when miraculously the surviving sailors prayed to God that he would send them death, the observers on all three ships joyfully shouted the long-awaited word "Earth". These were the islands of Southeast Asia, which were later called the Philippine.

The ocean respected the courage of people: all the time, while the ships plowed its expanses, there was excellent calm weather. As a token of gratitude to the mighty water element, Magellan named the Pacific Ocean. This name has stuck. Today, the world's largest ocean, which accounts for almost 50% of the entire water surface of the Earth, is called the Pacific or Great.

Its area with the seas is 179.68 million km², and average depth equals 4280 km. It occupies more than 30% of the planet's area and has about 10 thousand islands, most of which are concentrated in its southwestern waters. Here, on western outskirts, the seas that are part of the Great Ocean are also located, there are nine of them. Eastern waters this giant body of water is washed by the western coast of America and is coastal zone for 12 states. In total, 45 state entities are located on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Mighty warm and cold currents cross the ocean in all directions. This is Kuroshio passing by the southern and eastern shores Japan. North Pacific current carrying cold waters to the western shores North America. There are also California and Kuril currents. The southern part is dominated by the warm South Equatorial and East Australian currents.

Such a variety of movements of large water masses affects the spread of ocean surface temperatures. At the equator, it reaches 26-29 ° Celsius, and in cold southern regions drops to 0° Celsius. Temperature also decreases with depth. The farther from the surface, the lower it is. On great depths the temperature is close to the freezing point of salt water (minus 1.8° Celsius).

One of the attractions of the Pacific Ocean is 180 meridian- date line. It is a purely conditional border, dividing the planet into two diurnal zones. When moving from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere, the calendar date moves back one number. If moving to reverse direction, then the number is added, and the traveler finds himself in tomorrow.

But it is not the sights that attract researchers, but secrets of the Pacific. Chief among them is his underwater environment. It is here, in the dark multi-kilometer layers of the water mass, that there is a completely different world, unlike the earthly one. It is also inaccessible to people, like the stars of the distant Cosmos. Enormous pressure reliably protects the underwater life full of mysterious events from prying prying eyes. A person can only study the topography of the bottom of a huge reservoir. It is impossible to look into the depths. Countless tons of water instantly destroy any daredevil.

The ocean floor is dotted with pits, crevices, trenches, the depth of which is much higher than the average. In the northern latitudes there are such trenches as the North Aleutian and Kuril-Kamchatsky. In the east: Peruvian and Central American. In the west, there are two huge trenches - the Mariana and the Philippine.

Mariana Trench

The deepest not only in the Pacific Ocean, but in all the waters of the world - Mariana Trench(depression). It originates at the southern tip of the Mariana Islands (11° 21′ N and 142° 12′ E) and stretches parallel to them to the north. The length of the trench is 1340 km. He has almost steep slopes and flat bottom. The width of the bottom varies from 1 to 5 km and takes on a water mass with a pressure of 108.6 MPa (814569.24 mmHg). This is 1071 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level.

The Mariana Trench has a topography typical of the ocean floor. There must be a presence on the one hand mountain range or island ridge, on the other - the deep-sea bottom. Between them, as a rule, gutters with steep slopes stretch. The latter are the result of the movement of underwater tectonic plates and have considerable depth. From the ocean floor of such a trench to the highest above-water peak, the distances range from 12 to 17 km.

For the first time, the depth of the Mariana Trench was measured by Soviet researchers in August 1957, on board the Vityaz vessel. Readings were recorded based on echo sounder measurements. The water column turned out to be equal to 10220 meters and until January 1960 was considered official.

A significant event occurred on January 23, 1960. It was on this day that US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh, together with explorer Jacques Picard, sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the bathyscaphe Trieste. At one time it was created by the Swiss scientist Auguste Picard.

American military engineers have finalized this design, maximizing its strength. The walls of the gondola itself, where the people were, were made of titanium-cobalt steel, and their thickness was 127 mm. It had a spherical shape with a diameter of just over two meters. The gondola was attached to a large float, which was filled with gasoline to provide buoyancy to the bathyscaphe. The weight of the entire structure in the water was 8 tons.

The submersion of the bathyscaphe took five and a half hours, the time spent at the bottom of the ocean was 12 minutes. The climb was faster, it was completed in three hours and twenty minutes. The depth measured by the researchers was 10918 meters. Three layers of changes in temperature and density of water were discovered, deep-sea flat fish, the size of a large frying pan, were noticed at the bottom. Nothing unusual or mysterious was found.

Only in the second half of the 90s of the XX century, new attempts were made to measure the deepest trench in the world. This time the Japanese were the initiators. They lowered the Kaiko probe to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The robot stuffed with electronics gave a depth value of 10911.4 meters.

The latest in this line was the American automatic underwater vehicle "Nereus" (Nereus), developed by engineers at the Woodshall Oceanographic Institute. His dive was dated May 31, 2009. This advanced design took photographs of the ocean floor, filmed videos, took sediment samples for analysis, and made depth measurements. The water column turned out to be equal to 10902 meters.

All of the above measurements were taken at the southern end of the Mariana Trench, near the island of Guam, which is part of the Marianas. This small deep section of the ocean floor is called Abyss Challenger. As already mentioned, the length of the entire gutter is about one and a half thousand kilometers. It is possible that there are other sites somewhere in this distance; their depth may be more than that, which was determined by "Nereus".

deep sea fauna

Researchers involved in measurements of the Pacific waters were interested not only in exact numbers, but also, to a large extent, in the underwater fauna that can exist in such extreme conditions. It turned out that a column of water pressing from above is by no means an obstacle to the successful life of many living creatures, which are quite comfortably settled at depths of 6000 meters and below.

Deep sea inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean

In addition to single-celled organisms, which God himself ordered to settle wherever possible, there are deep-sea fish of the most bizarre and diverse forms. Many of them are luminous, have large sharp teeth, and do not have fins that replace them with palisades of thorns. Some of these creatures are blind, while others have large rotating eyes.

Today, more than a hundred species of deep-sea fish have been discovered. They feed on various types of bacteria, organic and mineralized remains (detritus), as well as a continuous stream of dead fish and marine mammals, "pouring" to the bottom from the upper water layers of the Pacific Ocean. These creatures do not disdain each other, once again proving the fact that natural selection is not at all alien to the oceanic depths.

In a word, the study of living organisms that inhabit the bottom of the Great Ocean is proceeding quite successfully, which cannot be said about the rich and diverse world that exists in the upper, six-kilometer water column. This is quite natural, since this world is inhabited by faster and more mobile marine animals, which are not at all characterized by phlegmatic lying on the seabed in anticipation of the gift of nature in the form of a whale or sperm whale corpse slowly sinking into the depths.

Megalodon in the waters of the Pacific Ocean

In the expanses of the Pacific Ocean, which is the warmest of all the oceans of the planet, countless marine mammals, countless shoals of peaceful fish, as well as flocks of predators devouring everything and everything in their path, drift. Life is seething here in all its diversity, and the species and families of marine animals are many times greater than the species and families of animals that live on the earth's firmament.

Man, with his research, military and economic interests, has become not just a familiar, but an ordinary phenomenon in the waters of the world's greatest body of water. From the shores of Eurasia and Australia to the shores of America and back, a huge number of different-sized ships of all countries and peoples scurry about. IN underwater depths nuclear submarines are on combat duty, each of which is capable of easily destroying the entire living world of the planet. Without risking to move very far from their native shores, fishing vessels collect a rich catch.

Case off the coast of New Zealand

The surviving member of the crew of one of them witnessed an incredible event. It can be safely attributed to the secrets of the Pacific Ocean, and it happened in the seventies of the XX century not far from the island located north of New Zealand.

According to an eyewitness, the weather that day was amazing. The ocean behaved kindly, gently and helpfully with a small fishing boat, which was only 27 meters long. The working hours had already ended, and the fishermen hurried to their native shore in order to fully relax after an exhausting work shift.

Suddenly, right on the course, a large surf of water rose, and the head of a huge fish appeared. It was about the size of a small truck, and its open mouth could well pass for a wide entrance to a spacious cave. Everyone who saw her, the blood froze in the veins. It seemed that the sea devil himself emerged from the depths and appeared before the eyes of people in all its disgusting beauty.

The disgusting creature was on the surface of the water for only a few seconds, and then slowly plunged into the foaming abyss and disappeared from the eyes of the fishermen frozen in mute horror. It could be a mass hallucination, at first everyone thought so. But suddenly a terrible blow shook the trawler. The ship, with a displacement of 130 tons, tossed like an inflatable ball over the water surface. All 16 crew members were knocked down and rolled across the deck.

The second blow made the ship's hull groan plaintively. After the third, holes appeared in the hull, into which sea ​​water. A terrible creature surfaced near the sinking ship. The terrified people could now see him in full size.

In appearance, the monster looked like a white shark, which has lived in the waters of Polynesia since time immemorial. But unlike the latter, this creature was much larger: it was three times larger than the largest marine predator and was in no way inferior in length to a sinking fishing trawler. The color of her skin was not dark, but dirty white, rows of huge teeth were visible in her open mouth, cold empty fish eyes looked at the unfortunate fishermen without blinking.

Panic broke out among the people. Someone rushed about in horror along the tilted deck, someone fell into the water. The latter were immediately swallowed by a terrible sea monster. It was swallowed, because a horse could freely enter into the wide-open jaws.

A few minutes later it was all over: the ship lay on its side and quickly sank, everyone caught in a quiet ocean water The fishermen were devoured by a terrible fish. Only one unfortunate man managed to escape. He managed to pull on a life jacket, jumped into the water and, saying a prayer to himself, began to row away from the place of the terrible tragedy.

Not daring to turn his head, the fisherman measuredly worked his arms and legs, moving farther and farther away. At any moment, he expected that a terrible mouth would appear from the depths, and the foaming cycle of water would drag him to where all his comrades had already disappeared. But time passed, everything was quiet around.

The surviving member of the team looked around timidly. The ocean surface was serene. I was only reminded of what happened. lifeboat, which swayed alone on barely noticeable waves about one hundred and fifty meters from the sailor. The fisherman reached her and after a few hours told the people on the shore about the misfortune.

Panic arose among the crews of fishing vessels - no one wanted to go to sea. Several warships scoured square after square of the deadly waters. No traces of a terrible monster were found. Gradually everything calmed down; the rumors subsided; life has returned to normal.

This case did not receive wide publicity in the press, as everyone considered that the rescued person had dreamed of something. The tragedy was attributed to a Russian submarine, which unexpectedly surfaced from the depths, destroying a fragile ship that appeared in its path. But, as they say, not caught - not a thief. It soon began to seem to the eyewitness himself that all the horror he had seen was the result of a sick imagination of his psyche: the sun was burning unbearably that day, and you never know what could seem to an overheated consciousness.

Case off the coast of South America

A similar incident happened many thousands of kilometers away, in another corner of the Pacific Ocean, in 1998. It happened in the waters washing the west coast South America, on the border of Colombia and Ecuador. Here, too, the day was drawing to a close, and the weather was calm and calm.

A Colombian police patrol boat was chasing a nimble motorboat carrying two drug couriers. They apparently had large stock heroin, which pulled on a very decent amount in dollars. The criminals considered throwing such goods overboard as the height of madness, so they did not stop at the demand of the authorities, but decided to hide on sea ​​spaces Great Ocean.

Two powerful motors were installed on the boat, and the distance between the pursued and the pursuers, though slowly, but steadily increased. Soon the commander of the police boat realized that it would not be possible to detain the drug dealers. But his annoyance was unexpectedly corrected by unforeseen circumstances.

Suddenly, on the starboard side of the boat, the guardians of the law saw a giant fish. In all its outlines, it resembled a white shark, which, experienced in the maritime service, the policemen often saw in coastal waters. All the difference was in size. The predator now swimming next to the boat was three times larger than the usual representative of this species. It was both longer and wider. In addition, the color of his skin on his back was not dark, but off-white.

The giant fish walked side by side with the boat for some time, then sharply increased its speed and easily left the modern high-speed vessel behind. She got lost in the water surface, just in the direction of the motor boat of the “white death” merchants, which had already broken away from the pursuers.

The NCIS officer raised the binoculars to his eyes. He was young, ambitious, determined and did not like to lose to criminals. The mocking faces of the two scoundrels, who were already celebrating victory, were clearly visible through the eyepieces, and the bitterness of defeat seized the soul of the guardian of the law.

Everything changed in a split second. A motorboat stuffed with heroin was thrown into the air by some unknown force. Her body split in half like a nutshell. Two people floundered helplessly in the warm water. Near them appeared the dirty white back of a huge fish. Then a giant maw arose, which swallowed first one and then the second drug courier.

When the police boat was near the scene of the tragedy, it was all over. The surface of the ocean was quiet, smooth and pristine. Only not far away, on a light wave, several packages sealed in cellophane with "white death" swayed. There were no more traces reminiscent of a motor boat, people and an unknown giant fish in the foreseeable space.

The incident was reported to the authorities. In order not to attract journalists and not to sow panic, local authorities police forces secretly and carefully combed the coastal waters. A few white sharks were seen, but a huge monster that did not fit into any conceivable size, like "sank into the water." In the end, they came to the conclusion that the officer and his subordinates had messed up something. Most likely it was some kind of pissed off White shark or another large but common marine predator.

It is true that earlier in these waters they did not notice the enraged sharks, but after all, something always happens for the first time. Bad ecology, harmful waste poisoning the marine environment, but you never know what factor could affect the nervous system of such a dangerous and aggressive fish. The police reports were shelved and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

The above cases suggest that different people at different times and in different parts of the Pacific Ocean, they encountered a little-known marine predator in our time. According to the description, it was megalodon- a fossil shark, the largest predatory fish in the world in the entire history of the existence of life on Earth, which died out about one and a half million years ago.

Its dimensions reached 30 meters, and its weight fluctuated within 60 tons. It was the most powerful biological killer machine. The teeth of the megalodon, which are occasionally lifted from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, are exactly the same shape as the teeth of the great white shark, but much larger. Their size reaches 15 cm in length, 10 cm in width and 2.5 cm in thickness. While in the modern great white shark they are respectively equal, 3.5-4; 2.5 and 0.6 cm. The difference is obvious and gives a rough idea of ​​the capabilities of this terrible predator.

How such a monster of oceanic waters managed to survive and go unnoticed by people for many thousands of years - this question hangs in the air. Maybe in the cases described there was not a megalodon at all, but what is interesting is that according to some foreign publications, over the past decade, the teeth of this terrible monster have been discovered at the bottom of the Great Ocean, the age of which was determined by experts to be 11,000 years and 26,000 years.

The conclusion suggests itself: megalodon exists, but it appears in humans so rarely that it gives reason to many sober-minded skeptics to deny its existence. Only those who want to see can see, but if another, for a number of reasons, does not seek to see the obvious, then he will attribute this rare phenomenon on the surface of the ocean to completely different factors, which, if desired, can be found in the greatest variety.

Mysterious monsters of the deep sea

But the secrets of the Pacific Ocean do not end with the megalodon. And without it, there are enough mysterious and mysterious creatures in the depths of the planet's greatest body of water, which, although very rarely, still appear dangerously close to sailors.

First case

In 1988, a pipeline was laid between the Nampo Islands and the island of Kyushu (Japan) along the ocean floor. In one place there was a rocky ridge that interfered with the work. It was located at a depth of more than 5 km, and experts considered it more rational to blow it up than bypass it. They supervised the entire process from a ship located a kilometer from the calculated epicenter of the explosion.

After the detonator worked, the captain and two observers standing on the upper deck saw an incredible picture. From the depths, about three hundred meters from the ship, a huge body appeared. It was at least a hundred meters across and had smooth black skin that shone in the sun. The mysterious creature lifted a long and thick serpentine tail into the air. He described a huge arc and fell into the water. In a stream of splashes and waves, an unknown creature plunged into the depths and disappeared from the eyes of shocked people.

Second case

Not less than mysterious case occurred in waters close to the equator, in the area of ​​the Gilbert Islands. They are part of the Republic of Kiribati, whose independence was proclaimed in 1979. The population here mainly consists of local aborigines, but there are also Europeans who are attracted by a free life away from the delights of civilization.

Here is one such European, paired with the original inhabitant of these godforsaken islands, and ended up in a canoe, far from the coast. Their occupation was fishing. The catch on this warm day in 1992 was surprisingly good. The men were so carried away that they came to their senses only when the solar disk began to sink below the horizon.

The first twilight reminded people that it was time to return. They unfolded the sail, hoping to quickly reach the shore lost behind the smooth surface of the ocean. But suddenly a strange noise caught their attention. It was like a loud slap on the water. The fishermen turned their heads towards the incomprehensible sounds and clearly felt the hairs on their heads stand on end in horror.

Against the background of a bloody sunset, the dark silhouette of an ancient foot-and-mouth disease was visible, which was rushing towards the canoe on the water surface. He pushed off the ocean with membranous wings and did not make a sound. Suddenly, another creature appeared behind him. It was three times larger and resembled a dragon, as if materialized from the legends of distant ancestors.

The pursuer was repelled from the water by some flat, wide ends resembling fins. He very quickly caught up with the foot-and-mouth disease, grabbed his neck with his huge mouth and plunged into the water with his victim. All this was done in complete silence: neither the pursuer nor the pursued made a sound.

What you saw could be mistaken for a mirage: for the play of light and shadows against the backdrop of sunset, but a three-meter wave that arose at the dive site strange creatures, was quite material, and it hit the fragile canoe quite tangibly. People miraculously managed to level the boat, which was already ready to capsize. On full sail, they hurried to leave the terrible place, but when they reached the shore, they decided to remain silent and not tell anyone about the horror they had experienced.

Only a few years later, when the European ended up in Australia, he shared this story with a group of ichthyologists. Believed those him, did not believe - it is unclear. Probably not, because they conveyed this story as a funny sea ​​bike, familiar to the journalist, and he published it in the newspaper with the appropriate comments.

Conclusion

Such cases occur daily in the vastness of the great reservoir, stretching from west to east for 17,200 km, and from north to south for 15,450 km. Unfortunately, only pitiful bits of such information reach the public. How many, in truth, sensational and invaluable events for science forever remain a mystery? Probably there are countless of them, and eyewitnesses would be quite enough to populate a small city.

Witnesses of such phenomena, which can be safely attributed to the secrets of the Pacific Ocean, for a number of reasons, are not very willing to talk about what they saw, and listeners are almost always full of skepticism and distrust of the stories they hear. Most people live with the idea that there are no miracles in this world, although, in fact, the very birth of each of us on this earth is already greatest miracle. Well, if it happened, then why not be other miracles, which, although not as great as the birth of a person, are nevertheless also interesting and mysterious.

The article was written by ridar-shakin

Based on materials from foreign and Russian publications