The Blue Skinned Creatures of the (Not So) Deep

I've been scuba diving, both professionally and leisurely, for almost thirty years now. And I've had the pleasure of diving all over the world, including some of the more unique places and situations the sport has to offer. I've swam with sharks, I've seen shipwrecks that still had skeletons of the crew inside them, and I've even been lucky enough to do some cave diving in the waters off the Bahamas. I've seen my fair share of interesting things and have also been privy to a few scary moments involving novice divers. You can see a lot of things underwater, but none of it will even compare to that one dive.

​For a few years, I had worked as an Instructor at a beach resort that was geared towards the younger spring break crowd. We'd teach them the basics, certify them, and then take them out into the rougher, more exciting areas for their dives. It wasn't a bad gig, and afforded me the opportunity to do the kind of level of diving I was accustomed too on a more regular basic than if I was teaching sixty year old retirees in a pool somewhere. One afternoon, I had finished up a group of five or six college students that were all vacationing at the resort. Since it was a larger group, the plan was to certify them that day, and then have everyone come back the following day for a free water dive. But one of the kids, after hearing the plan, begged me to take them out that same day because one of them would be flying out early the next morning due to having work obligations back home. I normally would have told them “tough luck” and refunded half of that person's payment, but figured that we'd have a decent sized window of light to still take them out into deeper waters.

So I fired up the boat, and made my way out of the shallows towards the place that I'd usually take groups for their free dive. The group did well in following instructions and seemed like they had a good grasp on what they had to do in order not to find themselves in a bad situation. I knew it was risky for me to be watching over that many novice divers, especially with the sun on the wrong side of the day, but I wanted to get into the water as well. I stopped the boat in the usual spot, and began the process of prepping everything and everyone to get in. I went over the routine of safety checks and reminders, and helped each of the students into the water before jumping in shortly after them. We were in just about twenty five feet of clear water, and the water was as calm as you'd want for new divers. It was the ideal conditions, besides time of day, for a dive like that. And things went along without a hitch, at first.

​I instructed everyone to stay close, as we descended down further towards the ocean floor. The students were having a blast, and were all doing very well up to that point. It doesn't take too long to get down to that depth, and it wouldn't have used up much air, so I wanted to take them to the floor to have a look around. But before we could all make it down there, I heard one of the students cry out over their radio before they began thrashing and fighting to get away from the group and go back up to the surface. This wasn't an unusual thing for new divers, though I didn't see it coming from a group like that, so it surprised me some. I tried to get to him and calm him down, so that he didn't burn through his tank, but before I could even say anything one of the other students yelled over the headset “WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE?”

That's when a bit of a panic set in among the entire group, and I had to fight to keep control of them the best I could while trying to figure out what it was that they were seeing to cause them to freak out so bad. There weren't really any big sharks in the area, and the most dangerous thing you'd see were barracuda or mostly harmless smack of jellyfish. I finally spun around enough to see what the group was attempting to flee from. And I had to fight the same urge to get away with them, as I too was starting to panic at that point. Not at first, anyway, but once the improbability of what I was looking at began to set in.

Not far from us, walking slowly along the floor of the ocean, was what looked to be a group of ten or more human-like creatures. They were tall, and mostly slender, but with large, powerful looking legs. They were moving at a slow pace, but clearly had no trouble fighting against the current as they walked. Their skin was a deep blue color, and it looked as though they were wearing some sort of full body cloaks that moved as fluidly through the water as they did.

I just sat there floating in a stunned silence as I watched the beings move along the bottom. My mind couldn't even begin to comprehend what I was looking at, but it must have been either some kind of unknown sea creature or something darker. I still don't have a good explanation or theory of what they were even now, but I can say for sure that we weren't just seeing things. We weren't in very deep water, it was still light out, and none of us had been drinking. Whoever, or whatever, they were didn't matter to any of us at that point though as we all made as quick of a mad dash to the surface as you'd see from a group of scared people.

​The students couldn't believe what they had just seen, and asked me what they were. I told them that I had no idea either, and that I'd have never seen anything like that before in all my years of being under water. We figured the best course of action would be to fire up the engines and get the hell out of there quick. When we got back, I contacted the Coast Guard and let them know what we had seen. They scolded me for making a prank call and that I wasn't the first person to try the same story and to “be more original next time”. The guy also said that it cost them a lot of money to send out boats and helicopters for hoaxes and that I could be charged for it or arrested. Instead of pressing the issue and ending up in a psyche ward or prison, I just hung up on him. It was too crazy of a story for me to even believe, let alone convince others about what we saw. I still dive a lot, but haven't ever seen anything like those “blue people” we saw walking that day.

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