Paranormal Story Archives
August 2001
– Page 17
Strange
Aquatic Creature
by Mike C.
The story of "The Creature of the Dump" and the shell creature, reminded me of a long-forgotten experience I had while scuba-diving off the cost of Devon (Brixham to be exact). It must have been around 1979 when I my wife and another couple went to Devon with our local dive club. It was Easter time, and not particularly warm. My buddy and I had had several good dives from the beach during the first part of the week. Around Wednesday another friend joined us for what was to be the best dive I have ever had. We had been down for about 15 minutes in about 30 feet of water when I got separated from my buddies. As per the rules, I surfaced to wait for them to reappear. However, after four or five minutes with no sign of them, I decided (totally against all rules and common sense) to resubmerge and continue with the dive.
At this point things started to get interesting. I hadn't been down more than two minutes when to my amazement I swam over a thresher shark that was just lying on the bottom (at the time most people thought that sharks had to keep swimming or drown). I swam on, excited by the sight of the shark, and glad that I had decided to carry on the dive. The area I was in was very rocky with patches of sand etc. All of a sudden, in the distance I saw a large black object swimming toward me. Initially, I thought it was one of my buddies, but as we closed the distance between each other, I could see that this was no diver. In fact, the creature approaching me looked like something from a horror story. Describing it is very difficult as it doesn't fit any species of aquatic creature I have ever heard of before or since. It was black and its flesh gave the impression of neoprene, the material that wet suits are made from. It must have been (even allowing for distortion through my mask) about five to six feet long. If you looked at it from above, it would have resembled the popular shape of a UFO. (I hasten to add it was not anything of the kind, however, but a living creature.)
Its method of movement was from a skirt that undulated around it's body and drove it forward through the water. By now I was only about 10 feet away from this creature and had started to backpedal as fast as I could. As I did so, the creature started to open its mouth. Its head, which to me was the strangest feature of all, was flat (if you can imagine a dustbin lid with an 8 x 4 beam of wood laid on it, then that was the rough shape). Its mouth hinged from the top of its head and opened and opened and opened. I thought it would never stop. Its gape was more than wide enough to swallow me whole and lined with what looked to be razor-sharp teeth. I had seen enough. I turned and swam as fast as I have ever swum in my life. (I was lucky no decompression was involved as I would not be writing this now.) I made it back to the beach to find my buddies already waiting for me. Since that day, I have from time to time tried to find a creature either in a book or on the Internet that matched what I had seen that day. I never have.
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