You know there's a church in that lake?
Creepy things found diving
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You know there's a church in that lake?
Wantonmien
Contributor
In Taiwan, there is a very strong belief in Ghosts and Spirits.
Annually there is a "Ghost Month" where offerings in the way of food, fruit and other items are assembled on tables on the sidewalk outside all offices, apartment buildings and the like, with prayers and incense burnt alongside. In addition there are also small incinerators where "ghost money" (paper notes) is burned for the spirits to collect. At first in Taiwan I was intrigued, but soon learned that the offerings and regular burning of "ghost money" are considered as a way to keep the spirits and ghosts happy and bring luck to the businesses, buildings and occupants, and is one of the many good cultural traditions.
So - A few years back, doing my Open Water check out dives, with Taiwanese buddy and Instructor, I saw an area in a shallow harbour with loads of small sheets of yellow paper on the sea bed, and swum into the area, picking up a few sheets, having a look at the chinese characters on it, holding some up and and shrugging to buddy and instructor a "what's this motion" ? - getting a look of terror and concern in their faces, getting "no",
"danger" :shocked2: and "get away" hand signal signs from them - with them basically swimming away from me fast ?
At surface, I was advised by a very irate :furious: and angry buddy, that I had been picking up "ghost money" that would probably have been placed in the area for a previously drowned person - and that is something that just should not be done, as the spirit might consider I was stealing from them, and bring me bad luck ..
Needless to say, picking up or taking "ghost money" is not a thing to do, and infact such is the strong belief, even going diving in "ghost month" - is seen as very unwise by many local divers !
Now there's something not in most peoples PADI training !
Cheers
PS: Lekima - the black Asian sole pic in 'things you found underwater' - that I recently posted, was in the same dive location as the ghost money - so if you want the booty - be wary as it may be owned by a spirit !
Annually there is a "Ghost Month" where offerings in the way of food, fruit and other items are assembled on tables on the sidewalk outside all offices, apartment buildings and the like, with prayers and incense burnt alongside. In addition there are also small incinerators where "ghost money" (paper notes) is burned for the spirits to collect. At first in Taiwan I was intrigued, but soon learned that the offerings and regular burning of "ghost money" are considered as a way to keep the spirits and ghosts happy and bring luck to the businesses, buildings and occupants, and is one of the many good cultural traditions.
So - A few years back, doing my Open Water check out dives, with Taiwanese buddy and Instructor, I saw an area in a shallow harbour with loads of small sheets of yellow paper on the sea bed, and swum into the area, picking up a few sheets, having a look at the chinese characters on it, holding some up and and shrugging to buddy and instructor a "what's this motion" ? - getting a look of terror and concern in their faces, getting "no",
"danger" :shocked2: and "get away" hand signal signs from them - with them basically swimming away from me fast ?At surface, I was advised by a very irate :furious: and angry buddy, that I had been picking up "ghost money" that would probably have been placed in the area for a previously drowned person - and that is something that just should not be done, as the spirit might consider I was stealing from them, and bring me bad luck ..
Needless to say, picking up or taking "ghost money" is not a thing to do, and infact such is the strong belief, even going diving in "ghost month" - is seen as very unwise by many local divers !
Now there's something not in most peoples PADI training !
Cheers
PS: Lekima - the black Asian sole pic in 'things you found underwater' - that I recently posted, was in the same dive location as the ghost money - so if you want the booty - be wary as it may be owned by a spirit !
cloudflint
Contributor
I was at a site renowned for people dumping bodies and such there since it was very remote but only an hour or so away form a major city, I sometimes encountered the police divers on the site doing sweeps.
Swimming along in the pitch black in very low vis, i was only able to see what was in my very narrow torch beam and even that could only penetrate a feet feet ahead at most. Swimming along pretty much entirely on instruments i suddenly saw a shape emerge out of the darkness. Getting closer i suddenly saw it was a human skull sitting on a full sized ceramic toilet with a metal plaque saying "welcome home" hanging around it. This totally freaked me out till i got up the nerve to investigate further and i found that the skull was plastic and someone had left it there as a joke. Dont think ive ever been more relieved in my life.
A few weeks later on a local diving forum i saw a guy posting saying that he had been diving the site and the skull he had setup as a joke to his buddy was still there so now i know who to give the beating to
Swimming along in the pitch black in very low vis, i was only able to see what was in my very narrow torch beam and even that could only penetrate a feet feet ahead at most. Swimming along pretty much entirely on instruments i suddenly saw a shape emerge out of the darkness. Getting closer i suddenly saw it was a human skull sitting on a full sized ceramic toilet with a metal plaque saying "welcome home" hanging around it. This totally freaked me out till i got up the nerve to investigate further and i found that the skull was plastic and someone had left it there as a joke. Dont think ive ever been more relieved in my life.
A few weeks later on a local diving forum i saw a guy posting saying that he had been diving the site and the skull he had setup as a joke to his buddy was still there so now i know who to give the beating to
divergal65
Contributor
As I looked through some of the original posts way back in 2001, there were a couple that mentioned Truk Lagoon. There were several creepy things about Truk, but one of the most creepy dives was an early night dive on the Shinkoku Maru. We had dove the wreck that day and wanted to return at night . It would be a penetration dive, but we were comfortable with this since we had dove the wreck twice that week and had just done a penetration dive to the surgery room that morning. We were in one of the rooms near the operating room and started flashing pics, but I noticed a little "tinkling "sound periodically. I thought , "Oh no, I'm getting narced" so I slowed down and very gently settled near a small table and sat on it to compose myself. I checked my gauges - plenty of air, no leaks, everything is fine. Ok, maybe I was getting a little chilled since I decided on shunning the wetsuit and just wore my bikini :blinking: (note to self - save the bikini for day dives and go with the diveskin next time on night dives, especially after 4 dives that day). Ok. Sat on table, posed for a couple more pics - but noticed that the tinkling sounds were still there. I tried an experiment - I slowed my breathing way down, and noticed that a few seconds after I exhaled, the tinkling sounds started, then went away. Huh. So I started shining my light on the ceiling and followed my bubble stream and saw little brown "stars" (that's what they looked like in the lights anyway). I slowly swam up , following my bubbles for a closer look and saw that they were little ampules of medicine (morphine?)! Just a few, but that little tinkling after my bubbles disturbed them, this was definitely the cause.
Whew, so that mystery was solved, but I was really surprised that these ampules were still buoyant after all these years. That was over 8 years ago, so maybe they have settled down.
The other "creepy" things in Truk were the boxes of human remains we found on several wrecks. On the Aikoku Maru, there is a small shrine with a heap of human femurs and skulls, and on one dive, the dive guide went into a small cupboard and instead of pulling out some plates, pulled out a skull, and whats worse, wanted me to hold it and pose with it while other divers took pictures ! :shocked2:
Ok, what could I do? There were two other photographers in our group, so I had to hold and pose with this skull for what seemed like an eternity (it probably only lasted for a couple minutes, but it sure seemed longer). After the last pic, I gave it back and when we got back to the boat, told the other divers that I felt like I was disturbing a grave. :sad:
It just didn't feel right.
Whew, so that mystery was solved, but I was really surprised that these ampules were still buoyant after all these years. That was over 8 years ago, so maybe they have settled down.
The other "creepy" things in Truk were the boxes of human remains we found on several wrecks. On the Aikoku Maru, there is a small shrine with a heap of human femurs and skulls, and on one dive, the dive guide went into a small cupboard and instead of pulling out some plates, pulled out a skull, and whats worse, wanted me to hold it and pose with it while other divers took pictures ! :shocked2:
Ok, what could I do? There were two other photographers in our group, so I had to hold and pose with this skull for what seemed like an eternity (it probably only lasted for a couple minutes, but it sure seemed longer). After the last pic, I gave it back and when we got back to the boat, told the other divers that I felt like I was disturbing a grave. :sad:
It just didn't feel right.
EnjoyTheSilence
Registered
****...That definitely qualifies as being creepy I must say..It´s one thing to find a human skull when you penetrating an old wreck..Even if you find it a bit scary it´s nothing unnatural with a skeleton inside an old sunken ship..
But finding that stuff inside a waterlogged tunnel....Wuuuu...Call Mulder and Scully...
It´s like the diver went totaly mad and thought like: "Hey man, I don´t need all this stuff on my back anymore" left the things in the tunnel and just disappeard to God knows were..
Maybe it´s not creepy but one time when I was younger (and a bit crazier) I found an old intact grenade about 10 inches long when I dived in a shallow stream...Don´t realy know now today how I even dared to touch that thing.
After the dive I just put it in the trunk in the car and went home
To make a long story shorter I can say that both the police and a couple of specialist from the army artillery become very interested in my neighbourhood for some reason...
But they found out that the grenade was safe..Don´t know exactly what it was but it was harmless. It couldn´t explode...
I have done some stupid things in life but that takes the price I think...
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Boardndave
Contributor
I found a fully dressed child mannequin in my lake. Nobody dives the lake, so it wasn't put there for fun. Somewhat unsettling at first.
ns_naui_diver
Registered
That's pretty disrespectful. He does deserve a grave. He was a son, perhaps a husband and a father too. He was just a simple man fighting for his country - right or wrong. Not all Nazis were genocidal killers. Does one consider Adolph Galland an evil Nazi not fit for a proper burial..?? I think not. The ME-109 is a rare piece of WW2 Kit. Deserves to be recovered and preserved if not restored.
Let the Nazi bastards (plural) rot in hell.
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SO FAR the creepiest dive I have done shouldn't have been creepy at all. It was in Lake Pupukie at about 60 feet. I just got the shivers like someone had crawled over my grave. It was though in the (more or less) exact spot the two divers had died less than a month earlier.
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