When we look to the stars, the question that always plagues our mind is that what exactly is out there? The answer to that can be difficult to formulate since, from our understanding, the universe is huge. But let’s look at our own planet for a minute, surely, we know almost everything about it and the vast number of creatures that live here, right? Wrong.

Around 70 percent of our planet’s surface is covered in water, yet much about Earth’s oceans remains a mystery to this day. More people have walked on the moon than those who have visited the ocean floor. It is estimated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that 95 percent of the world’s ocean and 99 percent of the ocean floor is unexplored. This means that we have no idea of what secrets remain in this hidden ecosystem of the world.

Exploring these regions is a very difficult and expensive task but this still hasn’t stopped people from trying and then making some interesting discoveries along the way. Sometimes these have been incredible but on other occasions they have been very disturbing, going further to show us that the ocean is not something we should mess around with. Whether it is horrifying sea creatures or weird anomalies, here we have compiled a list of the 15 most disturbing things ever discovered by deep sea divers.

15. A Giant Eye

Yes, we’re coming straight out with the creepy stuff. Imagine going for a dive on a peaceful day near the beach. You could be out collecting sea shells or shark tooth but then you come across a weird round looking object the size of a softball. While you examine it, the realization hits you, it’s a giant eyeball. Now, this isn’t something out of a horror movie because it happened in real life on Florida’s Pompano Beach.

Ever since the giant eye was discovered, scientists and marine wildlife officials have been trying to determine where it came from. Some suggest that it belongs to a swordfish while others speculate it came from a giant squid. We, on the other hand, wouldn’t ever want to come across whoever this giant eye belongs to. Who knows, maybe the Kraken and sea monsters were real after all. Speaking of sea monsters, we have our next entry.

14. Vampire Squid

You probably guessed it from the name that this isn’t a very nice creature. The vampire squid is a cephalopod which can be found in the deeper parts of the world’s tropical oceans. It has eight arms which are connected by a webbing of skin resembling a cloak but here’s the fun part, each of its arms is lined with rows of spiny projections that the squid isn’t afraid to show when threatened.

It lacks ink sacs but makes up for them by ejecting a sticky cloud of bioluminescent mucus from the arm tips. This is a defense mechanism that serves to daze any would-be predators, allowing the vampire squid to disappear into the darkness of the deep-sea again.

13. Baltic Sea Anomaly

The Baltic Anomaly is still a bit of a mystery even to this day. It is a circular formation with a diameter of 60 meters which was discovered in June 2011 by Peter Lindberg and his Ocean X diving team. Speculations about what it might be range from a WWII anti-submarine device to a flying saucer.

However, what makes this discovery disturbing is that electronic equipment carried by divers simply stops working once they approach within 200 meters of the object. Professional diver Stefan Hogerborn who is part of the Ocean X team was quoted as saying: ‘Anything electric out there – and the satellite phone as well – stopped working when we were above the object.’ There is also a flattened 985 feet ‘runway’ leading up to the object which only adds further to the mystery of the Baltic Sea Anomaly.

12. Lost City Of Heracleion

We are all familiar with the story of Atlantis, a great city hidden in the sea from the land dwellers. While Atlantis might be a work of fiction, losing entire cities because of the rising sea levels happens more often than you think. A notable example of this is the city of Thonis, referred to as Heracleion by the Greeks.

It was discovered by a group of divers off the Egyptian coast in the early 2000s when they came across a large fragment of the statue that belonged to Hapy (God of fertility, lord of the river). What makes this discovery disturbing is that this was once a city bustling with life and now only their belongings remain submerged in 30 feet of water. “As an archaeologist, discovering a tomb is exciting, but it’s the tomb of one individual,” says Aurélia Masson-Berghoff, curator of the Sunken Cities exhibition at the British Museum. “Discovering a whole city, which was home to thousands and thousands of people over more than a thousand years …Well, that’s something else.”

11. The Ghost Fleet

World War II is a dark chapter in human history. It involved the vast majority of the world’s countries with Allies on one side and Axis on the other. The Empire of Japan was looking to dominate much of Asia and the Pacific during this conflict.

On February 17^th, 1944, the Allied forces bombed Chuuk Lagoon which was a Japanese stronghold located in the Caroline Islands. This attack reportedly killed hundreds of Japanese soldiers and destroyed more than 250 aircraft and 50 ships. It wasn’t until the 1960’s when wreckage of this attack was discovered by divers where they found bodies of soldiers who had drowned while still trapped inside their vehicles.

10. Goblin Shark

The goblin shark is a rare shark species that is found in some of the deepest parts of the world oceans. They are ugly, scary and you better pray that you don’t ever run into one of them. While they are normally considered a non-threat to humans, a video that surfaced in 2014 proved otherwise.

A group of filmmakers who were looking for a goblin shark were able to capture footage of the predator while it attempted to sink its teeth into a diver’s arm. The technique this creature uses to capture prey or attack is both fascinating and scary. Its specialized jaws carry two elastic ligaments that essentially catapult the jaws forward, capturing prey in the process. This is proof that these creatures should simply not be messed around with.

9. Ancient Greek Computer

Discovered in 1901 from the Antikythera shipwreck, this ancient analog computer is believed to have been constructed by Greek scientists in 87 BC. It is still one of the most amazing discoveries made in the present age despite being in the ocean for thousands of years.

What’s disturbing about this discovery is the sheer amount of complexity it carries in its construction. The actual use for it is still unknown but speculations range from an ancient calendar to being used for prediction of lunar and solar eclipses. The mechanism shows just how advanced the people of ancient times were, or maybe it was the aliens who brought them this technology, we may never know!

8. Fisherman’s Glove

Imagine coming across a fisherman’s glove during your dive, it might not be a big deal but what if you came across one that still had a human hand inside it? This is exactly what happened to Reddit user gdwcifan who was out diving with his friends when they came across a fisherman’s glove with the hand still inside it.

They did what any sane person would’ve done and brought the glove to the local police who told them that they had no reports of a person with a missing hand. It could be that some poor fisherman ended up losing their hand in an accident but this is definitely one of the creepiest incidents we’ve come across, however, it still isn’t as creepy as our next entry.

7. Dead Surfer

Finding a human hand is bad, coming across a complete body is even worse. This one comes from Reddit user pteam-pterodactyl who was on a dive with some of his friends off the Florence, OR coast when they came across a dead-body on the ocean floor in the creepiest condition possible.

It belonged to a surfer who had gone missing a few days earlier. What made it even more disturbing was the fact that since he was wearing a wet suit, his arms, legs, and head were left exposed. Crabs had eaten the flesh from the exposed portions of his body, basically leaving a torso with a skull and skeletal limbs behind.

6. Oarfish

This is the closest creature to the Loch Ness Monster that you can come across in the ocean. They are found in depths of around 1,000 meters and can grow up to 11 meters in length officially making them the longest bony fish alive.

In 2016, Jeremy Wade was able to film an encounter with a live oarfish while diving for an episode of River Monsters. This is the only known footage of a human interacting with this sea serpent in its own environment. They propel themselves using an amiiform mode of swimming which is both creepy and amazing.

5. Ancient Neolithic Village

It seems as if there are more cities hidden in the sea than we realize. Atlit Yam is one such example which is submerged off the coast of Atlit, Israel. This Neolithic village has been carbon dated to be between 8900 and 8300 years old and was discovered in 1984 by marine archaeologist Ehud Galili who spotted ancient remains while surveying the area for shipwrecks.

According to an Italian study, the village was struck by tsunami almost 40 meters high which engulfed the city and many other surrounding areas within hours. Further evidence of stored fish which was ready for trade revealed that the village was abandoned in a hurry, however, this is not all though as numerous human bodies have also been discovered during the excavation including that of a woman and child.

4. Creepy Statues

Often times art is used to express feelings and emotions in a creative way. It helps us look at things from the artists’ perspective and understanding of the world but all of this changes once you drop these pieces of art into the ocean. They transform into something totally different, eliciting feelings of horror and dread as you are surrounded by water.

A lot of these statues are present in the Gulf of Mexico, each representing a different concept but still an eerie sight to behold when divers run into one of them. Now obviously this isn’t a natural phenomenon but to any unsuspecting divers unaware of their existence, it is definitely a surprise. We just hope you don’t run into one of these while diving at night.

3. Frilled Shark

The frilled shark is another creature that lurks in the deeper parts of the ocean. It is also considered a living fossil since it exhibits several primitive features and is found at depths of around 50 to 200 meters. One of the terrifying features of this shark is its massive rows of teeth which can total up to almost 300 individual teeth across 25 rows.

It is speculated that frilled sharks capture their prey by bending their bodies and then lunging forward in a fashion similar to snakes. Their long and flexible jaws allow them to swallow prey whole and the rows of teeth make it difficult for the prey to escape. Frilled sharks can grow up to lengths of 2 meters and are a divers nightmare.

2. Michigan Lake Mystery

In the year 2007, Mark Holley, a professor of underwater archaeology at Northwestern Michigan University College came across a mysterious site located 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan while searching for old shipwrecks. It contains a row of stones which are eerily similar to the famous Stonehenge. “The whole site is spooky, in a way. When you’re swimming through a long line of stones and the rest of the lake bed is featureless, it’s just spooky,” said Holley.

Divers were able to photograph some of these stones and came across what is believed to be a prehistoric carving of a mastodon, an animal that went extinct almost 10,000 years ago. How these stones with petroglyphs on them ended up on the bottom of Lake Michigan still remains a mystery to this day.

1. Blobfish

There is a good reason to why it was voted as one of the ugliest animals in the world. Now we should never judge anything based on its appearance but let’s be honest here, the blobfish is a disturbing mass of living gel as soon as it is out of the water.

While the exact events which led to its discovery are unknown, certain sources still claim that divers came across this deep-sea creature in 1978 off the Australian shores. It poses no real threat to humans since it doesn’t have any muscle and cannot survive outside water but it is the appearance that we find ugly and disturbing.