I recently mentioned the Mariana Trench at work, and was surprised to see that quite a few people had no idea what I was talking about. For anyone who isn’t familiar, The Mariana Trench, located in the Pacific Ocean, is the absolute deepest part of the ocean that we know of. Its deepest point is 6.8 miles down and is known as the “Challenger Deep”. But before you write this off as some sort of 5th grade science lesson (and I mean who am I kidding, fifth grade science lessons are actually really fun), The Mariana Trench is deceptively actually really spooky–in part due to the fact that the ocean is kind of terrifying. But we’ll get to that.
The Mariana Trench was just discovered during the Challenger Expedition (not the space shuttle) way back in 1875. The HMS Challenger was an old school ship, pictured below in drawings, and the Challenger expedition was an expedition designed to map the ocean, and laid a lot of the groudwork for modern oceanography. At the time, they measured it by tossing a weighted rope into the ocean and they thought it was only about 5 miles deep. It wasn’t until almost a century later in 1951 that scientists were able to use echo sounding (a type of sonar) to get a more accurate measurement and discovered it was much deeper than initially believed.
Since then, there’s been a lot of research done on the Mariana Trench, but we’ve only been able to go down there five times. One of these descents was by director James Cameron of Titanic fame. Making a descent to the depths necessary to explore the trench is extremely difficult, so as much as we want to know more about it, it’s slow going. Literally. It takes about an hour and a half to get down there, and divers, who make the trip in specially designed submersibles, have to stop every so often due to the pressure changes.
Up until recently, James Cameron held the record for the deepest dive into the trench, but in May of this year, Victor Vescovo broke that record by diving even deeper into the trench.
So, what’s down there?
To be fair, we don’t know exactly what all could be in The Mariana Trench since it’s so difficult for us as humans to explore it. It’s really difficult for any species to live that deep underwater and under that much pressure from the depths. But scientists have discovered a couple of creatures.
First there are the xenophyophores. They’re a single-celled organism that looks something like this:
Xenophyophores eat by surrounding their food entirely and just absorbing it into their own bodies. So. That’s pretty creepy.
The other two species that we know for sure live down there are amphipods, which are like shrimp, and holothurians – AKA sea cucumbers.
I mean, if this isn’t creepy enough already. Ocean life is…sorry, a little gross at times. I know all creatures are beautiful and all that but sea cucumbers just…aren’t.
Of course, there are some other things in The Mariana Trench, too, and to be honest, this part is more sad than spooky or anything else.
In the most recent deep dive into the trench—the one that broke James Cameron’s record—guess what they found down there?
Trash.
Literal trash. In the deepest part of the ocean. Plastic bags and candy wrappers.
Because humans are the literal worst.
I mean, Sebastian pretty much sums it up.
So, where does the spooky stuff come in?
I find The Mariana Trench pretty spooky to begin with simply because, as some of you may already know, I think the ocean is terrifying. The fact that 95% of it is undiscovered and unexplored and there could be anything down there—on our own planet—and we just don’t really know is so creepy to me. Plus, you’ve seen some of the creatures down there.
But the Mariana Trench gets even spookier, for a couple of reasons.
You’d think the deepest part of the ocean would probably be pretty quiet and peaceful, right? Somewhere undisturbed and silent under all those layers and layers of water?
Wrong.
As it turns out The Mariana Trench is loud. Super loud. Underneath the 16,000 pounds of pressure per square inch under the water, there’s constant noise, which scientists discovered when they lowered a hydrophone into the deep waters a few years ago. The constant stream of sound includes rushing waters, the sounds from the pressure of the ocean, noises that sound like distant moaning, whale calls carrying through the water, and even some unexplained noises. And even at that depth of the ocean, the sound of boats and other manmade noises can be heard.
Because, you know. Humans are the worst. But we’ve already been over that.
The spookiest part about it was the unfamiliarity of some of the sounds that the hydrophone recording brought back. Since we know so little about the ocean, some of the sounds were difficult to identify and really freaked people out. Some of the mysterious noises which couldn’t be identified were theorized to be the sounds of aliens, or other undiscovered creatures. Of course, nowadays the theories have shifted and been explained away as distorted whale calls, but it’s still pretty spooky sounding. Check out the video below to hear the sounds for yourself and see what you think:
Mysterious Sound in The Mariana Trench
The final spooky thing about The Mariana Trench comes from the rampant speculation about just what else could be down there. Most of this speculation stems from the fact that we know so little about it, so naturally the human mind creates ideas and theories about it to fill in the gaps. It’s what we do with everything we don’t know or don’t understand: what could be out in space? What could be under the ocean? What could be in the unexplored corners of the forests? It’s human nature to try to fill in the blanks, and the blanks in this case have been filled with some pretty far-fetched cryptids.
Some people theorize that the trench could be the undiscovered home of the Megalodon Shark. Though this massive chomper is known to be extinct, it’s not unlike the theory of the Loch Ness Monster: could it be a holdover species of dinosaur that managed to survive in some dark, less populated corner of the earth? Could something that big really be down there and we just can’t see it or get to it?
Eh. Probably not, if only for the fact that the small species like sea cucumbers and xenophyophores that live down there wouldn’t be enough to sustain an animal that large.
But another spooky creature that people theorize might be hiding out in the depths of The Mariana Trench—or at least somewhere like it—is the mermaid. Of course, people don’t think the mermaids that could reside in the Mariana Trench are as cute and personable as Ariel and her sisters. If mermaids do exist, and are able to survive somewhere as deep as the trench, they’d actually probably be pretty terrifying.
The image above is from an Animal Planet documentary that you may remember from a few years ago because it turned out to be a total hoax, but many people still believe that creatures like this may exist, and that they may be hiding in these unexplorable corners of the ocean. And of course, when you consider the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, literally 95% of the ocean is unexplored, it doesn’t seem impossible.
In fact, the sci-fi novel Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant deals with just this topic. If you’re looking for a pretty cool, pretty spooky read, the novel deals with an expedition which sets out to make a documentary series about mermaids in The Mariana Trench. The basis of the novel is that the first expedition ended in the mermaids brutally murdering (mer-dering??? I’m so sorry. I’ll go now) all of the people who participated in the first documentary, and so to cover their own butts, they played it off as if the first documentary was a hoax. You can tell the concept is loosely based on the whole Animal Planet mockumentary controversy, and if you also think the ocean is creepy, you may like it. It has a couple drawbacks, but is a pretty cool dive into the spookiness of what could exist in the ocean without our awareness.
And how disastrous it could be if we piss it off.
In conclusion: the ocean is freakin’ scary. I know this may not have been a more “traditional” spooky Saturday, but y’all know how the ocean freaks me out, and I’m always really interested in The Mariana Trench. We’ll get back to ghosts and aliens next week.
What do you all think? Is the ocean as scary as I think it is? Do you think there could be creepy creatures in The Mariana Trench? Do the sounds freak you out? Are sea cucumbers just not cute?
Let me know in the comments! As always, I’d love to hear from you. <3