I've been a search and rescue diver for 12 years. The thing I saw in the water doesn't feel real.

I'm 34 and have been a search and rescue diver for 12 years now. I've helped find dozens of bodies, living people, and have even saved a few lives. I've seen some gnarly shit in the deep waters where we search for bodies. But what I saw two days ago has me questioning my own sanity. It's just so utterly ridiculous and impossible that I'm not even sure where to begin.<br><br>We're based in Australia, which has some of the most treacherous waters in the world, and for obvious reasons we don't give out our location. So lets just say we're in an area with a shit ton of dangerous marine life, steep drop offs, and unpredictable weather. <br><br>We'd gotten a report about a young guy who went out fishing alone on his little dingy and never came back. The report came in super late, from the guy's wife who was giving birth to their first kid. Obviously paranoid as hell about what her husband was doing out that late, she finally decided to call and report him missing. By that point, it was already dark and the weather had gotten bad out at sea, so we couldn't do much of anything but mark a few areas we'd start searching in the morning. <br><br>We went out at 7am, me and two other divers, in a truck with all of our equipment strapped down in the back. We'd been out there a few minutes, mostly just observing the winds and currents to try and determine the best places to look for a wreck. We'd marked two areas where we figured would be the most likely places for him to drift if he was out there, and I'd just put on my wetsuit and was about to go in when one of the other divers said he saw something in the water, 50 or so yards out from our craft. <br><br>I couldn't see it, but he was being persistent, so I decided to check it out. It was very cold and raining a bit, but I knew the water temperatures and undertows around where we were searching. I knew I could stay out there for quite a while, and when I got closer to where he'd told me to look, I saw something mostly submerged in the water, wobbling a bit on the surface. I swam closer and realized it was a basket, one of those woven bush ones, and it was full of water and partially below the surface. It was empty, but I figured the guy might have thrown it overboard for some reason and it could be a good starting point for where he went under if that's the case. <br><br>I yelled back to the other two divers and they came over. We decided to mark the spot and move on to the two other areas we'd identified earlier, and return to it later since we figured it meant the guy had probably been nearby. We swam around and looked for any signs of debris, but found nothing of note, including a wreck. The current was a bit stronger than we'd anticipated, so we decided to check the 2 places we'd figured he'd most likely be swept to if he was out there, and if we found nothing, come back to the area where we found the basket. <br><br>We swam to the first place we'd marked, mostly rocky outcroppings and jagged cliffs below the water, which would be an obvious place for someone to go under if they were being carried by the current. I swam down,-scanning the seafloor while the other divers stayed above and watched my bubbles. It was a short dive, maybe 15 meters, but when I got to the bottom, I saw nothing. We repeated the same process at the next spot, which again yielded nothing. <br><br>We swam back to where we'd found the basket. At this point I had a terrible feeling in my stomach. I'd been doing this for over a decade, and my instincts were usually right about these things. But I still had hope we'd find the guy alive, because we sometimes did, mostly with disoriented people who had been swept out to sea by riptides. By this point, I'd been in the water for a few hours, so I asked the other divers if they wanted to go down with me, or stay above and watch my bubbles again. One of them said she was coming with me. We went down together, communicating with hand signals, and when we reached the bottom, I still saw nothing. <br><br>But that's not what bothers me here. At the time I didn't really think much of it, but we'd obviously been swimming into a current, because the moment we went underwater, it mostly stopped. I didn't really notice it at the time because we'd been out there for awhile, and the current was one of the main reasons we'd come out so early, because we knew it would die out after noon. But when we went down we'd been swimming against a strong current for 10 or so minutes, and the moment we went below the surface of the water, I didn't feel it anymore. I'd been diving for years, including in areas with strong currents, so this wasn't new to me, but for some reason, now that I think about it, it felt strange. <br><br>We went back up and marking the area again, we moved along the current a bit, and dove down at another rocky outcropping, to see if the guy had perhaps sunk further down the line. We went maybe 30 meters down this time, and when we reached the bottom, there was nothing again. By this point, the water was getting deep and the visibility was low due to the silt and sediment the current was kicking up, so we decided to go back up to the surface and try a different part of our search area. We figured at this point if he was still alive out there, he'd be some distance away from where we were. <br><br>When we got back up to the surface, one of the divers noticed something in the water again, and this time, so did I. It was another one of those bush baskets, full of water, partially submerged, and about 60 yards out. I figured the current must have carried it from the other basket we'd found earlier, but we were 100% positive that it hadn't been there when we'd swum out. I decided to go check it out, mostly because I didn't want to be the guy who missed the one piece of evidence we needed to find a body. <br><br>So I swam over to it, swiped it out of the water, turned it over a few times, and found nothing of interest. I turned around to swim back to the other divers, and at that moment, something hit the water near me. I looked around and saw yet another one of those bush baskets. There were maybe 5 of them that had fallen into the water around me, but I saw no one throwing them. I was alone in the water, and when I looked back to the other divers they were looking at me confused, not looking off in the distance at something. I yelled at them, asking if they'd thrown the baskets in, and they said no. I yelled at them again to see if they'd seen someone, and they said they didn't see anything. By that point, I figured someone must be nearby, fucking with us, and throwing these stupid fucking dummy baskets into the water. I was pissed because we were out there looking for a missing person, and these pranksters were out there throwing these stupid fucking dummy baskets into the water to mess with us. <br><br>So I decided I'd swim over to where I figured they'd be, which was in the direction the current was taking us, and see if I could find them. I'd barely swum 10 or so yards when I was hit in the head by one of the fucking dummy baskets. I got water up my nose and was sputtering as I tried to wipe the water from my eyes and see who had thrown it. At that point, there were so many in the water, I was having to push them aside to keep swimming. When I finally cleared the water from my eyes, I saw a figure in the distance throwing the baskets into the water, one after another. <br><br>I had absolutely no idea who it was or why they were doing this, but I was pissed off to the point I was shaking as I swam towards the figure. I'd lost sight of my divers for a brief second, and when I looked back I saw them treading water and looking in my direction, but not moving. I asked if they saw the guy, and he said he'd seen someone out there, but wasn't moving because he figured I must have somehow seen the guy before he did. I continued to swim towards the guy, and as I got closer, I could tell it wasn't a guy at all. It was a kid. I figured he must have been out alone, playing some prank, and he'd either chosen us specifically or happened upon us and decided to fuck around with 3 people out trying to save lives. <br><br>I had no patience left at this point, and was frustrated as hell that my other divers weren't coming to help me catch this kid, so I screamed at the kid to stop and then I screamed at my divers again, asking why they weren't moving. The kid never turned around, and I figured he must have heard me and was afraid to turn around because he knew he was in trouble. But when I looked back over at my divers again, they were still doing absolutely nothing but watching me and the kid. It was like they were in some sort of trance, and I figured the kid must have thrown some kind of fucking smoke bomb or something in the water, and they'd breathed it in, and that's why they were like zombies.