I've been a search and rescue diver for 12 years. Last week, I saw something that made me question everything.

I’ve been a search and rescue diver for 12 years now, and I’ve seen my fair share of bodies and remains. But last week, I saw something that made me question everything.<br><br>It was a typical call. A fisherman went missing off the coast the night before. The Coast Guard had picked up the father and son, but the grandfather was still out there somewhere. It had been rough that night, and the son was worried his grandfather hadn’t made it through. We were looking for a body.<br><br>I went out with a couple of others and started searching the area. The water was relatively calm, and visibility was good, so I was hopeful we’d find him quickly. After about 40 minutes of searching, I saw something strange.<br><br>It was a shape in the distance that looked like a person. It was vertical, almost standing up in the water, with two fins sticking out below it. I signaled to the others that I’d found something and made my way towards it.<br><br>As I got closer, I realized it wasn’t a body. It was a scuba diver, and he was alive. He was just... standing there, in the water, with a weird mask and tank on. I recognized the setup. Navy divers used those. I thought maybe he’d been out on a training and needed help so swam over.<br><br>“Hey, you okay? Do you need help? A guy was reported missing in the area last night.”<br><br>The diver didn’t seem surprised to see me or appear disoriented. In fact, he seemed completely lucid. He just stared at me while I was talking, then signaled “okay.” He didn’t respond to any of my questions or seem the least bit interested in talking to me, so I swam away, making sure he watched me to see my hand signals, and signaled the others to come over.<br><br>“Guy, I found a diver, Navy. He seems okay, just weird. You talk to him.”<br><br>Then I watched as the diver watched Guy come over. He did say a few things to Guy, but I couldn’t make out the hand signals from where I was. It almost looked like they were having a normal conversation. My other diver, Rachel, swam over and we both watched as Guy and the strange diver chatted for a few minutes.<br><br>That’s when it got weird. I watched as Guy signaled him to follow us. Then he turned around and swam away. The diver followed him, no where near where we’d told the boat to pick us up.<br><br>I swam over to Guy, confused, and asked what he was doing.<br><br>“Dude, finish the search,” was all he said before he swam off after the diver.<br><br>I shrugged and swam back to Rachel, shrugging on the way.<br><br>Rachel signaled that we should finish the search and meet up with them on the boat if we didn’t find anything. We did, and in the end, we found nothing. No body. No debris. Nothing.<br><br>When we got on the boat, Guy and the diver were already there, dry and changed.<br><br>“Guy, what was that all about?”<br><br>“Nothing. Old friend from the Navy. It was good to catch up.”<br><br>Rachel and I were dumbfounded, but neither of us wanted to press the issue. I was just glad the search hadn’t been for a body.<br><br>Later that night, we were all out for drinks. I brought it up again.<br><br>“Guy, I gotta ask. What was that about? Who was that diver?”<br><br>Guy was much more forthcoming this time, taking a long pull of his beer before speaking.<br><br>“I used to do some... training missions for the Navy. These training exercises were secret, and we were never to talk about them. But I recognized the gear the diver was wearing. It was what we used on the training exercises. The diver I talked to had the same gear.”<br><br>“So you recognized him?”<br><br>“I didn’t recognize his face. I didn’t recognize anything about him. It just seemed like every other diver I’d met that was doing the same training I was.”<br><br>“Okay, so what did the diver say?”<br><br>Guy looked nervous before answering.<br><br>“He asked why we were in the area. I explained the training, and he thanked us and left.”<br><br>“Wait, so you told him you were training? And he bought it?”<br><br>I was incredulous. We hadn’t been training. We had been searching for a body. And even if we had been training, who just runs into an old buddy out at sea?<br><br>“I know. It was weird. But in the moment, I don’t know, it made sense. It was the right thing to say.”<br><br>I nodded and we dropped it. I thought maybe Guy had just been caught off guard and it was a weird interaction. That was it. But then, a few nights later, I got another call.<br><br>It was a similar situation. A kayaker was reported missing off a lake. No one had heard from her in a couple of days, and they were starting to get worried. They thought she might have gone out on the lake and had an accident. We found the car at a boat launch, and a kayaker renter in the area said he’d seen her go out. It was full-on search and rescue this time.<br><br>We searched the whole lake, and we found her almost immediately. It was a little strange, because she had all of her gear with her, and her kayak was upside down but still tied to her harness. I figured maybe she’d hit her head and gotten confused, so I swam over to her.<br><br>She didn’t respond when I talked to her. I grabbed her harness so she wouldn’t float away and waved down the others.<br><br>But as I looked at her, I realized something was wrong. She wasn’t wearing a mask, but she didn’t seem to be having any problems breathing. The only strange thing about her was that her eyes had turned a weird shade of grey. Almost like concrete.<br><br>When the others got over, we all agreed we should try to get her to the surface. So we did.<br><br>As soon as we got to the surface, she started thrashing around. We held her down, trying to keep her head above water, until the boat got there. I didn’t see her take a single breath the whole time. In fact, I didn’t see her take a breath until we got her into the back of the ambulance.<br><br>Then, something I’ll never forget happened.<br><br>As they closed the back of the ambulance, she sat up and looked around. She was groggy, but seemed okay. Then she looked me dead in the eye and, in a totally normal voice, said:<br><br>“It’s okay. I have to stay here now. But he’ll be back soon.”<br><br>Then she lay back down and passed out.<br><br>It was so weird, I immediately wrote it off. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the diver and now this kayaker. Had they been somehow trained to stay underwater? Was this some sort of secret Navy project? No one had ever heard of anything like that.<br><br>I decided to take a drive to the base the diver had been from. I knew a guy there who I could meet for lunch. It was only an hour away, and I was off that day anyway. Might as well.<br><br>I got to the base at 11:00 and met my friend, Jim, there. We grabbed lunch and sat outside talking about the mission and the strange occurrences.<br><br>He was intrigued and promised to look into it. I left at 1:00, glad I’d gotten it off my chest.<br><br>I got a call around 7:00 that night. It was Jim. He was talking in a hushed tone.<br><br>“Don’t mention this to anyone. I did some digging and found out the name of the diver your guy talked to. I looked him up, and he’s listed as deceased. Died training 15 years ago.”<br><br>I was floored.<br><br>“Who the hell was it then, Jim?”<br><br>I heard rustling on the other end of the line.<br><br>“I have to go.”<br><br>Then it went dead.<br><br>I tried calling back, but he didn’t answer.<br><br>I haven’t heard from him since.<br><br>I don’t know what’s going on.