I've been a search and rescue diver for 12 years. Two days ago I found something I may never be able to explain.

We were called out to search for a young girl missing in the river that runs through a popular campsite. She and her brother were swimming near the shore when he found himself suddenly grabbed by a powerful current and pulled under. His mother had woke up just in time to see him taken beneath the water. She told the police and our team that she had jumped in after her son, managed to grab him by the arm, and pulled him back up to the surface after possibly over a minute of being submerged. He was taken to the hospital and put on a ventilator. The hospital hadn't updated us on his condition when our search began. The mom claimed that her daughter had not yet made it into the water, she was standing in the shallowest part of the shore, near the adult's feet. Somewhere in the time it took for her to rescue her son, she claimed her daughter had been washed away by the current. I do not know why she was so careless as to turn her back on a 5 year old girl standing in the natural disaster danger zone that this particular river is notoriously known for. I don't know why she didn't look to see if she was okay before jumping in to save her son. I also don't know why she didn't warn the other swimmers near her about the potential current. I have so many questions that I will never ask. The mother was taken into custody by the local police when they came to take her son's statement at the hospital. <br><br><br>I've found a lot of deceased people underwater. A lot. I've seen bodies in all kinds of horrible states of decomposition. But I've never seen anything like this. During my search, I found the little girl from the campsite, but something was wrong. Something was so, so wrong and I know that I will never be able to get these images out of my head. The girl was lying on her stomach, head towards the current, almost as if she was clawing at the river floor to try and stop herself from being washed away. She looked as though she had been underwater for weeks. Very few people know that when a body decomposes underwater, it does not float back up to the surface the way they portray it in movies and t.v. shows, but rather stays put in the area that it sank to. <br><br><br>Her skin was completely gone on her front side, and a small school of minnows swam around a few of the visible holes that led to her hollowed out body cavity. She had no eyes, they had been picked away long before I found her body. Her long red hair blew in the current around her head, and waved towards her back. <br>When I got back to the surface, I could see that the rest of the divers had made their way back as well. We all looked at each other in confusion and horror. <br>"How the hell was she this decomposed?" One of the divers asked. "I thought the mom lost her yesterday?" <br>I shook my head. I didn't even have the energy to speak, I was in so much shock. "I found her a mile down the river." I finally managed out. One of the divers grabbed my arm and looked me in the eyes. <br>"Listen... is there any chance that you were mistaken? Any chance that this was a completely different body?" <br>I shook my head again. "You see a lot of redheaded little girls in a beanie floated around down here?" I was pissed off that he would even suggest that. I'm not stupid. I know what I saw and even if I couldn't see the beanie, there's no way I would confuse that with the body of another child. <br>One of the divers pulled out a cell phone from his wetsuit and dialed a number. After a moment, he spoke into the phone. <br>"Sir, you need to come back out here. We found a body and... honestly, it's just weird." He paused and I could hear someone yelling through the phone. <br>"No sir, that's what I'm telling you. She was decomposed." <br>Another pause. <br>"Well then how long do you think she'd been down here?" <br>I could still hear the police officer yelling, but I couldn't make out what he was saying. The diver pulling the phone away from his ear and looking at all of us. <br>"He's asking how long he thinks she'd been down here?" <br>All of us looked at each other in confusion. <br>One of the divers pulled out his own phone. After a couple minutes of fiddling around on it, he looked up at us. "This was the most recent post from the mom's Facebook account. It was posted 43 minutes ago." He turned his phone towards us so we could see the post. It was a picture of both the kids at what looked to be some sort of sporting event for the brother. The caption read "Me and my favorite two people 5/17/20" <br>None of us knew what to say. It was obvious from the picture that the mom's Facebook account was still active. <br>Two of the recovery divers had stayed in the water to collect the body. After our confusion had passed in silence, we all called out to them in unison. "Hey is there still a body down there??" There was a couple minutes delay, and then we heard the shuzziest voice come through the water. "Yeeessss... There's still a body down here!" <br>We all started to hand out equipment to the police, and they made their way down to the river floor to collect the body, or what was left of it, anyways. Once they were out of earshot, one of the divers spoke up. <br>"Guys... do you think this is some sort of cult or something? Like... some sort of sick human sacrifice or something?" The other divers started throwing out their own theories. I knew that I had to get out of there. I didn't know what to think but part of me felt like I had just witnessed something I wasn't meant to. I gathered up my stuff and got in my truck. I started the engine and pulled back around to the campsite. There were a couple cars parked in the lots, but other than that it was empty. I had to know. I got out of my truck and walked to the campsite that the mother had taken the missing persons report from. I started looking around and noticed a piece of paper on the ground, partially blown into the dirt. I picked it up and dusted it off. <br>"Brandon and Kayla's camping trip" was typed out in bold letters. Beneath the caption, there was some horrible clip-art of a family camping that looked like it was straight from the 90's super impose over a poorly blurred out background image of a campsite. There was an itinerary listed below the image with times and activities. "arrive and set up camp, make dinner, make s'mores, etc." The last activity listed was "swim until 2pm, head home, arrive at 4pm." <br>I crumpled up the paper in frustration and disappointment. I knew that it was impossible, but that was honestly the only copy of events that made sense. <br>I don't know how this could've happened. I don't know why the mom was so careless with her children. I have so many questions that I know I will never have answered. I just know that I will never forget the face of that partially decomposed little redheaded girl, floating listlessly in the current.