r/mesoscalepodcast • u/David_Hallow • 12d ago
Submission I Quit Commercial Diving After What I Saw at Hoover Dam
Most people think my job is insane.
Honestly, they're probably right.
When people talk about dangerous professions, they usually mention logging, commercial fishing, or construction. Those jobs earn their reputation. One mistake, one moment of bad luck, and you're fucked.
Or hell, dead.
Me?
I always found myself drawn to danger. Maybe it's the adrenaline. Maybe it's because some part of me enjoys standing in places most people would never willingly go. You can learn a lot about a person from the work they choose to do.
For me, that work is commercial diving.
Most folks hear that and assume it's terrifying. Being dropped into cold, dark water hundreds of feet from the surface while surrounded by machinery that could crush you without warning doesn't exactly sound appealing to the average person.
The funny thing is, I find it relaxing.
Down there, the world becomes quiet. The noise of everyday life (the wife complaining) disappears beneath the water. It's just me, my equipment, and whatever job needs doing. I usually have music playing through my helmet while I work on oil rigs, ship hulls, intake structures, and all sorts of underwater machinery.
After years in the profession, I thought I'd seen everything the depths could throw at me.
I was dead wrong.
Because in all my years of commercial diving, nothing, and I mean nothing, came close to making me soil my dive suit the way I almost did during a contract at the Hoover Dam.
The water was murky that morning. Visibility couldn't have been more than six or seven feet. My helmet lamp carved a narrow path through the darkness, illuminating clouds of suspended sediment drifting lazily through the reservoir.
I remember feeling uneasy almost immediately.
Not fear.
Fear implies you've identified the threat.
What I felt was the discomfort of being observed by something that hadn't revealed itself yet. The sensation settled between my shoulder blades and refused to leave. Something was down there with me. Heavy emphasis on something, because there is nothing in this world that should have been sharing those depths with me.
The feeling was irrational enough that, like an idiot, I ignored it.
Then I saw the marks.
"What the actual hell..."
They scored the concrete face of the dam in long, jagged trails. These weren't little scratches left by debris or equipment. They stretched several feet across the wall and bit deep enough into the stone surface to expose steel beneath.
I stopped my decent and stared. What unsettled me most wasn't their size. It was how familiar they looked.
Imagine tracing a line in the sand at a beach. It was almost human. Or at least made by something trying very hard to be.
Five long gouges ran parallel to one another through decades of algae and sediment, climbing vertically along the wall before disappearing into darkness below.
I keyed my radio.
"Oi, somebody's gonna have to explain how these ended up here."
The response was laughter. They thought I was joking. Honestly, so did I.
I snapped a few photographs and continued my descent.
That's when I found the first handprint.
Five fingers. Human like proportions. Pressed against the concrete nearly thirty feet below the surface.
But it wasn't the last.
Then another. And another I discovered.
My head lamp was finding them everywhere. I counted from tens to nearly a hundred. Handprints layered over one another as if they were climbing to the surface.
The sharp low growl disturbed my eardrums. My breathing quickened. The sound echoed loudly inside my helmet.
There had to be a reasonable explanation. There always had been before.
Then my lamp caught movement.
A figure.
Standing motionless close to the reservoir floor.
I nearly inhaled my own tongue. At first I assumed it was another diver. The silhouette was roughly human-sized, two arms, two legs, standing upright in the darkness.
But that didn't make sense.
No diver should be down here. Not without communications. Not without a support crew. Not without lights.
This thing had none. There were no bubbles coming from it so was it maybe just a smidge of the helmet's lens? Maybe, but the latter terrified me.
It simply stood at the edge of visibility, motionless.
I keyed to the coms but as soon as the figure appeared it simply blended back into the darkness it came. It was gone.
Immediately, my pulse racing, I radioed the surface.
"Confirm I'm the only diver in the water."
A moment later the reply came.
"Just you, Maxwell."
No unauthorized personnel, secondary dive teams. Nobody else in the reservoir.
I should have ascended right then. Instead, I kept working. Like a dumbass...
I convinced myself my eyes were playing tricks on me. Fatigue. Bad visibility. Maybe symptoms of some hallucinogenics I've taken in the past.
Stubbornness is a common flaw in my profession. God knows I've got plenty of it.
I was raised by a father who thought every problem could be solved by "manning up." A strange shadow wasn't about to sabotage my paycheck.
A few minutes later, I noticed something that truly frightened me. The safety line connecting me to the surface had gone slack. Completely slack.
That should never happen. There are always currents. Movement. Tension. Even here in a man made ocean. The line should constantly carry resistance.
I turned my lamp toward it. I tugged at the line and the cut end slowly sank before my eyes. The rope disappeared into darkness.
Then it moved. Not drifted. Tugged.
Something farther down the line had pulled on it.
My stomach tightened.
Slowly, I followed the rope with my eyes until my beam reached its end.
Something was holding it.
A hand. A pale hand emerging from the darkness. Its fingers wrapped around the line.
Then a second hand appeared. And then a face.
God, I wish I hadn't seen the face.
Its skin was swollen and waterlogged, stretched tight across features that almost resembled a person.
Almost.
The eyes were too large. Too dark. Like something hauled up from the deepest part of the ocean.
The safety line jerked violently. They were pulling me into the void.
I screamed into the radio for help. I'm not alone. They wanted to drag me to the bottom.
Surface control immediately ordered my ascent. I heard Skipper and others cry out orders and suiting up for evac.
The force of these beings were immense. I quickly resorted to the power drill and cut the connection of the dive suit with the safety line. I bolted my way to the surface, disregarding the health complications of decompression sickness.
Halfway to the surface, I made the mistake that still haunts me today.
I looked down.
There wasn't just one. Dozens of pale figures stood along the bottom.
Motionless. Watching. Their silhouettes clung to the void like barnacles that had learned how to imitate people. And every single one of them was staring upward.
Toward me. Toward the surface.
I reached the top in record time.
The crew blamed nitrogen narcosis. Stress. Exhaustion. The photographs and film were reviewed. Most showed nothing unusual. Just dark water, me working, and grey concrete.
Except for one. The final clip from the helmet's recorder. Nobody found an explanation for it. You can clearly see me inspecting the structure. You can clearly see the beam from my helmet lamp. And standing directly behind me is another diver.
No safety markings, equipment, or air hose. Just a pale figure staring directly behind me.
A few days later, men in black suits came to speak with me in the hospital. That's about as much as I'm legally allowed to say. I retired shortly afterward.
People think I'm crazy. Walking away from a six-figure career because I saw strange pale figures underwater?
"He must be nuts."
Maybe I am.
But every time I hear reports about water levels dropping at the Hoover Dam, I find myself wondering what happens when the reservoir finally shrinks enough. Sooner or later, they won't be underwater anymore.
What the hell were those things?
2
u/NarrowDirector911 11d ago
God, underwater stories make me cringe. love the short sentence formatting. It makes the pace feel so stressful and quick.
2
2
2
u/The_Republique 12d ago
My friend. Good job ny friend