‘Eventually, they start watching back’: Oil rig worker expected storms and to miss his kids, then he found he actually needed to be afraid of the water

Tyler, who worked on an oil rig, expected some challenges with the job, like “storms, equipment failures, long shifts, isolation, missing his kids.” However, as he told TikToker Michael, who runs the TikTok channel Grimm History, “what he never expected was to be genuinely afraid of what was beneath the water.”

In a post that has already hit 1.4 million views, Michael reports the strange phenomena Tyler experienced in his four years on the rig. Now, this is a story from a single TikToker with no way to objectively verify the bizarre phenomenon, but here’s how Michael says it went down.

“The ocean at night has a whole different feel to it. Once the sun disappears, you’re standing on a steel platform hundreds of miles from land with nothing around you except that black water stretching out to the horizon forever.” He added, “After midnight, the ocean almost seems to come alive in its own creepy way.” Tyler said that “there are things living or moving out in the open ocean that don’t show up on any maps, sonar, or any type of training manuals.”

Per Michael, Tyler’s first encounter happened around 2:00 AM during his second month. While stepping outside for a cigarette, he spotted a single bright blue light, not bioluminescence or a reflection, moving quickly beneath the water. It suddenly changed direction, moving straight upward and stopping a few feet beneath the rig. Tyler said it hovered there for a little bit, perfectly still, then it shot off, faster than anything he’d ever seen move underwater.

Questioning a colleague only made it more real

Michael said that Tyler asked an older worker about the encounter, the man just laughed and asked, “Oh, so you’ve seen them?” When Tyler pressed for answers, the man replied, “Well, you know, it just depends on who you ask, you know, some call them spirits, others call them the visitors. Most of us just don’t talk about them.” He added, “You’ll just learn to just deal with it.”

Not long after, Tyler began hearing strange noises around 4:00 AM. “not like any whales or dolphins or machinery,” but “long, mournful calls, almost like someone singing underwater. Sometimes it sounded feminine, and other times it sounded almost mechanical.” Michael said, “Every single time that those noises would happen, the ocean around the platform became unnaturally calm. There were no waves, no wind, just nothing. Just complete silence.”

A year into the job, Tyler said he and several coworkers witnessed dozens of blue, green, and white lights swimming in circles around the support legs of the rig. He noted in his email that it was way too coordinated for it to be fish, and too fast for it to be divers. 

While one younger worker joked about secret military drones, an older veteran simply commented, “They’re back earlier than usual this year.” The lights were said to have remained for 20 minutes, and Tyler felt like they were “inspecting” the structure before plummeting straight down into the darkness.

Lastly, Michael narrated that about six months before leaving the rig, Tyler woke up one morning after a night shift. As he stepped outside of his little cabin, “30 feet above the ocean was a wet, human-like handprint on the window.” Michael shared the image that Tyler had sent him as proof.  

He noted that per Tyler, “There’s no way to access it from the bottom. And he says he never found out who or what left it there, but whatever lives beneath those rigs knows when you’re watching. And he said, eventually they probably start watching back.” 

The story has sparked intense reactions from viewers who have had their own experiences with the ocean. User mikec583, a former sailor in the USN, commented, “as a former Sailor in the USN yeah. there’s a LOT of stuff out there.” Another user, H1DD3N, who identified as a deep saturation diver, confirmed the sentiment, writing, “I can confirm. I don’t go in the ocean anymore.” 

Tyler’s story aligns with the triggers for thalassophobia, which, according to Very Well Mind, is a persistent, intense fear of deep bodies of water. Thalassophobia involves a deep, primal fear of what lurks beneath the surface and can cause symptoms like a racing heart, dizziness, and a feeling of needing to escape. As user EricFrost998 put it, “Bold of us humans to think we own the earth.”

Creepy experiences aren’t restricted to just the ocean, as horrorTok reminds us. Recently, a true crime TikToker shared her experiences growing up in a haunted house. Before that, TikToker ashleeinc shared a follower’s stormy tale where a driver lost 9 minutes during a road trip after repeated warnings from an old man.