We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the surface of the ocean floor. I’m not trying to be dramatic; just stating a fact – one most people should know. But there’s another fact most people don’t know, which is why we don’t know much about it. There is a perfectly logical reason for this. A reason our world’s governments do not want you to know.
My name is Donald Walsh, and I have been to the bottom of the Earth. Along with my partner, Jacques Piccard, we made the record-breaking decent of the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench over half a century ago in early 1960. I believe it is time I told the truth about what really happened during those few hours we spent in the submersible, the Trieste.
Much that has been recorded about the historical event is inaccurate, and many things were never revealed at all. But I won’t go into all the details here. I’ll begin my story at fifteen hundred feet below the water’s surface, where the darkness is absolute. Turning on the Trieste’s lights did nothing to illuminate our surroundings – it actually had quite the opposite effect. It only served to show how empty and barren the water was. With a few exceptions, the ocean was devoid of life at these crushing depths. With nothing to illuminate, nothing for the light to bounce off of, it faded quickly into oblivion. We were in the thick of nothingness, which extended for possibly miles in every direction. It was unsettling, and thus we chose not to use the ship’s lights save for necessity.
There was another reason for not using the lights, and that was because we wished to view the bioluminescent life. Although scant, we were able to observe some marine life, from miniscule plankton to jellyfish and some larger fish. They emitted usually a blue or green glow or occasionally red, and had bodies that were nearly translucent. I believe if it weren’t for their glowing parts, we might not have seen them at all.
Shortly passed thirty-thousand feet we noticed a series of red and blue lights stretcheing into the distance below us. Admittedly, we could not see far in the oppressive dark, but these lights radiated father than expected. All the bioluminescent creatures we had come across disappeared more than a dozen feet from our window, so dominant was the darkness. But these lights appeared to travel at least forty or fifty feet before fading into the unknown. And the closer we dropped to the bottom of the Trench, the further we could see them. Jacques and I were astounded. Was it simply many organisms floating in a row, or did it belong to one enormous creature? The longer we looked the more we noticed that the lights never moved. We deduced that it was must be some form of algae or group of phosphorescent bacteria.
When we finally touched the bottom of the Challenger Deep we found what we were looking for: life. Not just the single-celled organisms that we’d postulated lived at these crushing depths, but multicellular life. To this day our sighting of the ‘flat fish’ is doubted, with many citing it as a sea cucumber. But we know what we saw.
We also saw the end of this road of lights. From our vantage we could not see how far they ventured, but they shone out to us like a beacon. I turned on the Trieste’s lights and we marvelled at nature. We were the first – and thus far only – men on the planet to dive to the bottommost part of the world, seeing things no one has ever seen. The sun does not reach these depths, but now mankind did.
Jacques and I made some readings and measurements of the bottom of the Mariana Trench; temperatures, fluctuations of currents, etc, he made a phone call to the surface (another history-making endeavour) to update the other researchers of our findings. Then we decided to follow the progression of lights, this road in the deep.
We had touched down several meters from the end of the lights, and had to lift off the surface to float over to them. This process kicked up great plumes of sediment from the bottom, obscuring our view of nearly everything, save for those lights. They continued to shine, like a lighthouse in the
When we reached the first of the lights we saw was appeared to be barbs along the end, almost claw-like in appearance. This was not a group of fish or algae – it was one astonishing creature! This was a hitherto unknown species of eel, far larger than any discovered. Suddenly the lights began to move, or at least undulate. It was a similar pattern to landing strips at an airport. They glowed and flashed waves, mesmerizing, almost hypnotic. We followed the lights, eager to chart its length.
At some point the lights began to actually move. We detected first small traces of sediment drifting up, and then saw the creature ripple. It was larger than we thought. As with everything else in the abyss, its body was translucent, completely invisible to us until now. The lights were merely filaments along its body, possibly used to attract prey. Only too late did this theory dawn on us.
When preparing for this expedition and constructing the Trieste, the only potential danger would come from the thousands of tons of pressure from the miles of water above us – and every precaution was taken in that regard. There was no need for any outward defences; that we would encounter any life at all in the deep was highly suspect. But to encounter hostile creatures – that was simply an absurd notion.
But here we were, watching as the enormous invertebrate slowly coiled around the Trieste, ensnaring us. Jacques tried to pilot our sub away but its grip was tenacious. In fact, the harder he tried to escape, the tighter it became, like a boa constrictor, crushing our tiny ship. After the outer glass of the rear of the sub cracked, leaving but one pane between us and instant death, we decided to cease resisting and let the creature take us. Without any means of defence, what else could we do?
So we waited and watched as the tentacle-like worm dragged us along the ocean floor. Its head never came into view, strangely enough, making it exceedingly difficult to gain a scope of this monster. This ignorance, however, would have been preferable to what we soon learned.
As we were forcibly escorted to whatever destination lay ahead of us, we began to see other eel-like creatures. We could only detect them by the strip of lights they emitted, but we knew now what they were. On either side of the Trieste, an indeterminate distance away.
Shortly thereafter we made an even more startling and grave discovery: the creatures were not multiple. Out of the great blackness, lit alone by the meagre lights of our submersible, a dark wall appeared before us. At first we thought it was the side of the Trench, but it soon became clear that this was just another part of the beast that ensnared us. They all were; every row of lights. They were not individual creatures, but tentacles, appendages of a massive beast.
I cannot speak for my companion, but a sense of foreboding like I’d never known came over me. What was once an innocent strip of lights, a road in the deep, had become a monster of indescribable horror. And we were being drawn inextricably toward it.
Panic overtook us, and we furiously tried to pilot the sub away. This served only to make our situation more dire as the arm tightened its grip upon us. As we continued to struggle, the hull of our sub shuddered and emitted a series of groans, the telltale screams of the Trieste’s agony. Death was all but assured, but it was better to be crushed quickly from the pressure of the ocean rather than suffer whatever lay at the base of the massive arm. We did not want to know what fate beheld for us.
Appropriately enough at that moment the Trieste’s lights faded, then blinked off, leaving the creature illuminated solely by its own bioluminescence. The last thing we saw out the portal window was another massive tentacle coming towards us, like an impending, unavoidable collision. We braced for impact, which, either due to the beast’s enormous size or the thicker density of the water, was longer than we expected in arriving.
When it finally collided the force sent us both sprawling from our respective stools. The lights inside our sub went out, leaving us in profound darkness. We picked ourselves up carefully, lit only by the sparse light emitted from the tentacles crushing our ship. Another shudder ruptured the calm, and all the machinery went dead. It was silent save for the creaking metal. I wondered briefly how the Trieste was still intact, and how many more minutes we had to live.
I awoke from a jostling by Jacques. I peered at him uncomprehendingly. We were dead, right? The Trieste swayed forcefully and I braced for the worst, but Jacques stopped me. He pointed to the depth finder: we were less than twenty feet under water. I lay in a twisted heap at the bottom of the sub, aching all over. My head was especially tender, likely having hit something hard enough to knock me out cold. But I was glad for such pain – I was alive! Jacques himself had also just awakened, having himself also been knocked unconscious. Dried blood caked the side of his head, as it did mine I soon learned.
After we boarded the Wandank it was explained that the Trieste was designed to drop all ballast and float to the surface should there be total power failure. Jacques and I deduced that either we escaped the on our own, or we were released – possibly once the creature discovered its catch consisted primarily of steel. Or perhaps it had been attracted to our lights – surely a rare thing at the bottom of the world – and when they faded so to did the creature’s interest. Whatever the reason, we were alive.
We told the crew what had happened and were met with equal parts awe and scepticism. A kracken, they called it. Word got to the upper echelons of the US Navy, and then the government, about our discovery, and we were instructed to make another journey down once the Trieste was repaired. Of course, we refused. In fact, for all those who doubted the creditability of our story, no one was willing to risk venturing to those depths in our place. To this day no one has repeated our voyage.
Despite all the hubbub and notoriety of our expedition, little was revealed to the public. Instead lies were created. What scraps of information the scientific community was able to learn about our decent was often incorrect, and both Jacques and I were instructed never to reveal the truth of what lay at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Jacques Piccard is now deceased, so the onus is on myself to finally expose what really happened all those years ago, consequences be damned.
I’m writing this now as filmmaker James Cameron prepares for his descent to the Challenger Deep. I hope he reads this and I urge him to reconsider. He does not want to know what lies at the bottom of the world. Let me take that to my grave, alone.
The Chris Effect 