New Zealand Ghosts & Other Haunts

About four years ago, my father and I took a launch out for a weekend off great barrier island, perhaps to do a bit of bonding, but more likely to drink beer and catch fish.

Dad crashed out (possibly one too many brews) and left me to tie off and clear the back of the boat before retiring myself to the front cabin for the night. I decided after cleanup to spend an hour or two reading a book and watching the skies. The stars at sea, far out, are incredible. So many millions and millions of winking lights. Anyway I digress. I noticed at 2.14am a tapping against the side of the boat and moved to starboard to check it out. A single oar had floated out of nowhere and was softly bouncing against our launch. I was then drawn to immediately beneath the boat where it appeared about fifty feet down into the depths, there was a large round bioluminescent mass.

Now Im aware of algae doing this sometimes on the surface if the seas are calm enough so I first thought that was all this was, but after half an hour of the mass remaining there at depth, I decided to put a line down to see if I hit anything with a sinker. I had 300ft of line on my longline rig so I splayed out about eighty feet of nylon before I felt the line go taut...so I had either a bite (without bait???) or I had foulhooked something. I played about for a bit but couldnt budge the line. Now we were sitting in just over ninety feet of water, so whatever I had was not on the bottom.

After a wee while the green glowing mass moved out from under the boat and appeared to be diving or dropping into the deep away from my straining eyes. I recall that the very last thing I saw was the object moving rapidly out in the opposite direction from Barrier island, as if back out to sea.

I know it was a solid mass. I know I foulhooked something other than the glowing mass because when I got my line back up, there was crap like organic materal on the hook and line ....perhaps I had caught seaweed? I know what I saw was not a moonfish...but I do sometimes wonder after watching a couple of documentaries if what I saw wasnt the head of an oarfish? They can be bioluminescent and are very VERY big fish, though rarely if ever seen at that depth. (These guys like to be down hundreds of feet)...When I told Dad the next morning he poo pood it. His father however, my grandad, claims to have seen similar objects at sea and far stranger...

so there ya go! What was it?

and for G-ds sake....dont say it was Cthulhu! hahaha

It was a Cthulhu!!

No - more seriously - Im not sure what it could have been but thats an awesome story.

I didnt think we had Oarfish around in an inland waters....They're quite a deep sea fish at the best of times arent they?

But I tells ya what, more and more bioluminescent sea creatures are being discovered all the time - so who says it genuinely cant be something that hasnt been described yet?

Yeah Oarfish are very deep sea fish but some of them are bioluminescent and the object I saw would have definately been the size of the head of an oarfish, floating as they do, vertically in the sea. Some oarfish are on youtube shown as GIANT sea monsters when they actually only come up to die usually.