r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/HimelTy • Jul 21 '26

Video A crashed Pan Am passenger plane from 1952 has been identified today by Discovery Channel in the Atlantic Ocean.

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u/1800generalkenobi Jul 21 '26

I read shadow divers a couple years ago and at the very beginning I was like oh maybe I'll try scuba diving and then I very quickly changed my mind. They found a german uboat of the coast of new jersey and it was them trying to prove what it was and man...like you let go of your line to the boat and you get caught by an underwater current and you're just gone.

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u/ihateyulia Jul 21 '26

Recreational scuba diving doesn't have to be anything like that. Go somewhere tropical and do an introductory dive. I bet you'll love it.

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u/lief79 Jul 21 '26

Yes, Jersey diving has the fun combo of poor visibility, cold waters, and not that much to see.

Recreational divers aren't going to go deep in a current, and if you find those conditions you cancel the dive and go somewhere more sheltered.

At recreational depths in that type of emergency, you'd just go to the surface, you wouldn't need a decompression stop.

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u/thegoodnamesrgone123 Jul 21 '26

Which you think we would have stuff to see given all the shipwrecks we have out there.

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u/lief79 Jul 21 '26

Sorta, on a good day you might be able to see 10 feet, great day 15. Just hope you know how to use a dry suit, because optimal conditions are still quite cold in a 5/6 mm wetsuit .... Upper 60s/low 70s at best.

I didn't enjoy it enough to get a dry suit, even though I managed to head out on a great day twice.

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u/kos-or-kosm Jul 21 '26

Lake Champlain is a fucking treasure trove of sunken ships, but the visibility is similarly awful, so there are dozens of vessels sitting there in the murky depths, likely not to be seen for a very long time.

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u/GovernorHarryLogan Jul 21 '26

My father, in typical awesome af 80s fashion, partnered with a bunch of other semi rich people to help support a hunt for of a bunch of lost revolutionary war gold in Lake Champlain.

They did not find it.

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u/Tim_Y Jul 21 '26

My father

My father bought a Buick in the 60s that had been wrecked by the dealer's son - who would eventually go on to find the lost treasure of the Concepcion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shipwrecks/comments/oaxlww/my_63_buick_and_the_concepcion_shipwreck_of_1641/

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u/MagicWishMonkey Jul 21 '26

Were you ever able to get in touch with him?

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u/DelcattyBatty Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

This is insanely cool, that ship in particular was initially loaded and highly sought after! Coincidentally around a week ago, I was actually reading about this ship specifically.​ Those Manila galleons that sank during the late 1630s were incredibly influential. They were part of the first instance of a large global trade network that the world has ever seen. They would play a part in the first chain reaction that would massively impact the economies of empires separated by ocean.

After many of those galleons sank around the late 1630s, including the Concepcion, there was a money supply shock in China, since they were heavily dependent upon that silver. This eventually led to an overthrow of the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen, in 1644. He proceeded to kill himself, his concubines, and his daughters (except for one who happened to survive because he botched it and couldn't follow through). This marked the end of the Ming dynasty and China's transition into the Qing dynasty.

I just think it's really cool to find treasure that was so coveted and lost from one of the galleons within the set of the most influential treasure ships that shaped the course of human history.

Concepcion coins amounting up to 5k

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u/BuxtonB Jul 21 '26

That's a sick story, love it!

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u/BasicAssWebDev Jul 21 '26

Cant wait to see the movie.

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u/kos-or-kosm Jul 21 '26

Did they at least see Champ?

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u/GovernorHarryLogan Jul 21 '26

No.

But hes probably real. Shattner approved.

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u/SRTie4k Jul 21 '26

We spent weekends every year up on Lake Champlain and I always hated swimming out deeper than around 10 ft. The lake is just so dark and has so many legends surrounding it, you just feel like something is always under you...

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u/ThisBuddhistLovesYou Jul 21 '26

I've got open water certs (scuba tropical) but let me tell you I'll be damned before I dive below 30 meters in ass cold water with low visibility.

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u/lief79 Jul 21 '26

Yes, but I have to admit it doesn't feel that deep when you're on the U-352 off north Carolina.

Granted, you can also see the dive boat from down there, clearest waters I've seen.

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u/foodank012018 Jul 21 '26

Imagine the ocean is your yard or a park nearby.

Now imagine a shipwreck as a grain of sand.

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u/tomdarch Interested Jul 21 '26

And "former business associates" who had a thing for standing in buckets of concrete.

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u/Sarke1 Jul 21 '26

Yes, Jersey diving has the fun combo of poor visibility, cold waters, and not that much to see.

In Jersey? I'm sure there some fine cement boots around.

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u/backroundagain Jul 21 '26

What a pleasant and helpful comment

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u/BrunesOvrBrauns Jul 21 '26

Horrible innit

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u/throwthisawayred2 Jul 21 '26

quiet, you

back to your biscuits

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u/Johansenburg Jul 21 '26

Are they smothered in gravy? They should be smothered in gravy.

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u/Asquirrelinspace Jul 21 '26

Is this sarcasm? Cause the comment did read as genuinely pleasant and helpful

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u/backroundagain Jul 22 '26

No sarcasm.

I'm so used to reddit comments being a toxic waste dump, when one isn't, its striking.

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u/Asquirrelinspace Jul 22 '26

I guess the same thing happened to me, I couldn't imagine a comment like yours not being mean. Thanks for being kind!

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u/Daxx22 Jul 21 '26

It's just a Deep One shitposting for the next sacrifice.

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u/-Economist- Jul 21 '26

Agree with this. I have a book full of different SCUBA certifications, from search/rescue, divermaster, TecRec, and a bunch of specialties. I used to spend most of my time deep diving in the great lakes (ship wrecks). However, it's still so awesome to do tropical diving. It's almost risk free, the views are amazing, requires minimal planning, etc. Highly recommend it. Most of the time you don't dive more than 40 feet.

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u/skybike Jul 21 '26

dont go chasing u-boats, please stick to the tropical and introductory dives that you're used to.

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u/Agitated_Kiwi1723 Jul 21 '26

Do you need to be PADI certified to do a recreational dive somewhere tropical?

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u/RadioactiveCashew Jul 21 '26

You need what's called an Open Water certification to go diving recreationally. PADI is the most well known institution in my experience but there are others. Your certification never expires either, though if you go a long time without diving you can get pretty rusty.

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u/AllThatKat Jul 21 '26

In some places you can do an introductory dive without a certification. I did this in Australia at the Great Barrier Reef. You don’t go down deep or go far from the boat. I could have easily swam to the surface while holding my breath. But it was amazing and I’ve wanted to try proper scuba diving ever since. 

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u/cheapdrinks Jul 21 '26

I hear there's some beautiful caves in the Maldives!

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u/CaptGood Jul 21 '26

Exactly, get your certificate go to some tropical island... its the most peaceful experience

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u/MyHamburgerLovesMe Jul 21 '26

Or just any minor lake in your state. I grew up in the midwest and was taught scuba diving as a kid. We mostly did it in our lakes and rivers.

Note: The scariest thing I learned/was taught. NEVER hold your breath on the way up.

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u/PinkynotClyde Jul 21 '26

My advice is don’t eat breakfast and take motion sickness medication if you’re not used to small boats on the ocean.

Introductory proceeds that obviously. Sometimes people bow out during the classes too when you learn all the ways you can die by making a mistake. Super fun though.

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u/lvl2imp Jul 21 '26

That’s like not getting into hiking because of the dudes that die on Everest

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u/Snobolski Jul 21 '26

Valid reason.

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u/Captain_Waffle Jul 21 '26

Bruh ur cooked

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u/30yearCurse Jul 22 '26

What happened to the guys on Everest...

Well there goes my walk around the neighborhood park...

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u/fromouterspace1 Jul 21 '26

Don’t watch the dock “dave not coming back” on YT

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u/thedirtymeanie Jul 21 '26

That guy was literally at the precipice of what the human body could take, and unfortunately paid the price for trying to push that line, even if it was for a noble cause. When you play with physics and gas, sometimes biology doesn’t fit in.

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u/fromouterspace1 Jul 21 '26

One of those docs that just drew me in. Sounded odd and then I was like half way through before I realized it. The panic you’d feel…. And the fact the light was in a different place than normal etc. brutal

Took me a bit to figure out why it’s called “dave not coming back” like that.

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u/mad_atlas Jul 21 '26

This sounds haunting. Can you explain why the title is like that? 

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u/fromouterspace1 Jul 21 '26

It’s about a group of people who dive down in a really really deep, but gets very small and a guy got trapped. As the divers go up and down, they would pass other divers who were also going the opposite way, and they used a white board and basically a sharpie to pass messages along, like “running out oxygen” as they dont add “out of” as it’s basic, don’t have a lot of time to write messages so one guy comes up and on the board hed written “dave not coming back”, and they all knew that meant he was dead/dying and there was nothing they could do, he was dead regardless. Iirc, theyd gone down in the first place to retrieve the body of another diver who had been killed down there, and then another person died basically right next to the other dead guy.

It’s a small thing but made more sense once i watched it.

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u/chik-fil-a-sauce Jul 21 '26

The cave they are in is actually the opposite. It’s absolutely massive (hundreds of feet across) and 1000’ deep. He overworked his rebreather trying to get untangled from his line while doing a body recovery and died. They could see his light stop moving from hundreds of feet away. People think small cave is scary. As a cave diver cave that large is way scarier.

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u/LuluGuardian Jul 21 '26

You actually dive in caves?! That is so cool and terrifying tbh. I've been snorkeling before in the tropics but never dived. I would like to do a shallow dive somewhere beautiful, not caves lol, someday. I hope you stay safe and never have any close calls or anything of the sort

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u/fromouterspace1 Jul 22 '26

He couldn’t get it off because the light was on his head and he wasn’t used to it right? How deep have should been? Have you gone all over the world ? (I meant gets really small when he got down there’

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u/chik-fil-a-sauce Jul 22 '26

Back in the day they use to wrap the light cord around their neck so it hangs and illuminates your hand. It’s a little more common to clip it off nowadays. He was diving with a helmet mounted camera for the first time which caused his light cord and line to get tangled. Back in the day they were massive housings instead of modern GoPros so they were really high over the top of the helmet.

I have been diving in a couple Caribbean countries but I live near and dive in Florida caves. I have plans for trips to the Bahamas (Crystal caves of Abaco) and Mexico (highly decorated caves) to cave dive but I really like the style of cave diving we have here. Our caves are deep and high flow which I think is fun. Our caves go anywhere from 4-400’ deep. The deepest I’ve been is 225’ in Mill Creek Sink (Alachua sink for locals). The deeper you get the longer the decompression gets so you might spend 30 min on the bottom and have hours of deco. I’ll probably take a 330’ class but probably won’t dive that deep regularly since I think deco is very boring.

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u/fromouterspace1 Jul 22 '26

That’s what was also crazy, going back up. Like you basically sit there in the water for a hour or so, and have to do it more as you go up? What is the thought in what he should’ve done? Is there anything he could’ve done? Would not panicking have really “helped”? I forgot what caused the first guy to die, the guy dave went to get?

It was just so oddly fascinating.

The mount thing reminds me of a skydiving accident, the person was used to a different chute and didn’t think about it, rip cord was in a different place and yeah. Like insanely things, and one small difference can end it all.

Noticed your username, I fucking LOVE that sauce.

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u/shorty6049 Jul 21 '26

Because Dave doesn't come back (I think specifically "Dave not coming back" was what one of the guys with Dave at the time reported to the surface as they were trying to help him or something?

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u/SourPatchKidding Jul 21 '26

The publication Outside Magazine has a fantastic article about this dive as well, called Raising the Dead.

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u/TNTorge Jul 21 '26

Didn't they lose like two people to decompression sickness during that sub thing?

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u/FerrousSpike Jul 21 '26

Yeah, a father and son dive team (there's also a book about them called The Last Dive). One other diver died while exploring the wreck. They located his body a couple of days later.

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u/Katerinaxoxo Jul 21 '26

A U boat off the coast of New Jersey?!? I didn’t realize that they made it that close to our border!!

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u/kelby810 Jul 21 '26

Oh yeah, something like 20+ uboats sank ~600 ships off the US east coast in 1942 as part of Operation Drumbeat. I think the majority of the attacks were off the coast of the Carolinas.

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u/Katerinaxoxo Jul 21 '26

So interesting and scary to consider. Thanks for sharing.

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u/theremin_antenna Jul 21 '26

My grandfather was a part of the civilian patrol along the coast and rivers of South Carolina (around Hilton Head and Charleston specifically). About a year later he joined the Navy officially.

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u/ureallygonnaskthat Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

There were U-Boats torpedoing boats in the Gulf and U-166 was sunk about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana after it attacked a ship exiting the Mississippi River. The sub wreck was located in 2001 by a crew surveying the ocean floor while preparing to lay a pipeline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-166_(1941)

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u/TexanToTheSoul Jul 21 '26

It's a fantastic book if you're ever looking for some true stories.

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u/Infamous-Comb-8079 Jul 21 '26

Nazis actually covertly landed on a piece of North American soil and installed equipment, at least that's what they found evidence of. I think it was in Newfoundland?

Edit: Weather Station Kurt

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u/Lou_C_Fer Jul 22 '26

I vaguely remember reading about that in elementary school.

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u/StandardHyena4587 Jul 22 '26

Why wouldn't you? You know germans landed on US soil as well?

What is really going to blow your mind is that Russian subs have surfaced off coast of Florida and with binoculars you could of seen them.

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u/chik-fil-a-sauce Jul 21 '26

There are a bunch within diveable depths. A lot of recreational divers do the U-352 off of NC. They use to patrol the east coast and sink merchant ships. Most of the wrecks in the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” off of NC are from U-boats in WWII.

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u/artistic_axolotle Jul 22 '26

We captured one in 1944! It's on display at the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago.

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u/Bridget_0413 Jul 22 '26

I live in Curaçao, in the southern Caribbean off the coast of South America. A U boat sank an American ship just off shore here, with loss of life. They were prowling all over, including Curaçao, which had an important oil refinery.

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u/NoTerm3078 Jul 21 '26

shadow divers

Just waitlisted at the library mate thanks for mentioning it.

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u/kameronk92 Jul 21 '26

It's so good

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u/NoTerm3078 Jul 21 '26

It's got to be, I'm 25th in line to borrow.

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u/1800generalkenobi Jul 21 '26

Damn I feel like I read it two years ago. I'm glad it still has a wait-list but sorry you are so far back on it.

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u/TexanToTheSoul Jul 21 '26

Great fucking book. Read it years ago and go back to it every 2-3 years.

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u/Ron-Swanson-Mustache Interested Jul 21 '26

I'll add to everyone else and say it's a great book. But it does take an unflinching look at death.

Also, the guys in the book used to have a TV show called "Deep Sea Detectives".

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u/JohnCenaJunior Jul 21 '26

What was the german uboat doing in new jersey?

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u/No-Sympathy6035 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

During WWII the kriegsmarine targeted merchant vessels along the American East Coast in two separate operations. The first operation was in the northeast and in the second they targeted the southeast and the Gulf of Mexico. This particular sub was (—————REDACTED————)

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u/TexanToTheSoul Jul 21 '26

Don't give away the U-boat number...redact that shit lol. That's the biggest mystery of the book.

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u/JohnCenaJunior Jul 21 '26

Is the book "All The Light We Cannot See", im guessing?

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u/TexanToTheSoul Jul 21 '26

Shadow Divers

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u/Ex_honor Jul 21 '26

It's kinda like saying that I'm never gonna go hiking because people regularly die climbing Mount Everest.

I'm a recreational scuba diver and if you're able to do it, I wholeheartedly recommend it.

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u/MuchSalt Jul 21 '26

i cant even handle subnautica game

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u/DFX1212 Jul 21 '26

One of my favorite books.

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u/Dankas12 Jul 21 '26

Start somewhere tropical and warm and just maybe try and get an open water padi cert. You would love it I think

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u/anusbooger Jul 21 '26

This is such a phenomenal book

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u/FerrousSpike Jul 21 '26

I wish I could upvoter this comment twice. I recommend this book to people all the time.

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u/thesdo Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

I upvoter'd it for you. It is indeed a great read.

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u/1800generalkenobi Jul 21 '26

I keep trying to get my wife to do it for her book club and she never does it lol. Its so good.

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u/FerrousSpike Jul 22 '26

This is kinda cheesy, but I had a long layover in Chicago last month. Took the opportunity to run to the Museum of Science and Industry to visit the UBoat there. I cried. It was like meeting a celebrity.

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u/thelilymoon Jul 21 '26

That's scary. I've been thinking of scuba diving, myself, but that's definitely something to think about.

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u/TriggerFish1965 Jul 21 '26

Just stay within the recreational limits. "shadow divers" and related "last dive" and "Dave not coming back" have nothing in common with recreational diving. besides alle being under the surface. Did commercial, tech and recreational diving and they are basically three different leagues.

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u/thelilymoon Jul 21 '26

Thank you for the advice!

Please accept a trophy: 🏆

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u/Nice_Firm_Handsnake Jul 21 '26

It's been maybe twenty years since I got PADI certified, but even the basic open-water recreational scuba diving has tiers to it based on depth. The most basic training will cover diving to depths of around 33ft, which is one atmosphere of pressure. The biggest concern at this level is watching your oxygen and making sure you ascend at the proper rate.

You can find plenty of places off the Florida Keys that are in this first atmosphere and still very fun and interesting.

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u/TieCivil1504 Jul 21 '26

And if you don't want to get PADI certified, snorkel dive or get a hookah rig.

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u/1800generalkenobi Jul 21 '26

A friend of my wife's aunt was getting certified for night diving and freaked out and came up too fast and ended up dying. But I also have a cousin who scubas and she seems to enjoy it.

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u/Neuchacho Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

Just stick to rec dives. Most of the best shit you're ever going to see is only 2-3 atmos deep at most anyway. The wreck explorers and deep-dive are a different kind altogether. They're like what a summit climber is to casual day hikers. More a rush-chase and "push my limits" thing and not what the average person is going to consider enjoyable.

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u/The_Quackening Jul 21 '26

rec diving is very safe.

Cave diving is gambling with your life.

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u/thelilymoon Jul 21 '26

Oh yeah, for sure. I saw enough videos of cave diving accidents to never do it.

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u/OnTheEveOfWar Jul 21 '26

There are plenty of tropical diving spots that are very safe. I was in the Bahamas years ago and did a class. The instructor took us in a pool and taught us everything you need to know. Then the next day they took us out on a boat. We only went like 15 feet down so if anything went wrong you could easily surface. It was very cool.

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u/miz_mizery Jul 21 '26

Loved that book!

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u/TexanToTheSoul Jul 21 '26

Love this book so much. I've read it 3 times. I tend to come back to it every couple of years.

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u/outerstrangers Jul 21 '26

I just saw a trailer about some guy that went scuba diving and gets swallowed by a whale. Whalefall.

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u/Retr0scores Jul 21 '26

My dad used to do night dives off the beach. I love the ocean but I have zero desire to be 100ft down at night.

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u/zombiesphere89 Jul 21 '26

Most scuba diving is really tame. Those dudes were going above and beyond recreational open water diving. Try it! 

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u/DiscussionLong7084 Jul 21 '26

I have over 200 dives and am an MSDT. Go to it somewhere with nice clear water and bring a waterproof camera. The wrecks off Hawaii are crazy awesome.

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u/ewMichelle18 Jul 21 '26

Amazing book.

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u/mister_hoot Jul 22 '26

Like 99% of scuba diving is nothing like that. Those are specialized and highly trained professional divers who are prepared and equipped to handle that level of risk underwater.

The vast majority of scuba diving is chilling 30-60 feet down, near a reef, in calm waters that won’t vortex you to a terrifying death. It’s fun, honestly pretty relaxing once you get the first-time jitters out.

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u/kryptoneat Jul 21 '26

Eheh see White collar.

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u/lzwzli Jul 21 '26

You better not read the statistics on automobile deaths...

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u/MrWeirdoFace Jul 21 '26

Have we even identified and cleaned up the nuclear waste that was dumped just off the coast in that area (and least if i recall). There's another thing to consider (if this is in fact true and not nonsense I just repeated).

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u/BleuBrink Interested Jul 21 '26

You can scuba dive in calm beautiful shallow water in some reefs full of fish

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u/FlyingRencong Jul 22 '26

How popular is that book? I read it as a kid and thought it's some obscure book. Never thought I'd see it mentioned lol

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u/1800generalkenobi Jul 22 '26

This kinda blew up so dunno lol, but it seems at least 113 people have read it. Oh damn, just looked it up, didn't realize it came out in 2004.

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u/Bridget_0413 Jul 22 '26

Absolutely doesn't work that way in recreational diving. Go do a "Discover Scuba Diving" dive at any dive center. You're not going to be exploring German U-boats lol, just looking at beautiful mother nature. Go to a warm Caribbean place (or south Florida if you're so inclined) and have fun.