In The Abyss - Based On The Story by H.G. Wells

Science informs us that all life originally came from the sea; whether plant life or animal life, all had its origin in the waters of the oceans. Our ancestry can readily be traced back to the fish, from our spinal column to our hair. Hair, science teaches us, is nothing but a modified fish scale. The thought that intelligent thinking beings could live at the bottom of the ocean should, therefore, not be scoffed at.

- H.G. Wells

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In The Abyss is a ‘true story’ written by H.G. Wells about a nineteenth-century explorer called Elstead, who descended five miles to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in a homemade steel submersible where he encountered a civilization of terrifying water-breathing humanoid reptiles who held him captive. After several hours, Elstead made a hasty and harrowing escape back to the surface where he was rescued by his support ship just minutes before running out of oxygen. Elstead was exhausted, battered and bruised and had to recuperate for seven days before declaring himself fit for service and ready to descend in the sphere again. Everyone thought it was madness but Elstead could not be deterred.

Although H. G. Wells wrote science fiction novels, including The Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, and The Island of Dr. Monreau, he was also a renowned investigative journalist and was acting in this capacity when he researched and published In The Abyss based on multiple eyewitness accounts provided by the naval officers and crew, a medical doctor and a marine biologist who served on the support ship, the Ptarmigan.

Of course, the original Ptarmigan crew members have all long passed, but I recently met Elstead’s great-granddaughter, Ellie, at a wellness convention in Arizona and, as it turns out, she lives on Puget Sound where Elstead himself first began tinkering with sea submersibles in the 1880s. Last summer after I shared my detailed knowledge of her great-grandfather’s exploits, Ellie invited me to visit and look at some artifacts passed down to her through family members in the 1970s.

When I arrived, Ellie served me tomato juice and a squid appetizer. In all candor, the quality of presentation was not great. In any event, as I sipped the juice and nibbled the squid, I explained my obsession since childhood with DIY deep sea exploration and her great-grandfather’s pioneering work in the area. As a true believer in the science and the witness testimony summarized by Wells, I was desperate to verify the timeline of events and perhaps look at the artifacts she had first mentioned in Arizona.

Ellie lugged a dusty old leather trunk covered in cobwebs out of a closet and placed it on the floor. She whispered that her great-grandfather Elstead was a brilliant but reckless man who endangered many lives during that fateful summer of 1896. She then opened the trunk and pulled out one amazing artifact after another; the Ptarmigan’s official ship’s log, photos of Elstead, the DIY sphere, and the Ptarmigan and her crew. But she saved the best for last: wrapped in cloth and paper, a 130-year-old glass jar with a two-headed lizard floating in green liquid which the Ptarmigan crew found clinging to the sphere which it rode to the surface.

I discreetly snapped photos of all the documents and materials with a pin camera but when Ellie showed me a two-headed lizard man in a jar, I got excited and greedy and blew it. When I asked for permission to briefly remove the specimen from the jar and slice off a tissue sample with one of her kitchen knives, Ellie freaked out. I was surprised because I was planning to wipe down the blade afterwards.

Ellie’s mood and facial expression changed instantly and she snapped at me absolutely not! Then she grabbed the jar from my hands and stuffed it back into the trunk with everything else. After slamming the lid shut and adding a lock, Ellie demanded that I leave immediately.

Ellie shooed me out the door into the dark night cursing that I was a fool who did not know who or what I was messing with. As I rode the ferry back to Tacoma, I stared down at the sea and tried to make sense of what I had just seen and heard. The sea was a phosphorescent green that night and for a second I thought I saw lizard man staring back at me. By the time I got home, I knew I had to go public with this information for public safety, regardless of any personal risk to me.

THE SPHERE - - - - - - -

Elstead built a steel sphere which he correctly figured to be the strongest possible shape and material for deep ocean work under immense pressure. The vessel was fitted with two outside searchlights and a circular window of “enormously thick glass” which allowed Elstead a clear view out. As a rough and bumpy ride up and down was expected, the interior of the vessel was elaborately padded with air cushions and pillows so thick “that a man might have been fired from a gun in it with perfect safety.”

A “Myers apparatus” absorbed carbonic acid and replaced the oxygen inside the vessel as it was consumed during the journey. Elstead crawled into the vessel through a hatch in the top which was then sealed and screwed down tightly by the crew. This meant there was no escape from inside without assistance from someone on the outside.

The sphere was lowered into the water by cranes installed on the Ptarmigan. A long rope connected the bottom of the sphere to a heavy lead ballast which pulled it five miles into the abyss in less than four minutes.

The rope tied to the ballast ran through an ingenious clockwork mechanism fitted with a sharp knife which cut the rope and released the sphere within a pre-set time limit. Being filled with air, the vessel was buoyant and immediately shot up to the surface. One of the crew members asked Elstead what would happen if the clock mechanism failed and he calmly replied, then its lights out. Had it previously been tested at depth under immense pressure? No, but it had been tested in laboratory conditions at sea level at least thirty-five times and had yet to fail.

UNDER PRESSURE - - - - -

Several crew members recounted discussing the problem with pressure with their Lieutenant while he stood in front of the steel sphere, gnawing on a piece of pine splinter. The officer asked his crew what they thought of Elstead’s apparatus and his chance of survival. One sailor volunteered, it will smash flat. The lieutenant agreed going through some quick mathematical calculations of the pressure five miles down: At the surface of the water the pressure is fourteen pounds to the inch, thirty feet down it’s double that; sixty, treble; ninety, four times; nine hundred, forty times; five thousand, three hundred— that’s a mile—it’s two hundred and forty times fourteen pounds; that’s a ton and a half to the square inch.2 He then concluded, “the glass will simply bend in and bulge and smash.”

This prompted the question: what would happen inside the sphere if the glass broke under pressure? The lieutenant narrowed his eyes for emphasis and replied: “The water would shoot in like a jet of iron. Have you ever felt a straight jet of high-pressure water? It would hit as hard as a bullet. It would simply smash him and flatten him. It would tear down his throat, and into his lungs; it would blow in his ears.”

DesCent - - - - - - - - -

The vessel had no seats but the entire cabin was thickly padded with cushions and pillows to protect him from injury during the five-mile freefall to the bottom of the sea. According to the support ship’s log, the journey took about three and a half minutes suggesting the vessel approached speeds of 140 mph.

Elstead had no way to communicate with Ptarmigan either on the way up or down. The crew watched him set the clock so they knew approximately when he should surface but a lot of things could go wrong, including quick death by implosion to slow death by suffocation.

When four hours went by with no sign of Elstead, the Ptarmigan crew feared the worst but they never stopped looking. Around midnight, a sailor spotted the sphere bobbing in the water and the crew was finally able by morning to hook and hoist her onto the ship. When they unbolted the top hatch and looked in, the crew saw Elstead crumpled on the floor, covered in bruises, and gasping for air.

After a few hours in medical bay, Elstead began describing what he had witnessed and experienced in graphic detail. A professional medical illustrator sat at his bedside and sketched as he spoke.

The ballast had worked perfectly and took the vessel straight down to the bottom in just a few minutes although the ride was much bumpier than expected, and caused the sphere to grow unexpectedly hot. Once he reached the sea bed, Elsted switched on the exterior floodlights, looked through the window and saw a bizarre creature looking right back at him: "a strange vertebrated animal...the vertical pitch of its face gave it a most extraordinary resemblance to a human being...it was a biped; it’s almost globular body was poised on a tripod of two frog-like legs and a long thick tail."

This creature, together with others, towed the sphere to an altar in their city where the inhabitants prostrated themselves before Elstead, and began chanting as though paying homage to a divine being. One of the creatures, who appeared to be a leader, stood to the side and observed but did not directly participate. This goes on for several hours until the cable connecting the sphere to the altar breaks causing a memorable ascent: The sphere rushed up with even greater velocity than when weighted with the lead sinkers it had rushed down. It became exceedingly hot. It drove up with the windows uppermost, and he remembers the torrent of bubbles frothing against the glass. Every moment he expected this to fly. Then suddenly something like a huge wheel seemed to be released in his head, the padded compartment began spinning about him, and he fainted. His next recollection was of his cabin, and of the doctor’s voice.

EPILOGUE - - - - - - - -

Elstead never writes an account of his experience; after making improvements to the sphere, he makes another descent, but this time never returns.

It remains only to tell that on February 2, 1896, he made his second descent into the ocean abyss, with the improvements his first experience suggested. What happened we shall never know because he never returned. The ‘Ptarmigan’ beat about over the point of his submersion, seeking him in vain for thirteen days. Then she returned to port and the news was telegraphed to Elstead’s friends. So the matter remains for the present. But it is hardly probable that no further attempt will be made to verify his strange story of these hitherto unsuspected cities of the deep sea.

H. G. Wells added his own observations and final comments: Most circumstantial was Elstead’s account of this astounding city and its people, these people of perpetual night, who have never seen sun or moon or stars, green vegetation, nor any living, air-breathing creatures, who know nothing of fire, nor any light but the phosphorescent light of living things. We should be known to them, however, as strange, meteoric creatures, wont to fall catastrophically dead out of the mysterious blackness of their watery sky. And not only we ourselves, but our ships, our metals, our appliances, would come raining down out of the night. One can understand, perhaps, something of their behavior at the descent of a living man.

Thalassophobia - - - - -

Thalassophobia is a clinical phobia characterized by an extreme and irrational fear of the sea or any deep body of water including a lake. A phobic response is more than just feeling nervous or anxious. It is more like an intense fear that triggers the fight-or-flight response, or “a series of reactions that prepare your body to either stay and deal with the threat or run away from the danger.” A person with thalassophobia may experience that same physiologic reaction even when it is completely disproportional to the actual or real danger.

Thalassophobia is not recognized as a distinct disorder by the APA’s DSM-5,3 but its symptoms meet the diagnostic criteria for specific phobias. It differs from aquaphobia, the fear of water, in that it centers on bodies of water that appear vast, dark, deep, and dangerous. People are not afraid of the water so much as the unknown dangers which may lurk beneath its surface.

The cause of the phobia may be partially genetic and partially learned from experiences around water. Observing other people, particularly parental figures and other influential adults who also had a fear of deep water might be a contributing factor. Hearing stories from other people or through media sources focused on water accidents may be another. Those with the most severe form of this phobia may experience symptoms such as shaking, sweating, and vomiting.

The psychoanalytic theory of phobias is based largely on the theories of repression and displacement.

It is believed that phobias are the product of unresolved conflicts between the Id and the Superego. Psychoanalysts generally believe that the conflict originated in childhood, and was either repressed or displaced onto the feared object meaning that the object of the phobia is not the original source of the problem.

The recommended treatment includes exposure therapy which exposes you to the phobia in incremental stages, with increasing levels of intensity until you no longer have the fear. You might start by looking at photos of the sea, then escalate to watching videos of the ocean or deep water culminating with a trip to the ocean or a pool in person. “Through this controlled exposure, the individual learns that the feared stimulus is not in fact dangerous, and they can start to associate it with more positive outcomes.” So for example, you might look at the photo below and imagine yourself walking across these jellyfish in barefeet, slipping, sliding and sloshing as you go.5

Marine Life Forms Invade Puget Sound - - - - - - -

In case you had not noticed, changes in the earth’s climate combined with other factors appear to have triggered a migration of marine creatures from the deep sea to the relatively shallow waters of the west coast including Puget Sound. The last time this happened was in the summer of 1956 when several large and unusual creatures washed ashore on Pierce County beaches including Owens, Titlow, and Dash Point. They kept it very hush, hush then as now to avoid panic. But, do not be fooled, there is something very serious going on.

I am pretty sure a juvenile Blobfish brushed my foot while I was wading at Owens Beach in July. I looked down and I could see him looking right at me. According to my research no Blobfish has ever been seen in Puget Sound before so why now?

By the way, I heard nothing further from Ellie until a week ago when she sent me a cryptic note:

The author prepares to look for more Blobfish and other exotic creatures in a tidepool near Steilacoom while dressed in protective gear.

 

Nigel Malden is an attorney in Tacoma and wishes you a Happy Halloween. He can be reached at nm@nigelmaldenlaw.com