The Dark Somnium
The Dark Somnium

My Friend Discovered Something Terrifying in The Ocean | Scary Stories from The Internet

June 10, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

My Friend Discovered Something Terrifying in The Ocean

Doug Waitley hadn't seen Howard Marsh in nearly two decades—not since they worked together on a North Sea oil rig called the Lady Lenore. Howard was an odd man even then, with his large watery eyes and obsessive midnight scribbling, but he was a hard worker and a decent friend. When a letter arrived unexpectedly at Waitley's newspaper shop in Cheshire, the handwriting was so sloppy and childish that he struggled to read it. Howard was working at St. Michael's Lighthouse on the Cumbrian coast, he explained. The lighthouse was being decommissioned and demolished. Would Waitley come share a bottle of rum and watch the sunrise one last time?

What Waitley found when he arrived was not the reunion he expected.

The Devil's Spine and the Witch Mound

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (01:48) **Howard Marsh's Final Scream** - The narrator recounts the last words of his friend Howard Marsh, who was dragged into the sea, and confesses that this memory haunts his every waking and sleeping moment.
  • 2 (04:17) **Meeting Howard on the Lady Lenore** - The narrator describes meeting Howard Marsh twenty years ago on an oil rig, detailing their initial friction and eventual friendship over shared interests.
  • 3 (06:54) **Howard's Letters from the World** - The narrator describes the letters he received from Howard after he left the rig, which detail his strange career moves and family mysteries.
  • 4 (08:45) **The Strange Letter from St. Michael's Lighthouse** - The narrator receives a shocking letter from Howard, written in a childish, sloppy hand, inviting him to a remote lighthouse in Cumbria before it is demolished.
  • 5 (13:04) **The Journey to the Coast** - The narrator drives through a worsening storm to the Cumbrian coast, stopping briefly in the town of Seascale for supplies.
  • 6 (16:59) **An Ominous Warning from a Shopkeeper** - The narrator encounters a hostile shopkeeper in Seascale who warns him about the Marsh family and reveals the lighthouse is only accessible via a tidal causeway.
  • 7 (20:33) **Research at the Library** - With time to kill before low tide, the narrator visits the local library to research the history of St. Michael's Island and the Devil's Spine.

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Show Notes

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