Ocean Current Anomaly Report

Ocean Current Anomaly Report

Abstract This report summarizes the hydrological data collected over the past nine months in the open waters approximately 120 nautical miles south of Seafeld City, funded by the Strategic Investment Department of IPC. The initial objective was simply to update the deep-sea saline circulation charts for Horned Dragon Bay, which the Arcadia Shipping Management Office has used for years without revision. However, since late December of the Arcadian Calendar 1998, our instruments have consistently recorded a series of anomalies that defy standard oceanographic explanations. These patterns show no correlation with known astronomical cycles, surface currents, or seismic activity. While professional duty compels me to document these findings, I must include a personal disclaimer: I strongly suspect that I suffered from some degree of mental instability during this period. My firsthand logs have become tainted by an indescribable sense of pessimism and an unsettling atmosphere of mysticism. I. Observation Summary and Aberrant Phenomena Due to the lack of tourists, the outer island harbors bordering Horned Dragon Bay had fallen into total disrepair. I was forced to charter the trawler "Voice of Spring" from Seafeld City to conduct my operations. Upon reaching the target waters, both the crew and I sensed a palpable and unsettling atmosphere. Even at high noon, the sea was shrouded in a slowly pulsating mist. When night fell, a thick and fetid stench often rose from the surface. The crew was extremely resistant to working after dark, which likely caused me to miss opportunities to record even more extreme readings. Nevertheless, the following anomalies remained impossible to explain: Salinity Since early December, the mid-layer waters at a depth of 70 meters began to cool continuously. However, this temperature drop was not accompanied by the salinity decrease typically seen in winter. On the contrary, salinity levels showed an unusually sharp spike that persisted inexplicably well into spring. During the peak recorded on March 21, the salinity at 70 meters reached a staggering 59‰. This far exceeds the theoretical limit for normal seawater at that depth in Horned Dragon Bay. Disturbingly, these cold and high-salinity water masses were not merely moving horizontally or diagonally. They occasionally manifested as vertical and intermittent upward pulses. It is as if, and this is purely a metaphor, some massive and freezing object deep on the ocean floor is displacing the frigid water around it. This forces the compressed and ancient currents to surge upward like a whale coming up for air. Cold Light Late on the night of May 6, I happened to be on the deck for personal reasons. A beam of non-diffusive cold light pierced through the mist on the southeastern horizon. It did not conform to any standard navigational signaling protocols. The color of this light shifted constantly, flickering between white, cyan, and green. At the same time, the hydrophone captured a low-frequency sound wave. Its waveform was similar to that of a submarine landslide. However, the seabed of Horned Dragon Bay is flat, and no such massive submarine mountains exist there to cause such an event. This made the occurrence all the more bewildering. School of Fish ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ (The rest of this report is completely blacked out.)