You hear nothing but silence until the eerie creaking of an old, abandoned machine seeps out of the water. Water droplets add to the ambient background noise while rusted thing rises out of the murky water. There is no other sound to it, and that alone makes it even more terrifying to look at. It is deformed, rotted away at some of its features almost as if it fought to stay in that place more than once before. The smell of copper fills your nose as you stand there unable to unhinge your eyes from their own. It sits there. Staring. Now imagine all that, but now you share the same body of water. Struck with even more fear? You might be experiencing your newfound fear of Submechanophobia, but what if I told you that might not be your fear?
Submechanophobia is the fear of man-made objects that are fully or partially submerged underwater (Fritscher, Lisa.), however, it has so many overwhelming factors that connect to this one phobia. Taking into consideration the phobia itself, the main contributors would be the very similar comparison of the fear of the ocean, thalassophobia. This phobia relates to the vast and open ocean alone. This includes water ambiance, darkness, and mysterious creatures that have yet to have been found. Let’s take into consideration the famous Lego serpent in Disney Springs, Florida. This attraction has resided right in front of the famous Lego store and as cute as its smile and warm googly eyes appear, it may not be the same for everyone. Personally, the face and neck of this creature are quite adorable, yet the body structure weaving in and out of the lake can be quite horrifying. The striking yellow belly is quite faded where the water meets because of the weather hot-to-cold weather conditions in Florida, and the murky water assists in hiding the pieces holding up the attraction. As much as unnerving as that scene was, the face of the character itself soothes the idea of fear, so what really was the scary part about it? The wear and tear of the tides? The motionless smile? The murky water? Maybe even none of those. The idea itself comes across to children as a type of life form, and they seem to get excited over that fact alone. Yet, when a submechanophobe sees it as alive, that comical relief becomes non-existent.
Diving a bit deeper into this phobia, there are so many things creepier than a cartoon Lego statue. Let’s look at ones that move – or used to move at least. The bunyip is a mythological legend in Australia that is said to howl a blood-curdling sound, terrifying nearby people and warns them from entering any nature-made body of water. According to the legend, women and children were hunted while the slimy creature prowled around for any unsuspecting visitors during nightfall. The story itself was said to have died out, yet a memorial animatronic was made in memory to keep the idea alive. Located in Australia’s Murray bridge, the animated tourist attraction was created and constantly refurbished by the artist Dennis Newell. Year after year, many tourists have seen this as a hotspot to see the machine rise up out of the murky water. It got so old year after year and had to be repaired and tweaked quite often! There was even a time where it was accompanied by a disturbing child of its own. Eventually, this attraction just became more and more of a horror scene as its exterior rotted away in its small pool but was luckily refurbished to be quite the character! As pictured below, the first image was the first character design while the second was the new and improved imagery.
Now, this phobia can range throughout one of the biggest ship graveyards of the world: The Bermuda Triangle. It can be referred to as the Devil’s Triangle, and it covers about 500,000 square miles of ocean off the southeastern tip of Florida. It was even said that Christopher Columbus had a log regarding this area on his first voyage to the New World, he reported that a flame of fire (possibly a meteor) crashed into the sea, and how a light was appearing not too long afterwards. After that occurrence, he wrote about crazy compass readings. Debunking this phenomenon was easily accomplished with today’s technology, the likelihood that a sliver of the Devil’s Triangle was where true north and magnetic north lined up was possible. That irregularity led up to so many stories of sunken ships and terrifying stories of disappearances that no one can say they’ve truly solved. Even though not many of the wrecks were discovered, the idea of a graveyard at the bottom of the sea can truly spark something in any rational person. The only reason why this shouldn’t affect any sort of feelings would be because it is now incredibly difficult to get towards the area where most disappearances happened. Not to mention, most ship and boat destinations avoid any sort of contact towards the alienated parts. So, this alone should comfort many wandering thoughts of yours.
On a personal note, huge ships themselves can strike plenty of unease in a person, especially during a storm Having my personal experiences leading up and adding to this phobia probably had major effects from when I was little, but one specific time always stands out. I was on a huge cruise ship headed to Cozumel, Mexico for a modeling opportunity. It was only me and my mother, and we were on it for a whole week. Of course, during one of those days the waves became uncontrollable and rough. You could see the push and pull of the waves on big windows in one of the bottoms of the floors, and it was absolutely terrifying. There was no ocean floor in sight, and the creaking of the ship made it worse. The scariest part was that we were halfway to islands and there was no land around us. The thought of seeing any wild sea creature, or maybe even an abnormality was high in the thoughts of everyone around us, so most festivities up on the beautiful deck were canceled or postponed until we got to the island. As a submechanophobe myself, all of the worst possibilities bolted through my mind. Anything from the ship tipping over, to a wave sucking us all under was somewhat overwhelming, so at some point I forced myself to take a nap until I woke up to a calmer scene. The next lingering photos are a good portion to fuel what some parts of my mind thought I would soon see or even imagine around me.
It’s easy to worry about the well-being of others through sketchy pictures of the camera pointed down off a building, or them standing a little bit too close to the edge of a cliff, but usually, those have a bright and cheery radiance to them to show off how good life can be. Unfortunately, the little details go a long way with creepy depiction made to create mental panic of the weird energy. With each chilling video and picture put on the internet about Submechanophobia, it may be a hit or miss depending on the perspective of the person taking the picture, especially the water ambiance and light exposure. In fact, these can truly make or break the aura given off by the picture. Being in the water with any animatronic gives you a haunting feeling of not being able to swim away fast enough, or the still imagery may even make you scroll past faster to get you out of that situation. Any sort of rust or dark and murky waters can truly affect your mindset on the picture. In particular, Disney and Universal Studios have always fixed, adjusted, or scrapped parts and characters to keep their flow of audience members with a smile on their face. However, what they won’t ever show is the sad resting place of some of these characters. Most have a basic functioning so they can be reused in future projects, but most are thrown into junkyards or have been peeled of their personality and gained a new seat in a never-used facility that has or is soon to be abandoned. This leads to rain and weather eroding the old copper, strengthening the smell of rust, and ruining the image of the persona that the machine used to once portray. There are plenty of images and stories out there, however, as a submechanophobe, those metal abominations are forever left to be undiscovered by my eyes.
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