The Attraction of the Unknown

The Toronto Sun recently reported that actor Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible, Pulp Fiction) has done some underwater work for a recent film, Piranha 3D. During one trip the actor spotted a "prehistoric" looking creature that he couldn't identify.^1^ This freaked him out so much that he "hasn't done any scuba diving since."

That's a little bit silly, but he relates some truth:

I really feel that there are things in the ocean that we have no idea about. I think there's so much we don't know and the unknown in the ocean; every 10 years or so we find some fossil that's been there before mankind.

I find it funny that we can have the same exactly feelings about something, yet reach opposite conclusions. What keeps him out of the water is what draws me to it. If you've gleaned anything from The Diving Blog's fish identification series, it's that I enjoy learning new species of sea critters, as I imagine many divers do.

Mr. Rhames has my sympathy. He is disturbed significantly by one of the very reasons why I dive.

Is the draw of the unknown one of the reasons you keep getting in the water? Let us know in the comments.

1 - From his description, "a combination of a catfish and something with a large oblongish-type head", what do you think he saw? Maybe a humphead wrasse?