The Bermuda Triangle might hog the spotlight when it comes to mysterious vanishings at sea, but there’s another stretch of water that’s just as chilling—and far less famous. Off Japan’s west coast lies a place that sends shivers down the spines of sailors, a spot they’ve dubbed “Ma-no Umi,” or the “Sea of the Devil.” Local lore paints a vivid picture: massive, restless dragons rising from the deep to snatch any poor soul unlucky enough to cross their path. Tales passed down through generations speak of eerie sounds echoing over the waves, flashes of menacing red light piercing the dark, and a monstrous presence lurking below. They call this beast “Li-Lung,” the “Dragon King of the Western Sea,” and whisper that he’s built a sprawling underwater palace, its halls lined with the wreckage of ships he’s dragged to their doom.
This shadowy region sprawls from western Japan down to Yap Island and over toward Taiwan, a vast expanse with a reputation that rivals its Atlantic counterpart. Like the Bermuda Triangle, it’s plagued by bizarre navigation glitches and communication blackouts—sailors’ compasses spin uselessly, and radios fall silent. The parallels don’t stop there. Both places are notorious for weather that turns on a dime—clear skies swallowed by sudden fog, towering tidal waves crashing out of nowhere, seaquakes rumbling below, and hurricanes roaring through. They even share those rare agonic lines, where a compass needle locks onto true north and south without a twitch. But the real kicker? The sheer number of boats and planes that vanish without a whisper, leaving nothing but questions in their wake.
Back in the late 1940s, the toll of missing ships got so bad that Japan’s government stepped in, slapping a danger-zone label on the area. By the early 1950s, they figured it was time to dig deeper and sent out the Kiao Maru No. 5, a research ship packed with twenty-two crew members and nine scientists. The weather was calm, visibility crisp—perfect conditions. Yet on September 24, 1952, the vessel just… disappeared. No distress call, no debris, nothing. All thirty-one souls aboard were gone, and the ship’s never turned up since. Here in the West, we’ve only recently caught wind of these spooky stories, but for the Japanese, it’s old news—centuries of vanishings that keep happening, year after year. Dragons or not, whatever’s behind this watery graveyard is still down there, locked away in the ocean’s depths, waiting.