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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/HeadOfSpectre on 2024-09-13 03:37:00+00:00.

Transcript of the Official FRB Civilian Debriefing of Cheryl McCauley regarding the disappearances of Amy Clark and Janet Stuart during a dive at the Ridley Rock Grotto, in southern California on July 29th, 2024.

Debrief conducted August 12th, 2024 by Paul Delaney.

This record is for internal use for the FRB only. Distributing this record to any party outside of authorized FRB personnel without the written consent of Director Robert Marsh constitutes breach of contract and will be punished accordingly.

[Transcript Begins]

Delaney: The tape is rolling. Whenever you’re ready, Miss McCauley.

McCauley: Thank you… um… I… where should I begin?

Delaney: Let’s start with where it happened.

McCauley: R-right… we were visiting the Ridley Rock Grotto. Myself, Amy and Jan. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been… I’m a little surprised that more people don’t know about it. Amy didn’t… she was actually the reason we’d decided to go. A few weeks ago we’d been having this debate, and she was talking about her recent trip to Greece and how the United States didn’t have any ruins like that, even though it does! Not a lot of people know about that… but there are ruins here. Montezuma Castle in Arizona for instance… although Ridley Rock was closer and seemed a bit more fun. Amy, Jan and I had done dives before too, and we’d really enjoyed it. Amy and I were more into the whole thing than Jan was, but ever since the divorce she kept on saying she wanted to ‘be more adventurous and…’ I’m sorry… I don’t mean to ramble.

Delaney: It’s fine. Every detail helps and it might also help you to say things as they come to mind.

McCauley: Yes… maybe it… thank you. Diving was just supposed to be for fun… and like I said, we’d done it before. Ridley Rock isn’t generally a tricky place to dive, unless you’re going into the caves. You can’t see them from above the water, but they’re down there… still, we figured we could handle it since we weren’t supposed to be going into the caves, or at least not deep into them.

Delaney: Right. And for the record - can you tell us a little bit about the ruins at Ridley Rock Grotto? In your own words, please.

McCauley: Of course. They’re not particularly well documented on account of being mostly underwater. I remember reading that they supposedly belonged to an indigenous tribe that used to live in the area, although nobody can really agree on which one. Most of the people who go to Ridley Rock Grotto go for the hidden beach inside. It’s lovely… sitting in the sand, admiring the eroded rock… it almost looks like the cavern shouldn’t still be standing. The mouth has these columns of stone that almost look like teeth, and there’s even sections of the ceiling that have fallen away so you can see the sky above you. It’s beautiful… like a sculpture, almost. I… oh, I really can’t put it into words.

Delaney: I’ve seen pictures, and I understand why.

McCauley: The ruins are just under the beach… um, literally under it. The beach is a bit of an illusion, you see… it’s really just a rock shelf, and after a certain point it just… drops off. If you go a bit deeper, you’ll find the ruins carved into the wall below you, right underneath the beach. It only goes down about… oh, maybe thirty feet or so? Deep, but not insanely deep. And the kelp grows so thick down there, that it can be hard to see the ruins. Most of them are overgrown.

Delaney: Right. Had you visited these ruins before?

McCauley: I’d been to Ridley Rock Grotto and dove there without equipment before, but I’d never done a proper dive there or had a chance to see the ruins up close. I thought it might be fun to change that, and when I mentioned them to Amy and Jan, they both seemed interested, so we made plans.

Delaney: Was there anything unusual that happened before the dive? Anything that might have been an indicator of where things might go wrong?

McCauley: No. We knew what we were doing. Like I said, we’d done it before. We weren’t going to go deep, and we weren’t supposed to go far. We took every reasonable safety precaution. We checked our gear, I made sure we all had knives, just in case we got snared by the kelp. I even insisted we bring flashlights and a magnesium torch, flares, just in case we ended up going further into the ruins than I’d anticipated. I’d heard that the chambers cut into the rock connected to some underwater caverns and tended to go fairly deep… and Amy was a bit of a free spirit, so I was trying to think ahead… ‘Amy-proofing our plans…’ It… it was a joke Jan and I used to tell…

Delaney: A magnesium torch? I didn’t think those saw a lot of use anymore.

McCauley: I usually bring one as a backup, just in case my flashlight fails… it’s happened before. I don’t think I’ve ever had to use it, but it makes me feel better to have it, especially if we’re near a cave.

Delaney: Smart… so were there no immediate warnings that anything was off with the dive or with the area? Why don’t you tell me about the dive itself

McCauley: Well, initially things were off to a good start. We took Jan’s boat and went out toward the grotto. You can’t actually get a boat in there, on account of the rock columns at the mouth of the cave. But they’re spaced wide enough that you could swim through them. I’ve done it a few times and it is kind of beautiful… like swimming through a forest of stone. Then when you get out on the other side, there’s a forest of kelp just waiting for you… it’s beautiful. It’s just this lush field of green that draws you in, and with the light shining down from the holes in the ceiling of the cavern, it’s all cast in this… this lovely glow. It’s serene. Amy was just ahead of me when I made it into the kelp forest. I couldn’t see her clearly, but I could recognize her by her tattoos… she had them on the back of her legs. One read ‘Yee’ and the other read ‘Haw’. I always thought it was a little trashy but… well… that was Amy… Anyway, Jan wasn’t far behind me. I remember looking back to make sure she got through the rock columns alright and once I saw she did, I led her toward the ruins. I’d lost sight of Amy by that point, but wasn’t worried about it since we’d agreed not to get too close without being able to see each other.

Delaney: And did you regain sight of Amy?

McCauley: Yes. A couple of times. We saw her outside of the ruins, swimming near the entrances to the hidden chambers. She seemed excited… but that was just what she was like. Like a puppy. As soon as she realized we were with her, she started going into some of the chambers to explore. Jan and I followed her. We figured that it would just be better to stay together since… well… like I said, it’d be easy to get lost… and… [Pause] Well…

Delaney: At what point did you notice that Amy had gone missing?

McCauley: It… it’s hard to say. We saw her go into one of the chambers. I could see her in the stone entryway. Or… I think it was her… it was just a shape in the entryway. Hard to clearly make out… I thought it was her, but…

Delaney: You’re not sure?

McCauley: Well, I would’ve expected Amy to turn on her flashlight if she was in the cave. We all had one. I still thought it was her at the time, but… it moved deeper into the alcove. I don’t remember Amy ever swimming that fast. I thought she was just taking off to explore… maybe she was? But if she was, I don’t know why she wouldn’t have turned her flashlight on! I don’t know… I patted Jan on the arm to let her know I was going into the chamber with Amy and she followed me… although Amy was nowhere in sight. I mean… we should’ve seen her. The chamber was big… long, but… we should’ve seen her.

Delaney: Can you describe it?

McCauley: One central room… and a long hallway. No furniture or anything… nothing to hide behind, not that she would’ve done that. She was flighty, but not really the type to play jokes like that. The room had these ornate tiles on the walls and the floor, and the tiles continued onward down into the caves. Some of the kelp had grown in through the cracks in the tiles, so that didn’t help the already low visibility, and the low light meant that visibility cut out completely past the entryway, but I thought I might’ve seen a shape moving in the darkness… I wouldn’t have thought Amy would’ve been stupid enough to go down there, especially without her flashlight on! But… she was the only one who would have been down there! So, I started swimming deeper to go and get her, and Jan followed me. We’d turned our own flashlights on by that point, and were trying to see if there was any sign of Amy in the caves, but… no… no sign of her at all. Although there was a sign.

Delaney: A sign?

McCauley: A warning sign… a literal one… some underwater caves have them. Morbid things… a grim reaper, standing over the skeletons of dead divers and beckoning you forward, with a warning about how many divers have died in caves like this, and how you need the proper equipment to cave dive. Amy was reckless, but she wasn’t reckless enough to go exploring past a sign like that… I was almost starting to wonder if she’d left the chamber without us even noticing but that’s when I saw something moving past the sign… and for a moment I almost thought that it was Amy but… no… no… Amy was… a brunette. Her hair was about neck length. The person… the thing in the cave… it looked like a blonde wom…

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