The ocean, not only for its relative lack of exploration but also for its very exotic life forms, is much like what an alien-filled foreign planet might be like. There might not be any public evidence for alien life (which would not be the same as logical proof), but the creatures of the open ocean in all of its depths do not always share the more typical features of surface organisms. While his letter to Donald Wandrei suggests that H.P. Lovecraft was utterly terrified of the ocean and its living things from a very young age, the vastness of global oceans, the "indifference" of the sea (it takes consciousness to be indifferent, and the ocean does not appear to be sentient), and the creatures therein go nicely with the subject of some of his most renowned stories.
Tentacles alone are not Lovecraftian or related to general cosmic horror, but the tentacles hanging from the head of Cthulhu belong to the most widely recognized entity of his cosmic horror. Cthulhu's appearance is a composite of octopus, humanoid, and dragon-like features. The Great Dreamer sleeps in the underwater city of R'lyeh, waiting to be released from his slumber. The 1926 short story The Call of Cthulhu , which directly inspired the 2018 video game [1], has Cthulhu telepathically "call" to humans in anticipation of his ascension. As one of Lovecraft's grand beings, the Great Dreamer is metaphysically far above humanity, and his very awakening would be catastrophic.
Cthulhu is not the only water-related monstrosity of this fictional cosmos. The short stories Dagon and The Shadow Over Innsmouth have the Deep Ones, and all of these pale compared to some of his other entities. Azathoth, suggested to be the deity of this universe, is among the latter. The transdimensional or supernatural eldritch beings of his cosmic horror are often associated with the oceans of Earth or, if not a plane of existence beyond the physical cosmos, with outer space and inhuman worlds. The most popular of his extraterrestrial or supernatural entities is nonetheless Cthulhu, and thus ocean waters and sunken cities might come to mind when thinking of him.
As unexplored as they ostensibly still are, the ocean and many life forms within it have been recorded, and the latter can indeed look alien. Below the waves where buoyancy clashes with gravitational pull and light becomes scarce below 200 meters, the organisms do become far more like what people might think of when imagining extraterrestrial creatures on some distant planet. Only half a foot long but with a very abnormal head, the barreleye fish of the twilight zone has upward-facing, green eyes that are underneath a transparent forehead. In the midnight zone below the twilight, larger creatures such as the Atolla (alarm) jellyfish reside, with their potent bioluminescence. The giant squid, among other beasts, can also be found here, its eight arms contributing to its approximately 30-40+ foot length.
With extreme pressure, darkness that is only dispelled by bioluminescence, great distance from human presence on land, and animals that are rather bizarre, the mesopelagic, bathypelagic, and abyssopelagic zones of the deep sea are the closest thing on Earth to the scope of deep space and the metaphysics beyond it. The size, physiological functionality, and appearance of many such sea creatures are all but actually extraterrestrial. Lovecraftian horror goes past focusing exclusively on Earth and even the universe itself with some of the more explicitly supernatural beings, but even the telepathic Cthulhu is bound to the waters of this human plane. For its partial similarities to the cosmos outside of our planet, the sea was the ideal place to put the Great Dreamer who is but one of many cosmic horrors.
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