The other day my brain wandered all the way back to a dim, cobwebby memory of my childhood in the 1970s, to something I thought I recalled seeing in those long ago days of macrame’ and man-perms… a made-for-TV movie that had something to do with two kids and a sea turtle into whose shell they carved their initials… and then as grown-ups these two encounter a gargantuan monster turtle, which naturally enough is revealed in the very final shot to be their turtle, for it still had their initials in its shell…

Now, I tend to have surprisingly good recall of the stuff I saw and heard as a kid — uncannily good, according to The Girlfriend, who despite being only two years younger than me remembers practically nothing of the ’70s — and my memories of TV are often especially clear, despite not having seen some of this stuff since it was originally broadcast. There was, for instance, an episode of Space: 1999 in which a monster pulled screaming astronauts underneath its body and then spat back a smoking, human-shaped pile of cinders. (It’s called “Dragon’s Domain,” and looking at the comments over on YouTube, it appears I wasn’t the only one who was completely traumatized by it.) And then there was an episode of the Patrick Duffy series Man from Atlantis in which people were infested by mind-controlling “spores” that looked like little blue lights. I remember KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park and The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (which also featured KISS, interestingly enough). Hell, I even remember a cheapo TV movie about Captain Nemo of 20,000 Leagues fame going up against a submarine-based laser weapon controlled by some kind of alien. All of those things are — and always have been — pretty clear in my mind. I’ve always known that those experiences did happen, that those movies and episodes existed. I retained at least a vague idea of the plotlines and casts and titles. But this turtle thing… all I had of it were the kids and the initials carved into the shell, and that stinger ending. I couldn’t remember a title or a plot. Just… images. I briefly wondered if maybe I had dreamed the whole thing — there are certain, very intense dreams I had years ago that I still recall in flashes, and I considered the possibility that this turtle movie was one of those.

There was only one way to be sure… so I fired up the Google-ator and typed in three words: “tv movie turtle.” And lo and behold, one of the very first items it returned was a cult-site review of something called The Bermuda Depths:

Broadcasted on Friday, January 27, 1978 on the ABC Friday Night Movie, THE BERMUDA DEPTHS is an American made-for-TV movie that was released theatrically in some foreign countries soon afterwards. Often sought out as the “giant turtle movie” or “that movie with the girl with glowing green eyes” by IMDB.com and Ebay searchers who cannot remember the film’s title…

Well, that’s all I needed to read. The review goes on to describe in great detail a story that doesn’t ring even small, unobtrusive bells. But I know that was my turtle movie. And from the sound of the review, it was very surrealistic, which explains my impression that it could have been a dream.

Curiosity aroused, I clicked the mouse a few more times… and learned that, of course, this thing is available on DVD as one of the manufacture-on-demand offerings from the Warner Archive, only $14.95. I filed that little tidbit away, thinking I may take a gamble one of these days and buy a copy, just to see what the heck it is that’s lurking in the musty corner of my memory. And that’s basically where this story would’ve ended… if later the same day I hadn’t spotted a news item about a man finding a turtle into which his son had carved his initials… in 1965.

Sometimes the echoes and resonances get to be a little spooky.