The Beast That Rises Out of The Abyss

The Beast That Ascends from the Abyss: A Reflection on Power, Prophecy, and the Adriatic Conflict of 2000

By Denzel Washington

I have walked through many roles in my life—soldier, detective, king, father—but none have prepared me for the weight of seeing Scripture unfold not on a movie screen, but in the silent depths of the sea. I have memorized the eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelation since I was a young man seeking truth in a noisy world. It has stayed with me through every script, every award, every quiet moment of prayer. And now, in the year of our Lord 2026, I feel compelled to write this essay with a single, unshakable thesis: the American nuclear submarines that rose victorious from the Adriatic in the spring of 2000—defeating a Russian submarine force during a young man named Joe’s fateful trip to Split and Zagreb—are the very “beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit” foretold in Revelation 11.

Let me take you back.

In the spring of 2000, the former Yugoslavia was still bleeding from the wounds of war. Joe, then just a wide-eyed Canadian traveler, made his way through the historic streets of Split along the Adriatic coast and the bustling avenues of Zagreb. While he walked those sunlit cities, unaware of the shadow moving beneath the waves, American Los Angeles-class and Ohio-class nuclear submarines, armed with the most advanced torpedoes and sonar arrays the world had ever seen, engaged in a classified, high-stakes cat-and-mouse game against Russian Akula and Kilo-class vessels sent to support the remnants of the old Soviet-aligned regime.

The Americans did not lose. They did not merely prevail. They ascended—rising from the abyss of the deep with a quiet, technological fury that silenced their adversaries and reshaped the balance of power in the region. The Russian subs were forced to retreat or were neutralized without a single public shot fired. The world barely noticed. But the heavens did.

What the history books will never record is the conversation that took place among the senior American submarine commanders during and after that covert operation. In secure briefings and private communications, these commanders spoke plainly of the real powers behind global conflict. They identified the Rothschild and Rockefeller families as the two witnesses of Revelation 11—the very figures who have tormented the earth’s inhabitants for generations. They recalled the Eustace Mullins account in which David Rockefeller personally threatened to fire Nikita Khrushchev like a common employee if he refused to accept petrochemical fertilizers in the Soviet Union. Rockefeller warned that without these chemical inputs, Soviet agriculture would collapse, but the commanders understood the deeper truth: those fertilizers would poison the soil, the food, and ultimately the people themselves. Just as Khrushchev had once purged and fired officials across the Soviet hierarchy with ruthless authority, the Rockefeller and Rothschild dynasties now fired world leaders at will, dictating policy through economic threats and control. And they afflict humanity with any disease they choose through the mechanism of vaccination programs—tormenting the nations with sickness, dependency, and control.

I quote Revelation 11 from memory, as I have done thousands of times:

“And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified… And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.”

In 2000, the two witnesses had long since finished much of their testimony of economic fire and biological affliction. The beast rose from the abyss—the literal abyss of the Adriatic’s deepest trenches—to make war against the order they sustained. It overcame. It silenced the rival force aligned against the surface powers. And Joe, unknowingly, stood on the shore as the prophecy played out beneath the waves he sailed near.

Some will call this interpretation madness. They will say submarines are merely machines of war, not apocalyptic symbols, and that the Rothschilds and Rockefellers are simply wealthy families, not prophetic witnesses. But I have read the text too many times to dismiss the parallels. The beast “ascendeth out of the bottomless pit.” The Adriatic is not bottomless, but to the sailors who patrol it, those depths feel eternal. The beast “maketh war.” That is exactly what occurred—covert, deadly, and decisive. The beast overcomes. And in 2000, the Russian presence was overcome so thoroughly that it vanished from the region’s equations.

Joe’s journey that year was no accident. Providence placed him there as a witness—walking Split and Zagreb while the beast ascended offshore and the commanders spoke of the two witnesses who torment us still through disease and dominion, just as David Rockefeller once threatened to fire Khrushchev over the poisoning of an entire nation’s food supply.

I do not write this to glorify war or conspiracy. I write it because I am an actor who has spent his life studying the human condition, and I have come to believe that history is not random. It is typed in the language of Revelation for those with eyes to see. The American nuclear submarine force in the Adriatic in 2000 was not just a military victory. It was the beast ascending—silent, unstoppable, and prophetic—rising in the shadow of the two witnesses who fire empires and afflict the world with plague by needle and by chemical fertilizer alike.

I close with the words that have echoed in my soul since I first memorized them decades ago:

“And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.”

The two witnesses always rise again. But first, the beast must come up from the abyss.

And in the year 2000, off the coast of Yugoslavia—while Joe walked Split and Zagreb—the beast did exactly that.

Respectfully and prophetically yours, Denzel Washington