How to stop an external hard drive from encryption

Thanks again for your suggestion BDAqua.

I started looking into it and the google search results prompted me to try erasing the entire contents through Disk Utility. For anyone else out there with the same problem, this worked and was a VERY simple fix. Here's what I did:

1. I plugged the external hard drive into my Mac and because the encryption was still active/processing since last time I had it plugged in, it asked for the password.
2. I entered the password and opened Disk Utility, where it lists the available hard drives.
3. I selected the external drive and clicked Erase. It checked that I was ok with wiping the entire contents and I said yes.
4. While it was erasing a message popped up asking if I wanted to use the hard drive for Time Machine, I chose whatever the option was that basically said no.
5. The erasing process happened in less than 30 seconds (the hard drive itself had already been cleared of all previous Time Machine backup data, so there wasn't much on there).
6. When I right clicked on the hard drive in Finder, the 'Encryption in process' text was no longer there, but an option to Encrypt instead.
7. Walla, done!

Thank you, that sounds like a good suggestion to try. I will have to see if I can find any information on how that would work before I attempt it.