Ghost ship discovered. Mysterious disappearances: secrets of missing ships

According to sailors, ghost ships or phantoms that appear on the horizon and disappear, portend trouble. The same goes for ships abandoned by their crews. Mysterious circumstances and an extraordinary flair of eerie romance accompanies these stories. The ocean hides its secrets, and we decided to remember all these legends - from the Flying Dutchman and the Mary Celeste, to lesser-known ghost ships. You may not have known about many of them.
The ocean is one of the largest and most unexplored areas of the Earth. In fact, the ocean covers up to 70% of the surface globe. The ocean is so little explored that, according to Scientific American, humans have mapped less than 0.05% of the ocean floor.

In this situation, all these stories do not seem so incredible. And there are a great many of them - stories about ships that are lost in the seas, and all these empty ships, drifting without a purpose and a crew on board... They are called ghost ships. The entire crew died, or disappeared for unknown reasons...there were many such finds. The mysterious circumstances surrounding the death or disappearance of these teams, even today, with all the technological advances and research methods, remain mysterious. And no one can still explain the disappearance of people on board. Why did the entire crew leave the ship, which is left to drift, and where did they all go? Storms, pirates, disease...maybe they sailed away on boats...one way or another, many crews mysteriously disappeared without explanation. The sea knows how to keep secrets, and is reluctant to part with them. Many disasters that occurred in the sea will remain a mystery to everyone.

15. "Ourang Medan" (Orang Medan, or Orange Medan)
This Dutch merchant ship became known as a ghost ship in the late 1940s. In 1947, the Orang Medan was shipwrecked in the Dutch East Indies, and an SOS signal was received by two American ships, the City of Baltimore and the Silver Star, sailing through the Strait of Malacca.
And the sailors of two American ships received an SOS signal from the cargo ship Orang Medan. The signal was transmitted by a crew member who was extremely frightened and reported that the rest of his crew were dead. After this the connection was interrupted. Arriving on the ship, the entire crew was found dead - the bodies of the sailors froze, as if in an attempt to defend themselves, but the source of the threat was never discovered.

An article written in the late 1960s by the US Coast Guard said the bodies showed no visible signs of damage. The cargo ship was reportedly transporting sulfuric acid that was improperly packaged. After the Silver Star's crew quickly evacuated and the Americans abandoned the ship, they hoped to tow it to shore. But a fire suddenly broke out on the ship, followed by an explosion and the ship sank, which led to the final death of the merchant ship. The widow of one of the sailors who died on Ourang Medan has a photograph of the ship and crew.

14. "Copenhagen"
One of the maritime mysteries is the disappearance without a trace of one of the newest and most reliable ships of the 20th century, the five-masted Copenhagen. In the entire history of the sailing fleet, only six ships similar to the Copenhagen were built, and she was the third largest in the world in the year of construction - in 1921. She was built for the Danish East Asia Company in Scotland - at the shipyard of Romeage and Fergusson in the small town of Leith near Aberdeen. The hull was made of high-quality steel, there was a ship's own power plant on board, all deck winches were equipped with electric drives, which significantly saved time on sailing operations, and even a ship's radio station. The double-deck steel Copenhagen was a training and production vessel that made regular voyages and carried cargo. The last radio communication session with Copenhagen took place on December 21, 1928. There was no reliable information about the fate of the huge sailing ship and the 61 people on board.

A reward was offered to anyone who could indicate the location of the missing ship. Requests were sent to all ports: to report possible contacts with Copenhagen. But the captains of only two ships responded to this call - the Norwegian and English ships. Both stated that while passing southern part Atlantic, got in touch with the Danes, and everything was fine with them. The East Asian Company first sent the Ducalien ship to search for the missing ship (but it returned empty-handed), and then the Mexico, which also found nothing. In 1929 in Copenhagen, a commission to investigate the disappearance of the ship concluded that “a training sailing ship, the five-masted barque “Copenhagen”, with 61 people on board, died due to the action of irresistible forces of nature... the ship suffered a disaster so quickly that its crew was unable to broadcast an SOS distress signal or launch lifeboats or rafts.”

At the end of 1932, in southwest Africa, in the Namib Desert, one of the British expeditions discovered seven withered skeletons dressed in tattered sea jackets. Based on the structure of the skulls, researchers determined that they were Europeans. Based on the pattern on the copper buttons of the peacoats, experts determined that they belonged to the uniform of the Danish Merchant Navy cadets. However, this time the owners of the East Asian Company no longer had any doubts, because before 1932, only one Danish training ship, the Copenhagen, suffered a disaster. And 25 years later, on October 8, 1959, the captain of the cargo ship from the Netherlands “Straat Magelhes” Piet Agler, while near the southern coast of Africa, saw a sailboat with five masts. It appeared out of nowhere, as if it had surfaced from the depths of the ocean, and with all sails was heading straight towards the Dutch... The crew managed to prevent a collision, after which the sailing ship disappeared, but the crew managed to read the inscription on board the ghost ship - “K?benhavn”.

13. "Baychimo"
The Baychimo was built in Sweden in 1911 by order of a German trading company. After World War I it was taken over by Great Britain and transported furs for the next fourteen years. In early October 1931, the weather deteriorated sharply, and a few miles off the coast near the town of Barrow, the ship became stuck in the ice. The team temporarily abandoned the ship and found shelter on the mainland. A week later the weather cleared, the sailors returned on board and continued sailing, but already on October 15, Baychimo again fell into an ice trap.
This time it was impossible to get to the nearest city - the crew had to arrange a temporary shelter on the shore, far from the ship, and here they were forced to spend a whole month. In mid-November it played out blizzard, which lasted several days. And when the weather cleared on November 24, Baychimo was no longer in its original place. The sailors believed that the ship had been lost in a storm, but a few days later a local seal hunter reported seeing Baychimo about 45 miles from their camp. The team found the ship, removed its precious cargo and left it forever.
This is not the end of the Baychimo story. For the next 40 years, it was occasionally seen drifting along the northern coast of Canada. Attempts were made to get on board the ship, some were quite successful, but due to weather conditions and the poor condition of the hull, the ship was abandoned again. Last time Baychimo was seen in 1969, that is, 38 years after its crew abandoned it - at that time the frozen ship was part of an ice massif. In 2006, the Alaska government made an attempt to determine the location of the "Ghost Ship of the Arctic", but in vain. Where Baychimo is now - whether it lies at the bottom or is covered with ice beyond recognition - is a mystery.

12. Valencia
The Valencia was built in 1882 by William Cramp and Sons. The steamboat was most often used on the California-Alaska route. In 1906, the Valencia sailed from San Francisco to Seattle. A terrible disaster occurred on the night of January 21-22, 1906, when Valencia was near Vancouver. The steamer ran into reefs and received large holes through which water began to flow. The captain decided to run the ship aground. 6 out of 7 boats were launched, but they became victims of a powerful storm; only a few people managed to get to the shore and report the disaster. The rescue operation was unsuccessful and most of the crew and passengers died. By official information 136 people became victims of the shipwreck, according to unofficial estimates even more - 181. 37 people survived.

In 1933, lifeboat No. 5 was found near Barclay. Its condition was good, the boat retained most of its original paint. The lifeboat was found 27 years after the disaster! After this, local fishermen began to talk about the appearance of a ghost ship, which in outline resembled the Valencia.

11. Yacht SAYO; Manfred Fritz Bayorath
The 12-meter yacht SAYO, which disappeared seven years ago, was found drifting 40 miles from Barobo by Filipino fishermen. The boat's mast was broken most of the cabin was filled with water. When they got on board, they saw a mummified body near the radiotelephone. Based on photographs and documents found on board, it was quickly possible to identify the deceased. It turned out to be the owner of the yacht, yachtsman from Germany Manfred Fritz Bayorat. The mummification of Bayorat's body occurred under the influence of salt and high temperatures.

A drifting ship with the captain's mummy discovered off the coast of the Philippines surprised many. German traveler Manfred Fritz Bayorath was an experienced sailor who traveled on this yacht for 20 years. Judging by the pose in which the captain's mummy froze, in the last hours of his life he tried to contact rescuers. The cause of his death still remains a mystery.

10. "Lunatic"
In 2007, 70-year-old Jure Sterk from Slovenia went on a trip around the world on his “Lunatic”. To communicate with the shore, he used a radio he assembled with his own hands, but on January 1, 2009, he stopped communicating. A month later, his boat washed up on the coast of Australia, but there was no one on board.
Those who saw the ship believe that it was approximately 1,000 nautical miles from the coast.
The sailboat was in in great shape, and appeared undamaged. There was no sign of Sterk there. No note or journal entry about the reasons for his disappearance. Although the last entry in the journal dates back to January 2, 2009. And at the end of April 2019, “Lunatic” was spotted at sea by the crew of the research vessel “Roger Revelle”. It was drifting about 500 miles off the coast of Australia. His exact coordinates at that time were Latitude 32-18.0S, Longitude 091-07.0E.

9. "The Flying Dutchman"
The "Flying Dutchman" refers to several different ghost ships from different centuries. One of them - real owner brand. The one with whom the trouble happened at the Cape of Good Hope.
This is a legendary ghost sailing ship that cannot land on the shore and is doomed to forever roam the seas. Usually people observe such a ship from afar, sometimes surrounded by a luminous halo. According to legend, when the Flying Dutchman encounters another ship, its crew tries to send messages ashore to people who have long been dead. In maritime beliefs, an encounter with the Flying Dutchman was considered a bad omen.
Legend has it that in the 1700s, Dutch captain Philip Van Straaten was returning from the East Indies with a young couple on board. The captain liked the girl; he killed her betrothed, and proposed to her to become his wife, but the girl threw herself overboard. While trying to round the Cape of Good Hope, the ship encountered a severe storm. The navigator offered to wait out the bad weather in some bay, but the captain shot him and several dissatisfied people, and then swore by his mother that none of the crew would go ashore until they rounded the cape, even if it took forever. The captain, a foul-mouthed and blasphemous man, brought a curse upon his ship. Now he, immortal, invulnerable, but unable to go ashore, is doomed to plow the waves of the world's oceans until the second coming.
The first printed mention of the Flying Dutchman appeared in 1795 in the book A Voyage to Botany Bay.

8. “High Em 6”
This ghost ship was reported to have left a port in southern Taiwan on October 31, 2002. Subsequently, on January 8, 2003, the Indonesian fishing schooner Hi Em 6 was found adrift without a crew near New Zealand. Despite a thorough search, no trace of the 14 team members could be found. The captain reportedly last contacted the ship's owner, Tsai Huan Chue-er, in late 2002.

Oddly enough, the only crew member who showed up later reported that the captain had been killed. Whether there was a rebellion and its reasons are unclear. Initially, the entire crew was missing, and when the ship was discovered, no one was found. According to the results of the investigation, there were no signs of distress or fire on the ship. However, it was said that the ship could be carrying illegal immigrants. Which also doesn't explain anything...

7. Phantom Galleon
Legends about this ship began in the late 1800s when it was built. The ship was going to be built from wood. Once at sea, among the ice, the wooden ship froze into part of the iceberg. Eventually, the water began to warm up, the weather changed, it became warmer, and the iceberg sank the ship. The White Fleet searched for its ship throughout the winter, each time returning to port empty-handed, under cover of fog. At some point, it became so warm that the ship thawed and separated from the iceberg, and rose to the surface, where it was discovered by the crew of the White Fleet. Unfortunately, the crew of the galleon was killed; the remains of the ship were towed to the port.

6. "Octavius"
One of the first ghost ships, the Octavius ​​became one because its crew froze to death in 1762, and the ship drifted for another 13 years with the dead on board. The captain was trying to find a shortcut from China to England through the Northwest Passage ( sea ​​route via Northern Arctic Ocean), but the ship was covered in ice. Octavius ​​left England and headed for America in 1761. Trying to save time, the captain decided to follow the then-unexplored Northwest Passage, which was first successfully completed only in 1906. The ship is stuck in arctic ice, the unprepared team froze to death - the discovered remains indicate that this happened quite quickly. It is assumed that some time later Octavius ​​was freed from the ice and, with its dead crew, drifted on the open sea. After an encounter with whalers in 1775, the ship was never seen again.
The English merchant ship Octavius ​​was discovered drifting west of Greenland on October 11, 1775. A crew from the whaler Whaler Herald boarded and found the entire crew frozen. The captain's body was in his cabin; he died while writing in the logbook; he remained sitting at the table with a pen in his hand. There were three more frozen bodies in the cabin: a woman, a child wrapped in a blanket, and a sailor. The whaler's boarding crew left Octavius ​​in a hurry, taking with them only the logbook. Unfortunately, the document was so damaged by cold and water that only the first and last pages could be read. The journal ended with an entry from 1762. This meant that the ship had been drifting with the dead on board for 13 years.

5. Corsair "Duc de Dantzig"
This ship was launched in the early 1800s in Nantes, France, and soon became a corsair. Corsairs are private individuals who, with the permission of the supreme power of a warring state, used an armed vessel to capture merchant ships of the enemy, and sometimes even neutral powers. The same title applies to their team members. The concept of “corsair” in the narrow sense is used to characterize specifically French and Ottoman captains and ships.

The corsair captured several ships, some were plundered, and some were set free. After capturing small ships, most often the corsair abandoned the captured ships, sometimes setting them on fire. This ship mysteriously disappeared in 1812. Since then he has become a legend. It is believed that shortly after the mysterious disappearance, this corsair could have been a cruiser in Atlantic Ocean or perhaps in the Caribbean. There are rumors that it may have been captured by a British frigate. Napoleonic Gallego reported the discovery of this ship, drifting at sea completely aimlessly, with the deck covered in blood and covered with the corpses of the crew. However, there were no visible signs of damage to the vessel. The frigate's crew allegedly found and took the logbook, covered in the captain's blood, and then set the ship on fire.

4. Schooner "Jenny"
It is stated that the schooner Jenny, originally English, left port on the Isle of Wight in 1822 for the Antarctic regatta. The voyage was supposed to take place along the ice barrier in 1823, then it was planned to enter the ice in southern waters, and reach Drake Passage.
But a British schooner got stuck in the ice of the Drake Passage in 1823. But it was discovered only 17 years later: in 1840, a whaling ship called Nadezhda stumbled upon it. The bodies of the Jenny crew members are well preserved due to low temperatures. The ship took its place in the history of ghost ships, and in 1862 it was included in the list of Globus, a popular German geographical magazine of those times.

3. Sea Bird
Most “encounters” with ghost ships are pure fiction, but there were also very real stories. Losing a vessel or ship in the infinity of the world's oceans is not so difficult. And it's even easier to lose people.
In the 1750s, Sea Bird was a trading brig under the command of John Huxham. A merchant ship ran aground off Easton Beach, Rhode Island. The crew disappeared to an unknown location - the ship was abandoned by them without any explanation, and the lifeboats were missing. It was reported that the ship was returning from a voyage from Honduras, carrying goods from the southern to the northern hemisphere, and was expected to arrive in the city of Newport. Upon further investigation, coffee was found boiling on the stove on the abandoned ship... The only living creatures that were found on board were a cat and a dog. The crew mysteriously disappeared. An account of the ship's history was recorded in Wilmington, Delaware and made news in the Sunday Morning Star in 1885.

2. "Mary Celeste" (or Celeste)
The second most popular ghost ship after the Flying Dutchman - however, unlike it, it really existed. “Amazon” (as the ship was originally called) was notorious. The ship changed owners many times, the first captain died during the first voyage, then the ship ran aground during a storm, and finally it was bought by an enterprising American. He renamed the Amazon the Mary Celeste, believing that the new name would save the ship from trouble.
When the ship left the port of New York on November 7, 1872, there were 13 people on board: Captain Briggs, his wife, their daughter and 10 sailors. In 1872, a ship traveling from New York to Genoa with a cargo of alcohol on board was discovered by the Dei Grazia without a single person on board. All the personal belongings of the crew were in their places; in the captain’s cabin there was a box with his wife’s jewelry and her own sewing machine with unfinished sewing. True, the sextant and one of the boats disappeared, which suggests that the crew abandoned the ship. The ship was in in good condition, the holds were filled with food, the cargo (the ship was carrying alcohol) was untouched, but no traces of the crew were found. The fate of all crew members and passengers is completely shrouded in darkness. Subsequently, several impostors appeared and were exposed, posing as crew members and trying to profit from the tragedy. Most often, the impostor posed as the ship's cook.

The British Admiralty conducted a thorough investigation with a detailed examination of the ship (including below the waterline, by divers) and a thorough interview with eyewitnesses. It is the materials of this investigation that are the main and most reliable source of information. Plausible explanations of what happened boil down to the fact that the crew and passengers left the ship of their own free will, differing only in the interpretation of the reasons that prompted them to such a decision. There are many hypotheses, but they are all just assumptions.

1. Cruiser USS Salem (CA-139)
The cruiser USS Salem was laid down in July 1945 at Bethlehem Steel Company's Quincy Yard, launched in March 1947, and entered service on May 14, 1949. For ten years, the ship served as the flagship of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, and the Second Fleet in Atlantic.The ship was placed in reserve in 1959. She was removed from the fleet in 1990, and opened to the public as a museum in 1995. USS Salem is now docked in Boston, Massachusetts in Quincy Harbor.

Boston, one of the oldest cities in the United States, has several spooky historic ships and buildings on display. This ship, being an old warship, is a bundle of stories - from the dark sights of war to the loss of life, if you get a chance to take a tour there, you will be able to experience the thrill and chills of all the ghosts of this ship. He's been nicknamed the "Sea Witch" and is rumored to be so creepy that you can feel the chill just by looking at his photo online.

Events

Everyone knows the legends about the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship that superstitious sailors feared more than death. Many have watched the thriller "Ghost Ship", which gives you goosebumps. What are they really like, these mysterious ships, the crew of which disappeared without a trace along with the passengers?

1. Maria Celeste

The Mary Celeste is a merchant brigantine that was found in December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was in excellent condition and sailed towards the Strait of Gibraltar.

Its cargo was intact, and all personal belongings of passengers and crew were in place. The Mary Celeste had been at sea for about a month and had a supply of water and food for six months.

There were only no people on the ship - neither crew nor passengers. Their mysterious disappearance still remains the biggest mystery.

2. Carol A. Dearing

The story of "Carol A. Deering" is no less mysterious than the case of "Mary Celeste". This huge five-masted schooner was built by G.G. Deering in Maine in 1919.

The ship was found in 1921 off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, but without a crew.

A lot has been written about “Carol A. Deering”, since according to the main version explaining the disappearance of the entire crew, the culprit was Bermuda Triangle.

Although everything indicates that the crew and the ship suffered due to a mutiny or attack by pirates.

3. Bel Amica

This ship is notable for the fact that its passengers disappeared from the ship not in the 19th, or even in the 20th century, but in 2006. It was then, on August 24, that the Italian coast guard discovered it off the island of Sardinia when the ship was sailing onto the reefs.

Climbing on board, representatives of the coast guard saw a half-eaten lunch, French maps of the seas North Africa, a bunch of clothes, and a Luxembourg flag. There were no passengers or crew on the ship.

As it turned out later, the ship was not registered either in Italy or in any other country. All that was found on board was a sign that supposedly read “Bel Amica” (“Beautiful Friend”). Later, Italian newspapers wrote that the owner of the ship was finally found: he turned out to be Franc Rouayrux from Luxembourg.

4. High goal 6

This ship left a southern Taiwanese port at the end of October 2002, and 2 months later, in early January, it was found drifting in Australian waters.

The ship's owner, Tsai Huang Shueh-er, claims he last spoke with the ship's captain in December 2002.

It was possible to find only one member of the ship's crew, who admitted that the captain and the ship's engineer were killed. However, it is still unknown what exactly happened and what caused the mutiny.

5. Jian Seng

The Jian Seng is an 80 meter long tanker discovered off the coast of Australia. Coast Guard representatives found no people on board the ship, or even signs of their recent presence on it.

There is also no reason to suspect that the ship was involved in the transportation of contraband or illegal fishing.

A customs official said they could not find the vessel's registration documents or the port from which it sailed.

However, they claim that the vessel is the Jian Seng, even though its name has been blacked out. Since the owner of the ship was not found, it was sunk.

6. MV Joyita

The merchant ship MV Joyita with 25 people on board disappeared in 1955 in the South Pacific. The ship left Samoa with 16 crew members and 9 passengers, including children, a doctor, a government official, and a copra buyer. The cargo consisted of medicines, wood, and food.

The entire journey was supposed to take about two days. Joyita was scheduled to return on October 5 with a load of copra on board.

On October 6, the port announced that the ship was late, and not a single dispatcher received distress signals. No traces of the ship or passengers were found.

7. Kaz II

"Kaz II", a 9.8 meter long catamaran discovered off the coast of Australia, has been called a "ghost yacht". According to the original plan, the yacht was supposed to sail from Western Australia to its northern part. Five days after sailing, maritime guards discovered the boat and boarded it. As the security representatives themselves say, the disappearance of the three passengers of the ship was very strange.

The yacht was in excellent condition and lay on the water as if the crew were on board. There was food on the table, even the laptop was turned on and the engine was running. All emergency systems, including radio and GPS, were operational. It was also strange that all the life jackets were in place, while the passengers disappeared without a trace.

8. Zebrina

Zebrina was built in 1873 as a merchant ship. In October 1917, she sailed from the port of Falmouth with a cargo of coal, and in the same month she was discovered off the coast of France, but without a crew. There was no damage to the ship except for the disarray of the rigging.

At that time, it was believed that the ship's crew had been captured by a German submarine, which was seen in this part of the ocean from an Allied ship.

It is assumed that the submarine sailed away before sinking the Zebrina, but later sank along with the crew of the ill-fated ship.

9. Schooner Jenny

The Jenny was a British schooner that became stuck in the ice of the Drake Passage in 1823. It was discovered only 17 years later: in 1840, a whaling ship stumbled upon the ship. All bodies on the Jenny were well preserved due to the low temperatures.

A ship's log was found on the ship, the last entry of which read like this: “May 4, 1823: there has been no food for 71 days. There are no survivors except me.”

The frozen captain who left the note was found sitting in a chair with a pen in his hand. There were 7 passengers on the ship, including one woman.

10. Baychimo

On October 1, 1931, the ship "Baichimo" with a cargo of furs got stuck in the pack ice. The team left the ship, walking along the ice for about a kilometer to the nearest town. However, soon "Baichimo" was freed from the ice, and the crew returned back. Already on October 8, the ship got stuck again, and they even had to call rescuers who took away the crew members and valuable cargo.

The ship was left without a crew, but did not sink. "Baichimo" set off free swimming across the ocean, and was seen quite often. Several times people even boarded the ship, but they did not have the equipment to bring the ship into port. The ship was last seen by Inuit in 1969 when it became stuck in the Beaufort Sea north of the Alaskan coast.

It’s a strange thing: in the middle of the sea, to come across a drifting ship with no signs of life on board. Empty. Nobody here. Silence. And he rocks on the waves - calmly, calmly, as if this is how it should be, as if he doesn’t need anyone else. It’s as if he had already swam enough with these “conquerors of the seas”, and he was so tired of them that he was only glad to part with them on occasion... Creepy.

Sailors say that in the ocean - especially in the Atlantic - this happens often: you come across empty fishing boats, small yachts, sometimes even liners - "", for example, are still looking for their last refuge. In most cases, by appearance ship it is immediately clear what happened to it, and main reason maritime disasters, of course, there will always be nature - the storm is not easy to defeat even for experienced sailors. But sometimes the disappearance of a crew simply cannot be explained.

Imagine: a boat that is completely intact, without any damage, its engines and generators are working, the radio and all emergency systems are in order, there is untouched food on the dining table and a working laptop, as if the crew a minute ago hid from you somewhere in the bilge compartment, but you They searched everything and did not find a single soul on board. You may think that this is just another sea story, but in fact it is an excerpt from the police report about the disappearance of three crew members of the KZ-II catamaran yacht in April 2007.

We think we've got you intrigued now? In this material we have collected the most famous and mysterious stories about the ships that different time were found at sea under the most mystical circumstances: without a crew on board or with dead sailors who died for an unknown reason, or as ghosts reminiscent of tragic events of the past.

MV Joyita, 1955

It was a luxury yacht built in 1931 in Los Angeles for film director Roland West. During World War II, the MV Joyita was outfitted and operated as a patrol vessel off the coast of Hawaii until the end of the war.

On October 3, 1955, the MV Joyita set sail from Samoa to the island of Tokelau, a distance of approximately 270 nautical miles. Just before the voyage, she discovered a clutch malfunction on the main engine, which they could not fix on the spot, and the yacht went to sea under sail and with one auxiliary engine. There were 25 souls on board, among them a government official, two children and a surgeon who was to perform an operation in Tokelau.

The trip was supposed to take no more than 2 days, but MV Joyita did not arrive at the destination port. The ship did not send any distress signals, even though its course was along a fairly busy route, where coast guard vessels often sail and which is well covered by relay stations. The search for the yacht was carried out on an area of ​​100,000 square meters. miles by air force, but MV Joyita could not be found.

Only five weeks later, on November 10, 1955, the ship was found. It drifted 600 miles from its planned route, half-submerged. 4 tons of cargo, crew and passengers were missing. The VHF radio was tuned to the international distress frequency. One auxiliary engine and bilge pump were still running, and the cabin lights were on. All clocks on board stopped at 10:25. The doctor's bag was found with four bloody bandages. The logbook, sextant and chronometer were missing, along with three life rafts.

The search team carefully examined the ship for damage to the hull, but did not find any. The fate of the crew and passengers could not be determined. Intriguingly, the MV Joyita, with its balsa wood interior, was virtually unsinkable, and the crew knew it. The missing cargo also remained a mystery.

A variety of theories have been put forward, ranging from the most bizarre, like the Japanese Navy, which still did not stop fighting after the end of World War II, was located at some isolated base on one of the islands. Insurance fraud, piracy, and rebellion were also considered as possibilities.

MV Joyita was recovered but, perhaps confirming her curse, ran aground several times. In the late 1960s, the ship was sold for scrap.

Ourang Medan (Orang Medan, or Orange Medan), 1947

“Everyone is dead, it will come for me” and “I’m dying” - these were two latest messages, received from the crew of the cargo ship Ourang Medan in the Gulf of Malacca in June 1947. They were received along with SOS signals by two ships at once - British and Dutch - which is taken as another confirmation of the veracity of this mystical story.

The first message came in Morse code, the second by radio. They searched for the ship in distress for several hours, and the British Silver Star was the first to discover it. After unsuccessful attempts Welcoming Ourang Medan with signal lights and whistles, we decided to land a small team. Rescuers immediately went to the control room, from where the sounds of a working radio could be heard, and found several crew members there.

All of them, including the captain, were dead. More corpses were found on the cargo deck. All the Ourang Medan sailors were said to be lying in protective positions with a look of horror on their faces. Many were covered in frost, and along with one of the crew groups a dead dog was found, frozen, stiff as a statue, on all fours, growling at someone into the void.

Suddenly, somewhere in the depths of the cargo deck, an explosion was heard and a fire started. The rescuers did not fight the fire and hastened to leave the ship full of dead people. Over the next hour, several more explosions were heard on Ourang Medan, and it sank.

It is quite reasonable to believe that the story of Ourang Medan, if it was a disaster, is largely a fiction. Some argue that such a vessel did not exist - at least, the name Ourang Medan was not found in Lloyd's lists. But conspiracy theorists believe that the name of the ship was fictitious, since the crew was transporting contraband, and this same contraband - you never know what kind of cargo was on board - became the cause of the tragedy.

Octavius ​​(Octavius), 1762-1775

The English merchant ship Octavius ​​was discovered drifting west of Greenland on October 11, 1775. A boarding party from the whaler Whaler Herald boarded the ship and found the entire crew dead and frozen. The captain's body was in his cabin, death found him writing something in the logbook, he was still sitting at the table with a pen in his hand. There were three more frozen bodies in the cabin: a woman, a child wrapped in a blanket, and a sailor holding a tinderbox.

The boarding crew left Octavius ​​in a hurry, taking with them only the logbook. Unfortunately, the document was so damaged by cold and water that only the first and last pages could be read. The journal ended with an entry from 1762. This meant that the ship drifted dead for 13 years.

Octavius ​​left England and headed for America in 1761. Trying to save time, the captain decided to follow the then-unexplored Northwest Passage, which was first successfully completed only in 1906. The ship got stuck in the Arctic ice, the unprepared crew froze to death - the discovered remains indicate that this happened quite quickly. It is assumed that some time later Octavius ​​was freed from the ice and, with its dead crew, drifted on the open sea. After an encounter with whalers in 1775, the ship was never seen again.

KZ-II, 2007

The crew of the Australian catamaran yacht KZ-II went missing in April 2007 under unclear circumstances. The story received wide public attention because it resembles a similar incident with the crew of the brigantine Mary Celeste.

On 15 April 2007, KZ-II departed Airlie Beach for Townsville. There were three crew members on board, including the owner. A day later, the yacht stopped communicating, and on April 18 it was accidentally discovered drifting near the Great Barrier Reef. On April 20, a patrol landed on KZ-II and did not find any crew members on board.

At the same time, the ship did not have any damage, except for a torn sail, all systems worked properly, the generator and engine were turned on, and untouched food and a laptop were found on the dining table. The search for sailors continued until April 25, but brought no results.

The official version of what happened was a series of events, partially reconstructed from the recordings of a video camera found on board the KZ-II. It is believed that first one of the sailors for some reason dived into the sea. Perhaps he wanted to free a tangled fishing line. At the same moment, the yacht began to be blown to the side by the wind, something happened to the first sailor in the water, and the second sailor rushed to his aid. The third sailor remaining on board tried to steer the yacht closer to his friends by turning on the engine, but quickly realized that the wind was hindering the movement. He tried to quickly remove the sail and at that moment, for an unknown reason, he himself found himself overboard. The yacht began to go out into the open ocean on its own, and the sailors were no longer able to catch up with it and eventually drowned.

Young Teazer, 1813

The privateer schooner Young Teazer was built in early 1813. It was an amazingly fast and promising ship, which already in the first months of the hunt showed itself very well on the trade routes off the coast of Halifax. In June 1813, Teazer began to pursue the Scottish brig Sir John Sherbrooke. The schooner was able to hide in the fog, but soon a 74-gun gun was on her trail. battleship HMS La Hogue and trapped Teazer in Mahone Bay off the Nova Scotia Peninsula. At dusk, HMS La Hogue was joined by HMS Orpheus, and they began preparing to attack the privateer, who now had nowhere to go. HMS La Hogue dispatched five boarding parties to Young Teazer, but as soon as they approached, the schooner exploded. The 7 surviving crew members of the Young Teazer subsequently unanimously claimed that it was First Lieutenant Frederick Johnson who detonated the ammunition, thus destroying the ship, himself, and 30 other crew members, whose unidentified remains rest today in the Anglican Cemetery at Mahone Bay.

Soon after the tragic events local residents they began to claim that they saw the flaming Young Teazer rising from the depths. On June 27, 1814, people in Mahone Bay were amazed to see the ghost of a schooner on the same spot where it had been destroyed. The ghost appeared and then disappeared silently in a flash of flame and smoke. This story spread so quickly across the country that the following June, onlookers began to flock to Mahone Bay. Young Teazer is said to have appeared again that time, and has appeared every year since, and locals still claim that the schooner is periodically visible on foggy nights - especially on the first 24 hours after the full moon.

Mary Celeste (Marie Celeste), 1872

This ship can easily lay claim to the title of the biggest maritime secret of all time. Until now, the investigation into the disappearance of his crew has not advanced one step, and even after 143 years it is the topic of numerous debates.

On November 7, 1872, the brigantine Mary Celeste left New York and headed for Genoa with a cargo of alcohol. On the afternoon of December 5, she was discovered 400 miles from Gibraltar without a crew. The ship sailed with sails raised, had no damage and, as it later turned out, even the hold with valuable cargo was untouched.

The brigantine was discovered and identified by Captain Morehouse from another merchant ship sailing on a parallel course. He, as it turned out, knew the owner of the Mary Celeste, Captain Briggs, very well and respected him as a talented sailor, which is why Morehouse was very surprised when he realized that the brigantine he encountered was completely absurdly deviating from the known course. Morehouse tried to signal and, receiving no response, began to pursue the brigantine. Two hours later, his team landed on Mary Celeste.

The ship seemed to have been abandoned in haste. Personal belongings were untouched, including jewelry, clothing, food supplies, and all cargo. The boats were missing, as well as all the papers in the captain's cabin except for the diary, where the last entry is dated November 25 and reports that Mary Celeste left the Azores.

There were no signs of violence on board. The only visible damage was heavy traces of water on the deck, leading to the belief that the crew had abandoned ship due to inclement weather. However, this contradicted the personality of Captain Briggs, who was characterized by family, friends and partners as a skillful and brave sailor who decided to leave the ship only in case of emergency and in case of mortal danger.

Morehouse took control of the brigantine and delivered it to Gibraltar on December 13th. There, a comprehensive examination of the ship was carried out, during which inspectors discovered several stains in the captain's cabin that resembled dried blood. They also found several marks on the railings that could have been left by a blunt object or an axe, but there was no such weapon on board the Mary Celeste at the time of the study. The ship itself was declared undamaged.

Possibilities include piracy, insurance fraud, a tsunami, an explosion caused by cargo fumes, ergotism from contaminated flour that drove the crew mad, mutiny, and several supernatural explanations. There is also a version that the Mary Celeste crew reached the coast of Spain, where in 1873 they discovered several boats from an unknown ship and several unidentified corpses in them.

Over the next 17 years, the Mary Celeste changed hands 17 times, with tragic incidents and deaths said to have occurred frequently. The last owner of the brigantine sank it to set up an insurance claim.

Lyubov Orlova, 2013

One of the most famous ghost ships of recent years is the liner Lyubov Orlova, which was lost in 2013 while being towed in the Caribbean Sea and has since appeared here and there in the Atlantic.

The liner, named after the famous Soviet actress, was built in 1976 and was part of the Far Eastern Shipping Company fleet. In 1999, the ship was sold to a company from Malta and was hired for regular voyages to the Arctic. In 2010, the ship was arrested for debts and after two years of inactivity in Canada, it was sent by tug to the Dominican Republic for scrap. During towing, a severe storm occurred in the Caribbean and the towing cables failed. The tugboat crew tried to seize the ship out of control, but due to weather conditions this was not possible - the ship was abandoned in international waters.

The search for the vessel was unsuccessful. Its automatic identification system - a system that transmits the geographic position of ships - was offline, making it impossible to determine its location. Canadian authorities announced that since the ship in any case can now only be in international waters, Canada no longer bears responsibility for its fate - the search was stopped. The Lyubov Orlova was believed to be lost forever in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Unexpectedly, on February 1, 2013, the Lyubov Orlova was spotted drifting 1,700 km off the coast of Ireland. It was discovered by the Canadian oil tanker Atlantic Hawk, which, in order to prevent the now world-famous “ghost ship” from becoming a real danger to nearby oil rigs, towed the ship to neutral waters, where it was forced to leave it again. On February 4, Lyubov Orlova was 463 km from St. John's, Canada. The Canadian authorities again refused to take any measures and placed full responsibility for the ship on its owner. A few days later, “Lyubov Orlova” was lost again.

For a year, the 4,250-ton vessel, whose remains are valued at RUB 34 million, managed to avoid the scrutiny of its owner's search teams and scrap metal hunters. The popularity of the ghost ship increased until the appearance of fake users on social networks under the name “Lyubov Orlova” and the website whereisorlova.com, which, however, is dedicated to other ghost ships. The phrase “Where is Lyubov Orlova?” turned into a meme and is said to have been printed on T-shirts and mugs.

In January 2014, the ghost ship was again spotted drifting 2.4 thousand km. from the west coast of Ireland. Experts believed that the ship was moving towards the shores of Great Britain, where recent storms had pushed it. The British authorities were preparing for a meeting with the celebrity, especially fearing that the drifting ship might be inhabited by cannibal rats, but the Lyubov Orlova disappeared again.

Lady Lovibond, 1748

In the 18th century, sailors firmly believed in omens, and quite often their superstitions were fueled by situations that were understandable and even prosaic by today’s standards. Maybe this is why the “edifying” story of the sailing ship Lady Lovibond made it so popular and the legend so long-lasting.

On February 13, 1748, the newly married Simon Reed and Annette set off for Honeymoon from the UK to Portugal on Reed's Lady Lovibond. Even before going to sea, John Rivers, Reed's first mate, fell in love with the captain's wife and was now going crazy with love and jealousy. Reeves began to have uncontrollable fits of anger, one day he lashed out at the helmsman and, losing his composure, killed him. Rivers then took control of the ship and steered it towards the Goodwin Sands, a notorious sandbar in the English Channel. The ship was wrecked, no one was saved.

In 1848, a hundred years after the tragic events described, local fishermen saw a sailboat crash on the Goodwin Sands. Rescue boats were sent to the crash site, but no vessel was found. In 1948, another hundred years later, the ghost of Lady Lovibond was again spotted on Goodwin Sands by Captain Ball Prestwick and was described by him as exactly like the original ship of 1748, albeit with an eerie greenish glow. The next appearance of the ghost ship is expected in 2048. Let's wait.

Eliza Battle, 1858

Built in 1852 in Indiana, Eliza Battle was a luxury wooden steamship for entertaining presidents and VIPs. On a cold night in February 1858, a fire started on the main deck of a steamboat on the Tombigbee River. strong wind helped the fire spread throughout the ship. There were about 100 people on board that flight, of which 26 people could not escape. Today, local residents say that during spring floods, during big moon, Eliza Battle reappears on the Tombigbee River. She floats upstream with music and lights on the main deck. Sometimes they only see the silhouette of a steamship. Fishermen believe that the appearance of Eliza Battle promises disaster for other ships that still navigate this river.

Carrol A. Deering (Carroll A. Deering), 1921

The five-masted cargo schooner Carrol A Deering was built in 1911 and named after the owner's son. On December 2, 1920, she set sail from Rio de Janeiro to Norfolk, USA, and two months later was found stranded and abandoned by her crew.

The investigation into the circumstances of the disappearance of the crew of the Carrol A Deering, which was conducted under the control of US Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, made it possible to partially reconstruct the chain of events preceding the disappearance of the schooner and to collect eyewitness accounts.

Thus, it was established that in early January 1921, on the way to the USA, Carrol A Deering made an intermediate stop on the island of Barbados, where a quarrel occurred between Captain Wormell and First Officer McLellan, and the latter threatened to kill the captain. After the quarrel, McLellan sought work on other ships, claiming that Carrol A Deering's crew was not following orders and Captain Wormell would not allow him to discipline sailors. McLellan was turned down. Over the next few days in Barbados, he and the Carrol A Deering crew were often seen drunk; McLellan even ended up in prison for his rowdy behavior, from where Captain Wormell rescued him. On January 9, 1921, the schooner went to sea, and what happened to it next still remains a mystery.

On January 16, 1921, Carrol A Deering was seen at Bahamas. She sailed with one sail, despite favorable weather conditions, and performed strange maneuvers, periodically going back on course. On January 18, she was spotted off Cape Canaveral, and on January 23, off Cape Fear Lighthouse. On January 25, in the same area, the cargo steamer SS Hewitt disappeared without a trace, which was following the same course as Carrol A Deering - this circumstance was also included in the materials on Carrol A Deering, but there was no direct connection between the incidents.

On January 29, the schooner, with full sail, passed the Cape Lookout lighthouse. The lighthouse keeper even filmed it. According to him, a red-haired sailor on board Carrol A Deering shouted over the loudspeaker that the schooner had lost its anchors during a storm and asked to convey a message to the ship's owners. The keeper was unable to transmit the message because the lighthouse's radio was broken. He later noted that he was surprised that the schooner’s crew were crowded on the quarterdeck, where only the captain and his assistants have the right to be, and even from the ship it was a simple sailor speaking to him, and not the captain or mate.

On January 30, the schooner was seen sailing under full sail off Cape Hatteras, and on January 31, the US Coast Guard reported a five-masted sailing ship running aground in the same area. Its sails were raised, its boats were missing. Due to stormy weather, they were able to get to Carrol A Deering only on February 4 - no people were found on board. Personal belongings, documents, including the ship's logbook, navigation equipment and anchors were missing. Three pairs of shoes were found in the captain's cabin. different sizes. The last mark on the found map was dated January 23, and it was not made in the handwriting of Captain Wormell.

In 1922, the investigation into Carrol A Deering was closed without any official conclusion. The schooner, which was slowly disintegrating aground and could pose a danger to navigation, was blown up. Its skeleton remained in the same place for a long time, until it was finally destroyed by a hurricane in 1955.

Baychimo (Baychimo), 1931

The Baychimo was built in Sweden in 1911 by order of a German trading company. After the First World War it was transferred to Great Britain and for the next fourteen years it regularly served on routes along the Northwest coast of Canada, transporting furs. In early October 1931, the weather deteriorated sharply, and a few miles off the coast near the town of Barrow, the ship became stuck in the ice. The team temporarily abandoned the ship and found shelter on the mainland. A week later the weather cleared, the sailors returned on board and continued sailing, but already on October 15, Baychimo again fell into an ice trap.

This time it was impossible to get to the nearest city - the crew had to arrange a temporary shelter on the shore, far from the ship, and here they were forced to spend a whole month. In mid-November there was a snowstorm that lasted for several days. And when the weather cleared on November 24, Baychimo was no longer in its original place. The sailors believed that the ship had been lost in a storm, but a few days later a local seal hunter reported seeing Baychimo about 45 miles from their camp. The team found the ship, removed its precious cargo and left it forever.

This is not the end of the Baychimo story. For the next 40 years, it was occasionally seen drifting along the northern coast of Canada. Attempts were made to get on board the ship, some were quite successful, but due to weather conditions and the poor condition of the hull, the ship was abandoned again. The last time Baychimo was in 1969, that is, 38 years after the crew left it - at that time the frozen ship was part of an ice massif. In 2006, the Alaska government attempted to locate the Arctic Ghost Ship, but all attempts to locate the ship were unsuccessful. Where Baychimo is now—whether it lies at the bottom or is covered with ice beyond recognition—remains a mystery.

Flying Dutchman, 1700s

This is probably the most famous ghost ship in the world, whose popularity was increased by “Pirates of the Caribbean” and even the cartoon “SpongeBob SquarePants”, where one of the characters was called Frying Dutchman.

There are many legends associated with this vessel, forever wandering the ocean, and the main one concerns the Dutch captain Philip Van der Decken (sometimes called Van Straaten), who in the 1700s was returning from the East Indies and was carrying a young couple on board . The captain liked the girl so much that he arranged the death of her betrothed and proposed to her. The girl refused Van der Decken and threw herself overboard out of grief.

Immediately after this, the ship was caught in a storm near the Cape of Good Hope. The superstitious sailors began to grumble. In an attempt to prevent a mutiny, the navigator offered to wait out the bad weather in some bay, but the captain, desperate and drinking after the suicide of his beloved, shot him and several other dissatisfied people. One of the popular versions of the legend says that after the murder of the navigator, Van der Decken swore with the bones of his mother that no one would go ashore until the ship passed the cape; he has incurred a curse and is now doomed to sail forever.

Usually people watch the Flying Dutchman at sea from afar. According to legend, if you get close to it, the crew will try to convey a message to the shore to people who have long been dead. It is also believed that meeting a “Dutchman” promises illness and even death. The latter is explained by yellow fever, which is transmitted by mosquitoes that breed in containers with food water. Such a disease could destroy the entire crew, and a meeting with such an infected ship could really be fatal: mosquitoes attacked living sailors and infected them.

Everyone has heard about a ship called the Flying Dutchman - this is the most famous ghost ship in the world. However, he is far from the only one. The ghost of a ship that once sank is a fairly popular topic, so there is a wide variety of stories about such phenomena. Now you will find out the most famous of them.

"El Caleuche"

El Caleuche is a ghost ship that, according to legend, floats in the waters off the coast of Chile. This ghost always floats exclusively at night and always appears suddenly from fog or mist over the water. The ship protects the waters on which it sails and also punishes those who harm the ocean, as well as the creatures that live in it. It is said that its crew consists of sailors who died in a shipwreck, as well as witches. The witches leave the ship riding on huge seahorses. But it is worth noting that both sailors and witches make up a cheerful and happy team, since during calm and quiet nights music and loud laughter can be heard from this ship.

HMS Erebus and HMS Terror

On May 19, 1845, two bombardment ships left England and headed towards the Canadian Arctic. Their goal was extremely difficult - to sail through the dangerous waters of the Northwest Strait, which separates the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Under the direction of Sir John Franklin, the ships were to collect samples and conduct Scientific research along the way. However, of the 134 people on board the two ships, not one returned. Later, both ships were discovered near King William Island - there they were stuck in the ice. Based on logbook entries, Franklin died on June 11, 1847, and the ships were abandoned by their crews on April 22, 1848. The survivors tried to cross the ice and get to the continent, and more specifically, to Canada. The wreck of HMS Erebus was recently discovered during a Victoria Strait expedition.

"Copenhagen"

On December 14, 1928, the Danish sailing ship Copenhagen, participating in the East Asia Campaign, left the Rio de la Plata, an area between Uruguay and Argentina, to sail to Australia. It was notable for having five masts at once. She was a good ship, equipped with a radio transmitter, an auxiliary engine and wide, capacious boats. It was a training ship with a crew of 60 people, most of whom were cadets. Some of them were famous and rich Danish families. On December 21, the ship contacted the Norwegian steamer William Bloomer via radio, but after that no one else heard a word from him. After the disappearance of the Copenhagen, the most incredible theories immediately began to appear, but, most likely, the ship simply encountered an iceberg in the dark or fog. In 1930, there were reports of the ghost of a five-masted ship being seen on the water, and in 2012, the wreck of a ship believed to be the Copenhagen was found on the island of Tristan da Cunha.

"Eurydice"

In 1878, the Navy training ship Eurydice disappeared while sailing off the Isle of Wight. A sudden snow storm sank the ship, taking 364 crew members with it, although initially the day was incredibly calm, with no signs of any weather changes. The storm struck so suddenly that the crew did not even have time to react. The wind carried the Eurydice with its sails raised in an unknown direction until the ship disappeared from sight. Ultimately, only two people survived, the ship was refloated, but was so damaged that it was decided to dismantle it for scrap. Since then, there have been constant rumors that a ghost is floating in the area where the Eurydice ran aground. Many people who have been near the Isle of Wight have reported seeing a ghost ship there.

"Mary Celeste"

On December 4, 1872, the British brigantine Dei Gratia discovered the Mary Celeste near the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was abandoned, not a single person was found on it. It was later learned that there were ten people on board the ship, and none of them were ever found. One lifeboat was missing, but there was no entry in the logbook as to why the crew might have abandoned ship. There were 1,700 barrels of alcohol on board, some of which were open. The ship was slightly damaged, slightly flooded, but was afloat. When the damage was repaired, British authorities began an investigation into what happened on the ship, but were unable to give a clear answer. Various ideas have been put forward. For example, the possibility that leaking barrels of alcohol could cause fears that the ship would catch fire. Therefore, Captain Benjamin Briggs could order the entire crew to abandon ship. It has also been hypothesized that Briggs may have thought the ship's damage was much worse than it actually was, which was the reason for the evacuation. Other ideas include sea monsters, pirates and even mutiny.

"Flying Dutchman"

The most famous ghost ship is the Flying Dutchman, which terrorizes the Cape of Good Hope near South Africa. By the way, the term “Flying Dutchman” does not refer to the ship itself, as many believe, but to its captain. There are several versions of the story, but the most famous of them is the one in which the captain of the ship Hendrik Van der Decken, who lived in the 17th century and served in the Dutch East India Company, got his ship into a storm near the Cape of Good Hope. He vowed that, despite all that God had thrown at him, he would deliver his ship to its destination. However, this was not destined to come true - the ship hit a rock and sank along with the entire crew. As punishment for this, the captain and his ghostly crew must now constantly navigate the waters of the Cape of Good Hope, awaiting forgiveness that may never come. The ship is not allowed into any of the ports, so it is forced to always be on the move, surfing the ocean, waiting for their curse to expire and they can calmly depart to another world.

Ghost ships are ships that are sailing but do not have a crew on board. The crew could disappear or die for several reasons: epidemics, natural disasters in the form of wandering waves, mass poisoning, etc.

Stories about ghost ships are widely used in literature, cinema, fables, legends, and pirate stories. One of the most famous legends is the story of the Flying Dutchman. According to sailors, meeting this ghost ship at sea promises huge troubles. Despite the huge number of fictional stories, there have been quite a few real cases of the appearance of such ships.

Ghost ships found at sea from the 18th to the 20th centuries

In 1775, a merchant ship from England, the Octavius, was discovered off the coast of Greenland with the frozen bodies of crew members on board. The ship's log showed that the ship set sail in 1762.

In 1850, a mysterious fish was discovered on the coast of Rhode Island, stuck in shallow water. They found a dog on the deck, all the documents and cargo were in place, even coffee was boiling on the stove. Not a single crew member was found even after a thorough investigation. The sailing ship Seabird was carrying timber and coffee from the island of Honduras.

One of the most famous ghost ships, the Mary Celeste, was discovered abandoned by its crew without any visible reasons in 1872. The ship was quite good, strong, without damage, but throughout its existence it often got into unpleasant situations, which is why it received notoriety. The captain and his crew of 7 people, as well as his wife and daughter, who were also on the ship at the time of transportation of the cargo - alcohol, disappeared without a trace.

"Mary Celeste"

In 1921, the schooner Carroll Deering was spotted from the lighthouse. The captain and crew of 9 people were not found. The sails were removed, food supplies and personal belongings of the crew remained untouched. At the same time, sextants, chronometers and a logbook were missing, some of the instruments and steering were disabled.

Schooner "Carroll Deering"

The Orang Medan, discovered in 1948, sent strange SOS signals to nearby merchant ships, warning of dead crew. When the sailors boarded the ship, they found that all the crew members were dead, and an expression of horror was frozen on their faces. Unexpectedly for everyone on the ship, spontaneous combustion began, which led to an explosion and the ship sank. No one was able to find any documentary explanations of what was happening on the ship.