Posted by Evan Andrews on October 26, 2009 in Bizarre, Video Lists |


Ghost ships, or phantom ships, make up a big part of the seafaring
lore that has been passed down by sailors and fisherman throughout the years. The ships are said to be spectral apparitions that materialize on the horizon before quickly disappearing, and they are believed to be a sign of bad things to come. The term is also used to describe abandoned vessels that are found adrift with no crew or passengers, often under frightening and mysterious circumstances. Whether real stories of these derelict ships or legends about phantom craft trawling the seas.

The Caleuche

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One of the most well known legends of the Chilota mythology of southern Chile describes the Caleuche, a ghost ship that appears every night near the island of Chiloe. According to local legend, the ship is a kind of conscious being that sails the waters around the area, carrying with it the spirits of all the people who have drowned at sea. When spotted, the Caleuche is said to be strikingly beautiful and bright, and is always accompanied by the sounds of party music and people laughing. After appearing for a few moments, the ship is then said to disappear or submerge itself under the water. According to Chilota mythology, the spirits of the drowned are summoned to the ship by the Sirena Chilota, the Pincoya, and the Picoy, three Chilota “water spirits” who resemble mermaids. Once aboard the phantom ship, the drowned are said to be able to resume their life as it was before they died.

The SS Valencia

SS_Valencia_Side


The SS Valencia was steamer ship that sank off the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia in 1906. The ship had encountered bad weather near Cape Mendocino, and after drifting off course, struck a reef and began taking on water. The crew quickly began lowering lifeboats holding the ship’s 108 passengers into the water, but several of these capsized, and one simply disappeared. The Valencia eventually sank, and only 37 of the roughly 180 people on board survived. Five months later, a fisherman claimed he had found a life raft with 8 skeletons in it in a nearby cave. A search was launched, but it found nothing. Thanks to its dramatic end, the Valencia eventually became the source of numerous ghost ship stories. Sailors would often claim they could see the specter of the steamer drifting near the reef in Pachena Point, and to this day the ship is the source of frequent wild theories and ghost ship sightings. In a bizarre twist, 27 years after the sinking of the Valencia, one of its life rafts was found floating peacefully in nearby Barkley Sound. The “ghost raft” was said to be in remarkable condition, and even still had most of its original coat of paint.

The Ourang Medan

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The story of the Ourang Medan begins in 1947, when two American ships received a distress call while navigating the Strait of Malacca, off the coast of Malaysia. The caller identified himself as a member of the crew of the Ourang Medan, a Dutch vessel, and supposedly claimed that the ship’s captain and crew were all dead or dying. The messages became jumbled and bizarre before trailing off and ending with the words: “I die.” The ships quickly raced to the scene to help. When they arrived, they found that the Ourang Medan was undamaged, but that the entire crew—even the ship’s dog— was dead, their bodies and faces locked in terrified poses and expressions, and many pointing at something that was not there. Before the rescuers could investigate further, the ship mysteriously caught on fire, and they had to evacuate. Soon after, the Ourang Medan is said to have exploded and then sank. While the details and the overall veracity of the Ourang Medan story are still widely debated, there have been a number of theories proposed about what might have caused the death of the crew. The most popular of these is that the ship was illegally transporting nitroglycerin or some kind of illegal nerve agent, which was not properly secured and seeped out into the air. Others, meanwhile, have claimed the ship was a victim of a UFO attack or some other kind of paranormal event.

The Carroll A. Deering

carroll a deering


Perhaps the most famous ghost ship of the Eastern Seaboard is the Carroll A. Deering, a schooner that ran aground near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in 1921. The ship had just returned from a commercial voyage to deliver coal in South America, and had last been spotted just south of Hatteras by a lightship near Cape Lookout. It ran aground in the notorious Diamond Shoals, an area famous for causing shipwrecks, and sat there for several days before any help was able to reach it. When they did arrive, the Coast Guard found that the ship was completely abandoned. The navigation equipment and logbook were missing, as were the two lifeboats, but otherwise there were no signs of any kind of foul play.

A massive investigation by the U.S. government followed, which discovered that several other ships had disappeared under mysterious circumstances around the same time. Several theories were eventually put forth, the most popular being that the ship fell victim to pirates or rumrunners. Others suggested that mutiny might have been the cause, as the Deering’s first mate was known to bear some animosity toward its Captain, but no definitive proof has even been discovered. The mystery surrounding the ghost ship has encouraged wild speculation, and many have argued that paranormal activity might have been responsible, citing the ship’s passage through the infamous Bermuda triangle as proof that some kind of otherworldly phenomena might be to blame.

The Baychimo

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One of the most amazing cases of a real-life ghost ship concerns the Baychimo, a cargo steamer that was abandoned and left to drift the seas near Alaska for nearly forty years. The ship was owned by the Hudson Bay Company, and was launched in the early 1920s and used to trade pelts and furs with the Inuit in northern Canada. But in 1931, the Baychimo became trapped in pack ice near Alaska, and after many attempts to break it free, its crew were eventually airlifted out of the area to safety. After a heavy blizzard, the ship managed to break free of the ice, but it was badly damaged and was abandoned by the Hudson Bay Company, who assumed it would not last the winter. Amazingly, the Baychimo managed to stay afloat, and for the next 38 years, it remained adrift in the waters off Alaska. The ship became something of a local legend, and was frequently sighted aimlessly floating near the frozen ice packs by Eskimos and other vessels. It was boarded several times, but weather conditions always made salvaging it nearly impossible. The Baychimo was last sighted in 1969, again frozen in the ice off of Alaska, but it has since disappeared. The ship is believed to have sunk in the intervening years, but recently a number of expeditions have been launched in search of now nearly 80-year-old ghost ship.

the Ourang Medan is my fav on this list, sounds the most mysterious and the most real of them all...

they even made a TV series loosely based on it, called Threshold

I will have to look that series up thanks :)

The oceans have their own mysteries....i often do wonder about Atlantis tho...is it a hoax or a conspiracy?

The folklore/mythology is fascinating, however, science always whittles away these stories. For example, a placid sea and a clear starry night can produce many tricks to the eye such as a cold water mirage/refraction/reflection; creating distortions of shape and perceived distance.

Though, it is an interesting read and thankfully, mariners still possess the ability to tell a good story.

If the ghost captains look like him, I would try to jump ship....

Atlantis would be an interesting topic to discuss :)

The Mary Celeste was an American merchant brigantine that was discovered on December 4, 1872, off the Azores Islands, sailing with no one on board and with her lifeboat missing. When found by the Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia, Mary Celeste was in a disheveled but seaworthy condition, under partial sail; the last log entry was ten days earlier. She had left New York for Genoa a month previously, and was well provisioned. Her cargo of denatured alcohol was apparently undisturbed, as were the captain's and crew's personal belongings. None of those who had been on board were seen or heard from again.

Mary Celeste was launched under British registration as Amazon, in 1861. She transferred to American ownership and registration in 1868, when she acquired her new name, and thereafter sailed uneventfully until her 1872 voyage. At the salvage hearings in Gibraltar following her recovery, the court's officers entertained theories of foul play, including mutiny by Mary Celeste's crew, piracy by the Dei Gratia crew or others, and conspiracy to carry out insurance or salvage fraud. No evidence was found to support these theories, but unresolved suspicions led to a relatively low salvage award.

The inconclusive nature of the hearings helped to foster decades of speculation as to the nature of the mystery, with no general consensus, and the story has repeatedly been complicated by false detail and fictionalization. Hypotheses that have been advanced include, besides human perfidy, the effects of alcohol fumes from the cargo, submarine earthquakes (seaquakes), waterspouts, attacks by giant squid, and paranormal intervention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste

lol

I'll take giant squids for $300, Alex.





Mystery solved.

It could be a possibility you never know ....lol

next to Cuba, there's an underwater city that fits the Atlantis size...

Speculation regarding if this story is real or not according to some Facebook comments. If someone sends in a forensics team let me know.
Havana| The Cuban Coast Guard announced this morning, that they had intercepted an unmanned ship heading for the island, which is presumed to be the SS Cotopaxi, a tramp steamer which vanished in December 1925 and has since been connected to the legend of the Bermuda Triangle.

The Cuban authorities spotted the ship for the first time on May 16, near a restricted military zone, west of Havana. They made many unsuccessful attempts to communicate with the crew, and finally mobilized three patrol boats to intercept it.

When they reached it, they were surprised to find that the ship was actually a nearly 100-year old steamer identified as the Cotopaxi, a name famously associated with the legend of the Bermuda Triangle. There was no one on board and the ship seemed to have been abandoned for decades, suggesting that this could actually be the tramp freighter that disappeared in 1925.

An exhaustive search of the ship led to the discovery of the captain’s logbook. It was, indeed, associated with the Clinchfield Navigation Company, the owners of the SS Cotopaxi, but hasn’t brought any clue concerning what happened to the ship over the last 90 years.

cubajournal

Cuban expert, Rodolfo Salvador Cruz, believes that the captain’s logbook is authentic. This document is full of precious information concerning the life of the crew before the ship’s disappearance, but the entries stop suddenly on December 1, 1925.

On 29 November 1925, the SS Cotopaxi departed Charleston, South Carolina, and headed towards Havana, Cuba. The ship had a crew of 32 men, under the command of Captain W. J. Meyer, and was carrying a cargo of 2340 tons of coal. It was reported missing two days later, and was unheard of for almost 90 years.

The Vice President of Council of Ministers, General Abelardo Colomé, announced that the Cuban authorities were going to conduct a thorough investigation to elucidate the mystery of the ship’s disappearance and reappearance.

“It is very important for us to understand what happened” says General Colomé. “Such incidents could be really bad for our economy, so want to make sure that this kind of disappearance doesn’t happen again. The time has come to solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, once and for all.”

bermuda

The Bermuda Triangle is a loosely defined region covering the area between Miami, Puerto Rico and Bermuda, where dozens of ships and planes have disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Popular culture has attributed many of the disappearances to paranormal and supernatural phenomena, or to the activity of extraterrestrial beings. One explanation, even pins the blame on leftover technology from the mythical lost continent of Atlantis.

Despite the popularity of all these strange theories, most scientists don’t even recognize the existence of the Bermuda Triangle, and blame human mistakes and natural phenomena for the disappearances.

The mysterious reappearance of the SS Cotopaxi has, however, already generated a lot of interest in the scientific community and could push some experts to change their mind on the subject.

Source BermudaHeadlineNews / ZONNEWS

Now that is just creepy ...
I wonder what it would feel like to be on a ship like that, if you'd get energies and vibes. I don't think I'd want to board the ship. Unless a good-looking hunk would hold my hand, lol.

Could the bermuda triangle possibly be a wormhole that interlinks earth to another...lets say planet / dimension?
It might sound a lil crazy & physically & scientifically impossible but all this hype about bermuda triangle...even the missing Malaysian plane...could it be the bermuda triangle??

The Bermuda Triangle - Facts and Myths







Even though you won’t find it on a map, the Bermuda Triangle is a very real place. In the past there have been many stories of disappearing ships, planes and people. Although there is a reasonable explanation for many incidents, some are still a mystery.

The Bermuda Triangle is located off the coast of Florida between Miami, Puerto Rico and the Bermudas. It covers about 500 000 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also known as the Devil’s Triangle because Bermuda was once called Islands of the Devils. The coasts around the island are surrounded by dangerous reefs that ships ran into throughout the centuries.

Unusual events around the Bermuda Triangle go back to the voyages of Christopher Columbus. He sometimes reported that compass readings were wrong. Many journalists have tried to prove that a number accidents and unusual things have happened in the region. Some cases show that there are no explanations for them.

One of the best-known incidents is the disappearance of Flight 19 during a training exercise of the US Navy. In December, 1945 five American bombers left Fort Lauderdale, Florida on a routine mission. 14 crew members disappeared after sending several radio messages. When a rescue plane went to search for the Navy bombers it also vanished.

What went wrong during the mission is not fully known. Compasses showed wrong directions and visibility was bad so the flight leader decided to navigate by landmarks which he saw below. Then there was a sudden storm and radio contact broke off. Wrecked parts of Flight 19 have never been recovered.

Ships have also disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Among them is the Mary Celeste, an American merchant ship, in 1872. The ship was sailing from New York to Genoa, but was later found off the coast of Africa without any crew members on board. Although there is no evidence that the Mary Celeste even entered the Bermuda Triangle there are many who connect its mysterious disappearance with the area.

There are many theories about why so many airplanes and ships have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Some suggest that there are special magnetic fields that cause unknown physical forces. Others say that the lost continent of Atlantis sank in the region causing mysterious events. There is even a theory about unknown chemicals in the waters of the Atlantic.

Some experts, however, point out that the region north of the Caribbean is not as safe as it may seem. It is one of two places on Earth where the compass points to the geographic North Pole. It is also a region in which the weather is unpredictable and where storms can emerge quickly. There are strong currents because of shallow places and deep trenches in the ocean. These factors can confuse even experienced sailors.

Over 1,000 people were killed in The Bermuda Triangle during the 20th century. Scientists have concluded that this figure is normal and most disappearances have a logical explanation. The myth of the Bermuda Triangle, however, remains

Arctic Ghost Ship

An astonishing find could solve the mystery of Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition. Airing September 23, 2015 at 9 pm on PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/arctic-ghost-ship.html


NOVA presents an exclusive breakthrough in the greatest unsolved mystery in Arctic exploration. In 1845, British explorer Sir John Franklin set off to chart the elusive Northwest Passage, commanding 128 men in two robust and well-stocked Royal Navy ships, the Erebus and Terror. They were never heard from again. Eventually, searchers found tantalising clues to their fate: a hastily written note left on an island, exhumed bodies suggesting lead poisoning, discarded human bones with marks of cannibalism and Inuit legends of ghost ships. But no trace of the ships was ever found. Then, in 2014, after seven years of searching, an official Parks Canada expedition finally located the Erebus, intact and upright on the sea floor. With exclusive access, NOVA tells the inside story of the risky Canadian expedition, which involved constant battles with crushing sea ice, bad weather, and disappointing dead ends. Culminating in the historic discovery of the Erebus, NOVA tells the gripping story of the ill-fated expedition and reveals exclusive new clues from the sea floor that may finally unravel what happened to Franklin’s men more than 160 years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1C94SQpnHM

Neat I will have to take some time to watch that :)

Ruh Roh! Someone call Scooby Doo.



Call SpongeBob, too.