This article will look at three of the most spine tingling and mysterious disappearances at sea, that to this day remain unsolved. At once beautiful, captivating and sublime, the ocean can also be a powerful and destructive force that holds many undiscovered secrets in its murky depths. Read onto discover some of the oceans best kept secrets.
Ghost ship
The American Brigantine Mary Celeste set sail from New York for Genoa, Italy in November 1872 with 10 people on board, one month later it was found adrift off the coast of Portugal. Despite minor flooding in the hold, the ship was pristine, there was no sign of damage anywhere and there was still 6 months of food and water on board.
All the cargo was practically untouched and each crew members belongings hadn’t moved from their quarters. Despite the ship’s untouched appearance, there was not a single soul to be found on board. The only possible clue gesturing towards their disappearance was a missing lifeboat, but despite this, no-one knows what might have happened because the crew were never seen again. To this day, the fate of the Mary Celeste and its crew members remains a mystery.
The cursed shipwreck
Workers from an oil and gas company called Exxon Mobil were laying a pipeline when they spotted an undiscovered shipwreck on the Gulf of Mexico. Despite the best efforts of several exploration teams that have tried to explore this shipwreck and start to unravel the mystery surrounding it, we are still none the wiser.
This is because each time any exploration team has gotten close, something always goes wrong, preventing anyone from finding out any information. It is as if someone or something, perhaps even an invisible paranormal force, is stopping anyone from gaining any kind of access or information on it.
The first exploration submarine malfunctioned just at the very point it was about to start checking out the wreckage. The video monitors kept going out every time they fired the thrusters, the sonar would break, and the hydraulics would go haywire.
For the second attempt, the navy sent in a researcher submarine that managed to self-destruct its own rover minutes after entering the water, and when it managed to reach the wreck, its arms were too short to reach anything anyway. Is this just a string of unlucky man-made incidents, or is there something deeper going on? To this day, no-one knows what happened to this ship and the secrets that may be locked away inside.
Disappearance at the lighthouse
Three light house keepers named Thomas Marshall, Donald MacArthur and James MacArthur went missing on Boxing Day in 1900 at Flannan Isles just off the west coast of Scotland, and under incredibly strange circumstances. The relief keeper who would rotate in from shore, arrived at the lighthouse on Boxing night only to find that there was no-one there.
He noticed however that the door was unlocked, 2 coats were missing and there was half eaten food at the kitchen table and an overturned chair, as if someone had left in a hurry. The kitchen clock had also stopped. The three men were gone, but there were no bodies ever found.
There are a whole range of theories that have been invented to try and explain their disappearance, from a ghost ship, abduction by foreign spies, to being ravaged by a giant sea monster. Whatever did happen back in the 1900’s to these three unsuspecting men, no-one will ever know.
Author: Jane Upson, a professional freelance writer with more than 10 years’ experience across many fields. She has a particular interest in issues relating to mental health, fitness, and nutrition.
