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For centuries, sailors have told stories of mysterious vessels emerging from the fog and drifting aimlessly across the ocean.
Some ships were actually discovered perfectly intact, with their cargo and personal belongings still aboard, but with no sign of their crews.
Others were found thousands of miles from where they were supposed to be, with no explanation for what happened to the people on board.
Many of these mysteries remain unsolved.
Learn more about the strange, sometimes disturbing history of ghost ships on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Ghost ships, also known as phantom ships, are nautical vessels that have no living crew aboard. The crew is either missing or dead. Some ghost ships, like the Flying Dutchman, are the stuff of legend, but real-life cases do exist.
Sometimes a ship is found lost at sea after breaking away from a dock or pier, but in other cases, the story is much darker.
Typically, ghost ships don’t drift for long, but some have been reported to drift for years, and in some cases, their fate remains completely unknown.
The most famous ghost ship is the Mary Celeste.
The Mary Celeste was built in Nova Scotia in 1861 and originally named the Amazon. A storm damaged the ship in 1867, and it was abandoned. Alexander McBean of Nova Scotia salvaged the ship, then sold it to a local buyer, who in turn sold it to Richard W. Haines, an American sailor who renamed it the Mary Celeste.
In October 1869, a New York group led by James H. Winchester purchased the vessel, and for the next three years, no records show the Mary Celeste being used for trade.
In 1872, the Mary Celeste underwent major renovations that made the ship considerably larger. The structural changes also included a second deck, a stronger stern, and replacement timbers.
Benjamin Spooner Briggs was appointed the ship’s new captain. Briggs came from a family of sea captains and was well respected in the profession. Briggs married his cousin Sarah Elizabeth Cobb in 1862, and they had two children, Arthur and Sophia Matilda.
After his daughter’s birth in October of 1870, Briggs considered retiring from the profession. Instead, he decided to invest in a ship, the Mary Celeste. Briggs took command after the renovations. His first voyage was to Genoa, Italy. He planned to take his wife and daughter with him, while his son stayed with his grandmother.
Briggs also chose the rest of his crew. His first mate was Albert G. Richardson, who was married to Winchester’s niece. Richardson had sailed under Briggs before. The rest of the crew was described as quality sailors who were peaceful in nature. Primary sources describe Briggs as satisfied with both the crew and the ship, and they all felt capable of completing the voyage.
On October 20, 1872, Briggs arrived in New York City to oversee the ship’s cargo of 1,701 barrels of alcohol. On November 7, 1872, he, his family, and the ship’s crew left the pier aboard the Mary Celeste.
At first, the weather was iffy, so Briggs and the crew waited for better conditions and anchored off Staten Island for two days until it cleared. Eight days later, another ship, the Dei Gratia, set sail and followed a similar route.
On December 4, 1872, when the Dei Gratia arrived at the midpoint between the Azores and mainland Portugal, the crew spotted a vessel heading toward them. The ship was moving erratically and had an odd set of sails. Its unusual behavior tipped off their captain, David Morehouse, that something was wrong.
As the ship drew closer, Morehouse and his crew saw no one on deck, and no one answered his ship’s signals. He then sent his second mate, John Wright, and his first mate, Oliver Deveau, to board the ship and investigate. They found the ship completely deserted.
Some sails were missing completely, the rigging supporting them was damaged, and the ropes hung loosely at its side. Some of the ship’s hatches were open, with their covers thrown aside on the deck.
The ship’s single lifeboat was also missing, and the binnacle, which held the boat’s compass, was broken. The ship’s hold contained 3.5 feet (1.1 meters) of water, but that wasn’t alarming given its size.
Wright and Deveau also found the ship’s daily log. The final entry was made 9 days earlier on November 25. It recorded the boat’s position as being almost 400 nautical miles away from where the Dei Gratia found it.
Upon further inspection, they found the cabin interior wet and untidy, with personal items scattered across Brigg’s cabin. Most of the ship’s important papers and navigational instruments were also missing. Yet they found no signs of violence or fire, even though evidence suggested the crew had left by lifeboat.
Immediately, theories about what happened to the ship’s crew were floated. The crew may have tried to leave the ship as a safety measure if they anticipated danger.
This theory was plausible, as the rigging and ropes may have been used to attach the lifeboat to the ship, preventing it from sailing away until the danger passed.
Some argued that this theory was illogical, since attaching yourself to a boat that could explode or sink was a very bad idea. Additionally, Briggs was an experienced captain, so he would’ve known that staying on the Mary Celeste would’ve improved survival chances.
Captain Morehouse decided to bring the ghost ship to Gibraltar, knowing that under maritime law, recovering the vessel could earn him a substantial share of its value.
Investigators in Gibraltar noticed cuts on each side of the bow, which they thought may have been made by something sharp. They also found possible traces of blood on the captain’s sword. The investigation also showed that it was unlikely that the ship was struck by poor weather, as delicate items were found upright.
Further investigation found that cuts in the bow were caused deliberately and that there were stains on the side of one of the ship’s rails that could’ve been blood. They also found markings suspected to have been made by an axe.
Frederick Solly-Flood, the official overseeing the inquiry, suspected that members of the crew might have murdered Captain Briggs and his family before abandoning the vessel. However, physical evidence failed to substantiate his theory, and investigators never established that a crime had occurred.
Theories also began to rise around Winchester, the ship’s owner. Investigators were suspicious that Winchester hired a crew to murder Briggs and that he and his officers were part of some grand conspiracy.
This theory lost some credence after scientific analysis found the stains were not blood. It weakened further when investigators found the marks on the ship came from the sea, and were not man made.
The question remains: what happened to the ship’s crew?
There are three main theories. The first is the original one suggested by the investigators that some foul play occurred though no evidence supports it.
Another theory is that a natural phenomenon caused their disappearance. One explanation is that a waterspout hit the ship, leading the crew to believe the hull was filling with water.
A final theory suggests that fumes from the ship’s cargo of industrial alcohol might have caused the crew to fear an explosion. Later investigators suggested that noises or pressure changes in the hold could have prompted an evacuation, although no evidence indicates an explosion actually occurred.
The mystery of the Mary Celeste remains unsolved. No one who boarded the ship was ever seen again.
Another notable ghost ship was the MV Joyita.
The Joyita was a 69-foot (21-meter) wooden ship, originally built as a luxury yacht in 1931. It was sold several times and made a few voyages from California to Mexico before the US Navy acquired it in October 1941.
The US Navy used the vessel in Pearl Harbor, where it patrolled the island until the end of World War II. During this time, it was damaged and repaired, and much of the pipework was replaced with galvanized iron.
After the war, the Navy deemed the ship surplus and sold it. A University of Hawaii professor, Dr. Katharine Loumala, purchased the Joyita and chartered it to her friend, Captain Thomas “Dusty” Miller.
Miller was a British sailor living in Samoa. He used the ship for fishing and charters trips.
On October 3, 1955, around 5:00 am, 16 crew members and 9 passengers left Samoa’s Apia Harbor for the Tokelau Islands, located roughly 270 miles away.
Itt was supposed to depart at noon the prior day, but an engine problem delayed it. It left with only one working engine. The trip was expected to take up to two days. By October 6, the port realized the Joyita had not arrived on time. More interestingly, no ship or land operator reported receiving a distress signal from anyone aboard.
A search-and-rescue mission was quickly launched to find the vessel. Led by the Royal New Zealand Air Force, they searched a 100,000-square-mile area of the ocean where the ship could have been from October 6 to 12. During the search, they found no sign of the ship, the passengers, or the crew.
A merchant captain named Gerland Douglas found the ship on November 10, five weeks later. It was found 600 miles west of the scheduled route, drifting north of Fiji.
When the ship was found, it was partially submerged and tilted heavily to one side. Notably, none of the crew, passengers, or cargo were there.
During the ship’s recovery, investigators found the radio tuned to the international marine distress channel. Investigators also noted that the ship had been abandoned for some time due to barnacle growth, that the structure was damaged, and that the ship’s life rafts and lifejackets were missing. All of this suggests that those aboard may have attempted to abandon the vessel.
Examination of the Joyita’s fuel tanks suggests the ship traveled roughly 243 miles before stopping about 50 miles from its destination.
A formal investigation into what happened to the Joyita began in February of 1956. The inquiry concluded that seawater had entered the vessel through a fractured cooling pipe. The bilge pumps couldn’t control the flooding, and the ship began listing heavily. However, the Joyita’s unusual buoyancy prevented it from sinking completely, even after the lower compartments filled with water.
From there, investigators suspect a swell hit the Joyita. This would’ve sunk a normal vessel, but the Joyita’s construction kept it afloat.
The inquiry blamed Captain Miller for the accident. They called him reckless and negligent for traveling with one engine. They also claimed that the radio was not working properly.
Unsatisfied with the official inquiry’s findings, many skeptical observers proposed alternative explanations for the fate of the passengers and crew.
One theory was that Captain Miller, or someone else, was injured. The ship’s crew found bloodstained bandages. They posit that Miller or other members of the crew were injured or thrown overboard in a struggle. If Miller was incapacitated and the ship began to flood, they may have fled by mistake.
Some people have blamed the Soviets. Using Cold War suspicion, there were theories that a Soviet Submarine had kidnapped the crew, but there was no real motive provided as to why a Soviet submarine would kidnap a tiny ship in the middle of nowhere.
Others thought that modern sea pirates may have attacked the ship, killed the people aboard, and stolen the missing cargo.
Another theory was that the crew mutinied after Captain Miller saw the ship was sinking. Although the ship was basically unsinkable, the crew may not have trusted Miller’s judgment and demanded he return to their destination.
After the mutiny, this theory suggests a struggle injured Miller, after which they decided to abandon ship.
All of the passengers and crew have officially been declared dead, and like the Mary Celeste, we will likely never know what really happened.
Ghost ships have captured human imagination for centuries. While some abandoned vessels have perfectly reasonable explanations, others remain mysteries despite extensive investigations.
The vastness of the ocean, unpredictable weather, and the difficulty of finding evidence at sea mean some questions may never be answered.