Lady hydrangea ghost ship. Modern ghost ships

Most often, ghost ships are found in the North Atlantic. However, it is impossible to name the exact number of wanderers - it changes from year to year. According to statistics, in some years the number of “Dutch” ships drifting in the North Atlantic reached three hundred. Quite a lot of ghost ships drift in sea areas far from shipping routes and rarely visited by merchant ships.

At times, The Flying Dutchmen remind us of themselves. Either the current carries them to coastal shallows, or they are thrown by the wind onto rocks or underwater reefs. It happens that the “Dutch” ships, which do not carry running lights at night, become the cause of collisions with oncoming ships, which sometimes have serious consequences.

"Flying Dutchman"

This was the name of the ghost ship, controlled by the dead. It is believed that this is either a ship that was supposed to sink, but for some reason did not, or the victim of a giant squid or octopus.
Meeting the “flying Dutchman” at sea is considered a bad omen - such a meeting foreshadows death.

"Marlboro"

1913, October - the schooner Marlboro was brought by a storm to one of the bays of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The captain's assistant and several crew members boarded and were shocked by the terrible sight: dead bodies of crew members, dried up like mummies, were scattered throughout the sailing ship. The sailboat's masts were completely intact, but the entire schooner was covered in mold. In the hold it was the same: dead crew members everywhere, dried up like mummies.

The investigation established an incredible fact: a three-masted sailing ship left the port of Littleton in early January 1890, it was heading to Scotland, its home port of Glasgow, but for unknown reasons it never arrived at the port.

But what could have happened to the crew of the sailing ship? Did the calm deprive him of the wind and force him to drift aimlessly until all supplies of drinking water were exhausted? How could it happen that a sailboat with a dead crew did not crash on the reefs after 24 years of drifting?

"Orung Medan"

1947, June (according to other sources - early February 1948) - British and Dutch listening stations, as well as two American ships in the Strait of Malacca received a distress signal with the following content: “The captain and all the officers are lying dead in the cockpit and on the bridge. Perhaps the whole team is dead." This message was followed by unintelligible Morse code and a short phrase: “I’m dying.” No more signals were received, but the place where the message was sent was determined by triangulation, and one of the American ships mentioned above was immediately sent to it.

When the ship was discovered, they found out that its entire crew was indeed dead, including even the dog. No visible injuries were found on the bodies of the victims, although it was obvious from the expressions on their faces that they were dying in horror and severe agony. The ship itself was also not damaged, but members of the rescue team noted an unusual cold in the depths of the hold. Soon after the inspection began, suspicious smoke began to appear from the hold, and the rescuers were forced to hastily return to their ship. Some time after this, the Orung Medan exploded and sank, making further investigation of the incident impossible.

"Seabird"

On a July morning in 1850, residents of the village of Easton's Beach on the coast of Rhode Island were surprised to see a sailing ship heading towards the shore from the sea under full sail. He stopped in shallow water. People came on board to find coffee boiling on the galley stove and plates laid out on the table in the cabin. But the only living creature on board was a dog, trembling with fear, huddled in the corner of one of the cabins. There was not a single person on the ship.

The cargo, navigation instruments, maps, sailing directions and ship's documents were all in perfect order. The last entry in the logbook stated: "Abeam Brenton Reef" (this reef is located only a few miles from Easton's Beach).
It was known that the Seabird was carrying a cargo of timber and coffee from the island of Honduras. But even the most thorough investigation conducted by the Americans did not reveal the reasons for the disappearance of its crew from the sailing ship.

"Ebiy Ess Hart"

1894, September - the three-masted barque Ebiy Ess Hart was spotted in the Indian Ocean from the German steamer Pikkuben. A distress signal fluttered from its mast. When the German sailors landed on the deck of the sailing ship, they saw that all 38 crew members were dead, and the captain had gone crazy.

Unknown frigate

1908, October - not far from one of the major Mexican ports, a half-submerged frigate was discovered, with a strong list to the left side. The sailboat's mast topmasts were broken, the name was impossible to establish, and the crew was absent. There were no storms or hurricanes in this area of ​​the ocean at that time. The search was fruitless, and the reasons for the disappearance of the crew remained a mystery, although many different hypotheses were put forward.

"I want"

1953, February - the sailors of the English ship "Rani", being 200 miles from the Nicobar Islands, discovered a small cargo ship "Holchu" in the ocean. The ship was damaged and the mast was broken. Although the lifeboats were in place, there was no crew. The holds contained a cargo of rice, and the bunkers contained a full supply of fuel and water. Where the 5 crew members could have disappeared is still a mystery.

"Kobenhavn"

1928, December 4 - the Danish training sailing ship Kobenhavn left Buenos Aires to continue its circumnavigation. On board the sailing ship there was a crew and 80 students from the maritime school. A week later, when the Kobenhavn had already covered about 400 miles, a radiogram was received from the ship. It reported that the voyage was successful and that everything was fine on the ship. The further fate of the sailing ship and the people on it remains a mystery. The ship did not arrive at its home port, Copenhagen. They claim that he was subsequently encountered several times in different parts of the Atlantic. The sailboat was supposedly sailing under full sail, but there were no people on it.

"Mary Celeste"

1872 - one of the most famous ghost ships, the Mary Celeste, was found abandoned by its crew for no apparent reason. The ship was quite good, strong, without damage, but throughout its existence it often got into unpleasant situations, which is why a bad reputation was attached to it. The captain and his crew of seven people, as well as his wife and daughter, who were also on board at the time of transportation of the cargo - alcohol, disappeared without a trace. The ship, when discovered, was in good condition with sails set and sufficient supplies of food. There were no signs of a struggle. You can also exclude the version of pirates, because the crew's belongings and alcohol remained untouched.

"Joita"

To this day, the history of the motor ship “Joita” remains a mystery. The ship, which was considered lost, was discovered in the ocean. The ship was without crew or passengers. “Joita” is called the second “Mary Celeste”, about which A. Conan Doyle wrote: “The mystery of this ship will never be solved.” But if the events that took place on the “Celeste City Hall” took place in the century before last, then the disappearance of people on board the “Joyta” dates back to the second half of the twentieth century.

"Joita" had excellent seaworthiness. 1955, October 3 - the ship under the command of Captain Miller, an experienced and knowledgeable sailor, left the port of Apia on the island of Upolu (Western Samoa) and headed for the shores of the Tokelau archipelago. He did not arrive at his destination port.

A search was organized. Rescue ships, helicopters and planes searched the vast ocean area. But all efforts were in vain. The ship and 25 people on board were listed as missing. More than a month passed, and on November 10, the Joyta was accidentally discovered 187 miles north of the Fiji Islands. The ship was half-submerged and had a large list. There were no people or cargo on it.

Schooner Jenny

“May 4, 1823. No food for 71 days. I'm the only one left alive. “The captain who wrote this message was still sitting in his chair with a pen in his hand when this message was discovered in his journal 17 years later. His body, and the bodies of the other six people aboard the British schooner Jenny, were well preserved thanks to the cold weather of Antarctica, where the ship was frozen in ice and killed. The crew of the whaling ship that discovered Jenny after the disaster buried the people, including the dog, at sea.

"Angosh"

1971 - under mysterious circumstances, the Portuguese ship Angos was abandoned by its crew. This happened off the eastern coast of Africa. The transport "Angos" with a gross tonnage of 1,684 register tons and a carrying capacity of 1,236 tons left on April 23, 1971 from the port of Nacala (Mozambique) to another Mozambican port, Porto Amelia. Three days later, Angos discovered the Panamanian tanker Esso Port Dickson.

The ship was drifting without a crew, 10 miles from the coast. The newly-minted “Flying Dutchman” was taken in tow and brought to the port. After inspection, it turned out that the vehicle had suffered a collision. This was evidenced by the serious injuries he received. There were obvious signs of a recent fire on the bridge. Experts found that it could have been the result of a small explosion that occurred here. But it was never possible to explain the disappearance of 24 crew members and one passenger of the Angosh.

Submarine

1956 - an extraordinary ghost ship appeared in front of the residents of the island of New Georgia (from the Solomon Islands archipelago) gathered on the shore. It was a submarine drifting in the ocean. A skeleton, dried by the tropical sun, protruded from the cabin. The team was nowhere to be seen. The sea hulk was washed ashore by the wind and waves. It was determined to be an American World War II submarine. However, the fate of the crew remained a mystery.

Surely many have heard about ghost ships, which are sometimes called the Flying Dutchmen. These are ships that once set off but never returned. They all have one thing in common - the ship is found drifting across the ocean, but there is not a single living crew member on board. And sometimes there are no crew members at all.

The story of Octavius ​​is considered one of the most famous. In 1775, the whaling ship Herald discovered the Octavius ​​ship off the coast of Greenland.

The captain and several sailors decided to examine someone else's ship. To their horror, they discovered the frozen corpses of almost the entire crew, lying all together in the forward cockpit. In the captain's cabin they found four more frozen people - the captain, his wife and son, as well as an assistant who froze while trying to light a fire.

From the surviving pages of the logbook, it became known that the ship, in some unknown way, suddenly found itself far from its intended route and fell into ice captivity. Finding themselves approximately one hundred miles north of Cape Barrow, Alaska, the ship's crew battled the cold for 17 days.

Waiting for a fair wind, the ship "Herald" stood next to the ship of the dead all night. It seemed to the Herald crew that there was a dog howling in the windows where the Octavius ​​crew was frozen and the light was on, and at dawn the watchman saw a dark figure with a lantern in his hands, who walked onto the forecastle.

As soon as the morning wind blew, the Herald hastened to move away from the ship with the dead cargo on board.

2) "Joyta"

In 1955, in the South Pacific, rescuers found a ship without a crew. The Joyta was heading towards the Tokelau Islands when something happened. Within a few hours, a rescue team was dispatched to help them. But the ship was discovered only 5 weeks later. There were no passengers, crew, cargo or lifeboats on the ship, and one side was seriously damaged. The mystery of the disappearance was never solved.

3) "Lady Lovebond"

On February 13, 1748, the captain of the ship "Lady Lovebond" Simon Peel, after his wedding, went on a cruise with his young wife on his ship. But his first mate was also in love with his wife and, in a fit of jealousy, took the ship onto a sandbank. The ship sank, taking with it the lives of the entire crew.

According to another version of the event site, the crew was very unhappy with the presence of a woman on board. After one of the drinking sessions, drunken sailors hanged the captain and violated his young wife. For the next few days, the ship, almost uncontrollable by its drunken crew, drifted at the mercy of the waves until it hit the Goodwin Sands.

In 1798, the crew of the Edinbridge witnessed the first time-miracle of the death of the Lady Lovebond, almost colliding with a suddenly appearing, sinking ship that seemed very real. Since then, the ghostly scene of the death of “Lady Lovebond” has been observed in these places every 50 years.

In 1848, experienced sailors on another ship, observing a very realistic timeline of a shipwreck, rushed to save people in distress, but when they approached, they did not find either the drowning people or the remains of the ship.

In 1898, a certain Curtis, famous for his bravery, worked in the local coastal rescue service. Once again the chronomirage of the death of the ship "Lady Lovebond" appeared, the rescue team rushed to the aid of the sinking ship. Rescuer Curtis jumped into the icy water to help the drowning people, but suddenly everything suddenly disappeared. But this time, rescuer Curtis disappeared along with the ghosts.

In 1948, the rescue service was again alerted and came to the aid of an ancient sailing ship in distress. This time, only one person was saved, and that person turned out to be none other than Theodore Curtis, who went missing 50 years ago. Representatives of the British intelligence service, having listened to the details of Curtis’s life at the end of the 19th century, did not even bother to compare his story with archive materials, since at that time they were more interested in Russian spies rather than time travelers. The further fate of Curtis is unknown.

In February 1998, there were very thick fogs over the English Channel, which is probably why the ship was not noticed by anyone. The site remains to wait until 2048 and, perhaps, the ghost of the mysterious “Lady Lovebond” will appear again.

4) "Mary Celeste"

The Mary Celeste is a merchant ship abandoned by its crew and sailing across the Atlantic Ocean.

At noon on December 4, 1872, the crew of the Deo Gracia, heading from New York to Genoa, discovered the American merchant ship Mary Celeste at 38°20 north latitude and 13°37 west longitude. The ship was in good condition, with sails raised, a full supply of food and cargo intact. But all the lifeboats, the captain's log and the entire crew mysteriously disappeared. There were no signs of a struggle, and all alcohol and crew belongings remained intact, ruling out pirates. The most likely theory is that a storm or technical problems forced the crew to abandon ship.

Both holds of the ship were open, the cargo, consisting of 1,700 barrels of rectified cognac, remained untouched. Water splashed between the barrels. The water level in the holds was about a meter. All six windows of the aft superstructure were covered with tarpaulins and boards. In the captain's cabin, the skylight was open. The deck, bulkheads and all things in the cabin were wet. There were no ship documents. There was also no sextant, chronometer or navigation books.

The last entry in the Mary Celeste's logbook was dated November 24, 1872. Judging by it, the ship was located approximately 100 miles west of the Azores Islands, i.e. in 10 days the ship traveled 500 miles to the east!

The position of many things on the ship indicated that the sea was calm, since nothing had spilled and was in a normal position. And everything said that if the ship was abandoned by the crew for some reason, then this happened quite recently.

The following was found out about the ship: "Mary Celeste", built in Scotland in 1862 and the site made many successful crossings across the Atlantic and was considered one of the best sailing ships on the northeast coast of the United States. The ship left New York for Genoa on November 4, 1872 under the command of Captain Benjamin S. Briggs with a cargo of rectified cognac. The team was fully staffed. When sailing on board the Mary Celeste, there were Captain Briggs with his wife and two-year-old daughter Sophie, the chief mate, the boatswain, six sailors and a cook - a total of 12 people.

Many years after this event occurred, a man appeared who claimed that he was the only member of the crew of the Mary Celeste who managed to escape. He said that the captain challenged the chief mate to a competition to see who could swim around the ship the fastest, but they were attacked by a shark. The sailors looked at this scene in horror, when suddenly a huge wave crashed onto the deck and washed everyone overboard. "Mary Celeste" continued to sail further, and the entire crew, except for himself, drowned.

5) "The Flying Dutchman"

Perhaps the most famous ghost ship is the Flying Dutchman. The ship was first mentioned in the 1700s in George Barrington's book A Voyage to Botany Harbour. According to history, the Flying Dutchman was a ship from Amsterdam. The captain was Van der Decken. The ship was heading to the East Indies when it was overtaken by a storm near the Cape of Good Hope. Determined to continue his journey, Van der Decken went mad, killed his first mate and vowed to cross the cape. Despite his efforts, the ship sank and, as legend has it, the captain and his ghostly ship are doomed to wander the seas forever.

6) "Carroll Deering"

In 1911, the 5-masted schooner “Carroll A. Deering” was built and named in honor of the designer’s son. After 9 years, in 1920, she disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, like the other 8 ships.

The cargo ship Carroll A. Deering was discovered a year later, on January 31, 1921, near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The ship was in excellent condition, but some of the instruments and steering were damaged. All sails were stowed, food supplies and personal belongings of the crew were in place, but the crew was missing. But chronometers, navigation charts and the ship's log were missing. But what is most surprising is that the holds were filled with fresh provisions. The frightening ship was sunk just in case, but the investigation into its disappearance continued until 1922.

7) "Orang Medan"

In February 1948, English and Dutch radio stations detected a distress signal from the steamship Orang Medan in the Strait of Malacca area. After repeated “SOS” came: “All the officers and the captain died... Perhaps I was the only one left alive...". Then an illegible series of dots and dashes, and then a clear: "I'm dying"- and the broadcast fell silent.

Rescuers who boarded the ship in distress did not find a single living person on board. The corpses of the crew with their faces distorted in horror were all over the ship. Many died with their hands outstretched in front of them, apparently defending themselves from something. Upon examination of the bodies, it was found that all crew members died approximately 6-8 hours ago, but despite this, their body temperature exceeded 40 degrees Celsius. There were no wounds or other signs of violence on the bodies of the crew and the ship's dog. What happened on board the ship remains a mystery.

It was decided to tow the Orang Medan ship to the port for further examination, but a few minutes later a fire started on board, and members of the rescue team were forced to abandon it. Immediately after this, an explosion occurred on the site, and the Orang Medan sank to the bottom.

8) Great Eastern

Built in 1857, the Great Eastern was the Titanic of its day. Its cargo capacity was six times greater than that of other ships. The ship was supposed to be launched on January 30, 1858. But the ship was so heavy that during the descent the mechanism that was supposed to launch the ship broke down. Due to lack of money, the ship was launched only a year later. The Great Eastern was purchased by a company who made repairs and the ship was launched.

At least one person died during the testing of the ship, whose body was never found. A month after the completion of the work, its creator, Islambad Brunel, died of a stroke. Despite its size and beauty, the damned ship never went on a cruise with a full complement of passengers.

During a cruise in 1862, with a record number of passengers (1,500 people), the bottom of the ship was torn, which cost expensive repairs. Passengers claimed that they heard someone breaking through the bottom of the ship, as if they were hitting with a sledgehammer. In 1865, it was decided to no longer operate the ship.

The owners decided to sell the ship for scrap after it had been ashore for twelve years. When the ship was dismantled, a skeleton was found between the hulls. The skeleton belonged to a shipwright who mysteriously disappeared while repairing the ship.

9) "Queen Mary"

The Queen Mary is one of the most famous cruise ships of the 20th century. Nowadays it is an attraction for many tourists. The ship was launched on September 26, 1934 off the coast of Glasgow. According to eyewitnesses, the liner is the host of several ghosts.

In 1966, 17-year-old sailor John Pedder tragically died during another voyage. One of the ship's guides later claimed that the site saw the grim figure of a young man falling into the water. After he saw old photographs, he identified them as John Pedder.

Tourists claimed to have seen the ghost of a woman who was wearing a white dress. When she entered the cabin, they followed her, but found nothing there.

The ship's guard said he saw a little boy heading towards the pool. After the child jumped into the pool, he disappeared.

10) "Griffon"

One of the most famous ships sunk in the waters of the Great Lakes is the Griffon, built in Niagara, New York, and owned by the French explorer René Robert, Chevalier de La Salle. The Griffon, 60 feet long and weighing 45 tons, was the largest lake-going ship at the time. The construction of the ship aroused the disapproval of the local Iroquois, who believed that this ship was displeasing to the Great Spirit. website The Iroquois prophet Metiomek cursed the ship and said that it would sink.

The Griffon set off on its maiden voyage on August 7, 1679. At Detroit Harbor on Washington Island, Wisconsin, La Salle disembarked to continue his exploration of the source of the Mississippi River by canoe. The Griffon was scheduled to return to Niagara on September 18, 1679. But he didn't return.

According to legend, the ship tried to pass through the ice and disappeared. In 1900, after the supposed "Griffon" was found in the area of ​​​​the Brus Peninsula on Lake Huron, a version of the shipwreck spread. The shipwreck hypothesis was confirmed in 1955 when the remains of a recovered ship were identified as belonging to the Griffon. The ghost of the Griffon is still often seen on foggy nights floating around Lake Huron.

Have you ever heard about mysterious cases during which passengers on planes and ships went missing? In the best case, people were found within a few days, and in the worst, news about their fate never appeared again. No remains, no debris...
Sometimes a long-awaited vacation seems like a real fairy tale, from which you really don’t want to return home and to work, but be careful what you wish for, because sometimes they turn into real disasters. Here is a list of the 10 most mysterious cases of mass disappearance of people.

10. Amelia Earhart's plane

Our first paragraph is dedicated to one of the most notorious disappearance cases in the history of American aviation. In 1937, brave Amelia Earhart set out to do something unimaginable - fly around the globe in her Lockheed Electra, starting the journey from sunny Florida and planning to follow the equator. The girl went on such a long and dangerous journey with her partner, Fred Noonan. The ship disappeared while flying somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. All searches for the plane were unsuccessful, which gave rise to many different theories about what exactly happened to the brave couple of pilots.
In 2017, a version emerged that Amelia and Fred actually survived, but were captured by the Japanese military in the Marshall Islands. This assumption appeared thanks to an old photograph taken in 1937. The photograph showed a barge towing an unidentified aircraft. The frame also included a man of European appearance, reminiscent of Fred, and someone’s female figure from the back. This version has not been confirmed in any way, but the most amazing thing is that even almost 80 years later, people are still trying to find the answer to the question of the fate of the travelers who disappeared so long ago and completely without a trace.

9. The ship "Madagascar"

8. Airplane "Stardust"

7. Steam yacht “SY Aurora”

6. Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571

5. USS Capelin

4. Flying Tiger Line Flight 739

3. The ship "SS Arctic"

2. Malaysian Airlines Flight 370

1. SS Waratah

The Bermuda Triangle - an area in the Atlantic Ocean bounded by Florida and Bermuda, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas - is famous for the mysterious, mystical disappearances of ships and aircraft. For many years, it has brought real horror to the world's population - after all, stories about inexplicable disasters and ghost ships are on everyone's lips.

Numerous researchers are trying to explain the Bermuda Triangle anomaly. These are mainly theories of ship abductions by aliens from outer space or inhabitants of Atlantis, movement through holes in time or faults in space and other paranormal reasons. None of these hypotheses have yet been confirmed.

Opponents of the “otherworldly” versions argue that reports of mysterious events in the Bermuda Triangle are greatly exaggerated. Ships and aircraft disappear in other areas of the globe, sometimes without a trace. A radio malfunction or the suddenness of the disaster may prevent the crew from transmitting a distress signal.

In addition, searching for debris at sea is a very difficult task. Also, the Bermuda Triangle area is very difficult to navigate: there are a large number of shoals, and cyclones and storms often form.

A hypothesis has been proposed to explain the sudden death of ships and aircraft by gas emissions - for example, as a result of the disintegration of methane hydrate at the bottom of the sea, when the density is so low that the ships cannot stay afloat. Some suggest that methane rising into the air could also cause plane crashes - for example, due to a decrease in air density.

It was suggested that the cause of the death of some ships, including in the Bermuda Triangle, could be so-called wandering waves, which can reach a height of 30 meters. It is also believed that infrasound may be generated at sea, which affects the crew of a ship or aircraft, causing panic, causing people to abandon the ship.

Let's consider the natural features of this region - truly extremely interesting and unusual.

The area of ​​the Bermuda Triangle is just over a million square kilometers. There are huge shallows and deep-sea trenches, a shelf with shallow banks, a continental slope, marginal and median plateaus, deep straits, abyssal plains, deep-sea trenches, a complex system of sea currents and intricate atmospheric circulation.

There are several seamounts and hills in the Bermuda Triangle. The mountains are covered with powerful coral reefs. Some seamounts rise alone on the ocean floor, while others form groups. In the Atlantic Ocean, by the way, there are significantly fewer of them than in the Pacific.

Here is the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean. Its depth is 8742 meters.

Under the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle there are mainly sedimentary rocks - limestones, sandstones, clays. The thickness of their layer ranges from 1-2 to 5-6 kilometers.

The smaller (southern) part of the triangle belongs to the tropical seas, the larger (northern) to the subtropical. The water temperature on the surface here ranges from 22 to 26 ° C, but in shallow water, and so

in bays and lagoons it can be significantly higher. The salinity of the waters is only slightly above average - except, again, in shallow waters, bays and lagoons, where salinity can increase. The waters here are noticeably warmer than in other parts of the ocean at the same latitudes, since this is where the warm Gulf Stream flows.

The current in the Bermuda Triangle is fast, complicating or slowing down the movement of ships sailing against it; it pulsates, changes speed and location, and the changes are absolutely impossible to predict; it creates irregular vortices that affect the weather, some of them of considerable strength. There is frequent fog at the border between its warm waters and the colder surrounding waters.

The trade winds blow over the triangle - constant winds blowing in the Northern Hemisphere in a south-westerly direction, at an altitude of up to 3 kilometers. At high altitudes, anti-trade winds blow in the opposite direction.

In the southern part of the triangle, roughly between Florida and the Bahamas, there are approximately 60 storm days per year. In fact, every fifth or sixth day there is a storm. If you move north, towards Bermuda, the number of stormy days per year increases, that is, there is a storm every fourth day. Destructive cyclones, hurricanes, and tornadoes are very frequent.

All this contributes to the fact that many ships and aircraft disappear in the Bermuda Triangle. Maybe the reason is not so mystical? But this cannot be said with certainty, since many unexplained mysteries remain.

A LOT of ships and even planes disappear in the Bermuda Triangle, although the weather is almost always good at the time of the disaster. Ships and planes die suddenly, crews do not report problems, and no distress signals are sent. The wreckage of aircraft and ships is usually not found, although intensive searches are carried out, with the involvement of all relevant services.

The Bermuda Triangle is often credited with disasters that actually happened far beyond its borders. We have selected the most famous confirmed victims of the Bermuda Triangle among ships.

"Rosalie"
In August 1840, near the capital of the Bahamas, Nassau, the French ship Rosalie was discovered drifting with sails raised without a crew. The ship had no damage and was quite seaworthy. It looked as if the team had left Rosalie hours ago.

"Atalanta"
On January 31, 1880, the British training sailing ship Atalanta departed from Bermuda, carrying 290 officers and cadets. On the way to England it disappeared, leaving no trace.


"Atalanta"

This case was in the center of public attention, the Times wrote about it daily, even many months after the disappearance of the sailboat.

The Times (London), April 20, 1880, p. 12: “The Avon gunboat arrived in Portsmouth yesterday.” The captain reported that near the Azores he noticed a huge amount of floating debris... The sea was literally teeming with them. The harbor of Faial Island was filled with ships that had lost their masts. And during the entire five days that the Avon remained in the Fayal roadstead, the wreckage became more and more numerous.

However, there was no evidence that any ship sank or was broken up by a storm... Some of the Avon's officers believe that the Atalanta may have struck an iceberg, but they categorically deny that the ship could have capsized."
Lawrence D. Cousche published in his book excerpts from newspaper articles, official reports from the British Admiralty, and even the testimony of two sailors, according to which the Atalanta was a very unstable ship and, with its 109 tons of water and 43 tons of ballast on board, could easily capsize and drown even during a mild storm.

It was rumored that there were only two more or less experienced officers in the crew, who were forced to remain in Barbados because they fell ill with yellow fever. Consequently, 288 inexperienced sailors sailed on the ship.

Analysis of meteorological data confirmed that severe storms had been raging in the Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and Europe since early February. Perhaps the ship sank somewhere very far from the Bermuda Triangle, since out of the 3,000 miles of travel that awaited it, only 500 passed through the “triangle.” And yet, Atalanta is considered one of the confirmed victims of the “triangle”.

Unidentified abandoned schooner
In 1881, the English ship Ellen Austin encountered an abandoned schooner in the open ocean, which had fully retained its seaworthiness and was only slightly damaged. Several sailors boarded the schooner, and both ships headed for St. John's, located on the island of Newfoundland.

Soon the fog fell and the ships lost sight of each other. A few days later they met again, and again there was not a single living soul on the schooner. The captain of the Ellen Austin wanted to land another small rescue crew on the schooner, but the sailors categorically refused, claiming that the schooner was cursed.

This story has two sequels with different versions. In the first version, the captain of the Ellen Austin tried to transfer another rescue crew onto the schooner, but the sailors did not want to take any more risks, and the schooner was left in the ocean.

According to another version, the second rescue crew was nevertheless transferred to the schooner, but then a squall hit, the ships dispersed a considerable distance from each other, and neither the schooner nor its second crew was ever seen again.

Joshua Slocum and his yacht
Joshua Slocum, who was the first in the history of mankind to sail around the globe alone, disappeared without a trace in November 1909, making a relatively short journey from the island of Martha's Vineyard to the shores of South America - through the Bermuda Triangle.

Sailing yacht "Spray"

On November 14, 1909, he left the island of Martha's Vineyard and from that day there was no news of him. In the opinion of those who knew Captain Slocum, he was too good a sailor, and the Spray too good a yacht, for them to be unable to cope with any of the usual difficulties that the ocean can throw at them.

No one knows for sure what happened to him, although there was no shortage of guesses and versions. There are “reliable” testimonies of some sailors who, even after the fateful date, saw Slocum alive and unharmed in various ports of the world.

Over the years, many hypotheses have been proposed to explain its disappearance. After all, there might have been a hurricane so powerful that it sank his yacht. The "spray" could burn. He could go down if he collided with some ship at night.

In coastal waters, a collision between a small boat and a large ship is not that uncommon. The lights on a sailing yacht are usually quite dim, sometimes not visible due to its own sails. A large vessel could easily shatter a 37-foot floor without anyone even feeling a shock.

Edward Rowe Snow, in his book “Mysterious Events Off the Coast of New England,” claims that a mail steamer with a displacement of about 500 tons ran into the yacht. Even the court, which examined a variety of evidence, was involved in Slocum’s “case.” According to the testimony of Victor Slocum's son, his father was in excellent shape, and the yacht was practically unsinkable.

It was even suggested, unconditionally accepted by some “experts,” that Joshua Slocum was allegedly not happy in his marriage and therefore staged a disaster in order to hide and spend the rest of his days in solitude.

March 1918 "Cyclops"
On March 4, 1918, the cargo ship Cyclops with a displacement of 19,600 tons departed from the island of Barbados, carrying 309 people and a cargo of manganese ore. The ship was 180 meters long and was one of the largest in the US Navy.

"Cyclops" on the Hudson River, 1911

It was headed to Baltimore, but never arrived there. It never sent an SOS signal and left no trace. At first it was assumed that the ship could have been torpedoed by a German submarine, but at that time there were no German submarines there. According to another version, the ship hit a mine. However, there were no minefields here either.

The US Department of the Navy, after a thorough investigation, released a statement: “The disappearance of the Cyclops is one of the largest and most intractable cases in the annals of the Navy. Even the exact location of the disaster has not been established, the causes of the disaster are unknown, and not the slightest trace of the ship has been found.

None of the proposed versions of the disaster provides a satisfactory explanation of the circumstances under which it disappeared.” President Woodrow Wilson said that “only God and the sea know what happened to the ship.” And one magazine wrote an article about how a huge squid emerged from the sea waters and carried the ship into the depths of the sea.

In 1968, Navy diver Dean Haves, part of a team searching for the missing nuclear submarine Scorpion, discovered the wreck of a ship at a depth of 60 meters, 100 kilometers east of Norfolk. Later looking at a photograph of the Cyclops, he assured that it was this ship that lay at the bottom.

“Cyclops” still appears on the pages of print and not only as one of the characters in the Legend of the Bermuda Triangle. It was the first major ship equipped with a radio transmitter to disappear without sending an SOS signal, and the largest US Navy vessel to disappear without leaving any trace.

Every year, in March, when the next anniversary of his disappearance is celebrated, articles about this mysterious event are written again, old theories are updated and new theories are put forward, and, probably for the hundredth time, the already famous photograph of the “Cyclops” is published. His disappearance continues to this day, not without reason, to be called “the most insoluble mystery in the annals of the navy.”

"Carroll A. Deering"
The five-masted schooner Carroll A. Deering was discovered in January 1921 on Diamond Shoals. She had no damage, the sails were raised, there was food on the tables, but there was not a single living soul on board, except for two cats.

The Deering crew consisted of 12 people. None of them were found, and it is still unknown what happened to them. On June 21, 1921, a bottle with a note was caught in the sea, which presumably could have been thrown by one of the crew members:

“We are prisoners, we are in the hold and handcuffed. Report this to the company board as soon as possible.”
Passions flared up even more when the captain's wife allegedly recognized the handwriting of the ship's mechanic Henry Bates, and graphologists confirmed the identity of the handwriting on the note and on his papers. But after some time it was discovered that the note was forged, and the author himself even admitted this.

The forensic investigation, however, revealed important facts: on January 29, the schooner passed the lighthouse at Cape Lookout, North Carolina, and gave signals that it was in a dangerous position, having lost both ship's anchors.

Then the schooner was seen north of the lighthouse from another ship, and it behaved rather strangely. Weather reports for early February indicate a severe storm off the coast of North Carolina with winds reaching 80 mph.

"Cotopaxi"
On November 29, 1925, the Cotopaxi left Charleston with a cargo of coal and headed for Havana. Passing through the center of the Bermuda Triangle, it disappeared without leaving the slightest trace and without having time to send an SOS signal. Neither the wreckage of the ship nor the crew were found.

"Suduffco"
The cargo ship "Suduffco" left Port Newark, New Jersey, and, heading south, disappeared without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle. A company spokesman said it disappeared as if swallowed by a giant sea monster.

The ship sailed from Port Newark on March 13, 1926, heading for the Panama Canal. His port of destination was Los Angeles. It carried a crew of 29 and a cargo weighing approximately 4,000 tons, including a large shipment of steel pipes.

The ship moved along the coast, but already on the second day after sailing, contact with it was lost. The search for the vessel continued for a month, but not the slightest trace was found. True, meteorological reports and testimony from the captain of the Aquitaine liner, which was heading the same course towards the Suduffco, confirm that a tropical cyclone passed through this area on March 14-15.

"John & Mary"
In April 1932, 50 miles south of Bermuda, the Greek schooner Embyrkos discovered the two-masted ship John and Mary. The ship was abandoned, its crew mysteriously disappeared.

"Proteus" and "Nereus"
"Proteus"

At the end of November 1941, the Proteus sailed from the Virgin Islands, followed by the Nereus a few weeks later. Both ships were heading to Norfolk, but neither of them arrived at their destination, both disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

The US was preoccupied with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war on Japan, so the disappearance of the ships did not cause a response. A post-war study of the German naval archives showed that the Proteus and Nereus could not have been sunk by submarines.

"Rubicon"
On October 22, 1944, a ship without a crew was discovered off the coast of Florida. The only living creature on board was a dog. The ship was in excellent condition, except for the missing lifeboats and a broken tow rope hanging from the bow of the ship.

Personal belongings of the crew members also remained on board. The last entry in the ship's log was made on September 26, when the ship was still in the port of Havana. The Rubicon apparently sailed along the coast of Cuba.

"City Bell"
On December 5, 1946, a schooner without a crew was discovered at sea. She followed a course from the capital of the Bahamas, Nassau, to one of the islands of the archipelago - Grand Turk. Everything was in order on the ship, the lifeboats were in their places, only the crew disappeared without a trace.

"Sandra"
In June 1950, the 120-meter cargo ship Sandra, loaded with 300 tons of insecticides, left Savannah (Georgia) for Puerto Cabello (Venezuela) and disappeared without a trace. The search operation began only after it was established that he was six days late to his place of arrival.

By the way, an article about this case, written by journalist E. Jones and published on September 16, 1950, aroused great interest in the Bermuda Triangle. Jones noted that the Sandra is not the only ship that has disappeared here. The legend of the deadly triangle began to spread with incredible speed.

"Southern District"
In December 1954, the tank landing ship Southern District, converted into a cargo ship for transporting sulfur, disappeared in the Straits of Florida. No distress signals were detected either by ships at sea or by coastal stations. Only a life preserver was found.

The Southern District vessel, displacing 3,337 tons, was sailing from Port Sulfur, Louisiana, with a cargo of sulfur to Bucksport, Maine. The destination was Portland.

The captain made contact on December 3 and then on December 5, already off the coast of Florida. Everything was in order on the ship. On December 7 he was seen in storm surges off Charleston.

The investigative commission found that the ship apparently sank in a northeast wind. In areas where the Gulf Stream dominates, this wind has a bad reputation because it blows directly against the current, turning the Gulf Stream into a turbulent gurgling current, and even large ships are in a hurry to get out of its path.

"Snow Boy"
In July 1963, a 20-meter fishing vessel disappeared while sailing from Kingston, Jamaica, to the Pedro Keys in clear weather. There were forty people on the ship, no one heard anything more about them. It was reported that wreckage of the ship and items belonging to crew members were found.

"Whichcraft"
A mysterious disappearance occurred during the Christmas holidays of 1967. Two people on a small yacht left Miami Beach for a walk along the coast. They say they wanted to admire the festive illumination of the city from the sea.

Soon they radioed that they had hit a reef and damaged the propeller, they were not in danger, but they asked to be towed to the pier, and indicated their coordinates: at buoy No. 7.

A rescue boat arrived at the site 15 minutes later but did not find anyone. An alarm was declared, but the search did not yield any results; neither people, nor the yacht, nor the wreckage were found - everything disappeared without a trace.

"El Carib"
On October 15, 1971, the captain of the cargo ship El Carib, sailing from Colombia to the Dominican Republic, announced that they would arrive at their destination port at 7 a.m. the next day. After this, the ship disappeared. It was a fairly large cargo ship, the flagship of the Dominican merchant fleet, its length was 113 meters.

The ship was heading to the port of Santo Domingo with a crew of thirty people. It was equipped with an automatic alarm system, which in the event of an accident automatically sends a distress signal over the air. Judging by the latest report, the ship was in the Caribbean Sea at the time of its disappearance, at a considerable distance from Santo Domingo.

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 for no apparent reason 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.