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Yar, Ghost Ships!

rebecca

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Dear skeptics of the Interwebs,

I have but a few meagre days to learn absolutely everything there is to know about ghost ships and supernatural terror on the high seas! The Mary Celeste, the Queen Mary, the High Aim 6, etc. etc. I need links, articles, little-known facts, and anything else that might allow me to talk for three hours or so about the subject.

Thank you!! <-- two exclamation points, that's how important this is.
 
The only thing that I know for certain is that the Mary Celeste, while attributed as a Bermuda Triangle case, was not found in the Bermuda triangle.
 
Long before Sherlock Holmes was born, his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, wrote a fictional account of the "Marie" Celeste: http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/to...modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=2&division=div1. Some of Doyle's imaginary details later became wrapped up in the story of the real Mary Celeste.

In the gift shop at the Tybee Island, Georgia, lighthouse, you can buy a photograph of a ghost sloop--supposed to be unretouched, with a configuration of misty patches that looks like a small sailing craft. I dunno, may be photoshopped for all I know.
 
Thank you for the great start! I'm fairly well-versed on the Mary Celeste, or at least the generalities. Cecil does a good job with it as always on the Straight Dope: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmaryceleste.html

I'd love to read other skeptical debunkings of some ocean-related myths and mysteries....also, if anyone knows of a good Joseph Campbell-esque overview of the history of ocean legends, that would be really helpful.
 
rebecca said:
Dear skeptics of the Interwebs,

I have but a few meagre days to learn absolutely everything there is to know about ghost ships and supernatural terror on the high seas! The Mary Celeste, the Queen Mary, the High Aim 6, etc. etc. I need links, articles, little-known facts, and anything else that might allow me to talk for three hours or so about the subject.

Thank you!! <-- two exclamation points, that's how important this is.
Click to expand...
Just in case, does that eliminate anything on the Great Lakes and similar (i.e., just saltwater stuff?)?
 
fuelair said:
Just in case, does that eliminate anything on the Great Lakes and similar (i.e., just saltwater stuff?)?
Click to expand...

Hm, no it doesn't exclude that at all ... I'm in need of total information overload, so I'll take anything you've got!
 
This may stray a bit from your OP but the first thing that popped into my head (well, not the first, I think the Mary Celeste and the Bermuda Triangle were first... then I thought about what to have for lunch, then porcupines 'cause they're cute, then the Sargasso Sea...) was the whole series of weird coincidences between the Titanic and the novel Futility which was published 1898. In the novel, a ship dubbed the Titan strikes an iceberg and sinks- with many details eerily similar to the real life Titanic disaster. Gardner edited a book on the subject as well: The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold?
 
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has got to be worth mentioning, or you could read the whole thing which would leave five minutes for questions!
 
And then, of course, there is the "Ghost", Wolf Larsen's sealing schooner in "The Sea Wolf" (Jack London).

And the Gundramar, if you like creepy Irish-inspired folk music (Susan Reed?)...

both fictional, of course...
 
I recommend watching the Spongebob episode where they get captured by the Flying Dutchman!

"You're good, you're good"
 
"Flying Dutch" by Tom Holt. OK, it's a work of fiction (and a damn good one at that), but let's be honest, so is everything else you're going to find.
 
Here's a link to Joe Nickell debunking the "Teazer Light" phantom ship: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-58545665.html

Not sure whether this actually qualifies as a "ghost ship," but then again, what does?

And while I was searching for this article, I stumbled across this: http://www.redclayramblers.com/bland/ghost_woodward.htm

It's an account of a relatively recent (20th century) ghost ship off North Carolina. It kind of struck a chord with me, because last November my brother and I got caught in roughly the same area one stormy night, and damn near ended up becoming ghost ship sailors ourselves!
 
Rebecca, I'm not an authority on ghost ships, but next time you need almost anything else about ghosts, I can help. My book of FICTIONAL! ghost stories, and the reaction I got to it from people desperate to think the stories were true, that's how I came to the skeptical movement.

I'm sure everyone is following the Harry Houdini story.

Thank you Rebecca for all you do.
 
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