Tales of the World’s Most Famous Phantom Ships
By Trevor Phipps
Appearances of ghost ships have been reported all across the world for centuries. The term ghost ship actually has multiple meanings from ships that have appeared and disappeared on the waters, to ships that have been found aimlessly floating around the seas either without a crew or only carrying the dead.
Some of the tales could be folklore or fiction while others have gone down in the history books as unsolved mysteries. Some of these ships seen are said to have a crew of ghosts that are forced to wander the oceans of the world for eternity. Many sailors tend to think that seeing ships like these while out sailing the waters is a bad omen and a sign that bad luck is on the way for the ship or the crew.
Ghost ships that have been abandoned without a crew have also been known to cause problems for other sailors. In the recent series on Paramount called “1923” which is a prequel to “Yellowstone,” there is a scene where a seasoned sailor warns one of the series’ main characters about the presence of ghost ships.
The sailor states that these ships can cause problems for captains who are not paying attention to where they are sailing. And then one scene in the movie shows a tragedy when the sailor passes away while the ship is headed straight towards an abandoned one.
However, whether the tales are fact or fiction, October is always a good time of the year to take a look at creepy stories from the past. Therefore, the following includes the stories of some of the world’s most famous ghost ships.
The Caleuche
This ship is a famous legend told for generations by the people who live in the Chiloé Archipelago, in the south of Chile. The Chilota myth states that the Caleuche is a ghost ship that appears every night around the island of Chiloe.
According to the tales, the ship carries all of the souls of people who have drowned at sea. People who have seen the ship describe it as being very bright and beautiful. When the ship appears, people can hear the sounds of party music and laughter.
However, the ship only stays above water for a few minutes until it either disappears in thin air or submerges under the water. According to the myth, three Chilota water spirits who resemble mermaids coined the Sirena Chilota, the Pincoya, and the Picoy are the ones who summon the spirits of those drowned and put them on the ship.
SV Kaz II
In 2007, two brothers and a captain set sail on a yacht for a two-month tour around Australia. But then just a few days later, the ship was found close to the Barrier Reef with nobody on board. When entering the ship a half empty coffee cup, an open newspaper, and knives thrown all over the floor were found.
The vessel was in perfect shape besides having one shredded sail. Some said that one of the inexperienced sailors might have gone overboard and the other two drowned trying to save him.
Investigators also said that the crew might have drowned trying to untangle a fishing lure. Others have blamed severe weather, pirates, communists or even a sea monster. But, the three men were never found.
The SS Valencia
Back in 1906, the SS Valencia sank just off the coast from Vancouver, Canada after running into vicious weather. Only 37 of the 108 people on the ship were saved with lifeboats after one of the rescue vessels disappeared. Ever since it happened, many fishermen in the area have claimed to see a ghost ship floating around with human skeletons decades after the ship sank.
The Jian Seng
This ship was found in 2006 with a broken tow rope suggesting that it was lost while being dragged. When investigators did their research they were unable to find anything to identify the ship, no records of distress signals, no reports of a missing boat, and no identifying documents or belongings. To this day, it has not been determined as to why nobody tried to save the boat after it broke off while being towed.
The SS Ourang Medan
In 1947, two American ships left their route while in the Strait of Malacca to go on a rescue mission after they got a distress call from the Ourang Medan. The person calling said they were a crew member and that everyone else on the boat was dead.
But then while talking to his rescuers, his words strangely ended in, “I die.” Once the rescuers got to the ship they found it unharmed but everyone inside the boat including a dog were deceased with terrified expressions on their faces.
And then to make things worse before the investigation could get completed, the ship exploded most likely due to the nitroglycerin the ship was illegally carrying. Many have speculated that the people on the boat encountered paranormal activity or perhaps even aliens.
High Aim No. 6
The ship left the coasts of Taiwan on Halloween in 2002, but the Australian Navy was baffled when they found it floating around empty in January 2003. The engine was on full throttle, the main gas tank was empty, but the auxiliary gas tanks were full and untouched.
10 tons of tuna were found kept cold but no crew was located. But later, an Indonesian fisherman was arrested after confessing that the crew worked with pirates to murder the ship’s captain and main engineer. However, nobody ever found out why it happened.
The SS Baychimo
This ship that was built in the 1920s got stuck in ice near Alaska, forcing the crew to abandon it. For the next 38 years, it could be seen floating aimlessly around the waters near Alaska.
Poor weather conditions made it impossible to be salvaged and in 1969 it was said to have disappeared completely.
The Nina Yacht
In 2013, the ship’s crew sent out concerns to meteorologists that dangerous weather conditions were on their way. The ship was most likely lost after suffering through 70 mile per hour winds and 26 foot high waves.
Three weeks after the ship went missing one of the meteorologists received a text that said “Thanks storm sails shredded last night, now bare poles.” The message also said that the boat was still on the move. A satellite photo may have found the ship, but many said that the image only captured a large wave.
The Carroll A. Deering
The ship hauled coal from the U.S. to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1920, but it never made it back to Virginia. A light ship keeper in North Carolina said a crew man reported that the ship lost its anchors.
A few days later, the Coast Guard found the ship undamaged with food on the table like the crew was getting ready to eat a meal. But the navigational equipment, log book, and two life boats were missing from the ship.
Investigations showed that a few other ships had gone missing around the same time. Many speculated that pirates, crew mutiny, or extraterrestrial activity could be blamed for the missing ships.
The MV Joyita
This merchant ship took off into the South Pacific for a two-day journey in 1955, but it never made it to its destination. A rescue crew went out and couldn’t find any sign of the ship until a month later when they found it half-sunk.
When it was found, there was no sign of passengers, crew members or cargo. The rescuers did find a doctor’s bag and several bloody bandages on the deck. The ship’s broken radio was tuned to the universal stress signal. One theory suggested a pipe broke on the ship and caused it to flood and the crew abandoned it, but the crew was never found.
The Mummy Ghost Ship
In 2016, a Filipino fisherman jumped aboard a yacht he thought was abandoned. But when he boarded, he was shocked to see the mummified body of a German sailor.
The sailor had been sailing around the world for 20 years and was last heard from in 2015. There was no sign of foul play, but a year would have been long enough for the warm salty air to mummify his body. But, an autopsy found that he had only been dead about a week.
The Octavius
This ship was a legend that people would talk about until a whaling ship found it drifting off the coast of Greenland in 1775 with all of its crew frozen to death. The ship’s captain was found sitting at his desk with a log book in front of him.
He appeared as if he was finishing a log entry from 1762. This possibly means that the Octavius had been floating around the ocean for 13 years.
The Sam Rataulangi
This Myanmar ship was found in 2018 without any people or cargo. But later it was determined that the freighter was on its way to be dismantled. It was being towed by a tugboat when the cable snapped forcing the crew to abandon it.
The Lady Lovibond
This ship set sail the day before Valentine’s Day in 1748 to celebrate the captain’s wedding. But his friend who was also in love with the captain’s wife guided the boat into the notorious Goodwind Sands. The ship sank and killed everyone on board.
But after that tragic day it was spotted every 50 years in 1798, 1848, 1898 and 1948. Some boats that saw it sent out rescuers thinking it was in distress, but it could never actually be found. However, there was no known sighting of the ship in 1998.
Ghost Ship Jenny
In 1840, a ship called “Hope” came across the “Jenny” that was frozen in ice in the Antarctic Drake Passage. The crew was still on board, but everyone was frozen to death.
The captain was frozen sitting at his desk. His last log entry read “May 4, 1823. No food for 71 days. I am the only one left alive.”
The Flying Dutchman
The old maritime folklore story of “The Flying Dutchmen” was so popular that it was featured in the movie “the Pirates of the Caribbean, the Dead Man’s Chest.” The ship’s captain Van der Decken who was on his way to the East Indies was determined to make his destination despite severe weather approaching.
The captain turned towards the adverse weather in the Cape of Good Hope, but he failed after he vowed to drift until doomsday. The legend states that since then the ship and its crew have been forced to sail the oceans for all eternity. In present time, fisherman and sailors still claim to have seen the lost ship sailing on its never-ending voyage across the waters of the world.
The Mary Celeste
The captain of this ship set sail in November 1872 with his wife, two year old daughter and a crew of seven men. The boat was en route from New York to Italy, but after it should have arrived to its destination a British ship found the boat drifting across the Atlantic.
When the ship was boarded, six months’ worth of food, all of the crew’s belongings, and a cargo of over 1,500 alcohol barrels were there. But, the ships’ crew and a life boat were missing.
There were three feet of water on the ship’s floor, but it was not beyond repair. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made the boat famous when he wrote the short story, “J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement” that listed theories including, pirates, murder, mutiny, and food poisoning that made the crew mad.
But it has been said that it was more likely that the captain overestimated the ship’s damage and ordered the crew to flee on the life boat. The life boat then either made it to shore or the crew died in it trying to find land.
The Mysterious Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle (a.k.a. The Devil’s Triangle) has for centuries been known as a mysterious region between the southern part of Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico. The stories first began several hundred years ago when Christopher Columbus said he saw a flame of fire crashing into the sea in the triangle during his first voyage west.
The stories continue to present day when a Navy cargo ship called the USS Cyclops went missing in the triangle with 300 people on board. In 2021, a small engine airplane with four people aboard disappeared from radar while flying through the triangle from Puerto Rico to Florida.
Being a heavily traveled region, the exact number of planes and ships that have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle is unknown. But it is estimated that the mysterious region has been the location for the disappearance of 50 ships and 20 airplanes.
Although some of the wreckage from the planes and ships have been found, many of it has not. People have speculated about several theories around the cause of the disappearances, but to this day nobody knows exactly what happened to the dozens of ships and planes.
Check out our mountain-style gifts and souvenirs at HighMountainScribe.com
Comments