In that retelling, those on board get murdered one by one. In 1884, Arthur Conan Doyle penned a fictitious account of what transpired on the Mary Celeste in a short story unrelated to Sherlock Holmes, and in 1935, the ship inspired one of the first entries to Hammer Film Productions’ horror cannon with The Mystery of the Mary Celeste, starring Bela Lugosi of Dracula fame. As such, it has been fodder for many storytellers. The tale of the Mary Celeste continues to obsess ghost ship fanatics, as it may be the closest true analog to the centuries-old legend of the Flying Dutchman, the mythic vessel that is cursed to sail the ocean forevermore. Could their noxious fumes have set off sparks, scaring everyone on the Mary Celeste into the lifeboat? If so, where did they plan to go, given they were so far from land? No one can say for sure, because the crew, the captain, and his family were never seen again.

Below deck, the seamen found 1,701 barrels of industrial alcohol, nine of them empty. Yet despite some seawater sloshing in its hold, the brig was deemed seaworthy. To the British seamen investigating the Mary Celeste, it was as if those on board had single-mindedly abandoned ship. An unfinished breakfast, likely the child’s, was still sitting on the dining room table, covered in mold. When its crew members boarded the Mary Celeste, they found weeks’ worth of food, shoes, and other personal belongings. One month later, a British ship spotted the brig, which should have already reached its destination, drifting in the North Atlantic, hundreds of kilometers from land. In 1872, a brigantine named the Mary Celeste set course from New York City to Genoa, Italy, carrying seven crew members, the captain, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter. From a monster that unnerves a ship’s hardened crew to a luxury liner that simply disappears, here are five tales of depravity and horror set on the deep blue sea. Perhaps that’s why the ocean lies at the heart of countless legends: people want to seek answers from the unknown, to be enthralled by the horrible. With every storm, death rears its head, confronting you with a fate too terrifying to imagine.

For when you leave terra firma for the sea, you’re at the mercy of its mercurial moods. But these mesmerizing qualities belie the ocean’s perilous nature. Its shades of blues and greens evoke paradise, while its surface rises and falls hypnotically. Octo| 1,600 words, about 8 minutes Share this articleįrom the safety of land, it’s easy to romanticize the ocean. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images Nightmares from the Sea Because cannibalism and monsters make good bedtime stories. Sailors flee in terror as a kraken, a giant sea monster from Nordic folklore, overtakes their ship.

Hand of fate ghost of the sea