This is Rewine, Rewine.
In November of 1872, a ship called the Mary Celeste set sail from New York Harbor, bound
for Italy.
“There were 10 people on board, the captain, his wife, their two-year-old daughter, and seven”
crew members. Less than a month later, the ship was found drifting in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The cargo was intact, the food supply could have lasted another six months. Personal belongings were still in the cruise quarters, but every single person on board was gone.
No bodies, no signs of a struggle, no distress signal, just an empty ship, sailing across the ocean like nothing had happened. So where did everyone go? In this episode, I'll get into all the theories about what happened to the Mary Celeste and her crew, from science to sea monsters, and everything in between.
By the end, you'll have to decide for yourself, wasn't each magic miscalculation, or something far more sinister. I'm Dr. Hoony-Bott, and this is Hidden History, a rewine original powered by pay studios. On this show, we're exploring some of the most mysterious events from history that have yet to be fully explained, and examining all the different theories, from science to the supernatural
and everything in between. From vengeableizations and doomsday prophecies to paranormal experiences and unexplained phenomena, I'm looking at it all, and I want you to join me. Before we begin, I'd love it if you could rate, review, and follow Hidden History. Your support allows our community to grow and for other people to discover the show.
This episode is all about the Mary Celeste Ghost Ship Mystery. Did the crew flee from explosion? Was it a conspiracy for insurance money?
“Could a creature from the deep have dragged them under?”
Or is there something about the open ocean that we still don't understand? Let's talk about it. Before we get to the mystery, we need to talk about the ship herself. The Mary Celeste had a trouble pass long before anyone disappeared from her, and it all begins in one of the most unlikely shipbuilding capitals in the world.
Spencer's island is a tiny rural community in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, tucked away in the bay of Fundy.
If you've never heard of the bay of Fundy, it's famous for one thing, having the highest
tides in the world. We're talking title swings of up to 50 feet. At low tide, the ocean floor is exposed for miles. At high tide, it swells everything back up again.
“It's a dramatic, almost other, broadly landscape, and that matters.”
Because in the mid-1800s, Nova Scotia wasn't some maritime backwater. It was one of the great shipbuilding regions of the British Empire. The province's coastline, abundant timber, and proximity to transatlantic trade routes made it a natural home for the industry. These weren't slap dash boats.
Nova Scotian shipbuilders produce vessels that sailed the world, and the very first large
vessel to come out of the Spencer's island shipyard would go on to become the most famous ghost ship in history. In late 1860, a shipbuilder named Joshua Duas laid the kill for a new vessel as Jarred in Spencer's island. She was rigged as a brigantine, which is a two-massive sailing ship.
The front mass carries square sails while the rear mass carried a large, foreign-affed sail. This design made brigantines incredibly versatile. They could be operated by a smaller crew than a full-rich ship while still carrying significant cargo across long ocean voyages. And this was a sailing vessel through and through.
No engines, no steam power. Every bit of its movement depended on the wind and the skill of its crew. In 1861, steam ships were starting to change the maritime world, but wooden sailing ships like this one were still the workhorses of international trade. Once it was built, the ship measured about 99 feet long, roughly the length of a basketball
court, and 25 feet wide. It weighed about 198 tons and set just under 12 feet deep in the water, not enormous, but softly built for its purpose as a merchant trading vessel. It was designed to haul cargo across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and through the Mediterranean. She was launched on May 18th, 1861, and christened the Amazon.
She was owned by nine local investors, including her first captain, Robert Mc...
And from the very beginning, things went wrong.
“During the Amazon's maiden voyage, Captain McClellan got sick with pneumonia and died before”
the ship even completed its first trip.
If you ask me, that's about the worst omen a sailing vessel can get. But it didn't stop there. The Amazon's next captain, John Nothing Parker, held a position for two years, trading mainly in the West Indies. Those years were relatively quiet, but after Parker, the ship passed a captain William
Thompson, and during his command, the Amazon ran into serious trouble. In October of 1867, a storm drove the ship ashore at Cape Brighton Island. The damage was so bad that the owners gave up entirely and sold the Amazon as wrecked. The ship changed hands multiple times after that. It was purchased as salvage, repaired, and eventually sold to an American owner named Richard
Haynes, who gave it a new name, the Mary Celeste.
“Now, I want to pause here, because in the 1800s, sailors were extremely superstitious.”
They believed that every vessel had a spirit, and changing its name was basically like
erasing its identity. Legend had it that a lessy performed a specific ritual involving champagne, saltwater and the proper implications, the sea would take its revenge. Whether or not anyone followed that ritual for the Mary Celeste, well, let's just say the university to have an opinion.
Despite all that baggage, by 1872, the Mary Celeste had gone a major facelift. A new group of owners led by New York businessman James H. Winchester poured about $10,000 into renovations, which in today's money would be well over $250,000. They added a second deck, extended its length to 103 feet, widened it to nearly 26 feet, and increased the tonnage from $198 to 282 tons.
It was basically a new ship, wearing an old name.
“And the man chosen to captain the shiny new vessel was someone who came highly recommended,”
Benjamin Spooner Briggs. In 1872, Captain Briggs was 37 years old and came from a long line of sea there as in Mary and Massachusetts. His father was a ship captain. No more several of his brothers.
The man basically had saltwater in his veins. Briggs was well respected in the Maritime Community, known for being level headed, cautious, and deeply religious. He didn't drink, he ran a tight ship, but he also treated his crew fairly.
One of the later investigators put it simply, quote, "There was never a question that
he would do something irrational," and quote. All of this to say, "This was not the kind of guy who made reckless decisions." In October of 1872, Briggs invested his own savings to buy shares in the Mary's list, and he was appointed her captain for an upcoming Transatlantic voyage to Genoa, Italy. And here's where it gets personal.
Briggs decided to bring his family along. His wife Sarah was no stranger to life at sea. He had sail with Benjamin before and was an accomplished musician who brought along a small melodian, basically a portable organ to pass the time during the voyage. They also brought their two-year-old daughter Sophia.
Their elder son Arthur, who was seven, was left at home with his grandmother, so he could go to school. Briggs carefully handpicked his crew for the voyage. His first mate, Albert Richardson, had sailed with him before, and married into the Winchester family.
The second mate Andrew Gillay was a 25-year-old New Yorker of Danish descent. The rest of the crew were experienced sailors mostly from Germany, including brothers Volkert and Boy Lorenzon, all solid men with clean records. To recap, they were 10 people on board, Captain Briggs, his wife Sarah, Babysofia, and seven crewmen.
On October 20, the cargo was loaded, 1,701 barrels of de-natured industrial alcohol. This wasn't the kind you drink. It was basically ethanol, used for industrial chemical processes, fuel, and manufacturing. Not to mention, highly flammable and potentially volatile. An every single barrel was packed into the ship's hold for the long journey across the Atlantic.
But bad weather delayed the departure for over two weeks. During that time, Briggs wrote a letter to his mother. He described the Mary Celeste as being "thine condition," and seemed optimistic about
The voyage ahead.
He also mentioned hoping to bring Sarah as Sofia home safely.
“There was one more notable detail about those final days in New York.”
The night before the Mary Celeste set sail, Captain Briggs reportedly had dinner with an old acquaintance, Captain David Morehouse, with a British ship called the "Dagretia."
Morehouse and his first mate Oliver DeVo were experienced well-respected sailors.
And as it happened, the "Dagretia" was planning to follow a similar route across the Atlantic departing about eight days after the Mary Celeste, which finally set sail on November 7th, 1872, bound for Italy. And the next time Captain Morehouse encountered the Mary Celeste, he'd be in the middle of the most haunting maritime mystery of all time.
On December 5th, 1872, so almost a full month after the Mary Celeste departure, the "Dagretia" was sailing about 400 miles east of the Azoor's Islands in the Atlantic Ocean when her crew spotted something unsettling in the distance.
“A ship, drifting, moving, erratically through the choppy seas, her sails partially”
set, but clearly with no one at the helm. Captain Morehouse recognized the vessel almost immediately. It was the Mary Celeste, the ship that had left New York eight days before his own departure, the ship that should have already been docked in Genoa by now. Something was very wrong.
Morehouse changed course and sent a boarding party of three men led by first mate Oliver DeVo to investigate. Whatever they expected to find, it wasn't this. The ship was completely empty, not a living soul on board.
But here's what made it so eerie.
The Mary Celeste was in remarkably good shape. Yes, there's about three and a half feet of water sloshing around at the hold, but considering the circumstances, it wasn't that much. The vessel was absolutely seeworthy. The cargo of 1,7001 barrels of alcohol was almost entirely intact, although investigators
would later note that nine of those barrels were empty. The crews personal belongings, their clothes, their pipes, their boots were still in their quarters, neatly arranged as if they'd be coming right back. There was a six-month supply of food and fresh water on board, six months worth.
Nobody who was running low on supplies would abandon a ship with that much food.
Only a few things were out of place. One of the two on board pumps had been taken apart. The ship's compass was damaged, the glass cover had been smashed, a section of railing on one side of the ship had been removed, and a rope was trailing behind the ship in the water, frayed at the end, as though something had been too high to it, and broken away.
But the most telling details, the ship's only lifeboat was missing, and so were the navigation instruments, the sextant, the chronometer, and the ship's register.
“Someone had taken the tools you need to navigate to safety.”
There's also something found lying on the deck that should have been there. The ship's sounding rod. This was a device used to measure how much water had collected in the hold. The fact that it was out and on the deck, suggests that right before they left, someone was checking how much water the ship was taking on.
Now is only after Devonus Man had taken all this in that they turned the ship's lock, and what they found there, deep in the mystery, considerably. The last entry was dated November 25th, 1872, so a full 10 days before the day gratia found the ship. The entry recorded the maritaless position as being about six miles off the coast of Santa
Maria, one of the easternmost islands in the Aesource. Six miles from land, close enough to see the island, and then nothing. Some more entries, no distress calls, no further navigation notes, the log just stopped. That meant whatever happened to the crew occurred sometime after the morning of November 25th. And in the 10 days that followed, the maritaless drifted over 400 miles from where it was
last recorded with no one on board. This pause here, because this combination of details is what makes the maritaless so maddening.
If the crew had been attacked, why were there belongings untouched and the ca...
If the ship was sinking, why was it still perfectly see worthy?
“And if everything was fine, why did everyone leave?”
Despite all the strangeness, the maritaless wasn't good enough shaped to be sailed. So to go, and to other men, from the day gratia, did exactly that. They spent the better part of two days pumping out the water from the whole, and then they sailed both vessels approximately 800 miles to the British territory of Gibraltar, located at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea.
Mawaj Gibraltar, and why did the British have any authority over an American ship? The answer comes down to maritime law. In the 1870s, salvage riots were governed by Admiralty Courts. Under the rules of the time, when a crew found and recovered in a band of ship at sea, they could bring it to the nearest port with an Admiralty Corps and file a salvage claim.
The court would then determine how much the salvage was were owed based on the value of the ship and its cargo.
“The closest Admiralty Court to where the maritaless was found was in Gibraltar, which”
was, and still is, a British overseas territory. It didn't matter that the maritaless was an American ship. The British Court and Gibraltar had jurisdiction, because that's where the salvage vessel was brought. And that's where things got really complicated.
When the maritaless arrived in Gibraltar, it was immediately impounded by British authorities.
What was supposed to be a routine salvage hearing, basically figuring out how much money
the Dagger Tia's crew was owed for saving the ship, turned into a full blown criminal investigation. It was all thanks to Frederick Solie Flood, the Attorney General of Gibraltar. Now Solie Flood is one of those figures who might have been a footnote in history, if not for the maritaless. But the case became his obsession, an understanding why requires knowing a little bit about
the man himself. Frederick Solie Flood was born in 1801.
“He was the son of a humble fishmonger in London, but his maternal grandfather was a noble”
man who owned vast estates in Ireland. And when he died, Frederick inherited them. He went on to get a good education, became a lawyer, and started a successful legal practice in London. But here's where it gets interesting.
Solie Flood had a serious gambling problem. His debts eventually forced him to sell his legal practice and at the age of 64, except the relatively modest post of Attorney General, Gibraltar. It was essentially exile for a man who'd once been King's Council in London. Historians have been less than kind about him.
When described Solie Flood as a man who's arrogance and pomposity were inversely proportional to his IQ. At cooked, another called him, the sort of man who once he made up his mind about something couldn't be shifted, not exactly a ringing endorsement. So when the maritaless arrived in Gibraltar, Solie Flood saw as his chance to shine.
A high profile international mystery, right in his jurisdiction, he was convinced that he could crack it wide open. The only problem was that the evidence refused to cooperate with his theories.
His first hypothesis, that the crew had gone into the cargo, gotten drunk on the industrial
alcohol, then went on a murderous rampage against the captain and his family. Except, the alcohol on board was de-natured. It was essentially poisonous, you would get violently ill, way before you got drunk. When that didn't stick, Solie Flood pivoted, he accused the de-gratiers crew of piracy, claiming Captain Morehouse had somehow attached the maritaless and killed everyone on board
to claim the salvage reward. There was just one problem. The de-gratier had left New York eight days after the maritaless. It was a slower ship. There was essentially no way Morehouse could have caught up to the maritaless and pushed it
and then found it hundreds of miles off course. But Solie Flood wouldn't let go. When that theory sank, he flipped it again. Now Briggs had murdered his own crew and conspired with Morehouse to split the salvage money.
Never mind that Briggs, as a part owner of the ship, would have earned more from completing
The voyage than from any salvage scheme.
But Solie Flood was convinced that foul play was somehow involved.
“He had the ship inspected thoroughly, hoping to find blood stains or evidence of violence.”
And his inspectors did find some reddish brown marks on the deck, but Solie Flood claimed were sword cuts on the ship's railing. But when the stains were tested by Dr. J. Patron, a local physician, they weren't blood. They were rust or natural wear. And the sword cuts, they were just normal damage from years of use.
After this latest dead end, the American Consulantra Brulter, Horatius Spray, started to get frustrated with Solie Flood's theatrics. Spray was convinced that Captain Briggs had been an honest, capable man.
So, he asked for an independent investigation from a US Navy captain named RW Schufelt.
His conclusion was straightforward. The mayor's arrest had been abandoned by master and crew in a moment of panic and for no sufficient reason.
“After three months of investigation, the core found no evidence of foul play.”
The degratius crew was cleared of any wrongdoing and awarded a salvage payment. But here's the thing. They only received about six of the total value of the ship in cargo. Normally, salvagers received a much larger share. That suspiciously low payout suggests the court, maybe influenced by Solie Flood's relentless
accusations, still had some doubts, even without any evidence to support them. The investigation was officially closed. But Solie Flood's wild theories had already done their damage. His accusations grabbed media attention on both sides of the Atlantic and launched the mayor's arrest into the public imagination.
And then one of the world's most famous authors poured gasoline on the fire. In 1884, a ship's doctor in his mid-20s in Arthur Conan Doyle, yes, that Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who would go on to create Sherlock Holmes published a short story inspired by the case. He renamed the ship the Marisolest that's M-A-R-I-E, instead of M-A-R-Y, changed the
route to Boston to Lisbon and invented an entirely fictional story about a former enslaved person who hijacked the ship and sales her to Africa. The story was published anonymously in Cornell magazine and was so convincing that many readers, including some officials, took it as a factual account. Suddenly, the mayor's list was famous worldwide, and all those fictional embellishments
they got hopelessly mixed in with the real story, even today people still call the ship Marie Celeste because of Doyle's story. Over the decades that followed, the mystery became a magnet for increasingly wild theories, which brings us to the heart of this episode, and the question that still hangs over the Marisolest, what happened to everyone on board?
Let's start with the most scientifically supported explanation, and it all comes down to one thing. What was in the cargo hold?
“Remember the Marisolest was carrying 1,701 barrels of de-natured industrial alcohol.”
That is a lot of volatile liquid sealed up in wooden barrels, and it can find space, rocking, back and forth on the open ocean for weeks. When the de-gratias crew is expected to cargo, they found that 9 barrels were empty, and
here's a critical detail.
Those 9 barrels were made of red oak, while the remaining barrels were made of white oak. It might not seem like a big deal, but red oak is significantly more porous than white oak, which means those barrels were much more likely to leak. So picture this, you are weeks into a rough, Atlantic crossing. The ship is being tossed around constantly, and below deck, alcohol is slowly seeping
out of those porous barrels, filling the cargo hold with invisible, highly flammable fumes. Then imagine what would happen if it exploded. I don't know about you, but I'd probably want to abandon ship after that. In 2006, a chemist Dr. Andrea Sella, a University of College of London, actually tested this theory.
He built a replica of the Mary-Sales cargo hold, and simulated an explosion using butane gas, which behaves similarly to alcohol vapor, and instead of actual wooden barrels, he used paper cubes. The result, a massive blast. It's spectacular wall of flame surge upward through the hold. It would have been absolutely
terrifying, the kind of explosion that would make you think the entire ship was about to
Be consumed.
But here is the incredible part. When the explosion was over, there was no damage, no scorch marks, no burn paper, nothing. Dr. Sella described it as a "pressure wave explosion" and quote, "a burst of flame followed by a rush of relatively cool air, terrifying in the moment, but it doesn't actually destroy anything."
This is huge, because one of the biggest arguments against the explosion theory had always
“been, if the alcohol fumes went up in flames, where's the damage?”
Well, Dr. Sella proved that this type of explosion could happen without leaving any visible trace. So here's how the theory goes. Alcohol fumes built up in the hold over the course of the voyage. At some point, maybe from two loose barrels rubbing together and creating a spark, or a crewman opening a hatch with a pipe in his mouth, the fumes ignited. There was
a massive, terrifying, pressure wave explosion. The hatch covers were blown open, flame
and smoke erupted from below deck. Captain Briggs experienced as he was, would have had one
thought. This ship is about to blow. And with his wife in two-year-old daughter on board, he wasn't going to wait around to find out if the rest of the cargo would ignite. So he ordered everyone into the lifeboat. In the chaos, they tied the lifeboat to the ship, planning to stay close until they could confirm the danger had passed. But the seas
“were rough. The line afraid, then it snapped. Remember that freight rope trailing behind”
the mayor's arrest? That could have been the tone line. The life line that was supposed to keep them connected to the ship. Once the line broke, the mayor's arrest with its sales still partially set would have drifted away from the lifeboat at a pace they couldn't match by rowing. And just like that, 10 people were stranded in a small boat in the middle of the Atlantic, watching their ship disappear over the horizon. The ocean does not forgive
its stakes like that. The explosion theory is compelling, but some researchers think the answer might be even simpler. One of the crew of Benship because they generally believe the mayor's arrest was going down from a breach hall, even though it wasn't. In 2007, a documentary called the true story of the mayor's arrest produced for the Smithsonian
“Channel brought together a team of historians scientists to re-examine the evidence.”
And they focused on details that previous investigators had overlooked. First, the sounding
rod on the deck. If the water level reading came back high, the captain might have thought the ship was flooding. But one of the ships to pumps had been taken apart. If you can't pump the water out and you think more water is coming in, that's a crisis. Even if the actual water level wasn't dangerous, a panic to reading combined with a broken pump could have convinced Briggs that the situation was worse than it really was. Then there's a possibility
of a water spout. These are essentially tornadoes that form over water. And they were common in the waters around the A source. A water spout would cause a dramatic drop in barometric pressure, which could force water from the build up through the ship's pumps. The crew might have seen water levels rising rapidly, and assumed the ship was taking on water from a leak they couldn't find. So they piled into the lifeboat thinking it
was their only chance. But this is where both this and the explosion theory hit a snack, because according to the ship's log, the mayor's arrest was within the site of the A source. And if that was the case, they should have been able to row to safety. However, the Smithsonian researchers realized that Captain Briggs had made a big mistake. They used historical weather data and ocean current models to trace the mayor's list probable course and discovered
something shocking. The mayor's list was actually about 120 miles west of where Captain Briggs thought he was. His chronometer, the instrument used to calculate longitude, appears to have been off. Briggs thought he was within site Asantamria Island in the A source. But reality, he may have been much farther out to see. If Briggs ordered the crew into the lifeboat expecting a short row to safety, they would have been devastated when they realized
land was nowhere to be found. A small overloaded boat rising seas and the vast Atlantic ocean, they would have been a death sentence. This theory also explains why Briggs took the navigation
Instruments but left everything else.
island, he'd grab the sextant and the ship's register. But he wouldn't bother with personal
“items because he expected it to be a short trip. It's honestly heartbreaking. A cascade”
of small miscalculations, a faulty instrument, a broken pump, a misleading reading, creating the illusion
of a sinking ship. And a father who made a decision to protect his family that ultimately
sealed all of their faiths. I'm Shankar Vedantam here to tell you about a great mystery. That mystery is you. As the host of a podcast called Hidden Brain, I explore big questions about what it means to be human. Questions like, where do our emotions come from? Why do so many of us feel overwhelmed by modern life? How can we better understand the people around us? Discover your hidden
brain. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's go to the deep end. Because the scientific theories are not everyone's
“buying them. And honestly, I get it. When you break it down, there are aspects of the story”
that tidy explanations don't fully address. And over the last 150 years, some truly wild theories have emerged. Let's start with one of the oldest and most dramatic, the giant squid. Now, before you roll your eyes, hear me out. Because in the 1870s, giant squid weren't science fiction. They were becoming science fact. In 1873, just one year after the Mary Celeste disappeared, two fishermen in conception Bay, New Finland had a terrifying
encounter. A massive creature surface near their small boat and threw its tentacles across the vessel. One of the fishermen managed to hack off two of the creature's arms with a hatchet before it retreated into the deep. The separate tentacles brought ashore and studied by scientists.
“It was the first physical evidence of a living giant squid ever examined in North America.”
And that wasn't an isolated incident. In 1874, a ship called the Pearl was reportedly attacked by giant cephalopod, the Bay of Bengal, off the coast of India. According to the captain of a nearby vessel, the creature climbed onto the 150 times sooner, capsized it and killed at least two sailors. Five crewmen were rescued, but the ship was lost. Even into the 20th century, the attack continued. In the 1930s, the Norwegian tanker runs with
a tact by giant squid on three separate occasions in the South Pacific. The creature's reportedly pursued the ship and tried to grip the steel hull with their tentacles, but couldn't get traction on the smooth metal. The account was validated by a commander in the Royal Norwegian Navy.
So is it possible that a giant squid attacked the Mary Celeste? Here's what we know. Giant
squid can grow up to 43 feet long with tentacles lined with powerful suckers that can exert over a hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. They are deep sea predators typically found at depths of a thousand feet or more. But they do come to the surface, especially when they're sick, disoriented, or chasing prey. The waters around the Asuras where the Mary Celeste was less recorded are actually known for giant squid activity. The deep underwater
canons of the region are an ideal habitat in sperm whales that giant squid's primary predator have been hunted in those waters for centuries. But here's the catch. If a giant squid attacked the ship, you'd expect to see damage. Sucker marks on the hull, broken railings, something. The Mary Celeste was found in remarkably good shape. Also, there's no documented case of a giant squid pulling people off the ship without damaging the vessel itself. And no piers
of the Caribbean does not count. That said, we still know shockingly little about these animals.
The first photographs of a living giant squid in its natural habitat weren't captured
until 2004. The first video footage came in 2012. We've explored less than 5% of the ocean floor. So the idea that something was out there in 1872 that we can't fully account for today is not as crazy as it sounds. So here's a thought experiment. What if the crew of the
Mary Celeste saw something in the water that they couldn't identify?
toward the ship. In an era before we understood what giant squid were, it encountered like that
“could have been absolutely terrifying. Terrifying enough to abandon a ship in a panic?”
Maybe. But that's not the only out there theory. Some theories have tried to connect the Mary Celeste to the Bermuda Triangle. That infamous stretch of ocean between Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico where ships and planes have allegedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Now I need to be upfront. The Mary Celeste route from New York to Genima didn't actually pass through the Bermuda Triangle. But Bermuda
Triangle enthusiasts have argued that the phenomenon isn't limited to one specific area.
They say the strange electromagnetic anomalies, rowways and methen gas eruptions,
sometimes associated with the triangle could occur across wider stretches of the Atlantic.
“Proponents of this idea point to see bed earthquakes as a possible trigger.”
They could cause turbulence on the surface, damage cargo, release toxic fumes, and create conditions that would explain many of the anomalies found on the Mary Celeste. Is there evidence for this? Not really. But the Bermuda Triangle connection speaks to something deeper. The sense that the ocean itself is an alien environment. Full of forces we don't fully understand. And with something inexplicable happens at sea,
it's tempting to believe the ocean was responsible. And then there's a theory that goes all the way off the map, alien abduction. The paranormal explanation for the Mary Celeste gained traction in the mid-20th century as UFO culture exploded. The laws should go something like this. The crew vanish instantly, without a struggle leaving everything behind. The ship was undamaged. There's no satisfying natural explanation. Ergo, they were abducted by aliens.
I know it's not likely, but here's some arguments in favor of it. The compass glass was shattered.
Could that indicate a powerful electromagnetic field? The crew left behind other possessions,
including valuables, suggesting they didn't choose to leave. And the complete absence of bodies, wreckage, or any trace of the crew in a surrounding ocean is, for some, consistent with people being removed from the ship entirely rather than falling into the sea. Is there any heart evidence for extraterrestrial involvement? No. But the alien theory enduring is because it feels avoid that all the other theories leave behind. When you can't explain
something, sometimes the most fantastical explanation feels like the only one big enough to match the mystery. And finally, let's talk about one of the most bizarre explanations ever put forward. Because in 1913, a story appeared that claimed to solve the mystery once and for all, and a lot of people were convinced. That year, the hugely popular British magazine, the strand, the same magazine that published Sherlock Holmes stories, issued a challenge to his readers.
Could anyone solve the mystery of the Mary's List? Among the many responses, one stood out. A letter arrived from a man named A Howard Flynnford, a highly respected headmaster of one of one's most prestigious prep schools. He held a degree from Oxford's Magdalene College. He is credentials were impeccable. Linford claimed that a former servant of his and old man named Able Fazdick had confessed the truth on his deathbed. According to Fazdick,
“he'd been a secret passenger on the Mary's List. He said he'd got himself into some kind of”
trouble in America and had convinced his friend Captain Briggs to let him stay away. The story went like this. Captain Briggs had a carpenter build a special raised platform on the ship's quarter deck so that his wife and baby daughter could have a better view of the ocean. It was essentially an elevated walkway extending out over the battle. According to Fazdick, one day Captain Briggs got into a lighthearted argument with its mate
about whether a man could swim well with his clothes on. To settle the dispute, Briggs and the mate jumped overboard. It's our swimming around the ship. Mrs. Briggs, baby Sophia, Able Fazdick and the rest of the crew all gathered on the special platform to watch the fun. Then, one of the swimmers screamed. A shark had attacked him. He disappeared under the water.
The rest of the crew rushed onto the platform to see what was happening and i...
under the weight dumping everyone into the shark infested at sea. According to Fazdick, he was the sole survivor. He'd managed to grab onto some floating wreckage and drifted for days before washing up on the coast of Africa. Trautized and fearing he wouldn't be believed,
he never told anyone until he confessed to Lindford on his deathbed. The story was a sensation.
The strand published it with dramatic, full-page illustrations showing the platform collapsing and people tumbling into the sea. Newspapers are around the world picked it up. From moment, it seemed like the mystery had been solved. Except, it was almost certainly a hoax. The problems were immediate and obvious. Sure, you could say the reason Able Fazdick's name didn't appear in the ship's crew manifest
is because he was a stoic. But he got basic facts about the Mary Celeste completely wrong. Fazdick claimed the ship weighed 600 tons. It was actually less than 300.
He said the crew was English. They were mostly German and American.
He described Captain Briggs' daughter as being 7 years old. Sophia was too. He said the ship sailed from a different port when a different date to a different destination. The story also fails to explain the missing lifeboat, the missing navigation instruments, or any of the other key details. There was no evidence that a special viewing platform was ever constructed on the Mary Celeste and experienced sailors critiquing the story pointed out
that no competent captain would ever build such a structure and no sane crew would stand on it. Most historians believe the entire count was a literary hoax likely written by Linford himself to win the Strand's competition. But is it perfect example of how the Mary Celeste mystery creates a vacuum that people are desperate to fill? And how a good story told convincingly can fool even the smartest people. In the end, none of the unconventional theories have
produced any hard evidence. But they've kept the mystery alive for over 150 years. And there's a reason for that. The ocean is still one of the most unexplored environments on earth. Until we can definitively say what happened on that ship, every theory no matter how wild
“remains on the table. You know what I think is most interesting about the Mary Celeste?”
It's not what happened on the ship. It's what happens in us when we hear the story. There's something deeply unsettling about an unanswered question. Our brains are not wired for it. We want resolution. We want that need ending. And when we don't get one, we create our own. That's why the Mary Celeste has inspired over a century of wild theories. It's not because the evidence points to sea monsters or aliens. It's because the evidence doesn't
point to anything conclusive. And that blank space, that's where the fear and imagination live. The ocean is the closest thing we have on this planet to outer space. It's vast, it's dark, and we explore less of the deep ocean that we have the surface of Mars. When something goes wrong out there, you are alone. There's no 911. There's no rescue helicopter arriving in 20 minutes. It's just you, the water, and whatever decisions you make in the moment.
“And I think that's what scares us the most about the Mary Celeste. Not that something terrible”
happened. But that something ordinary might have. A faulty chronometer, a leaking barrel, a broken pump, a panicked decision made by a father trying to save his family. The idea that something so small could go so wrong, that is more terrifying than any ghost story. There's another possibility too. It is the one that keeps me up at night. What if the ocean really does hold secrets we haven't discovered yet? We found the giant squid. We're still mapping the deep sea
floor. Every year scientists discover species we never knew existed. The Mary Celeste sailed through
waters. We still don't fully understand. Maybe the most odd answer is we don't know. And maybe that's okay. Because sometimes the mystery is the point.
“Okay, so what do I really think happened on the Mary Celeste? Personally, I think it was a combination”
of factors. And honestly, the most likely scenario might be the most heartbreaking one.
I think that alcohol fumes played a role.
slowly leaked in vapors accumulated in the hold. At some point, maybe during the rough weather near
“the Azores, something triggered a pressure wave explosion. It was loud, it was terrifying, it blew”
the hatch covers off, and it absolutely would've looked like the ship was about to be engulfed in flames. Now add in the faulty chronometer. Briggs thought he was close to land, and his pump was disassembled, so he couldn't clear the water in the hold. So when the explosion happened, he made the call, get everyone in the lifeboat. We'll road to shore and figure it out from there. They tie the lifeboat to the ship with a rope, planning to stay close. But the seas were rough, the rope snapped,
and the Mary Celeste drifted away from them carried by the wind and current.
I think Briggs stood in that lifeboat, watching his ship disappear, and realized the terrible truth. Land wasn't where he thought it was. They were alone. They had no supplies, and the Atlantic Ocean is unforgiving. It's not the most exciting explanation, it's not seen monsters, or pirates, or aliens, but it's profoundly human. A series of smallest days compounding into an irreversible catastrophe, and at the center of it, a man trying to do the right thing for the
“people he loved. Now do I think there could be more to the story? Something we haven't discovered?”
Honestly, yes. The ocean keeps its secrets better than any vault ever could, and I don't think we've heard the last word on the Mary Celeste. So if the Mary Celeste were to set sail today,
how would things be different? Well, first of all, we know exactly where the ship was at all times.
GPS, satellite tracking, AIS transponders, modern ships are basically impossible to lose. The second of vessel goes off course, or stops responding, maritime authorities would be alerted. Captain Briggs wouldn't have to be relying on a faulty chronometer, he'd have pinpoint accuracy on his phone. In communication, forget waiting weeks to hear from a ship. Satellite phones, radio, even internet at sea, if something went wrong, Captain Briggs could have
“call for help instantly. There wouldn't have been any mystery about what happened. We'd have”
distress calls, GPS coordinates, maybe even a live video. But here's where it gets interesting. The myth of the Mary Celeste would be completely different in the age of social media. Think about how fast conspiracy theories spread today. Within hours, you'd have TikToks breaking down the cruise last movements, Reddit threads, analyzing every scratch on the whole, and hot tags ranging from reasonable to absolutely unhinged. Think about the ocean gate
tight submersible implosion. The Mary Celeste would be that times a thousand. In the Arthur Conan Doyle factor, the idea that fiction can become confused with fact, would be amplified even more. We already live in an era where AI-generated content and deep fakes make it harder than ever to tell what's real. Imagine someone releasing a fake, survival footage from the Mary Celeste. It would go viral before anyone could debunk it.
On the other hand, modern forensic technology would give us answers that 1872 investigators could only dream of. Chemical analysis, weather modeling, ocean current data, hole forensics, we'd probably have this thing solved in weeks, not centuries. Which makes you wonder. It's part of what makes the Mary Celeste so captivating, the fact that we can't solve it. That in our age of information, some mysteries still belong to the past.
Maybe some questions are meant to stay unanswered. But then again, the ocean has a long memory, and it might not be done talking yet. Thanks so much for joining me for this episode of Hidden History. I'm Dr. Hoony Bought. Join me next time as we explore another unbelievable story from the past. What do you think happened on the Mary Celeste? Alcohol fumes, bad navigation, a creature from the deep, or something we haven't even considered. Let me know in the
comments and I might talk about it in a future episode. And be sure to subscribe to my channel to keep up with every mystery. And be sure to rage, review, and follow Hidden History so we can keep building this community together. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.
