Lunatics Radio Hour
The history of horror and the horror of history.
Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 142 - Horror on The High Seas: Maritime Folklore and Ghost Ships
Abby and Alan discuss maritime folklore, ghost ships, pirates and so much more.
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Sources
- NPR article by Andy Bowers: We’ve Found the Lost City of Atlantis Again.
- History.com article by the site’s editors: Bermuda Triangle
- History.com article on Atlantis
- An article from Naval History and Heritage Command: The Loss of Flight 19
- DiscoverMagazine.com article by Tree Meinch: How Deep is the Mariana Trench and what have we discovered in its depths?
- Ars Technica article by Nate Anderson: Release the Kraken! 2,000 years of Tall Tales and a Smattering of Truth
- 2009 History.com article on the Titanic: https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/titanic
- An article from thecollector.com 5 of the most famous shipwrecks from the ancient world: https://www.thecollector.com/ancient-famous-shipwrecks/
- New Zealand Maritime Museum article, Top 20 Sailing Superstitions
- Thank you to April Brenker for research help, as always!
Consider joining our Patreon for bonus episodes, spooky literature and deep dives into horror and history. Click here to learn more.
Support your favorite podcast by wearing some haunting and highly specific clothing. Check out our merch store here.
Check out our sponsor Luff Sheets and use code LUNATICS for 15% off, and to support your favorite horror history podcast.
Luff Sheets
Use code LUNATICS for 15% off.
Follow us on TikTok, X, Instragram and YouTube.
Join the conversation on Discord. Support us on Patreon.
Hello everyone, Welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics radio hour podcast. I am abby brinker sitting here with alan kudan hello and today we are continuing on our odyssey into horror on the high seas with part three, where we are exploring all things ships and pirates as we do as we do. This is a meaty episode in this series which might be interesting to be at the third spot, but this is just sort of how the cookie crumbled, if you will.
Speaker 2:Well, this episode will be a treasure chest of horror.
Speaker 1:There you go. Very good, that's stupid. To recap so far in this mega series we have talked about the Bermuda Triangle, the Mariana Trench, we have talked about Atlantis, mermaids, sirens, kraken, moby dick and, of course, sharks. Now we're pivoting away from creatures and into some of the real fucked up things that pirates have done over the years to our poor innocent port town faring people what about those poor pirates?
Speaker 2:justice for pirates I didn't say that what did you say? What about those poor pirates?
Speaker 1:yeah, but why are they poor?
Speaker 2:because they don't.
Speaker 1:They don't have their treasure I didn't realize you're such a pirate apologist. Okay, so how much do you know about blackbeard?
Speaker 2:because I knew very little everything I know about blackbeard I have learned from either treasure Island.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Black Sails.
Speaker 1:Oh right, yes, Great show.
Speaker 2:Which is just the prequel to Treasure Island.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And then there's also my absolute favorite of Our Flag Means Death.
Speaker 1:Ah, yes, okay, Great, it's a show that you would love but you haven't watched it and I don't know why. Maybe this is the time, maybe this is the message from the universe that I needed.
Speaker 2:It has pirates. Yeah, it has big boats.
Speaker 1:Love big boats.
Speaker 2:A lot of sea action, sure, and it's super super gay.
Speaker 1:We love a queer pirate love story. Okay, I'm convinced. What else do I need to know?
Speaker 2:Do you know who plays Blackbeard in that?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Guess.
Speaker 1:Is he British, hugh?
Speaker 2:Grant Close.
Speaker 1:Christopher Walken.
Speaker 2:It's Taika Waititi.
Speaker 1:And even more of a reason to watch the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't realize he was such a prolific actor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's more of a filmmaker now.
Speaker 2:I guess he's both. I mean, he's got one of the starring roles in the show, yeah, yeah. Then he also goes on to make some of the best Marvel movies out there.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you can just do it all. So let's talk about Blackbeard. Edward Teach or Thatch was born around 1860 and as an adult, became known as Blackbeard, which is how we will refer to him. Blackbeard was an English pirate who lived on in infamy to this day, and I think it's a testament right that all of these shows and movies have been made about his story, because that's how much of an impact he made on history. There were thousands and thousands of pirates across many different cultures, but I think Blackbeard has certainly become, at least in our modern era, in the United States, a pirate staple, if you will.
Speaker 2:I mean, can you name any other famous pirate?
Speaker 1:Isn't Bluebeard a pirate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, technically.
Speaker 1:But I don't know much about him.
Speaker 2:No, he just seems like store brand Blackbeard.
Speaker 1:I also know that there was a female pirate in China who is like one of the most successful pirates of all time.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, she's in one of the later Pirates of the Caribbean.
Speaker 1:Oh cool. In 1976, teach joined the ranks of another British pirate, captain Benjamin Hornigold, and Blackbeard became renowned when he captured a French slave ship. He decked out the boat with 40 guns and crewed it with 300 men. He renamed it Queen Anne's Revenge. Its original name was La Concorde. Blackbeard gained a grueling reputation. He was known for his dark hair. It was said he would even tuck lit fuses under his hat to scare his enemies. He blockaded the town of Port Charleston in South Carolina and held the town ransom for almost a week. But here's the real plot twist what he was after was a chest of medicine and finally, when it arrived, he released his hostages.
Speaker 2:That's a stand-up guy right there.
Speaker 1:He turns out to be a real stand-up guy at the end of the day. After finally running Queen Anne's Revenge aground in North Carolina, he eventually settled there and accepted a royal pardon. But after setting sail again, he was killed after a terrible battle with a party sent to pursue him by the governor of Virginia. So kind of how it went was he received this royal pardon. He started living in North Carolina as like an everyday man, and there were still all these people that kind of didn't want to accept that right. And so the second he was out again in his boat, they descended upon him.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:On November 22nd 1718, blackbeard was dead. Despite his horrifying reputation, blackbeard more often used his doctored image to elicit fear and avoided the use of violence. So he was kind of this pirate who did a lot to get this very bad reputation just because he wanted his enemies to fear him. But he was actually more of a pacifist, like he preferred to not use violence.
Speaker 2:Abby, I've seen the show.
Speaker 1:Well, I haven't and I can't assume that everybody listening has.
Speaker 2:Wait a minute. I keep talking about Treasure Island and Black Sails, but that was Long, john Silver.
Speaker 1:So maybe you don't know as much as you think.
Speaker 2:No, he's 100% in Our. Flag Means Death. Maybe I think he's not in those. Hang on. Okay, I looked it up. I was confused because I can picture him, but maybe I was getting confused. He is in Black Sails, but in one of the later seasons, so he is in the show Got it. But it's a prequel to Treasure Island, so I'm like well if he's in a later thing, maybe that?
Speaker 1:No, he's not. He's not in Treasure Island.
Speaker 2:He's talked about in Treasure Island.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, fair enough.
Speaker 2:So you were right. You were right. But yeah, I was thinking of Long John Silver.
Speaker 1:Right. So after his death he became a characterization that inspired the pirate archetype in literature.
Speaker 2:Well, he's also in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and they do the really cool thing where. Well, I guess he was famous for putting like sparklers or something in his beard. Uh-huh, yep, exactly Like sparklers or smoking that fuses in his hat, yeah yeah Something, and like they do that in Pirates and that's cool, it's scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a badass thing to do. It's like a party trick. You know that he used to make everybody quake in their boots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's terrifying. I mean, if someone, If someone just walks in on fire and is like I'm fine with this, why aren't you fine with this, Then you know I'm immediately at a disadvantage there you go.
Speaker 1:While Blackbeard certainly remains the most famous historic pirate, there are a few others you should know about if you really want to round out your pirate education. As I do If you're familiar with Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, which I am. I am alan is. You might recognize the name of the barbosa brothers. Barbosa means red beard in italian, which I guess a lot of the pirates are named blank color beard not to be confused with the red caps the red caps yeah, we talk about red caps a surprising amount goblin yeah on this podcast the barbosa.
Speaker 1:The barbosa brothers sailed from africa's barbary Coast and captured European ships, and so I think that's kind of interesting that they took that name Barbossa in the Disney movies, right.
Speaker 2:Where is the Barbary Coast?
Speaker 1:Okay, so we're just reading from Wikipedia. The Barbary Coast was the name given to the coastal regions of central and western North Africa, or more specifically, the Maghreb and Ottoman borderlands.
Speaker 2:Well, a big chunk of Africa.
Speaker 1:A lot of it seems to be northern. It's sort of like looking at a map. It's kind of like Like Morocco. Right, exactly Like what was across the river from.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:You know the river, what was across the sea from. Yeah Okay, sir Francis drake, in my opinion, is kind of like the worst kind of pirate, because he was an above the board pirate, if you will, which means that he was commissioned by the english to attack spanish ships. Queen elizabeth the first even called him quote my pirate, end quote. But you know it's kind of like the spirit I feel like of being a pirate is not to be like hired by the royal family, you know, it's to be out there doing the good deed of taking down the rich and powerful abby.
Speaker 2:This is literally the plot of one of the pirates.
Speaker 1:The caribbean movies wow, they really have it all covered, huh I mean there's yeah, they do.
Speaker 2:Once barbosa comes back sorry spoilers he takes up that exact contract of working for the the queen yeah and just you know he becomes this pirate that turns on other pirates for money. But you know it's like it's pirate, right, do whatever the fuck you want, yeah, but he has his like little pardon. He pretends to be all royalty with his like fancy wig and stuff and everyone makes fun of him and that's like the whole plot point of like. What does it really mean? Right to be a pirate, you know yeah, yeah man.
Speaker 1:So while we're talking to, watch these movies.
Speaker 1:They come up all the time I've I've seen a lot of them, but they kind of jump the shark at some point and they become quite like. I remember when I was watching me my family would always go. You know, we were movie people, we would go to the pirates of the caribbean movies, but when the sea witch is like a hundred feet tall, it's just kind of like uh, you lost me a bit here on this one yeah, I mean once it gets a little, once it gets mythological it it is a bit.
Speaker 1:It's not scary anymore. It's like it gets like a little silly and cheesy sometimes, but it it kind of comes, it comes back okay, well, maybe I'll give him a go.
Speaker 2:Then what's the one? Well, so the one you're talking about is At World's End. But then what's the one with Javier Bardem? With where he's like the undead Spanish pirate?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's freaking cool, like I mean. He's the only saving grace of that movie.
Speaker 1:I mean I'll say like when the first Pirates came out, and there's that scene where all the skeletons are walking across the ocean floor.
Speaker 2:They weren't skeletons, they were zombies.
Speaker 1:Okay, but in the trailer before I knew that it was very spooky and very exciting at the time, like when that movie came out, it was very good and I watched it many, many times with my friends, you know. So I'm not trying to diminish the franchise, just think, at a certain point it got a little silly.
Speaker 2:The first movie is a masterpiece. It's not straight downhill, it's a bit of a bumpy road, but it does go down. Yeah, which is unfortunate. However, this is a very I know we are always uh about the latest and greatest here on lunedix radio hour that's right and disney has officially announced uh, johnny depp's replacement for the next pirates of the caribbean movie great, because we need to get abusive people out of powerful positions well, walt disney's dead I'm talking about johnny depp what's wrong with johnny depp?
Speaker 1:all right, I can't educate you on everything all the time, I just don't have time. So while we're talking about pirates, let's talk about walking the plank, because I went on a little side quest here, because I'm quite endlessly fascinated with how certain phrases from history linger on and others don't. But anyway, this was a style of execution that was used for special situations. A wooden plank was extended over the edge of a ship and captives were tied up so that they could not swim after the descent. The earliest known use of the phrase dates back to 1788. It appeared in the second edition of Francis Gross's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.
Speaker 2:Hold on. Can we get a copy of the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue?
Speaker 1:Doesn't it kind of remind you of, like Urban Dictionary?
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, this guy just started Urban Dictionary. Right, he really should have patented it.
Speaker 1:Yes, we can absolutely get a copy. Quote walking the plank a mode of destroying devoted persons or officers in a mutiny on shipboard, by blindfolding them and obliging them to walk on a plank laid over the ship's side by this means, as the mutineers suppose, avoiding the penalty of murder. End quote.
Speaker 2:Oh, I see, Because they're basically killing themselves.
Speaker 1:Baltic-based pirate John Durdrake was known for making all of his victims walk the plank in the late 1700s. In 1769, mutineer George Wood confessed to his chaplain in Newgate Prison that they had forced the officers to walk the plank. Of course, robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island is filled with instances of walking the plank three to be exact and I think a lot of us were first introduced to the practice, and probably the reason it's remained in the zeitgeist is from Peter Pan.
Speaker 2:You think so?
Speaker 1:I mean, I just remember watching that as, like I'm trying to think of. Ok, why would I as a kid in the 90s have been so familiar with walking the plank as pirates? And I think it must have been because it was in for me peter pan and I watched the animated peter pan disney movie a bit. But no other way would I have intersected with that little bit of knowledge does that happen in that movie? Yeah, they try to get. They try to get him to walk the plank but he can fly no, don't.
Speaker 2:That's a dumb way.
Speaker 1:That's the dumbest possible way to kill someone that can fly. I mean also Hook right. I think it happens in Hook too.
Speaker 2:Okay, Peter can still fly.
Speaker 1:No, I'm trying. I don't think they. I think the Lost Boys try to get Captain Hook to walk the plank into the crocodile's mouth.
Speaker 2:Crocodile's dead in hook. He's stuffed. That's the whole point. Okay, I'm talking about peter pan now okay.
Speaker 1:Well, what happens there? What I just said what happens? That the lost boys try to get captain hook to walk the plank into the alligator's mouth, because remember that scene where his legs do like a split into the alligator's jaw they gaslight him into walking his own plank no, they force him.
Speaker 2:They like storm the ship wow, there's like six of them okay, maybe no, there's way more than six.
Speaker 1:Maybe you need to watch peter pan I don't think I've ever seen it you've never seen peter pan oh my god, it's so good. I've seen hook a bunch yeah, well, I guess with robin williams yeah, yeah, he's pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you remember when you had to walk the plank and did a really bad job that wasn't the plank.
Speaker 1:It was literally called the plank. It was a plank. It was called, not off of a boat the game was called the plank okay, let's set the scene.
Speaker 1:It's like our third or fourth date. Alan brings me to a vr pop-up shop in new york city with his friend and hooks me up to a vr headset where there's like 50 other people in this room and I'm supposed to walk the plank off of the edge of a skyscraper and it's so realistic looking that I physically can't do it and him and his friend are just staring at me. And that was the moment we knew.
Speaker 2:You remember it very differently.
Speaker 1:Tell me how you remember it.
Speaker 2:So there you were, looking radiant. Well, I remember that too. Are you telling this or am I go ahead? And you said, alan, I just want to play vr. And I said, okay, what game do you want to play? You said this one. This one looks really, really fun. Yeah, and it's called the plank, and it's really simple. All you got to do is you put on the vr headset and there's a plank and you just walk and you just have to jump off, that's it, and you're just standing on solid ground the entire time. There's not even like a fake wooden plank to stand on Like you can feel it. You can, you know, tap your feet all over, but you just have to physically jump or step off. And you were too scared because it fucks your brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but don't you think this would have better prepared you for my reaction in Mexico? And you were too scared because it fucks your brain? Yeah, but don't you think this would have better prepared you for my reaction in mexico? And you were jumping off the edge of the cenote and I couldn't do it did I jump off?
Speaker 1:you jumped off immediately and then I, I was up there for like 20 minutes and everyone was chanting for me until I finally did it, because the lifeguard was like don't look down, look out. And then I was able to do it.
Speaker 2:Wait, I remember you did it, I did it.
Speaker 1:You did it five times.
Speaker 2:I don't remember that at all. I just remember watching you up there, not jumping.
Speaker 1:You think that I would have allowed the pressure for me and not you?
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:It's a dumb story to share with the world.
Speaker 1:All right, let's talk about legendary ships to share with the world. All right, let's talk about legendary ships. What's your favorite ship of?
Speaker 2:all time A real ship or a legendary ship.
Speaker 1:Doesn't matter. I think the one that I'm about to talk about is up there.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:The Flying Dutchman. I also think the Titanic is up there.
Speaker 2:That's a good one.
Speaker 1:Dating back to the 18th century. The Flying Dutchman is one of the most infamous ghost ships of all time. It originated with maritime legend around the Netherlands. The story goes that a captain, Captain Van der Decken, Captain Van der Decken. This is in the Netherlands, captain Van der Decken.
Speaker 2:Did he start the show?
Speaker 1:What is that? What are you saying?
Speaker 2:Van der Deck rules.
Speaker 1:So Captain Van der Decken was meant to port in the Cape of Good Hope but struggled because of a storm, so he was having issues getting the boat in. He swore that he would indeed dock, even if he had to keep trying until judgment day. And of course the story goes that the devil overheard him and the Dutchman was stuck at sea forever, similar to purgatory. The only cure was if he found a woman who loved him enough to swear allegiance to him forever, no matter his sentence. So no matter if he was stuck at sea forever or, you know, in hell, she would love him. He had the chance to go to shore once every seven years to look for such a woman. Furthermore, it became legend to see glimpses of the ghostly and condemned ship during storms. The story has inspired many plays, operas, poems, novels and films.
Speaker 2:Including the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
Speaker 1:God damn it. Wagner's opera from 1843, simply called the Flying Dutchman, along with John Boyle O'Reilly's poem of the same name, are incredibly famous. People also draw comparisons to the ghost ship from Coolridge's the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and of course, Disney's the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise plays with this legend in a big way.
Speaker 2:And please elaborate.
Speaker 1:Well, you have the Black Pearl, right yeah, which is like the Flying Dutchman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then it has to outrun the Flying Dutchman, and it can't.
Speaker 1:Because the Flying Dutchman was faster.
Speaker 2:Well, it depends. If the Pearl has the wind, they're okay, but if they don't have the wind, the Dutchman wins.
Speaker 1:Which one are you rooting for?
Speaker 2:Abby. This is such a plot point of the whole series.
Speaker 1:Who's on board which one?
Speaker 2:It depends on which movie and who's captain of which ship.
Speaker 1:Okay, well then I can't really have an opinion. You can I do. What's your opinion? I asked you two minutes ago.
Speaker 2:I mean, the Dutchman is like a big well. It can go underwater, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like that's kind of how they win, because they don't need wind to sail around, they use the tides. They don't use the tides, they can control water, sort of Just like a magically self-propelled ship. But the Pearl is just a mildly enchanted ship. That just is stupidly fast.
Speaker 1:The first reference of the Flying Dutchman is from a text called Travels in Various Parts of Europe, asia and Africa During a Series of 36 Years and Upwards, and that's the title from 1790 by John MacDonald. It reads, quote the weather was so stormy that the sailors said that they saw the Flying Dutchman. So stormy that the sailors said that they saw the flying Dutchman. The common story is that the Dutchman came to the Cape in distress of weather and wanted to get into harbor but could not get a pilot to conduct her and was lost in that. Ever since, in very bad weather, her vision appears. End quote. Five years later, george Barrington wrote this as part of his work A Voyage to Botany Bay.
Speaker 2:Was he part of the Barrington Bears?
Speaker 1:Quote.
Speaker 1:I had often heard of the superstition of sailors respecting apparitions and doom, but had never given much credit to the report. It seems that some years since a Dutch man of war was lost off the Cape of Good Hope and every soul on board perished, her consort weathered the gale and arrived soon after at the Cape. Having refitted and returning to Europe, they were assailed by a violent tempest nearly in the same latitude In the night watch. Some of the people saw, or imagined they saw, a vessel standing for them under a press of sail, as though she would run them down. One in particular affirmed it was the ship that had foundered in the former gale and that it must certainly be her or the apparition of her, but on its clearing up. But let's talk about some of the reported sightings. And the supposed phantom was called the Flying Dutchman and then from the Dutch, the English seamen got the information. End quote.
Speaker 1:But let's talk about some of the reported sightings throughout history.
Speaker 1:One of the most famous sightings, mainly because of the creed of people who claimed to see the ship, was when the future King George V and Prince Albert Vicar of Wales wrote about her in their own ship's log from 1881.
Speaker 1:Quote July 11th at 4 am, the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows, a strange red light, as a phantom ship, all aglow in the mists of which light, the masts, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came up on the port bow, where also the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly saw her, as did the quarter-deck midshipman who was sent forward at once to the forecastle, but on arriving there was no vestige nor any sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or right away to the horizon, the night being clear, in the sea calm.
Speaker 1:Thirteen persons altogether saw her At 10.45 am. The ordinary seaman who had this morning reported the flying Dutchman fell from the foretop mast, crossed trees on the top gallant forecastle and was smashed to atoms End. Quote that log. I find really interesting because, again, this was a log from the ship that the future King George V and Prince Albert Vicar of Wales were on. They wrote that not only did 13 people on this boat claim to see the Flying Dutchman, because of this red glow and this strange phantomness associated with it, that the person who initially claimed that then fell from this top mast and was, you know, smithereened, if you will.
Speaker 2:Smithereened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty sad. So it's a bit of a spooky ship log entry. I think A real historic ship log. Sure, what do you think Alan? What do you think of the Flying Dutchman?
Speaker 2:I don't think it's real. Seems too made up.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess that's a good point. A more modern example of a ghost ship is the Mary Celeste.
Speaker 2:Oh, here we go.
Speaker 1:She was an American merchant ship that was discovered floating under partial sail on December 4th 1872, with absolutely no one on board. The Mary Celeste had departed New York City for Genoa bringing 1,700 bottles of alcohol to England on November 7th 1872. She was captained by Benjamin Spooner Briggs, who wrote to his mother a few days before the voyage.
Speaker 2:Quote His middle name was Spooner.
Speaker 1:Spooner. His friends called him Spoonzy.
Speaker 2:Is that true?
Speaker 1:Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2:I hope he had friends.
Speaker 1:So this is his letter to his mother. Quote Our vessel is in beautiful trim and I hope we shall have a fine passage, end quote. That's foreshadowing. We also know that Briggs was a cautious captain. For example, when the ship set sail from Pier 50 in Manhattan, he decided to dock just off the coast of Staten Island for a few days because of bad weather. The ship was discovered adrift by a passing Canadian brigantine called the Des Gradia, which was actually captained by a friend of the Mary Celeste's captain. So you can imagine how distressed he was to see that the Des Gradia also left New York City on the same route, but a week later. So that captain was Captain Morehouse. He at first observed the erratic and random movements of the Mary Celeste as extremely concerning and decided to board.
Speaker 1:The Mary Celeste was still provisioned with six months of food when found. Her lifeboat was missing and the last log entry was dated 10 days earlier. The glass covering over the compass was broken. The captain and crew's personal belongings were thrown about, but not missing, including a sword that was found under the captain's bed. So weapons were left, items were left. No one on board was ever heard from again. One thing about the Mary Celeste. That's fascinating is that she was actually thought to be a cursed ship From the time of her maiden voyage. She was met with accidents, sick crew members and collisions. She was eventually sold because she was run aground. The new owner renamed her from Amazon her original name to Mary Celeste.
Speaker 2:She bought her from Amazon.
Speaker 1:Her original name was Amazon.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:And then they sort of tried to hide her as not a cursed ship and buried the legends by renaming her rebranding her, if you will, typical. They brought on a new marketing officer, so as the mary celeste. She had an uneventful bit of time doing timber and trade runs to england and the west indies. But when she was discovered abandoned, the ship's interior was wet and damaged, but still functional. She wasn't leaking and some sails were raised right. So it's kind of this question of okay, there there's damage on the inside, she's wet on the inside, she's not leaking, she's not sinking. What happened here?
Speaker 1:Oddly, most of the ship's papers and navigational equipment were missing. The missing people included Captain Brigg, his wife, an infant daughter and seven crew members. The last log entry was dated 8 am on November 25th and positioned the boat about 400 miles from where it was discovered, off the coast of the Azores. Following this entry, it seems the crew were navigating fairly accurately and then suddenly there was a deviation to the north. It's very atypical for an experienced captain like Briggs to leave the boat, especially when it was clear the ship was not going to sink. So let's talk about some leading theories.
Speaker 2:I have my own.
Speaker 1:Great. I cannot wait to hear them. First and foremost, there are many theories around conspiracy, For example that Briggs and Morehouse were in cahoots for insurance money, or that Morehouse lured Briggs and crew off of the ship and staged the incident for salvage rewards. Mostly they have no evidence, though, and this can easily be disproven. Another major theory is mutiny. At the time, investigators thought they found strange marks on the ship, which could have been caused by an axe coupled with bloodstains. However, it was later proven that the presumed bloodstains were not blood and the markings were normal wear and tear. Personal effects were still intact.
Speaker 1:Some conspiracy theorists believe that aliens could be at work here, and I must admit I love the aesthetic of a maritime alien abduction from the 1800s. But why would a lifeboat be missing? I think the most relevant theory is that extreme weather scared off the crew. Maybe they thought that they were closer to the shore than they were and could make it out in a lifeboat. And just for context, that November hundreds of vessels had been lost to rocky seas and storms, so it was a particularly bad weather year.
Speaker 1:Another theory that I am partial to is that there could have been a small explosion from the cargo because, again, it was so much alcohol, or the crew thought that an explosion was inevitable, scaring them off of the ship. They took the navigational equipment, they left most of their stuff because they were going on a small lifeboat and they were like, okay, we're going to make it to shore. But my thought is that if the captain and crew were convinced the ship was going to explode for some reason, perhaps because of the cargo, it makes sense that they would have gone onto the lifeboat again with only the navigational equipment, especially because it was fairly common for cargo ships containing alcohol to endure minor explosions and fires. So maybe they thought we're just going to wait out, you know, this small explosion and we'll come back. So those are my theories, Alan. What are yours?
Speaker 2:You ever fired a gun?
Speaker 1:Never have you.
Speaker 2:So when you fire a gun, have you, when you fire a gun, an explosion is made Right and then in that brief moment there's a vacuum and then a bunch of atmosphere rushes back into that little pocket and that's also like what's used to collect like DNA evidence from firing, because it like sucks a bunch of stuff into like this little area of the gun. That's what happened.
Speaker 1:Explain.
Speaker 2:A space time event exploded and then ripped back in and sucked all the crew members in, but left the gun, which was the ship.
Speaker 1:So you think it was paranormal?
Speaker 2:That is the exact analogy and theory presented in the very stupid movie the Haunting of the Mary Celeste.
Speaker 1:Which you just watched, moments ago.
Speaker 2:I did and it's stupid. So, you don't recommend it. I mean, it had some cool ideas, but the execution was really dumb. So this woman was like a paranormal investigator in modern day, being like I got to get to the bottom of this mystery. And so she charters a boat and he's like what? Why? It's like really old. She's like trust me.
Speaker 2:And so we get out there and then like yeah, some spooky stuff starts happening and like like it's that pocket of the ocean, that's like a little space-time anomaly yeah and then, lo and behold, one by one, the crew members on that boat start going a little nuts and then disappearing because they keep getting ripped into this like water dimension. Yeah, it's kind of dumb, but I like the idea of like a little, like you know how, sometimes you have hauntings that are, uh, the ghosts are tied to the space.
Speaker 2:And you know, even after the space is demolished and rebuilt, people still say they see the ghosts because this was the, the space where it once happened yeah, exactly like an echo yeah, and that's like what it is, but instead it's like for an above water section of the ocean, sure, like, yeah, sure, that's kind of neat, I like that, but it was a dumb movie. And apparently she was also like fooling everyone because she was really just searching for her daughter that I guess went missing on this boat hundreds of years ago and I'm like you lost me here. Are you old, or did your daughter get lost on another expedition? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Obviously I was following this super, yeah, this movie with a fine tooth comb, uh, but that's fine. There, the, the captain was kind of cool and you know he's like every time the woman was like doing dumb things that was absolutely sabotaging the safety of his vessel. He would be the only sane person until she like showed him some paranormal stuff. He's like, oh, it's kind of cool, but that was. That was basically the whole movie.
Speaker 1:Sorry for the spoilers, it's dumb well, yeah, I don't think you're really selling it to people. So why has the story of mary celeste, one of many stories of ghost ships, been immortalized, right even to the point where there's all these films about it we can thank? Thank our friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for that. Doyle took the facts of the Mary Celeste events and re-skinned them for his story called J Habakkuk, jefferson's Statement, which was published in 1884. He called the ship the Marie Celeste I know quite different from the truth and he called the captain Tibbs. So really creative liberties. He took Captain Tibbs From Briggs to Tibbs, from Mary Celeste to Marie Celeste. I also don't recommend seeking this story out because it takes a blatantly racist twist, dependent on mutiny and kidnap.
Speaker 2:A story from the 1800s takes a racist twist.
Speaker 1:Who would have thought? Though there are many ghost ships, I want to mention only one more ghost ships. I want to mention only one more. The legend of the ghost ship of north umberland strait claims that people have seen a ship sailing ablaze down the passageway and I thought it was pretty metal to see, kind of like this ghost ship on fire. The legend is at least 200 years old. As horrified folks observe, a beautiful schooner with four masts slowly becomes totally engulfed in flames. It's thought to be a warning that a storm is coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah you just. What's the weather going to be like today? A giant burning ship. I think it's going to rain.
Speaker 1:Some onlookers have even described seeing crew members on board. In 2008, two people claimed to see the ship in Tatamaguchi Bay. It was described as a bright, white and gold ship. Some have pointed to natural phenomena like St Elmo's fire to explain these sightings.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I feel like lots of ships over the years have burned, probably engraved themselves in people's memory because, like holy cow, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know that you don't believe in the paranormal and I do, but I do think it's fun. It believe in the paranormal and I do, but I do think it's fun. It's a fun kind of like you know twist to believe in the maritime paranormal, not convinced, though, huh.
Speaker 2:So I mean, we did this whole series on ghost ships very, very long ago not series episode. We did an episode on ghost ships. I don't think we even had stories then.
Speaker 1:I think there was one that I wrote was it good I doubt it tracks.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if we had talked, if I had seen this yet, but I did see a really cool ghost ship movie not the movie ghost ship, which is freaking awesome I.
Speaker 2:That scene will be forever burned in my brain yep, can't tell you anything else that happens in that movie, but that opening, holy cow, one of the best openings of any film. If they had just like put that opening over any one of the best openings of any film. If they had just like put that opening over any other movie, that other movie is much better there you go but I did see a blood vessel.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know if we ever talked about this one I don't know, it's freaking cool okay, tell us more so it takes place just after world war ii or world war ii or world war one, one of the world wars and, like everyone is on their way home and the movie opens, in a lifeboat a bunch of allied soldiers plus civilians that were just traveling the atlantic when they got hit with a storm. And now they're in a lifeboat. They come across a vessel and, of course, they hail it down because they're in a lifeboat and they get on board and there's nobody there and like that suspicious right yeah and the further they dig, they realize that it is vacant for a very, very important reason which is what well, do you want the spoiler?
Speaker 2:because I don't want to give the spoiler. Just watch the movie. It's freaking cool blood vessel we've seen.
Speaker 2:It's a common trope where, in a last ditch effort for survival, our group of survivors climb onto a boat only to find out that there's no one else on the boat, or is there, and then it's either ghosts, paranormal. There was a plague on the boat. They've now stepped into an alternate dimension. You know these are all different tropes that have popped up, and this one was particularly cool and followed my preferred formula of really, really scary, intense and then turns total badass.
Speaker 1:Fun. Okay, that's great.
Speaker 2:That's a good sell.
Speaker 1:That also kind of reminds me of a video game that you and I played called man from Medan.
Speaker 2:I think it's man of Medan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it starts out where you're scuba diving, which is fun and cool in modern times, and then the little vessel you're on. There's some drama with pirates and all that, but you come upon a ghost ship and it's quite scary to have to play the game and board the ship Right, and there's a lot of jump scares. It's a horror game and I don't want to give a lot away, but a lot of the themes that we've talked about are quite relevant to that game oh for sure, everything starts hunky dory.
Speaker 2:Everyone's on vacation yeah and then modern day pirates show up and kind of crash the party and in a last ditch, again a last ditch effort for survival. People are kind of fleeing and the out of the nowhere, this gigantic ship it's like r Rusting Hulk is right there, so they climb on board. Paranormal stuff ensues, because it's a holdover ship from World War II.
Speaker 1:It's part of the Dark Anthology series and to me I think that it's kind of like a watered-down version of Until Dawn or what's the query.
Speaker 2:Until Dawn is not part of that series. I know that's what I'm saying. It is.
Speaker 1:Until Dawn and the Quarry are so much better than the Dark Anthology series. But the Dark Anthology games help scratch our itch while we wait for the next big video game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fun. The whole series is fun. Some are better than others.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like a play your way through your own horror movie, which I love Play your way through your own horror movie, which I love.
Speaker 2:While it's much more straightforward than, say, than like Until Dawn or any of the bigger budget ones, it's still just a super fun playthrough and it's really quick. It's a good partner game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was really fun to lock ourselves in our apartment, if you will, for an evening or two and play through it as if we were watching a movie like a choose your own adventure movie together.
Speaker 2:So that was nice movie like a choose your own adventure movie together.
Speaker 1:So that was nice and big fan of any game that can be beaten quickly. Yes, yes, our patience is.
Speaker 2:My patience is limited no, we just have adult schedules it's true for real ships.
Speaker 1:Ship graveyards can refer to either actual places where scrapped ship parts are piled or places where, due to dangerous circumstances, the wrecks of boats seem to pile up. So let's talk about the latter.
Speaker 2:I mean it's crazy. It's just like elephant graveyards. We don't know why ships gather there to die, but it's undeniable.
Speaker 1:That's a good joke.
Speaker 2:You like that, huh?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Seven Stones Reef is off the coast of Cornwall. The reef is nearly two miles long and is made up of multiple groupings of rocks. There are at least 71 confirmed and known wrecks here, but all in there's thought to be up to 200 shipwrecks. And remember, I think, all the way in episode one of Horror on the High Seas I talked about how there's 3 million shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean floor estimated. It's just kind of crazy, those numbers.
Speaker 1:Blackpool and the Fylde Coast are also considered a ship graveyard. This one is located in Lancaster, england, home to at least 22 shipwrecks. There have also been many, many shipwrecks off the skeletal coast in Namibia. In Sweden there's also a ship cemetery, though this cemetery was intentional. Between 1500 and 1650, six ships were sunk here to create an artificial barrier. The idea was that this would protect the nearby naval base from the entry of unwanted boats. Though we don't know the oldest shipwreck, modern humans have rediscovered some very old ones. Many point to the Dokos wreck, which dates back to between 2700 and 2200 BCE. They discovered this by dating the clay pottery found on the wreck, so that's how they were able to date it 2700 BCE Wow.
Speaker 1:The remains are in between 50 and 100 feet of water and are located off the coast of Greece in the Aegean Sea. There is also a famous wreck in Kyrenia. This wreck is located near Cyprus and was excavated in the 1960s. It was about 2,300 years old, which makes the ship a contemporary with Alexander the Great. The main cargo on board were over 400 different wine amphora from different ports. A lot of the wine also had the marks of potters from Rhodes so some scholars believe that that was the home port of the ship and 9,000 almonds that were perfectly preserved.
Speaker 2:Who counted?
Speaker 1:them Some little science, nerd, you know.
Speaker 2:These aren't as old, but I just forwarded you a very pressing article from country102.5.com about the five most haunted shipwrecks off the coast of Cape Cod. I don't know why all these pirates are up in Cape Cod, but they were, and a bunch of their pirate treasure was salvaged from their pirate wrecks and now is on display in the Pirate Museum.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting, it says here that Cape cape cod is often referred to as the ocean graveyard is that crazy?
Speaker 2:I guess we know where we're going. Where the hell is. Trip where the hell is. Why are pirates going to cape cod?
Speaker 1:I don't think it's pirates, I think it's ships. Right, it's a huge ship. It's a huge port area but what a pirate.
Speaker 2:Oh, I guess they go for the other boats why are you talking about pirates? Because there's pirate ships. You can't sink a pirate ship without pirates.
Speaker 1:The Wida Galley from 1717 is perhaps Cape Cod's most famous wreck. I'm reading from the Country 102.5 article. It was a slave ship and it was commandeered by the pirate Black Sam Blamey and laden with a fortune. Interesting, but is it haunted?
Speaker 2:The name of the article says it is.
Speaker 1:Doesn't say anything in here about being haunted sure doesn't.
Speaker 2:How do?
Speaker 1:you know, unless you're scuba diving. How do you know that a shipwreck is haunted?
Speaker 2:why would scuba diving matter?
Speaker 1:because how are you interacting with the haunted ship unless you're on it? You got me there, abby do you believe in haunted ghost ships if you don't believe in legendary ships?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about Davy Jones's Locker.
Speaker 2:Oh good, so we're back to Pirates of the Caribbean.
Speaker 1:Davy Jones's Locker is a metaphor for the vastness of the ocean. Some liken it to an abyss, but more so it's a reference to the graveyard at the bottom of the ocean floor for sailors and ships alike. It's estimated, again, that there are over three million shipwrecks on the ocean's floor and even more people right that have gone down with these ships. Davy Jones is often described as the sailor's devil. The first reference in written work dates back to 1726 in Daniel Defoe's work the Four Years Voyages of Captain George Roberts. Quote some of Lowe's company said they would look out some things and give me along with me when I was going away, but Ruffell told them they should not, for he would toss them all into Davy Jones' locker if they did. End quote. Obviously the language there is a little choppy, but you get the point. But I am partial to this quote from some years later, in 1751, from Tobias Smollett's the Adventures of Peregrine Pickle.
Speaker 2:By who?
Speaker 1:Tobias Smollett.
Speaker 2:Sorry, what was the name?
Speaker 1:The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle.
Speaker 2:Can you please describe Peregrine Pickle?
Speaker 1:Maybe you should read it, but here's a quote from it. Quote this same Davy Jones, according to sailors, is the friend that presides over all of the evil spirits of the deep and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes, shipwrecks and other disasters to which seafaring life is exposed, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe end. Quote.
Speaker 2:Wait, peregrine Pickle, is this reef?
Speaker 1:Peregrine Pickle is just, I think, a sea-timey person who went on some adventures, and this is a quote from the book All right.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Peregrine Pickle, probably wondering who I am. I'm just a sea-timey guy going on some adventures.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Come along with me, you get it. There's much speculation to the root of the legend of Davy Jones's locker and how the name Davy Jones became associated with so much negativity. But one theory relates back to a dictionary definition of one David Jones and another to a newspaper article, but it seems it's been hard to pin down with any certainty. For historians this is the perfect segue into the superstitions of sailors.
Speaker 2:Whoa, whoa, whoa. We haven't talked about davy jones personified personified in pirates of the caribbean, that's correct okay, you have 20 seconds what do you mean?
Speaker 1:go describe him, please he's a man in this in he has a actual chest at the bottom of the ocean the chest is not in the ocean.
Speaker 2:That is a big plot point. The chest is on land well, that seems silly.
Speaker 1:It goes against everything that it should have been based on historically.
Speaker 2:The chest is on land. Well, that seems silly. It goes against everything that it should have been based on historically. He can't go on land because Davy Jones commands the Dutchman, so he has the same curse of can only step on land every once every seven years. That said, he draws a lot of his look from Cthulhu.
Speaker 1:Finally, we're circling back to Cthulhu, because last episode you gaslit me into telling me that it was stupid to even be talking about him.
Speaker 2:He's got the tentacle face, but he also has a big crab claw, which Cthulhu does not have.
Speaker 1:No, they had to take some artistic liberties.
Speaker 2:Also, Cthulhu does not captain a sea vessel.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe not in the original.
Speaker 2:He doesn't need to. He hates sea vessels. Sea vessels are his undoing. Why are they his undoing? Because in the stupidest ending of any book ever, the protagonist says okay, so I lived through this, so like you know what happens, but I'm just gonna tell you anyways, and it's still gonna suck. So I like rode really fast and I bumped into him and got him.
Speaker 1:All right, anything else you want to say about Davy Jones and his locker?
Speaker 2:Nothing except that he's played by the fantastic Bill Nye.
Speaker 1:You love Bill Nye. He's the best, he's the best. So this is the perfect segue into the superstitions of sailors, because this is a Dark History podcast. We're going to talk about some of the unlucky omens. Red sky at night sailors delight. Red sky in the morning sailors take warning.
Speaker 1:This age-old rhyme is a very well known example of a mariner's superstition. This one, however, is based in some reality. I'm going to quote from Wikipedia here just to explain the science, so I don't fuck it up. Quote this saying actually has some scientific validity, although it assumes storm systems will approach from the west, and is therefore generally correct, only at mid-latitudes where, due to the rotation of the earth, prevailing winds travel east to west. If the morning skies are red, it is because clear skies over the horizon to the east permit the sun to light the undersides of moisture-bearing clouds. Conversely, to see red clouds in the evening, sunlight must have a clear path from the west. So therefore, the prevailing westerly wind must be bringing clear skies. End quote. It is also believed to be unlucky to set sail on a Friday. It is bad luck to change the name of a boat. Sailors often got tattoos of a rooster and a pig on each foot because they thought this would save them from drowning. No bananas or women allowed on board. Why?
Speaker 2:no bananas.
Speaker 1:That's just the truth. Why? The superstition that bananas are bad luck dates back to 1700s, when many ships carrying bananas were lost or ill-fated.
Speaker 2:Oh, those monkey pirates.
Speaker 1:Red heads were thought to be bad luck. Passing the salt directly to another sailor was bad luck. Turning a loaf of bread upside down, stirring tea with a knife or fork, it was also bad luck for a wife to say goodbye or call out to her sailor husband before the voyage. After they left the house, whistling or singing into the wind was considered bad luck, because it was thought that it could conjure up a storm. Cutting your nails, hair or beard was considered bad luck. Maybe that's why some of the pirates had beard names. Losing a hat overboard was a sign of bad luck to come, and that's just to name a few.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just lost your hat. That's bad luck.
Speaker 1:Conversely, cats are seen as good luck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's also because they eat the mice on board and the rats so they don't get into all the provisions.
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of superstitions have a root in something right and then you have Unsinkable Sam. Who's Unsinkable Sam? You don't know about Unsinkable Sam. No, unsinkable Sam was a cat that I was gonna say served during World War II, but you know as much as a cat can serve. But he survived three different shipwrecks somehow. Just the ship went down and the cat was swimming around and being okay and was plucked out of the water three separate times.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:I mean, everyone called him Unsinkable Sam, but his real name was Oscar.
Speaker 1:Why did they call him Sam?
Speaker 2:I mean, it just sounds better than Unsinkable Oscar Sure. Ian Fleming had a quote about Unsinkable Sam it. Ian Fleming had a quote about Unsinkable Sam it says once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
Speaker 1:Oh, Unsinkable Sam. I'll have to look him up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the ultimate saboteur. So apparently he was on board a Nazi vessel that was sank by the Royal Navy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they plucked this cat out of the water. And then he was on this Royal Navy ship that then got hit and sank and again the cat was plucked out of the water. And there was a third Royal Navy ship that sank and the cat was again plucked out of the water.
Speaker 1:So he's really a survivor.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about two different novels before we kind of wrap out this old timey ship section. The first is a modern series, master and Commander, written by Patrick O'Brien, and my father is a huge fan of this series. The story takes place during the Napoleonic Wars, and also in this vein is the Sea Wolf by Jack London, which tells the story of a boat that collides with another boat in the San Francisco Bay. Speaking of superstition and bad luck, let's talk about the sinking of the Titanic, but first let's discuss the sinking of the SS Arctic, and there's actually a beautiful memorial to a lot of the people who perished with the sinking of the SS Arctic in Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery.
Speaker 1:On September 27, 1854, the SS Arctic sank about 50 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The tragedy was caused by a collision with another smaller ship, the SS Vesta. The Arctic sank four hours after the hit. During those four hours, there was panic among the passengers and crew as folks struggled for access to lifeboats and attempted to make rafts from debris. The ship was one of the collins line of ships. Of the estimated 400 souls on board, only 88 survived, most of whom were crew members. None of the women or children survived. This disaster is marked by the fact that the crew prioritized saving their own lives over the lives of the passengers. Typical, which I mean I kind of fucking understand. You know, you have these rich people on board.
Speaker 1:They're useless Eat the rich Eat the rich. A media frenzy spiraled after the event, newspapers calling out the actions of the crew. So the plot. In Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery that's dedicated to this event has over 70 burials. It's a Victorian-era monument that was designed by john m moffitt and I've been to it several times and photographed it and taken videos, so I'll I'll post something when this episode comes out so you guys can see the visuals of it. There's also a depiction of the arctic sinking in the center of the monument. The silver lining is that the sinking of the ss arctic caused massive maritime safety reform. The arctic had only six lifeboats space for less than half of the people on board, but the designers of the Titanic didn't take this disaster seriously enough. Fourteen years before the sinking of the Titanic, a novella called Futility was released about the sinking of a fictional ship called the Titan Pretty similar.
Speaker 2:I think I see where this is going.
Speaker 1:Not only that, but the novel seemed to strangely and morbidly predict the other aspects of the tragedy. For example, the ship in the novella also hits an iceberg, and both the Titan and the Titanic did not have enough lifeboats for the passengers on board. The ships were also fairly similar in size and passenger count. Futility was written by Morgan Robertson, who rejected claims that he was psychic. Futility was edited in 1912, after the sinking of the Titanic. So I think that's just really interesting, right that you have the SS Arctic, which happens before. Then you have this novel called Futility that talks about a ship called the Titan that hits an iceberg and sinks and doesn't have enough lifeboats on board, and all of that predates the actual sinking of the Titanic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a big coincidence that the exact well almost exact name in kind of like the same type of ship or same situations around the sinking came to play. I don't think there's anything supernatural about it.
Speaker 1:The Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank on April 15th 1912. As we all know from the movie, this was the result of the ship hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic mid voyage. The ship was heading to New York City from Southampton, england. 1,496 passengers and crew died. 2,224 total souls were on board.
Speaker 2:These are things that modern ships don't have to worry about. There's no icebergs anymore.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to say oh yeah, we have better safety measures for helicopter rescue.
Speaker 2:No, we have fossil fuels and global warming.
Speaker 1:At the time, this was the deadliest ship sinking of all time. The Titanic was thought to be an unsinkable ship. Her name came from the Titans of Greek mythology. But a lot of this was a result of intense competition and the need of these potential passengers to be given this dream experience, and it worked on that level. Some of the wealthiest people of their time were on board when the boat launched from the United Kingdom. So the Titanic really was a successful marketing campaign. Right, it was deemed the unsinkable ship, this huge technological advancement in ship and luxury experience. Right, and it worked. Because listen to the rich and famous who are on board John Jacob Astor, benjamin Guggenheim, isidore Strauss, who owned Macy's, eris Molly Brown, jp Morgan was supposed to be on board but changed his plans at the last minute Milton S Hershey, lady Duff Gordon, mystery writer Jacques Frutel, george Dunton Widener, the owner of the Philadelphia Traction Company and Broadway producer Henry B Harris, just to name a few.
Speaker 2:Also Leonardo DiCaprio.
Speaker 1:And Kate Winslet. Titanic was part of the White Star Line's Olympic class of ships. The idea was to build three ships, each measuring 882 feet long and 92.5 feet wide, making them the largest ships of their time. Construction on Titanic started in March of 1909 and continued for two years.
Speaker 1:Quoting from the Historycom article, quote on May 31st 1911, titanic's immense hull, the largest movable man-made object in the world at the time, made its way down the slipways and into the river Lagen in Belfast. More than 100,000 people attended the launching, which took just over a minute and went off without a hitch. The hull was immediately towed to a mammoth-fitting out dock where thousands of workers would spend most of the next year building the ship's decks, constructing her lavish interiors and installing the 29 giant boilers that would power her two main steam engines. End quote. The infamous watertight compartments of Titanic, which was the element that made Shipbuilder magazine deem the ship unsinkable, were actually part of the reason that she sank. While the bulkheads were watertight, the ship's designers left a space between the walls that only surpassed the waterline by a few feet, enabling water to travel from one compartment to the next.
Speaker 2:That was a bad design.
Speaker 1:Also famously. The other main issue was the lack of lifeboats. There were only 16 lifeboats and four collapsible devices. That meant that there were only seats and lifeboats for 1,178 of the 2,224 passengers on board. Even more startling is that her full capacity was over 3,300 people. This wasn't illegal, though. The number of lifeboats was both in compliance and actually exceeded the British Board of Trade's requirements. More than 700 of the passengers were in third class, greater in number than first and second class combined, which is something to think about when everybody also reflects on the famous first class passengers on board right. The majority of the life lost here were not the rich and famous.
Speaker 1:The Titanic departed from Southampton on April 10th, five days before the disaster. Almost immediately, the ship had two bizarre occurrences. The first was a coal fire in one of the bunkers and the second was a narrow miss with another ship called the SS New York. Despite warnings from other ships in the area, titanic did not alter course in an effort to avoid the iceberg, until a lookout spotted it from a crow's nest. At this point it was too late, though because of the reversal of the engines, she did sideswipe the mass instead of hitting it directly.
Speaker 2:Which apparently was bad.
Speaker 1:Yes, either way it would have been bad.
Speaker 2:Well, no, apparently it would have been survivable if they just hit straight on. I don't know one of the documentaries on all this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I believe it.
Speaker 2:It's because one too many compartments got punctured.
Speaker 1:Right at once. Yeah, the ship hit along its hull under the water, and many on board didn't even feel the collision. The ice tore a 300-foot gash along the hull. Fairly quickly, compartments started to fill with water and the bow of the ship started to slant downwards, which we all know from the movie. The architect of the ship, thomas Andrews, calculated that Titanic would stay afloat for an hour and a half tops, and the captain called for lifeboats to be loaded. In reality, she stayed afloat for almost three hours.
Speaker 2:What does Andrews know?
Speaker 1:The ship fell into chaos, such chaos, in fact, that the first lifeboat left with only 28 of its 65 seats filled.
Speaker 2:Well, they came back.
Speaker 1:Almost every lifeboat left under capacity. All of the sources for this series are in the first episode and they're also in the description of this episode, but I'm going to quote again from the Historycom article on Titanic. Quote Hundreds of human dramas unfolded between the order to load the lifeboats in the ship's final plunge. Men saw off wives and children, families were separated in the confusion and selfless individuals gave up their spots to remain with loved ones or allow a more vulnerable passenger to escape. In the end, 706 people survived the sinking of the Titanic. End quote. John Jacob Astor helped his pregnant wife onto a boat. He asked if he could accompany her and was rejected. He kissed her goodbye and drowned aboard the ship, as did Thomas Andrews, the architect, who was last seen staring at a painting of the ship in a smoking room alone. Isidor Strauss had the chance to leave on a lifeboat but didn't want the special treatment. His wife stayed behind with him and they went back to their cabin and died together, which I think is a pretty famous scene in Titanic. Also famously, molly Brown helped load lifeboats until she was forced into one, as she does in the movie. She urged the boat to go back for more survivors, but she's refused because they think that they'll be mobbed by those floating in the water and drowned. Guggenheim and his valet put on their formal clothes and declared quote we are dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen. End quote. And of course we know more of the stories of the rich and famous. But just as the majority of the souls on board were crew and third class, so were the majority of deaths At 2.20 am, titanic was fully perpendicular when she finally sank below the surface of the Atlantic.
Speaker 1:Another ship, the Carpathia, received the distress calls and picked up the survivors from the lifeboats, again 706 in total. Over the years, many conspiracy theories tied to this disaster have emerged, but one thing remains clear the sinking of the Titanic has felt like a moral allegory for many. The overconfidence and underpreparedness of the ship's creators resulted in a horrifying disaster and loss of life. Some compare Titanic to the Challenger space shuttle disaster. Both were cutting-edge modern technology and it was hard to accept, after so much hype and excitement, that they failed so miserably, so quickly. Another instance of flying too close to the sun. It wasn't until 1985 that the titanic wreck was located. The story of the titanic's tragic fate has been turned into one of the most popular and successful movies of our lifetime, so far produced, written and directed by j James Cameron.
Speaker 2:He's great.
Speaker 1:Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, a defining moment from my childhood the two VHS tapes. With a budget of $200 million, titanic brought in over $2.2 billion. Cameron had a fascination with shipwrecks and considered the RMS Titanic the quote Everest of shipwrecks. The film includes footage from the actual wreck, which Cameron and his crew shot at 12 times in 1995. Quoting from Wikipedia, quote Not true.
Speaker 2:As we learned from Jason Statham in the Meg 2, the Trench, it's only because you have air in your lungs. If you fill every cavity of your body with water, you can survive anything.
Speaker 1:That's right. Not only were the dives high risk, but adverse conditions prevented Cameron from getting the high quality footage that he wanted. During one dive, one of the submersibles collided with Titanicanic's hull, damaging both sub and ship and leaving fragments of the submersibles propeller scattered around the superstructure. The external bulkhead of captain smith's quarters collapsed, exposing the interior. The area around the entrance to the grand staircase was also damaged. End quote. So here he goes in. You know floppy fingers, cameron, so dedicated to you, know his work. And then he goes in. You know floppy fingers, cameron, so dedicated to you, know his work. And then he goes and he fucks up the thing that he's trying to, you know, immortalize, which is kind of ironic, I think.
Speaker 2:It's like hugging the puppy too hard.
Speaker 1:What does that mean? What is that? I don't like that, Alan. That's very dark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just wanted to pet the rabbits.
Speaker 1:You're making me nervous that you're holding my cat right now while you make these jokes. Quoting from James Cameron quote. It was an event that happened to real people who really died Working around the wreck for so much time. You get such a strong sense of the profound sadness and injustice of it and the message of it you think there probably aren't going to be many filmmakers who go to Titanic. There may never be another one. Maybe a documentarian end quote. I mean, he's just so full of himself I don't know.
Speaker 2:This guy goes wherever he wants. He goes to the bottom of the ocean, he goes even deeper into the abyss, he goes to freaking Pandora, you know, like wherever this guy gets what he wants.
Speaker 1:Has he been to space? You got to go through space to get to Pandora. That's a good point. So fun fact, Cameron actually sketched the portrait of Rose that Jack draws in the movie.
Speaker 2:He probably drew that before he came up with the idea for the movie and then just like filled in the face. Yeah, just filled in the gaps, filled in the boobs.
Speaker 1:Titanic swept awards season, bringing home four Golden Globes and 14 Academy Awards. I also want to talk about a film called A Night to Remember from 1958, which is also about the sinking of the Titanic. This version of the story is more focused on the characters and how they handle what's happening, versus the actual sinking of the ship. It's part of the Criterion collection and, by all accounts, is incredibly powerful.
Speaker 2:Let's not forget Ghostbusters 2, when the Titanic comes into port in New York and then all the ghosts leave the ship finally reaching their destination.
Speaker 1:Very cathartic for viewers.
Speaker 2:Wait, not their destination, it's the reverse, it's their destination it started in England. It was coming here. What, but isn't Jack an American?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he was in Europe, he was coming home.
Speaker 2:What's he doing there?
Speaker 1:Remember he's in Europe. He was coming home. What's he doing there? Remember, he's from Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:He was going to come home and bring her to his farm.
Speaker 1:I don't remember that. Well, maybe you didn't watch it close enough.
Speaker 2:I watched tape too.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you did All right. So one final thing that I want to discuss. It feels fitting for some reason to end with Castaways. Robinson Crusoe was first published on April 25th 1719. It was written by Daniel Defoe. In the novel, the main character is stranded on an island for 28 years. Many believe the story is based on the real-life person, alexander Selkirk. Alexander Selkirk was a Scottish privateer and Royal Navy officer who was marooned by his captain on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. Selkirk was marooned as punishment after he got into a fight with the captain over how seaworthy the ship was. Selkirk thought that the worm-infested boat wouldn't stay afloat much longer. He stayed behind on the island with very little supplies. He spent four years and four months as a castaway, putting notches in trees, chasing goats and reading his Bible, and I always kind of wonder how did goats get on this island?
Speaker 2:I mean, there's so many goats in Robinson Crusoe.
Speaker 1:That's yeah. This is the story that inspired that. He was eventually rescued by a band of privateers led by Captain Woods Rogers. As they stopped on the island At first he wasn't able to speak. He couldn't remember how to communicate with other humans, but eventually he gained minor celebrity status in England after the ordeal.
Speaker 2:He brought the goats back.
Speaker 1:That was the first time anyone else in the world had goats.
Speaker 2:That's right, that was the origin.
Speaker 1:Introduction of goats to society.
Speaker 2:Now they're an invasive species everywhere, that's right. Like the lanternfly, you're supposed to stomp on them.
Speaker 1:The film Cast Away from 2000 stars Tom Hanks as a man who becomes stranded on a deserted island in the South Pacific after a plane crash.
Speaker 2:You are not allowed to talk about Cast Away why you have not seen the movie. I love that movie so much and you have not seen it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to set you up to talk about it.
Speaker 2:No, I refuse, because I refuse to spoil anything about that incredible work of masterpiece.
Speaker 1:The film was such a success. It brought in over $429 million, which made it the third highest grossing film of 2000. Hanks won Best Actor at the Golden Globes and was nominated for the Best Lead at the Academy Awards.
Speaker 2:And Wilson won Best Supporting Actor.
Speaker 1:There you go. I know that that's the volleyball. I know a lot about that movie. I know because you've Googled it instead of just watching the damn thing, because I grew up when it was a movie and there was thousands of trailers and memes and jokes about wilson it's so good okay, alan, this leads us to the end of our horror on the high seas series. What are your conclusive thoughts on ocean horror? Remember, we talked about a lot of stuff. We talked about a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are your conclusive thoughts on ocean horror? We talked about a lot of stuff we talked about a lot yeah, what was your favorite part?
Speaker 1:I really liked the bermuda triangle stuff I really would I really liked the titanic and, and you would, the shipwreck stuff. What's your favorite part?
Speaker 2:I like talking about pirates of the caribbean yeah, which you did endlessly ghost ships are pretty cool.
Speaker 1:We love ghost ships.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to double down about. The scariest part generally of horror on the high seas is that water is unbreathable.
Speaker 1:Alright, there you go. Not to everybody.
Speaker 2:You take that away and you're left with only a few things.
Speaker 1:I don't know. A lot of the sea creature stuff that we were talking about still applies. A lot of the sea creature stuff that we were talking about still applies. A lot of the shipwreck stuff still applies.
Speaker 2:What do you mean? The shipwreck stuff?
Speaker 1:Pressure in the Mariana Trench still applies, your boat can still sink and you still have to swim in the middle of the Atlantic.
Speaker 2:If you could breathe water, you could go right to the bottom, fill your lungs, just like Jason Statham, and then walk to freedom.
Speaker 1:If you're in the middle of the Atlantic, do you know how far that is from land?
Speaker 2:It's far, yeah, but it's been done.
Speaker 1:It's been done, yeah, by who?
Speaker 2:There's this great episode where Superman's fighting Metallo.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:And he just like, knocks Metallo way the fuck out into the ocean. Who's Metallo? Metallo is this like guy that hates Superman.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And Lex Luthor turns him into a cyborg powered by kryptonite.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So it's like you know, he's basically indestructible. He's powered by kryptonite. What's Superman going to do? Well, he just throws him out into the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That's all you can do, really, and so he's made of metal. He goes right to the bottom and then he's forced to do nothing but like spend the next few months walking back to shore.
Speaker 1:Fascinating. Okay, well, thank you guys all for being here. This was a really fun one. I felt like it was a bit of an anthology series, right, because we talked about a lot, not incredibly deeply, but in a fun, hopefully, way that kept things moving.
Speaker 2:This is not the end, though.
Speaker 1:It's not the end. Because we have so many stories and I just want to say for so long this podcast was fueled on me having to write stories for these topics because nobody else was, we didn't have enough listeners, nobody knew about it and we had so many submissions, so many good submissions, very good, that I think we have 11 stories that we are going to present over the next few episodes you paired it down to 11, yeah and I couldn't possibly get it any tighter because they are so fucking good and it wow makes me honestly a bit emotional because it just seems to be a bit of a testament to you know to where, to our growth here and what's happened over the past few years.
Speaker 1:So thank you all for that. I am so excited to present these stories to you guys in the next few episodes. It will be the first time that we have had a multi-part lunatics library and I think that's really cool because so much of so much of the joy that we get from this podcast is being able to incorporate other people and create a community here. So very excited about that. And finally, please check out our Horror on the High Seas merch. We are so in love with the spooky design by our friend Pilar Kapp. If you head to lunaticsprojectcom and click on merch, you will see that design, plus tons of our other horrifying and spooky sweatshirts and tote bags and t-shirts and tanks. We really appreciate any purchases you guys make. It means a lot to us and it does help us keep going here on the podcast. So next time we will be back with some spooky ocean themed stories for you. Until then, stay well, stay safe and we'll talk to you soon. Bye, goodbye.
