Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs The Worlds Most Puzzling Mysteries Solved (14 page)

According to the captain's log, later found in Briggs's cabin, the voyage was uneventful until the last entry recorded on November 25, which noted that the ship had reached St. Mary's Island (now called Santa Maria) in the Azores. At that time the weather was deteriorating badly and the ship had been speeding along on a northeasterly wind toward the Azores. Captain Morehouse later testified that these strong winds soon turned into a torrential storm with gale-force gusts. This may explain why Captain Briggs had sailed the
Mary Celeste
to the north of St. Mary's Island in the hope of finding some relief from the harsh weather. Nothing else is known of the fate of the
Mary Celeste
or her crew, and nothing is known of their whereabouts between November 25 and December 4, when the crew of
Dei Gratia
found the
Mary Celeste
adrift halfway between the Azores and the Portuguese coastline. However, the official evidence provided at the subsequent inquiry in Gibraltar provides plenty of clues.

Oliver Deveau, the seaman in charge of the boarding party, found no lifeboat aboard the
Mary Celeste
, despite the generally accepted belief that the lifeboat remained secured to the deck, which added to the intrigue. There may have even been two lifeboats on board when the ship left New York. He found that the front and rear cargo hatches had been removed and placed on the deck with sounding rods nearby, suggesting the hold was being measured for water intake, or perhaps being aired, at the time the crew disappeared. Only one pump was working, and there was a great deal of standing water between the decks, with another three and a half feet in the hold. However, despite his noting that the ship was a “thoroughly wet mess with the captain's bed soaked through and not fit to sleep in,” Deveau declared the ship seaworthy and sound enough to sail around the world in his view.

He also recorded that although some of the rigging and the foresails had been lost, they had not been lashed properly and might have come adrift at any point. The jib, the fore-topmast staysail, and the fore lower topsail were set and the rest of the sails were all furled, suggesting the crew were already making ready to raise anchor and were in the process of setting the sails at the time they disappeared. There was ample freshwater and food in the galley, but curiously the heavy iron stove had been knocked out of its retaining chocks and was lying upturned on the deck.

A large water barrel, usually held in place, was loose and rolling free, and the steering wheel had not been lashed into position (normal procedure when abandoning ship). There were strange cuts on the rail and hatch where the lifeboat tied to the main hatch had been axed free, rather than untied, and part of the railing had been hacked away to allow the lifeboat to be launched quickly. The apparently bloodstained sword had, in fact, been cleaned with lime, which had oxidized the blade red. Solly Flood had known this, but chose to withhold that information from the court. Finally, and mysteriously, the ship was missing the American flag so proudly displayed as she left New York. It is clear that the
Mary Celestewas
abandoned in great haste, but the question is why Captain Briggs would desert a perfectly good ship for a small lifeboat. What happened on board to cause an experienced captain and crew to jump off the ship and into a tiny lifeboat, where they would be in far greater danger, when it must have been obvious the
Mary Celeste
was in no danger of sinking?

James H. Winchester, part owner of the ship, suggested at the time that the cargo of raw alcohol could have given off powerful fumes and that this might have gathered in the hold and formed an explosive cocktail. He speculated that a spark caused by the metal strips reinforcing the barrels rubbing against each other could have ignited this, or that perhaps a naked flame used to inspect the hold could have caused a vapor flash, not strong enough to create any fire damage but frightening enough to suggest to the captain and crew that the whole cargo was about to explode. Furthermore, Oliver Deveau stated at the salvage hearing that he thought something had panicked the crew into believing the ship was about to sink and so they had taken to the lifeboat. The theory fits the evidence almost perfectly, but does not explain all the water found on board or the heavy water butt and iron stove being knocked out of their secure fastenings. The clock with backward-rotating hands was not as mysterious as first thought after Deveau explained that it had been placed upside down, evidently by mistake.

A more recent theory, though, has at last provided a far more credible explanation as to what happened on board that morning—one that even the ingenious Conan Doyle would not have dreamed up. Not a waterspout or tornado at sea, but a seaquake (see also “The Mysterious Disappearance of the Lighthouse Keepers of Eilean Mor,” page 90). Could an offshore earthquake finally provide the answer mystery lovers have spent over a hundred and forty years searching for? The United States Naval Research Laboratory has recorded that a major seaquake has occurred within a short distance of the island of Santa Maria every year since records began. On November 1, 1755, just over a century before the
Mary Celestewas
found, an earthquake along the same fault line destroyed the port of Lisbon in Portugal. Falling buildings and the subsequent tsunami killed approximately one hundred thousand people. The section of ocean bed known as the East Azores Fracture Zone is thirty to forty miles southwest of Santa Maria, while approximately twenty miles northeast of the island lurks the Gloria Fault. This area is one of the seaquake capitals of the world, and the
Mary Celeste
was berthed right on top of it on the morning of November 25, 1872.

Dr. Lowell Whiteside, a leading American geophysicist, was asked in an interview to confirm if a seaquake might have taken place near Santa Maria on November 25, 1872. Whiteside started by pointing out that as seismological instruments were not then available, the only earthquakes recorded would have been the ones that were strong enough to be obvious, or in which there had been survivors. He went on to confirm: “The Azores is a highly seismic region and earthquakes often occur; usually they are of moderate to large size.” He then added: “An 8.5 magnitude seaquake did occur in the Azores in late December 1872 and that was recorded. This was the largest in the area for over one hundred years and it is probable that many large foreshocks and aftershocks would have occurred locally within a month either side of this event.” The 8.5 magnitude earthquake in December 1872 was reported on every island of the Azores, such was its scale, but foreshocks and aftershocks would not necessarily have made the news and therefore would not have been recorded.

Newly armed with evidence of a major earthquake and “highly probable” foreshocks at exactly the time
Mary Celeste
was known to be in the area, investigators appeared to have hit upon a perfect solution to the mystery. A seaquake would cause a vessel the size of the
Mary Celeste
to shudder violently and, when directly over the fault line, to bounce up and down as the waves were forced vertically toward the surface. This would explain the topsails being partly set, as the two crew members high in the rigging would certainly have been thrown off and into the sea. Other sailors have witnessed craft caught in a seaquake and report that at times the ship would be completely surrounded by a wall of water, explaining why
Mary Celestewas
wet inside and also why the captain's bed was unmade as well as soaked through. No doubt Captain Briggs was thrown awake from his bed to find his crew panicking at the com motion that would have appeared without warning and from a previously calm sea.

The violent bucking would have dislodged the heavy stove and water butt, and sent hot ash and smoke around the galley. The thundering noise would have been terrifying and the whole event something even an experienced crew like the one on
Mary Celeste
would never have been through. Nine barrels of alcohol could easily have been damaged in the process, causing nearly five hundred gallons of pure alcohol to spill into the hold. Suspecting damage to the barrels, the crew may have removed the hatch to the hold to investigate. As the alcohol fumes issued from below, they could have been ignited, either by the stove coals or metal sparks from the hatch lid, creating a blue vapor flash that wouldn't necessarily have resulted in fire damage. Any amateur investigator can re-create this effect by removing the lid of an empty rum or brandy bottle and dropping in a lighted match. The resulting vapor flash will often force the match straight back out. Placing rolled-up paper balls in the bottle will also prove that no burn damage is caused by such an event. Old sailors called this trick “igniting the genie.” But if you want to try it at home, then do it outside—and don't set fire to your mum's curtains.

Under the circumstances, it is easy to see how Captain Briggs and his crew could have feared that the cargo was about to explode and think that they should abandon ship immediately. They may even have believed the volatile alcohol rather than a seaquake—something of which comparatively little was known at the time—was in some way responsible for the ship's unnatural behavior. Given the perceived threat, Briggs would undoubtedly have evacuated his family and crew to a safe distance in the lifeboat, and this was obviously done in great haste, the captain only stopping to gather up his navigational instruments and the ship's papers and registration documents. Whether deliberately or by accident, the lifeboat was not secured to the mother ship by a length of rope, as would have been normal in the case of evacuation.

But the drama would have soon been over and the confused crew may well have sat in the lifeboat watching the
Mary Celeste
, with her partly set sails, calm, afloat, and in no apparent danger. The captain would then have had a big decision to make: either head in the lifeboat to Santa Maria Island and explain why he had abandoned a perfectly seaworthy ship with its valuable cargo on the evidence of some strange bouncing motions and a few ghostly blue flashes, or start after his ship in the hope of catching up with her and regaining command. What has been rarely connected to this story is the fact that in May the following year, fishermen discovered a badly damaged raft washed ashore in Asturias in Spain, with five badly decomposing bodies and an American flag on board. For some investigators this proves Captain Briggs attempted to catch up with his ship in the lifeboat, with tragic consequences.

Without the inventive fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle, with his half-eaten breakfast, sleeping cats, or delicately balanced reels of cotton, the story of the
Mary Celeste
is not as ghostly as it seems. The theory that she was caught up in a frightening seaquake and abandoned would seem to silence any conjecture about supernatural goings-on. No doubt, however, various storytellers or creative Hollywood minds will bring new theories to our attention in the continuing debate about the fate of
Mary Celeste's
crew. Perhaps they will reintroduce aliens, hungry sea monsters, or a giant man-eating bird of prey, but for this investigator the answer is found in the violent seaquake that caused Captain Briggs to abandon ship and then drift to his death with his wife, baby daughter, and remaining crew.

Although the most famous, the
Mary Celeste
is by no means the only ship to have been found deserted at sea. In April 1849, the Dutch schooner
Hermania
was discovered floating off the Cornish coast, near the Eddystone lighthouse, without her mast. In this case, the lifeboat was still firmly lashed to the deck and all personal belongings were in the cabins. However, the captain, his wife and daughter, and all the crew members were never seen again. Six years later another ship, the
Marathon
, was found adrift with no hands on deck and in perfect condition.

So what became of the most famous ghost ship in history? After being released by the authorities in Gibraltar, she returned to New York, where J. H. Winchester promptly sold her. On January 3, 1885, she ran onto the razor-sharp rocks at Rochelais Bank in the Gulf of Gonave and was wrecked. Unfortunately for her new owner, Gilman Parker, his insurance company decided to send an investigator to inspect the wreck before paying his claim for $30,000. The investigator found the cargo to have no value at all, made up as it was of cat food, old shoes, and other rubbish. It turned out that Parker had unloaded the small part of the cargo with value and then had set fire to the
Mary Celeste.
Parker was promptly charged with fraud and criminal negligence, a crime punishable by death in 1885. Then a legal technicality forced prosecutors to withdraw the charges laid against Parker and his associates and they were released, but the
Mary Celeste
still exacted her revenge. Over the next eight months one of the three conspirators committed suicide, one went mad, and Parker himself was bankrupted and died in poverty. And so the story of the
Mary Celeste
ends, leaving us with not only one of the best-loved and most intriguing mysteries in seafaring history, but also one of the most tragic.