History Daily - Saturday Matinee: Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhat

Episode Date: June 6, 2026

On today’s Saturday Matinee, we climb aboard the Mary Celeste- the infamous “ghost ship” found drifting in the Atlantic in 1872 with its entire crew mysteriously missing. Link to Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhat: https://pod.link/1895066656 Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.

When I was a young boy, one of my most treasured books was Ripley's, believe it or not, accidents and disasters, published in 1982. It had a bright orange and red cover featuring illustrations of the fiery crash of the Hindenburg, a seaside town with the caption, The Village that slid 100 feet down a mountain during an earthquake without cracking a single wall. There was a final illustration of some guy surfing with the caption, The Man Who Wrote a Tidal Wave on a Plank from his Destroyed House. Each caption ends in an exclamation point, of course, and is hand-lettered in a familiar

comic book style. I loved that book, and I still have it. It's full of fantastic coincidences, shocking bad luck, tales of tremendous heroism and horrible heartache. All of them are short, punchy, and thrilling to a 10-year-old boy. Here's one about the ghost ship that came back to haunt its namesake. The SS Northumberland, rocked by a violent earthquake in Hawks Bay, New Zealand, was lifting anchor and heading for the safety of deeper water, when the quake brought up to the surface beside

it a sailing ship that had lain at the bottom of the sea for 44 years. The derelict was also named the Northumberland. Well, on today's Saturday matinee, we're going to stay in this space, bringing you another story of a ghost ship from the podcast Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bot. This one is named the Mary Celeste, a vessel found drifting in the Atlantic in 1872 without a single soul on board, its entire crew missing without a trace. I hope you enjoy. While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow Hidden History with Dr. Horini Bot. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. This is Rewind. 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. Was it a tragic miscalculation or something far more sinister? I'm Dr. Hooney-Bot, and this is Hidden History, a Rewind Original powered by Pave Studios. On this show, we're exploring some of the most mysterious. mysterious events from history that have yet to be fully explained in examining all the different

theories, from science to the supernatural and everything in between. From vanished civilizations 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. Today's episode is all about the Mary Celeste ghost ship mystery. Did the crew flee from an 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, because the Mary

Celeste had a trouble pass long before anyone disappeared. appeared 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 tidal 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 otherworldly 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 slapdash boats. Nova Scotian shipbuilders produced 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 Dewis laid the keel for a new vessel at his yard in Spencer's Island. She was rigged as a brigantine, which is a two-masted sailing ship. The front mask carries square sails, while the rear mask carried a large for and aft sail.

This design made Brigantines incredibly versatile. They could be operated by a smaller crew than a full 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 sat just under 12 feet deep in the water.

Not enormous, but solidly 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 18, 1861, and christened the Amazon. She was owned by nine local investors, including her first captain, Robert McClellan. 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 Nutting Parker, held a position for two years, trading mainly in the West Indies. Those years were relatively quiet. But after Parker, the ship passed to Captain William Thompson, and during his command, the Amazon ran into serious trouble. In October of 1867, a storm drove the ship ashore. shore at Cape Breton Island. The damage was so bad that the owners gave up entirely and sold the Amazon as a wreck. 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 believe that every vessel had a spirit and changing its name was basically like erasing its identity. Legend had it that unless you performed a specific ritual involving champagne, salt water, 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 universe seemed 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 205 to 2,000. 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 fairs in Marion, Massachusetts. His father was a ship captain. So were several of his brothers. The man basically had saltwater, in his veins. Briggs us 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, end 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 Celeste, 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. She had sailed with Benjamin before and was an accomplished musician who brought along a small melodian, basically a portable organ. 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 hand-picked his crew for the voyage. His first mate, Albert Richardson, had sailed with him before and married into the Winchester family. Second mate, Andrew Gilling, was a 25-year-old New Yorker of Danish descent. The rest of the crew were experienced sailors mostly from Germany, including including brothers Volkerd and boy Lorenzen. All solid men with clean records. To recap, there were 10 people on board.

Captain Briggs, his wife Sarah, baby Sophia, and 7 crewmen. On October 20th, the cargo was loaded, 1,701 barrels of denatured 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. And 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 in, quote, fine condition. It seemed optimistic about the voyage ahead. He also mentioned hoping to bring Sarah and Sophia 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 of a British ship called the Day Gratia. Morhouse and his first mate, Oliver DeVoe, were experienced well-respected sailors. And as it happened, the Day Gratia was planning to follow a similar route across the Atlantic, departing about eight days.

days after the Mary Celeste, which finally set sail on November 7, 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 day Gratia was sailing about 400 miles east of the Azores 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 done. 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 DeVoe 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 was 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 seaworthy. The cargo of 1,701 barrels of alcohol was almost entirely intact, although investigators would later note that nine of those barrels were empty. The crew's 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 onboard 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 tied to it and broken away. With 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'd need to navigate to safety. There was also something found lying on the deck that shouldn't 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 it was only after Devon's men had taken all this in that they turned to the ship's log. And what they found there deepened the mystery considerably. The last entry was dated November 25, 1872, so a full 10 days before the day Gratia found the ship. The entry reported the Mary Celeste position as being about six miles off the coast of Santa Maria, one of the easternmost islands in the Azores. Six miles from land, close enough to see the island.

And then nothing. No more entries, no distress calls, no further navigators. geish 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 Mary Celeste drifted over 400 miles from where it was last recorded, with no one on board. Let's pause here, because this combination of details is what makes the Mary Celeste so maddening. If the crew had been attacked, Why were their belongings untouched and the cargo still there? If the ship was sinking, why was it still perfectly seaworthy?

And if everything was fine, why did everyone leave? Despite all the strangeness, the Maris Celeste wasn't good enough shape to be sailed. So DeVos and two other men from the Descartia did exactly that. They spent the better part of two days pumping out the water from the hold, and then they sailed both vessels approximately 800 miles to the British territory of Gibraltar, located at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea. But why 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 an abandoned ship at sea, they could bring it to the nearest port with an Admiralty court and file a salvage claim. The court would then determine how much the salvagers were owed based on the value of the ship and its cargo. The closest Admiralty court to where the Mary Celeste was found was in Gibraltar, which was, and still is, a British overseas territory. It didn't matter that the Mary Celeste was an American ship.

The British court in Gibraltar had jurisdiction because that's, where the salvage vessel was brought. And that's where things got really complicated. When the Mary Celeste 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 day Gratia's crew was owed for saving the ship, turned into a full-blown criminal investigation. And it was all thanks to Frederick Saulie Flood, the Attorney General of Gibraltar.

Now, Sully Flood is one of those figures who might have been a footnote in history, if not for the Mary Celeste. But the case became his obsession, and understanding why requires knowing a little bit about the man himself. Frederick Sully Flood was born in 1801. He was the son of a humble fishmonger in London, but his maternal grandfather was a nobleman 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. Sully 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 in Gibraltar. It was essentially exile for a man who'd once been King's counsel in London. London. Historians have been less than kind about him. One described Sully Flood as a man, quote, whose arrogance and pomposity were inversely proportional to his IQ, end quote. 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 Mary Celeste arrived in Gibraltar, Salli Flood saw it 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 denatured. It was essentially poisonous. You would get violently ill way before you got drunk.

When that didn't stick, Solih Flod pivoted. He accused the day Gratia's crew of piracy, claiming Captain Morehouse had somehow attacked the Mary Celeste and killed everyone on board to claim the salvage reward. There was just one problem. The day Gratia had left New York, eight days after the Mary Celeste. It was a slower ship.

There was essentially no way Morehouse could have caught up to the Mary Celeste, ambushed it, and then found it hundreds of miles off course. But Sully 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-ohen of the ship would have earned more from completing the voyage than from any salvage scheme. But Sully 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, and what Sully 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 consul in Gibraltar, Horatio Sprague started to get frustrated with Soli Flood's theatrics.

Sprig was convinced that Captain Briggs had been an honest, capable man. So he asked for an independent investigation from a U.S. Navy captain named R.W. Shufelt. his conclusion was straightforward. The Mary Celeste had been abandoned by master and crew in a moment of panic and for no sufficient reason. After three months of investigation, the court found no evidence of foul play.

The day Gratia's crew was cleared of any wrongdoing and awarded a salvage payment. But here's the thing. They only received about a sixth of the total value of the ship and cargo. Normally, salvagers received a much larger share. That suspiciously low payout suggests the court may be influenced by Solly Fled's relentless accusations still had some doubts, even without any evidence to support them. The investigation was officially closed, but Salli Fled's wild theories had already done their damage. His accusations grabbed media attention on both sides of the Atlantic and launched the Mary Celeste,

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 named 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 Marie Celeste, 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 hijacks the ship and sails her to Africa. The story was published anonymously in Cornhill magazine and was so convincing that many readers, including some officials, took it as a factual account. Suddenly, the Mary Celeste 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 Mary Celeste. 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 Mary Celeste was carrying 1,701 barrels of denatured 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 day Gratia's crew inspected the cargo, they found that nine barrels were empty. And here's a critical detail. Those nine barrels were made of red oil. 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 named Dr. Andrea Sella at University College London actually tested this theory. He built a replica of the Mary Celeste 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. A spectacular wall of flame surged 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, quote, pressure wave explosion, end 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 around. from below deck. Captain Briggs, experienced as he was, would have had one thought. This ship is about to blow.

And with his wife and 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 frayed, then it snapped. Remember that frayed rope trailing behind the Mary Celeste?

That could have been the tow line, the lifeline that was supposed to keep them connected to the ship. Once the line broke, the Mary Celeste, with its sails still partially set, would have drifted away from the lifeboat at a pace they couldn't match by rowing. And just like that, ten 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 mistakes like that. The explosion theory is compelling, but some researchers think the answer might be even simpler. One of the crew abandoned ship because they genuinely believe

the Mary Celeste was going down from a breach hull, even though it wasn't. In 2007, a documentary called The True Story of the Mary Celeste produced for the Smithsonian Channel, brought together a team, of historians and 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 ship's

two 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, it panicked 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 Azores. A water spout would cause a dramatic drop in barometric pressure, which could force water from the bilge 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 Marra Celeste was within sight of the Azores. And if that was the case, they should have been able to row to safety. However, this mystery, this mystery. Sonian researchers realized that Captain Briggs had made a big mistake. They used historical weather data and ocean current models to trace the Mary Celeste's probable course and discovered something shocking. The Mary Celeste 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 sight of Santa Maria Island in the Azores, but in reality, he may have been much farther out to sea. If Briggs ordered the crew into the lifeboat expecting a short road 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, it would have been a death sentence. This theory also explains, explains why Briggs took the navigation instruments but left everything else.

If he thought he'd be navigating to a nearby 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 fates. All right, let's go to the deep end, because the scientific theories, 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.

In 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 surfaced 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 severed tentacle was 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 a giant cephalopod in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of India. According to the captain of a nearby vessel, the creature climbed onto the 150-ton schooner,

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, Brunswick, was attacked by giant. squid on three separate occasions in the South Pacific. The creatures 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 power. powerful suckers that can exert over 100 pounds of pressure per square inch. They are deep sea predators typically found at depths of 1,000 feet or more. But they do come to the surface, especially when they're sick, disoriented, or chasing prey. The waters around the Azores where the Mary Celeste was last recorded are actually known for giant squid activity.

The deep underwater canyons in the region are an ideal habitat. In sperm whales, the 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. And the Mary Celeste was found in remarkably good shape. Also, there's no documented case of a giant squid pulling people off a ship without damaging the vessel itself. And no, Pirates 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, it's 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?

Something massive, moving toward the ship. In an era before we understood what giant squid were, an encounter like that could have been absolutely terrifying, terrifying enough to abandon 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 Genoa 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, rogue waves, and methane gas eruptions, sometimes associated with the triangle, could occur across wider stretches of the Atlantic. Proponents of this idea point to seabed earthquakes as a possible trigger. It 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 when 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-day. 20th century as UFO culture exploded. The logic goes something like this. The crew vanished

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? left behind all their possessions, including valuables, suggesting they didn't choose to leave. And the complete absence of bodies, wreckage, or any trace of the crew in the surrounding ocean is, for some, consistent with people being removed from the ship entirely rather than falling into the sea. Is there any hard evidence for extraterrestrial involvement? No. But the alien theory endures because it fills the void 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 Celeste? Among the many responses, one stood out.

A letter arrived from a man named A. Howard Linford, a highly respected headmaster of one of London's most prestigious prep schools. He held a degree from Oxford's Magdalene College. His credentials were impeccable. Linford claimed that a former servant of his, an old man named Abel Fosdick, had confessed the truth on his deathbed. According to Fosdick, he'd been a secret passenger on the Mary Celeste. He said he'd gotten himself into some kind of trouble in America and had convinced his friend, Captain Briggs, to let him stow away. The story went like this.

Captain Briggs had a carpenter build a special raised platform on the show. 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 bow. According to Fosdick, one day Captain Briggs got into a lighthearted argument with his mate about whether a man could swim well with his clothes on. To settle the dispute, Briggs and the mate jumped overboard and started swimming around the ship. Mrs. Briggs, Baby Sophia, Abel Fosdick, 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 it promptly collapsed under the weight, dumping everyone into the shark-infested sea. According to Foszik, 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. Traumatized and fearing he wouldn't be believed, he never told anyone. Until he confessed to Linford 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 around the world picked it up. For a 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 Abel Fossack's name didn't appear in the ship's crew manifest is because he was a stowaway. But he got basic facts about the Mary Celeste's completely wrong. Foszic 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 Caves. He described Briggs' daughter as being seven years old. Sophia was two. He said the ship sailed from a different port on 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. An 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 it's a 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 neat 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 than 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 sail through waters we still don't fully understand. Maybe the most honest 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. Over weeks at sea, the porous red oak barrels slowly leaked and 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 have 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 row to shore and figure it out from there. They tied 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. The Atlantic Ocean is unforgiving. It's not the most exciting explanation. It's not sea monsters or pirates or aliens, but it's profoundly human. A series of small mistakes 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'd know exactly where the ship was at all times. GPS, satellite tracking, AIS transponders, modern ships are basically impossible to lose. The second a 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. And communication? Forget waiting weeks to hear from a ship. Satellite phones, radio, even internet at sea. If something went wrong, Captain Briggs could have called 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. of social media. Think about how fast conspiracy theories spread today. Within hours, you'd have TikToks breaking down the crew's 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. And 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. Chemicals. analysis, weather modeling, ocean current data, whole forensics, we'd probably have this thing solved in weeks, not centuries. Which makes you wonder, is 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 to. yet. Thanks so much for joining me for this episode of Hidden History. I'm Dr. Hrini-Bot.

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 rate, review, and follow Hidden History so we can keep building this community together. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.