Stuff You Should Know - The Flannan Isles Mystery

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

In December 1900 three lighthouse keepers vanished without a trace from a deserted island in Scotland. To this day no one knows exactly what happened to them. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there and Jerry's out here too. So since the gang's all here, the three of us alone on a deserted aisle,

Stuff You Should Know. Can I mention a couple of things here? I think you should. I want to pre-apologize to our Scottish listeners whom we love. We toured in Scotland, had a great time, one of our best live shows in the beautiful city of Edinburgh. Yes. Wonderful people love the Scots, but we are going to butcher some of these names and I apologize. It's inevitable. Yeah, we're sorry. And what was the other thing? Oh, the other thing was it's impossible to talk about the Flannan Isle's lighthouse mystery and research it without almost always thinking about the movie The Lighthouse. Yeah, and actually it comes up a lot in the research too. Yeah, I think one reason is because it's clear that uh, what's the guy's name he made it? I can't think of his name. William

Eggers? It's not William Eggers. Well, it's definitely not Dave Eggers. It's an Eggers, right? Yeah, I'm probably Robert. I think Robert, yes. Okay, Robert Eggers. Okay, yes. He clearly did his research and you know, I remember when that movie came out, I spoke on the show that I wrote a movie, a period movie about a lighthouse and a murder that takes place and then the movie The Lighthouse came out and I was like, so much for that. But I did a lot of research at the time and it was clear that Eggers did a lot of research because it was a very accurate film, especially when you read and research the Flannan Isle's lighthouse mystery, you're like, oh yeah, that's like from the movie and that's like from the movie. Apparently they mention it in the movie. I didn't go back and

watch it again, but I saw somebody say that they make a reference to the mystery in the movie. Oh, cool. That's awesome. I thought so too. Yeah. Man, I can't wait for that Viking movie to come out. Me too. And this made me want to see The Lighthouse again, which I didn't think I wanted to do, but now I do. Same here. So we are talking about one particular lighthouse called the Flannan Isle's lighthouse and it was located on one island in the Flannan Isles called Island Moor. That's not exactly like Chuck was saying, the Scottish pronunciation, Scott Gaelic, but it's close enough and it actually means in English, I guess, the Moor Island, right? Okay. So anyway, that's where this lighthouse is and it's situated. It's still there today.

It's automated though. It went automated in 1971, but its light is about 75 feet atop the cliff, which is the highest point of Island Moor. And that cliff is 200 feet above sea level. And it's a pretty good place for a lighthouse because this area of Scotland is kind of treacherous for ships. Yes. And it's important how high this one was. It figures into the story. I'm not just showing off with stats here. Yeah, it is treacherous. It's a windy area. There are big winds in Scotland, especially out there on those islands. I think it is close, and this is kind of funny, the name of it, but isn't it nearby supposedly the windiest place? Is it the windiest place in the UK? Mm-hmm. And what's the name of it?

The butt of Lewis. Come on. I'm serious, but it makes sense because... I don't know, I'm not 12 years old. Lewis is a nearby island, which is inhabited in the region, which is pretty rare. I think... But this part of it, one end of the island, is called the butt of Lewis Island, and it's the windiest part. The butt of Lewis is the windiest island. Right. So the area that these flannan isles are in, so Island Moor is in the flannan isles. The flannan isles are part of the larger island chain on the northwest of Scotland called the Outer Hebrides. And to the west of them, you can just keep going and going and going, and then you'll finally reach North America. They're pretty remote. They're pretty isolated. They are indeed windy,

and like we were saying, the seas are kind of rough around there. I think that's kind of putting it mildly. Plus, the islands themselves are often very rocky and jagged, and so it's treacherous, so of course you'd want to put a lighthouse there. Well, yeah, the winds blow strong from the butt of Lewis. But the lighthouse that was built there finally on Island Moor wasn't installed until 1899, which is kind of late considering that Scotland had something called the Northern Lighthouse Board that they organized in 1786 to basically oversee and standardize lighthouse keeping in that country. Yeah. So they were headquartered there in Edinburgh, and here's how it worked at the time, and this checks out according to my research when I was writing my movie and

the movie The Lighthouse once again. Oh, an expert. They were staff. You had your principal lightkeeper called the principal keeper, and then usually depending on where the lighthouse was, how busy it was, how big it was, and as far as needed personnel for operation, you had one or two assistants, and they were all ranked as you weren't just like, oh, I'll be the first keeper this week. You earned that spot. Yeah. It was a promotion. And then you were assigned to these stations by the board, just like in the movie. You don't stay there forever. You kind of rotate, and you go there for a little while, and you may get stationed with someone you've never worked with before, and you have to get to know that person very intimately over the course of a

short period of time, or it's somebody you have worked with before, and you're old friends with maybe. Or old enemies. Yeah, exactly. Or old enemies. So aside from these two to three people as principals and assistants, you had what was called the occasional keeper, and this is someone who actually lived nearby, either an inhabited island resident, or if it was uninhabited, if it was at least close enough to where they could get there easily, and they would help out during the day, but they would go home at night and sleep and stuff in their own beddy-bye. And that was the standard, but for a place like Island Moor, where the Flannan Isles Lighthouse was located, if you were an occasional, you were there for two weeks. That's how hard it was to get to the island,

and how hard it was to get off of the island. So the purpose of the occasional was to give two weeks' rest off to one of the other two or three people who were permanently, or temporarily stationed there for much longer than you. Right. And in those cases, the keeper, the occasional, does not go home and sleep. Right. So one of the things that stuck out to me, Chuck, was that when you think about lighthouse keeping, like, yes, the person has to live there, and it's a lot of work, and they have to attend to the light and everything. But I think lighthouse keepers are very frequently portrayed as weirdos, just complete alcoholics who can't do anything else, but live by themselves, almost like they're placed there because there's nothing else for them to

contribute to society. So they're kind of cast off or ostracized. That's not the case. At least not in Scotland. That was not the case. Like, if you were a lighthouse keeper, that was a very, very important job. Oh, yeah. You took it very, very seriously. So much so that there was a study that found between 1850 and 1900, 50 years, there were only 15 recorded instances of a lighthouse keeper falling asleep at their post, which was about as bad as it gets as a lighthouse keeper. Yeah. I mean, that's not to say there weren't drunks and myths and throbs here and there. Maybe those were the 15. Yes, but I did a little more further math, Chuck, if I may be so indulged as to share it. I saw that. I thought that was pretty funny. So get this. Let's say you have

about 150 lighthouses in operation between 1850 and 1900. Okay. And if you calculate that number of lighthouses times the number of nights that occurred over that 50 years in Scotland, you have what we'll call 2.75 million lighthouse nights. Out of those 2.75 million lighthouse nights in Scotland over those 50 years, only 15 of those nights found a lighthouse keeper asleep on duty. That's how seriously they took it. Did you account for leap years? Oh, Chuck. I just really wanted to drive that home, man. I really thought that was an important point and it didn't come across with 15 instances of 50 years. Who cares? No, I mean, it's a big deal because the purpose of a lighthouse, I guess we have not really said is to light the way around rocky shores and islands

so boats don't run into them. Yeah, unless you've been living under a rocky shore, you know that. It's a very important job, though. I love lighthouses. We've talked about them quite a few times on the show. Big, big fan. Every time I am near a lighthouse, I will do my best to climb that thing if it's allowed. So who done it in your lighthouse mystery? Who did do it? It was a good story, actually. Well, then maybe you should hang onto it in case somebody comes along because it's not like the lighthouse is the only lighthouse movie ever made. Yeah. The briefest synopsis is it's two sisters who are tending the lighthouse because it was their family job and their parents died there. So it's these two sort of like maybe a 20-year-old and a 16-year-old out there alone

in this island. And then these two men wash ashore one day in a shipwreck and they tell the awful story of their ship going down. And it turns out that the real story is they were prisoners aboard a ship being transferred and they escaped their shackles and murdered everyone aboard. Wow. And then there was a shipwreck. So they were bad guys who got washed ashore. Oh, it's a bit like a reverse dead calm. Sort of. And they charmed the girls. But there is, I guess I didn't know the name was an occasional keeper. There's a guy that lives, one guy that lives on the island that helps them out that is sort of suspicious of the guys. And it sort of plays out over the course of the movie where they're exposed, ending in a game of cat and mouse one night. Nice. That sounds like a great

movie. It was okay. I mean, I did it as an experiment because all I've ever written is comedy. And I thought, hey, maybe I'll write a serious thriller. And it could be better if a really good thriller writer got a hold of it, I think. Were there still like little jokes, peppered as a side? Like one of the sisters is running from the murderer and says to herself, I left the mainland for this. Like your comedy shines through still. Oh, I don't know. I'll have to dust that thing off. You should, man. It sounds like a good one. Thank you. So this lighthouse, back to the Flannan Isles lighthouse on Island Moor, like we said, that most of the Outer Hebrides are uninhabited. I think we said that, didn't we? I don't know, but you just said it then. I think

there's 70 islands in the Outer Hebrides and only 15 of them are populated. And Island Moor is definitely not one of them. It's remote. It is extremely remote. The only people, the only beings that live there, what you would recognize as a genuine normal being, as opposed to say paranormal, which we'll get into, are the lighthouse keepers and some sheep. Even the people whose sheep those are don't live on the island or even stay there overnight. They go out a few times a year, check on the sheep and then leave before nightfall. That's kind of how Island Moor is viewed. It's seen kind of as a place where maybe gods or ghosts or just something otherworldly lives on Island Moor according to the locals, according to lore written about the locals. I've never spoken to

an Outer Hebridean. Yeah. And I think the other thing we need to mention too, because I believe it comes up later in one of the supernatural explanations for what is to come here with this mystery, is the name St. Flannan comes from the fact that Island Moor was the site of a chapel in the 7th century built by a traveling Irish monk who eventually became St. Flannan. And that's going to come up. Just put a pin in that. It's a big time pin. Hang on to it. Okay. Is that a good setup? Should we take a break? I think so, man. All right. We'll come back with more spooky lighthouse mystery stuff right after this. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Hard podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and

let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So we should probably mention the steamship actor or archter. I've seen it both ways. But that kind of kicks off the story for us, don't you think?

Yeah. Well, we haven't mentioned the major players either yet, have we? No, no. I guess we could go either way. We can mention one or the other first. All right. Let's mention the players because these are the actual keepers of that lighthouse. You had the principal keeper, James Ducott. You had the second assistant. Wouldn't he be the first assistant though? No, Donald MacArthur. We'll get into that. Okay. Thomas Marshall was the second assistant. And then Donald MacArthur was the occasional, right? Here's my bit. So he was filling in for a guy named William Ross. William Ross was the first assistant keeper, which meant that since Donald MacArthur was filling in for him,

Donald MacArthur was the first assistant keeper, even though he was an occasional keeper. Okay. That makes sense. And William Ross was on sick leave. And just judging from the movie, The Lighthouse, and all this research, like you must have had to been really sick to get taken off the island. Yes, but yes, that's what I thought too. But doing research for this, I found that these guys had, all of them had a rotating two weeks off. So at any given point over a stretch of two weeks, one of those men, James Ducott, Thomas Marshall, or William Ross, would not be on the island because they rotated two week shore leave, basically. So yeah, I was over the impression that if you went and attended a lighthouse,

they dropped you off, left you with some food and said, see you never. But that's not the case. No, no, I think they were well taken care of. I get the impression the Northern Lighthouse Board was pretty good at its job and really cared about these people and looked after them. I didn't see anything to deny that. Yeah. Well, it's a brutal and important job. So surely that they were taking care of at least to a certain degree. Yeah. But the upshot of all this is that there were three men on the island working that lighthouse. And aside from sheep, that was it. That was the only people on the island. And this, by the way, this is December of 1900, right? Yeah. So this thing is brand new. Yeah. They built it in 1899. They were scheduled to take two years. It took four years.

The construction was started in 1895. And what they built was at the time a state of the art lighthouse. But it took so long, it took twice as long as they anticipated, because the cliffs and the island itself was so treacherous. That's how long it took just to get materials up the cliff to build the lighthouse. Yeah. So it's finally in operation. And then now comes the actor, which is what you mentioned earlier, not A-C-T-O-R, but the actor A-C-H-T-E-R. Yeah. It was a transatlantic steamship from Philadelphia to Leith, which is a port for Edinburgh. That's right. So they were out there. It was about, say, sailing around. But I guess they were steaming around. And they waited out of storm for a few days. And then this part got

confusing to me. So the actor was passing by Flannan Isles. It passed by on December 15th. And the actor noticed that the light was out. Not that they couldn't see the light because of weather or anything like that. Like the light was straight up not lit on the lighthouse, on Flannan Isles lighthouse. Like that was, it was a very strange thing to see. And it was very noteworthy. They ran into some weather on their way to Leith and had to wait it out for a few days. And when they finally made it into port, I guess they passed the information along. But the Northern Lighthouse board didn't catch wind of it until the official relief supply ship showed up a few days later. And the actor's observation that the light was out wouldn't

come into play until an investigation was launched later on. Right. So that relief ship was the Hesperus, H-E-S-P-E-R-U-S. And that arrived on December 26th, 1900, which was Boxing Day after Christmas. And what these ships brought was they usually brought either supplies or fresh dudes or both. And in this case, I think they had supplies and a fresh lighthouse keeper. And it was captained by Captain Harvey. And they were like, all right, something's going on here. This light's out. The flag's not flying. Let me toot on the horn a few times. Doot, doot, doot. Nobody comes out. All right. Well, let me send up a flare. They send up a flare. No one comes out. And what they're trying to do is say, hey,

we're here. Get your little, your little rail car system going. It had a little cable, a little cable pulled railroad system that was operated by a steam engine in a shack. And so when the ship pulls up, they would toot the horn and the dudes would come down and they would get that steam engine going and get that cable car ready to transfer the goods onto this thing. So they could, you know, it's like hundreds of pounds of stuff going up a really, really steep cliffside. Yeah. There's just no way to move that stuff otherwise. No, you'd have to do it. So nobody came out. No one gets that steam shack going. And they're like, all right, something's going on. We're going to have to go on land and figure this out.

Yeah. And just the fact that they weren't greeted by one or more of the guys from the lighthouse, which is apparently custom, like even the most grizzled, misanthrope lighthouse keeper just knew it was custom to come down and greet the relief ship. You're still dying to see someone else. Pretty much, I think so. Yeah. So that, like the fact that no one showed up and then no one responded to their signals, they were like something really weird is going on here. And they had Joseph Moore, who was the relieving keeper, which makes me think that William Ross was really, really sick because he would have been on sick leave for way over two weeks by this time because

I believe the relief ship was five days late because of weather. So he must have really been laid up and they sent another relieving keeper, Joseph Moore, instead. And Joseph Moore went ashore and he was friends with these guys. He wasn't some new dude or anything like that. So he was genuinely concerned and he went up the steps to the lighthouse. There's apparently 160 of them. And he just knew right away that something was way off. There was no sign of life. There was nobody around. There was the just nothing was going on. It was abandoned, basically. And he didn't have a very good feeling about it. So he runs back down to the boat to say, I think we have a problem here. Yes. So he says, I think we have a problem. And then that's

when basically everyone on board said, all right, we got a, this is a situation now that we all have to deal with. I think it was the captain who went with Moore to search for other stuff. They said, in the meantime, you other guys, you got to get up there and start operating this lighthouse because it's been down and we need to get that thing cranked up again. Yes. So for the first time, possibly since December 15th, the lighthouse was lit again with by these relief guys who took over and kind of settled in and were like, all right, this is our job now. But that follow-up search, it's weird. We'll talk about some of the legends and layers that were added to it over the years. But to me, the thing that was so weird

about the follow-up search was that everything was in place. It would be way more kind of middle of the road to me, this mystery. If there was signs of struggle or everything was just kind of a skew, it's way more eerie to me that everything was exactly how it should have been. It's just the three human beings that were supposed to be there were missing. But that's what Joseph Moore found and the others found when they searched a lot more thoroughly. Yeah. The door to the keeper's house was closed. The gate was closed. In the kitchen, everything was all spick and span. Everything was all cleaned up. It was clear that someone had done some cooking in the grate, but not anytime soon. There were ashes in there. The beds were made.

The clocks had all stopped because no one was there to wind them, obviously. And everything was fine, except like you said, that there was no one around. There was a full fountain of paraffin oil. The light was ready to be burned. That Fresnel lens was cleaned up and ready to go. The blinds were drawn. The records were all filled out all the way up until Saturday, I think the morning of December 15th, right? Yep. And so everything was great, except for there were two missing sets of rain gear. They're called oil skins. They're coats and their boots. Two of those were missing out of the three guys. And so that's sort of the only thing out of the ordinary at this point. Yeah. That was basically the only trace of the missing

men. Had those oil skins still been there, you would have taken the lighthouse and the area as having been prepared for somebody else. They just hadn't shown up yet. The missing oil skins were the only trace that those men were missing, that there had been men there that were no longer there anymore. Right. And then there were a couple of pieces of literature that kind of confused things after the fact, right? Yeah. That really kind of made this to a lot of people like a much bigger mystery. I think some people came along and weren't satisfied with how mysterious it was on its own. And so added to it and added to it over the years through magazine articles and newspaper reports and then later on like podcasts and stuff. And so you really have to be careful

navigating these waters. If you'll excuse the pun or the stupid metaphor. When you're researching this because so much of it is just regurgitated as fact because it has been part of the story for a hundred years. It was actually thanks to the efforts of a journalist named Mike Dash who, if you are at all interested in nonfiction writing, especially nonfiction history writing, go check out Mike Dash's website. He's probably the best in the business. Oh yeah. But yes, he's just amazing. But he set his sights on getting to the bottom of this and he did some stuff and basically finally definitively proved, no, this was added to it later on, this was added to it later on, this is not true, that kind of stuff. So hats off to Mike Dash for

demystifying a lot of it. True. But also making it not as fun because it's decidedly creepier with these newspaper stories as they were written. One of the newspaper stories talked about the logbook and this is completely fabricated, you know, like Mike Dash exposed it as fabrication. Right. But it's still pretty creepy. The log entries in the fake log entries were by second, well not by Second Assistant Marshall, but this is how they wrote it. Right. And wrote on December 12th, they saw severe wins, the likes of which I've never seen before in 20 years and wrote, and these are people that have seen some of the worst storms you could imagine out there on these outer islands and pretty unshakable guys I would think. Right. And he said,

he wrote in the next few days that the storm continued, it was so unbearable, that Ducat, the principal keeper, was struck mute by the storm and that occasional keeper MacArthur, who was supposedly a really tough guy, was recorded as weeping uncontrollably for days because of how bad the storm was. Right. Yeah. It's good stuff. It is good stuff, but Mike Dash made mincemeat out of it and he's kind of my hero for it. One of the things that he basically just points out is if this were an official logbook, if you were a Second Assistant, you put that in there, you would basically get fired for that kind of thing. Like that's not what a logbook is for. And you certainly wouldn't put that your superior was weeping uncontrollably

in the logbook. Like that's just not what you would put in a logbook for the first case. And then secondly, he also said that somebody being quiet because of a storm or whatever or their mood, like it also kind of mentions their mood a lot too, that that would have no bearing on anything. And the only way that that makes sense in relation to the story is after the fact, which he said, obviously that means that these were written after the fact. And then years later after he'd first investigated it, he finally turned up a copy of the magazine that this came out in in like 1921. And it was like a like a pulp magazine called like True Confessions or something like that. So he definitely deconstructed that for sure to my great satisfaction. I love

it. Yeah, it's kind of funny though. Like the logbook was basically like your diary. That's exactly right. He said like logbooks were not diaries. No, he actually specifically said that. Yeah. That's funny. The other thing he uncovered or did he uncover the poem or was that just? I think that was a little more common knowledge. But yeah, he wrote about the poem being the poem too. Okay. So in 1912, there was a poem by Wilfred Wilson Gibson, who wrote a poem about this mystery where he says there was an untouched meal on the table, cold meat, pickles and potatoes, the kitchen chair was knocked over. The only sign of life was the Keeper's Canary half starving on his perch. Like these are all the things that you mentioned would have made this a different story.

But everything was really just fine. I don't even think the chair was turned over, right? I don't know. I think the guy later on, well, we'll get to him. Yeah. The way that Mike Dash treated it is that it's possible. Okay. I don't know if Mike Dash treated it like that way. Mike Dash wrote about a later guy who will talk about who treated it as fact. So I think what the upshot of it is that in doing this research on primary resources, like what Joseph Moore wrote, what Robert Muirhead who we'll talk about wrote, these people who were actually there when it happened or right after it happened, that nobody mentioned anything like a turned over chair and based on what they did mention, it seemed like they probably would have mentioned a turned

over chair. They were so meticulous in the details. All right. Well, let's talk about some of the evidence that was there. Okay. Because what we're really talking about is was there, I mean, the kind of obvious thing you would think about is was there some big storm that washed these guys away forever? Like that's kind of the one reasonable explanation. And so as far as evidence goes, most of it is storm related to sort of support that and to go against it. There was a railway that we talked about and that had a crane and the crane was sort of built to help unload things off of this platform off the cargo container. And it was about 70 feet above sea level and it was fine. It even still had the canvas wrapped around it. So if there was some big storm and

evidence shows there probably was one, right? But at least this crane 70 feet up wasn't damaged and that canvas was still there, which is a little weird. It is a little weird because even a little higher up toward the top of the cliff. So the crane was at about 70 feet above sea level, right? Yeah. A little higher up than that at about 110 feet above sea level, there was a box, a big box that held a lot of like mooring ropes and ropes for the crane and just some really important stuff, tackle. And it had been busted open and the contents like strewn all down the cliff's face. There was a buoy that was tied to the railing right around the same place as that crate 110 feet above sea level. It had been torn clean away from the ropes that

had lashed it to the railing. The ropes were still there, but the buoy, just a little piece of buoy was left attached to it. And yet the crane was intact. And then even weirder, the iron railings around the crane that you would use as handrails had just been completely twisted and wrenched out of place. That's a heck of a storm. It's an amazing storm. It's crazy to me that the crane was left intact and that the canvas was even on it still. That was really weird. There was a 2000 pound stone that was up on the cliff that slid down. And then I believe the the railway tracks were even torn up from the concrete. And then the grass at the top of the cliff, this is 200 feet up at the very top was ripped up as far back as 30 feet from the edge. That's nuts. Like do you know

how much force a wave would have to have to tear up grass in the first place? And then that thing would have to be over 200 feet tall to even reach that grass. That's a bad storm. It's a monster wave. But the storm part, that kind of confounds things big time. And I think we should take another break and we'll talk about how everything's just so confounded still to this day, which is why this is a mystery right after this. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough. Or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do,

you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in

astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic

or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we've got this mystery brewing. These three men are missing. It's pretty clear that there was a big storm that blew through there. So like I said earlier, the obvious explanation was these strong winds just came along and just blew these guys the heck off this island and they were never seen again. That's not entirely out of the question because of the butt of Lewis. That's right. Strong winds flow from the butt of Lewis, as everyone knows. And I'm 12 years old.

Robert Muirhead, he was the superintendent of Lighthouses and he investigated this disappearance. He knew all these guys, some really, really well, but I think the occasional keeper, he knew the least, but he still knew pretty well. Right. He's the one that did this investigation personally and went out there, wrote up this report, and I think he was the last person he was out there because it was a new lighthouse, I guess, sort of finishing up and I don't know if he christened it or whatever, but he was one of the last, in fact, maybe the last person to even see them alive, right? He says in his report that he's probably the last person to shake hands with these men and see them

alive when he shoved off on December 7th when the last relief ship, the previous relief ship, had come along. All right. So in his official report, he said, I don't think it was a strong wind that literally blew them off the island. It was blowing westerly that day and that means it would have blown them back inland toward the island and there's no way that these guys would have blown completely across the whole face of the island off the other side because they know what to do. They know to drop and get flat and hold on and they probably would not have been blown all the way off if it was westerly. They need to stop drop and do not roll.

Yeah, don't roll. Please don't roll. Not in that case. I would grab something heavy. Yeah, anything, a sheep, whatever, anything that will keep you from being blown off, but that's just nuts. It shows you how windy it is up there that that was a possibility that Muir had considered and was plausible enough that he had to at least put it in the report as a possibility. That's right. The one that he focused on that most people who think in level-headed ways kind of agree with

too is that instead a wave probably came along and knocked these men off. Yeah, I mean this one, I'm in amateur when it comes to figuring out island, Scottish island mysteries and weather. This one makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, totally agree. Being blown away by wind sounds kind of nuts unless you think about it, in which case it's not super nuts in this instance at least. There were more slightly nuttier explanations. The thing is you can't fully discount any one of these because the men's bodies were never found. There was never any conclusive proof of what happened even still to this day. Some of the likely or less likely scenarios seemed to always

focus on Donald MacArthur who was supposedly a bit of a hothead, quick to fists kind of dude. Not necessarily the kind of occasional keeper you'd want to have on rotation for two weeks with you, but that's what a lot of these secondary theories kind of presuppose. He would have been the Willem Dafoe, right? I guess so, yeah. I kind of imagine him as such. He probably got the story from this, didn't he? I don't know. I'm curious. I don't know. I'd have to watch it again now that I know that. I hadn't even heard of this story when I saw The Lighthouse. I need to watch it again and see what I think.

I'm going to do some research on that. I doubt if he like based it on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it triggered the idea or something. Gotcha. All right. So MacArthur was like he said, a tough guy, a hothead and he, of course, there's going to be speculation that he started a fight and they all got in a big fight and they all fell off the cliff together. Or maybe he murdered these two guys and then knew what his comeuppance would be and flung himself off the cliffs himself in sort of a murder suicide situation. Yeah. Again, it's plausible. Some people can go nuts, especially in extreme isolation kind of thing, but there's just no evidence whatsoever of any sort of fight. It's possible the fight

started entirely outside, but it just doesn't satisfy all of the evidence, right? I don't think so. The guy whose weatherproof coats were still there was Donald MacArthur. So why would he start a fight outside and whether that was bad enough that his comrades would put on their weather gear? Right. Or maybe when it comes to fighting, you don't want that raincoat on. I guess maybe you found it restrictive. That's entirely possible too. But that's, again, as far as like the secondary kind of paranoid theories go, those make a lot more sense. The other ones just are much more squarely in the realm of paranormal. Yeah, you could say that. The Outer Hebrides are home of the Kelpie. And the Kelpie is a water spirit,

a shapeshifting water spirit that drowns human victims. But there are two problems with this. One, that is not real. And two, even if it was real, let's just do a thought experiment. Everyone knows that the Kelpies are not seaside dwellers. They are inland at the locks. Right. They're not known to frequent the seaside. Yeah, they don't like that salt water. No. So the Kelpies probably did not kill these men and cart them away. There's more supernatural there, right? Yeah, the island being named after St. Flannan and that ruined chapel being there. And the idea that the locals just kind of view that island as a weird place. There is this one author, a supernatural like a Fortian type author who came along and said,

all right, I've got it. Everybody ready for this? So the locals think that this place is kind of inhabited by spirits. I'm guessing that the pagans who used to live here sacrificed people on this island and that the gods came to be used to a certain type of sacrifice. And that with the Northern Lighthouse Board installed these three men in a tower on Island Moor. It awoke something. And the gods mistook it as a sacrifice. So they took their sacrifice and that's what happened to the three men. I think you skipped over the best part of this whole thing though. What? That was an ancient race of tiny people. Well, so I can't tell if that guy made that part up or if that is actually a local belief. But yeah, that was part of it too.

How small were they? Supposedly they found small bones that seemingly belonged to humans. And so there was a race of tiny people who supposedly lived there before. But are we talking like, are they the size of a sea rat or a like two or three feet tall person? I don't. Am I Scottish? I don't know. All right. I was just curious. A sea rat. It was tiny. That's a very tiny, tiny person, pagan. But I think that's really interesting, the idea that the gods mistook the Lighthouse Keepers as a human sacrifice. That's what happened to them. I love that one. It's like a big wicker man or something. Yes, exactly. I think that's exactly the point the guy was making. All right. So those are obviously all bunk. What probably really happened

is as follows. And I think this is a pretty plausible. I think this is pretty plausible. But even still, it's still astounding if you step back and look at it. Yeah. Well, there's no way to prove it. So it's kind of like these mysteries you just don't know. So here's what could have happened is that there was bad weather reported, but it wasn't maybe that bad on the 15th. But let's say that that box is is loose or how could it get loose? Let's say that box needs tending to this holding all this stuff. Right. It's an important box. Don't forget. It's an important box. And I think Marshall had previously been fined what would be about

20 pounds today for having lost some equipment. So he may have been like really quick to like, hey, we got to secure that box. And so maybe Ducat and Marshall went out there to like they left their quarters while the other dude, the occasional keeper, MacArthur is up there in the lighthouse still, and they're securing this box down. And then maybe this freak wave comes through or maybe they just get in trouble. And then MacArthur needs to really leave quickly, which would explain why they did have their rain gear on and MacArthur didn't because MacArthur had to leave really quickly to go down there and help these guys. Yes. So like that, that definitely checks all the boxes that after that MacArthur

was swept away as well. But the thing is, is like that, that supposes something really amazing, Chuck, that there was a freak wave that the men just did not expect that carried at least one of them away. The second one who survived that wave ran back to get help from MacArthur to help get the first guy who went in and a second freak wave washed those two away, just cleaning the island of its human inhabitants in two swift waves over the course of a minute or two. Because the idea is that the storm wasn't bad enough to just sweep them all away. Yeah. And the actor had to be a rogue wave. Right. And the steamer, the actor noted that the area, because the actor passed by just a few hours, a couple hours probably after this event happened. And they noted that it was calm,

but stormy, which is the opposite of what you would think. You would think it was not stormy, which would draw the men out to make them, I mean, stormy enough that they needed to secure the box, but not so stormy that they felt like they couldn't go out. But calm really kind of makes it the idea of two freak waves really freaky, because that would mean that those waves just came out of nowhere and swallowed the men up. But in the whole, I mean, we did an episode on rogue waves. And the idea is that it's a wave. Yeah. Or is there a set of rogue waves? I think, if I remember correctly, it was a wave, but that's what I think. Maybe there is more. I don't know. But yes, that's how this, that's the only way that could happen is because MacArthur wasn't

wearing his rain gear, which suggests that he ran out in a hurry into bad weather, which means that one of them would have had to have come and gotten him. He wouldn't have been there with the other two. So it could not have just been one freak wave. It would have had to have been two successive freak waves that cleared all three. Well, and this does lend some credence to the idea that this thing was big enough to damage the turf, you know, 200 feet above sea level and destroy that box and wash that 2000 pound stone down the cliff too, right? Yeah. And there was also, there's a chance that all that stuff that just was evidence of a terrible storm actually came after the men had been washed away from the island several days later when there was a really bad

storm on December 20th. Okay. That makes sense. I didn't think about that. But isn't that weird to think that that damage had happened after the fact? Right. And sure, that makes sense. Because it's almost certain that this event happened on December 15th. The last info they had on the log slate was 9 a.m. December 15th, like we said. So it couldn't have happened earlier than that. And it would have happened before dark on December 15th, which would have happened about 4 p.m. because otherwise they would have lit the light that night and the steamer actor would have seen the light in the lighthouse as it passed by on December 15th. That's right. I think all this gets really interesting in the 1950s when a lighthouseman named Robert Aldebert,

who worked there, served as principal keeper between 53 and 57, he lived there, obviously had a little time on his hands and was really enthralled by this mystery and was like, I'm going to do some research and I'm going to take a lot of pictures and do keep a lot of records in my diary. And he said that, you know, I was in the lighthouse itself and so that's how many feet above sea level at the top of that thing. Like 275? Yeah, like 200, close to 300 feet up and got sea spray from some waves. So he's like, it's very possible that a big wave could come through and reach these heights. Yeah, he did tests where he took coils of rope and put them on the top of the cliff and they get washed away by some of those horrible waves. So he basically said it

was almost certainly a wave that got these guys. That's not the craziest part. The craziest part is it was two waves, almost like the sea was waiting for all three of them and took them all. That's pretty weird. I wonder if he got fun for losing those ropes. I don't know, maybe so. If it's the Northern Lighthouse board, I know he definitely did. Well, and he, what was his final, because he's the one that we mentioned earlier that said that one of the chairs was turned over in the kitchen, right? Like he kind of bought into that false narrative. Yeah, but I wonder, because this is a good, you know, 40 years after that poem had been written, maybe it was so woven into the story by then, he just presumed

that it was true or not. So how that comes in is he's basically like, all right, after dinner happens, like there's bad weather going on, these two guys go out there and are, see, this doesn't make sense to me. And I'll tell you why in a second, but these two guys go out there to secure this box or whatever, cookies back in there, washing up and cleaning up. And that's where everything's nice and tidy. Yeah. And then all of a sudden they need help. And so he turns the chair over because he just like runs out of there real quick. Yeah. But wouldn't that be, wouldn't someone have to be in the light too? Isn't that four guys? No, that's why they think that this happened in the afternoon of the 15th, because they never

went to light the light. They hadn't lit the light yet. Remember, the light was all set up and ready to be lit for the evening. Yes, it was daytime. Yes, it was before sunset, which would have been before 4pm. All right, that's the one part I didn't get. I get it now. Lighthouse is shine at night. Yep. I forgot that part when I wrote my movie. Everything takes place during the day. I left the mainland for this. You got anything else? Good stuff. No, I like a good mystery. You're good at finding these. Man, I love this one. So thank you very much. Yes. Well, if you want to know more about the Flannan Isle's mystery, go read Mike Dash's work on it. It's really interesting stuff. It's

pretty comprehensive too. And since I said it's pretty comprehensive everybody, that means it's time for a listener mail. I thought this is really interesting. This is a follow up to the Dingo's episode about Dingo's not really barking much. Hey guys, in response to the statement that Dingo's don't bark, you left out a very fun fact and perhaps a topic for another show. While domesticated dogs bark throughout their lifetimes, wild adult dogs do not routinely bark. One popular theory is that domesticated dogs were bred for tameness, which as a result selected for dogs that never reached full maturity. The upshot of this is that our domesticated dogs are trapped in a state of suspended adolescence. They're more or less trapped in puppyhood,

an age where all dogs, wild and domestic bark, play lick, and most important of all, don't kill, which is an important trait for the family pet. And send an article from tampabay.com. Why do dogs bark from 1991? I love the show. That is from Peter Vonier, V-O-N-I-E-R, Vonier. Yeah, either one of those will work depending on whether you're in France or not. And Peter's a PhD in owl oncology research. Awesome. With an interest in dog barking. Sounds like Peter just is interested in stuff, which is our favorite kind of listening. Yes, that is a Died in the World stuff you should know listener. Thanks a lot, Peter. That was a very interesting email and we appreciate it. Belated congratulations on your PhD.

If you want to get in touch with us like Peter did, you can send us an email, right Chuck? You surely can, and you might get a response even. Yep, or you might end up on listener mail. Who knows? Yeah, I try to answer these. Why don't you roll the dice and find out by sending your email to stuffpodcastsatihartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Badie about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in major league baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.