WEBVTT - The Mysteries Behind Abandoned Ships

0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:07.400
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Hey, brain stuff,

0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:10.520
<v Speaker 1>it's Christian saga. While it would be really cool if

0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.560
<v Speaker 1>there were tons of legitimate historical reports of faintly glowing

0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.440
<v Speaker 1>apparitions of ships and sailors, there are many more stories

0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:23.280
<v Speaker 1>about something less metaphysical but still pretty creepy, ships that

0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:28.200
<v Speaker 1>were abandoned without an apparent cause or trace. Recently, my

0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.200
<v Speaker 1>colleagues on the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast

0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.239
<v Speaker 1>told us a few tales of the Bottomless Blue and

0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:36.960
<v Speaker 1>the ships that sailed them and washed up on some

0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:41.199
<v Speaker 1>shore entirely deserted. Now, if that sounds like a fairly

0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.279
<v Speaker 1>routine course of events for ships of yore, you might

0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.400
<v Speaker 1>be surprised to learn how weird the circumstances of these

0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:53.559
<v Speaker 1>incidents were. Take the Resolving, a cargo ship that traveled

0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.520
<v Speaker 1>between Canada and Wales in the late nineteenth century. In

0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.960
<v Speaker 1>eighteen eighty four, some sailors spotted off the coast of

0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.280
<v Speaker 1>what is now Newfoundland and Labrador. The ship was moving

0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.760
<v Speaker 1>haphazardly through the water, and when sailors boarded the Resolving,

0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.600
<v Speaker 1>they saw why. While the sails were set, there wasn't

0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:16.520
<v Speaker 1>a single person aboard, but there was plenty of reason

0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.720
<v Speaker 1>to believe that the ship's abandonment was both sudden and

0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:23.479
<v Speaker 1>very recent. We're talking fires in the galley, food set

0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.240
<v Speaker 1>on the table, nothing to indicate that days or even

0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:31.319
<v Speaker 1>many hours had passed since the crew was shuttled. A

0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:35.080
<v Speaker 1>log book's last entry was mundane and from a mirror,

0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:40.039
<v Speaker 1>six hours before the sailors who discovered the empty ship arrived. Now,

0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.600
<v Speaker 1>while theories abounded, perhaps the ship hit or lodged on

0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.959
<v Speaker 1>an iceberg, or maybe the crew mutinied, there wasn't much

0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:51.680
<v Speaker 1>evidence to back anything up. The captain's personal money was missing,

0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.280
<v Speaker 1>but the gold coins that were stored in the ship's

0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:59.360
<v Speaker 1>purse were still there. The mystery only deepened in when

0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.560
<v Speaker 1>the great grandson of the captain of the ship started

0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.240
<v Speaker 1>digging into the story. A Canadian woman contacted him and

0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.480
<v Speaker 1>said that her family had a strange tale in its

0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:13.120
<v Speaker 1>past as well. Soon after the discovery of the resolving,

0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.280
<v Speaker 1>her grandfather and his brother found the body of a

0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:21.600
<v Speaker 1>uniformed captain on the coast of Newfoundland. They buried the

0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.480
<v Speaker 1>body and a gold pocket watch. The deceased captain carried

0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:30.720
<v Speaker 1>his only identifying accessory, and they haven't been seen since.

0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.080
<v Speaker 1>But wait, the story didn't end there. The resolving was

0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.480
<v Speaker 1>in such good shape even after being left at the

0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.359
<v Speaker 1>mercy of the Ocean, that it was put back out

0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:48.680
<v Speaker 1>to sea to work again. Today's episode was written by

0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.880
<v Speaker 1>Kate Kirshner, produced by Dylan Fagin, and For more on

0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.960
<v Speaker 1>this and other topics, please visit us at how stuff

0:02:54.960 --> 0:03:07.360
<v Speaker 1>works dot com.