Ghost Ships
For hundreds of years people have been hearing about ghost ships. When ghost ships are talked about there are basically two types. The first type is considered to be a haunted ship which may turn up from time to time, but the second type really has nothing to do with the paranormal, it is a ship where the crew have simply disappeared or have died and the ship is discovered. Over the years many of the second type of ship have been found. I remember reading about one which was discovered floating on the ocean where the crew’s meals were still on a table and everything on the ship seemed to be in order with nothing taken and yet the crew was gone. The mystery was never solved. If it was Pirates why would they leave anything of value on the ship and why wouldn’t there have been signs of a struggle? All sorts of excuses have been made for this type of thing including abductions by aliens.
Recently Japan seems to be the target for ghost ships as 34 of them drifted into that country during 2015. The ships were full of corpses. Some of the bodies had decomposed so bad they had rotted right down to the bone. One ship contained 20 corpses. Criminal investigations were launched, but so far there were no clues as to what transpired or by who. The bodies were not able to be identified. The ships were said to be made of wood and when they drifted into Japan they did it in fleets arriving on the shores of that country many ships at the same time. It is said some of the crew were headless. No one is sure where the ships came from, but some suspect it might have been Korea. While there were no clues to who did what to whom and when there was a handwritten note found on one of the ships and it seemed to indicate it may have belonged to the Korean Army and something else was found which was a decomposing rag which looked like it could’ve been a North Korean flag.
This is actually an incredible mystery since in the last couple of years about 170 of the ships have washed up on Japanese shores. One ship had six skulls in it. When the ships were examined experts from Japan said that they were very old and contained weak engines which could not have gone against the tide. Some Japanese were saying these boats were North Korean fishing boats that wandered too far, but this certainly doesn’t account for all the murders which have taken place on the ships. When we talk about North Korea we are talking about a country which is ruled by madmen. Who is to say that these people were not forced to go out on to fishing ships and when they got out into the ocean they were murdered by the North Korean authorities out of sight of the population. I am not saying this is what has happened, but only that it could be a possibility.
The leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un has been pushing out further with fishing and this could explain why so many boats are going out, but the boats that are being used are in such poor shape it has surprised the Japanese. The Japanese think maybe sometimes these boats break down and the fishermen starve to death and have no way of getting back to port, but again it doesn’t explain the head chopping. The case is very strange indeed and it just might turn out these fishermen are trying to escape from North Korea and some of them have gotten caught and murdered and left to rot on the very ships they are using to make the break.
One famous ghost ship which has gone down to history is the Mary Celeste, which seemed to have been abandoned in 1872. She was a merchant ship and found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Her cargo had not been touched and all her valuables remained on board, but there was a problem, not one person was found on the ship, there was no crew and no passengers. An investigation concluded the ship had been abandoned for about a month and had been sailing around on its own. Not one theory could explain what happened.
A ship was found off the coast of Sardinia, but it was not just any ship, it was one which was designed like the ships used in the 1700s and before. No crew was on board. The ship was found in 2006 and when it was examined a half-eaten meal of Egyptian food, French maps of North Africa seas and a pile of clothes along with the flag of Luxembourg and a wooden plaque bearing the name Bell Amica were found on board. Italian authorities checked but found the ship had never been registered in any country. The ship was said to have been misidentified as an antique and because of this created great public interest. I can see why, anybody would be interested in finding out how a ship hundreds of years old suddenly appeared off the coast of their country. It was found out later it was a modern yacht and belonged to a man from Luxembourg who had not registered it, because of the tax. So what happened to the crew?
One ship in 2006 was found drifting in Australian waters when the ship was boarded there were no signs that anybody had ever been on board, but yet there was a cargo of rice in the hold. The ship had been completely stripped and all its identifying features had been painted over. This begs the question if somebody wanted to abandon a ship why would they leave the cargo on board? The other question is why were the identification markings of the ship painted over? Eventually the name of the ship was found, it was the Jain Seng. There was no indication the ship had ever been involved in illegal activity.
I think it’s time I mentioned the name of one of the most famous ghost ships ever to sail the seas, and that is the Flying Dutchman. This is said to be a ghost ship of the paranormal kind. The ship was sighted in the 19th and the 20th centuries and it is said it is never allowed to make port. Reports of the ship include the fact it glows with a ghostly light. It is said if another ship hails it, the crew of the Flying Dutchman will try to send messages to land or to people long dead. It is also said sighting the ship is a portent of doom.
