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The Flannan Isles Mystery · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there, and Jerry's
0:17
Speaker 1: out here too. So since the gang's all here, the
0:20
Speaker 1: three of us alone on a deserted aisle, stuff you
0:25
Speaker 1: should know? Can I mention a couple of things here?
0:29
Speaker 1: I think you should. I want to pre apologize to
0:33
Speaker 1: our Scottish listeners, whom we love. We we toured in Scotland,
0:39
Speaker 1: had a great time, one of our best live shows
0:42
Speaker 1: in the beautiful city of Edinburgh. Yes, wonderful. People love
0:47
Speaker 1: the Scots. But we are going to butcher some of
0:49
Speaker 1: these names. And I apologize that. Yeah, we're sorry. Uh
0:56
Speaker 1: and what was the other thing? Oh? The other thing
0:57
Speaker 1: was it's impossible to talk about the Flannon Aisles Lighthouse
1:02
Speaker 1: mystery and research it without almost always thinking about the
1:06
Speaker 1: movie The Lighthouse. Uh. Yeah, and actually it comes up
1:11
Speaker 1: a lot in the research too. Yeah. I think one
1:14
Speaker 1: reason is because it's clear that, oh, what's the guy's
1:17
Speaker 1: name he made it? I can't think of his name.
1:21
Speaker 1: It's not William Ker's. Well, it's definitely not Dave Aggers.
1:25
Speaker 1: It's an Egger's right. Yeah, I'm pretty Robert, I think
1:28
Speaker 1: Robert Kay, Robert Aggers, Okay, yes, uh, he clearly did
1:32
Speaker 1: his research. Uh. And you know, I remember when that
1:35
Speaker 1: movie came out. I spoke on the show that I
1:37
Speaker 1: wrote a movie, a period movie about a lighthouse and
1:40
Speaker 1: a murder that takes place, and then the movie The
1:42
Speaker 1: Lighthouse came out, and I was like, so much for that. Um.
1:45
Speaker 1: But I did a lot of research at the time,
1:47
Speaker 1: and it was clear that Eggers did a lot of
1:49
Speaker 1: research because it was a very accurate film. Especially when
1:53
Speaker 1: you read and research the Flannin Isisles Lighthouse mystery, You're like, oh, yeah,
1:56
Speaker 1: that's like from the movie, and that's like from the movie.
1:59
Speaker 1: Apparently they mentioned it in the movie. I didn't go
2:01
Speaker 1: back and watch it again, but I saw something really
2:03
Speaker 1: that they make a reference to the mystery in the movie.
2:08
Speaker 1: That's awesome, I thought so too. Yeah, man, I can't
2:10
Speaker 1: wait for that Viking movie to come out. Me too.
2:13
Speaker 1: And this made me want to see The Lighthouse again,
2:15
Speaker 1: which I didn't think I wanted to do, but now
2:17
Speaker 1: I do the same. Here. So, um, we are talking
2:20
Speaker 1: about one particular lighthouse called the Flannin Isles lighthouse, and
2:24
Speaker 1: it was located on one island in the Flanning Isles
2:28
Speaker 1: called Island More. Uh, that's not exactly like Chuck was
2:33
Speaker 1: saying the Scottish pronunciation scott Gaelic um, but it's close
2:38
Speaker 1: enough and it actually means in English. I guess the
2:42
Speaker 1: More island right, Okay, So anyway, that's where this lighthouse
2:47
Speaker 1: is and and it's situated. It's still there today. It's
2:50
Speaker 1: automated though it went automated in but um, it's it's
2:55
Speaker 1: it's light is about seventy five ft atop the cliff,
2:59
Speaker 1: which is the high point of Island More. And that
3:03
Speaker 1: cliff is two hundred feet above sea level. And it's
3:06
Speaker 1: a pretty good place for a lighthouse because this area
3:10
Speaker 1: of Scotland is kind of treacherous for ships. Yes, and
3:15
Speaker 1: it's important how high this one was. It figures into
3:18
Speaker 1: the story. I'm not just showing off with stats here. Yeah,
3:23
Speaker 1: it is. It is treacherous. It's a windy area. Uh,
3:26
Speaker 1: there are big winds in Scotland, especially out there on
3:29
Speaker 1: those islands. I think it is close and this is
3:32
Speaker 1: kind of funny the name of it, But isn't it
3:34
Speaker 1: nearby supposedly the windiest place. Is it the windiest place
3:38
Speaker 1: in the UK. And what's the name of it, The
3:42
Speaker 1: Butt of Lewis. Come on, I'm serious, but it makes
3:49
Speaker 1: Lewis is a nearby island, um, which is inhabited in
3:54
Speaker 1: the region, which is pretty rare, I think, um. But this,
3:57
Speaker 1: this part of it, one end of the island is
4:00
Speaker 1: called the Butt of Lewis Island and it's the windiest part.
4:03
Speaker 1: The Butt of Lewis is the windiest island right, So
4:07
Speaker 1: that the the area that these Flanning Aisles are in,
4:11
Speaker 1: so Island more is in the Flannon Aisles. The Flannin
4:13
Speaker 1: Aisles are part of the larger um island chain on
4:16
Speaker 1: the northwest of Scotland called the Outer Hebrides, and UM
4:20
Speaker 1: to the west of them, you can just keep going
4:23
Speaker 1: and going and going and then you'll finally reach North America. Um.
4:27
Speaker 1: They're pretty remote, they're pretty isolated. They are indeed windy,
4:31
Speaker 1: and like we're saying, the seeds are are kind of
4:33
Speaker 1: rough around there. I think that's kind of putting it mildly.
4:36
Speaker 1: Plus the islands themselves are often very rocky and jagged,
4:40
Speaker 1: and so it's treacherous. So of course you'd want to
4:42
Speaker 1: put a lighthouse there. Well, yeah, the winds blow strong
4:45
Speaker 1: from the butt of Lewis. But the the lighthouse that
4:49
Speaker 1: was built there finally on Island more Um, wasn't installed
4:52
Speaker 1: until eighteen nine UM, which is kind of late considering
4:56
Speaker 1: that Scotland had something called the Northern Lighthouse Board that
5:00
Speaker 1: they organized in sevent six to basically oversee and standardized
5:05
Speaker 1: lighthouse keeping in that country. Yeah. So they were headquartered
5:09
Speaker 1: there in Edinburgh. And here here's how it worked at
5:12
Speaker 1: the time. And this checks out according to my research
5:14
Speaker 1: when I was writing my movie and the movie The Lighthouse. Uh.
5:19
Speaker 1: They were staff. You had your principal lightkeeper called the
5:22
Speaker 1: principal Keeper, and then usually depending on you know, where
5:26
Speaker 1: the lighthouse was, how busy it was, how big it was,
5:28
Speaker 1: and as far as needed uh personnel for operation, you
5:32
Speaker 1: had one or two assistants. Uh. And they were all
5:35
Speaker 1: ranked as you know. You weren't just like oh, I'll
5:39
Speaker 1: be the first keeper this week, like you earned that spot.
5:42
Speaker 1: It was a promotion, uh, and then you were assigned
5:45
Speaker 1: to these stations by the board. Just like in the movie.
5:48
Speaker 1: You don't you don't stay there forever. You kind of
5:50
Speaker 1: rotate and you go there for a little while, and
5:52
Speaker 1: you may get stationed with someone you've never worked with before,
5:56
Speaker 1: and you have to get to know that person very
5:58
Speaker 1: intimately over the course of you know, a short period
6:00
Speaker 1: of time. Or it's some money you have worked with
6:03
Speaker 1: before and your old friends with maybe for old enemies, yeah, exactly,
6:07
Speaker 1: wor old enemies. So aside from these two to three
6:11
Speaker 1: people as principles and assistance, you had what's called the
6:15
Speaker 1: occasional keeper. And this is someone who actually lived nearby UH,
6:19
Speaker 1: either an inhabited island resident or if it was uninhabited,
6:23
Speaker 1: if it was at least close enough, they could get
6:26
Speaker 1: there easily and they would help out UH during the day,
6:29
Speaker 1: but they would go home at night and sleep and
6:30
Speaker 1: stuff in their own betty by And that was the standard.
6:33
Speaker 1: But for a place like Um Island more where the
6:36
Speaker 1: flann And Isles Lighthouse was located. UM, if you were
6:39
Speaker 1: an occasional, you were there for two weeks. That's how
6:42
Speaker 1: hard it was to get to the island and how
6:45
Speaker 1: hard it was to get off of the island. So
6:47
Speaker 1: the purpose of the occasional was to give two weeks
6:50
Speaker 1: rest off to one of the other two or three people.
6:54
Speaker 1: Who were permanently stay temporarily stationed there for much longer
6:58
Speaker 1: than you. Right, then those cases, the keeper the occasional
7:02
Speaker 1: does not go home and sleep right. So, Um, the
7:06
Speaker 1: one of the things that that stuck out to meet
7:08
Speaker 1: Chuck was that, you know, when you think about lighthouse keeping, like, yes,
7:11
Speaker 1: the person has to live there, and it's a lot
7:13
Speaker 1: of work and they have to attend to the light
7:15
Speaker 1: and everything. But I think lighthouse keepers are very frequently
7:22
Speaker 1: um portrayed as weirdos, just complete alcoholics who like can't
7:28
Speaker 1: can't do anything else but live by themselves. That almost
7:31
Speaker 1: like their place there because there's there's nothing else for
7:35
Speaker 1: them to contribute to society, so they're kind of cast
7:38
Speaker 1: off for ostra sized. That's not the case, at least
7:41
Speaker 1: not in Scotland. That was not the case. Like if
7:43
Speaker 1: you were a lighthousekeeper, that was a very very important job.
7:48
Speaker 1: You took it very very seriously. Um, so much so
7:52
Speaker 1: that there was a study that found between eighteen fifty
7:55
Speaker 1: and nineteen hundred fifty years there were only fifteen records
8:00
Speaker 1: did instances of lighthouse keeper falling asleep at their post,
8:04
Speaker 1: which was about as bad as it gets as a lighthousekeeper. Yeah.
8:08
Speaker 1: I mean that's not to say they weren't drunks and
8:10
Speaker 1: miths and thropes here and there. Maybe those are the
8:13
Speaker 1: fifteen yes, But I did a little more further math, Chuck,
8:17
Speaker 1: if I may be sewing indulged as to share it,
8:21
Speaker 1: I saw that. I thought that was pretty funny. So
8:23
Speaker 1: so get this. Let's say you have about a hundred
8:25
Speaker 1: and fifty lighthouses in operation between eighteen fifty and nineteen hundred,
8:30
Speaker 1: and if you calculate that number of lighthouses times the
8:33
Speaker 1: number of nights that occurred over that fifty years in Scotland,
8:38
Speaker 1: you have what we'll call two point seven five million
8:42
Speaker 1: lighthouse nights. Out of those two point seven five million
8:47
Speaker 1: lighthouse nights in Scotland over those fifty years, only fifteen
8:51
Speaker 1: of those nights found a lighthouse keeper asleep on duty.
8:55
Speaker 1: That's how seriously they took it. Did you account for
8:58
Speaker 1: leap years? Oh, Chuck, I just really wanted to drive
9:04
Speaker 1: that home. Man. I really thought that was an important point,
9:06
Speaker 1: and it didn't get come across with fifteen instances fifty years.
9:11
Speaker 1: Who cares, no, I mean it's a big deal, because
9:14
Speaker 1: you know, the purpose of a lighthouse I guess we
9:18
Speaker 1: have not really said is to light the way around
9:21
Speaker 1: rocky shores and islands so boats don't run into them. Yeah,
9:24
Speaker 1: unless you've been living under a rocky shore, you know
9:27
Speaker 1: that it's a very important job. Though. I love lighthouses.
9:31
Speaker 1: We've talked about them quite a few times on this show,
9:34
Speaker 1: Big Big fan. Every time I am near a lighthouse,
9:37
Speaker 1: I will do my best to climb that thing if
9:39
Speaker 1: it's allowed. So, who who done it? In your lighthouse mystery? Uh?
9:46
Speaker 1: Who did do it? It was a good story. Actually, well,
9:49
Speaker 1: then maybe you should hang onto it in case somebody
9:51
Speaker 1: comes along, because it's not like The Lighthouse is the
9:53
Speaker 1: only lighthouse movie ever made. Yeah, the briefest synopsis is
9:59
Speaker 1: it's too sisters who are attending the lighthouse because it
10:03
Speaker 1: was their family job and their parents died there. So
10:06
Speaker 1: it's these two sort of like a like maybe a
10:08
Speaker 1: twenty year old and a sixteen year old out there
10:11
Speaker 1: alone in this island. And then these two men wash
10:14
Speaker 1: ashore one day and a shipwreck and they tell the
10:16
Speaker 1: awful story of their their ship going down, and it
10:21
Speaker 1: turns out that the real story is that they were
10:25
Speaker 1: prisoners aboard a ship being transferred and they escaped their
10:29
Speaker 1: shackles and murdered everyone aboard, and then there was a shipwreck,
10:32
Speaker 1: so they were bad guys who got washed ashore. It's
10:35
Speaker 1: a bit like a reverse dead Calm sort of, and
10:38
Speaker 1: they charmed the girls. But there is I guess I
10:41
Speaker 1: didn't know the name was an occasional keeper. There's a
10:43
Speaker 1: guy that lives one guy that lives on the island
10:45
Speaker 1: that helps them out that is sort of suspicious of
10:48
Speaker 1: the guys, and it sort of plays out over the
10:49
Speaker 1: course of the movie where they're exposed ending in a
10:53
Speaker 1: game of cat and mouse one night, and I remember,
10:57
Speaker 1: actually it was okay. I mean so I did it
11:00
Speaker 1: as a as an experiment because all I've ever written
11:03
Speaker 1: is comedy, and I thought, hey, maybe I'll write a
11:06
Speaker 1: serious thriller. And uh, it could be better if a
11:09
Speaker 1: really good thriller writer got ahold of it, I think.
11:11
Speaker 1: But where there's still like little jokes peppered as a sides,
11:15
Speaker 1: like one of the sisters is running from the murderer
11:17
Speaker 1: and says to herself, I left the mainland for this,
11:22
Speaker 1: like your comedy shines through still. Oh, I don't know,
11:26
Speaker 1: I'll have to dust that thing off. You should man,
11:28
Speaker 1: it sounds like a good one. Thank you so um
11:31
Speaker 1: this lighthouse back to the Flanton Isles lighthouse on Island More. Um,
11:35
Speaker 1: Like we said that most of the Outer Hebrides are uninhabited.
11:39
Speaker 1: I think we said that, didn't we I don't know,
11:41
Speaker 1: but you just said it. Then. I think there's seventy
11:44
Speaker 1: islands and the Outer Hebrides, and only fifteen of them
11:46
Speaker 1: are populated, and Island More is definitely not one of them.
11:50
Speaker 1: The only remote, it is extremely remote. Um. The only people,
11:53
Speaker 1: the only beings that live there, Um, what you would
11:57
Speaker 1: recognize as a genuine normal being as opposed to say, paranormal,
12:01
Speaker 1: which we'll get into, are the lighthouse keepers and some sheep.
12:07
Speaker 1: Even the people whose sheep those are don't live on
12:11
Speaker 1: the island or even stay there overnight. They go out
12:13
Speaker 1: a few times a year check on the sheep, and
12:15
Speaker 1: then leave before nightfall. That's that's kind of how Island
12:19
Speaker 1: More is viewed. It seemed kind of as a place
12:23
Speaker 1: where maybe gods or ghosts or just something other worldly
12:27
Speaker 1: lives on Island More, according to the locals. According to
12:31
Speaker 1: Lower written about the locals, I've never spoken to an
12:34
Speaker 1: Outer hebridean Yeah, and I think the other thing we
12:37
Speaker 1: need to mention too, because I believe it comes up
12:39
Speaker 1: later in one of the supernatural explanations for what is
12:43
Speaker 1: to come here with this mystery is the name St.
12:47
Speaker 1: Flannin comes from the fact that Island More was the
12:51
Speaker 1: side of a chapel in the seventh century built by
12:54
Speaker 1: a traveling Irish monk who eventually became St. Flannin, And
12:58
Speaker 1: that's going to come up. Just put a in that.
13:00
Speaker 1: It's a big time pin hang on to it. Okay?
13:04
Speaker 1: Is that a good setup? Should we take a break?
13:05
Speaker 1: I think so? Man, all right, we'll come back with
13:08
Speaker 1: more spooky lighthouse mystery stuff right after this. Alright, so
13:39
Speaker 1: we should probably mention the steamship actor or archter Arcter.
13:46
Speaker 1: I've seen it both ways, but that kind of kicks
13:50
Speaker 1: off the story for us, don't you think. Yeah, well,
13:53
Speaker 1: we haven't mentioned the major players either yet, have we. No? No,
13:56
Speaker 1: I guess we could go either way. We can mention
13:59
Speaker 1: one or the other. All right, let's mention the players
14:01
Speaker 1: because these are the actual keepers of that lighthouse. You
14:05
Speaker 1: had the principal keeper, James Ducatt, you had the second assistant.
14:11
Speaker 1: Wouldn't he be the first assistant though no, Donald mccarthur.
14:14
Speaker 1: We'll get into that, okay. Thomas Marshall was the second
14:17
Speaker 1: assistant and then Donald mccarth MacArthur was the occasional right,
14:22
Speaker 1: here's my bit. So he was filling in for a
14:25
Speaker 1: guy named William Ross. William Ross was the first assistant keeper,
14:29
Speaker 1: which meant that since Donald MacArthur was filling in for him,
14:32
Speaker 1: Donald McArthur was the first assistant keeper even though he
14:35
Speaker 1: was an occasional keeper. Okay, that makes sense. And William
14:38
Speaker 1: Ross was unsickly and just judging from the movie The
14:41
Speaker 1: Lighthouse and and all this research, like you must have
14:44
Speaker 1: had to been really sick to get taken off the island. Yes,
14:48
Speaker 1: but I think, yes, that's what I thought too. But
14:51
Speaker 1: doing research for this, I found that these guys had
14:55
Speaker 1: all of them had a rotating two weeks off. So
15:00
Speaker 1: at any given point, over a stretch of two weeks,
15:02
Speaker 1: one of those men, James Ducott, Thomas Marshall or William
15:06
Speaker 1: Ross would not be on the island because they rotated
15:11
Speaker 1: two weeks shorely basically. So I yeah, I was over
15:15
Speaker 1: the impression that if you went and tended a lighthouse,
15:17
Speaker 1: they dropped you off left you with some food and
15:20
Speaker 1: said see you never. But that's not the case. No, No,
15:25
Speaker 1: I think I think they were well taken care of.
15:27
Speaker 1: I get the impression the Northern Lighthouse Board was pretty
15:29
Speaker 1: good at its job and really cared about these people
15:32
Speaker 1: and looked after them. I didn't see anything to to
15:36
Speaker 1: to deny that. Yeah, well, it's a brutal and important job,
15:40
Speaker 1: so surely that they were taken care of, at least
15:42
Speaker 1: to a certain degree. But the upshot of all this
15:44
Speaker 1: is that there were three men on the island, three
15:47
Speaker 1: dudes working that lighthouse, and aside from some sheep that
15:50
Speaker 1: that was it. That was the only people on the island.
15:53
Speaker 1: And this, by the way, this is December of nineteen hundred, right, Yeah,
15:57
Speaker 1: so this thing is brand new. Yeah, A built it
16:00
Speaker 1: in that was scheduled to take two years. It took
16:04
Speaker 1: four years. The construction was started in and what they
16:08
Speaker 1: built was at the time a state of the art lighthouse.
16:12
Speaker 1: But it took so long. It took twice as long
16:14
Speaker 1: as they anticipated because the cliffs and the island itself
16:18
Speaker 1: was so treacherous. That's how long it took just to
16:21
Speaker 1: like get materials up the cliff to build the lighthouse. Yeah,
16:26
Speaker 1: so it's finally in operation. And then now comes to
16:29
Speaker 1: the Actor, which is what you mentioned earlier. Not a
16:32
Speaker 1: C T O R, but the Actor a H T
16:36
Speaker 1: E R. Yeah. It was a transatlantic steamship from Philadelphia
16:40
Speaker 1: to Leith, which is a port for Edinburgh. That's right.
16:43
Speaker 1: So they were out there was about say, sailing around,
16:46
Speaker 1: but I guess they were steaming around and they waited
16:50
Speaker 1: out a storm for a few days and then, uh,
16:54
Speaker 1: this part got confusing to me. So the actor was
16:57
Speaker 1: was passing by Flannon Aisles. It by on December and
17:02
Speaker 1: the actor noticed that the light was out, not that
17:06
Speaker 1: they couldn't see the light because of weather or anything
17:08
Speaker 1: like that. Like the light was straight up not lit
17:10
Speaker 1: on the lighthouse, on Flannon Isle's lighthouse like that was.
17:14
Speaker 1: It was a very strange thing to see and it
17:16
Speaker 1: was very noteworthy. UM. They ran into some weather on
17:20
Speaker 1: their way to Leaf and had to wait it out
17:22
Speaker 1: for a few days. And when they finally made it
17:25
Speaker 1: into port, I guess they passed the information along, but
17:28
Speaker 1: the the Northern Lighthouse Board didn't catch wind of it
17:32
Speaker 1: until the official relief supply ship UM showed up a
17:36
Speaker 1: few days later and the actors observation that the light
17:40
Speaker 1: was out wouldn't come into play until an investigation was
17:42
Speaker 1: launched later on. Right, So that relief ship was the
17:45
Speaker 1: Hesperus H S P E r U S. And that
17:50
Speaker 1: arrived on December, which was Boxing day after Christmas. And
17:58
Speaker 1: what these ships brought as they usually brought either supplies
18:02
Speaker 1: or uh fresh dudes or both. And in this case,
18:07
Speaker 1: I think they had supplies and a fresh lighthousekeeper. And
18:10
Speaker 1: it was captained by uh Captain Harvey, and they were like,
18:16
Speaker 1: all right, something's going on here. This lights out, the
18:18
Speaker 1: flag's not flying. Let me toot on the horn a
18:20
Speaker 1: few times. Dude, nobody comes out there. All right, well,
18:25
Speaker 1: let me send up a flare. They send up a flare,
18:27
Speaker 1: No one comes out. And what they're trying to do
18:29
Speaker 1: is say, hey, we're here, get your little, uh, your
18:33
Speaker 1: little rail car system going. It had a little cable
18:37
Speaker 1: a little cable pulled railroad system that was operated by
18:41
Speaker 1: a steam engine in a shack. And so when the
18:43
Speaker 1: chip pulls up, they would toot the horn and the
18:46
Speaker 1: dudes would come down and they would get that steam
18:48
Speaker 1: engine going and get that cable car ready to transfer
18:51
Speaker 1: the goods onto this thing, so they could. You know,
18:54
Speaker 1: it's like hundreds of pounds of stuff going up a
18:56
Speaker 1: really really steep cliff side. Yeah, there's just no way
18:58
Speaker 1: to move that stuff otherwise now you'd have to do it.
19:01
Speaker 1: So nobody came out, no one gets that steam chat going,
19:05
Speaker 1: and uh, they're like, all right, something's going on. We're
19:08
Speaker 1: gonna have to to go on land and figure this out. Yeah,
19:11
Speaker 1: And just the fact that they weren't greeted by one
19:14
Speaker 1: or more of the guys from the lighthouse, which is
19:16
Speaker 1: apparently custom, Like even the most grizzled misanthrope um lighthouse
19:21
Speaker 1: keeper just knew it was customed to come down and
19:24
Speaker 1: greet the relief ship. You're still dying to see someone else,
19:27
Speaker 1: pretty much, I think, you know. Yeah, So that like
19:29
Speaker 1: the fact that no one showed up and then no
19:31
Speaker 1: one responded to their signals. They were like, something really
19:34
Speaker 1: weird is going on here. And they had Joseph Moore
19:37
Speaker 1: who was the relieving keeper, which makes me think that
19:40
Speaker 1: William Ross was really really sick because he would have
19:43
Speaker 1: been on sickly for way over two weeks by the side,
19:47
Speaker 1: because I believe the relief ship was um five days
19:50
Speaker 1: late because of weather, so he must have really been
19:53
Speaker 1: laid up, and they sent another relieving keeper, Joseph Moore
19:57
Speaker 1: um instead, and Joseph Moore went ashore, and he was
20:00
Speaker 1: friends with these guys. He wasn't some new dude or
20:02
Speaker 1: anything like that. So he was genuinely concerned and he
20:05
Speaker 1: went up the steps to the lighthouse. There's apparently a
20:08
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty of them, and he just knew right
20:12
Speaker 1: away that something was way off. There was no sign
20:14
Speaker 1: of life, there was nobody around, there was the just
20:19
Speaker 1: nothing was going on. It was abandoned, basically, and he
20:24
Speaker 1: didn't have a very good feeling about it. So he
20:25
Speaker 1: runs back down to the boat to say, I think
20:28
Speaker 1: we have a problem here. Yes, so he says, I
20:31
Speaker 1: think we have a problem. And then that's when basically
20:34
Speaker 1: everyone on board said, all right, we gotta this is
20:37
Speaker 1: a situation now that we all have to deal with.
20:40
Speaker 1: I think it was the captain who went with more
20:44
Speaker 1: to search for other stuff, and they said, in the meantime,
20:48
Speaker 1: you other guys, you gotta get up there and start
20:50
Speaker 1: operating this lighthouse because it's been down and we need
20:53
Speaker 1: to get that thing cranked up again. Yes, so they
20:56
Speaker 1: so the first for the first time, possibly since December
20:59
Speaker 1: five teeth. The lighthouse was lit again with by these
21:03
Speaker 1: relief guys who took over and kind of settled in
21:06
Speaker 1: and we're like, all right, this is our job now. Um.
21:09
Speaker 1: But that follow up search, it's weird. Like we'll talk
21:13
Speaker 1: about some of the legends and layers that were added
21:16
Speaker 1: to it over the years, But to me, the thing
21:19
Speaker 1: that was like so weird about the follow up search
21:21
Speaker 1: was that everything was in place like it would be
21:24
Speaker 1: way more like kind of middle of the road. To me,
21:29
Speaker 1: this mystery if there was like signs of struggle or
21:33
Speaker 1: you know, they were like like, I think everything was
21:35
Speaker 1: just kind of askew. It's way more eerie to me
21:38
Speaker 1: that like everything was exactly how it should have been.
21:41
Speaker 1: Is just the three human beings that were supposed to
21:44
Speaker 1: be there were missing. But that's what what m. Joseph
21:47
Speaker 1: Moore found and the others found when they searched a
21:50
Speaker 1: lot more thoroughly. Yeah, the door to the keeper's house
21:55
Speaker 1: was closed, the gate was closed. The in the kitchen
21:59
Speaker 1: everything was also bit and span. Everything was all cleaned
22:01
Speaker 1: up that it was clear that someone had done some
22:03
Speaker 1: cooking in the grate, but not anytime soon there were
22:07
Speaker 1: ashes in there. The beds were made, uh, the clocks
22:10
Speaker 1: had all stopped because no one was there to wind them, obviously,
22:14
Speaker 1: And everything was fine except like you said that there
22:16
Speaker 1: was no one around that there was a full uh
22:20
Speaker 1: fountain of paraffin oil. It was all like the light
22:23
Speaker 1: was ready to be burned, the lamp that for nel
22:26
Speaker 1: lens was cleaned up and ready to go. The blinds
22:28
Speaker 1: were drawn, their records were all filled out, you know,
22:32
Speaker 1: all the way up until Saturday, I think the morning
22:34
Speaker 1: of December, right, and so everything was great except for
22:39
Speaker 1: there were two missing sets of rain gear they're called
22:44
Speaker 1: oil skins, their coats and their boots. Two of those
22:46
Speaker 1: were missing out of the three guys, and so that's
22:52
Speaker 1: sort of the only thing out of the ordinary at
22:53
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah, yeah, that was basically the only trace
22:57
Speaker 1: of the missing men. Like like, had those oil skins
23:00
Speaker 1: still been there, you would you would have taken the
23:03
Speaker 1: lighthouse and in the the the area as like having
23:08
Speaker 1: been prepared for somebody else. They just hadn't shown up yet. Like,
23:11
Speaker 1: the missing oil skins were the only trace that those
23:14
Speaker 1: men were missing, that there have been men there that
23:16
Speaker 1: were no longer there anymore. Right. Uh. And then there
23:19
Speaker 1: were a couple of pieces of literature that kind of
23:21
Speaker 1: confused things after the fact, right Yeah, that really kind
23:24
Speaker 1: of made this, like, to a lot of people, like
23:26
Speaker 1: a much bigger mystery. I think some people came along
23:29
Speaker 1: and weren't satisfied with how mysterious it was on its own,
23:32
Speaker 1: and so added to it and added to it over
23:34
Speaker 1: the years through magazine articles and newspaper reports and then
23:37
Speaker 1: later on like podcasts and stuff, and so you really
23:40
Speaker 1: have to be careful navigating these waters. I feel excuse
23:45
Speaker 1: the pun or the stupid metaphor um when you're researching this,
23:49
Speaker 1: because so much of it is just regurgitated as fact
23:54
Speaker 1: because it has been part of the story for a
23:57
Speaker 1: hundred years. That it was actually thanked to the thanks
24:00
Speaker 1: to the efforts of a journalist named Mike Dash, who
24:03
Speaker 1: if you are at all interested in nonfiction writing, especially
24:07
Speaker 1: non fiction history writing, go check out Mike Dash's website.
24:11
Speaker 1: He's probably the best in the business. But yes, he's
24:16
Speaker 1: just amazing. Um. But he uh, he set his sights
24:20
Speaker 1: on getting to the bottom of this, and he did
24:23
Speaker 1: some stuff and basically finally definitively proved no. This was
24:27
Speaker 1: added to it later on. This was added to it
24:28
Speaker 1: later on. This is not true that kind of stuff.
24:31
Speaker 1: So hats off to Mike Dash for demystifying a lot
24:34
Speaker 1: of it true but also making it not as fun
24:38
Speaker 1: because it's decidedly creepier with these newspaper stories as they
24:43
Speaker 1: were written. Um. One of the newspaper stories talked about
24:47
Speaker 1: the log book and this is completely fabricated, you know,
24:51
Speaker 1: like Mike Dash exposed it as fabrication, but it's still
24:55
Speaker 1: pretty creepy. Uh. The log entries, uh in the fake
24:58
Speaker 1: log entries were by second well not buy a second assistant, Marshall,
25:02
Speaker 1: but this is how they wrote it, uh, and wrote
25:04
Speaker 1: on December twelve, they saw severe winds the likes of
25:07
Speaker 1: which I've never seen before in twenty years, and wrote,
25:10
Speaker 1: and these are these are people that have seen some
25:12
Speaker 1: of the worst storms you could imagine out there on
25:15
Speaker 1: these outer islands, and pretty unshakable guys, I would think,
25:19
Speaker 1: and he said he wrote in the next two days
25:21
Speaker 1: that the storm continued. It was so unbearable that Ducat,
25:24
Speaker 1: the principal keeper, uh was uh struck mute by the storm.
25:30
Speaker 1: And the occasional keeper MacArthur, who was supposedly a really
25:33
Speaker 1: tough guy was recorded as weeping uncontrollably for days because
25:37
Speaker 1: of how bad the storm was. Yeah, it's good stuff,
25:41
Speaker 1: It is good stuff, but Mike Dash made mince meat
25:44
Speaker 1: out of it, and he's kind of my hero for it.
25:47
Speaker 1: One of the things that he basically just points out
25:49
Speaker 1: is if if this were an official log book, if
25:52
Speaker 1: you were a second assistant, you put that in there,
25:54
Speaker 1: you would you would basically get fired for that kind
25:57
Speaker 1: of thing, Like, that's not what a log book is for,
26:00
Speaker 1: and you certainly wouldn't put that your superior was weeping
26:03
Speaker 1: uncontrollably in the log book, Like that's just not what
26:06
Speaker 1: you would put in a log book for the for
26:08
Speaker 1: in the first case. And then secondly, he also said
26:11
Speaker 1: that somebody being quiet um because of a storm or
26:15
Speaker 1: whatever um or their mood, like it also kind of
26:18
Speaker 1: mentions their mood a lot too, that that would have
26:21
Speaker 1: no bearing on anything. And the only way that that
26:24
Speaker 1: makes sense in relation to the story is after the fact,
26:27
Speaker 1: which he said, obviously that means that those were written
26:30
Speaker 1: after the fact. And then years later, after he'd first
26:34
Speaker 1: investigated it, he he finally turned up a copy of
26:36
Speaker 1: the magazine that this uh came out in in ne
26:41
Speaker 1: and it was like a like a pulp magazine called
26:43
Speaker 1: like True Confessions or something like that. So he definitely
26:47
Speaker 1: he definitely deconstructed that for sure, to my great satisfaction.
26:50
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, it's kind of funny though, like
26:53
Speaker 1: the log book was basically like your diary. That's exactly right,
26:56
Speaker 1: he said, like log books were not diaries. But he
26:59
Speaker 1: actually specifically said that, Yeah, that's funny. The other thing
27:03
Speaker 1: he uncovered or did he uncover the poem or was
27:05
Speaker 1: that just I think that was a little more common knowledge.
27:08
Speaker 1: But yeah, he wrote about the poem being the poem too. Okay.
27:11
Speaker 1: So in nine twelve there was a poem by Wilfred
27:14
Speaker 1: Wilson Gibson who wrote a poem about this mystery where, uh,
27:19
Speaker 1: he says, there was an untouched meal on the table,
27:22
Speaker 1: cold meat, pickles and potatoes. The kitchen chair was was
27:26
Speaker 1: knocked over. The only sign of life was the keeper's
27:29
Speaker 1: canary half starving on a spurch. Like these are all
27:32
Speaker 1: the things that you mentioned would have made this a
27:35
Speaker 1: different story, but everything was really just fine. I don't
27:38
Speaker 1: even think the chair was turned over, right, Uh the
27:42
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think the guy later on Well,
27:45
Speaker 1: we'll get to him. Yeah, the way that Mike Dash
27:47
Speaker 1: treated it is um that it's possible. Okay, I don't
27:52
Speaker 1: know if Mike Dash treated it like that way. Mike
27:55
Speaker 1: Dash wrote about a later guy who will talk about
27:59
Speaker 1: who treated it as facts, So I don't. I don't.
28:04
Speaker 1: I think with the upshot of it is that in
28:06
Speaker 1: doing like this research on primary resources, like what what
28:11
Speaker 1: Joseph Moore wrote, Um, what Robert Muirhead who will talk
28:15
Speaker 1: about wrote, these people who were actually there when it
28:18
Speaker 1: happened or right after it happened, Um, that nobody mentioned
28:22
Speaker 1: anything like a turned over chair, And based on what
28:25
Speaker 1: they did mention, it seemed like they probably would have
28:28
Speaker 1: mentioned it turned over chair. They were so meticulous in
28:31
Speaker 1: the details. All right, Well, let's talk about some of
28:33
Speaker 1: the evidence that was there, because what we're really talking
28:37
Speaker 1: about is was there I mean, the kind of obvious
28:41
Speaker 1: thing you would think about is was there some big
28:43
Speaker 1: storm that that watched these guys away forever? Like That's
28:47
Speaker 1: kind of the one reasonable explanation. And so as far
28:51
Speaker 1: as evidence goes, most of it is storm related. Uh.
28:55
Speaker 1: For the you know, to to sort of support that
28:58
Speaker 1: and to go against it, um, was a railway that
29:01
Speaker 1: we talked about, and that had a crane, and the
29:04
Speaker 1: crane was sort of you know, built to help unload
29:07
Speaker 1: things off of this platform, off the cargo, uh container.
29:11
Speaker 1: And it was about seventy feet above sea level. And
29:15
Speaker 1: it was fine. It was it even still had the
29:17
Speaker 1: canvas wrapped around it. Uh So, if there was some
29:20
Speaker 1: big storm and an evidence shows there probably was one, right,
29:24
Speaker 1: but at least this crane seventy feet up wasn't damaged
29:28
Speaker 1: and that canvas was still there, which is a little weird.
29:32
Speaker 1: It is a little weird because even a little higher
29:35
Speaker 1: up towards the top of the cliff. So this the
29:38
Speaker 1: crane was at about seventy ft above sea level, right, Yeah,
29:42
Speaker 1: a little higher up than that, at about a hundred
29:44
Speaker 1: and ten ft above sea level. There was a box,
29:47
Speaker 1: a big box that held a lot of like mooring
29:49
Speaker 1: ropes and ropes for the crane and just some really
29:53
Speaker 1: important stuff tackle and it had been busted open and
29:57
Speaker 1: the contents like strewn all down the cliff face. There
30:01
Speaker 1: was a buoy that was tied to the railing right
30:04
Speaker 1: around the same place as that crate a hundred and
30:06
Speaker 1: ten feet above sea level. It had been torn clean
30:09
Speaker 1: away from the ropes that had lashed it to the railing.
30:12
Speaker 1: The ropes were still there, but the buoy, just a
30:15
Speaker 1: little piece of buoy was left attached to it. Uh.
30:18
Speaker 1: And yet the crane was intact. And then even weirder,
30:21
Speaker 1: the the iron railings around the crane um that you
30:25
Speaker 1: would use as handrails, had just been completely twisted and
30:29
Speaker 1: wrenched out of place. That's a heck of a storm.
30:32
Speaker 1: It's an amazing storm. It's crazy to me that the
30:35
Speaker 1: crane was left intacting, that the canvas was even on
30:37
Speaker 1: it still, that was really weird. Um. There was a
30:40
Speaker 1: two thousand pounds stone that was up on the cliff
30:43
Speaker 1: that slid down. Uh. And then I believe the railway
30:48
Speaker 1: tracks were even torn up from the concrete. And then
30:51
Speaker 1: the grass at the top of the cliff, this is
30:53
Speaker 1: two ft up at the very top, was ripped up
30:56
Speaker 1: as far back as thirty feet from the edge. That's
31:00
Speaker 1: uts Like, do you know how much force a wave
31:02
Speaker 1: would have to have to tear up grass in the
31:04
Speaker 1: first place, and then that thing would have to be
31:07
Speaker 1: over two ft tall to even reach that grass. That's
31:11
Speaker 1: a bad storm. It's a monster wave. But the storm
31:14
Speaker 1: part that's that kind of confounds things big time. Uh.
31:19
Speaker 1: And I think we should take another break and we'll
31:20
Speaker 1: talk about how everything is just so confounded still to
31:23
Speaker 1: this day, which is why this is a mystery. Right
31:25
Speaker 1: after this, all right, we've got this mystery brewing. These
31:58
Speaker 1: three men are missing. It's pretty clear that there was
32:01
Speaker 1: a big storm that blew through there. So, like I
32:04
Speaker 1: said earlier, the obvious explanation was these strong windsters came
32:08
Speaker 1: along and just blew these guys the heck off this
32:10
Speaker 1: island and they were never seen again. That's not entirely
32:12
Speaker 1: out of the question because of the butt of Lewis.
32:14
Speaker 1: That's right. Strong winds flow from the butt of Lewis.
32:17
Speaker 1: As everyone knows. Um, and I'm twelve years old. Robert Muirhead,
32:22
Speaker 1: he was a superintendent of lighthouses and he investigated this disappearance.
32:27
Speaker 1: He knew all these guys, uh, some really really well,
32:30
Speaker 1: but I think the occasional keeper he knew the least.
32:34
Speaker 1: But he still knew pretty well. Um. He's the one
32:36
Speaker 1: that did this investigation personally, uh, and went out there
32:41
Speaker 1: wrote up this report. And I think he was the
32:44
Speaker 1: last person he was out there, you know, because it
32:47
Speaker 1: was a new lighthouse, I guess sort of finishing up.
32:49
Speaker 1: And I don't know if he christian it or whatever,
32:51
Speaker 1: but he was one of the last, in fact, maybe
32:52
Speaker 1: the last person to even see them alive. Right. He
32:55
Speaker 1: says in his report that he's probably the last person
32:57
Speaker 1: to shake hands with these men and see them alive
32:59
Speaker 1: when he shoved off on December seven, when the last
33:03
Speaker 1: relief ship, the previous release ship had come along, alright,
33:08
Speaker 1: So his in his official report, he said, I don't
33:11
Speaker 1: think it was a strong wind that literally blew them
33:14
Speaker 1: off the island. It was blowing westerly that day, and
33:19
Speaker 1: that means it would have blown them back inland towards
33:21
Speaker 1: the island. And there's no way that these guys would
33:24
Speaker 1: have blown completely across the whole face of the island
33:28
Speaker 1: off the other side, because they know what to do.
33:31
Speaker 1: They know to drop and get flat and hold on,
33:34
Speaker 1: and they probably would not have been blown all the
33:36
Speaker 1: way off if it was westerly. They need to stop
33:39
Speaker 1: drop and do not roll. You don't roll, please, don't roll.
33:43
Speaker 1: Not in that case. Grab something heavy, yeah, anything, a sheep, whatever,
33:48
Speaker 1: anything that will keep you from being blown off. But
33:50
Speaker 1: that's just nuts. It shows you how windy it is
33:53
Speaker 1: up there. That that was a possibility that mir Head
33:56
Speaker 1: considered and was plausible enough that he had to at
34:02
Speaker 1: least put it in the report as a possibility. That's right.
34:07
Speaker 1: The one that he focused on that most people who
34:10
Speaker 1: UM think in level headed ways kind of agree with
34:14
Speaker 1: two is that Um, instead, a wave probably came along
34:19
Speaker 1: and knocked these men off. Yeah, I mean this one.
34:24
Speaker 1: I'm an amateur when it comes to like figuring out
34:26
Speaker 1: island Scottish Island mysteries and weather. This one makes a
34:30
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me. Yeah, totally agree. So being
34:33
Speaker 1: blown away by when sounds kind of nuts unless you
34:35
Speaker 1: think about it, and in which case it's not super nuts.
34:39
Speaker 1: In this instance, at least, there were more, UM slightly
34:42
Speaker 1: nuttier explanations. And like the thing is, you can't fully
34:48
Speaker 1: discount any one of these because the men's bodies were
34:52
Speaker 1: never found, so there was never any conclusive proof of
34:55
Speaker 1: what happened, even still to this day. UM and some
34:59
Speaker 1: of the likelier, less likely scenarios seemed to always focus
35:04
Speaker 1: on Donald MacArthur UM, who was supposedly a bit of
35:08
Speaker 1: a hothead, quick to fist kind of dude. UM, not
35:13
Speaker 1: necessarily the kind of occasional keeper you'd want to have
35:16
Speaker 1: on rotation for two weeks with you. But that's that's
35:20
Speaker 1: what a lot of these secondary theories kind of presupposed.
35:24
Speaker 1: He would have been the Willem Dafoe, right, I guess? So, yeah,
35:28
Speaker 1: I kind of imagine him as such. He had a
35:31
Speaker 1: got the story from this, didn't he? I don't know.
35:35
Speaker 1: I'm curious. I don't know. I'd have to watch it
35:37
Speaker 1: again now that I know that. I hadn't even heard
35:39
Speaker 1: of this story when I saw the lighthouse, so I, um,
35:42
Speaker 1: I need to watch it again and see see what
35:44
Speaker 1: I think. I'm gonna do some research on that. I
35:46
Speaker 1: doubt if he like based it on this, but I
35:48
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if it triggered the idea or something.
35:52
Speaker 1: All right, So he, uh, MacArthur was, like he said,
35:55
Speaker 1: a tough guy, a hothead, and he of course there's
35:59
Speaker 1: gonna expect relation that he started a fight and they
36:02
Speaker 1: all got in a big fight and they all fell
36:04
Speaker 1: off the cliff together, or maybe he murdered these two
36:08
Speaker 1: guys and then knew what his come upance would be
36:11
Speaker 1: and flung himself off the cliffs himself and sort of
36:14
Speaker 1: a murder suicide situation. Yeah, again, it's plausible, like some
36:18
Speaker 1: people can go nuts, like especially an extreme isolation kind
36:22
Speaker 1: of thing, but there's just no evidence whatsoever of any
36:24
Speaker 1: sort of fight. It's possible to fight started entirely outside,
36:29
Speaker 1: but it just doesn't satisfy all of the evidence, right,
36:33
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Like the the guy who's um
36:36
Speaker 1: weather proof coats, We're still there was Donald MacArthur. So
36:41
Speaker 1: why would he start a fight outside? And whether that
36:44
Speaker 1: was bad enough that his his comrades would put on
36:47
Speaker 1: their weather gear, right, or maybe when it comes to
36:51
Speaker 1: fight and you don't want that raincoat on, I guess
36:53
Speaker 1: maybe you found it restrictive. That's entirely possible too, But
36:56
Speaker 1: that's again as far as like the secondary kind of
36:59
Speaker 1: paran theories go, those make a lot more sense. The
37:03
Speaker 1: other ones sister much more squarely in the realm of paranormal. Yeah,
37:08
Speaker 1: you could say that the outer Hebrides are home of
37:13
Speaker 1: the Kelpie, and the Kelpie is a water spirit, a
37:16
Speaker 1: shape shifting water spirit that drowns human victims. But there
37:21
Speaker 1: are two problems with this one that is not real
37:26
Speaker 1: and too even if it was real, let's just do
37:28
Speaker 1: a thought experiment. Everyone knows that the Kelpies are not
37:32
Speaker 1: seaside dwellers. They are inland at the locks. They're not
37:35
Speaker 1: known to frequent the the seaside. They don't like that saltwater. No,
37:40
Speaker 1: so the Kelpies probably did not kill these men and
37:43
Speaker 1: cart them away. Uh, there's more supernatural they're right. Yeah.
37:47
Speaker 1: The the island being named after St. Flannon and that
37:51
Speaker 1: ruined chapel being there, and the idea that the um
37:55
Speaker 1: the locals just kind of view that island is a
37:58
Speaker 1: weird place. There was this one author, a supernatural like
38:02
Speaker 1: Fortian type author um who came along and said, all right,
38:06
Speaker 1: I've got it. Everybody ready for this. So the the
38:11
Speaker 1: the locals think that this place is kind of inhabited
38:13
Speaker 1: by spirits. I'm guessing that the Pagans who used to
38:18
Speaker 1: live here sacrificed people on this island, and that the
38:21
Speaker 1: gods came to be used to a certain type of sacrifice,
38:25
Speaker 1: and that with the Northern Lighthouse Board installed these three
38:28
Speaker 1: men in a tower on island more and the gods
38:34
Speaker 1: mistook it as a sacrifice, so they took their sacrifice,
38:37
Speaker 1: and that's what happened to the three men. It's I
38:39
Speaker 1: think skipped over the best part of this whole thing, though.
38:43
Speaker 1: It was an ancient race of tiny people. Well so
38:46
Speaker 1: I can't tell if that guy made that part up
38:49
Speaker 1: or if that is actually a local belief, but yeah,
38:51
Speaker 1: that was part of it too. How small were they?
38:55
Speaker 1: Supposedly they found small bones that seemingly belonged to humans,
39:00
Speaker 1: and so there was a race of tiny people who
39:02
Speaker 1: supposedly lived there before. But are we talking like, are
39:06
Speaker 1: they the size of a of a sea rat or
39:08
Speaker 1: a like two or three feet tall person? And my
39:11
Speaker 1: Scottish I don't know, all right, I was just curious
39:15
Speaker 1: a sea rat. It was tiny. That's a very tiny,
39:20
Speaker 1: tiny person pagan. But I think that's really interesting, the
39:25
Speaker 1: idea that the gods mistook the lighthouse keepers as a
39:29
Speaker 1: human sacrifice, that's what happened to him. I love that one.
39:32
Speaker 1: It's like a big wicker man or something. Yes, exactly.
39:34
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly the point that God was making. Alright,
39:38
Speaker 1: So those those are obviously all bunk um. What probably
39:42
Speaker 1: really happened is as follows, And I think this is
39:46
Speaker 1: a pretty plausible. I think this is pretty plausible. Was
39:50
Speaker 1: but even still, it's still astounding. If you step back
39:53
Speaker 1: and look at it. Yeah, and well, and there's no
39:56
Speaker 1: way to prove it. So it's it's kind of like
39:58
Speaker 1: these mysteries where you just don't know, you know. So
40:01
Speaker 1: here's what could have happened. Is that, uh, there was
40:05
Speaker 1: bad weather reported, but it wasn't maybe that bad on um.
40:12
Speaker 1: But let's say that that box uh is is looser, Well,
40:18
Speaker 1: I gonna get loose. Let's say that box needs tending
40:20
Speaker 1: to this holding all this stuff. It's an important box,
40:23
Speaker 1: don't forget. It's an important box. And I think Marshall
40:26
Speaker 1: had previously been fined what would be about twenty pounds
40:30
Speaker 1: today for having lost some equipment, so he may have
40:33
Speaker 1: been like really quick to like, hey, we got to
40:34
Speaker 1: secure that box. And so maybe Ducott and Marshall went
40:38
Speaker 1: out there two like they left their quarters while uh,
40:43
Speaker 1: the other dude, the occasional keeper MacArthur, is up there
40:46
Speaker 1: in the lighthouse still and they're securing this box down
40:50
Speaker 1: and then maybe this freak uh wave comes through, or
40:54
Speaker 1: maybe they just get in trouble and then MacArthur needs
40:57
Speaker 1: to really leave quickly, which would explain why they did
41:01
Speaker 1: have their rain gear on and MacArthur didn't because MacArthur
41:04
Speaker 1: had to leave really quickly to go down there and
41:06
Speaker 1: help these guys. Yes, so like that, that definitely checks
41:10
Speaker 1: all the boxes. That after that MacArthur was swept away
41:14
Speaker 1: as well. But the thing is is, like that, that
41:18
Speaker 1: supposes something really amazing, Chuck, that there was a freak
41:23
Speaker 1: wave that the men just did not expect that carried
41:28
Speaker 1: at least one of them away. The second one who
41:32
Speaker 1: survived that wave ran back to get help from MacArthur
41:35
Speaker 1: to help get the first guy who went in, and
41:38
Speaker 1: a second freak wave washed those two away, just cleaning
41:42
Speaker 1: the island of its human inhabitants. And two swift waves
41:46
Speaker 1: over the course of a minute or two. Because the
41:48
Speaker 1: idea is that the storm wasn't bad enough to just
41:51
Speaker 1: sweep them all away. Yeah, and the act had to
41:54
Speaker 1: be a rogue wave, right, and the steamer the actor
41:58
Speaker 1: noted that there you because the actor passed by just
42:02
Speaker 1: a few hours, a couple of hours probably after this
42:04
Speaker 1: event happened, and they noted that it was calm but stormy,
42:09
Speaker 1: which is the opposite of what you would think. You
42:11
Speaker 1: would think it was not stormy which would draw the
42:13
Speaker 1: men out to to make them, I mean stormy enough
42:16
Speaker 1: that they needed to secure the box, but not so
42:18
Speaker 1: stormy that they they felt like it couldn't go out.
42:22
Speaker 1: But calm really kind of makes it. The idea of
42:25
Speaker 1: two freak waves really freaky, because that would mean that
42:29
Speaker 1: those waves just came out of nowhere and swallowed the
42:31
Speaker 1: men up. But in the whole, I mean, we did
42:34
Speaker 1: an episode on rogue waves, and the idea is that
42:36
Speaker 1: that it's a wave or was there a set of
42:39
Speaker 1: rogue waves? I think, if I remember correctly, it was
42:43
Speaker 1: a wave. But that's what I think. Maybe maybe there
42:46
Speaker 1: was more I don't know, but yes, that that that's
42:48
Speaker 1: how this That's the only way that could happen is
42:51
Speaker 1: because MacArthur wasn't wearing his rain gear, which suggests that
42:55
Speaker 1: he ran out in a hurry into bad weather, which
42:59
Speaker 1: means that one of them would have had to have
43:01
Speaker 1: come and gotten him. He wouldn't have been there with
43:03
Speaker 1: the other two. So it could not have just been
43:05
Speaker 1: one freak wave. It would have had to have been
43:07
Speaker 1: two successive freak waves that cleared all three well, and
43:11
Speaker 1: this does um lends some credence to the idea that
43:16
Speaker 1: this thing was big enough to damage the turf, you know,
43:19
Speaker 1: two feet above sea level and destroy that box and
43:23
Speaker 1: washed that two thousand pounds stone down the cliff too, right, Yeah,
43:26
Speaker 1: And there was also there's a there's a chance that
43:29
Speaker 1: all that stuff that that just was evidence of a
43:32
Speaker 1: terrible storm actually came after the men had been washed
43:36
Speaker 1: away from the island several days later, when there was
43:38
Speaker 1: a really bad storm. Okay, that makes sense. I didn't
43:42
Speaker 1: think about that, didn't that weird? Did think that that
43:44
Speaker 1: damage had happened after the after the fact, right? It?
43:49
Speaker 1: Sure that makes sense because it's almost certain that they
43:52
Speaker 1: that this event happened on December fifteenth. The last info
43:55
Speaker 1: they had on the log slate was nine am December fifte,
43:58
Speaker 1: like we said, so couldn't have happened earlier than that,
44:01
Speaker 1: and it would have happened before dark on December fift
44:06
Speaker 1: which would have happened about four pm, because otherwise they
44:10
Speaker 1: would have lit the light that night and the steamer
44:14
Speaker 1: actor would have seen the light in the lighthouse as
44:17
Speaker 1: it passed by on December That's right. I think all
44:21
Speaker 1: this gets really interesting in the nineteen fifties, when a
44:25
Speaker 1: lighthouseman named Robert Aldibert, who worked there, served as principal
44:30
Speaker 1: keeper between fifty three and fifty seven. He lived there
44:34
Speaker 1: obviously had a little time on his hands, and was
44:37
Speaker 1: really enthralled by this mystery. And it was like, I'm
44:39
Speaker 1: gonna do some research and I'm gonna take a lot
44:41
Speaker 1: of pictures and do keep a lot of records in
44:43
Speaker 1: my diary. And uh he said that, you know, I've
44:47
Speaker 1: I was in the lighthouse itself and got and so
44:52
Speaker 1: that's how many feet above sea level they at, ye,
44:56
Speaker 1: like two hundred close to three dred feet up and
44:58
Speaker 1: got sa spray from some waves. So he's like, it's
45:01
Speaker 1: very possible that a big wave could come through and
45:04
Speaker 1: reach these heights. Yeah, he did test where he took
45:06
Speaker 1: coils of rope and put them on the top of
45:09
Speaker 1: the cliff and they get washed away by some of
45:11
Speaker 1: those horrible waves. So he basically said it was almost
45:15
Speaker 1: certainly a wave that got these guys. That's not the
45:18
Speaker 1: craziest part. The craziest part is it was two waves,
45:21
Speaker 1: almost like the sea was waiting for all three of
45:23
Speaker 1: them and took them all. It's pretty weird. I wonder
45:26
Speaker 1: if he got fined for losing those ropes. I don't know,
45:29
Speaker 1: maybe so if the if, the if, it's the Northern
45:31
Speaker 1: White House Board. I know he definitely did well and
45:36
Speaker 1: he what was his final ex because he's the one
45:38
Speaker 1: that we mentioned earlier that said that, uh that the
45:42
Speaker 1: one of the chairs was turned over in the kitchen,
45:44
Speaker 1: right Like he kind of bought into that. Yeah, false narrative. Yeah,
45:47
Speaker 1: but I wonder because this is a good you know,
45:49
Speaker 1: forty years after that poem had been written, maybe it
45:52
Speaker 1: was so woven into the story by then he just
45:54
Speaker 1: presumed that it was true or not. So how that
45:57
Speaker 1: comes in is he's basically like, all right, or dinner happens, um,
46:02
Speaker 1: like there's bad weather going on. These two guys go
46:05
Speaker 1: out there, uh in our in our see this doesn't
46:08
Speaker 1: make sense to me, and I'll tell you why in
46:10
Speaker 1: a second. But these two guys go out there to
46:12
Speaker 1: secure this box or whatever, uh cookies back in there,
46:16
Speaker 1: washing up and cleaning up, and that's where everything is
46:18
Speaker 1: nice and tidy, and then all of a sudden they
46:21
Speaker 1: need help, and so he turns the chair over because
46:23
Speaker 1: he just like runs out of there real quick. But
46:25
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be wouldn't someone have to be in the
46:28
Speaker 1: light too, isn't that four guys? No, that's why they
46:32
Speaker 1: think that this happened in the afternoon of the because
46:36
Speaker 1: they never went to light the light. They hadn't remember
46:39
Speaker 1: the light was all set up and ready to be
46:42
Speaker 1: it was daytime, yes, it was before. It was before sunset,
46:46
Speaker 1: which would have been before four pm. All right, that's
46:48
Speaker 1: the one part I didn't get. I get it now,
46:50
Speaker 1: flight House shine at night. I never got that part
46:53
Speaker 1: when I wrote my movie, everything takes place during the day, right,
46:57
Speaker 1: I left the mainland for this. You got anything else?
47:03
Speaker 1: Good stuff? No? I like a good mystery. You're good
47:05
Speaker 1: at finding these, man. I love this one, so thank
47:07
Speaker 1: you very much. Um. Yes, well, if you want to
47:09
Speaker 1: know more about the Flann and Niles mystery, go read
47:12
Speaker 1: Mike Dashes work on it. It's really interesting stuff. It's
47:14
Speaker 1: pretty comprehensive too. Uh. And since I said it's pretty comprehensive, everybody,
47:20
Speaker 1: that means it's time for a listener mail. I thought
47:24
Speaker 1: this is really interesting. This is a follow up to
47:26
Speaker 1: the Dingoes episode about Dingo is not really barking much.
47:31
Speaker 1: Hey guys. In response to the statement that dingoes don't bark,
47:33
Speaker 1: you left out a very fun fact and perhaps the
47:36
Speaker 1: topic for another show. While domesticated dogs bark throughout their lifetimes.
47:41
Speaker 1: Wild adult dogs do not routinely bark. One popular theory
47:46
Speaker 1: is that domesticated dogs were bred for tamenus, which, as
47:49
Speaker 1: a result, selected for dogs that never reached full maturity.
47:54
Speaker 1: The upshot of this is that our domesticated dogs are
47:57
Speaker 1: trapped in a state of suspended adolescence. There more or
48:00
Speaker 1: less trapped in puppyhood, an age where all dogs wild
48:03
Speaker 1: and domestic, bark, play, lick, and most important of all,
48:06
Speaker 1: don't kill, which is an important trait for the family
48:09
Speaker 1: pet uh And sent an article from Tampa Bay dot
48:14
Speaker 1: com Why Dogs, Why do dogs Bark? From I Love
48:21
Speaker 1: the show? That is from Peter Vonnier v O n
48:26
Speaker 1: I e er Bonnier. Yeah, either one of those will work,
48:29
Speaker 1: depending on whether you're in France or not. Uh And.
48:32
Speaker 1: Peter is a PhD in owl oncology research, also with
48:36
Speaker 1: an interest in dog barking. Sounds like Peter just is
48:40
Speaker 1: interested in stuff, which is our favorite kind of listening. Yes,
48:42
Speaker 1: there is a diet in the world. Stuff you should
48:44
Speaker 1: know a listener. Thanks a lot, Peter, that was a
48:46
Speaker 1: very interesting email and we appreciate it. Belated congratulations on
48:50
Speaker 1: your PhD. If you want to get in touch with
48:53
Speaker 1: us like Peter did. You can send us an email, right, Chuck,
48:57
Speaker 1: You surely can. Then you might get a response even up,
49:00
Speaker 1: or you might end up on listener mail. Who knows, Yeah,
49:03
Speaker 1: I try to answer these Why don't you roll the
49:05
Speaker 1: dice and find out by sending your email to stuff
49:09
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
49:15
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49:18
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