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SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: The Mystery of the Mary Celeste · Stuff You Should Know

0:03
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Chuck here, introing episode 5 of the Stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: You Should Know Gets Weird playlist. This is weird stuff, everyone,
0:10
Speaker 1: and this is an episode on the Mary Celeste, because
0:13
Speaker 1: that was definitely pretty weird. It's definitely a mystery, and
0:16
Speaker 1: I believe the title is, in full, The Mystery of
0:20
Speaker 1: the Mary Celeste.
0:22
Speaker 2: Enjoy it right now.
0:27
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and
0:37
Speaker 3: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W.
0:41
Speaker 3: Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland, the triumvirate, the hat trick,
0:46
Speaker 3: the trio, the triage.
0:48
Speaker 2: Trifecta.
0:49
Speaker 3: In French. There you go. Is that Latin?
0:53
Speaker 2: I don't know. I just know it as a gambling term.
0:55
Speaker 3: Well, whatever it is, it's stuff you should know.
0:59
Speaker 2: Hey, Happy New Year.
1:00
Speaker 3: Happy New Year to you too, buddy. Happy New Year, Jerry.
1:04
Speaker 3: Cheap mouth Happy New Year. Thank you, Jerry.
1:06
Speaker 2: So, in real time, this is our first recording of 2018.
1:10
Speaker 2: I know this always feels a little bit weird when
1:12
Speaker 2: we say things like Happy New Year in, what, February?
1:16
Speaker 3: No.
1:16
Speaker 2: Late January?
1:17
Speaker 3: No, it's like next week. Oh. We ate up the kitty.
1:21
Speaker 2: Did we get that slim?
1:23
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
1:23
Speaker 2: During our long break, which was wonderful.
1:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was so nice, Chuck. I actually, get this, relaxed.
1:32
Speaker 2: No.
1:33
Speaker 3: Yes.
1:33
Speaker 2: I don't buy it.
1:35
Speaker 3: I did. I unwound. My cortisol levels decreased, although the
1:40
Speaker 3: spare tire didn't actually go down with it. It was
1:43
Speaker 3: replaced by frosting.
1:46
Speaker 2: My webcam begs to differ because I was peeking in
1:49
Speaker 2: on you the whole time.
1:51
Speaker 3: Well, okay, I did a lot of work, but I
1:53
Speaker 3: did relax in between.
1:54
Speaker 2: I saw you pacing.
1:57
Speaker 3: Wondering what to do with myself.
1:58
Speaker 2: Clipping orchids, clipping orchids.
2:00
Speaker 3: Man, my orchids are doing so well right now. It's
2:03
Speaker 3: super cold out, of course, right? But I've got to
2:06
Speaker 3: keep them outside because they have a bit of an
2:08
Speaker 3: ant infestation. Haven't figured out how to do anything about
2:11
Speaker 3: that one yet. But I built like a little impromptu
2:14
Speaker 3: cold frame around them. And I have a mini crock
2:18
Speaker 3: pot warming water inside the cold frame. So to the orchids,
2:23
Speaker 3: they're in Ecuador right now during the rainy season.
2:25
Speaker 2: It's like downsizing. Have you seen that yet? No.
2:28
Speaker 3: No.
2:29
Speaker 2: Well, that means nothing to you then.
2:31
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't. I have no idea what you're talking about.
2:34
Speaker 3: You have to tell me now. What is it?
2:35
Speaker 2: Well, it's that new movie. The new Alexander Payne movie
2:38
Speaker 2: with Matt Damon.
2:40
Speaker 3: Does it have to do with orchids?
2:42
Speaker 2: No.
2:42
Speaker 3: Crockpots?
2:42
Speaker 2: It has to do with shrinking people down and living
2:46
Speaker 2: in miniature.
2:47
Speaker 3: Oh, that sounds kind of cool.
2:48
Speaker 2: So there'd be like a miniature crockpot. That's what got
2:50
Speaker 2: me on that tangent.
2:52
Speaker 3: Did you ever see that documentary? I'm sorry, everybody who
2:54
Speaker 3: wants to stay on track, but just one more thing.
2:57
Speaker 3: Did you ever see that documentary, Chuck, about the woman
3:01
Speaker 3: who created miniature crime scenes for police to study and
3:07
Speaker 3: learn from? No. You should check it out. It was
3:12
Speaker 3: this lady who did exactly what I just said, and
3:14
Speaker 3: they made a documentary about her and how much these
3:17
Speaker 3: things have actually helped teach techniques and how radical a
3:21
Speaker 3: change it was and presumption of guilt and that kind
3:24
Speaker 3: of thing.
3:24
Speaker 2: You know how much I love miniature things, though.
3:27
Speaker 3: Well, you would love this. I'm surprised you haven't seen
3:29
Speaker 3: it then.
3:30
Speaker 2: No, because what was, I think it was in Chicago,
3:34
Speaker 2: the museum in Chicago and the downstairs, I want to
3:38
Speaker 2: say basement, but whatever the lowest floor is. They have
3:42
Speaker 2: the works of the woman who created all the miniature
3:45
Speaker 2: house interiors. And it's just like I could have spent
3:49
Speaker 2: all day in there.
3:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll bet. It's amazing. I know. There is something
3:55
Speaker 3: about things that are really small. Things that are really
3:57
Speaker 3: small and things that were once above ground that are
4:00
Speaker 3: now underwater.
4:01
Speaker 2: Have you ever get the little tiny Tabasco bottle?
4:05
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
4:07
Speaker 2: I just want to hug it.
4:08
Speaker 3: It's about as prized a Tabasco bottle as you can get.
4:11
Speaker 2: Man, I love small stuff like that.
4:13
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, I know what you're getting next Christmas.
4:16
Speaker 2: Something tiny.
4:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, some tiny Tabascos.
4:19
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
4:20
Speaker 3: I'm going to be like, hug these.
4:21
Speaker 2: Give me a small anything.
4:23
Speaker 3: Okay. Good to know. Good to know. All right. So
4:27
Speaker 3: let's talk. Let's wrap. All right. You know I love
4:30
Speaker 3: me a mystery, Chuck. I think you do too.
4:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is a good one. The old ghost ship.
4:37
Speaker 3: Yeah. When you cross mystery with history, it just blows up.
4:42
Speaker 3: The spot. The whole spot blows up. And that's what
4:44
Speaker 3: this one is. Like, I remember learning about the Mary
4:47
Speaker 3: Celeste back when I was a young tyke. Probably filmed that, like,
4:50
Speaker 3: time life unexplained phenomena series oh yeah i'm pretty sure
4:54
Speaker 3: that's where those time life books yeah they were great
4:58
Speaker 3: they were just chock full of just outright lies and
5:03
Speaker 3: and mistaken facts and things like that but they were
5:05
Speaker 3: perfect for like a little 10 year old imagination you.
5:08
Speaker 2: Know you were tiny what do you mean you were
5:12
Speaker 2: tiny 10 year old your imagination was big though.
5:15
Speaker 3: I i I wasn't tiny at 10. I was really
5:17
Speaker 3: starting to work on some chubs by then.
5:19
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. See, I'm going in reverse order. I was
5:22
Speaker 2: a skinny 10-year-old.
5:24
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. I was never a skinny kid.
5:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:28
Speaker 3: Well, anyway. Just imagine little kind of chubby 10-year-old Josh
5:34
Speaker 3: sitting there reading a Time Life book, learning about the
5:37
Speaker 3: Mary Celeste, this, like you said, ghost ship, and just
5:41
Speaker 3: my hair standing up on end going, this is what
5:44
Speaker 3: a great universe to live in.
5:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, where there can be ghost ships.
5:48
Speaker 3: Right.
5:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll get to, at the end, we will
5:52
Speaker 2: reveal the big, well, no one knows for sure what happened.
5:56
Speaker 3: No.
5:58
Speaker 2: We'll get to what the best guess is at the
6:00
Speaker 2: very end. Or should we just say that right now?
6:02
Speaker 3: No, no.
6:03
Speaker 2: That'd be weird.
6:04
Speaker 3: I think, no, I think that, I subscribe to the
6:07
Speaker 3: best guess, as we'll see.
6:09
Speaker 2: All right, so way back machine time, right? But this
6:12
Speaker 2: is our seafaring version.
6:15
Speaker 3: Well, no, we're going to old New York. Oh, okay.
6:18
Speaker 2: So we don't need to get wet yet?
6:20
Speaker 3: No, not yet. We're Daniel Day-Lewis Reign Supreme.
6:24
Speaker 2: Have you seen that yet? Oh, no, you're talking about
6:26
Speaker 2: Gangs of New York.
6:27
Speaker 3: Gangs of New York.
6:28
Speaker 2: I thought you were talking about the new one, Phantom Thread.
6:31
Speaker 3: Where do you hear about these movies?
6:33
Speaker 2: That's my job, dude.
6:34
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that's right.
6:38
Speaker 2: I don't think that movie's even out yet, actually. At
6:41
Speaker 2: least not in Atlanta. We're like a second-tier city.
6:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true, but I suspect not for long, because
6:47
Speaker 3: I think Atlanta's actually surpassed L.A. now as far as
6:51
Speaker 3: film production goes. Ooh. Have you heard that?
6:56
Speaker 2: I could certainly believe it. Yeah. So does that mean
6:59
Speaker 2: we're second tier and L.A. 's third tier?
7:02
Speaker 3: Maybe so. All right. 2.5.
7:04
Speaker 2: All right, so are you talking early November 1872?
7:09
Speaker 3: Yes, November 4th, to be exact, a Monday.
7:11
Speaker 2: Are you talking about the Astor House in New York City,
7:14
Speaker 2: New York?
7:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, man. And this is at a time where, like,
7:17
Speaker 3: have you ever read Devil in the White City?
7:19
Speaker 2: No, man, I still have not read that.
7:21
Speaker 3: You should read it. It's pretty good. But one of
7:22
Speaker 3: the things that the book does is it reproduces menus
7:26
Speaker 3: from these dinners that they had when they were planning
7:29
Speaker 3: the expo. And these things were like they had chapters, basically.
7:33
Speaker 3: They'd smoke cigarettes in the middle. There'd be a cigarette
7:36
Speaker 3: round because you had to do something to keep all
7:39
Speaker 3: of this food down and help the process of digestion.
7:43
Speaker 3: It was crazy how much they would eat. So I
7:45
Speaker 3: can imagine the food was pretty good at the Astor
7:48
Speaker 3: House in 1872.
7:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, but everything back then was like crown roast and
7:54
Speaker 2: rack of lamb.
7:55
Speaker 3: Yeah.
7:55
Speaker 2: It was just like huge trays of beef.
7:58
Speaker 3: Right, live pig that you beat to death at your
8:01
Speaker 3: table and then start eating. They did it, believe me.
8:05
Speaker 3: The Time Life books told me so.
8:07
Speaker 2: That's right. All right, so at this dinner table, we
8:10
Speaker 2: have a few people. We have one, Captain David Morehouse,
8:14
Speaker 2: and then his buddy. He was a ship's captain. His buddy,
8:17
Speaker 2: another ship's captain, because, you know, they tend to hang
8:19
Speaker 2: out with one another.
8:20
Speaker 3: Sure.
8:21
Speaker 2: Captain Benjamin Spooner, Briggs. And they're sitting down with Briggs' wife, Sarah.
8:28
Speaker 2: And I don't know, did Morehouse have his wife there,
8:30
Speaker 2: or was he batching it?
8:32
Speaker 3: That's not the impression I have. I think that, uh,
8:34
Speaker 3: Sarah was there because they were, she was shipping out
8:36
Speaker 3: the next day too.
8:37
Speaker 2: Okay.
8:39
Speaker 3: I think he was batching it in other.
8:40
Speaker 2: Words, but they were, they were good buddies, both captains,
8:43
Speaker 2: both set to set sail, uh, out of New York
8:48
Speaker 2: for the Mediterranean. And I guess they were just talking shop.
8:53
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I think they both grew up in
8:55
Speaker 3: Nova Scotia, so they may have known each other there. Uh,
8:58
Speaker 3: a couple of salty old sea dogs, but good people from, from, uh,
9:02
Speaker 3: From all accounts.
9:03
Speaker 2: Sure.
9:03
Speaker 3: And they, I mean, the fact that these guys were
9:06
Speaker 3: having dinner in New York on November 4th, 1872, totally
9:11
Speaker 3: unremarkable in most senses, right? Yeah. But a month later,
9:15
Speaker 3: it would be incredibly ironic. Oh, yes. And tell them why.
9:20
Speaker 2: Well, because Morehouse's ship, the, is it Degratia?
9:25
Speaker 3: I think so.
9:26
Speaker 2: Okay. We'll call it that. D-E-I-G-R-A-T-I-A. Degratia. was sailing along,
9:34
Speaker 2: and we'll get to the specifics of how this happened
9:36
Speaker 2: in a second, but they came upon his buddy's ship,
9:39
Speaker 2: the Mary Celeste. And by all accounts, it was probably like, hey,
9:43
Speaker 2: that's Briggs. We need to go over and check out
9:47
Speaker 2: how Spoon's Briggs is doing. And they weren't doing well
9:52
Speaker 2: because nobody aboard the ship was aboard the ship.
9:56
Speaker 3: No, I mean, just seeing the ship would have caught
9:58
Speaker 3: him by surprise because his ship out a full week later,
10:02
Speaker 3: bound for the same city, leaving from the same port,
10:04
Speaker 3: so they should have never caught up to them. And
10:07
Speaker 3: then the fact that, yeah, when they boarded it and
10:09
Speaker 3: there was no one aboard, a mystery that endures to
10:12
Speaker 3: this day was born that day.
10:14
Speaker 2: That is correct.
10:16
Speaker 3: Right. So the Mary Celeste, this very famous ghost ship,
10:20
Speaker 3: What a lot of people don't know, Chuck, is that
10:22
Speaker 3: even before the Mary Celeste became this famous ghost ship,
10:26
Speaker 3: it was already considered pretty unlucky, actually.
10:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, so 1860 was when, not even named the Mary
10:34
Speaker 2: Celeste yet, it was called the Amazon at the time,
10:37
Speaker 2: was born in Nova Scotia. And I believe the very
10:41
Speaker 2: first voyage, what you would call a maiden voyage, was
10:44
Speaker 2: to haul some timber to London, across the Atlantic.
10:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what she was used for.
10:50
Speaker 2: Pretty routine.
10:51
Speaker 3: Yeah. Didn't go very well.
10:53
Speaker 2: No, it didn't.
10:54
Speaker 3: No, her first captain was a guy named Robert McClellan.
10:59
Speaker 3: And he apparently had had a cold. And when they
11:02
Speaker 3: shipped out, he took such a turn for the worse
11:05
Speaker 3: that they had to turn around and go back home.
11:07
Speaker 3: And he died two days after they got back from pneumonia.
11:11
Speaker 2: Can you imagine back in those days if you get
11:13
Speaker 2: a cold, you're like, well, I've got about a 1
11:14
Speaker 2: in 10 chance of dying. Right.
11:16
Speaker 3: Maybe even worse than that, right?
11:17
Speaker 2: I know.
11:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, but think about this. First of all, sailors are
11:22
Speaker 3: a fairly superstitious bunch, right? So a maiden voyage, anything
11:29
Speaker 3: that's hinky or weird or bad about a maiden voyage, automatically,
11:34
Speaker 3: cursed ship. So the captain dying on a maiden voyage
11:37
Speaker 3: that can't even be completed, that's a cursed ship right
11:40
Speaker 3: out of the gate.
11:41
Speaker 2: I would say so.
11:42
Speaker 3: But this is also a business venture, so it's not
11:45
Speaker 3: like the owners gave up on the thing. They said, well...
11:48
Speaker 3: Just get in another captain, you superstitious dogs, and get
11:51
Speaker 3: back out there. And that's what they did. Yes.
11:53
Speaker 2: And captain number two was John Nutting Parker.
11:57
Speaker 3: Great name.
11:58
Speaker 2: It is a good name. And he also sailed to London.
12:02
Speaker 2: And when they left, they actually encountered some trouble right
12:05
Speaker 2: off the bat. They hit some fishing equipment off the
12:08
Speaker 2: coast of Maine, pressed on, as you do, and did
12:13
Speaker 2: reach London, dumped off their cargo, set sail for home.
12:17
Speaker 2: And as they set sail for home, they actually sunk
12:20
Speaker 2: another boat in the English Channel.
12:22
Speaker 3: Yes. Cursed ship, cursed ship.
12:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that other boat was probably like, picks a lot.
12:28
Speaker 3: Right, exactly.
12:29
Speaker 2: Amazon.
12:30
Speaker 3: Yeah. And the captain of the other ship even stubbed
12:33
Speaker 3: his toe on the way down afterward. It was terrible.
12:35
Speaker 2: Insult to injury. It was a bad scene.
12:37
Speaker 3: So, again, this is a business venture. The owner said, whatever.
12:42
Speaker 3: It was somebody else's ship. Our ship's fine. We're going
12:44
Speaker 3: to keep doing this London to... New York to London
12:48
Speaker 3: timber route. They also did some West Indies trade for
12:51
Speaker 3: a while, and everything was fairly normal for a while.
12:55
Speaker 3: And then a freak storm caught this ship. And I'm
13:00
Speaker 3: not a seafarer by any means whatsoever.
13:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, same here.
13:03
Speaker 3: So I don't know if this actually is an inordinate
13:07
Speaker 3: amount of things to happen to one ship, but it
13:11
Speaker 3: does seem like a lot in just less than a
13:14
Speaker 3: decade for a single ship. Yeah. So the first captain dies.
13:18
Speaker 3: Second captain sinks another ship. They run into some fishing tackle.
13:21
Speaker 3: And then in October of 1867, she's run aground in
13:25
Speaker 3: a storm and is so bad off that the owners say,
13:29
Speaker 3: we're abandoning her.
13:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that must be pretty bad. So they literally left
13:33
Speaker 2: the ship there to decompose, or I guess you would
13:37
Speaker 2: call it rot if you're wooden.
13:39
Speaker 3: Sure.
13:40
Speaker 2: Or I guess wood decomposes, right? Or is that just rot?
13:43
Speaker 3: I think rod is more slang.
13:45
Speaker 2: Okay. It sounds grosser, too.
13:47
Speaker 3: Like cool.
13:48
Speaker 2: Right. And at that point, the ship was bought by
13:53
Speaker 2: a dude named Alexander McBean, also from Nova Scotia.
13:56
Speaker 3: Also a great name.
13:58
Speaker 2: And then he, I mean, the ship is changing hands, basically.
14:00
Speaker 2: He sold that shipwreck. And I guess that was just
14:03
Speaker 2: a thing at the time. You would buy a shipwreck,
14:07
Speaker 2: maybe sell it, then turn a quick profit. Probably not
14:11
Speaker 2: a ton of money. But he sold that shipwreck to
14:14
Speaker 2: a dude who then sold it to another dude named
14:18
Speaker 2: Richard Haynes. So he paid about $ 1, 750 for it, which
14:23
Speaker 2: is about $ 32, 000, according to our favorite inflation calculator, which is?
14:30
Speaker 3: West Egg.
14:30
Speaker 2: That's correct. It's just got a good name.
14:35
Speaker 3: Plus it's easy to use, and it's been around forever.
14:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I think it goes up to 2016 now,
14:41
Speaker 2: which is pretty good.
14:42
Speaker 3: That's pretty good.
14:44
Speaker 2: They're always just like a year behind, which I can respect.
14:46
Speaker 3: That's fine. They need the data.
14:49
Speaker 2: So Haynes went through bankruptcy, and that boat was seized.
14:52
Speaker 2: And then that was sold to a group led by
14:55
Speaker 2: a man named James Winchester.
14:57
Speaker 3: Okay.
14:58
Speaker 2: And Haynes had fixed it up a little bit, but
15:00
Speaker 2: Winchester really put a lot of money into it, lengthened
15:03
Speaker 2: it to over 100 feet, added a deck. Basically, the
15:08
Speaker 2: show would have been called Flip This Brigantine.
15:11
Speaker 3: We're starring Vanilla Ice. You like that one, huh?
15:17
Speaker 2: I've seen that show. Have you seen it?
15:20
Speaker 3: For like five minutes. I'll tell you this. This proves
15:23
Speaker 3: that I relaxed this vacation.
15:25
Speaker 2: You ready?
15:26
Speaker 3: Yeah. I got hooked on an Animal Planet show called
15:30
Speaker 3: Insane Pools. Have you heard of it?
15:34
Speaker 2: I do watch one of those pool shows, but I
15:36
Speaker 2: don't think it's that one. It's another one.
15:38
Speaker 3: I was like, I have to go to bed now
15:41
Speaker 3: or else I'm going to be up till like 5 a.m.
15:43
Speaker 3: watching this marathon about a pool renovation show that has
15:47
Speaker 3: nothing to do with animals.
15:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
15:49
Speaker 3: It was bizarre how it just got its hooks in me.
15:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, that happens from time to time with me too.
15:56
Speaker 2: And you know what scares me about those pools though
15:58
Speaker 2: is most of them are just amazing and you have
16:00
Speaker 2: like grottos and waterfalls and all that cool stuff. But
16:03
Speaker 2: some people opt for those death tubes where you can like,
16:08
Speaker 2: swim through a thing to another thing.
16:10
Speaker 3: Oh, I haven't seen one with that yet.
16:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, hey, we want to be able to
16:14
Speaker 2: swim through a tube to another part of the pool
16:17
Speaker 2: and potentially, you know, get stuck and die. That's how
16:21
Speaker 2: I see it.
16:21
Speaker 3: That would be really awful.
16:22
Speaker 2: I don't think that ever happens, though.
16:24
Speaker 3: They need to just leave a stick of butter at
16:26
Speaker 3: the mouth of that thing so you can grease yourself
16:28
Speaker 3: up real good as you're going through. You know? Your
16:33
Speaker 3: pool would just have a sheen of butter floating in it.
16:36
Speaker 3: At the top, it kind of rots in the sunlight.
16:39
Speaker 2: I worked at a pool like that once.
16:41
Speaker 3: That's grody.
16:41
Speaker 2: It was not butter, but there was a sheen. I
16:43
Speaker 2: don't know what it was.
16:44
Speaker 3: I'm sure it was sunblock.
16:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so.
16:47
Speaker 3: It has to be. What else is it going to be?
16:50
Speaker 2: I don't know. Body funk?
16:52
Speaker 3: It could be. There's probably a little body funk fixed
16:55
Speaker 3: in there.
16:55
Speaker 2: But does that cause a rainbow sheen?
16:58
Speaker 3: Oh, a rainbow sheen? No. I don't know what that was.
17:01
Speaker 3: There should not be a rainbow sheen on your pool.
17:04
Speaker 3: Unless you had, like, pool like swimmers covered in gasoline
17:08
Speaker 3: going into your pool that would explain it.
17:10
Speaker 2: Well that might have been it okay uh all right
17:12
Speaker 2: so winchester and by the way winchester is just the
17:15
Speaker 2: major investor uh there was a very notable other investor
17:20
Speaker 2: and what was his name.
17:22
Speaker 3: Oh oh oh you're asking me yeah it's been a
17:25
Speaker 3: couple weeks hasn't it sorry about that.
17:27
Speaker 2: You were just staring up in the space that was
17:29
Speaker 2: weird his.
17:29
Speaker 3: His name was benjamin spooner briggs.
17:32
Speaker 2: Right who you will notice is the dude from dinner Yes.
17:36
Speaker 3: So he's not only the captain of the Mary Celeste,
17:38
Speaker 3: he was a two-fifth stake investor in it. And what's
17:43
Speaker 3: notable is that at the time he invested in the
17:46
Speaker 3: Mary Celeste, he and his brother were actually considering getting
17:51
Speaker 3: out of the sailing game and buying a hardware store
17:56
Speaker 3: together in New Bedford, Mass. And instead, Briggs said, no,
18:01
Speaker 3: you know what? This is too good of a deal.
18:03
Speaker 3: This is a great ship. I'm going to pour my
18:05
Speaker 3: savings into a two-fifth stake, and not only that, I'll
18:08
Speaker 3: be the captain of it. And not only that, for
18:11
Speaker 3: its maiden voyage, I'm going to bring my wife and
18:13
Speaker 3: daughter along with me.
18:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of those sliding doors things, like should
18:18
Speaker 2: have gone into hardware.
18:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, rather than sailing into history.
18:24
Speaker 2: So, by the way, that is when the ship was
18:26
Speaker 2: officially renamed the Mary Celeste from the Amazon, is when
18:30
Speaker 2: it was re-registered, I guess. I looked it up. I
18:34
Speaker 2: was kind of curious because there is a Marie Celeste,
18:36
Speaker 2: which is a fairly famous Civil Wars ship. I was
18:42
Speaker 2: just curious where the name came from, and nobody really knows.
18:46
Speaker 2: But they said there is a theory that it was
18:48
Speaker 2: an error by the painter because it's an English and
18:51
Speaker 2: a French name, and it's just a weird mix-up to
18:53
Speaker 2: not have been Marie and be Marie Celeste. So they
18:55
Speaker 2: think it might have been either the Mary Sellers or
18:59
Speaker 2: another Marie Celeste. So either way. Who knows?
19:04
Speaker 3: Well, even today, though, still there's some confusion. If you
19:08
Speaker 3: Google Mary Celeste, Google says, do you mean Marie Celeste?
19:12
Speaker 3: And I say, no, Google, I mean Mary Celeste.
19:14
Speaker 2: It says, do you mean Vanilla Ice?
19:16
Speaker 3: Right. Vanilla Ice flipped his pool.
19:21
Speaker 2: So Briggs, like you said, brought along his wife, who
19:25
Speaker 2: was at dinner, and then their two-year-old daughter, Sophia Matilda.
19:28
Speaker 2: They left little Arthur behind because he was seven. And
19:32
Speaker 2: he was in school, and they said, we don't want
19:35
Speaker 2: to take little Arthur out of school. No.
19:37
Speaker 3: He was already pretty dim-witted, so.
19:40
Speaker 2: Oh, was he?
19:40
Speaker 3: No, I don't know. Okay. But they didn't want to
19:45
Speaker 3: interrupt his schooling, so they said, Arthur, you stay here
19:47
Speaker 3: with some relatives. And they took Sophia Matilda. with them.
19:51
Speaker 3: And this was a huge decision. I don't know if
19:53
Speaker 3: this is unusual or not, but whatever. Briggs said, I'm
19:57
Speaker 3: bringing my wife and daughter with me on this ship
20:01
Speaker 3: on the maiden voyage.
20:02
Speaker 2: And everyone went, oh, brother. I know.
20:04
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, good, good. This will be fun. We'll
20:08
Speaker 3: not only have to work really hard for weeks at sea,
20:11
Speaker 3: we'll also have to entertain your two-year-old whenever she wants
20:13
Speaker 3: our attention. Right.
20:14
Speaker 2: And we can't curse.
20:15
Speaker 3: Right. Exactly. So that decision, though, probably had some effects
20:24
Speaker 3: on the voyage overall. It definitely had an effect on
20:28
Speaker 3: who Briggs chose for the crew.
20:29
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:31
Speaker 3: He, you know, he had his wife, his daughter. He
20:33
Speaker 3: was known as a Christian, an upstanding person. Apparently didn't
20:37
Speaker 3: drink much, if at all. He was known as fair, just, level-headed,
20:42
Speaker 3: and just an overall honorable person. Not just at sea,
20:45
Speaker 3: but in life, you know, as well, back on land.
20:48
Speaker 3: So he was pretty well regarded. I'm assuming his wife
20:52
Speaker 3: was equally well regarded. And he, because his family was
20:57
Speaker 3: on the boat with him, he went to some... trouble
21:01
Speaker 3: to make sure that the seven crew members that he
21:03
Speaker 3: picked were of upright character themselves, that there weren't any
21:07
Speaker 3: shade balls because you don't want any shady sailors out
21:11
Speaker 3: in the middle of the Atlantic ocean with your wife
21:13
Speaker 3: and child. No, you don't want that. So that is
21:17
Speaker 3: to say that the crew of the Mary Celeste on
21:20
Speaker 3: her maiden voyage with Benjamin Briggs, his wife and daughter
21:23
Speaker 3: were all pretty, pretty top-notch dudes by all accounts.
21:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So, um, They set sail. What they
21:31
Speaker 2: were carrying was about 1,700, actually 1,701 to be exact,
21:36
Speaker 2: barrels of what's called denatured alcohol. This is not rum.
21:42
Speaker 2: This is not something you're going to drink. It is undrinkable.
21:45
Speaker 2: It is like fuel, basically, industrial fuel. And they finally
21:49
Speaker 2: set sail on November 7, 1872, bound for Italy, bound
21:53
Speaker 2: for Genoa. And I think we should probably take a
21:57
Speaker 2: break right here.
21:58
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
21:59
Speaker 2: All right. We'll be right back about The.
22:01
Speaker 3: Haunted Ghost Ship.
22:03
Speaker 4: All right, Chuck.
22:29
Speaker 2: We're out at sea.
22:32
Speaker 3: Okay, so there was an investigation, as you can imagine.
22:36
Speaker 3: We'll talk about that more later. But this investigation determined
22:39
Speaker 3: that probably, although they definitely ran into some storms and
22:43
Speaker 3: heavy weather here or there, but most of the voyage
22:47
Speaker 3: of the Mary Celeste was fairly unremarkable overall, right?
22:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, they made it a long way.
22:52
Speaker 3: It wasn't. They did. It wasn't until the last five
22:55
Speaker 3: days before they are suspected to have disappeared that the
23:00
Speaker 3: Mary Celeste's voyage turned a little odd or became a
23:04
Speaker 3: little unusual. Yeah. And they figured out that from looking
23:08
Speaker 3: at the logbooks that within that last five days, Captain
23:13
Speaker 3: Briggs decided that he really should have seen land by
23:18
Speaker 3: by this time. And if you're a captain and you're
23:22
Speaker 3: a chronometer, which is basically like from what I was
23:25
Speaker 3: reading about this, it's like a portable time zone that
23:29
Speaker 3: you can use for celestial navigation to basically tell exactly
23:35
Speaker 3: where you are in the world. It's a very valuable
23:39
Speaker 3: tool to have at sea, but if your chronometer is faulty,
23:43
Speaker 3: you're not necessarily going to be where you think you are. Okay.
23:47
Speaker 3: So based on his calculations with his chronometer, he thought
23:52
Speaker 3: that they should have seen land, the Azores by then.
23:56
Speaker 3: This island chain in the Atlantic kind of toward Portugal.
24:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like just like dead west of southern Portugal.
24:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the easternmost island of the Azores is
24:07
Speaker 3: like 400 miles north. West of Portugal. Something like that.
24:11
Speaker 2: Quite lovely, I imagine.
24:12
Speaker 3: I can imagine, too. But I think it's also basically
24:15
Speaker 3: in the middle of nowhere. In the mid-Atlantic.
24:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of those things where if you do
24:21
Speaker 2: the Google map, you will see these tiny specks and
24:24
Speaker 2: nothing but blue. Right. So you've got to start zooming
24:27
Speaker 2: out to see where the heck you are.
24:29
Speaker 3: Right. It's like the Hawaii of the Atlantic, I think. Okay.
24:33
Speaker 3: So he thought that he should have seen the Azores
24:36
Speaker 3: by then. And he hadn't. So I think he started
24:38
Speaker 3: to get a little nervous because they changed course. They
24:41
Speaker 3: went northward, which he suspected would have taken him toward
24:45
Speaker 3: the Azores. And he may have been either looking to
24:48
Speaker 3: kind of reorient himself or just looking for haven. Who knows?
24:57
Speaker 3: But they know that they did change course and that
25:01
Speaker 3: he wasn't where he was. He thought he was.
25:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I also get the idea, which will jibe
25:06
Speaker 2: with one of the theories, is that he may have
25:09
Speaker 2: been a little nervous having his two-year-old and his wife
25:12
Speaker 2: aboard in general.
25:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, it's not just his
25:16
Speaker 3: safety now or even the safety of the crew. It's
25:19
Speaker 3: his little kid and his wife's safety. Of course he's
25:21
Speaker 3: going to be worried about that.
25:22
Speaker 2: Exactly. Man, I can't imagine having a two-year-old on a ship.
25:25
Speaker 2: What a nightmare.
25:26
Speaker 3: I know.
25:27
Speaker 2: Good God.
25:28
Speaker 3: I know. Just go on a cruise. You can experience
25:31
Speaker 3: it a million times over. Oy.
25:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, because a modern-day cruise ship is the same as
25:36
Speaker 2: a 19th century sailing vessel.
25:41
Speaker 3: It's not. You're right. There's nothing to do. No, that's true.
25:46
Speaker 3: Although they did have a melodion, which I had to
25:48
Speaker 3: look that up as well. It's like an accordion.
25:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't see why they even call it something different.
25:53
Speaker 3: Right, an accordion with keys.
25:55
Speaker 2: All right, so on... Oh, as opposed to what?
26:01
Speaker 3: The little buttons. Oh. Or maybe it's the accordion with
26:06
Speaker 3: the buttons right on the keys. It's one of the two.
26:09
Speaker 2: Okay.
26:09
Speaker 3: You know what I'm talking about. It's like a weird
26:11
Speaker 3: Al Yankovic type instrument.
26:13
Speaker 2: Oh, well, we should get Aaron Cooper to write us
26:15
Speaker 2: because he will surely do.
26:16
Speaker 3: And they, yes, I'm sure. So they would have had
26:20
Speaker 3: that aboard, which would have been all the pleasure you
26:24
Speaker 3: could imagine.
26:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, like one wooden doll and a And an accordion
26:28
Speaker 2: is really going to keep a two-year-old occupied.
26:30
Speaker 3: And a communal salt lick in the middle of the
26:34
Speaker 3: above deck.
26:36
Speaker 2: All right. So the next morning they wake up and
26:40
Speaker 2: the Mary Celeste actually sees land, which I can imagine
26:44
Speaker 2: if you were a seaman out there in the 19th
26:47
Speaker 2: century and you're a little worried, there is no more
26:50
Speaker 2: welcome sight than seeing land. You know, after seeing nothing
26:54
Speaker 2: but water for weeks and weeks. So they see land.
26:58
Speaker 2: The logbook says they saw land. They're about six miles
27:03
Speaker 2: from Santa Maria, which is the easternmost of the Azores.
27:07
Speaker 2: And this was sort of the last stop before you
27:10
Speaker 2: hit Portugal.
27:12
Speaker 3: Right. I can imagine. He just was so relieved when
27:16
Speaker 3: he saw this land.
27:17
Speaker 2: Sure.
27:18
Speaker 3: So the reason we know this is not because anybody
27:20
Speaker 3: on the Mary Celeste told anybody, at least not verbally.
27:24
Speaker 3: They found the logbook and the log slate, which is
27:28
Speaker 3: kind of like you're just keeping track of stuff on
27:31
Speaker 3: the slate before you actually transcribe it into the logbook.
27:34
Speaker 3: And the log slate was where they noted that 8 a.m.
27:37
Speaker 3: on November 25th, the Mary Celeste sighted land, and by
27:41
Speaker 3: their calculations were six miles off of Santa Maria, right?
27:45
Speaker 2: That's right.
27:46
Speaker 3: That was November 25th. Yes.
27:50
Speaker 2: I guess they just had a nice Thanksgiving?
27:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe.
27:54
Speaker 2: With their salt lick? Yeah. Now, they had food, as
27:58
Speaker 2: we will see. Yeah. So, remember the Drogatia?
28:02
Speaker 3: Drogatia.
28:03
Speaker 2: Drogatia.
28:07
Speaker 3: I think that's it, that last one.
28:09
Speaker 2: So, the other ship that was being sailed by his buddy,
28:12
Speaker 2: Captain Morehouse, remember? Seaman John Johnson of that ship said, hey, Cappy,
28:20
Speaker 2: there's another ship out here. And it's about 400 miles
28:24
Speaker 2: further east from where that log had placed that ship,
28:28
Speaker 2: the Mary Celeste.
28:29
Speaker 3: Not only that, it was a good 10 or 11
28:33
Speaker 3: days later.
28:34
Speaker 2: Right. So this is all spelling trouble. There are only
28:38
Speaker 2: three sails set. The rest of the sails had either
28:41
Speaker 2: blown away, weren't raised. None of this bodes well. And
28:45
Speaker 2: Captain Morehouse, I don't think he probably recognized from that
28:47
Speaker 2: distance that it was the Mary Celeste yet. Right. But
28:51
Speaker 2: he sent his first mate, Oliver DeVoe, and second mate,
28:55
Speaker 2: John Wright, and another dude and said, get in that boat,
28:59
Speaker 2: row over there, and see what the heck's going on.
29:01
Speaker 3: Right. So these guys, DeVoe and Wright, were the ones
29:04
Speaker 3: who actually got on deck and investigated the Mary Celeste.
29:09
Speaker 3: And I read this one article that I think just
29:10
Speaker 3: put it so perfectly, like just ropes creaking, like a
29:15
Speaker 3: door kind of banging open and closed in the wind.
29:19
Speaker 3: And just utter silence as far as humans are concerned.
29:23
Speaker 3: Nobody on board the ship would be so creepy. I
29:27
Speaker 3: think that Oliver DeVoe and John Wright probably experienced one
29:32
Speaker 3: of the creepiest experiences that any human ever has in
29:37
Speaker 3: the history of people.
29:38
Speaker 2: So is it creepier? for Josh Clark, Seaman Josh, to
29:44
Speaker 2: get upon the ship and find nobody aboard, but everything
29:50
Speaker 2: seemingly okay, or to see dead bodies in each of
29:55
Speaker 2: the bunks?
29:57
Speaker 3: It would be... Okay, so it depends on the position
30:00
Speaker 3: of the dead bodies. Are they just kind of like
30:02
Speaker 3: crumpled and tossed like they've been thrown down onto the
30:06
Speaker 3: bed or something like that? Or are they like sitting
30:09
Speaker 3: up at the dinner table or sitting up in bed?
30:12
Speaker 2: Or is it a Walt Disney ride?
30:15
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
30:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, or are they laying there with purple robes and Nikes,
30:21
Speaker 2: Heaven's Gate style?
30:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be something as well. So to me,
30:25
Speaker 3: creepier is... I think no one there. I think it
30:28
Speaker 3: would be more horrific to find the bodies, of course.
30:32
Speaker 3: But creepier would be just finding a ghost ship. Okay.
30:36
Speaker 2: I agree, I think.
30:37
Speaker 3: Because there's the absence of something that's supposed to be there.
30:40
Speaker 3: And that's, I think, what would make it so creepy.
30:42
Speaker 2: Well, yeah. And I think the thing that really makes
30:45
Speaker 2: it creepy, as we will see, is that it wasn't like, hey,
30:50
Speaker 2: this ship has clearly been pirated.
30:51
Speaker 3: Right.
30:52
Speaker 2: And there's blood on the walls and people have been killed.
30:55
Speaker 2: There was just nobody there. No signs of distress. The sextant,
31:02
Speaker 2: the chronometer. I know.
31:04
Speaker 3: It's tougher than you'd think to say.
31:05
Speaker 2: The chronometer. The nav book. They were gone, but that
31:09
Speaker 2: log book was still there. So basically, like, there was food.
31:13
Speaker 2: There was drinking water. Everyone's clothes were there. That little
31:17
Speaker 2: girl's two– the salt lick was there. Her two toys
31:20
Speaker 2: were there.
31:21
Speaker 3: Shoot, there was the impression– From her sleeping on the
31:24
Speaker 3: bed in the captain's cabin?
31:25
Speaker 2: That's super creepy. It is.
31:27
Speaker 3: Yeah. There were no signs of violence. There was no
31:32
Speaker 3: signs of panic. No kind of disorder. I mean, some
31:37
Speaker 3: things were out of order, but it was the kind
31:40
Speaker 3: of stuff that you could chalk up to a ship
31:42
Speaker 3: drifting at sea for a week or so.
31:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.
31:45
Speaker 3: By itself.
31:46
Speaker 2: Like a broken compass.
31:47
Speaker 3: Right. Broken compass. Like some of them, some of the
31:50
Speaker 3: sails have been blown down onto the deck itself. There
31:55
Speaker 3: was some water in there. Yeah. Right. And then one
31:59
Speaker 3: of the things they found, which is a pretty big clue,
32:02
Speaker 3: was improvised sounding rod, which is basically just a stick
32:06
Speaker 3: with markings on it to show feet. Right.
32:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:10
Speaker 3: And they you would lower that into the hold and.
32:13
Speaker 3: to see where the water mark hit. It's just to
32:16
Speaker 3: figure out how deep water is in a hold. So
32:19
Speaker 3: they clearly knew that there was water in the hold
32:21
Speaker 3: because they built the sounding rod, and it had been
32:23
Speaker 3: found on the deck by the two guys from the
32:26
Speaker 3: Dei Gratia.
32:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was only about three and a half
32:28
Speaker 2: feet of water by all accounts, and that sounds like
32:32
Speaker 2: a lot to a guy like me who's not an
32:34
Speaker 2: experienced sailor. Sure. But apparently on a ship that size,
32:37
Speaker 2: that's like no big whoop.
32:38
Speaker 3: One of the other things that ties in with the water, too,
32:41
Speaker 3: is they had two pumps aboard. One of the pumps
32:43
Speaker 3: was found disassembled. So there was basically like these guys
32:47
Speaker 3: came onto the ship and there are all these weird
32:52
Speaker 3: out-of-context things that were the result of decisions made by
32:57
Speaker 3: people who were now vanished. And they had to try
33:01
Speaker 3: to figure this out. But one of the first things
33:03
Speaker 3: that came into their head, eventually, I think when they
33:06
Speaker 3: went back to the Dei Gratia, and told Morehouse what
33:09
Speaker 3: was going on, in pretty short order, somebody said, well,
33:14
Speaker 3: we should probably take this ship to Gibraltar with us.
33:18
Speaker 3: How about that? Because there's something called salvage rights, and
33:22
Speaker 3: whether it was your friend who was missing or what
33:24
Speaker 3: have you, you would have been pretty foolish to have
33:27
Speaker 3: just continued on your way and left the Mary Celeste,
33:32
Speaker 3: because what they found pretty quickly, and this adds to
33:35
Speaker 3: the mystery itself as well, The Mary Celeste was totally saleable.
33:39
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and I don't even think we pointed out
33:41
Speaker 2: that all the denatured alcohol that they were shipping was
33:46
Speaker 2: there and intact. Like, it's not like they had been
33:50
Speaker 2: axed into or, like, what would you pillage?
33:55
Speaker 3: Exploded.
33:56
Speaker 2: Or exploded. It was all there. All the gear on
33:59
Speaker 2: board was there. So there was a lot to salvage,
34:02
Speaker 2: in other words. Because not only can you salvage the ship,
34:05
Speaker 2: but the cargo. Yeah.
34:06
Speaker 3: Exactly.
34:07
Speaker 2: And what it would come out to, like between $ 45, 000
34:09
Speaker 2: and $ 80, 000 in today dollars, is what he could have
34:13
Speaker 2: potentially gotten for salvaging this thing.
34:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, because at the time, the insurers owed a reward
34:20
Speaker 3: to whoever salvaged a ship like this, and it could
34:23
Speaker 3: run up to 100% of the value of the cargo
34:26
Speaker 3: or the ship.
34:27
Speaker 2: Mutual of Nova Scotia.
34:28
Speaker 3: Right.
34:29
Speaker 2: It would pay good dollars.
34:30
Speaker 3: Which, I mean, man, you want to see a board
34:33
Speaker 3: stuffed with neckbeards? Yeah. Go to that bank.
34:40
Speaker 2: Oh, that's good. All right. So they, like you said,
34:44
Speaker 2: decided to do the smart thing and the right thing
34:47
Speaker 2: because and it was his friend. Besides the fact that
34:50
Speaker 2: I mean, anyone would have tried to salvage the ship,
34:52
Speaker 2: but it was also his pal. So I think that
34:55
Speaker 2: probably had a little to do with him saying or
34:58
Speaker 2: maybe it was just all the money.
35:00
Speaker 3: No, I think it was both. I'm sure he was concerned.
35:02
Speaker 3: I've read accounts that he was concerned by this.
35:05
Speaker 2: He said, aye, very concerned.
35:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.
35:08
Speaker 2: The end.
35:09
Speaker 3: So they take this boat. They actually took, there was
35:13
Speaker 3: three guys. One of them was Oliver DeVoe, who was
35:17
Speaker 3: the first mate of the Dei Gratia. He was in
35:19
Speaker 3: charge of sailing this.
35:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, very important note.
35:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, he sailed with just two other guys. The Mary Celeste.
35:28
Speaker 3: They pumped out the water from the hold. They fixed
35:31
Speaker 3: the sails. And the night of the day that they
35:34
Speaker 3: found it, they set sail for Gibraltar. And just three
35:38
Speaker 3: dudes sailed this thing successfully 1,000 kilometers from where it
35:43
Speaker 3: was found onto Gibraltar. Not bad. Where they took it
35:47
Speaker 3: to the salvage court and said, pay up.
35:51
Speaker 2: That's right. And this is where things get a little
35:53
Speaker 2: bit weird. Because... There was a man there, the Queen's
35:57
Speaker 2: Proctor in Gibraltar, by the name of Frederick Solly Flood.
36:02
Speaker 3: Man, that could not be more British.
36:04
Speaker 2: I know. And he basically said, hmm, this is, you
36:10
Speaker 2: say there was nobody there at all. There's no explanation
36:13
Speaker 2: for any of this. And you want the equivalent of
36:17
Speaker 2: $ 2017 of $ 45, 000.
36:17
Speaker 3: To $ 80, 000?
36:18
Speaker 2: Thank you, West Egg.
36:24
Speaker 3: No, I think that was in their dollars. $ 1872.
36:29
Speaker 2: No, it says contemporary estimate. Doesn't that mean?
36:35
Speaker 3: No, contemporary at the time.
36:38
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
36:39
Speaker 3: I think that was an estimate in their dollars.
36:42
Speaker 2: Is there such a thing as contemporary at the time?
36:44
Speaker 2: Doesn't that always mean now?
36:46
Speaker 3: I don't know. I could have gotten it wrong. It's
36:49
Speaker 3: entirely possible. All right.
36:52
Speaker 2: Well, it's 2018 and we're just figuring stuff out here, folks.
36:55
Speaker 2: So give us a break.
36:58
Speaker 3: So it's in their dollars. So I'm almost positive.
37:01
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, at any rate, he was– Sully Flood said,
37:06
Speaker 2: this seems really hinky to me, guys. And DeVoe, you, sir,
37:11
Speaker 2: since you boarded the thing first, you sailed it here.
37:15
Speaker 2: You are the star witness in this case. He gave
37:18
Speaker 2: his testimony. It was very clear. Nothing weird about it.
37:21
Speaker 2: He was very honest because, by all accounts, he had
37:24
Speaker 2: nothing to hide. But Solly Floods just was suspicious from
37:28
Speaker 2: the beginning.
37:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, so much so that during this investigation, and this
37:32
Speaker 3: would be like going to probate court, and all of
37:35
Speaker 3: a sudden the representative for the state accuses you of
37:40
Speaker 3: murdering your grandma, who's the state you're in charge of
37:44
Speaker 3: taking through probate. Yeah. And then suddenly there's this murder
37:47
Speaker 3: investigation against you.
37:48
Speaker 2: Without any evidence of anything.
37:49
Speaker 3: Right. Just based on the prosecutor's suspicions, right?
37:54
Speaker 2: Well, and that Granny disappeared without a trace.
37:56
Speaker 3: Well, oh yeah, that's a big one too. I forgot
37:58
Speaker 3: that part.
37:59
Speaker 2: But, you know.
38:00
Speaker 3: So that's basically what happened to these guys. So they
38:02
Speaker 3: were pretty surprised by this. And Solly Flood launched this investigation.
38:08
Speaker 3: They inspected the Mary Celeste. They found Marks on the railing,
38:13
Speaker 3: which Solly Flood was like, these are clearly hatchet marks.
38:16
Speaker 3: There was discoloration on Captain Briggs' sword. This is clearly blood. Well,
38:21
Speaker 3: it turned out that the hatchet marks, the axe marks,
38:24
Speaker 3: were actually from the construction of the ship. That wasn't
38:29
Speaker 3: axe marks, so no violence there. There wasn't blood on Briggs' sword.
38:33
Speaker 3: It was just rust. But Solly Flood was so determined
38:37
Speaker 3: to prosecute these guys that he suppressed the test results.
38:42
Speaker 3: that showed that this was not blood on the sword,
38:45
Speaker 3: that it was actually rust. He really wanted to get
38:48
Speaker 3: these two.
38:48
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and here's the deal. I think things really
38:51
Speaker 2: ramped up when, here's what happened. Before all of this, like,
38:56
Speaker 2: deep investigation, remember, Morehouse still has his ship that was waylaid.
39:02
Speaker 2: And so he says, hey, DeVoe, I got to stay
39:04
Speaker 2: here for this thing to collect this dough. You just
39:07
Speaker 2: go on to Genoa. You've already testified. And take our
39:11
Speaker 2: cargo of petroleum because I got to get the stuff here.
39:14
Speaker 2: I'm losing money. Right. And so he did so. And
39:16
Speaker 2: so all of a sudden, Sully Flood was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
39:20
Speaker 2: He was the number one witness. And you've just sent
39:22
Speaker 2: this guy away. So now I'm super suspicious. Yeah.
39:26
Speaker 3: But DeVoe came back. He's like, what? What's going on? on, everybody?
39:30
Speaker 2: What's the big deal? Here's some salami.
39:33
Speaker 3: So finally, Solly Flood just couldn't come up with any
39:37
Speaker 3: evidence of foul play. But apparently did raise enough suspicion
39:43
Speaker 3: that the probate judge said, you know what? We'll give
39:47
Speaker 3: you guys a reward. but it's going to be like
39:50
Speaker 3: a 10th of what you actually deserve.
39:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:53
Speaker 3: So they got a reward of 1700 pounds, um, which
39:57
Speaker 3: was Jack, even in that day. Yeah. Um, and they, uh,
40:02
Speaker 3: they were allowed to go on their way. The Mary
40:05
Speaker 3: Celeste was finally released in February. This, this all began
40:08
Speaker 3: in December. She was released in February to finally carry her, uh,
40:13
Speaker 3: cargo of alcohol to Genoa, Genoa. And, um, That would
40:18
Speaker 3: have been that. And what's weird is when you think
40:21
Speaker 3: about this ghost ship, you just think like, well, obviously
40:26
Speaker 3: they took her out of service or commission. You've got
40:28
Speaker 3: to remember, this is a business venture. A ship in
40:31
Speaker 3: those days, just like they are today, it's a business venture.
40:34
Speaker 3: And business people are not exactly the sentimental types usually.
40:38
Speaker 3: So once she got to Genoa, they got a new crew,
40:41
Speaker 3: a new captain, and put her right back into service again.
40:45
Speaker 2: So, as you say, it just is back out there
40:48
Speaker 2: on the market again, taking cargo around the world. And
40:53
Speaker 2: it ran aground off a reef of Haiti in 1885.
40:58
Speaker 2: And this was all– this is just kind of a
41:00
Speaker 2: weird ending to this ship that was super unlucky or
41:05
Speaker 2: maybe cursed. Who knows? Of course, that stuff isn't real.
41:08
Speaker 2: But it ran aground in Haiti as part of this
41:13
Speaker 2: insurance fraud scheme. So they cooked up this scheme. Who
41:17
Speaker 2: was the, what was the guy's name? The captain?
41:21
Speaker 3: Captain Gilman Perkins.
41:24
Speaker 2: All right. So here's what he did. He basically, it's
41:26
Speaker 2: like any insurance fraud you can imagine today. Like when
41:28
Speaker 2: I was a kid, there was this, you know, I
41:33
Speaker 2: didn't grow up in a big neighborhood. I grew up
41:34
Speaker 2: on a street with like seven houses and it was
41:36
Speaker 2: a dirt road until I was like 12. With the
41:38
Speaker 2: murder house? No.
41:40
Speaker 3: Oh. Oh.
41:42
Speaker 2: What murder house?
41:43
Speaker 3: Was it a murder house or a haunted house? I
41:44
Speaker 3: can't remember. There was one down the street from you
41:46
Speaker 3: that you were scared to death of.
41:48
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. This was that. So that one was torn down,
41:53
Speaker 2: but a big house was built in its place. But
41:55
Speaker 2: the old barn from the murdery haunted house was still there.
41:59
Speaker 2: And my brother and I used to go exploring, is
42:03
Speaker 2: what we'll call it now. We basically busted into this barn,
42:06
Speaker 2: and we're just checking things out one day. And then
42:08
Speaker 2: about two weeks later, the thing burned down. And I
42:12
Speaker 2: remember being a little kid in these insurance detectives. Is
42:17
Speaker 2: that what they're called?
42:19
Speaker 3: They are now.
42:19
Speaker 2: Insurance, whatever, investigators.
42:22
Speaker 3: Claims investigators?
42:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, they came by and questioned Scott and I. And
42:26
Speaker 2: we're like, what was in that thing? Because this guy
42:28
Speaker 2: is claiming like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of,
42:32
Speaker 2: I can't remember what all he said was in there. And,
42:34
Speaker 2: you know, we were little kids, so we just told
42:36
Speaker 2: the truth. We're like, none of that stuff was in there.
42:38
Speaker 3: We stole that.
42:39
Speaker 2: It was a bunch of. Old file cabinets and just
42:42
Speaker 2: a bunch of junk. It was just like a junk barn.
42:45
Speaker 2: So I'm not even, I need to ask my mom.
42:46
Speaker 2: I'm not sure whatever happened with that.
42:48
Speaker 3: That guy's probably still in jail because of eight-year-old Chuck. Good.
42:52
Speaker 3: That's funny. He got some guy sent up the river.
42:56
Speaker 3: The law prevailed.
42:57
Speaker 2: But that's basically what happened here is this guy purposely
43:01
Speaker 2: wrecks the ship and says, man, there was a lot
43:04
Speaker 2: of really valuable stuff on board. I was toting a
43:08
Speaker 2: bunch of bass ale, like the real bass ale. That
43:11
Speaker 2: we still enjoy today. Sure. And then what else was there?
43:14
Speaker 2: It was a bunch of really expensive shoes.
43:16
Speaker 3: Cutlery.
43:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, a bunch of cutlery.
43:18
Speaker 3: Fine fish, fine butter.
43:20
Speaker 2: And what was in there? A bunch of garbage.
43:23
Speaker 3: It was. So this guy purposely runs the ship aground.
43:26
Speaker 3: It's insured by five different insurers for a total of $ 34, 000.
43:30
Speaker 3: A lot of dough. In 1872 dollars. Contemporary dollars. And
43:37
Speaker 3: they probably would have gotten away with this. But the captain,
43:42
Speaker 3: Gilman Perkins, went ashore and sold salvage rights to this cargo,
43:47
Speaker 3: this fine cargo that was supposedly on the ship, to
43:51
Speaker 3: a local salvage person in Haiti. And had he not
43:57
Speaker 3: conned the salvager, then they may, again, they may have
44:01
Speaker 3: gotten away with this. But the salvager went aboard to
44:04
Speaker 3: get this, to recover this cargo, this bass, this great butter,
44:08
Speaker 3: great shoes, cutlery, all this stuff. And found, like you said,
44:11
Speaker 3: just pure nastiness there.
44:13
Speaker 2: There was a bunch of junk ale. A lot of
44:16
Speaker 2: the bottles weren't even filled. There were dog collars instead
44:20
Speaker 2: of shoes.
44:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
44:22
Speaker 2: What else? The cutlery. No, no, the cutlery was dog collars.
44:26
Speaker 2: These boots were old galoshes.
44:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, the women's fine shoes. Just classic scams. The butter
44:33
Speaker 3: was rank slush, I think is what it was called.
44:35
Speaker 3: So this con man or the salvager is like, I've
44:39
Speaker 3: been conned and alerts the authorities who get on the
44:42
Speaker 3: case and finally track it all the way back to Boston.
44:44
Speaker 3: And Captain Perkins, the last captain of the Mary Celeste,
44:47
Speaker 3: remember the first captain died. The third or fourth captain disappeared.
44:52
Speaker 3: And the last captain of the ship is facing the
44:55
Speaker 3: gallows for barratry, which is deliberate destroying of a ship.
45:00
Speaker 2: It's a great crime.
45:01
Speaker 3: Narrowly avoided being executed for it. I think the jury
45:06
Speaker 3: came back seven to five and he got off, just
45:09
Speaker 3: narrowly avoided being killed for it.
45:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know why he got off.
45:13
Speaker 3: The article I read by a guy named Paul Collins
45:18
Speaker 3: supposed that the jury just couldn't bring themselves to kill
45:21
Speaker 3: a person for an insurance fraud scheme. And that was it.
45:25
Speaker 3: And actually, a couple of years after, they changed the
45:28
Speaker 3: law So that barotry was no longer a capital offense.
45:33
Speaker 3: But you could still get in big trouble for it,
45:35
Speaker 3: but a jury would be more likely to convict if
45:37
Speaker 3: it didn't mean your death, you know?
45:38
Speaker 2: Right.
45:39
Speaker 3: So the Mary Celeste run aground on this reef met
45:44
Speaker 3: its fate when, I guess, the government of Haiti paid
45:47
Speaker 3: for it to be doused in kerosene instead of flame.
45:52
Speaker 3: All right.
45:52
Speaker 2: Well, let's take a break and we'll come back and
45:54
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about how the legend of the
45:56
Speaker 2: Mary Celeste lived on and then What may have actually
46:00
Speaker 2: happened that fateful day in November?
46:03
Speaker 4: <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL>.
46:27
Speaker 2: All right, so the Mary Celeste, it wasn't some huge
46:31
Speaker 2: sensational story of the time. Locally, it probably got a
46:35
Speaker 2: little news, but it wasn't like, you know, it didn't
46:37
Speaker 2: sweep the world. But there was a story written by
46:42
Speaker 2: one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called J. Habakkuk Jepson's Statement.
46:50
Speaker 2: In 1884.
46:51
Speaker 3: That's the worst made-up name I've ever heard.
46:54
Speaker 2: In Cornhill Magazine, also worst magazine name ever.
46:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was like a huge magazine at the time. Oh, yeah? Mm-hmm.
47:02
Speaker 2: I know it outsold Cornhole Magazine.
47:05
Speaker 3: Right.
47:06
Speaker 2: So he writes a story, and what it is is
47:08
Speaker 2: basically this sensationalistic fake account of the Mary Celeste, but
47:15
Speaker 2: everyone takes it as real.
47:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he renamed the ship the Marie Celeste. I
47:21
Speaker 3: don't know if it was a mistake on his part
47:23
Speaker 3: or whatever, but that also muddies the waters these days, too,
47:26
Speaker 3: as far as Google searches go.
47:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, so everyone thought this thing was real. All these
47:32
Speaker 2: basically presented a bunch of things as fact, made up
47:35
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff like the tea was still hot
47:39
Speaker 2: and steaming when they climbed aboard, and the beds were
47:42
Speaker 2: still warm, and it was... sailing perfectly and fully sailed
47:49
Speaker 2: and breakfast was half eaten and like there's a cigar
47:52
Speaker 2: still burning. None of this stuff was true. It was
47:55
Speaker 2: all cooked up to make the myth just even creepier.
47:58
Speaker 2: But a lot of people, even today, still think that
48:02
Speaker 2: stuff is kind of true.
48:04
Speaker 3: Did he make all that up or was it just
48:06
Speaker 3: kind of added to later on?
48:08
Speaker 2: Well, I think, I don't know what exactly he made up,
48:11
Speaker 2: but it basically over the years was Everyone just started
48:15
Speaker 2: adding stuff like that. The lifeboat was still there. You know, right.
48:18
Speaker 2: None of that stuff was true.
48:19
Speaker 3: Right. So all of those those facts are making scare quotes,
48:24
Speaker 3: as you can see. They are they they they lend
48:29
Speaker 3: credence to like really outrageous solutions to this mystery. Right.
48:33
Speaker 4: Yeah.
48:33
Speaker 3: There have been a lot. Well, some some aren't exactly
48:36
Speaker 3: outrageous or preposterous. They're just the evidence doesn't support them.
48:40
Speaker 3: Some are just totally outrageous.
48:41
Speaker 2: Right.
48:41
Speaker 3: Yeah. So you can kind of divide them into different categories,
48:45
Speaker 3: like the natural phenomenon. There could have been a sea quake,
48:51
Speaker 3: which I guess happens, and that usually disturbs the sea
48:55
Speaker 3: above when the seafloor has a massive earthquake. Water spouts,
48:59
Speaker 3: rogue waves. Remember, we did a really good episode on
49:02
Speaker 3: rogue waves.
49:02
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
49:02
Speaker 3: Remember that one? Giant squid, giant octopus, which fall under
49:08
Speaker 3: the subcategory sea monster. That's the natural stuff.
49:13
Speaker 2: Sigma and the sea monster?
49:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
49:16
Speaker 2: All right. Then there's piracy and murder. These just for
49:23
Speaker 2: the time would make a little more sense. Like Conan
49:28
Speaker 2: Doyle said that there was an ex-slave bent on revenge
49:33
Speaker 2: who just wanted to kill white people. And that was
49:37
Speaker 2: in his story. So that clearly ramped things up. There
49:40
Speaker 2: was a movie in the 30s with Bela Lugosi that
49:43
Speaker 2: he was one of the crew members was a murderous sailor.
49:47
Speaker 3: With a hook.
49:48
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
49:49
Speaker 3: All right.
49:50
Speaker 2: Well, they always had hooks. Captain Briggs was overcome with
49:54
Speaker 2: religious mania, killed everyone on board, including his family, then
49:59
Speaker 2: killed himself. Then there was the mutiny theory that everyone
50:02
Speaker 2: got into this alcohol that you couldn't even drink.
50:05
Speaker 3: No, you would die like almost immediately.
50:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess just. got the drunken murderers, the drunken
50:13
Speaker 2: murder rampage. You know what happens when you drink a little,
50:16
Speaker 2: you just want to kill.
50:17
Speaker 3: Right. Exactly. Well, do you remember, um, I guess in
50:20
Speaker 3: our prohibition episode, it was shown years on that the
50:24
Speaker 3: U S government had poisoned the, the bootleg hooch supply
50:29
Speaker 3: with denatured alcohol and people died and went blind from it.
50:32
Speaker 3: This is this stuff. Yeah. That's what they put into
50:34
Speaker 3: the supply.
50:35
Speaker 2: Well, and then there's the, just the, kind of mundane
50:39
Speaker 2: pirate piratry, like, hey, this was where there were North
50:42
Speaker 2: African pirates. And that's probably what happened is they were
50:46
Speaker 2: it was just a regular run of the mill pirate operation.
50:49
Speaker 3: Yeah. But whether it's like any kind of violence, like
50:53
Speaker 3: a religious fervor or pirates or something like that, there
50:56
Speaker 3: was not any sign of struggle. Remember, and the one
51:00
Speaker 3: lifeboat was missing. So it would seem that if they
51:05
Speaker 3: got off the ship, they probably got off willingly rather
51:09
Speaker 3: than there having been some sort of violence.
51:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then also the two brothers, there were a
51:16
Speaker 2: couple of brothers who were to the crew members, Volkert
51:19
Speaker 2: and Boy Lorenzen, and they were suspects for a little
51:23
Speaker 2: while because none of their personal possessions were found. Apparently
51:28
Speaker 2: there was no motive whatsoever, and A descendant of them said,
51:32
Speaker 2: you know, they had lost all their gear in a
51:34
Speaker 2: previous shipwreck. So just none of that makes any sense.
51:38
Speaker 2: They were good guys.
51:39
Speaker 3: Right. So probably was not murder, right? Probably not. Plus
51:44
Speaker 3: also the idea that the crew had come across another ship,
51:48
Speaker 3: pirated it, turned pirate all of a sudden, and were
51:52
Speaker 3: led by Briggs. The idea that, and then just took
51:55
Speaker 3: this other ship and set sail to start a new
51:58
Speaker 3: life elsewhere. Yeah. It doesn't make much sense on its face,
52:02
Speaker 3: but even if you dig down just one more degree
52:05
Speaker 3: and remember that they left their son Arthur behind, who
52:08
Speaker 3: became an orphan on the day that the Dei Gratia
52:12
Speaker 3: found the Mary Celeste, it lends even less credence to that.
52:17
Speaker 2: Unless they didn't like Arthur.
52:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, he was fairly dim-witted.
52:22
Speaker 2: They left him behind.
52:23
Speaker 3: Not a very likable kid. He had a real temper
52:25
Speaker 3: for no good reason. Didn't like cake. Who doesn't like cake?
52:29
Speaker 3: I know. So, the murder, piracy, or lastly, so remember
52:35
Speaker 3: the Captain Morehouse. Yeah. Dined with Captain Briggs and his
52:41
Speaker 3: wife the night before they headed out. Yeah. And then
52:44
Speaker 3: Captain Morehouse was the one who found the ship and
52:47
Speaker 3: claimed salvage rights to it. The idea that it was fraud,
52:51
Speaker 3: maybe a fraudulent scheme cooked up, that one's really dismissed too. Again,
52:54
Speaker 3: by the presence of Arthur. Right.
52:57
Speaker 2: Arthur ruined everything.
52:58
Speaker 3: So, you can dismiss... Murder, piracy, or fraud, typically. Yes.
53:04
Speaker 3: What about paranormal?
53:05
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and dismiss that, too.
53:07
Speaker 3: Okay.
53:07
Speaker 2: Because I don't think that the Bermuda Triangle ate them,
53:12
Speaker 2: or that aliens... It's aliens, man. I don't think that happened.
53:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a big one.
53:19
Speaker 2: So let's just go ahead and not even talk about
53:21
Speaker 2: that too much, because that's dumb.
53:23
Speaker 3: So that Frederick Solly Flood's obsession with this whole thing
53:27
Speaker 3: at the time, contemporarily... um doc presented like the documented
53:33
Speaker 3: evidence we have concerning the case so it's good that
53:36
Speaker 3: he he did this that he was gripped by this
53:38
Speaker 3: this paranoia the suspicion right yeah um because we do
53:42
Speaker 3: know some facts about the thing we know that like
53:45
Speaker 3: like we said the ship was found with just three
53:48
Speaker 3: three sails up and the rest were either blown down
53:51
Speaker 3: or unfurled the lifeboat was missing there was um a
53:55
Speaker 3: rope dangling over the the side from the back of
53:58
Speaker 3: the ship into the water Yeah. Nine of the 1701
54:03
Speaker 3: casks were intact, but were actually empty. Yeah. And on
54:07
Speaker 3: closer inspection, they were made of red oak, which is
54:11
Speaker 3: more porous than white oak, which the other 1701 barrels
54:15
Speaker 3: were made of and were intact and still full. So
54:18
Speaker 3: we know these things about this ship that are actually correct.
54:24
Speaker 3: And they've been put together to kind of create this
54:28
Speaker 3: explanation that, again, isn't definitive, doesn't prove it once and
54:33
Speaker 3: for all what happened. That'll never happen now, which I love.
54:37
Speaker 3: But there's a pretty good explanation. I think that we
54:40
Speaker 3: both kind of agree is the likeliest explanation.
54:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, so those casks that leaked but did not explode
54:47
Speaker 2: or anything, there could have been a smell. There could
54:51
Speaker 2: have been a sound. There could have been Just some
54:55
Speaker 2: indication that maybe this ship is about to blow up
54:59
Speaker 2: or we are in danger. They had taken on a
55:02
Speaker 2: little water that might have played into it. But what
55:04
Speaker 2: really everyone thinks played into it is, like we said
55:08
Speaker 2: at the beginning, was that he had his wife and
55:10
Speaker 2: toddler aboard. So he was taking no chances, which would
55:14
Speaker 2: thoroughly explain why they got off of that boat really
55:17
Speaker 2: quickly at the very first signs that something could be wrong.
55:22
Speaker 3: Right. So those nine red oak barrels that were empty
55:26
Speaker 3: had 300 gallons of denatured, highly flammable alcohol in them.
55:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have smelled.
55:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, it would have smelled. It could have created a
55:34
Speaker 3: fireball explosion. It could have blown the hatches off. It
55:39
Speaker 3: could have done a lot of things that would have
55:41
Speaker 3: made a reasonable person, especially one that's also concerned for
55:44
Speaker 3: the life of his wife and child, say, the likeliest
55:48
Speaker 3: thing we should do here, the most reasonable thing we
55:50
Speaker 3: should do here is get off of this ship. So
55:53
Speaker 3: considering that there was this alcohol aboard, some of it
55:56
Speaker 3: was missing, and that the lifeboat was gone, and that
56:01
Speaker 3: the logbook showed that they were within sight of land
56:05
Speaker 3: the last time they'd made any kind of entry, supports
56:09
Speaker 3: the idea that they had all gotten into the lifeboat
56:12
Speaker 3: willingly because probably that alcohol and then the water that
56:19
Speaker 3: the ship had taken on.
56:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, and apparently in 2006 there was a study at
56:23
Speaker 2: University College of London where they tried to reproduce what
56:27
Speaker 2: that explosion might have looked like and sounded like. And
56:33
Speaker 2: they did it with butane. So I guess, is that
56:34
Speaker 2: about the same thing?
56:36
Speaker 3: I don't know why they used butane instead of alcohol vapors.
56:39
Speaker 3: I have no idea why, but they feel like it
56:41
Speaker 3: was pretty definitive.
56:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so basically it caused a big brilliant flame
56:45
Speaker 2: and made a sound. But because it was this vapor,
56:49
Speaker 2: there was no... It didn't burn everything up. It didn't
56:51
Speaker 2: scorch anything. There was no soot. There was no evidence.
56:55
Speaker 2: So if this would have happened on board, this guy's
56:57
Speaker 2: got his wife and his toddler, that would have been
56:59
Speaker 2: enough to create a panic. And that's where my money
57:02
Speaker 2: is for sure.
57:03
Speaker 3: For sure. And plus also, I mean, the explosion of
57:07
Speaker 3: the exploding alcohol theory had been around for a while,
57:10
Speaker 3: but it had been dismissed because they were like, well,
57:12
Speaker 3: it would have left some evidence. But this study showed that, no,
57:15
Speaker 3: it could have actually blown up. scared the heck out
57:20
Speaker 3: of these people and gotten them off this boat into
57:22
Speaker 3: the lifeboat, which they would have had connected to this ship,
57:26
Speaker 3: the Mary Celeste, by this 400 foot or 400 yards.
57:30
Speaker 3: It was a very long rope, inch thick rope called
57:34
Speaker 3: a halyard. And they had connected the lifeboat to it.
57:37
Speaker 3: And what they supposed happened was that they kept a
57:41
Speaker 3: few of the sails down. Some of them still furled.
57:46
Speaker 3: to let the ship keep going but at a slow
57:48
Speaker 3: pace because they were going to have to ride behind
57:51
Speaker 3: it for an indefinite period of time. And the wind
57:54
Speaker 3: caught it just right, sped the ship up, snapped the line,
57:59
Speaker 3: and then within an hour, the lifeboat was adrift with
58:02
Speaker 3: the Mary Celeste out of sight.
58:04
Speaker 2: So is the idea that they got in the boat
58:07
Speaker 2: with the rope attached to just say, hey, let's get
58:10
Speaker 2: away from it and see what happens here?
58:12
Speaker 3: Yes.
58:13
Speaker 2: Okay, and then it just starts going, the rope is gone,
58:16
Speaker 2: and then they're like, well, can't catch it now.
58:19
Speaker 3: Right, and they would have been left adrift at sea
58:24
Speaker 3: to die, which is what everybody thinks happened.
58:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess at the time there would be,
58:30
Speaker 2: unless it got really lucky or unlucky and the rowboat
58:35
Speaker 2: eventually washed ashore somewhere, there would just be no trace, right?
58:40
Speaker 3: Yes.
58:40
Speaker 2: They just were fish food.
58:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if they're out in the Atlantic, especially
58:44
Speaker 3: if they just... Six miles away from an island that's
58:48
Speaker 3: in the middle of nowhere is pretty middle of nowhere.
58:51
Speaker 3: So if you're in a small boat, it'd be very
58:55
Speaker 3: easy to vanish without a trace forever.
58:57
Speaker 2: Man, I bet that story is the sad one, is
59:01
Speaker 2: what those final days were like.
59:02
Speaker 3: Yes.
59:03
Speaker 2: That kid, man.
59:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.
59:06
Speaker 2: Heartbreaking.
59:07
Speaker 3: So that's the story of the Mary Celeste.
59:11
Speaker 2: Good job.
59:12
Speaker 3: Good job, you, Chuck.
59:14
Speaker 2: I feel like we kicked the rest off the sword
59:15
Speaker 2: on this one.
59:17
Speaker 3: If you want to know more about the Mary Celeste,
59:19
Speaker 3: there is plenty more to dig into. This is a
59:22
Speaker 3: nice rabbit hole to jump down if you want to
59:24
Speaker 3: do that kind of thing. Just go search Google. Say, no, Google,
59:28
Speaker 3: I mean Mary Celeste. And start off. You'll have fun.
59:32
Speaker 2: That's right.
59:32
Speaker 3: And in the meantime, it's time for Listener Mail.
59:37
Speaker 2: I'm going to call this local listener. Hey, guys. My
59:41
Speaker 2: name is Sally, and I am a sophomore at Emory University.
59:45
Speaker 2: Started listening to Stuff You Should Know two years ago
59:46
Speaker 2: when I was on a school exchange in Beijing. What
59:49
Speaker 2: began as a fun way to bide time and bumper-to-bumper
59:52
Speaker 2: traffic turned into a complete obsession. Your quick banter made
59:56
Speaker 2: me feel at home on the other side of the world.
59:58
Speaker 2: While you're engaging in well-developed topics, reignited my love of learning.
1:00:02
Speaker 2: Since leaving Emory, I frequently imagine bumping into you guys
1:00:06
Speaker 2: in Decatur and Atlanta and having the opportunity to chat
1:00:09
Speaker 2: about your journey from college kids at UGA to potentially
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Speaker 2: the most interesting and vibrant guys I've heard. Wow. You're vibrant, buddy.
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Speaker 4: Thank you.
1:00:19
Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by how you do what you do, and
1:00:21
Speaker 2: there's nothing I would love more than to be a
1:00:22
Speaker 2: fly on the wall of the show. From your creative
1:00:25
Speaker 2: process to your tangential tidbits... Whatever topic you happen to
1:00:29
Speaker 2: be covering, I am fully captivated by every facet. That's nice, huh?
1:00:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:00:36
Speaker 2: I still have not declared a major. She wrote a
1:00:38
Speaker 2: lot more really nice stuff, but I had to edit
1:00:41
Speaker 2: it for content.
1:00:42
Speaker 3: Sure.
1:00:43
Speaker 2: Or for time. I have still not declared a major,
1:00:45
Speaker 2: and I'm still essentially a ball of frenetic energy. But
1:00:47
Speaker 2: you guys have helped me because you helped me tap
1:00:50
Speaker 2: into that frenetic energy and productively exercise my burning, insatiable
1:00:54
Speaker 2: desire to learn, to think, to question, and to grow.
1:00:57
Speaker 3: Nice.
1:00:57
Speaker 2: Now as a young adult and until the nurses need
1:01:00
Speaker 2: to pinch my oxygen tank and physically made me stop.
1:01:03
Speaker 3: Well done.
1:01:04
Speaker 2: A million thanks. That is Sally Jinx.
1:01:07
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, Sally. That's pretty great.
1:01:09
Speaker 2: Very sweet. Yeah, it is.
1:01:11
Speaker 3: And good luck with the rest of your schooling. Agreed.
1:01:15
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1:01:17
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1:01:42
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