(suspenseful music)
- On December 5th, 1872,
a Canadian brigantine named Dei Gratia
was sailing 400 miles east of the Azores
when crew members noticed a ship
drifting in the distance.
After attempts to contact the ship failed,
the captain of the Dei Gratia decided to take a closer look.
The crew of the Dei Gratia recognized the ship
as the Mary Celeste,
which departed weeks earlier
and it was already supposed to reach its destination
in Italy.
Upon this closer inspection,
the ship despite being in perfectly usable condition,
was found to have no one on board.
Further searching on the belongings of the ship's crew,
the 1,700 barrels of cargo
and the six months supply of food
all still on the ship,
but not a single individual of the 10 person crew
was anywhere to be seen.
So what could have happened to them?
Where could they have gone?
Let's take a closer look into the mystery
of the Mary Celeste
to try and figure out what really could have happened
to the 10 missing members of the crew.
Over the years,
theories ranging from a pirate invasion,
a mutiny or even an attack from a sea monster
have been proposed.
But the story of the ship begins all the way back in 1861
when it wasn't even named the Mary Celeste.
In may of 1861,
the Mary Celeste was called the Amazon
and it was used as a trading vessel.
The bad luck of the ship begins all the way back
at its start.
On its first voyage,
the Amazon had trouble initially setting sail
and the captain even contracted pneumonia
and died as a result.
Over the next few years,
the ship went about it's normal business until in 1867,
the ship crashed ashore on Cape Breton Island
and the investors behind the ship
weren't able to salvage it at the time.
A man named Alexander McBean then acquired the ship
and was able to pull it from the island.
It was then sold to a man named John Howard Beatty
who sold it to another man named Richard W. Haines.
Haines made numerous repairs to the ship
and renamed it to the Mary Celeste.
But it turned out that the thousands of dollars
he put into the vessel had put him into some serious debt
and the ship was then confiscated by his creditors.
It was eventually sold to a New York shipping company
and placed under the command
of Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs.
Briggs was known as an intelligent, well-respected sailor
with over 18 years of experience,
but it was under his command that the crew of the ship
vanished without a trace.
On November 7th, 1871,
the Mary Celeste set off from New York Harbor
for Genoa, Italy.
The ship was loaded with 1,701 barrels of denatured alcohol
for delivery.
The members of the ship consisted of Briggs,
his wife, their two year old daughter
and a crew of seven men.
Briggs was actually a part owner of the vessel as well
so he took much care in selecting this members of the crew
and thought of them to be a great group.
Less than a month after the Mary Celeste had sailed,
a Canadian brigantine named Dei Gratia
the led by Captain David Morehouse
spotted it set at full sail 400 miles east of the Azores,
a small set of islands in the mid Atlantic.
When the Mary Celeste failed to respond
to attempted signals,
three members of the Dei Gratia
were dispatched to board her,
but upon reaching the ship, not a single member of the crew
was still on board.
The boat was still fully intact with all of its cargo
and the crew's belongings still present.
There didn't seem to be any signs of violence
and the only damage to the ship was minor enough
that it shouldn't have caused any difficulty for the crew
like the 3.5 feet of water
resting at the bottom of the ship.
The only thing that seemed out of place on the ship
was the one lifeboat,
which was missing along with the navigation book,
chronometer and sextant.
The ship's entry log was found in the mate's cabin
and was dated for November 25th at 8:00 AM.
10 days before it was found by the Dei Gratia,
it stated that the ship was about six miles
off the coast of Santa Maria,
one of the islands in the Azores.
Reports were logged on an hourly basis
so whatever happened to the Mary Celeste
must have happened shortly thereafter.
That would make it almost a week and a half
that the Mary Celeste had been drifting on the ocean
with absolutely no crew.
According to the documents on the ship,
it drifted over 700 kilometers in that time.
The Dei Gratia then took the Mary Celeste
to Gibraltar and explained their side of the story.
The ship was then sold to new owners in a salvage trial.
So what could have happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste?
There are numerous theories
as to what could have possibly happened to the crew
but we'll start by taking a look
at the most popular and plausible.
The first theory was that there was a mutiny.
Due to the cargo of the ship being alcohol
where nine of the barrels on board
were actually found empty,
the court in charge of the case
suggested that the crew
could have become drunk off the cargo
and proceeded to not only kill Briggs
and his family but then also flee the ship.
However, Briggs's reputation as a captain
was nothing but fair and generous to his crew
so a mutiny wouldn't make much sense.
Instead, the theory of pirates is a better solution.
This theory gained popularity
due to the fact that the crew
seemingly abandoned the ship
while it was in perfectly usable condition.
The area the ship was traveling through
was known to be a hotspot for pirates
off the coast of Morocco.
However, the fact that the entire cargo
and the crew's belongings still remained on the ship
didn't make much sense.
If pirates had actually come into contact with the ship,
then why didn't they take anything?
This led some to believe that the pirates
actually came from the Dei Gratia's crew.
When the Dei Gratia arrived in Gibraltar
along with the Mary Celeste,
some speculated that the Dei Gratia's crew
was involved in something shady.
The reason for this is linked to an old maritime law
that states that any person
who helps recover another person's ship
or cargo is entitled to a reward.
In addition, the captain of the Dei Gratia,
Captain Morehouse, was friends with Captain Briggs.
The two even had dinner together
the night before the Mary Celeste began on its voyage.
However, after a multi-month long investigation,
the court found no proof that this was the case.
It is important to note though
that the ship's insurer
only paid out one-sixth of the payment
the crew would normally receive for recovering the boat,
meaning that the insurers were not fully convinced
that the Dei Gratia's crew was innocent.
Natural disasters were also a popular theory,
specifically a water spout or earthquake.
The water spout theory has been fairly popular
due to the fact that 3.5 feet of water
actually filled the bottom of the ship.
While the ship didn't have a leak itself
and the water most likely came from above
due to a wave or water spout,
faulty instruments on board
could have led the crew to believe
that there was a more serious problem with the ship.
When the Dei Gratia crew initially boarded the Mary Celeste,
they attempted to use the ship's sounding rod,
an instrument used to see how much water
is on board the ship.
However, the Mary Celeste didn't have a proper sounding rod.
Instead, the crew found a makeshift rod
that was out of place.
And so after water filled up the ship,
the improper rod could have led the crew
to believe there was more water on board
than there actually was
and evacuated to the lifeboat instead.
As for an earthquake,
it had been confirmed that an earthquake
capable of affecting the ship
took place while it was at sea
and it's even possible that this earthquake
caused the nine barrels of alcohol
that were empty to leak causing a panic.
In fact, the nine barrels of alcohol
that were empty were made from red oak
which is weaker than the white oak
the others were made from.
So even if it wasn't from the earthquake exactly,
the nine empty barrels
have a decent chance of being involved in some way.
In 2006, Dr. Andrea Sella
created a replica of the Mary Celeste cargo hold
and used butane gas to simulate an explosion
similar to what could have happened on the ship.
He swapped out the barrels for paper cubes
to try and see if an explosion could have been the cause.
When the gas was lit on fire,
a large flame arose.
However, the paper cubes
did not receive any sort of scorching or burning.
This proposed a new theory that the leaking barrels
made from the weaker oak wood caused a gas explosion
capable of causing the crew to rush aboard the lifeboat
without actually leaving much of a trace
of the explosion itself.
As interesting and plausible as this theory is,
it wouldn't make much sense
that after rushing to the lifeboat
and realizing that the ship
was not actually going to explode,
the crew didn't go back to the Mary Celeste.
Of course, it was found set at full sail.
So perhaps by the time they realized the ship was okay,
it was too late.
The last plausible theory was proposed
in a 2007 documentary,
"The True Story of the Mary Celeste".
In this Smithsonian documentary,
a team led by Anne MacGregor
showed a fair bit of evidence that the Mary Celeste
could actually have been lost.
Using models,
it was shown that the Mary Celeste
was around 120 miles off course when it was abandoned.
However, due to their faulty tools on board,
they thought that they were much closer to land.
Perhaps the crew abandoned in the ship in a panic
believing that they could reach land on the lifeboat
before realizing that they were much further away
than they anticipated.
Although this theory brings new evidence to the table,
in the end, it still remains just a theory
and it still seems unclear
as to why an experienced captain
would give the call to abandon ship,
an action usually reserved as a last resort
when the ship is surely to go down.
Of course, there are always the theories
that the ship was abandoned due to aliens or a sea monster,
but it seems strange that the crew would leave a large ship
for a lifeboat under those stances.
So I think we can rule those out for now.
As for any evidence of the crew and lifeboat being found,
the only possible lead was a couple of fishermen
finding what appeared to be two makeshift rafts
off the coast of Spain.
One of the rafts even had an American flag attached to it,
but whether or not this is the final resting place
of the Mary Celeste's crew was never confirmed.
It seems like we may never know what truly happened
to the crew of the Mary Celeste,
but it certainly seems like there is more to this mystery
that we still have yet to uncover.
Thank you guys so much for making it to the end of the video
and taking a look into this mysterious case with me.
If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing
or checking out the other mysteries I've covered.
If you'd like to see me show a mystery on this channel,
please join my Discord or comment down below.
Thanks again, and have a good night.