The dangers of the sea are well-known to sailors. Unpredictable changes in weather can lead to
waves, storms, and mistakes that have, in the past, cost entire crews their lives. But can
the danger of the oceans ravage the coasts just as mysteriously as when you’re far out at sea?
This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question;
how did the Flannan Isles lighthouse keepers disappear without a trace?
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In 1900, three experienced lighthouse keepers, James Ducat, Thomas Marshall,
and Donald McArthur, mysteriously vanished while operating the remote Flannan Isles Lighthouse.
The lighthouse, which is still standing today, is on the island of Eilean Mòr,
part of a small group of islands in the Outer Hebrides, off the western coast of Scotland.
It lies far in the north, an extremely remote and isolated lighthouse. Construction began in 1895,
and it was fully operational by December 7th, 1899. Only a year later and its name
would go down in history because of one of the eeriest vanishings of all time.
Following other harrowing incidents, which we’ll touch on later, it was decided in Britain that
lighthouses needed three people operating them at all times. The Flannan Isles Lighthouse had
four keepers assigned, working rotating shifts of six weeks on and two weeks off. On December 15th,
1900, a passing ship, the Archtor, noticed that the light wasn’t lit. Lighthouse keepers James
Ducat, Thomas Marshall, and Donald McArthur were supposed to be manning it at the time,
while the fourth man, Joseph Moore, was away on the mainland. Given that weather conditions were
poor, the lighthouse definitely should have been working to help guide ships around the
northern coast of Scotland. The quickest way for the Archtor to send somebody to
investigate was by completing its journey to Leith, Edinburgh, and reporting the strange
occurrence to the Northern Lighthouse Board, or NLB. Unfortunately, poor weather continued.
Nobody reached the island until 11 days later, on December 26th, which is when the fourth keeper,
Moore, went ashore, brought by the relief vessel Hesperus. To his dismay,
all three of his fellow lighthouse keepers had vanished. He returned with three sailors,
who volunteered to help keep the lighthouse operating for the safety of passing ships.
Moore and the crew investigated Eilean Mòr properly after the initial landing,
but they weren’t able to find the other keepers. Only after the Hesperus had already been and
investigated was the NLB given the information by the Archtor that, as early as the 15th, the
lighthouse wasn’t functional. Roderick MacKenzie, a gamekeeper on a more populated island,
had been paid by the NLB to keep an eye on the lighthouse. And, though MacKenzie didn’t see the
light for nearly two weeks, he failed to report this until the investigation had already started.
During that investigation, Moore found that the light was in full working order,
and he was able to get it lit as soon as possible. Everything would have been ready,
in fact, for it to be lit on the night of December 15th. Inside the lighthouse,
Moore also found that the clocks had stopped, and that two sets of oilskins were missing;
only one remained. Oilskins are waterproof garments worn to protect the keepers from bad
weather. These missing oilskins suggested, then, that two keepers had worn theirs out into a storm,
while the third had left his behind, perhaps having departed in a hurry. Both the front
door and the gate were closed, however. So, someone had left too quickly to put on
their protective gear, yet had still taken the time to close two doors behind them.
Moore also discovered that the date of the disappearance was December 15th, spookily,
the very same date the Archtor had passed and first noticed the light hadn’t been lit. The
logbook was also up-to-date, as was the keepers’ slate, which was used to record facts before being
transferred formally to the log. It noted that all the work had been done on the morning of the 15th,
as usual – like leaving the lamp ready to be lit. But while the lighthouse itself offered no clues,
it was a different story when they examined the island’s two landing places. The east
landing was in perfect condition, but the west had suffered severe damage from the earlier storms.
With all this in mind, the Northern Lighthouse Board wrapped up its investigation and came to the
conclusion that the three men had perished at the western landing on the evening of December 15th.
They’d finished their logs, storms had worsened, and by that very same evening, the absence of
the light was noticed. It’s commonly thought that they went to the western landing to stop
equipment being destroyed because Thomas Marshall had previously been fined for lost equipment,
and so might’ve wanted to avoid a repeat punishment. The fine was five shillings,
which would be about twenty-four British pounds – roughly $29 – today. Considering Marshall and
Ducat were both experienced, it’s possible that they thought venturing out into a storm was worth
it to avoid the fines. A huge wave may have swept them away. There was evidence of damage high up
at the western landing, bolstering this theory. It’s then thought that McArthur either left the
lighthouse quickly to warn them of incoming waves, or to help them secure the equipment,
and all three were taken by the sea. But what about those particularly sinister,
stopped clocks? Well, really, they likely had only stopped because they
needed to be wound regularly, and had ticked down in the keepers’ absence.
This is not, however, the only possible explanation. Even at the time,
the story was sensationalized, and interest has never completely waned. This was 1900,
decades before alien abduction stories took hold of pop culture. But many other supernatural
theories abounded, including that the three men could have been abducted by something else out
of this world - such as a sea serpent or worse, ghosts. Contemporary rumors blamed
The Phantom of the Seven Hunters, a malignant ghost ship said to haunt the Flannan Isles,
which are also known as the Seven Hunters. Some say the keepers had angered supernatural
forces on the island somehow. There also eventually emerged alleged excerpts from
the keepers’ logbook, describing their supposed terror at the storm outside,
with one of them even beginning to cry. But these additional entries turned out to be a hoax.
Other theories stay a little nearer to reality. They speculate that the men got
into a fight down by the cliffside. McArthur was apparently known to have a short temper;
perhaps all fell into the ocean together. Even more violent is the idea that one of them
could have murdered the other two and then taken his own life in the sea, to cover up the crime.
What do YOU think happened to the lighthouse keepers? Could a supernatural cause be to blame,
or was it all down to the raw power of the stormy seas?
The Flannan disappearance isn’t the only tragic thing to have happened at a lighthouse. The reason
for the rule requiring three lighthouse keepers on duty was the Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy of
1801. The first Smalls lighthouse, which has since been replaced, was erected on remote,
wave-washed rocks off the coast of Wales in the 1770s. In 1801, however, nearly a century before
the Flannan Isles disappearance, one of the two keepers, Thomas Griffith, died in an accident.
The other keeper, Thomas Howell, didn’t want people to think he’d committed murder, so rather
than dispose of Griffith’s body, he kept it in a makeshift coffin over one of the windows. The arm
of the body hung down where it was visible and moved in the wind. Slowly, Howell lost his mind,
and though he was eventually rescued, he was never the same again. The Smalls Lighthouse
Tragedy was so horrific it formed the basis of the acclaimed 2019 horror movie, “The Lighthouse”.
If an episode of violence or madness was what affected the Flannan keepers, too,
then perhaps it speaks to the dangers of long periods of isolation in general, especially in
such a hostile place. Since the 1990s, the UK’s lighthouses have all been automated,
and keepers only visit part-time to check everything is still working.
We’ll probably never know for sure what happened to the Flannan keepers,
though if the Northern Lighthouse Board is right, the mystery may have been solved shortly after
it happened. It’s all down to whether you think that experienced lighthouse keepers
would risk themselves to save their equipment, or whether you think something more sinister was
going on. And that’s what happened when three lighthouse keepers disappeared without a trace.
What do you think? Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments, check out these other
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