by Albert Jack
The log also noted, somewhat unusually, that James Ducat had been “very quiet” and that Donald McArthur—who had joined the men temporarily as third keeper while William Ross was on leave—was actually crying. And McArthur was no callow youth, but an old soldier, a seasoned mariner with many years’ experience and known on the mainland as a tough brawler.
In the afternoon, Marshall had noted in the log: “Storm still raging. Wind steady. Storm bound. Cannot go out. Ship passing sounding foghorn. Could see lights of cabins.” This was distinctly odd: no storm had been reported on December 12, and what could possibly have happened to upset an old salt like McArthur?
The following morning, Marshall had noted that the storm was still raging and that, while Ducat continued to be “quiet,” McArthur was now praying. The afternoon entry simply stated: “Me, Ducat and McArthur prayed,” while on the following day, December 14, there was no entry at all. Finally, on December 15, the day before the light was reported for the first time as being not visible, the sea appeared to have been still and the storm to have abated. The final log entry simply stated: “Storm ended, sea calm. God is over all.”
Muirhead puzzled over what could have frightened three seasoned veterans of the ocean so greatly, and also what was meant by that last sentence, “God is over all.” He had never known any of the men to be God-fearing, let alone to resort to prayer. Equally troubling was where such violent storms had come from when no poor weather, let alone gale-force winds, had been reported in the vicinity at any point up to December 17.
Muirhead also wondered why nobody on Lewis had known of such a frightening storm when the lighthouse was actually visible (bad weather would have obscured it during the day), and for that matter how the passing boat Marshall recorded on December 12 had managed to stay afloat in such a gale. Equally, if it had sunk, why had no boat been reported missing?
Finally, Muirhead wondered if a three-day hurricane raging over such a localized area was too unrealistic to consider, or simply if one or even all of the lighthouse keepers had gone mad, which might explain the unusual emotions recorded in the lighthouse log and the men's subsequent disappearance. He could think of no other reason for them to disappear on the first calm and quiet day following the alleged storm. If they were going to be swept out to sea, surely that would have been more likely to happen during the gale, had they been foolish enough to venture outside, rather than during the spell of calm weather reported in the final log entry.
One interesting thing to note was that the log that week was written by Thomas Marshall, the second in command and youngest of the three men. That was not so unusual, but for him to be making insubordinate comments about his principal in an official log was certainly out of the ordinary. Especially as the log was bound to be read at some point by the Northern Lighthouse Board and, of course, by James Ducat himself. And to record the aggressive McArthur as “crying” when he would also certainly have read the log himself once the storm had passed seems strangely foolhardy. Yet there it was, in black-and-white, in the official lighthouse log. The whole point of such a record is to note times, dates, wind directions, and the like, not to record human emotions or activity such as praying. The investigators were baffled by this.
Clearly the men on the island had been affected by a powerful external force of some kind, and so Superintendent Muirhead turned his attention to the light itself, which he found clean and ready for use. The oil fountains and canteens were full and the wicks trimmed, but Muirhead knew the light had not been lit at midnight on December 15 because the steamship Archtor had passed close to the Flannan Islands at that time and the captain had reported he had not seen the light, when he felt sure it should have been clearly visible from his position.
The kitchen was clean and the pots and pans had been washed, so Muirhead concluded that whatever had happened to the men had taken place between lunchtime and nightfall, before the light was due to be lit. But there had been no storm on that day, as evidence from both the lighthouse log and the Isle of Lewis confirms.
Muirhead then decided to make a thorough search of the site and, despite high seas, was able to reach the crane platform seventy feet above sea level. The previous year a crane had been washed away in a heavy storm, so the super intendent knew this to be a vulnerable spot, but the crane was secure, as were the barrels and the canvas cover protecting the crane.
But curiously, forty feet higher than the crane, 110 feet above sea level, a strong wooden box usually secured into a crevice in the rocks and containing rope and crane handles was found to be missing. The rope had fallen below and lay strewn around the crane legs, and the solid iron railings around the crane were found to be “displaced and twisted,” suggesting a force of terrifying strength. A life buoy fixed to the railings was missing but the rope fastening it appeared untouched, and a large, approximately one-ton section of rock had broken away from the cliff, evidently dislodged by whatever it was that had caused the rest of the damage, and now lay on the concrete path leading up to the lighthouse.
Muirhead considered whether the men could have been blown off the island by the high winds but decided this would have been impossible during the calm weather of December 15. Further inspection revealed turf from the top of a two-hundred-foot cliff had been ripped away, and seaweed was discovered, the like of which no one could identify. Muirhead thought that a mammoth roller wave could have swept away the two men in oilskins working on the crane platform, but such a freak wave had never been reported before.
Unable to come to a definite conclusion, Muirhead returned to Lewis, leaving a very uneasy Joseph Moore with the new principal keeper, John Milne, and his assistant, Donald Jack. In the report he made on January 8, 1901, a sad and baffled Muirhead noted that he had known the missing men intimately and held them in the highest regard. He wrote that “the Board has lost two of its most efficient Keepers and a competent Occasional.” And he concluded his report by recalling: “I visited them as lately as 7th December and have the melancholy recollection that I was the last person to shake hands with them and bid them adieu.”
At the subsequent Northern Lighthouse Board inquiry, also conducted by Robert Muirhead, it was noted that the severity of the storm damage found on Eilean Mor was “difficult to believe unless actually seen.” The inquiry concluded:
From evidence which I was able to procure I was satisfied that the men had been on duty up until dinner time on Saturday the 15th December, that they had gone down to secure a box in which the mooring ropes, landing ropes etc. were kept, and which was secured in a crevice in the rock about 110 foot above sea level, and that an extra large sea had rushed up the face of the rock, had gone above them, and coming down with immense force, had swept them completely away.
But this pathetic attempt by the Board fails to explain why McArthur was there without his oilskins and does not account for his disappearance, unless the Board believed he had run to the cliff top and, on finding his colleagues in the sea, thrown himself in after them wearing just his smoking jacket and carpet slippers. The inquiry also makes no reference to the fact that the damage to the railings and landing platform could have been caused after the men had gone missing on the fifteenth, possibly even during the heavy storms and gales recorded on December 20.
Later, it came to light that a further piece of evidence had been submitted to the inquiry but was not made public. Two sailors who were passing Eilean Mor on the evening of December 15 claim to have been discussing the lighthouse, and why it was in complete darkness, when they noticed a small boat being rowed frantically across the sea by three men dressed in heavy-weather clothing. By the light of the moon, they watched as the small boat passed close to them and they called out to the men. Their calls were ignored, however, and the boat made its way past them and out of sight.
Over the years, all the usual theories have been trotted out— yes, including sea monsters and abduction by aliens, not to mention the curse of the “little men”—but staying within the re
alms of reality and on the basis of observations made at the time, only two explanations seem feasible.
The first is that the west landing at Eilean Mor is located in a narrow gully in the rock that terminates in a cave. During high seas or storms, water forced into the cave under pressure will return with explosive force, and it is possible that McArthur, noticing heavy seas approaching, rushed out to warn his two colleagues working on the crane platform, only to become caught in the tragedy himself. This would explain the overturned chair and the reason he was not wearing his oilskins. Even so, it seems somewhat unlikely that while in such a tearing hurry, McArthur would have paused on his way out to carefully close both of the doors and the gate to the compound.
The second theory is that one man in oilskins fell into the water and the other rushed back to the lighthouse to call for help. Both men then fell in while attempting to rescue the first. But once again this theory fails to explain the closed doors and gate, and is not consistent with the sighting of three men in a boat by moonlight. In 1912, a popular ballad called “Flannan Isle” by William Wilson Gibson added to the mystery by offering all sorts of fictional extras, such as a half-eaten meal abandoned in a hurry—conjuring up images of the Mary Celeste. But this only clouds the very real tragedy of three men losing their lives on a bleak, windy rock in the North Sea while working to prevent others from losing theirs.
Following the terrible and mystifying events, the lighthouse nonetheless remained manned, although without incident, by a succession of keepers, and in 1925 the first wireless communication was established between Eilean Mor and Lewis. In 1971, it was fully automated, the keepers withdrawn, and a concrete helipad in stalled so that engineers could visit the island via less hazardous means for annual maintenance of the light. Nobody has lived on Eilean Mor since.
The most plausible theory arose by accident nearly fifty years after the disappearance of the lighthouse keepers. In 1947, a Scottish journalist named Iain Campbell visited the islands and, while standing on a calm day by the west jetty, he observed the sea suddenly heave and swell, rising to a level of seventy feet above the landing. After about a minute the sea returned to its normal level. Campbell could not see any reason for the sudden change. He theorized it may have been an underwater seaquake (see also “Whatever Happened to the Crew of the Mary Celeste?” page 138) and felt certain nobody standing on the jetty could have survived. The lighthouse keeper at the time told him that the change of level happened periodically and several men had almost been pulled into the sea but managed to escape.
Although this seems the most likely fate of the men on December 15, 1900, it is by no means certain and still fails to explain several known clues, such as why the third man disappeared wearing his indoor clothing after carefully closing and latching three doors behind him, or who the three men in the rowing boat could have been. Nor does it account for the strange logbook entries or why the light appeared not to be operational for a number of days. The only thing we know for certain is that something snatched those three brave men off the rock on that winter's day over a hundred years ago, and nothing has been seen or heard of them since.
Do you believe in fairies—or in photos of them?
The intriguing pictures taken by two young
girls in Cottingley, Yorkshire.
One of the most famous mysteries of the twentieth century is the story of the Cottingley Fairies, photographed by sixteen-year-old Elsie Wright and her ten-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths during the summer of 1917. The series of pictures were taken over a period of two months at a small brook near their home at Cottingley, a picturesque village in Yorkshire.
Young Frances swore that she had seen the fairies and her elder cousin confirmed her story. The photographs, they said, proved their outlandish claims. Harold Snelling, an expert in fake photography, declared that “these dancing figures are not made of paper nor any fabric; they are not painted on a photographic background—but what gets me most is that all these figures have moved during the exposure.” He seems not to have spent much time considering the possibility that wind, either natural or created, might have moved the images. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, by then world famous for having created Sherlock Holmes, lent considerable credibility to the story when he stated that he believed the photographs were “genuine beyond doubt,” and he even wrote a book, The Coming of the Fairies, which convinced many people that the tiny figures in the photos were real. (For more on Conan Doyle, see “The Spine-chilling Tale of the Chase Vault,” page 39, and “Whatever Happened to the Crew of the Mary Celeste?” page 138.)
It wasn't until many years later, not until 1983 in fact, that the elder of the two girls admitted that the photographs had been faked and made with pictures cut out of a glossy magazine and held together with pins. On the other hand, Frances always maintained she had seen the fairies with her own eyes and swore that the fifth picture, showing fairies in a sunbath, was 100 percent genuine.
The visions of the Virgin Mary seen by three
Portuguese peasant children and the extraordinary
“Miracle of the Sun” witnessed by thousands
On July 13, 1917, three children were startled to find a mysterious figure approaching them as they tended their flock of sheep in pastureland near Fatima in Portugal. Lucia Rosa dos Santos and her two cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto reported seeing what they described as a “pretty lady from Heaven.” Lucia said the lady was “brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal glass filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun.” Just the sort of description you'd expect from an illiterate ten-year-old shepherd girl. Lucia also claimed the lady had entrusted her with three important secrets, which she did not reveal until many years later.
Instead of being cuffed around the ear, the three scallywags were firmly believed, and the devout soon identified the mysterious visitor as the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. Word of the vision rapidly spread, and thousands began making the pilgrimage to the Cova da Iria (the area of pastureland near Fatima in which the children had grazed their sheep) hoping to see the Mother of Jesus for themselves. Artur de Oliveira Santos, the mayor of Vila Nova de Ourem and the most powerful man in the region, became increasingly anxious about the political implications of the pilgrimage to Fatima. Reports of new miracles were only swelling the number of pilgrims. His open hostility to the alleged apparitions was well known, and he ordered the arrest of the little ones. On August 13, the children were arrested on their way to the pasture at Cova da Iria and thrown into jail. Other prisoners later testified the youngsters were initially frightened and upset, but were soon chanting their rosaries and leading their cellmates in prayer.
When Santos interrogated the children, they wouldn't tell him anything. So, as the story goes, he arranged for a large pot of boiling oil to be delivered to the interrogation room. He then took the children one by one to the room, claiming that each of the others had been boiled to death in oil for “failing to tell him the truth.” The “remaining” child was urged to speak out or suffer the same fate. Remarkably, despite such persuasive techniques, the psychopath still failed to persuade the youngsters to tell him anything at all.
With that, Santos was forced to release them. Six days later, on August 19, they reported another visitation at nearby Valinhos. On September 13, the Blessed Virgin appeared in the field again, and this time the children reported she promised them that at noon on October 13 she would reappear and perform a miracle, so that “everybody will believe.”
As dawn broke on October 13, a thick layer of cloud hung over the entire area and heavy rain fell, soaking the thousands who had gathered to see the expected miracle. Many were present only to witness what they were sure would be a nonevent. The tension mounted as crowds of between seventy and one hundred thousand gathered during the morning. People from every walk of life were there, including doctors, lawyers, and scientists (not normally inclined to be credulous), religious
leaders and the great and the good, all eagerly awaiting the great event. Noon passed without incident, but in the middle of the afternoon tens of thousands of people witnessed the clouds gradually part to reveal a dim, opaque sun spinning on its axis and emitting various bright colors that illuminated everything around. After a short while the sun apparently began to detach itself from the sky and plummet toward the earth, but instead of crashing to the ground and wiping out the entire human race, it slowed down at the last moment and only came close enough to heat the land and dry out everybody's soaked clothing before slowly making its way back to its regular place in the sky.
This event, which lasted for between eight and ten minutes and in which the sun appeared to sink and rise again three times, became known as the “Miracle of the Sun.” Previously a strongly Catholic country, Portugal at that time had been a secular state for only seven years—since the monarchy had been abolished during the republican revolution of 1910. Since then, the new government of Portugal had been severely hostile toward religious groups, which explains Mayor Santos's unpleasantness to the devout children. However, even the pro-government O Seculo, Portugal's most influential newspaper, was unable to repress its excitement on this occasion. Popular columnist Avelino de Almeida noted:
