591: Mysteries of the Sea Vol 2: Ghost Ships & Desert Galleons | Unexplained Maritime Disappearances

The Why Files: Operation Podcast

Science, Life Sciences, Fiction, Society & Culture, Documentary, Science Fiction

4.8 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Throughout maritime history, ships have been found drifting with crews mysteriously vanished, leaving behind half-eaten meals and personal belongings undisturbed. The Mary Celeste in 1872, the Carroll A. Deering in 1921, and even modern vessels like the Kaz II in 2007 share the same eerie pattern – perfectly seaworthy ships abandoned in an instant.

Some ghost ships reveal more disturbing scenes, like the Ourang Medan, where an entire crew was found dead with faces frozen in terror. Others seemingly travel through time, appearing decades after their disappearance or in impossible locations.

Most fascinating is the legend of a Spanish galleon found deep in the Mojave Desert, miles from any ocean. These maritime mysteries span centuries and oceans, reminding us that despite our technology, some things remain beyond human understanding.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The sea doesn't forgive, it doesn't negotiate.
0:04.0	Millions of lives have been lost since humans first sail beyond the side of land.
0:09.0	Sometimes the sea doesn't kill, it takes.
0:13.0	Ships found adrift, completely intact, and completely empty.
0:19.0	Meals half eaten on tables, navigation equipment still working,
0:23.6	logs that stop mid-sentence, no signs of struggle, no evidence of evacuation. The people are just gone.
0:30.6	Some ships disappear and return days later, others decades later. Ghost ships reappear in strange places.
0:42.7	Some right where they started. Some a thousand miles off course. In fact, one ghost ship was so
0:48.8	far off course, it was found in the desert.
1:03.4	It was December 4, 1872.
1:07.7	Captain David Morehouse stood on the deck of his ship, the de Gracia.
1:12.5	He was halfway between the Azores and Portugal when he spotted a vessel acting strange. Moorhouse raised his spyglass. The ship's sails were set wrong for the wind. It drifted
1:19.0	erratically, like there was nobody at the helm. Yeah, sounds like every New Jersey driver.
1:23.5	Please don't interrupt when I'm setting up a scary scene and leave New Jersey alone.
1:28.4	Sorry, sorry, but you ever drive to Fort Lee with the GWV backed up?
1:32.6	I have.
1:33.4	That's scarier than this story.
1:35.5	So, Morehouse changed course to investigate.
1:38.5	As he got closer, he signaled the ship.
1:40.8	No reply.
1:42.0	Morehouse could feel it.
1:43.6	Something was very wrong. As the de Gracia came
	...

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