We never planned for the moments that frighten us the most.

They tend to creep up on us, loading on chance, and propelled by some twisted mixture of

Murphy's Law and the worst side of humanity.

Thankfully, those moments are rare.

In 2014, though, the people of Ireland came face to face with a real scare.

A ship was slowly approaching the western coast of the Green Isle, and while countless

ships do that every day, this one was different.

This one, you see, was a ghost ship.

The Liu Bov or Lova began life in 1967 as an ordinary Yugoslavian cruise liner.

She was built to withstand sea ice and spent a good portion of her career as a tourist

vessel near Antarctica.

But in 2010, the cruise ship entered troubled water, figuratively speaking, and was taken

out of service and docked in St. John's in Newfoundland.

Turns out, the crew of over 50 people hadn't been paid in over 5 months, so to cover the

$250,000 in debts, the ship was impounded and sold for salvage.

In February of 2012, the ship was pulled out of St. John's by a tugboat headed to the

Dominican Republic, but the tow line slipped free just a day into the journey.

They tried to reconnect it, but somehow it failed.

And thus began a journey that even a scriptwriter couldn't dream up, with the ship drifting

back east and then west and north until it was finally making its way toward County

Carrey in Ireland.

Oh, one last detail.

...