Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me, Richard McLean Smith.

Where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that for one reason

or other didn't make it into the previous show.

In last week's episode, the silence of the sea, we found the ghost ship, Mary Celeste,

a drift on the Atlantic Ocean.

Over the years, many theories have been put forward to explain what happened to the ship's

ten crew and passengers.

Today, despite the many otherworldly explanations, the most popular theories tend to revolve

around the nature of the cargo on board the vessel.

It's been speculated that leaking vapors from the denatured alcohol in the ship's hold

might have scared Captain Briggs into thinking the vessel was about to explode.

Terrified by the prospect of imminent catastrophe, the passengers may have taken to the lifeboat

in a panic, only to later sink under difficult conditions.

Others have suggested that the vapors may even have caught fire at some point, but since

only the gas would have been burned off, no evidence remained of anything untoward having

taken place.

However, it is unlikely we will ever have a definitive explanation for what occurred,

and so the Mary Celeste is destined to remain forever a drift on those inscrutable and unforgiving

waves of maritime history.

There is something uniquely evocative and even romantic about the notion of being lost at sea.

I think this is due in part to the inevitable sense of isolation that such an event

conjures up, but also the strange confluence of something as singular and dynamic as an animal

...