00:00:00.000Every winter, the desolate shores of Block Island are shrouded in an unnatural gloom where the
00:00:08.720spectral glow of a doomed vessel, the Palatine, haunts the eyes of those brave enough to look
00:00:14.340upon it. The ship, once aflame with the agony of the forsaken, lingers still. Its fiery wrath,
00:00:23.280a chilling reminder that some horrors never die.
00:00:30.000beyond the infamous tale of the palatine the seas have long been haunted by other ghostly vessels
00:00:40.020each bearing its own macabre legend from the earliest mariner accounts ghost ships have
00:00:47.060drifted through folklore like spectral warnings of death's icy hand from scandinavian and germanic
00:00:54.780myth, to tales whispered by sailors of phantom vessels glimpsed on misty horizons. They are
00:01:01.000dreaded harbingers of disaster. These legends speak not just to the fear of shipwrecks or storms,
00:01:08.600but to something deeper. An eternal wandering of lost souls, punished to roam the seas forever.
00:01:15.700In the year 1811, Dr. Aron C. Wiley, a Block Island resident, described the Palantine Light.
00:01:28.440The people who have always lived here are so familiarised to the site that they never think of giving notice to those who do not happen to be present or even of mentioning it afterwards.
00:01:39.000The light looks like a blaze of fire six or seven miles from the northern part of Block Island.
00:01:45.700Sometimes it's small, like the light from a distant window.
00:01:49.720Sometimes it's as big as a ship and wavers like a torch.
00:01:54.120Wiley first saw it in February of 1810.
00:01:57.860It was large and gently lambent, very bright,
00:02:01.420broad at the bottom and terminating acutely upward, he wrote.
00:02:05.120I saw it again on the evening of December 20th.
00:02:08.340It was then small and I supposed it to be a light on the board of some vessel.
00:02:15.700It moved along, apparently parallel to the shore, for about two miles in the time that I was riding one at moderate pace.
00:02:24.980Full disclosure, the Palatine was actually named Countess Augusta.
00:02:29.680It carried 240 immigrants from the Palatine region of southwest Germany.
00:02:35.040The ship sailed from Rotterdam in August of 1738 under Captain George Long and a 14-man crew.
00:02:42.540It headed for Philadelphia and Virginia.
00:02:45.700The voyagers had terrible luck from the outset.
00:02:49.260The ship carried contaminated water and passengers and crew died of disease even as stormy seas pushed them off course northward.
00:02:58.240After the captain died, first mate Andrew Brook took charge.
00:03:03.120Supplies dwindled and he charged passengers for food rations.
00:03:06.960brook tried to steer the ship between block island and long island sound but a blinding
00:03:13.760snowstorm drove it aground in the northern tip of block island at sandy point the islanders
00:03:19.820buried about 20 passengers who died in the wreck and then in 1947 the block island historical
00:03:26.560society put a marker at the site of the palatine graves at least two passengers settled on the
00:03:32.420island and the crew may have scuttled the ship out at sea or they may have set it on fire. There is
00:03:39.520some evidence though that the ship was repaired and sailed on to Philadelphia. Another version is
00:03:45.820less flattering to the block islanders. Joseph P. Hazard told it to the poet John Greenleaf
00:03:52.700Whittier. In that version the islanders lured the ship onto the shoals with a false light.
00:03:57.940They then murdered the starving, freezing passengers, set the palatine on fire and sent it out to sea to hide their crime.
00:04:07.040A passenger named Mary van der Leyen, driven mad by her suffering, refused to leave her possessions.
00:04:13.200Every year, between Christmas and New Year's, Block Islanders can see the ghost of the flaming ship and hear Mary van der Leyen's screams above the surf.
00:04:22.380Benjamin Congdon, born around 1788, gave an explanation for the apparition, according to folklorist Michael Bell.
00:04:32.840About the burning Palatine ship, I may say that I have seen her eight or ten times or more.
00:04:37.860In those early days, nobody doubted her being sent by an almighty power to punish those wicked men who murdered her passengers and crew.
00:04:52.380For the earliest tales of ghost ships, we have to go back to Scandinavian and Germanic legend.
00:05:03.440In the dark and foreboding prophecies of Norse mythology,0.80
00:05:07.780Nagfar is not merely a ship, but an omen of the world's final doom.0.99
00:05:13.340Constructed from the untrimmed nails of the dead,0.99
00:05:16.480Nagfar is a ghastly vessel foretold to break free from its moorings0.99
00:05:20.640when the very fabric of existence begins to unravel during the cataclysmic events of ragnarok0.95
00:05:27.200when the stars have vanished and the earthquakes violently the ships will be loosed upon the world
00:05:32.400varying legions of monsters and giants under the command of the fearsome jotun hrim0.99
00:05:38.720nagfar will sail to the battlefield where its grotesque crew will engage in the final0.98
00:05:44.560apocalyptic struggle against the gods. Attested in the poetic Edda, the ship embodies ultimate1.00
00:05:51.820doom as it carries the forces of chaos to their war with the divine, like the cursed ship of
00:05:57.880Baron Falkenberg in the North Sea, where souls are eternally gambled away in games of dice.
00:06:04.200in a twist of fate the baron found himself summoned to a wedding not of his own making
00:06:16.880but of his estranged brothers his brother newly returned and suddenly affluent beyond measure
00:06:24.240was to wed the woman whom the baron had long pined for in secret the revelation struck him
00:06:31.640like a cold cruel dagger. His brother had not only surpassed him in wealth, but had also claimed the
00:06:38.280heart of his beloved. Though tormented by this bitter fate, the baron resolved to maintain his
00:06:44.640composure, rationalising that the bride's choice was beyond his control and his poverty offered
00:06:50.900no contest. The wedding unfolded with the expected pomp and revelry, yet beneath the
00:06:57.200veneer of celebration, dark currents stirred. In a moment of provocation, the brother's hand
00:07:04.300transgressed against the baron's dignity, sparking a primal fury within him. The baron,
00:07:10.500driven to madness, seized a champagne bottle and shattered it upon his brother's skull,
00:07:15.980sending him lifeless to the ground. The bride's horrified scream shattered the mirthful atmosphere,
00:07:21.780prompting her to flee in terror the baron desperate to make amends pursued her with
00:07:27.860frantic declarations of love and pleas for escape but her response was a stark refusal
00:07:33.920she would rather meet death than share her life with him consumed by despair and rage
00:07:40.440the baron took her rejection to heart and in a fit of grim resolve he ended her life with a knife
00:07:47.100sealing their tragic love in death's cold embrace.
00:07:52.360The commotion drew the horrified attention of the wedding guests
00:07:56.020who soon uncovered the macabre tableau of violence and betrayal.
00:08:00.280As the guest's shock turned to pursuit,
00:08:02.680the baron fled into the night, seeking solace along the desolate shore.
00:08:07.960There he encountered a spectral boatman who spoke with an eerie cam.
00:11:51.000The Dutchman ship crumbles, dissolving into the abyss, as a vision of Senta's sacrifice offers him peace at last, her love carrying him beyond the reach of damnation.
00:12:14.900While in these stories we have been referring to ghost ships, perhaps a distinction is needed.
00:12:21.000these phantom ships ephemeral glowing ghostly differ from ghost ships which are no mere
00:12:29.880apparitions but tangible deserted vessels drifting aimlessly across the waters forsaken by their
00:12:37.360crews yet eerily intact often they sail alone as if moved by some unseen force their empty decks
00:12:45.220haunted by a silence more chilling than any storm. No sign of life, no sign of struggle,
00:12:51.760only questions whispered on the wind. Among these vessels, the most infamous is the Mary Celeste.
00:12:59.080She departed New York on November 5th, 1872, manned by a crew of seven souls, accompanied by
00:13:06.300the captain's wife and their young daughter. Their cargo, denatured alcohol, a bitter substance
00:13:13.240unfit for any mortal consumption, rested quietly in the hold, but it was not the alcohol that left
00:13:19.700its mark on our story. On December 4th, 1872, the Mary Celeste was found adrift by the Canadian ship
00:13:27.640De Gratia. She bobbed along the waves, forlorn and with no sign of her crew. Not a soul stirred
00:13:34.820aboard the ghostly ship. The sea had seeped into her hull, but not quite enough to sink her.