Six ships from World War II have disappeared from the bottom of the Java Sea. Dutch and British authorities have launched an investigation into the incident. In their opinion, the ships were stolen for the sale of scrap metal. However, the Indonesian navy does not share this point of view.
In 1942, during World War II, a battle took place in the Java Sea Japanese fleet against the fleet of the Netherlands, USA, Britain and Australia. It ended in a decisive victory for Japan, and three Dutch ships, six British and an American submarine went to the bottom of the sea, where they remained until recently.
In 2002, amateur divers discovered the wreckage of Dutch ships - the light cruisers De Ruyter and Java, as well as the destroyer Kortenaar.
The ships became the grave for more than two thousand dead soldiers.
One of the missing ships is the Dutch light cruiser HNLMS De Ruyter before it was sunk in 1942
A few days ago, Dutch authorities began preparations for the 75th anniversary of the battle. Divers went down to the bottom of the sea to photograph the remains of the ships, but they were unable to do so. Both cruisers and a significant part of the Cortenar disappeared.
Dutch Defense Minister Janine Hennis-Plasschaert reported her missing on Tuesday. “The Battle of the Java Sea is part of our collective memory,” she said. - The wreckage bears silent testimony to the tragic events and serves as the backdrop for many stories about the horrors of war and the camaraderie between crew members. We have launched an investigation to find out what happened to the wreckage. Desecration of a war grave is a serious crime."
The disappearance of the ships greatly saddened 82-year-old Theo Dorman, the son of the Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Dorman, who commanded the cruiser De Ruyter and died along with the crew, and was later recognized national hero. “I’m upset,” Theo said, “but I’m not angry. Anger will get you nowhere. It has been the custom for centuries not to disturb the graves of sailors. But that’s exactly what happened.”
A day later, the British Ministry of Defense reported that their ships, the cruiser Exeter and the destroyer Encounter, had also disappeared. Only a fragment remains of the hundred-meter destroyer Electra. The American submarine Perch also disappeared.
All that was left of the ships were depressions that were visible using sonar.
The Ministry of Defense said the British government had contacted Indonesian authorities to express serious concern about what had happened and asked them to investigate and "take appropriate action to protect these sites from further interference."
“This battle has claimed many lives, and we expect that these places will be respected and left untouched,” the ministry commented on the situation. At the bottom of the sea near Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia there are more than a hundred ships and submarines from the Second World War. They attract illegal collectors of scrap metal and trophies from sunken ships. The cost, for example, of propellers - the part most interesting to looters - is estimated at more than $2.5 thousand per ton.
Moreover, the weight of one propeller can exceed ten tons. "They're using explosives to separate the pieces of metal from each other," said Andy Brockman, an archaeologist involved in the investigation. “The engine room alone contains a variety of non-ferrous metals, copper and brass, which are highly valued on the scrap market.” In order not to attract undue attention to themselves, looters often disguise themselves as fishermen.
This outrages war veterans, historians, the government and all those who want to preserve the last homes of dead sailors. You can often hear about cases of plundering the remains of sunken ships in the Java Sea. For example, last year the Malaysian military caught a group of Vietnamese red-handed who were sawing and lifting the wreckage of one of the ships from the Second World War from the water. And in 2014, the remains of British ships, the cruiser Repulse and the battleship Prince of Wales, were stolen, which became the grave of 800 sailors of the Royal navy. Also two years ago, the US military discovered an “unauthorized burial violation” of the cruiser Houston, on which the remains of 650 sailors and marines rest.
According to sailors, ghost ships or phantoms that appear on the horizon and disappear, portend trouble. The same goes for ships abandoned by their crews. Mysterious circumstances and an unusual flair of eerie romance accompany these stories. The ocean hides its secrets, and we decided to remember all these legends - from the Flying Dutchman and the Mary Celeste, to lesser-known ghost ships. You may not have known about many of them.
The ocean is one of the largest and most unexplored areas of the Earth. In fact, the ocean covers up to 70% of the surface globe. The ocean is so little explored that, according to Scientific American, humans have mapped less than 0.05% of the ocean floor.
In this situation, all these stories do not seem so incredible. And there are a great many of them - stories about ships that are lost in the seas, and all these empty ships, drifting without a purpose and a crew on board... They are called ghost ships. The entire crew died, or disappeared for unknown reasons...there were many such finds. The mysterious circumstances surrounding the death or disappearance of these teams, even today, with all the technological advances and research methods, remain mysterious. And no one can still explain the disappearance of people on board. Why did the entire crew leave the ship, which is left to drift, and where did they all go? Storms, pirates, diseases...maybe they sailed away on boats...one way or another, many crews mysteriously disappeared without explanation. The sea knows how to keep secrets, and is reluctant to part with them. Many disasters that occurred in the sea will remain a mystery to everyone.
15. "Ourang Medan" (Orang Medan, or Orange Medan)
This Dutch merchant ship became known as a ghost ship in the late 1940s. In 1947, the Orang Medan was shipwrecked in the Dutch East Indies, and an SOS signal was received by two American ships, the City of Baltimore and the Silver Star, sailing through the Strait of Malacca.
And the sailors of two American ships received an SOS signal from the cargo ship Orang Medan. The signal was transmitted by a crew member who was extremely frightened and reported that the rest of his crew were dead. After this the connection was interrupted. Arriving on the ship, the entire crew was found dead - the bodies of the sailors froze, as if in an attempt to defend themselves, but the source of the threat was never discovered.
In an article written in the late 1960s Coast Guard USA, it says that no traces were found on the bodies. visible signs damage. The cargo ship was reportedly transporting sulfuric acid that was improperly packaged. After the Silver Star's crew quickly evacuated and the Americans abandoned the ship, they hoped to tow it to shore. But a fire suddenly broke out on the ship, followed by an explosion and the ship sank, which led to the final death of the merchant ship. The widow of one of the sailors who died on Ourang Medan has a photograph of the ship and crew.
14. "Copenhagen"
One of the maritime mysteries is the disappearance without a trace of one of the newest and most reliable ships of the 20th century, the five-masted Copenhagen. In the entire history of the sailing fleet, only six ships similar to the Copenhagen were built, and she was the third largest in the world in the year of construction - in 1921. She was built for the Danish East Asia Company in Scotland - at the shipyard of Romeage and Fergusson in small town Leith near Aberdeen. The hull was made of high-quality steel, there was a ship's own power plant on board, all deck winches were equipped with electric drives, which significantly saved time on sailing operations, and even a ship's radio station. The double-deck steel Copenhagen was a training and production vessel that made regular voyages and carried cargo. The last radio communication session with Copenhagen took place on December 21, 1928. No reliable information there was no information about the fate of the huge sailing ship and the 61 people on board.
A reward was offered to anyone who could indicate the location of the missing ship. Requests were sent to all ports: to report possible contacts with Copenhagen. But the captains of only two ships responded to this call - the Norwegian and English ships. Both stated that while passing southern part Atlantic, got in touch with the Danes, and everything was fine with them. The East Asian Company first sent the Ducalien ship to search for the missing ship (but it returned empty-handed), and then the Mexico, which also found nothing. In 1929, in Copenhagen, a commission of inquiry into the disappearance of the ship concluded that “a training sailing ship, the five-masted barque Copenhagen, with 61 people on board, died due to the action force majeure elements... the ship was in distress so quickly that its crew was unable to broadcast an SOS distress signal or launch lifeboats or rafts.”
At the end of 1932, in southwest Africa, in the Namib Desert, one of the British expeditions discovered seven withered skeletons dressed in tattered sea jackets. Based on the structure of the skulls, researchers determined that they were Europeans. Based on the pattern on the copper buttons of the peacoats, experts determined that they belonged to the uniform of the Danish Merchant Navy cadets. However, this time the owners of the East Asian Company no longer had any doubts, because before 1932, only one Danish training ship, the Copenhagen, suffered a disaster. And 25 years later, on October 8, 1959, the captain of the cargo ship from the Netherlands “Straat Magelhes” Piet Agler, while near the southern coast of Africa, saw a sailboat with five masts. It appeared out of nowhere, as if it had emerged from the depths of the ocean, and with all sails was heading straight towards the Dutch... The crew managed to prevent a collision, after which the sailing ship disappeared, but the crew managed to read the inscription on board the ghost ship - “København”.
13. "Baychimo"
The Baychimo was built in Sweden in 1911 by order of a German trading company. After World War I it was taken over by Great Britain and transported furs for the next fourteen years. In early October 1931, the weather deteriorated sharply, and a few miles off the coast near the town of Barrow, the ship became stuck in the ice. The team temporarily abandoned the ship and found shelter on the mainland. A week later the weather cleared, the sailors returned on board and continued sailing, but already on October 15, Baychimo again fell into an ice trap.
This time it was impossible to get to the nearest city - the crew had to arrange a temporary shelter on the shore, far from the ship, and here they were forced to spend a whole month. In mid-November it played out blizzard, which lasted several days. And when the weather cleared on November 24, Baychimo same place it didn't turn out. The sailors believed that the ship had been lost in a storm, but a few days later a local seal hunter reported seeing Baychimo about 45 miles from their camp. The team found the ship, removed its precious cargo and left it forever.
This is not the end of the Baychimo story. For the next 40 years, it was occasionally seen drifting along the northern coast of Canada. Attempts were made to get on board the ship, some were quite successful, but due to weather conditions and the poor condition of the hull, the ship was abandoned again. The last time Baychimo was seen was in 1969, that is, 38 years after its crew abandoned it - at that time the frozen ship was part of an ice massif. In 2006, the Alaska government made an attempt to determine the location of the "Ghost Ship of the Arctic", but in vain. Where Baychimo is now - whether it lies at the bottom or is covered with ice beyond recognition - is a mystery.
12. Valencia
The Valencia was built in 1882 by William Cramp and Sons. The steamboat was most often used on the California-Alaska route. In 1906, the Valencia sailed from San Francisco to Seattle. Terrible disaster occurred on the night of January 21-22, 1906, when Valencia was near Vancouver. The steamer ran into reefs and received large holes through which water began to flow. The captain decided to run the ship aground. 6 out of 7 boats were launched, but they became casualties powerful storm; only a few people managed to get to the shore and report the disaster. The rescue operation was unsuccessful and most of the crew and passengers died. According to official information, 136 people became victims of the shipwreck; according to unofficial information, even more - 181. 37 people survived.
In 1933, lifeboat No. 5 was found near Barclay. Its condition was good, the boat retained most of its original paint. The lifeboat was found 27 years after the disaster! After this, local fishermen began to talk about the appearance of a ghost ship, which in outline resembled the Valencia.
11. Yacht SAYO; Manfred Fritz Bayorath
The 12-meter yacht SAYO, which disappeared seven years ago, was found drifting 40 miles from Barobo by Filipino fishermen. The boat's mast was broken most of the cabin was filled with water. When they got on board, they saw a mummified body near the radiotelephone. Based on photographs and documents found on board, it was quickly possible to identify the deceased. It turned out to be the owner of the yacht, yachtsman from Germany Manfred Fritz Bayorat. Bayorat's body was mummified under the influence of salt and high temperatures.
A drifting ship with the captain's mummy discovered off the coast of the Philippines surprised many. German traveler Manfred Fritz Bayorath was an experienced sailor who traveled on this yacht for 20 years. Judging by the pose in which the captain's mummy froze, in the last hours of his life he tried to contact rescuers. The cause of his death still remains a mystery.
10. "Lunatic"
In 2007, 70-year-old Jure Sterk from Slovenia set off on a trip around the world on his “Lunatic”. To communicate with the shore, he used a radio he assembled with his own hands, but on January 1, 2009, he stopped communicating. A month later, his boat washed up on the coast of Australia, but there was no one on board.
Those who saw the ship believe that it was approximately 1,000 nautical miles from the coast.
The sailboat was in excellent shape and appeared undamaged. There was no sign of Sterk there. No note or journal entry about the reasons for his disappearance. Although the last entry in the journal dates back to January 2, 2009. And at the end of April 2019, “Lunatic” was spotted at sea by the crew of the research vessel “Roger Revelle”. It was drifting about 500 miles off the coast of Australia. His exact coordinates at that time were Latitude 32-18.0S, Longitude 091-07.0E.
9. "The Flying Dutchman"
The "Flying Dutchman" refers to several different ghost ships from different centuries. One of them is the real owner of the brand. The one with whom the trouble happened at the Cape of Good Hope.
This is a legendary ghost sailing ship that cannot land on the shore and is doomed to forever roam the seas. Usually people observe such a ship from afar, sometimes surrounded by a luminous halo. According to legend, when the Flying Dutchman encounters another ship, its crew tries to send messages ashore to people who have long been dead. In maritime beliefs, an encounter with the Flying Dutchman was considered a bad omen.
Legend has it that in the 1700s, Dutch captain Philip Van Straaten was returning from the East Indies with a young couple on board. The captain liked the girl; he killed her betrothed, and proposed to her to become his wife, but the girl threw herself overboard. While trying to round the Cape of Good Hope, the ship got into heavy storm. The navigator offered to wait out the bad weather in some bay, but the captain shot him and several dissatisfied people, and then swore by his mother that none of the crew would go ashore until they rounded the cape, even if it took forever. The captain, a foul-mouthed and blasphemous man, brought a curse upon his ship. Now he, immortal, invulnerable, but unable to go ashore, is doomed to plow the waves of the world's oceans until the second coming.
The first printed mention of the Flying Dutchman appeared in 1795 in the book A Voyage to Botany Bay.
8. “High Em 6”
This ghost ship was reported to have left a port in southern Taiwan on October 31, 2002. Subsequently, on January 8, 2003, the Indonesian fishing schooner Hi Em 6 was found adrift without a crew near New Zealand. Despite a thorough search, no trace of the 14 team members could be found. The captain is reported to have last time contacted the shipowner, Tsai Huan Chue-er, at the end of 2002.
Oddly enough, the only crew member who showed up later reported that the captain had been killed. Whether there was a rebellion and its reasons are unclear. Initially, the entire crew was missing, and when the ship was discovered, no one was found. According to the results of the investigation, there were no signs of distress or fire on the ship. However, it was said that the ship could be carrying illegal immigrants. Which also doesn't explain anything...
7. Phantom Galleon
Legends about this ship began in the late 1800s when it was built. The ship was going to be built from wood. Once at sea, among the ice, the wooden ship froze into part of the iceberg. Eventually, the water began to warm up, the weather changed, it became warmer, and the iceberg sank the ship. The White Fleet searched for its ship throughout the winter, each time returning to port empty-handed, under cover of fog. At some point, it became so warm that the ship thawed and separated from the iceberg, and rose to the surface, where it was discovered by the crew of the White Fleet. Unfortunately, the crew of the galleon was killed; the remains of the ship were towed to the port.
One of the first ghost ships, the Octavius became one because its crew froze to death in 1762, and the ship drifted for another 13 years with the dead on board. The captain tried to find shortcut from China to England via the Northwest Passage (sea route through the Northern Arctic Ocean), but the ship was covered in ice. Octavius left England and headed for America in 1761. Trying to save time, the captain decided to follow the then-unexplored Northwest Passage, which was first successfully completed only in 1906. The ship is stuck in arctic ice, the unprepared team froze to death - the discovered remains indicate that this happened quite quickly. It is assumed that some time later Octavius was freed from the ice and, with its dead crew, drifted on the open sea. After an encounter with whalers in 1775, the ship was never seen again.
The English merchant ship Octavius was discovered drifting west of Greenland on October 11, 1775. A crew from the whaler Whaler Herald boarded and found the entire crew frozen. The captain's body was in his cabin; he died while writing in the logbook; he remained sitting at the table with a pen in his hand. There were three more frozen bodies in the cabin: a woman, a child wrapped in a blanket, and a sailor. The whaler's boarding crew left Octavius in a hurry, taking with them only the logbook. Unfortunately, the document was so damaged by cold and water that only the first and last pages could be read. The journal ended with an entry from 1762. This meant that the ship had been drifting with the dead on board for 13 years.
5. Corsair "Duc de Dantzig"
This ship was launched in the early 1800s in Nantes, France, and soon became a corsair. Corsairs are private individuals who, with the permission of the supreme power of a warring state, used an armed vessel to capture merchant ships of the enemy, and sometimes even neutral powers. The same title applies to their team members. The concept of “corsair” in the narrow sense is used to characterize specifically French and Ottoman captains and ships.
The corsair captured several ships, some were plundered, and some were set free. After capturing small ships, most often the corsair abandoned the captured ships, sometimes setting them on fire. Mysteriously, this ship disappeared in 1812. Since then he has become a legend. It is believed that shortly after the mysterious disappearance, this corsair could have been a cruiser in Atlantic Ocean or perhaps in Caribbean. There are rumors that it may have been captured by a British frigate. Napoleonic Gallego reported the discovery of this ship, drifting at sea completely aimlessly, with the deck covered in blood and covered with the corpses of the crew. However, there were no visible external signs damage to the vessel. The frigate's crew allegedly found and took the logbook, covered in the captain's blood, and then set the ship on fire.
4. Schooner "Jenny"
It is stated that the schooner Jenny, originally English, left port on the Isle of Wight in 1822 for the Antarctic regatta. The journey was to take place along the ice barrier in 1823, then it was planned to enter the ice in southern waters, and get to the Drake Passage.
But a British schooner got stuck in the ice of the Drake Passage in 1823. But it was discovered only 17 years later: in 1840, a whaling ship called Nadezhda stumbled upon it. The bodies of the Jenny crew members are well preserved due to low temperatures. The ship took its place in the history of ghost ships, and in 1862 it was included in the list of Globus, a popular German geographical magazine of those times.
3. Sea Bird
Most “encounters” with ghost ships are pure fiction, but there were also quite real stories. Losing a vessel or ship in the infinity of the world's oceans is not so difficult. And it's even easier to lose people.
In the 1750s, Sea Bird was a trading brig under the command of John Huxham. A merchant ship ran aground off Easton Beach, Rhode Island. The crew disappeared to an unknown location - the ship was abandoned by them without any explanation, and the lifeboats were missing. It was reported that the ship was returning from a voyage from Honduras, carrying goods from the southern to the northern hemisphere, and was expected to arrive in the city of Newport. Upon further investigation, coffee was found boiling on the stove on the abandoned ship... The only living creatures that were found on board were a cat and a dog. Crew mysteriously disappeared. An account of the ship's history was recorded in Wilmington, Delaware and made news in the Sunday Morning Star in 1885.
2. "Mary Celeste" (or Celeste)
The second most popular ghost ship after the Flying Dutchman - however, unlike it, it really existed. “Amazon” (as the ship was originally called) was notorious. The ship changed owners many times, the first captain died during the first voyage, then the ship ran aground during a storm, and finally it was bought by an enterprising American. He renamed the Amazon the Mary Celeste, believing that the new name would save the ship from trouble.
When the ship left the port of New York on November 7, 1872, there were 13 people on board: Captain Briggs, his wife, their daughter and 10 sailors. In 1872, a ship traveling from New York to Genoa with a cargo of alcohol on board was discovered by the Dei Grazia without a single person on board. All the personal belongings of the crew were in their places; in the captain’s cabin there was a box with his wife’s jewelry and her own sewing machine with unfinished sewing. True, the sextant and one of the boats disappeared, which suggests that the crew abandoned the ship. The ship was in good condition, the holds were filled with food, the cargo (the ship was carrying alcohol) was intact, but no traces of the crew were found. The fate of all crew members and passengers is completely shrouded in darkness. Subsequently, several impostors appeared and were exposed, posing as crew members and trying to profit from the tragedy. Most often, the impostor posed as the ship's cook.
The British Admiralty conducted a thorough investigation with a detailed examination of the ship (including below the waterline, by divers) and a thorough interview with eyewitnesses. It is the materials of this investigation that are the main and most reliable source of information. Plausible explanations of what happened boil down to the fact that the crew and passengers left the ship of their own free will, differing only in the interpretation of the reasons that prompted them to such a decision. There are many hypotheses, but they are all just assumptions.
1. Cruiser USS Salem (CA-139)
The cruiser USS Salem was laid down in July 1945 at Bethlehem Steel Company's Quincy Yard, launched in March 1947, and entered service on May 14, 1949. For ten years, the ship served as the flagship of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, and the Second Fleet in Atlantic.The ship was placed in reserve in 1959. She was removed from the fleet in 1990, and opened to the public as a museum in 1995. USS Salem is now docked in Boston, Massachusetts in Quincy Harbor.
Boston, one of the oldest cities in the United States, has several spooky historic ships and buildings on display. This ship, being an old warship, is a bundle of stories - from the dark sights of war to the loss of life, if you get a chance to take a tour there, you will be able to experience the thrill and chills of all the ghosts of this ship. He's been nicknamed the "Sea Witch" and is rumored to be so creepy that you can feel the chill just by looking at his photo online.
There are many stories about ghostly ships that suddenly appear out of nowhere and also suddenly disappear. Ghost ships are ships that have sunk or gone missing.
One of famous legends There is a legend about ghost ships, the Flying Dutchman. The Flying Dutchman is a ship that, according to legend, cannot land on the shore and is doomed to eternal wanderings across the seas. The legend of the Flying Dutchman is based on a real story.
The captain of the ship was Philip der Decken. In 1689, the captain sailed from Amsterdam and headed for the East Indies port. According to legend, the ship was caught in a storm near the Cape of Good Hope. The captain, ignoring the storm, ordered to sail on, for which he paid. The ship and its entire crew sank.
According to one version, the crew did not want to sail further, and tried to convince the captain to wait out the storm in the bay, but Van Decker threatened everyone that no one would go ashore until the ship went around the cape, even if an eternity passed. By doing this, the captain brought a curse on his ship. And now he is forever doomed to sail the seas and oceans.
But once every 10 years, the ship can approach the shore, and the captain can find someone who will voluntarily agree to marry him. Many eyewitnesses claim that they saw a ghost ship; it always appeared from afar and was surrounded by a strange glow.
Another famous ghost ship is the Griffon ship. In the fall of 1978, Griffon sailed off the shore of Lake Michigan and disappeared. Many claim that after this event they saw the ship in the lake several times. Lake Michigan is one of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are located between the United States and Canada.
There are many other legends about these lakes, in addition to the story of Griffon. The cargo ship Edmund Fitzgerald sank here. The ship was caught in a storm and sank along with the entire crew. The ship was discovered at the bottom of the lake 10 years later while exploring the lake. One of the divers noticed a man on the sunken ship. The man lay on the bed and looked at him.
The mystery of the disappearance of the Mary Celeste
One of the most interesting stories associated with the ship Mary Celeste. The ship was built in Nova Scotia in 1862 and was named Amazon. During the voyages, the ship began to enjoy a bad reputation. The ship's first captain died during the maiden voyage. Subsequently, the ship often changed owners, and, in the end, was sold to America to a new owner, who gave it a new name - “Mary Celeste”.
In the fall of 1872, the ship left New York and headed to Italy. There were 7 crew members and the captain and his family on board. The ship was found four weeks later with not a single person on board. Things lay as if the crew had left the ship in a hurry, leaving everything untouched. The things laid out indicated that the ship had not been caught in a storm. Among the items missing were a sextant and a chronometer, which could indicate that the crew left the ship in a hurry. The boat was also missing. The further fate of the crew members is unknown.
Researchers have put forward many hypotheses about the disappearance of the crew, among which are the seizure of the ship by pirates, an attack on the ship by giant sea monsters, impact Bermuda Triangle. But all these hypotheses do not stand up to criticism. Since there were no signs of a struggle on the ship, and everything indicated that the crew members voluntarily left the ship.
The most plausible hypothesis was put forward by a relative of the captain. According to her, the barrels of alcohol on the ship were not airtight. Alcohol vapor mixed with air and formed an explosive mixture. At first there was one small explosion, the team tried to figure out what was going on. Then a second explosion was heard, and in order to avoid a third, the crew began to leave the ship in a hurry. The crew members only managed to capture a chronometer and sextant, as well as some food supplies, as evidenced by the lack of food on board the ship at the moment it was discovered.
There are many other legends about ghost ships; the reasons for their death and disappearance are unknown and shrouded in mystery. However, researchers continue to study the missing ships, hoping to unravel their secrets.
Many of them disappeared without a trace, and some were found, but not a single living soul remained on board. All crew members seemed to have disappeared into thin air or were dead. The reasons for the disappearance or death of the team still remain a mystery. The only version is that the missing ships became victims of terrible supernatural phenomena. There is no other rational explanation yet.
"Seabird"
An unusual find was discovered by residents at the end of the 19th century. coastal areas Rhode Island (USA) - the ship "Seabird" crashed into the rocks. When eyewitnesses of the incident decided to inspect the ship, they were amazed: despite the fact that there were traces of the recent presence of people on board (food boiling on a fire, fresh food leftovers on plates), none of the crew members were found on the sailing ship. The only thing Living being- frightened dog. It seemed that the sailors left the ship in a hurry. But what made them flee and where they disappeared is not clear.
"Mary Celeste"
The ship, previously called the “Amazon,” was considered cursed from the first days of its existence. Tragic events persecuted sailors working on the ship. For example, the first captain of the Amazon died after accidentally falling overboard. In order not to tempt fate, the ship was renamed. However, the ship, which now became the Mary Celeste, was doomed. In 1872 he mysteriously disappeared. The missing ship was found a month later, but there was not a soul on board. All the sailors' belongings remained in place. But where did their owners go? 
"Beychimo"
The history of the cargo ship is reminiscent of the story of the mystical Flying Dutchman. From 1911 to 1931, the ship made nine very successful voyages. But one day he got stuck in the Arctic ice. The team decided to wait out the bad weather in the nearest Eskimo settlement. Having left the ship, the captain hoped to return there as soon as the situation returned to normal. But after another winter storm, the ship was not there. Assuming that the Beichimo sank, the command stopped searching for it. However, there were eyewitnesses who claimed that they not only saw a mysterious ship in the waters of the Arctic, but even boarded it. Their testimony was very plausible, because they could quite accurately describe what “Beichimo” looked like. Over the course of many decades, the ship disappeared and then reappeared in the sight of sailors. No one can explain how a ship without control could navigate the ocean waters for so many years. 
An Australian fishing yacht that set off for the high seas in the spring of 2007 was found abandoned a week later. There was no damage to the ship, but all three crew members were missing. Objects found on board (a radio on, a working computer, a set table) indicated that no one intended to leave the yacht. The team's search did not bring any results. According to the official version, one of the fishermen suddenly began to drown, and his two friends rushed to the aid of their drowning comrade. All three died. But no direct evidence of this version was found. Any explanation for the incident has no evidence. 
Mope remains the guardian of many dark secrets. Despite the fact that maritime safety standards have risen sharply over the last century, every year there are mysterious disappearances of five to ten large ships of which no trace remains, and no one finds the reason for their disappearance. Among the thousands of mysteries of the sea, only a few cause such great amount rumors among sailors, such as the unexpected disappearance of the American cargo ship "Cyclops" with a displacement of 20 thousand tons, which mysteriously disappeared along with a cargo of manganese ore at the end of March 1918
Three hundred on board
The loss of the Cyclops, compounded by the death of three hundred and four people on board, was a severe blow to the American fleet then participating in the world war. Moreover, it did not at all look like the ship had fallen victim to enemy mines or torpedoes. Five hundred feet long, this powerful freighter was quite capable of withstanding any Atlantic storm. And he disappeared in calm weather. Very few of the facts of the last voyage of the Cyclops can claim to clarify the mystery of the strange disappearance of the ship. Twenty-four hours after leaving Barbados, where the ship was loaded with 10,000 tons of manganese ore, used in the manufacture of shells, the Cyclops passed the Vestris liner, cruising from Buenos Aires to New York, and transmitted a message. The message from the cargo ship said that on the ship full order in everything. However, not a single person ever met either the ship or any of the people sailing on it... The sea vessel mysteriously disappeared.
Only God knows
When the ship was reported missing, a belated order was received to survey the area of the intended route. No wreckage was found, and the US Navy was unable to offer a satisfactory explanation as to why the ship sank. There were no mines in that part of the Atlantic, and German submarine activity at that time was limited to more northern waters.
Over the many years that have passed since the tragedy, a whole bunch of scenarios for the death of the ship have been proposed: a sudden local hurricane, a bomb planted by saboteurs, and even a riot among the crew. But no confirmation of these theories ever appeared, and an investigation into this strange disappearance, carried out by a naval commission after the conclusion of peace, established that during the last voyage of the Cyclops there were no enemy ships or submarines near its route. The fact that the ship was swallowed up by the agitated sea seemed the most incredible option, for it had already proven itself to be durable in withstanding Atlantic storms.
In any case, as the investigation found, during March - early April there was no information about storms at sea off east coast Central America. Joseph Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, wrote about this tragedy: “There is no mystery more disconcerting in the annals of the United States Navy than the mysterious disappearance of the Cyclops.” President Woodrow Wilson, who himself had worked hard to find any evidence that might suggest a solution to the mystery, finally backed down, saying: “Only the sea and God know what happened to that ship.”
The disappearance of the "Carter"
On June 17, 1984, the Panamanian Arctic Carrier (cargo ship, 17 thousand tons displacement) left Brazil with holds full of various goods. The last time the ship made itself known was three hundred miles northeast of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic. Then the ship disappeared without a trace. It is difficult to say what fate befell him, although it is known for sure that no SOS signal was sent from him, and no bodies or wreckage were ever found. The ship disappeared without a trace.
Everything looked as if the ship had never existed. The following statement in Lloyd's Register takes the riddle to its logical conclusion: " The real reasons His strange disappearance will probably remain a mystery forever.”
At the intersection of tracks
At the end of October 1979, a ship four times larger than the Arctic Carrier, the Norwegian ore carrier Berge Vanya, also strangely disappeared, six hundred miles east of Cape Town, in beautiful weather, at the intersection of the busiest highways on the planet. It is difficult to imagine how the sea could swallow the Berge Vanya so quickly that people did not have time to give an SOS signal or even fire a flare gun. But even if this happened, then why did no one see how this floating giant sank, despite the fact that there was practically no opportunity to cause any harm to it.
Lost "Treasure"
The disappearance of the "Treasure of the East" (28 thousand tons displacement), a cargo ship under the Panamanian flag, is another maritime story of the strange disappearance of a ship. Having picked up a cargo of chrome from Mazinloc in the Philippines on January 12, 1982, the Oriental Treasure successfully made it to Port Said before disappearing forever.
Surprisingly, members of the commission of inquiry came to the conclusion that the ship must have been a victim of pirates, although they had not been heard of in these waters for more than a century. How such a brilliant conclusion without the slightest hint of evidence arose in the minds of venerable experts, one can only guess. One journalist put it this way: “They were just grasping at straws”...
Twice the size of the Titanic
Meanwhile, the list of mysteriously missing ships is replenished every year, and now each maritime power can provide its own national register of disappearances.
One of the most impressive losses to hit the English merchant fleet was associated with the last voyage of the cargo ship Derbyshire (170 thousand tons). Built at British shipyards in 1980, it sailed from the American port of San Lawrence to Kawasaki (Japan). Its mass was twice that of the Titanic, and it was the length of three football fields. The Derbyshire was generally one of the largest ships ever sailed under the flag of English merchants. Designed specifically for the transport of oil and iron ore, on that voyage, before its last trip, it was loaded very thoroughly - 157 thousand tons. A huge ship It was controlled by a crew of 42 people under the command of the experienced captain Geoffrey Underhill, so in terms of navigation there could not be any problems. However, some problems did arise, and we will never know why. The sea vessel strangely disappeared.
Last session
The last radio communication with the Derbyshire took place on September 8 - it was then located seven hundred miles southwest of Tokyo. The ship was scheduled to arrive in Kawasaki in the early evening of the 11th. And this optimistic message turned out to be final. As one English newspaperman wrote, “there was an everyday radio message - and eternal peace.” Why do such giant ships disappear when clear weather, without sending calls for help and leaving no traces, is beyond the understanding of maritime specialists.
Today's ships are better built than their predecessors. It was in the era of early shipping that most disasters occurred only due to design flaws. The current ones are dressed in metal and are constructed in strict compliance with all safety standards. Before going to sea, ships undergo a lot of checks.
Flotillas of filibusters no longer roam the oceans, and the possibility of sudden weather changes has been greatly reduced with the introduction of satellite weather tracking systems and reliable radio communication equipment. And yet, ships of all sizes, including the most massive steamships, continue to disappear without cause and without a trace.
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