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Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. Hey, everybody.
It's me, Josh. And for this week's Select, I've chosen our episode on the Flannan Isle mystery from November 2021.
This is one of those rare instances of a missing persons unsolved mystery disappearance case where the people weren't murdered.
Well, almost certainly weren't murdered.
That is one theory, but it's a lesser theory.
And isn't that refreshing? Hope you enjoy this one.
Even if you've heard it before, I can attest it's still good again.
Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there.
Jerry's out here too, so since the gang's all here, The three of us alone on a deserted isle.
Stuff you should know. Can I mention a couple of things here?
I think you should. I want to pre-apologize to our Scottish listeners. whom we love.
We toured in Scotland, had a great time, one of our best live shows. in the beautiful city of Edinburgh.
Yes. Wonderful people. Love the Scots. But we are going to butcher some of these names.
And I apologize ahead of time. Yeah, we're sorry.
And what was the other thing? Oh, the other thing was it's impossible – to talk about the Flannan Isles Lighthouse Mystery. and research it without almost always thinking about the movie The Lighthouse.
Yeah, and actually it comes up a lot in the research too.
Yeah, I think one reason is because it's clear that – what's the guy's name who made it?
I can't think of his name. William Akers?
It's not William Eggers. Well, it's definitely not Dave Eggers.
It's in Eggers, right? Yeah. Robert? I think Robert, yes.
Okay, Robert Agers. Okay, yes. He clearly did his research And I remember when that movie came out, I spoke on the show that I wrote a movie. a period movie about a lighthouse and a murder that takes place.
And then the movie The Lighthouse came out and I was like, so much for that.
But I did a lot of research at the time, and it was clear that Eggers did a lot of research because it was a very accurate film, especially when you read... and researched the Flannan Isles Lighthouse mystery, you're like, oh yeah, that's like from the movie.
And that's like from the movie. Apparently they mention it in the movie.
I didn't go back and watch it again, I saw somebody say that they make a reference to the mystery in the movie.
Oh, cool. That's awesome. I thought so too.
Yeah. Man, I can't wait for that Viking movie to come out.
Me too. And this made me want to see the lighthouse again, which I didn't think I wanted to do, but now I do.
Same here. So we are talking about one particular lighthouse called the Flannan Isles Lighthouse, and it was... located on one island in the Flannan Isles called Island Moor.
That's not exactly like Chuck was saying, the Scottish pronunciation, Scott Gaelic.
But it's close enough and it actually means in English, I guess, the more island, right?
Okay. So anyway, that's where this lighthouse is.
And it's situated, it's still there today.
It's automated though. It went automated in 1971.
But it sits, its light is about 75 feet wide. atop the cliff, which is the highest point of Island Moor, And that cliff is 200 feet above sea level.
And it's a pretty good place for a lighthouse because this area of Scotland is...
Kind of treacherous for ships. Yes. And it's important how high this one was.
It figures into the story. I'm not just showing off with stats here.
Thank you. Yeah, it is treacherous. It's a windy area.
There are big winds in Scotland, especially out there on those islands.
I think it is close, and this is kind of funny, the name of it.
But isn't it nearby supposedly the windiest place?
Is it the windiest place in the UK? Mm-hmm.
And what's the name of it? The butt of Lewis.
Come on. I'm serious, but it makes sense.
I know, I'm not 12 years old, but... Lewis is a nearby island.
Yes. Which is inhabited in the region, which is pretty rare.
I think... But this part of it, one end of the island, is called the butt of Lewis Island, and it's the windiest part.
The butt of Lewis is the windiest island.
Right. So the area that these Flannan Isles are in, so The Island Moor is in the Flannan Isles.
The Flannan Isles are part of the larger island chain on the northwest of Scotland called the Outer Hebrides.
And to the west of them, you can just keep going and going and going, and then you'll finally reach North America.
They're pretty remote. They're pretty isolated.
They are indeed windy. And like we were saying, the seeds are... kind of rough around there.
I think that's kind of putting it mildly.
Plus, the islands themselves are often very rocky and jagged.
And so it's treacherous. So of course you'd want to put a lighthouse there.
Well, yeah, the winds blow strong from the butt of Lewis.
The lighthouse that was built there finally on Island Moor wasn't installed until 1899. which is kind of late considering that Scotland had something called the Northern Lighthouse Board. that they organized in 1786 to basically oversee and standardize lighthouse keeping in that country.
Yeah, so they were headquartered there in Edinburgh and –
Here's how it worked at the time, and this checks out according to my research when I was writing my movie.
The movie The Lighthouse. Oh, nice. Once again.
They were staff. You had your principal lightkeeper called the principal keeper.
And then usually, depending on where the lighthouse was, how busy it was, how big it was, And as far as needed personnel for operation, you had one or two personnel assistants, and they were all ranked as You know, you weren't just like, oh, I'll be the first keeper this week.
Like, you earned that spot. Yeah. It was a promotion.
And then you were assigned to these stations by the board.
Just like in the movie, you don't stay there forever.
You kind of rotate and you go there for a little while and –
You may get stationed with someone you've never worked with before and you have to get to know that person very quickly. intimately over the course of a short period of time, or it's somebody you have worked with before and you're old friends with maybe.
Or old enemies. Yeah, exactly, or old enemies.
So aside from these two to three people as principals, and assistants, you had what was called the occasional keeper.
And this is someone who actually lived nearby. either an inhabited island resident or if it was uninhabited, if it was at least close enough to where they could get there easily.
And they would help out. During the day, but they would go home at night and sleep and stuff in their own beddy-by.
And that was the standard, but for a place like Island Moor, where the Flannan Isles Lighthouse was located, If you were an occasional, you were there for two weeks.
That's how hard it was to get to the island. how hard it was to get off of the island.
Right. purpose of the occasional was to give two weeks rest off to one of the other two or three people. who were permanently or temporarily stationed there for much longer than you.
Right, and in those cases, the keeper, the occasional, does not go home and sleep.
Right. So one of the things that stuck out to me, Chuck, was that You know, when you think about lighthouse keeping, like yes, the person has to live there and it's a lot of work and they have to attend to the light and everything.
But I think lighthouse keepers are very frequently... portrayed as weirdos.
Yeah. Just complete alcoholics who, like, can't... do anything else but live by themselves, almost like they're placed there because there's nothing else for them to contribute to society.
So they're kind of cast off or ostracized.
That's not the case, at least not in Scotland.
That was not the case. Like if you were a lighthouse keeper, that was a very... very important job.
You took it very, very seriously. So much so that there is a study that found between 1850 and 1900 that 50 years.
There were only 15 recorded instances... of a lighthouse keeper falling asleep at their post, which was about as bad as it gets as the lighthouse keeper.
Yeah. I mean, that's not to say there weren't drunks and misanthropes here and there.
Maybe those were the 15. Yes, but I did a little more further math, Chuck, if I may be so... indulged as to share it.
I saw that. I thought that was pretty funny.
So get this. Let's say you have about 150 lighthouses in operation between 1850 and 1900.
Okay. And if you calculate that number of lighthouses times the number of nights that occurred over over that 50 years in Scotland, you have what we'll call 2.75 million lighthouse knights.
Out of those 2.75 million lighthouse nights in Scotland over those 50 years, only 15 of those knights found a lighthouse keeper asleep on duty.
That's how seriously they took it. Did you account for leap years Oh Chuck I just really wanted to drive that home, man.
I really thought that was an important point.
And it didn't come across with... 15 instances in 50 years.
Who cares? No, I mean, it's a big deal because, you know, the purpose of a lighthouse, I guess we – have not really said is to light the way around rocky shores and islands so boats don't run into them.
Unless you've been living under a rocky shore, you know that.
It's a very important job, though. I love lighthouses.
We've talked about them quite a few times on this show.
Big, big fan. Every time I am near a lighthouse, I will do my best to climb that thing if it's allowed.
So who done it in your lighthouse mystery?
Who did do it? It was a good story, actually. actually.
Well, then maybe you should hang on to it in case somebody comes along.
Cause it's not like the lighthouse is the only lighthouse movie ever made.
Yeah, the briefest synopsis is it's two sisters who are attending the lighthouse because it was their family job and their parents died there.
So it's these two sort of like maybe a 20-year-old and a 16-year-old.
Mm-hmm. out there alone on this island.
And then these two men wash ashore one day in a shipwreck. and they tell the awful story of their ship going down And it turns out that the real story is they were – prisoners aboard a ship being transferred and they escaped their shackles and murdered everyone aboard wow And then there was a shipwreck, so they were bad guys who got washed ashore.
Oh, it's a bit like a reverse dead calm.
Sort of. And they charm the girls. But there is, I guess, I didn't know the name was an occasional keeper.
There's a guy that lives... one guy that lives on the island that helps them out that is sort of suspicious of the guys and it sort of plays out over the course of the movie. where they're exposed ending in a game of cat and mouse one night.
Nice. That sounds like a great movie. It was okay.
I did it as a as an experiment because all I've ever written is comedy.
And I thought, hey, maybe I'll write a serious thriller.
And it could be better if a really good thriller writer got a hold of it, I think. were there still like little jokes peppered as asides?
Like one of the sisters is running from the murderer and says to herself, I left the mainland for this.
Right. Like your comedy shines through still?
Oh, I don't know. I'll have to dust that thing off.
You should, man. It sounds like a good one.
Thank you. This lighthouse, back to the Flannan Isles Lighthouse on Island Moore, Like we said, most of the outer Hebrides are uninhabited.
I think we said that, didn't we? I don't know, but you just said it then.
I think there's 70 islands in the Outer Hebrides and only 15 of them are populated.
And Island Moor is definitely not one of them.
It's remote. It is extremely remote. The only people, the only beings that live there. what you would recognize as a genuine normal being as opposed to, say, paranormal, which we'll get into. are the lighthouse keepers and some sheep.
Even the people whose sheep those are don't live on the island or even stay there overnight.
They go out a few times a year check on the sheep, and then leave before nightfall.
That's kind of how Island Moor is viewed.
It's seen... kind of as a place where maybe gods or ghosts or Just something otherworldly lives on Island Moor according to the locals.
According to lore written about the locals.
I've never spoken to an outer Hebridean.
Yeah, and I think the other thing we need to mention too, because I believe it comes up later. in one of the supernatural explanations for what is to come here with this mystery. is the name St.
Flannan comes from the fact that Island Moor was the site of a chapel in the seventh century built by a traveling Irish monk, who eventually became St.
Flannan. And that's going to come up. Just put a pin in that.
It's a big-time pin. Hang on to it, okay?
Is that a good setup? Should we take a break?
I think so, man. All right. We'll come back with more spooky lighthouse mystery stuff right after this.
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All right, so we should probably mention the Steamship Actor. or archter, arctor.
I've seen it both ways. But that kind of kicks off the story for us, don't you think?
Yeah, well, we haven't mentioned the major players either yet, have we?
No, no, I guess we could go either way. We can mention one or the other first.
All right, let's mention the players because these are the actual keepers of that lighthouse.
Okay. You had the principal keeper, James Ducat, you had the second assistant.
Wouldn't he be the first assistant though?
No, Donald McCarthy, we'll get into that.
Okay. Thomas Marshall was the second assistant.
Mm-hmm. And then Donald MacArthur was the occasional, right?
Yeah. Here's my bit. So he was filling in for a guy named William Ross.
William Ross was the first assistant keeper, which meant that since Donald MacArthur was filling in for him, Donald MacArthur was the first assistant. assistant keeper, even though he was an occasional keeper.
Okay, that makes sense. And William Ross was on sick leave.
And just judging from the movie The Lighthouse and all this research, like, you must have had to have been really sick to get taken off the island.
Yes, but... Don't you think? Yes. That's what I thought too.
But doing research for this, I found that these guys had – all of them had – rotating two weeks off.
So at any given point, point, over a stretch of two weeks, one of those men, James Ducat, Thomas Marshall, or William Ross, would not be on the island because they rotated two-week shore leave, basically.
I, yeah, I was of the impression that if you went and tended a lighthouse, they dropped you off. left you with some food and said, see you never.
But that's not the case. No, no. I think they were well taken care of.
I get the impression the Northern Lighthouse Board was pretty good at its job. really cared about these people and looked after them.
I didn't see anything to to deny that. Yeah, well, it's a brutal and important job, so surely that they were taken care of at least to a certain degree.
Yeah, but the upshot of all this is that there were three men on the island.
Three dudes. Working that lighthouse. And aside from some sheep, that was it.
That was the only people on the island. And this, by the way, this is December of 1900, right?
Yeah, so this thing is brand new. Yeah, they built it in 1899.
It was scheduled to take two years. It took four years.
The construction was started in 1895. And what they built was at the time a state of the art lighthouse.
But it took so long, it took twice as long as they anticipated, Because the cliffs and the island itself was so treacherous.
That's how long it took just to get materials up the cliff to build the lighthouse.
Yeah. So it's finally in operation. And then now comes the actor, which is what you mentioned earlier.
A-C-T-O-R but the actor A-C-H-T-E-R Yeah, it was a transatlantic steamship from Philadelphia to Leith, which is a port for Edinburgh.
That's right. So they were out there. I was about to say sailing around, but I guess they were steaming around.
Mm-hmm. And they waited out a storm for a few days.
And then this part got confusing to me. So the actor was passing by Flannan Isles.
It passed by on December 15th. And the actor noticed that the light was out.
Not that they couldn't see the light because of weather or anything like that.
Like the light was straight up not lit on the lighthouse. on Flannan Isles Lighthouse.
Like that was, it was a very strange thing to see and it was very noteworthy.
They ran into some weather on their way to Leith and had to wait it out for a few days.
And when they finally made it into port, I guess they passed the information along, but the...
Northern Lighthouse Board didn't catch wind of it until the official relief supply ship showed up a few days later and the actors, observation that the light was out wouldn't come into play until an investigation was launched later on.
Right, so that relief ship was the Hesperus, H-E-S-P-E-R-U-S, And that arrived on December 26th.
1900, which was Boxing Day after Christmas.
And what these ships brought was they usually brought either supplies or... fresh dudes or both.
And in this case, I think they had supplies and a fresh lighthouse keeper.
And it was captained by Captain Harvey. And they were like, all right, something's going on here.
This lights out. The flag's not flying. Let me toot on the horn a few times.
Mm-hmm. Nobody comes out. All right. Well, let me send up a flare.
They send up a flare. No one comes out. And what they're trying to do is say, hey, we're here.
Get your little... your little rail car system going.
It had a little cable a little cable pulled railroad system that was operated by a steam engine in a shack.
And so when the shit pulls up, they would toot the horn and the dudes would come down and they would. get that steam engine going and get that cable car ready to transfer the goods. onto this thing so they could, you know, it's like hundreds of pounds of stuff going up a really, really steep cliffside.
Yeah, there's just no way to move that stuff otherwise.
No, you'd have to do it. So nobody came out.
No one gets that steam shack going. And they're like, all right, something's going on.
We're going to have to go on land and figure this out.
Yeah, and just the fact that they weren't greeted by one were more of the guys from the lighthouse, which is apparently custom, like even the most grizzled misanthrope lighthouse keeper just knew it was custom to come down and greet the relief ship.
You're still dying to see someone else. Pretty much.
I think so. Yeah. So the fact that no one showed up and then no one responded to their signals, they were like, something really weird is going on here. and they had Joseph Moore, who was the relieving keeper, which makes me think that William Ross was really, really sick because he would have been on sick leave for way over two weeks by this time.
Right. because I believe the relief ship was five days late because of weather.
So he must have really been laid up. And they sent another relieving keeper, Joseph Moore, instead.
And Joseph Moore went ashore and he was friends with these guys.
He wasn't some new dude or anything like that.
So he was genuinely concerned. And he went up the steps to the lighthouse.
There's apparently 160 of them. And he just knew right away that something was way off.
There was no sign of life. There was nobody around.
There was the... It just... Nothing was going on.
It was abandoned, basically. And he didn't have a very good feeling about it.
So he runs back down to the boat to say, I think we have a problem here.
Yes. So he says, I think we have a problem.
And then that's when basically everyone on board said, all right, we got to – this is a situation now that we all have to deal with.
I think it was the captain who went with Moore to search for other stuff.
And they said, in the meantime, you other guys, you got to get up there and start operating this lighthouse.
Because it's been down and we need to get that thing cranked up again.
Yes. So for the first time, possibly since December 15th, The lighthouse was lit again by these relief guns. guys who took over and kind of settled in and were like, all right, this is our job now.
But that follow-up search It's weird. We'll talk about some of the legends and layers that were added to it over the years.
But to me, the thing that was so weird about the follow-up search was that everything was in place.
Yeah. Like it would be way more like, kind of middle of the road to me, this mystery, if there was, like, signs of struggle or...
You know, everything was just kind of askew.
It's way more eerie to me that like everything was exactly how it should have been.
It's just the three human beings that were supposed to... be there were missing.
But that's what Joseph Moore found. and the others found when they searched a lot more thoroughly.
Yeah, the door to the keeper's house was closed.
The gate was closed. In the kitchen, everything was all spic and span.
Everything was all cleaned up. It was clear that someone had done some cooking in the grate, but not anytime soon.
Mm-hmm. There were ashes in there. The beds were made.
The clocks had all stopped because no one was there to wind them, obviously.
And everything was fine, except, like you said, that there was no one around, that there was a full... fountain of paraffin oil.
It was all like the light was ready to be burned.
The lamp that Fresnel lens was cleaned up and ready to go.
The blinds were drawn. The records were all filled out. you know, all the way up until Saturday, I think the morning of December 15th, right?
Yep. And so everything was great except for there were two missing sets of – rain gear.
They're called oil skins. They're coats in their boots.
Two of those were missing out of the three guys.
And... So that's sort of the only thing out of the ordinary at this point.
Yeah. Yeah. That was basically the only trace of the missing men.
Had those oil skins still been there? you would have taken the lighthouse and the area as like... having been prepared for somebody else, they just hadn't shown up yet.
Like the missing oil skins were the only trace that those men were missing, that there had been men there that were no longer there anymore.
Right. And then there were a couple of pieces of literature that kind of confused things after the fact, right?
Yeah, that really kind of made this like to a lot of people like a much bigger mystery. came along and weren't satisfied with how mysterious it was on its own.
And so added to it and added to it over the years through magazine articles and newspaper reports and then later on like podcasts and stuff.
And so you really have to be careful. navigating these waters, if you'll excuse the pun or the stupid metaphor, when you're researching this, because so much of it is just regurgitated as fact because it has been part of the story for a hundred years that It was actually thanks to the efforts of a journalist named Mike Dash. who if you are at all interested in non-fiction writing, especially non-fiction history writing, go check out Mike Dash's website.
He's probably the best in the business. Oh, yeah?
But yes, he's just amazing. But he... he set his sights on getting to the bottom of this and he did some stuff and basically finally definitively proved no, This was added to it later on.
This was added to it later on. This is not true. that kind of stuff.
So hats off to Mike Dash for demystifying a lot of it.
True, but also making it not as fun because...
It's decidedly creepier with these newspaper stories as they were written.
One of the newspaper stories talked about the logbook.
And this is completely fabricated, you know.
Like Mike Dash exposed it as fabrication.
But it's still pretty creepy. The log entries in the fake log entries were by second – well, not by second assistant marshal, but this is how they wrote it.
Right. And wrote on December 12th, they saw severe winds, the likes of which I've never seen before in 20 years...
These are people that have seen some of the worst storms you could imagine out there on these outer islands. and pretty unshakable guys, I would think.
Right. And he said he wrote in the next few days that the storm continued.
It was so unbearable. that Dukat, the principal keeper, was struck mute by the storm. and that occasional keeper MacArthur, who was supposedly a really tough guy, Right.
Yeah. It's good stuff. It is good stuff.
But Mike Dash made... mincemeat out of it.
And he's kind of my hero for it. One of the things that he basically just points out is if this were an official logbook, if you were a second assistant and you put that in there, you would... you would basically get fired for that kind of thing.
Like, that's not what a logbook is for. And you certainly wouldn't put that your superior was weeping uncontrollably in the logbook.
Like, that's just not what you would put in a logbook in the first place.
And then secondly, he also said that somebody being quiet... because of a storm or whatever, or their mood, like it also kind of mentions their mood a lot too. that that would have no bearing on anything.
And the only way that that makes sense in relation to the story is after the fact, which he said obviously that means that these were written after the fact and then Years later, after he'd first investigated it, he finally turned up a copy of the magazine that this came out in in like 1921 and it was like a like a pulp magazine called like True Confessions or something like that.
So yeah, He definitely deconstructed that for sure, to my great satisfaction.
I love it. Yeah, it's kind of funny, though.
The logbook was basically like your diary.
That's exactly right. He said like logbooks were not diaries.
He actually specifically said that, yeah.
That's funny. The other thing he uncovered – did he uncover the poem or was that just –
I think that was a little more common knowledge.
But yeah, he wrote about the poem being the poem too.
Okay, so in 1912, there was a poem by Wilfred Wilson Gibson. who wrote a poem about this mystery where he says there was an untouched meal on the table. cold meat, pickles, and potatoes.
The kitchen chair was knocked over. The only sign of life was the keeper's canary half starving on his perch.
Like these are all the things that you mentioned previously. would have made this a different story, but everything was really just fine.
I don't even think the chair was turned over, right?
I don't know. Because the guy later on – well, we'll get to him.
Yeah, the way that Mike Dash treated it is that it's possible.
Okay, I don't know if Mike Dash treated it like that.
Wait. Mike Dash wrote about a later guy who we'll talk about who treated it as fact.
Oh, okay. That makes sense. I think the upshot of it is that in doing like this research on primary resources, like what, what Joseph Moore wrote about, What Robert Muirhead, who we'll talk about, wrote, these people who were actually there when it happened or right after it happened. that nobody mentioned anything like a turned over chair.
And based on what they did mention, it seemed like they probably would have mentioned a turned over chair.
They were so meticulous in the details. All right, well, let's talk about some of the evidence that was there.
Because what we're really talking about is...
I mean, the kind of obvious thing you would think about is was there some big storm that wash these guys away forever.
Like that's kind of the one reasonable explanation.
And so as far as evidence goes, most of it is storm related. for the, you know, to sort of support that and to go against it.
There was a railway that we talked about and that had a crane and the crane was sort of you know built to help unload things off of this platform, off the cargo. container and it was about 70 feet above sea level and it was fine.
It even still had the canvas wrapped around it.
So if there was some big storm, and evidence shows there probably was one, right?
Mm-hmm. But at least this crane 70 feet up wasn't damaged and that canvas was still there, which is a little weird.
It is a little weird because even a little higher up.
Toward the top of the cliff. So the crane was at about 70 feet above sea level, right?
Yeah. A little higher up than that, at about 110 feet above sea level, there was a box, a big box that held a lot of like mooring ropes and ropes for the crane and to some really important stuff, tackle. and it had been busted open and the contents like strewn all down the cliff's face. there was a buoy that was tied to the railing right around the same place as that crate 110 feet above sea level.
It had been torn clean away from the ropes that had lashed it to the railing.
The ropes were still there, but the... The buoy, just a little piece of buoy was left attached to it.
And yet the crane was intact. And then even weirder, the iron railings around the crane that you would use as handrails had just been completely twisted and wrenched out of place.
That's a heck of a storm. It's an amazing storm.
It's crazy to me that the crane was left intact and that the canvas was even on it still.
That was really weird. There was a 2,000-pound stone that was up on the cliff that slid down.
And then I believe the railway tracks were even torn up from the concrete.
Mm-hmm. And then the grass at the top of the cliff, this is 200 feet up.
At the very top was ripped up as far back as 30 feet from the edge.
That's nuts. Like, do you know how much force a wave would have to have to tear up grass in the first place?
And then that thing would have to be over 200 feet tall to even reach that grass.
That's a bad storm. It's a monster wave.
But the storm part, that's... that kind of confounds things big time.
And I think we should take another break and we'll talk. about how everything's just so confounded still to this day, which is why this is a mystery right after this.
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These three men are missing. it's pretty clear that there was a big storm that blew through there.
So like I said earlier, the obvious explanation was These strong winds just came along and just blew these guys the heck off this island and they were never seen again.
That's not entirely out of the question because of the butt of Lewis.
That's right. Strong winds flow from the butt of Lewis, as everyone knows.
And I'm 12 years old. Robert Muirhead, he was the superintendent of Lighthouse's And he investigated this disappearance.
He knew all these guys. Some really, really well, but I think the occasional keeper... he knew the least, but he still knew pretty well.
Right. He's the one that did this investigation personally and went out there wrote up this report and I think he was the last person.
He was out there, you know, because it was a new lighthouse, I guess, sort of finishing up.
I don't know if he Christianed it or whatever, but he was one of the last, in fact, maybe the last person to even see them alive, right?
He says in his report that he's probably the last person to shake hands with these men and see them alive when he shoved off on December 7th. when the last relief ship, the previous relief ship had come along.
All right. So his, in his official report, he said, I don't think it was a strong wind that literally blew them off the island. it was blowing westerly that day and it, that means it would have blown them back inland toward the island.
And there's no way that these guys would have blown completely across the whole face of the island. off the other side because they know what to do.
They know to drop and get flat and hold on.
They probably would not have been blown all the way off if it was Westerly.
They need to stop, drop, and do not roll. yeah don't roll please don't roll not in that case I would grab something heavy Yeah, anything, a sheep, whatever, anything that will keep you from being blown off.
But that's just nuts. It shows you how windy it is up there. that that was a possibility that Muirhead considered and was... like plausible enough that he had to at least put it in the report as a possibility.
That's right. The one that he focused on that most people who think in level-headed – ways kind of agree with too, is that Instead, a wave probably came along and knocked these men off.
Yeah, I mean, this one... I'm an amateur when it comes to figuring out Scottish island mysteries and weather.
This one makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, totally agree.
So being blown away by wind sounds kind of nuts unless you think about it. in which case it's not super nuts, in this instance at least. there were more slightly nuttier explanations.
And, like, the thing is you can't fully discount any one of these because— the men's bodies were never found.
So there was never any conclusive proof of what happened, even still to this day.
And some of the likelier, less likely scenarios seemed to always focus on Donald MacArthur, who was supposedly a bit of a hothead. quick to fists kind of dude.
Not necessarily the kind of occasional keeper you'd want to have on rotation for two weeks with you, but That's what a lot of these secondary theories kind of presuppose. he would have been the Willem Dafoe, right?
I guess so, yeah. I kind of imagine him as such.
He probably got the story from this, didn't he?
I don't know. I'm curious. I don't know.
I'd have to watch it again now that I know that I hadn't even heard of this story when I saw The Lighthouse.
I need to watch it again and see what I think.
I'm going to do some research on that. I doubt if he like based it on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it triggered the idea or something.
Gotcha. All right, so he – MacArthur was, like you said, a tough guy, a hothead, and –
He, of course, there's going to be speculation that he started a fight and they all got in a big fight. and they all fell off the cliff together or maybe he He murdered these two guys and then knew what his comeuppance would be and flung himself off the cliffs himself. in sort of a murder suicide situation.
Yeah, again, it's plausible. Like some people can go nuts, like especially in extreme isolation kind of but there's just no evidence whatsoever of any sort of fight It's possible the fight started entirely outside, but it just doesn't satisfy all of the evidence, right?
I don't think so. Like the guy whose weatherproof coats... were still there was Donald MacArthur.
So why would he start a fight outside and whether that was bad enough that his comrades would put on their weather gear.
Right, or maybe when it comes to fighting, you don't want that raincoat on I guess maybe he found it restrictive.
That's entirely possible, too. That's again, as far as like the secondary kind of paranoid theories go, those make a lot more sense.
The other ones just are much more squarely in the realm of paranormal.
Yeah, you could say that. The outer Hebrides are... home of the Kelpie.
And the Kelpie is a water spirit, a shape-shifting water spirit, that drowns human victims.
But there are two problems with this. One, that is not real.
And two, even if it was real, let's just do a thought experiment.
Everyone knows that the Kelpies are not seaside dwellers.
They are inland at the locks. Right. They're not known to frequent the seaside.
They don't like that salt water. No. So the Kelpies probably did not kill these men and cart them away.
There's more supernatural there, right? Yeah, the island being named after St.
Flannan and that ruined chapel being there and the idea that the... the locals just kind of view that island as a weird place.
There is this one author, a supernatural, like a Fortean type author, who came along and said, all right, I've got it.
Everybody ready for this? So the locals think that this place is kind of inhabited by spirits.
I'm guessing that the pagans who used to live here sacrificed people on this island and that the gods came to be used to a certain type of sacrifice. and that with the northern lighthouse board installed these three men in a tower on island moore It awoke something.
And the gods mistook it as a sacrifice, so they took their sacrifice, and that's what happened to the three men.
I think you skipped over the best part of this whole thing, though.
What? It was an ancient race of tiny people.
Well, so I can't tell if that guy made that part up or if that is actually true. actually a local belief, but yeah, that was part of it too.
How small were they? Supposedly, they found small bones that seemingly belonged to humans and so there was a race of tiny people who supposedly lived there before.
But are we talking like, are they the size of a sea rat or a...
Like two or three feet tall person. Am I Scottish?
I don't know. Uh-huh. All right. I was just curious.
A sea rat? He was tiny. That's a very tiny, tiny person. pagan.
But I think that's really interesting, the idea that the gods mistook The lighthouse keepers as a human sacrifice.
That's what happened to him. I love that one.
He's like a big wicker man or something.
Yes, exactly. I think that's exactly the point the guy was making.
All right, so those were obviously all bunk.
What probably really happened... is as follows.
And I think this is a pretty plausible I think this is pretty plausible.
But even still, it's still astounding if you step back and look at it.
Yeah, and there's no way to prove it, so I kind of like these mysteries where you just don't know.
So here's what could have happened is that there was bad weather reported.
But it wasn't maybe that bad on the 15th.
But... let's say that that box Uh, is, is looser.
Well, how could it get loose? Let's say that box needs tending to this, holding all this stuff.
Right. It's an important box, don't forget.
It's an important box, and I think Marshall had previously been fined. what would be about 20 pounds today for having lost some equipment.
So he may have been like really quick to like, hey, we got to secure that box.
And so maybe Ducat and Marshall went out there. like they left their quarters while, uh, the other dude, the occasional keeper, MacArthur, is up there in the lighthouse still.
And they're securing this box down. And then maybe this freak wave comes through or maybe they just get in trouble.
And then MacArthur needs to really leave quickly, which would explain why they did have their rain gear on and MacArthur didn't.
Because MacArthur had to leave really quickly to go down there and help these guys.
Yes. So that definitely checks all the boxes that After that, MacArthur was swept away as well.
But the thing is, is like that supposes something really amazing, Chuck, that there was... a freak wave that the men just did not expect that carried at least one of them away.
The second one who survived that wave ran back to get help from MacArthur to help get the first guy who went in.
And a second freak wave washed those two away, just cleaning the island of its human inhabitants. swift waves over the course of a minute or two.
Because the idea is that the storm wasn't bad enough to just sweep them all away.
Yeah, and the actor- It had to be a rogue wave.
Right, and the steamer, the actor, noted that the area, because the actor passed by just a few hours, a couple hours probably after this event happened.
And they noted that it was calm but stormy. which is the opposite of what you would think.
You would think it was not stormy, which would draw the men out to make them...
I mean, stormy enough that they needed to secure the box, but not so stormy that they felt like they couldn't go out.
But calm really kind of makes it the idea of two freak waves really freaky.
Because that would mean that those waves just came out of nowhere and swallowed the men up.
But in the whole, I mean, we did an episode on rogue waves.
And the idea is that it's a wave. Yeah. Or is there a set of rogue waves?
I think if I remember correctly, it was a wave.
That's what I think. Maybe there is more.
I don't know. But yes, that's how this, that's the only way that could happen. is because MacArthur wasn't wearing his rain gear, which suggests that he ran out in a hurry into bad weather, which means that one of them would have had to have come and gotten them. he wouldn't have been there with the other two.
So it could not have just been one freak wave.
It would have had to have been two successive freak waves together. that cleared all three.
Well, and this does lend some credence to the idea that This thing was big enough to damage the turf 200 feet above sea level and destroy that box. and washed that 2,000-pound stone down the cliff too, right?
Yeah, and there's a chance that all that stuff, just was evidence of a terrible storm, actually came after the men had been washed away from the island several days later. when there was a really bad storm on December 20th.
Okay. That makes sense. I didn't think about that.
But isn't that weird to think that that damage had happened after the fact?
Right. Sure. That makes sense. Because it's almost certain. that this event happened on December 15th, the last info they had on the log slate was 9 a.m.
December 15, like we said. So it couldn't have happened earlier than that.
And it would have happened before dark on December 15th, which would have happened about 4 p.m. because otherwise they would have lit the light that night.
And the steamer actor would have seen the light in the lighthouse as it passed by on December 15th.
That's right. I think all this gets really interesting in the 1950s. when a lighthouseman named Robert Aldebert who worked there, served as principal keeper between 53 and 57.
He lived there, obviously had a little time on his hands and was really enthralled by this mystery.
And was like, I'm going to do some research and I'm going to take a lot of pictures and do keep a lot of records in my diary.
And, uh, He said that, you know, I was in the lighthouse.
And so that's how many feet above sea level at the top of that thing?
Like 275? Yeah, like 200, close to 300 feet up and got sea spray from some waves.
So he's like, it's very possible that a big wave could come through and reach these heights.
Yeah, he did tests where he took coils of rope and put them on the top of the cliff and they get washed away by some of those. horrible waves.
So he basically said it was almost certainly a wave that got these guys.
That's not the craziest part. The craziest part is it was two waves, almost like the sea was waiting for for all three of them and took them all.
It's pretty weird. I wonder if he got fined for losing those ropes.
I don't know. Maybe so. If it's the Northern Lighthouse board, I know he definitely did.
Well, and he – what was his final – because he's the one that we mentioned earlier that said that –
One of the chairs was turned over in the kitchen, right?
Like he kind of bought into that false narrative.
Yeah, but I wonder, because this is a good, you know, 40 years after that poem had been written maybe it was so woven into the story by then he just presumed that it was true or not So how that comes in is he's basically like, all right, after dinner happens.
Like there's bad weather going on. These two guys go out there and are –
See, this doesn't make sense to me, and I'll tell you why in a second, but these two guys go out there to secure this box or whatever. back in there washing up and cleaning up and that's where everything's nice and tidy.
Yeah. And then all of a sudden they need help.
And so he turns the chair over because he just like runs out of there real quick.
Yeah. But wouldn't that be – wouldn't someone have to be in the light too?
Isn't that four guys? Yeah. No, that's why they think that this happened in the afternoon of the 15th, because they never went to light the light.
They hadn't lit the light yet. Remember, the light was all set up and ready to be lit for the evening.
Yes, it was daytime. Yes. It was before sunset, which would have been before 4 p.m.
All right, that's the one part I didn't get.
I get it now. White houses shine at night.
I forgot that part when I wrote my movie.
Everything takes place during the day. I left the mainland for this? you got anything else good stuff no i like a good mystery you're good at finding these Man, I love this one.
So thank you very much. Yes, well, if you wanna know more about the Flannan Isles mystery, Go read Mike Dash's work on it.
It's really interesting stuff. It's pretty comprehensive too.
And since I said it's pretty comprehensive, everybody, that means it's time for Listener Mail.
I thought this was really interesting. This is a follow-up to the Dingos episode about Dingos not really barking much.
Uh-huh. Hey guys, in response to the statement that dingoes don't bark, you left out a very fun fact. and perhaps a topic for another show.
While domesticated dogs bark throughout their lifetimes, Wild adult dogs do not routinely bark.
One popular theory is that domesticated dogs were bred for tameness, which as a result selected for dogs that never reached full maturity.
The upshot of this is that our domesticated dogs are trapped in a state of suspended adolescence They were more or less trapped in puppyhood, an age where all dogs, wild and domestic bark, play, lick,
And most important of all, don't kill, which is an important trait for the family pet. and sent an article from TampaBay.com.
Why dogs? Why Do Dogs Bark? from 1991. Love the show.
That is from Peter Vonier. V-O-N-I-E-R?
Vonier? Yeah, either one of those will work depending on whether you're in France or not.
And Peter's a PhD in owl oncology research.
Awesome. With an interest in dog barking.
Sounds like Peter just is interested in stuff, which is our favorite kind of listener.
Yes, that is a dyed-in-the-wool stuff you should know, listeners.
Thanks a lot, Peter. That was a very interesting email and we appreciate it.
Belated congratulations on your PhD. If you want to get in touch with us like Peter did, you can send us an email, right, Chuck?
You surely can. Then you might get a response even.
Yep. Or you might end up on listener mail.
Who knows? Yeah, I try to answer these. Why don't you roll the dice and find out by sending your email to stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com.
Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio.
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