The Greatest Maritime Mystery: What Really Happened Aboard the Mary Celeste?
On the morning of December 4, 1872, the crew of the British brigantine Dei Gratia spotted something unsettling drifting through the cold Atlantic swells — roughly 400 miles east of the Azores. It was another ship, moving erratically, her sails only partly set. No one was at the helm. No one responded to their calls. When a boarding party finally climbed aboard the American merchant vessel Mary Celeste , they found something that has refused to make sense for more than 150 years. The ship was in good condition. Her cargo was untouched. There was food and water for months. And there was not a single person on board. The Ghost Ship The Mary Celeste had left New York on November 7, 1872, bound for Genoa, Italy. Her captain, Benjamin Spooner Briggs, was a seasoned and deeply respected mariner — not the sort of man given to poor judgment or panic. He had brought along his wife, Sarah, their two-year-old daughter, Sophia, and a carefully chosen crew of seven. What the boarding party f...