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Today you will see stories of ghost ships have never been solved and other ship mysteries that will give you goosebumps!
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00:00Thick fog is rising over the ocean as the sun is slowly sinking towards the horizon.
00:05It's hard to see further away than a few dozen feet, but that's enough to notice a hulking, skeletal shape
00:11in the distance.
00:12As your ship approaches the figure, your heart beats faster, and then you make out the details of another vessel,
00:18abandoned by the looks of it.
00:22Ghost ships do exist, and their mysteries aren't always solved.
00:26Take MV Hojita, for example.
00:28It was a wooden vessel built in 1931 as a luxury yacht.
00:32It had served well to various people over 20 years before it was bought by a Samoan sailor and became
00:38a merchant ship.
00:40In 1955, though, Hojita's service came to an abrupt and mysterious end.
00:46On October 3rd, it set sail for another trading voyage that should have taken no more than 48 hours.
00:52Delays happen in the sea, so when Hojita didn't arrive on October 5th as scheduled, there was little worry yet.
01:00But then it failed to come on the following day too.
01:04There was no distress signal or any other sign of Hojita's presence anywhere between its departure and arrival points.
01:11A search and rescue party was dispatched to find the ship, and for six days, they were scouting the area
01:17of nearly 100,000 square miles.
01:19On October 12th, the mission returned to the base empty-handed.
01:23Hojita vanished without a trace.
01:28It was only a month later that another merchant ship, Tuvalu, noticed the missing vessel far away from its route,
01:34drifting in the open sea and listing heavily.
01:38The sailors boarded the ship and found that all of its crew and passengers, 25 people total, were missing, along
01:44with all the cargo the vessel had been carrying.
01:48The radio was tuned to the international distress channel, meaning that the crew had been trying to ask for help,
01:54but they couldn't reach anyone because the radio cable had been damaged, limiting the range to two miles.
02:01The lifeboats were missing as well, indicating that people on board must have left the ship.
02:07Unfortunately, they seemed to have taken the logbook with them, leaving the rescue team clueless as to what had happened.
02:14Even today, the mystery of MV Hojita hasn't been solved yet.
02:19No one knows where the crew and passengers had gone and what had caused them to leave.
02:25S.V. Carol A. Deering wasn't a ghost ship in the usual sense of the word.
02:30There were no sightings of it in the open sea.
02:32Instead, it was found on the shore.
02:34But the circumstances of it running aground are a puzzle shrouded in mystery.
02:40Carol A. Deering was built in 1919 in Maine, and it was a large vessel made for commercial voyages.
02:47Unfortunately, despite its large cost of construction, it had only served for a year before its last trip.
02:55July 19, 1920
02:57The ship was traveling from Puerto Rico to Rio de Janeiro via Newport News to deliver a cargo of coal.
03:05It was almost halfway to the final destination when the captain felt seriously ill,
03:09and the crew turned back to drop him and his son off and replace the captain.
03:15The voyage went without incident, but when it came to Barbados in December to resupply,
03:20there were strange moods among the crew.
03:23The first mate didn't seem to be happy with the new captain.
03:26No one paid much attention to it back then, when they probably should have.
03:31The last sighting of Carol A. Deering at sea was on January 28, 1921,
03:37when a light ship noticed it off the coast of North Carolina.
03:40There was some commotion on the quarter deck of the ship, where the crew were normally not allowed.
03:46Then, another vessel sighted it, but there was already no one on the decks.
03:51On January 31, the merchant ship was found hard aground in the Diamond Shoals,
03:56a site notorious for numerous shipwrecks that had been occupying there for centuries.
04:02When the search and rescue party boarded the ship, they found it abandoned.
04:06The log and personal belongings of the crew, gone, along with the two lifeboats.
04:12There is still no answer to what happened on board of Carol A. Deering that January.
04:17Although, the most popular version was mutiny.
04:20Maybe we'll never find out the truth though.
04:23SS Baychimo is perhaps one of the most notable ghost ships in history.
04:28This large cargo steamer was built in 1914 in Sweden, and plotted its way dutifully over 16 years,
04:36trading provisions for pelts with native tribes of Alaska and Canada.
04:40But then, on October 1, 1931, Baychimo got caught in pack ice.
04:45At first, it seemed the crew would be able to wait it out and continue on their route,
04:49because the ship broke free in a couple of days.
04:52But in less than a week, it became caught again, this time for good.
04:57In another week, a rescue party was sent to fetch 22 of the Baychismo's crew,
05:02while another 15 remained behind to wait through the winter if necessary, and get the ship back.
05:08But, a month later, after a powerful blizzard struck their camp,
05:12the sailors went out of their shelters, only to find the ship gone.
05:16Luckily, a few days later, a native hunter told them Baychimo hadn't been lost yet.
05:22He'd seen it about 45 miles from where they had been stationed.
05:25They managed to track it down, but decided the ship wouldn't survive the winter.
05:29So, they took the most valuable cargo from its hold and abandoned it.
05:34They were wrong though.
05:35SS Baychimo did survive that winter, and many more that followed.
05:39When the ice broke, it sailed away on its own, drifting listlessly along the shores of Canada and Alaska.
05:46There were numerous sightings of the ghost ship, sometimes adrift in the open sea,
05:51and at other times, stuck in the pack ice again.
05:54People attempted to board and salvage it, but weather conditions or lack of equipment always prevented them.
06:01SS Baychimo was last sighted by native Alaskans in 1969, 38 years after its abandonment.
06:08What became of it later, remains unknown.
06:12The story of SS Orang Maidan is one of the most puzzling and harrowing ghost ship stories of the 20th
06:19century.
06:20No one even knows for sure if the ship even existed in the first place.
06:24It wasn't recorded in Lloyd's Shipping, the International Register of Ships,
06:28which makes it either a tall tale or a vessel that avoided being officially recognized for some shady reasons.
06:34In any case, the accounts as to what happened to the Maidan vary.
06:39According to most reports, it was carrying some unknown cargo in the Indonesian waters
06:43when a distress call was received by another ship in the vicinity.
06:47The officers on duty heard an SOS message, but its contents are different depending on the accounts.
06:54The message did not repeat, and the crew of Maidan didn't answer to any attempts to contact it back.
07:01The ship that received the distress call hurried to the rescue,
07:04but they only reached the vessel the following day, when it was already drifting and slightly listing.
07:11When the rescuers boarded the ship, they found that none of the crew had survived.
07:16However, one lifeboat was missing, which implied that there was at least one crew member who managed to escape.
07:22What happened to the rest of the people on board remains a mystery to this day.
07:28Still, there are no hard facts about this story,
07:31so we might never find out whether SS Orang Maidan was actually a ship and not a thing of fiction.
07:38SV Zabrina was a three-mast sailing barge built in 1873 for river trade ships in South America.
07:46She served for well over four decades, proving to be a sturdy and reliable ship.
07:52It was later transferred to Europe, where it continued serving its purpose well.
07:56But then, in October 1917, Zabrina set sail on a regular voyage, only to be found ashore several days later.
08:06Mysteriously, although the ship was perfectly intact, the entire crew of five and the captain were gone.
08:13There is no direct evidence or hard facts as to what really happened that day.
08:18The most convincing theory is that the crew were washed away from the deck because of an underwater explosion.
08:24And then, the ship sailed ahead without them.
08:27But the truth, as always, remains unknown.
08:32It's 2018.
08:34You get up early in the morning to go ashore and catch some fish.
08:38You come to the spot you were yesterday, throw the hook into the sea, and wait.
08:42The float is twitching.
08:44You've caught some fish!
08:45But, hey!
08:46Hello?
08:47Why aren't you doing anything?
08:49Right now, you don't care about the fish.
08:51You're looking at something in the distance.
08:53You open your mouth in surprise, since you see a huge ship stuck on a shoal.
08:59It wasn't here yesterday, so it got here at night.
09:03Okay, it'll probably sail away sooner or later.
09:06You fish for a few more hours.
09:08During this time, you observe the ship and notice no movement there.
09:12Is it empty?
09:14Boats and the coastal service are sailing from the shore to the vessel.
09:17You decide to check it out, too.
09:20You get in your old boat and go there.
09:22The mist descends to the water, making the ship look creepy.
09:27The colossal vessel is rusty and empty.
09:30But where is the whole crew?
09:32And how did it get there?
09:33The Coast Guard comes on board.
09:36They search the hold, the cabins, and the upper deck.
09:39There's someone's stuff.
09:40Some remnants of food supplies, notebooks, and clothes.
09:44Everything suggests the crew has disappeared for some reason.
09:48Fishers who noticed the vessel first didn't see anyone coming down from the board.
09:53No radio signals were sent to the port.
09:56And no one reported about the ship.
09:58It appeared here from nowhere.
10:00The only chance to get any information is to look at the number and name of the vessel.
10:10The Coast Guard checks the information, studies the data of all the country ships, and no way.
10:17One company built the boat in 2001 in Indonesia.
10:21People used it to transport heavy loads across the seas around Asia.
10:25The ship had been properly operating for eight years.
10:28People were delivering industrial goods to different points in the region.
10:31But something went wrong.
10:35In 2009, Sam Ratulangi was sailing near the coast of Taiwan.
10:40And that's it.
10:41There were no further records about it.
10:44There were no reports in any port.
10:46Everyone thought it must have drowned.
10:48So no one had been looking for it for years.
10:52And then, nine years later, it appears here.
10:56Big and rusty, off the coast of Myanmar.
10:59Without sailors, without fuel.
11:01An investigation starts.
11:03City services are trying to find out the names of all the sailors working on the ship.
11:08And find clues that would lead to solving this mystery.
11:11They also hope the ship owner will appear soon.
11:14They find two tow ropes on board.
11:16This means that some other ship towed Sam Ratulangi to this place.
11:22Then they identify and find 13 crew members.
11:26These people say they wanted to reach the factory in Bangladesh to repair Sam Ratulangi.
11:31Another vessel helped tow the ship.
11:34But then, two cables tore off.
11:36And a storm began.
11:37No one wanted to stay on board during such weather.
11:40So, the crew members left it.
11:42No one knows what the ship has been doing for the last nine years.
11:46And how it was possible without people on board.
11:50And here's another, much more mysterious ship story.
11:55On February 16th, 2020, locals found a large cargo ship stuck on a rocky shore off the coast of an
12:03Irish village.
12:04The boat looked rusty, with holes in the hull and rotten parts.
12:08People hadn't seen this vessel the day before.
12:11So, it appeared there at night.
12:14The last time people saw the Alta cargo ship was a few months earlier, thousands of miles off the coast
12:21of Ireland.
12:22That day, the Alta was sailing in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
12:26Another ship, the MS Protector, noticed it.
12:29MS Protector crew members tried to contact the ship, but received no response.
12:34The people on board realized that they were facing an empty vessel.
12:38And then, five months later, it appeared near the coast of Ireland.
12:42There are more questions than answers in this story.
12:45But, we managed to find something out.
12:48In 2015, the Alta appeared and disappeared from the radar several times.
12:54Any ship has an internal tracking system, so people can track its route using satellites.
12:59But, Alta crew members often disabled this system.
13:03Perhaps they were engaged in some illegal activity.
13:06Anyway, in 2017, the ship often sailed between the ports of Greek islands.
13:12Then, the tracking signal disappeared and appeared only 10 months later, off the coast of North Africa.
13:19During this time, the ship changed several flags.
13:23In September 2018, the Alta was southeast of Bermuda and headed for Haiti.
13:29Then, the crew started facing problems.
13:32First, the main engine failed right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
13:36The ship began to drift.
13:37Several days passed, but the crew members weren't able to repair it.
13:41They began to run out of food and water supplies.
13:44The situation got even worse when they found out that a hurricane was approaching the place.
13:50Fortunately, they managed to contact the U.S. Coast Guard.
13:54A helicopter flew to the Alta on October 2nd to bring them some supplies.
13:59There was enough food for several days.
14:01Then, a rescue boat sailed to the ship.
14:04It evacuated all the sailors and delivered them to Puerto Rico before the hurricane.
14:09The Alta had to drift alone in the ocean.
14:12After a while, another ship approached the Alta to tow it to the shores of Guiana.
14:18But at this moment, everything went wrong.
14:20Someone stole the boat, disabled the tracking system, and sailed away in an unknown direction.
14:27After almost a year, the MS Protector found the empty Alta in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
14:34And then, nine months later, the ship without a crew sailed to the shores of Ireland.
14:39How did it manage to travel across the Atlantic and get to the coast of Ireland?
14:44It's still a mystery.
14:45Maybe it was just luck.
14:48No one else saw the ship all this time.
14:51It was just covering huge distances, surviving storms.
14:54Who's the captain?
14:56What happened to the thieves?
14:57Who owns the ship now?
14:59One day, someone called the village administration and introduced themselves as the vessel owner.
15:04But that unknown person didn't provide any evidence.
15:08They found several barrels of oil on the ship, which they took away by helicopter.
15:15The Alta was rusting.
15:17Corrosion of metal could damage the environment.
15:20The vessel had no commercial value, yet it would have taken millions to get rid of it.
15:25There were three options for what to do.
15:28Leave the ship where it was, tow it into the sea and let it sink, or disassemble it for scrap.
15:34But nature had its own plans.
15:37Storms and strong waves split the hull into two parts.
15:43The Alta was drifting without a crew in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean for about two years.
15:48But this is nothing compared to a ship that was traveling for 38 years.
15:53The record belongs to the SS Baychimo.
15:56It was a merchant vessel owned by some trading company.
16:00In 1931, the ship found itself on the ice off the coast of Alaska.
16:05Its movement slowed down.
16:06A thick layer of ice blocked the ship, and a strong storm only made the situation worse.
16:12The blizzard was so intense that the crew members couldn't see anything but a white veil in front of their
16:18eyes.
16:18Sailing any further was impossible.
16:21The team had to wait for the storm to end.
16:23They waited for a day, two, three days.
16:26A week had passed, but the snowstorm was only getting stronger.
16:31Then, one day, it grew weaker.
16:33The crew members split into two teams.
16:36The first team went to the nearest city.
16:38The second group, along with the captain, stayed on board.
16:41They set up camp next to the ship and waited for the blizzard, which had started again, to end.
16:47There was zero visibility.
16:49And finally, one day, the storm was over.
16:53Great!
16:53And now, uh, wait a minute.
16:56But where is the ship?
16:57The SS Baychimo just disappeared during the blizzard.
17:02The captain was sure that the ship had sunk, so he left along with the crew.
17:07Then, a week later, they saw the vessel drifting near the area where they had lost it.
17:13The hull was damaged so severely that it was unsafe to sail on it.
17:17Repairing the ship would be pointless and expensive, so the captain decided to abandon it.
17:22He was sure that it would go underwater sooner or later.
17:26But it stayed afloat for the next few days, the next few months, and a few years.
17:31People had reported seeing it at various points along the coast of Alaska for 38 years.
17:37The last record of the SS Baychimo is dated 1969.
17:41Those who saw it claimed the ship was completely frozen, almost merged with the ice.
17:49Some people planned to start an expedition to find the ship, but all attempts were unsuccessful.
17:55The vessel is probably lying somewhere on the deep sea floor.
18:02The moon shines brightly and illuminates the black water of the ocean.
18:07Thick fog descends on it in ominous silence.
18:11Then, it's suddenly broken by the creaking of wooden boards, followed by a rippling of the waves.
18:18Through the fog, you see the outline of an old, large ship.
18:22Its hull is rusty, and a strange cold is coming from it.
18:26But the most unsettling thing is that there's no one on the deck.
18:31The ship sails without a crew.
18:34No, this isn't a mythical Flying Dutchman, but a very real ghost ship.
18:40September 2nd, 2019.
18:43The British Royal Navy's ice patrol ship, called the HMS Protector, sails through the calm waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
18:50The time is 11 p.m.
18:52Some of the ship's crew are on deck, while others are sleeping in their cabins.
18:57The captain steers the ship and looks straight at the horizon.
19:00The sky is lit up by an orange twilight, and clouds float in the distance.
19:06Suddenly, against this beautiful landscape, one of the sailors notices the black silhouette of an unknown ship.
19:14The captain slows down and steers the ship a little closer to the mysterious vessel.
19:20This is an old cargo ship, 250 feet long.
19:24Attempts to contact the crew members lead to nothing.
19:27It seems the unknown boat is floating in the ocean by itself.
19:33There's no one on board.
19:35At least, no one alive.
19:37The deck of the ship creaks from rocking on the waves.
19:41The sun sinks below the horizon, and it gets dark.
19:45The ship looks terrifying.
19:47British sailors don't dare to climb on that strange deck.
19:51They take a photo, post it on the internet, and sail away.
19:55Many people on the internet will assume the sailors met a real ghost ship.
20:01Five months later, we're in the village of Ballycotton in County Cork, Ireland.
20:07A local leaves the house early in the morning to go for a daily run.
20:11Music in his headphones, fresh cool air, and a scenic route are ideal conditions for a good workout.
20:17The jogger runs along the road on the coast of the Celtic Sea.
20:22There was a strong storm last night, and now the sea looks calm.
20:26The man runs along the top of a low cliff and notices a huge vessel.
20:32An old rusty cargo ship, 250 feet long, lies on the beach, right among the rocks.
20:39No people on board.
20:40It seems the ship has been here for ages, but the local is sure this vessel wasn't here yesterday.
20:48A little later, it turns out this is the same ship that the sailors from the HMS Protector saw five
20:55months ago.
20:56Thousands of miles from this place.
20:59The cargo ship, called the Alta, was built in 1976.
21:04Nobody knows who used it all this time, and for what purposes.
21:08It's only known that in 2017, the ship was purchased by a new owner and marked with the flag of
21:16Tanzania.
21:17It's important to say that almost all cargo ships are equipped with AIS, Automatic Identification System,
21:24which is needed to track ship movements in the ocean.
21:27Since 2015, something strange started happening with the Alta's AIS.
21:33The ship disappeared from the satellites, then reappeared again.
21:37Over the past few years, this ship had changed several names and flags.
21:42It's not surprising that its AIS shut off and turned on numerous times.
21:47It's said that some of those who disable AIS on their ships do so to hide outlaw activities.
21:54The ship's captain, whoever it was, clearly didn't want to show the Alta's movements.
21:59As AIS showed, in 2017, the ship had sailed near Greek port cities.
22:06The Alta made 12 stops in three such cities in different parts of Greece.
22:11Then, the AIS signal disappeared.
22:14And 10 months later, the Alta reappeared near the northern coast of Africa, 1,200 miles from Greece.
22:21In September of 2018, the ship was sailing about 1,400 miles southeast of Bermuda.
22:29And at that time, the crew members started having problems.
22:33There were 10 people on board the Alta.
22:35On September 19th, the ship's engine failed right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
22:41The nearest shore was very far away.
22:43The ship began to drift.
22:46As days passed, the crew couldn't fix the vessel.
22:49Food supplies were running low.
22:52The crew started to panic and tried to contact someone.
22:55The situation got worse as a strong hurricane was approaching the place where the ship broke down.
23:01Crew members contacted the U.S. Coast Guard.
23:05On October 2nd, a helicopter headed towards the ship.
23:09Food and water were unloaded on the Alta.
23:11This was enough for the crew to bide their time for several days.
23:15About a week later, a rescue boat sailed about 1,500 miles to reach the Alta and help the stranded
23:22sailors.
23:23Shortly before the start of the hurricane, American rescuers succeeded.
23:27The entire crew of the wrecked ship was taken to Puerto Rico.
23:32The Alta remained drifting in the ocean.
23:35After a while, another ship arrived to tow it to the coast of Guyana.
23:39Then, something went wrong again.
23:42The ship was hijacked.
23:45Who did it and why remains a mystery to this day.
23:48But then, for some unknown reason, the thieves decided to abandon the ship and left it to drift in the
23:55ocean.
23:55For almost a year, the ship's location couldn't be tracked.
24:00Then, in September 2019, the vessel was found by the British Royal Navy.
24:05How the Alta was able to cover the distance across the Atlantic and wash up on the coast of Ireland
24:11is unknown.
24:12An investigation has been launched in Ireland.
24:15It's necessary to identify the owner of the vessel and find a responsible person to take on the task of
24:21towing it.
24:22But no one has since been found.
24:24Once, an unknown person called the Irish authorities and introduced themselves as the owner of the ship, but didn't provide
24:32any evidence.
24:33Several barrels of oil were found on board the Alta.
24:37To dismantle the ship, the Irish authorities will need to spend about 10 million euros.
24:42Local residents are annoyed by the wreck, too.
24:46Corroding metal is bad for the environment.
24:48And kids have already snuck on board and posted a video on the internet from inside the abandoned ship.
24:55The further fate of the Alta remains unresolved.
24:58It's still lying there.
25:01That ship sailed in the ocean for just two years.
25:05Now imagine if some other managed to drift for 38!
25:09In all that time, no one could catch this ship, and people still seek it.
25:14That vessel is called the SS Baychimo.
25:18It was a merchant ship owned by a Canadian trading company.
25:22In 1931, the ship got stuck in ice off the coast of Alaska.
25:27A strong snowstorm began.
25:29The team waited a week for it to end, but the storm only intensified.
25:34One day, the weather improved a bit, and part of the team was evacuated to the nearest city.
25:40Another part of the crew with the captain set up camp near the ship.
25:44The storm started again and didn't stop for a long time.
25:48The blizzard was so heavy that the ship's captain couldn't see beyond his arm's reach.
25:54Finally, when the storm was over, the captain saw that the ship simply vanished.
26:00He decided the Baychimo sank during the storm.
26:04A week later, the ship was found, drifting near the place where it was lost.
26:09The hull of the ship was damaged so badly that it was unsafe to sail on it.
26:14The captain decided to abandon the ship.
26:17However, it didn't sink.
26:20For the next 38 years, it was drifting at various points along the Alaskan coast.
26:25Several times, people climbed on the ship, including native Alaskan residents and a group of researchers.
26:32Attempts to save the vessel from the sea ended in failure.
26:36The salvage operations were hampered by drifting ice and bad weather.
26:41The last time it was seen was in 1969.
26:45The ship was frozen and blocked by the ice.
26:48In 2006, the government created a special project to find the Baychimo.
26:54However, in all these years, the ship still hasn't been found.
26:59Its fate is unknown.
27:01It's likely that the ship has finally found peace and is now lying on the seabed of the Chukchi Sea.
27:08The ship has finally found peace and is now lying on the ship and is now lying on the ship
27:10and is now lying on the ship.