A Cursed Ship with a Disappearing Crew

One of the most famous ghost ships of all time is the Mary Celeste. This ship always seemed to have experienced bad luck, no matter where she went or who her passengers were.

Even when the ship was known as the Amazon, after she was launched in 1860, she was involved in many accidents and went through a dozen different owners. No owner kept the ship for very long, since they always experienced bad luck with her. Around 1870, after the first ten years of misfortune, the ship was sent to New York, underwent extensive repairs, and was finally renamed Mary Celeste.

The captain of newly renamed Mary Celeste was Benjamin Briggs, who, along with his wife, daughter, and seven or eight crew members, departed New York on Nov. 7, 1872. They were bound for Genoa, Italy, and had a cargo of 1,700 barrels of alcohol. All seemed well upon departure, but the captain, crew, and passengers were never seen or heard from again. They literally disappeared off the face of the earth, and to this day, the mystery has never been completely solved.

Even though all persons aboard the ship disappeared, the ship itself did not. Nor did the cargo. However, just nine of the barrels were found opened once the shipment was finally inspected. On December 5, 1872, nearly a month after the Mary Celeste departed from New York, she was found on the sea, derelict, by the Dei Gratia ship.

The captain of the Dei Gratia was familiar with Captain Briggs and was surprised to find that he was missing. Briggs had a reputation of being a fair, honest man and an excellent captain. The Dei Gratia crew boarded the Mary Celeste to investigate. What they found was a mystery that no one ever found out the answers to. The ship wasn’t in the best condition, but it was still fine and seaworthy. It appeared as if the crew and passengers had left in a hurry.

The Galley wasn’t in the best shape, there was some water in between the decks, and the kitchen was a mess. There was also a rope hanging over the side and trailing in the water. It appeared that, despite that the Mary Celeste was still in decent condition, the crew had abandoned ship. But why? Why did they leave in such a hurry? How come they were never found again? Did their life boat sink? If they did make it to safety, why did they never contact anyone? Did they meet with foul play?

Most experts have agreed over the years that bad weather probably had nothing to do with the mystery. After all, the Dei Gratia didn’t experience any bad weather during its time in the area. Also, Captain Briggs was an excellent sailor. Why would he have his family and crew take the risk of leaving the ship when it was still in decent condition? He should have been to handle it, and he had probably experienced worse over the years.

Some suggest that perhaps pirates took over the ship, but why was nothing missing? Nine barrels were open, but none were missing. There probably wasn’t a mutiny against the captain, since the crew was mainly honorable soldiers who respected him. So, if no foul play was involved, and there was no sign of bad weather, why did the crew of the Mary Celeste leave the ship, and where did they end up? Were they eaten by sharks? Did a UFO have anything to do with their disappearance?

One theory that has been put forth, which is perhaps the most logical, is that the crew became worried over the raw alcohol, since alcohol fume was known to be volatile and even explosive. Briggs had never hauled alcohol before and didn’t know how to take care of it. Perhaps the nine barrels began leaking or somehow got torn open, filling up the hold with a possibly lethal mixture of fumes. Out of a sudden fear of an explosion, Briggs ordered everyone to hurry into the lifeboat, and in his haste forgot to secure the boat to the ship with the towline. This would explain why the rope was hanging down and drifting into the water, why nine barrels were opened, and why the crew seemed to have left in a hurry.

Of course, it still doesn’t account for the fact that there was water in between the decks, or what happened to the crew. In all probability, they all probably either drowned or died of thirst and exposure. Perhaps we’ll never know for sure what happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste, or why she seemed to bring bad luck with her everywhere she went.

Tatum Family Ghost

In a quiet suburb near Atlanta, Georgia, Jim and Kay Tatum built a new home, with plans to retire. But in January of 1986, five months after they moved in, the Tatum’s began to experience a series of incidents that would ultimately force them to put their house up for sale. One night, Kay Tatum couldn’t sleep. She sensed a strange presence in the hall outside her bedroom. When she got up to investigate, Kay caught a glimpse of a man walking past her open door:


“It was definitely a man, and he was swinging his arms lightly, and his head was slightly bent, and he walked briskly past me. At first I thought it was my husband. And I went into the bedroom and there my husband was in the bed, so I thought we had a burglar.”


Jim searched the house:


“There was no evidence of any entry, or of anyone having been in the house. So I thought perhaps Kay had just been using an overactive imagination.”

Shortly after the incident, Kay began to suspect that it may have not been an actual living person at all:


“I had fear, and I was perplexed about what happened. And while I was tossing and turning, I suddenly remembered that I didn’t hear any sound as he passed me. I still am unable to figure out why it happened.”


Two months passed without further incident. Then, one night in March, Jim was working upstairs on the house. He stopped when Kay called him down to dinner, and, as usual, made sure to unplug his drill. As the evening wore on, Jim decided to watch a movie, while Kay went upstairs to read. One hour later, Kay heard the sound of the drill outside her room. She assumed Jim was teasing her about having seen a ghost. But before long, she felt the joke had gone on long enough. But when she got to the hallway, it was empty, and the drill was unplugged. Kay Tatum:


“I was really frightened and I reached down and felt on it and it was ice cold. It had not been turned on.”


Now, Jim too started to believe something strange might be occurring:

“I was very confused, too. I knew very well that something was happening because Kay is very level-headed. And she was truly frightened.”


The strange events continued. One night, Kay heard the sound of coins falling in a bowl. But she was alone in the room. Another time, while cooking, Kay felt two sharp tugs on her blouse:


“After that incident, I decided we had a problem in this house. There was something going on. It wasn’t something that we could understand or explain, but there was something definitely going on.”


The occurrences all seemed to center around Kay. Terrified by what was happening in their house, Jim and Kay turned to an expert for help, parapsychologist William Roll:


“The question comes up, why is this family having these experiences? Is there some sort of ghost that has come back to haunt them for some unknown reason? What’s taking place? A lot of people have these experiences. It’s part of who we are as humans, to have these so-called psychic experiences.”


Dr. Roll believes that memories can actually be transferred to physical objects. These residual memories can be triggered by ordinary people.


It wasn’t long before Jim finally had his first strange experience. It started with a small bell. An early riser, Jim always got up hours before Kay. When Kay woke up, she would ring the bell if she needed anything upstairs. One day, Jim heard what he assumed was Kay ringing the bell:


“I’d grown used to climbing the stairs after hearing the bell. And so I did so, and it wasn’t Kay. She was asleep. So I went in and looked at the bell, and it was there. I obviously heard something else, other than the bell.”


After the third time this happened, the Tatum’s decided to make up a code in order to outwit the entity. Kay would ring the bell three times if she wanted Jim to come upstairs. One morning Jim heard the call:

“It rang three times. I knew this was Kay, because this was our signal, but Kay was sound asleep. And the bell was in the other bedroom, where it stays. I went in and looked at it. I turned around and walked out the door, and the thing rang again! So, I began to, to see how Kay felt. I was frightened. My hair stood up on my neck. I told Kay then, no more bell. I’m not going to answer that bell anymore. And that bell has not rung since.”


William Roll is no stranger to these types of incidents:


“There are a number of haunting cases that are not very striking, not very strong, but where the phenomenon is, nevertheless, quite disturbing to the family. It might be a bell ringing, a fleeting glimpse of an apparition. The events are trivial, but they’re deeply upsetting to the family because they don’t fit into the picture that most of us have of the world. And that image of the physical world, particularly of our home, is intricately related to who we picture ourselves as being.” 

In the end, things got so bad that the Tatum’s moved out of their home and put it up for sale.

The Amityville Horror

Whether or not the stories of the Amityville Horror are true, they have still been placed in the American mind to terrify the nation.

Each year, throngs of visitors emerge upon Long Island in New York to see for themselves any evidence of the Amityville horror that began in 1974. The DeFeo family, consisting of Ronald Sr. and Louise with their sons Mark and John as well as two daughters Dawn and Allison. In November of '74, the family peacefully slept in their three story colonial house at 112 Ocean Avenue until Ronald murdered his parents and siblings with a high-powered rifle.

While on the surface, the family seemed to be the perfect All-American example, Ronald often fought with Louise and posed a threatening image to his siblings. Upon noticing his behavior, Ronald Sr. and Louise placed their son in psychiatric care, though it was a futile attempt because Ronald, nicknamed “Butch”, refused to work with his counselor. At this point, the family began giving Butch what he wanted in order to keep him more stable. The boiling point was apparently reached on November 14 at approximately 3am when Butch became unhappy with the money his parents were giving him, which was spent on drugs and alcohol. He was awake in his room, thinking about his problems while the rest of the family was asleep. He purposefully stood up, obtained a rifle and entered his parents bedroom.

After the murders and trial of Ronald DeFeo Jr. had passed, a new family moved into the house on December 18, 1975. George and Kathy Lutz purchased the house for $80,000 so they and Kathy's three children would finally have their dream house. Almost immediately, the family claimed they began hearing strange noises throughout the house. They also insisted that locked doors and windows began to open without explanation. George Lutz, a former Marine, stated to have heard a phantom brass band march through the house. After these incidents, the family contacted the Catholic church. During an attempt to exorcise the house, the priest was told by a disembodied voice to get out.

After the attempted exorcism, the events began to intensify. A creature was seen outside the windows at night, scratching sounds got louder and at one point George Lutz seemed to have been possessed while a green substance oozed from the ceiling and walls. Hooded figure apparitions began appearing with clouds of flies, personality changes, cold chills, telephone disconnections and the youngest child began to communicate with an apparition of a pig. It was also reported that Kathy was levitated off of the bed and often beaten.

After 28 days of living in their new house, the family fled from the house in a rush leaving their possessions behind. After the house was empty in February of '76, New York Channel 5 took a news team to the location to capture footage of famous demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren conducting an investigation. George Lutz refused to accompany them but did give them a key to the house. Ed Warren began to experience heart palpitations. His wife Lorraine, a clairvoyant, said that she sensed an unearthly presence in the house and that Shinnecock Indians had used the property as an isolated area for sick and insane members of their tribe. However, they didn't bury their dead at the location because it was possessed by demons.

Skeptics state that the whole thing is simply a fake story by George Lutz to obtain monetary gain from promotion. Lutz's sons even criticized his story. Skeptics are also quick to point out that during the entire 28 day horror, the police were never called. It's also believed by some that the Lutz's returned the day after fleeing the house to conduct a garage sale. After the Lutz family moved out of the house, the next owners, Jim and Barbara Cromarty stated that they had not experienced anything out of the ordinary.

What is fact is that a mass murder did take place in the home and a taped investigation was filmed. Separating fact from fiction can be difficult. Whether or not the stories of the Amityville Horror are true, they have still been placed in the American mind to terrify the nation.

Hollow Earth - Is Agartha a Real City?

Many cultures around the world have myths and legends based on the idea that the Earth is hollow. From the ancient Greeks believing in the Underworld and some cultures even believing that hell itself really is a fiery place beneath the Earth’s surface.

To modern beliefs that great kingdoms exist down below, there has always been speculation about hollow Earth theories. supposedly, there are subterranean cities beneath the Earth’s surface, wherein many strange races of people live. Some, of course, believe that UFO’s come from these cities, where they were built by engineers with advanced technology.

Agartha is believed by some to be the name of an underground city. Many of the inhabitants are descended from humans who once lived on the Earth’s surface. According to legend, ancient Atlanteans and Lemurians fled underground during times of war and built great cities. Today, their descendants still exist underground. Some even say that another legendary city, Shamballa, is the capital city of Agartha.

How did the ancients manage to make it underground? And how do the UFO’s find their way out? Some legends suggest that there are entrances all around the Earth. These places are all famous landmarks or monuments: Kentucky Mommoth Cave in KY, Himalayan Mountains in Tibet (which is also allegedly the location of the long lost Shamballa), Pyramid of Giza in Egypt,

North Pole, South Pole, King Solomon’s Mines, Rama in India, and many other places.

Speaking of India, there are still some people who believe in a subterranean race of snake-like people who dwell in other underground cities, and who often wage war on Agartha. These snake-like beings, who are known as “Nagas”, supposedly despise humans a great deal and kidnap, torture, and eat us.

Many psychics and mediums over the years claim to have channeled information from hollow Earth dwellers. Conspiracy theorists believe that even politicians are well aware of these underground cities. It’s even been rumored that Hitler once planned on sending researchers to Antarctica to find the entrance!

While most scientists and archaeologists find hollow Earth ideas to be absurd and silly, there are still many who believe that there may be something behind all the legends and myths. After all, gravity and the Earth’s mass themselves wouldn’t be as they are if the Earth was really hollow. If the Earth really is mainly hollow, it would have a much lower mass and gravity would be much less than it currently is.