Taken from Newsletter Issue 29 - September 2005

Ghost ships most often appear at the scene of the disaster on a stormy night, leading one to believe that a portal has opened, causing the ship to manifest and to return to the world of the living, time and again. Many reports of ghost ships seem to constitute residual hauntings. This type of haunting in which the energy of the entity remains behind in a certain spot or general location, playing out a traumatic scene, but not being subject to interaction and is like watching a television re-run are in fact interactive, active hauntings which sometimes produce dire results for the persons unfortunate enough to be observing.

Most Phantoms whether observed on land or at sea, can often be explained as optical illusions. Mariners are familiar with the sight of ships sailing through the sky above the horizon—a simple mirage caused by the refraction of light rays. The Flying Dutchman legend may have originated in this way. However, owing to the frequency with which the Dutchman is sighted, and the recorded, documented results of these sightings, this explanation does not seem terribly plausible. This sailing ship is feared by mariners as an omen of disaster and is often sighted during stormy weather.

According to one version of the legend, Henrik van der Decken, the captain of the Flying Dutchman, swore, in a fit of rage, that he would round the cape even if he had to sail for all eternity straight into the wind and that God himself could not stop him. Because of this oath, Van der Decken was condemned to sail forever against just such a gale, and because he was a man of evil nature, who taunted God any sailor who sees him, or any member of his crew, on the deck of the phantom ship, is doomed to join his crew and partake of their special damnation.

Quite a few stories involving the sightings of ghost ships come from the British Isles especially the Goodwin Sands. Legend has it that more than 50,000 people lost their lives on the sandbank of the Goodwin Islands alone. Inhabitants of Ireland’s coastal areas often report seeing the ghostly spectral galleon ships of the doomed Spanish Armada. One prime example is the Lady Lovibond and she is one of the most famous of the ghost ships of the British Isles. This doomed vessel was shipwrecked on February 13, 1748. Thousands of witnesses have claimed, over the years, to have seen her and according to local legend, every 50 years, on the anniversary of her sinking. Pirates who sailed the seas in the 17th and 18th centuries are often associated with ghost ships. The Islands of the Caribbean are literally rich in tales of Privateers, Pirates and seagoing cutthroats such as Morgan, Teach and the infamous Captain Peter Blood and they all hanged at Port Royal. But their spirits are all damned to sail the seven seas for all eternity, for the sins that they committed in life.

A similar story is told about the German submarine, U-l 16, the last German U-boat to be sunk in the First World War. She went down in the North Sea, on the 28th October, 1918, less than one month before the Armistice, ending the war, was signed. No one knows the exact cause of her sinking, but ever since, when the weather in the North Sea is particularly foul, she is sighted, running on the surface into the jaws of the storm... a spectral crew manning her bridge. While she is not considered to be a sign of particularly ill luck, sighting this doomed craft is considered by all to be a portent that some incident of great import is about to happen. While not exactly “ghost ships” or “phantoms” as such, many amateur radio operators have reported, over the years, of having picked up distress signals from both the Titanic and the Lusitania. And to this day, unusual fluctuations in the electromagnetic (EMF) field exist in the area surrounding their sinking, as well as that of the S.S. Andrea Doria.