A mother pleads with her son not to sail on a certain steamer because she has dreamt - three times in a row - that the vessel will never reach its destination. Modern-day observers watch in awe as a ghost ship - blazing from bow to stern - dutifully reinacts a two-hundred-year-old tragedy that the observers' fathers and grandfathers also watched reinacted with the same sense of awe. A crewman walks past a solitary figure seated in the ship's restaurant only to turn a moment later and find the restaurant empty. A red glow appears in the darkness ahead of a modern warship and the faint outline of an old galleon, her sals in tatters, is seen approaching against the wind - only to vanish a moment later before the startled eyes of observers.
Such strange events have been seen for centuries and continue to be reported today by witnesses who are, for the most part, sober and responsible human beings. In Lost at Sea folklore specialist Michael Goss and George Behe, an expert of maritime disasters, explore what lies behind these amazing narratives and enduring legends. Ranging from the hard data of historical documents, logbooks, official committee reports, contemporary printed records and first-publication accounts to less reliable narratives and literary-fictional treatments, they blend the thoughtful, painstaking approach of the scientist and the social historian with the more interpretive line of inquiry taken by the folklorist or creative writer.
The ominous Flying Dutchman, the fiery Palatine and the doomed Titanic rekindle strange stories of prevision, precognition and curses. Are these ships the mystical focal points of extraordinary happenings? Goss and Behe show how they have become talismans of all the mystery and legend of the sea and have been used as case studies to prove the existence of all sorts of supernatural events. The authors trace the evolution of the nebulous but powerful story-cycle known as the "Flying Dutchman". They study local legends of the Goodwins ghost ship and New England's tradition of "fire-ships", for which geophysical or "matural explanations" have been sought - and with good reason. Goss and Behe contend that human invention and storytelling have fostered tales such as the "Haunted U-Boat" and that maritime tragedies such as the loss of the USS Thresher inevitably attract dramatic accounts that capitalise on the horrors of disaster. Reassessments of cases featuring the Waratah, the Titanic and the Lusitania suggest that when the less reliable evidence is eliminated, what remains goes toward evaluating the truth of the old phrase that stranger things have happened at sea.
Lost at Sea concludes with a number of lesser-known episodes, each one analogous to the major featured accounts.
Michael Goss is a lecturer in English and English literature at Epping College (England). He is also a freelance writer who speicalises in folklore, natural history and the paranormal
George Behe is the vice president of the Titanic Historical Society and the author of books and articles on maritime disasters.