There are various mysteries in the world, which remain unsolved to this day. In this article, I’d like to introduce the mystery of Mary Celeste, which is sometimes called  “the greatest mystery of the sea”.

On November 7, 1872, a ship named Mary Celeste left a port in New York heading to Genova, Italy.

There were ten people on the ship, including Benjamin Briggs, the captain of Mary Celeste, and seven crew members. There were also his wife and her little daughter on the ship. The weather was good and everything was seemed great for the sailing. However, on December 4th, the Mary Celest was found adrift off the coast of Portugal.

  (Benjamin Briggs)

The mysterious things about the ship found

What makes the Mary Celeste different from other cases of wrecked ships is the way the ship was left when it was found.  The strangest thing is that when the ship was found, all the crew members had mysteriously disappeared from it leaving no trace. There was not even Captain Benjamin Briggs. All of them have yet to be found to this day.

What is more, the state of the ship discovered was peculiar. There was no noticeable damage to the ship. On the contrary, even breakfast or steaming cups of coffee were there inside the ship as if people had been still there five minutes ago. The captain’s diary was also left on board. It was about his wife saying “My wife Mary is…”, but it was not finished. There was also enough food and water left on the ship to last for six months. The ship was almost intact but only the people on the ship disappeared.

What really happened to Mary Celeste?

Numerous people have tried to solve the mystery, and there are several possible theories of what really happened to Mary celeste as follows:

1. The explosion of alcohol?

This is the most popular theory. The ship had been loaded with industrial alcohol. Benjamin had never transported alcohol by ship before, so he may have panicked when he saw the alcohol explode on the ship for some reason and tried to evacuate the crew in lifeboats, but due to storms or other factors, the lifeboats may have swept away so everyone lost. As proof of this, when the ship was found, nine of the 1,700 barrels of the alcohol were empty. However, there are those who question this theory because the cargo other than the alcohol was completely safe.

      2. Pirate attacks?

Some people say that the ship may have been attacked by pirates because the bloody knives and bloodstains were found on board.  This theory is considered questionable since most pirates are supposed to go for valuables but the crew’s personal belongings were not touched at all.

       3. natural disaster?

Others say that the ship may have been hit by earthquakes or tornadoes and it made the people be panicked and abandon the ship. However, since there was no external damage to the ship, this theory is considered unreliable.

      4.  Food poisoning?

Another theory is that the crews ate the poisoned bread and had a hallucination, which led them to jump into the sea, but this theory is not said to be reliable because investigators later ate the same bread left on the ship and found that it was completely safe, so this theory may not be reliable.

Nearly 150 years have been passed since this incident, but still remains unsolved. Even before this happened, there had been many incidents on Mary Celeste and the owner of the ship changed several times. Mary Celeste maybe a haunted ship.