Selects: The Flannen Isles Mystery

In December 1900 three lighthouse keepers vanished without a trace from a deserted island in Scotland. To this day no one knows exactly what happened to them. Find out all about this strange situation in this classic episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 0:47Josh Clark?

  Introducing Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from iHeart Ruby Studio, hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's select, I've chosen our episode on the Flannan Isle mystery from November 2021. This is one of those rare instances of a missing persons unsolved mystery disappearance case where the people weren't murdered, well, almost certainly weren't murdered. That is one theory, but it's a lesser theory.

• 1:32Josh Clark?

  And isn't that refreshing? I hope you enjoy this one, even if you've heard it before, I can attest, it's still good again. Enjoy.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:56Josh Clark?

  Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there and Jerry's out here too. So, since the gang's all here, the three of us alone on a deserted isle, stuff you should know.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Can I mention a couple of things here?

• 2:14Josh Clark?

  I think you should.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  I want to pre-apologize to our Scottish listeners, whom we love. We toured in Scotland, had a great time, one of our best live shows in the beautiful city of Edinburgh.

• 2:30Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Wonderful people, love the Scots, but we are going to butcher some of these names. And I apologize.

• 2:38Josh Clark?

  It's inevitable. Yeah, we're sorry.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  And what was the other thing? Oh, the other thing was it's impossible to talk about the Flannan Isles Lighthouse mystery and research it without almost always thinking about the movie The Lighthouse.

• 2:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and actually it comes up a lot in the research, too.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think one reason is because it's clear that, oh, what's the guy's name who made it? I can't think of his name.

• 3:04Josh Clark?

  William Eggers?

• 3:06Speaker 02

  It's not William Eggers.

• 3:08Josh Clark?

  Well, it's definitely not Dave Eggers.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  It's an Eggers, right?

• 3:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I'm pretty, Robert?

• 3:14Speaker 02

  I think Robert, yes.

• 3:14Josh Clark?

  Okay, Robert Eggers. Okay, yes.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  He clearly did his research. And you know, I remember when that movie came out, I spoke on the show that I wrote a movie, a period movie about a lighthouse and a murder that takes place. And then the movie The Lighthouse came out and I was like, so much for that. But I did a lot of research at the time and it was clear that Eggers did a lot of research because it was a very accurate film, especially when you read and research the Flannan Isles Lighthouse mystery, you're like, oh yeah, that's like from the movie. And that's like from the movie.

• 3:44Josh Clark?

  Apparently they mention it in the movie. I didn't go back and watch it again, but I saw somebody say that they make a reference to the mystery in the movie.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Oh, cool. That's awesome.

• 3:53Josh Clark?

  I thought so too, yeah. Man, I can't wait for that Viking movie to come out.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Me too. And this made me want to see The Lighthouse again, which I didn't think I wanted to do, but now I do.

• 4:03Josh Clark?

  Same here. So, we are talking about one particular lighthouse called the Flannan Isles Lighthouse, and it was located on one island in the Flannan Isles called Island Moor. That's not exactly, like Chuck was saying, the Scottish pronunciation, Scott Gaelic. But it's close enough and it actually means, in English, I guess, the Moor Island, right?

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:30Josh Clark?

  So, anyway, that's where this lighthouse is and it's situated, it's still there today. It's automated, though. It went automated in 1971. But it sits, its light is about 75 feet atop the cliff, which is the highest point of Island Moor. And that cliff is 200 feet above sea level. And it's a pretty good place for a lighthouse because this area of Scotland is kinda treacherous for ships.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Yes. And it's important how high this one was. It figures into the story.

• 5:04Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm. I'm not just showing off with stats here.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is, it is treacherous. It's a windy area. There are big winds in Scotland, especially out there on those islands.

• 5:15Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  I think it is close, and this is kinda funny, the name of it, but isn't it nearby, supposedly, the windiest place? Is it the windiest place in the UK?

• 5:24Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  And what's the name of it?

• 5:27Josh Clark?

  The Butt of Lewis.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 5:31Josh Clark?

  I'm serious, but it makes sense.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  I know, I'm not 12 years old, but...

• 5:34Josh Clark?

  Lewis is a nearby island.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:38Josh Clark?

  Which is inhabited in the region, which is pretty rare, I think, but this, this part of it, one end of the island, is called the Butt of Lewis Island, and it's the windiest part.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  The Butt of Lewis is the windiest island.

• 5:50Josh Clark?

  Right. So, the, the, the area that these Flannan Isles are in, so Island Moor is in the Flannan Isles. The Flannan Isles are part of the larger island chain on the northwest of Scotland called the Outer Hebrides. And to the west of them, you can just keep going and going and going, and then you'll finally reach North America. They're pretty remote, they're pretty isolated, they are indeed windy, and like we were saying, the seas are, are kinda rough around there. I think that's kinda putting it mildly. Plus, the islands themselves are often very rocky and jagged, and so it's treacherous. So, of course, you'd wanna put a lighthouse there.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, the winds blow strong from the butt of Lewis.

• 6:32Josh Clark?

  But the the lighthouse that was built there finally on Island Moor wasn't installed until 1899, which is kind of late considering that Scotland had something called the Northern Lighthouse Board that they organized in 1786 to basically oversee and standardize lighthouse keeping in that country.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, so they were headquartered there in Edinburgh. And here's how it worked at the time, and this checks out according to my research when I was writing my movie and the movie The Lighthouse.

• 7:03Josh Clark?

  Oh, nice part.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  They were staff, you had your principal light keeper called the principal keeper. And then usually depending on, you know, where the lighthouse was, how busy it was, how big it was, and as far as needed personnel for operation, you had one or two assistants. And they were all ranked as, you know, you weren't just like, oh, I'll be the first keeper this week. Like you earned that spot.

• 7:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  It was a promotion. And then you were assigned to these stations by the board, just like in the movie. You don't you don't stay there forever. You kind of rotate and you go there for a little while. And you may get stationed with someone you've never worked with before. And you have to get to know that person very intimately over the course of, you know, a short period of time. Or it's somebody you have worked with before and you're old friends with maybe.

• 7:50Josh Clark?

  Or old enemies.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, or old enemies. So aside from these two to three people as principals and assistants, you had what was called the occasional keeper. And this is someone who actually lived nearby, either an inhabited island resident or if it was uninhabited, if it was at least close enough to where they could get there easily. And they would help out during the day, but they would go home at night and sleep and stuff in their own beddy-bye.

• 8:17Josh Clark?

  And that was the standard, but for a place like Island Moor, where the Flannan Isles Lighthouse was located, if you were an occasional, you were there for two weeks. That's how hard it was to get to the island and how hard it was to get off of the island.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:32Josh Clark?

  So the purpose of the occasional was to give two weeks rest off to one of the other two or three people who were permanently stationed or temporarily stationed there for much longer than you.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Right, and in those cases, the keeper, the occasional, does not go home and sleep.

• 8:48Josh Clark?

  Right. So, um, the, one of the things that I, that stuck out to me, Chuck, was that, you know, when you think about lighthouse keeping, like, yes, the person has to live there, and it's a lot of work, and they have to attend to the light and everything, but I think lighthouse keepers are very frequently portrayed as weirdos.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:11Josh Clark?

  Just complete alcoholics who like can't, can't do anything else but live by themselves. Almost like they're placed there because there's, there's nothing else for them to contribute to society, so they're kind of cast off or ostracized. That's not the case, at least not in Scotland, that was not the case. Like, if you were a lighthouse keeper, that was a very, very important job.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:33Josh Clark?

  And you took it very, very seriously. Um, so much so that there is a study that found between 1850 and 1900, 50 years, there were only 15 recorded instances of a lighthouse keeper falling asleep at their post, which was about as bad as it gets as a lighthouse keeper.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, that's not to say there weren't drunks and misanthropes here and there. Maybe those were the 15.

• 10:00Josh Clark?

  Yes, but I did a little more further math, Chuck, if I may be so indulged as to share it.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  I saw that. I thought that was pretty funny.

• 10:08Josh Clark?

  So, so get this. Let's say you have about 150 lighthouses in operation between 1850 and 1900.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 10:15Josh Clark?

  And if you calculate that number of lighthouses times the number of nights that occurred over that 50 years in Scotland, you have what we'll call 2.75 million lighthouse nights. Out of those 2.75 million lighthouse nights in Scotland over those 50 years, only 15 of those nights found a lighthouse keeper asleep on duty. That's how seriously they took it.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Did you account for leap years?

• 10:44Josh Clark?

  Oh, Chuck.

• 10:48Josh Clark?

  I just really wanted to drive that home, man. I really thought that was an important point. And it didn't get, come across with 15 instances in 50 years. Who cares?

• 10:57Speaker 02

  No, I mean, it's a big deal. Because, you know, the purpose of a lighthouse, I guess, we have not really said is to light the way around rocky shores and islands. So boats don't run into them.

• 11:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, unless you've been living under a rocky shore, you know that.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  It's a very important job, though. I love lighthouses. We've talked about them quite a few times on the show. Big, big fan. Every time I am near a lighthouse, I will do my best to climb that thing if it's allowed.

• 11:25Josh Clark?

  So who, who done it in your lighthouse mystery?

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Who did do it? It was a good story, actually.

• 11:34Josh Clark?

  Well, then maybe you should hang on to it in case somebody comes along. Because it's not like the lighthouse is the only lighthouse movie ever made.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. The, the briefest synopsis is it's two sisters who are attending the lighthouse because it was their family job and their parents died there. So it's these two, sort of like a, like maybe a 20 year old and a 16 year old out there alone on this island. And then these two men wash ashore one day in a shipwreck. And they tell the awful story of their, their ship going down. And it turns out that the real story is, is that they were prisoners aboard a ship being transferred. And they escaped their shackles and murdered everyone aboard.

• 12:16Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  And then there was a shipwreck. So they were bad guys who got washed ashore.

• 12:20Josh Clark?

  Oh, it's a bit like a reverse Dead Calm.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Sort of. And they charm the girls, but there is, I guess, I didn't know the name was an occasional keeper. There's a guy that lives, one guy that lives on the island that helps them out. That is sort of suspicious of the guys. And it sort of plays out over the course of the movie where they're exposed, ending in a a game of cat and mouse one night.

• 12:40Josh Clark?

  Nice. That sounds like a great movie.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  It was okay. I mean, I did it as a, as an experiment because all I've ever written is comedy. And I thought, hey, maybe I'll write a serious thriller. And it, it could be better if a really good thriller writer got a hold of it, I think, but.

• 12:57Josh Clark?

  Where there's still like little jokes peppered as asides? Like one of the sisters is running from the murderer and says to herself, I left the mainland for this?

• 13:07Josh Clark?

  Like your comedy shines through still?

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know. I'll have to dust that thing off.

• 13:13Josh Clark?

  You should, man. It sounds like a good one.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 13:16Josh Clark?

  So this lighthouse, back to the Flannan Isles lighthouse on Island Moore, like we said, that most of the Outer Hebrides are uninhabited. I think we said that, didn't we?

• 13:26Speaker 02

  I don't know, but you just said it then.

• 13:28Josh Clark?

  I think there's 70 islands in the Outer Hebrides and only 15 of them are populated. And Island Moore is definitely not one of them.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  It's remote.

• 13:36Josh Clark?

  It is extremely remote. The only people, the only beings that live there, what you would recognize as a genuine, normal being, as opposed to, say, paranormal, which we'll get into, are the lighthouse keepers and some sheep. Even the people whose sheep those are don't live on the island or even stay there overnight. They go out a few times a year, check on the sheep, and then leave before nightfall. That's kind of how Island Moore is viewed. It's seen kind of as a place where maybe gods or ghosts or just something otherworldly lives on Island Moore, according to the locals, according to lore written about the locals. I've never spoken to an Outer Hebridean.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think the other thing we need to mention too, because I believe it comes up later in one of the supernatural explanations for what is to come here with this mystery, is the name Saint Flannan comes from the fact that Island Moore was the site of a chapel in the 7th century, built by a traveling Irish monk who eventually became Saint Flannan. And that's going to come up. Just put a pin in that.

• 14:46Josh Clark?

  It's a big time pin. Hang on to it, okay?

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Is that a good setup? Should we take a break?

• 14:50Josh Clark?

  I think so, man.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  All right. We'll come back with more spooky lighthouse mystery stuff right after this.

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• 18:39Josh Clark?

  All right, so we should probably mention the steamship actor or archer, arctor. I've seen it both ways. But that kind of kicks off the story for us, don't you think?

• 18:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, we haven't mentioned the major players either yet, have we?

• 18:55Josh Clark?

  No, no, I guess we could go either way. We can mention one or the other first.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  All right, let's mention the players, because these are the actual keepers of that lighthouse.

• 19:03Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  You had the principal keeper, James Ducat. You had the second assistant. Wouldn't he be the first assistant, though?

• 19:12Josh Clark?

  No, Donald MacArthur. We'll get into that.

• 19:15Speaker 03

  Okay. Thomas Marshall was the second assistant. And then Donald MacArthur was the occasional, right?

• 19:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, here's my bit. So he was filling in for a guy named William Ross. William Ross was the first assistant keeper, which meant that since Donald MacArthur was filling in for him, Donald MacArthur was the first assistant keeper, even though he was an occasional keeper.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  Okay, that makes sense. And William Ross was on sick leave. And just judging from the movie The Lighthouse and all this research, like, you must have had to been really sick.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  To get taken off the island.

• 19:47Josh Clark?

  Yes, but.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Don't you think?

• 19:49Josh Clark?

  Yes, that's what I thought too, but doing research for this, I found that these guys had, all of them had a rotating two weeks off. So at any given point over a stretch of two weeks, one of those men, James Ducat, Thomas Marshall, or William Ross, would not be on the island because they rotated two-week shore leave, basically. So I, yeah, I was of the impression that if you went and tended a lighthouse, they dropped you off, left you with some food, and said, see you never.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  But that's not the case.

• 20:24Josh Clark?

  No, no, I think, I think they were well taken care of. I get the impression the Northern Lighthouse Board was pretty good at its job and really cared about these people and looked after them. I didn't see anything to, to, to deny that.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it's a brutal and important job, so surely that they were taken care of at least to a certain degree.

• 20:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but the upshot of all this is that there were three men on the island.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Three dudes.

• 20:47Josh Clark?

  Working that lighthouse. And aside from some sheep, that was it. That was the only people on the island. And this, by the way, this is December of 1900, right?

• 20:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this thing is brand new.

• 20:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they built it in 1899. It was scheduled to take two years. It took four years. The construction was started in 1895. And what they built was, at the time, a state-of-the-art lighthouse. But it took so long, it took twice as long as they anticipated because the cliffs and the island itself was so treacherous. That's how long it took just to like get materials up the cliff to build the lighthouse.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's finally in operation. And then now comes the ACTOR, which is what you mentioned earlier. Not A-C-T-O-R, but the ACTOR, A-C-H-T-E-R.

• 21:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was a transatlantic steamship from Philadelphia to Leith, which is a port for Edinburgh.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  That's right, so they were out there, I was about to say sailing around, but I guess they were steaming around. And they waited out of storm for a few days. And then, uh, this part got confusing to me.

• 21:55Josh Clark?

  So the actor was, was passing by Flannan Isles. It passed by on December 15th. And the actor, uh, noticed that the light was out. Not that they couldn't see the light because of weather or anything like that. Like, the light was straight up not lit on the lighthouse, on Flannan Isles lighthouse. Like, that was, it was a very strange thing to see. And it was very noteworthy. Um, they ran into some weather on their way to Leith and had to wait it out for a few days. And when they finally made it into port, I guess they passed the information along, but the, the, um, Northern Lighthouse Board didn't catch wind of it until the official relief supply ship, um, showed up a few days later.

• 22:37Josh Clark?

  And the actor's observation that the light was out wouldn't come into play until an investigation was launched later on.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Right, so that relief ship was the Hesperus.

• 22:46Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  H-E-S-P-E-R-U-S. And that arrived, uh, on December 26th, 1900, which was Boxing Day, Day after Christmas. And what these ships brought was they usually brought either supplies or, uh, fresh dudes or both. And in this case, I think they had supplies and a fresh lighthouse keeper. And it was, uh, captained by, uh, Captain Harvey. And they were like, "All right, something's going on here. This light's out, the flag's not flying. Let me toot on the horn a few times."

• 23:21Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Toot, toot, toot. Nobody comes out. They're, "All right, well, let me send up a flare." They send up a flare. No one comes out. And what they're trying to do is say, "Hey, we're here. Get your little, uh, your little railcar system going." It had a little cable, a little cable-pulled railroad system that was operated by a steam engine in a shack. And so when the ship pulls up, they would toot the horn and the dudes would come down and they would get that steam engine going and get that cable car ready to transfer the goods onto this thing. So they could, you know, it's like hundreds of pounds of stuff going up a really, really steep cliffside.

• 23:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's just no way to move that stuff otherwise.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  No, you'd have to do it. So, nobody came out. No one gets that steam shack going. And, uh, they're like, "All right, something's going on. We're gonna have to, to go on land and figure this out."

• 24:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and just the fact that they weren't greeted by one or more of the guys from the lighthouse, which is apparently custom, like even the most grizzled misanthrope lighthouse keeper just knew it was custom to come down and greet the relief ship.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  You're still dying to see someone else.

• 24:26Josh Clark?

  Pretty much, I think so, yeah. So that like, the fact that no one showed up and then no one responded to their signals, they were like, something really weird is going on here. And they had Joseph Moore, who was the relieving keeper, which makes me think that William Ross was really, really sick because he would have been on sick leave for way over two weeks by this time. Because I believe the relief ship was five days late because of weather. So he must have really been laid up. And they sent another relieving keeper, Joseph Moore, instead. And Joseph Moore went ashore and he was friends with these guys. He wasn't some new dude or anything like that. So he was genuinely concerned. And he went up the steps to the lighthouse. There's apparently 160 of them.

• 25:09Josh Clark?

  And he just knew right away that something was way off. There was no sign of life. There was nobody around. There was the, the, just nothing was going on. It was abandoned, basically. And he didn't have a very good feeling about it. So he runs back down to the boat to say, I think we have a problem here.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Yes, so he says, I think we have a problem. And then that's when basically everyone on board said, alright, we gotta, this is a situation now that we all have to deal with. I think it was the captain who went with Moore to search for other stuff. And they said, in the meantime, you other guys, you gotta get up there and start operating this lighthouse because it's been down and we need to get that thing cranked up again.

• 25:55Josh Clark?

  Yes, so they, so the first, for the first time possibly since December 15th, the lighthouse was lit again with, by these relief guys who, who took over and kind of settled in and were like, alright, this is our job now. But that follow-up search, it's weird. Like, we'll talk about some of the legends and layers that were added to it over the years. But to me, the thing that was like so weird about the follow-up search was that everything was in place.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:23Josh Clark?

  Like, it would be way more like... Kind of middle of the road to me, this mystery. If there was like signs of struggle or

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:33Josh Clark?

  You know, there were like, like everything was just kind of askew. It's way more eerie to me that like, everything was exactly how it should have been. It's just the three human beings that were supposed to be there were missing. But that's what, what Joseph Moore found and the others found when they searched a lot more thoroughly.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, the, the door to the keeper's house was closed, the gate was closed. The, in the kitchen, everything was all spick and span, everything was all cleaned up. It was clear that someone had done some cooking in the grate, but not anytime soon. There were ashes in there, the beds were made. The clocks had all stopped because no one was there to wind them, obviously. And everything was fine, except like you said, that there was no one around. That there was a full fountain of paraffin oil. It was all like, the light was ready to be burned. The lamp, that Fresnel lens was cleaned up and ready to go. The blinds were drawn, the records were all filled out, you know, all the way up until Saturday. I think the morning of December 15th, right?

• 27:35Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  And so everything was great, except for there were two missing sets of rain gear. They're called oil skins, their coats and their boots. Two of those were missing out of the three guys. And so that's sort of the only thing out of the ordinary at this point.

• 27:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, that was basically the only trace of the missing men. Like, like had those oil skins still been there? You would, you would have taken the lighthouse and, and the, the area as like, having been prepared for somebody else. They just hadn't shown up yet. Like the missing oil skins were the only trace that those men were missing. That there had been men there that were no longer there anymore.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  Right, and then there were a couple of pieces of literature that kind of confused things after the fact, right?

• 28:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that really kind of made this like to a lot of people like a much bigger mystery. I think some people came along and weren't satisfied with how mysterious it was on its own. And so added to it and added to it over the years through magazine articles and newspaper reports and then later on like podcasts and stuff. And so you really have to be careful navigating these waters, if you'll excuse the pun or this stupid metaphor. When you're researching this because so much of it is just regurgitated as fact because it has been part of the story for 100 years that it was actually thanked to the thanks to the efforts of a journalist named Mike Dash, who if you are at all interested in

• 29:05Josh Clark?

  nonfiction writing, especially nonfiction history writing, go check out Mike Dash's website. He's probably the best in the business.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 29:14Josh Clark?

  But yes, he's just amazing. But he he set his sights on getting to the bottom of this and he did some stuff and basically finally definitively proved, no, this was added to it later on, this was added to it later on, this is not true, that kind of stuff. So hats off to Mike Dash for demystifying a lot of it.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  True, but also making it not as fun. Because it's decidedly creepier with these newspaper stories as they were written. One of the newspaper stories talked about the logbook, and this is completely fabricated, you know, like Mike Dash exposed it as fabrication.

• 29:53Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  But it's still pretty creepy. The log entries in the fake log entries were by second, well, not by second assistant marshal, but this is how they wrote it.

• 30:02Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  And wrote on December 12th, they saw severe winds, the likes of which I've never seen before in 20 years and wrote, and these are, these are people that have seen some of the worst storms you could imagine.

• 30:14Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Out there on these outer islands and pretty unshakable guys, I would think.

• 30:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  And he said, he wrote in the next two days that the storm continued, it was so unbearable that Ducat, the principal keeper, was struck mute by the storm and that occasional keeper MacArthur, who was supposedly a really tough guy, was recorded as weeping uncontrollably for days because of how bad the storm was.

• 30:38Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  It's good stuff.

• 30:41Josh Clark?

  It is good stuff, but Mike Dash made mincemeat out of it and he's kind of my hero for it. One of the things that he basically just points out is if this were an official logbook, if you were a second assistant, you put that in there, you would, you would basically get fired for that kind of thing. Like, that's not what a logbook is for. And you certainly wouldn't put that your superior was weeping uncontrollably in the logbook. Like, that's just not what you would put in a logbook for the, in the first case. And then secondly, he also said that somebody being quiet because of a storm or whatever, or their mood, like, it also kind of mentions their mood a lot, too, that that would have no bearing on anything.

• 31:22Josh Clark?

  And the only way that that makes sense in relation to the story is after the fact, which he said, obviously, that means that these were written after the fact. And then years later, after he'd first investigated it, he finally turned up a copy of the magazine that this came out in, in like 1921, and it was like a, like a pulp magazine called like True Confessions or something like that. So he definitely, he definitely deconstructed that for sure, to my great satisfaction. I love it.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of funny, though. Like, the logbook was basically like your diary.

• 31:55Josh Clark?

  That's exactly right. He said, like, logbooks were not diaries.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  No, they weren't.

• 31:59Josh Clark?

  He actually specifically said that, yeah.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  That's funny. The other thing he uncovered, or did he uncover the poem, or was that just?

• 32:06Josh Clark?

  I think that was a little more common knowledge, but yeah, he wrote about the poem being the poem, too.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Okay, so in 1912, there was a poem by Wilfred Wilson Gibson, who wrote a poem about this mystery where he says, "There was an untouched meal on the table, cold meat, pickles, and potatoes. The kitchen chair was knocked over. The only sign of life was the keeper's canary, half starving on its perch." Like, these are all the things that you mentioned would have made this a different story.

• 32:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  But everything was really just fine. I don't even think the chair was turned over, right?

• 32:40Josh Clark?

  I don't know.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  Because the guy later on, well, we'll get to him.

• 32:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the way that Mike Dash treated it is that it's possible. Okay, I don't know if Mike Dash treated it like that way. Mike Dash wrote about a later guy who we'll talk about, who treated it as fact, so.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 33:02Josh Clark?

  I don't, I don't, I think what the upshot of it is that in doing like this research on primary resources, like what Joseph Moore wrote, what Robert Muirhead, who we'll talk about, wrote. These people who were actually there when it happened or right after it happened, that nobody mentioned anything like a turned over chair. And based on what they did mention, it seemed like they probably would have mentioned a turned over chair. They were so meticulous in the details.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  All right, well, let's talk about some of the evidence that was there.

• 33:34Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  Because what we're really talking about is, was there, I mean, the kind of obvious thing you would think about is was there some big storm that washed these guys away forever? Like, that's kind of the one reasonable explanation. And so as far as evidence goes, most of it is storm related for the, you know, to sort of support that and to go against it. There was a railway that we talked about, and that had a crane. And the crane was sort of, you know, built to help unload things off of this platform, off the cargo container, and it was about 70 feet above sea level, and it was fine. It was, it even still had the canvas wrapped around it.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  So if there was some big storm, and evidence shows there probably was one, right? But at least this crane 70 feet up wasn't damaged, and that canvas was still there, which is a little weird.

• 34:31Josh Clark?

  It is a little weird because even a little higher up toward the top of the cliff. So this, the crane was at about 70 feet above sea level, right?

• 34:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:42Josh Clark?

  A little higher up than that, at about 110 feet above sea level, there was a box, a big box that held a lot of like mooring ropes and ropes for the crane and just some really important stuff, tackle. And it had been busted open, and the contents like strewn all down the cliff's face. There was a buoy that was tied to the railing right around the same place as that crate 110 feet above sea level. It had been torn clean away from the ropes that had lashed it to the railing. The ropes were still there, but the buoy, just a little piece of buoy was left attached to it. And yet, the crane was intact. And then even weirder, the iron railings around the crane that you would use as handrails

• 35:27Josh Clark?

  had just been completely twisted and wrenched out of place.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  That's a heck of a storm.

• 35:32Josh Clark?

  It's an amazing storm. It's crazy to me that the crane was left intact and that the canvas was even on it still.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  That was really weird. There was a 2,000-pound stone that was up on the cliff that slid down. And then, I believe the railway tracks were even torn up from the concrete. And then the grass at the top of the cliff, this is 200 feet up, at the very top was ripped up as far back as 30 feet from the edge.

• 35:58Josh Clark?

  That's nuts. Like, do you know how much force a wave would have to have to tear up grass in the first place? And then that thing would have to be over 200 feet tall to even reach that grass.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  That's a bad storm.

• 36:12Josh Clark?

  It's a monster wave. But the storm part, that kind of confounds things, big time. And I think we should take another break and we'll talk about how everything's just so confounded. Still to this day, which is why this is a mystery, right after this.

• 36:48Josh Clark?

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• 37:51Josh Clark?

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• 38:23Josh Clark?

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• 39:07Speaker 02

  All right, we've got this mystery brewing. These three men are missing. It's pretty clear that there was a big storm that blew through there. So, like I said earlier, the obvious explanation was these strong winds just came along and just blew these guys the heck off this island and they were never seen again.

• 39:23Josh Clark?

  That's not entirely out of the question because of the butt of Lewis.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  That's right. Strong winds flow from the butt of Lewis, as everyone knows. And I'm 12 years old. Robert Muirhead, he was the superintendent of lighthouses and he investigated this disappearance. He knew all these guys, some really, really well, but I think the occasional keeper, he knew the least, but he still knew pretty well.

• 39:47Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  He's the one that did this investigation personally and went out there, wrote up this report, and I think he was the last person, he was out there, you know, because it was a new lighthouse, I guess, sort of finishing up. And I don't know if he christened it or whatever, but he was one of the last, in fact, maybe the last person to even see them alive, right?

• 40:06Josh Clark?

  He says in his report that he was probably the last person to shake hands with these men and see them alive when he shoved off on December 7th, when the last relief ship, the previous relief ship had come along.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  All right, so in his official report, he said, "I don't think it was a strong wind that literally blew them off the island. It was blowing westerly that day." And that means it would have blown them back inland toward the island, and there's no way that these guys would have blown completely across the whole face of the island off the other side, because they know what to do. They know to drop and get flat and hold on, and they probably would not have been blown all the way off if it was westerly.

• 40:50Josh Clark?

  They need to stop, drop, and do not roll.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, don't roll.

• 40:54Josh Clark?

  No.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Please don't roll.

• 40:55Josh Clark?

  Not in that case.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  I would grab something heavy.

• 40:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, anything, a sheep, whatever, anything that will keep you from being blown off. But that's just nuts. It shows you how windy it is up there. That that was a possibility that Muir had considered and was like plausible enough that he had to at least put it in the report as a possibility.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 41:19Josh Clark?

  The one that he focused on that most people who think in level-headed ways kind of agree with too, is that instead, a wave probably came along and knocked these men off.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, this one. I'm an amateur when it comes to like figuring out island, Scottish island mysteries and weather. This one makes a lot of sense to me.

• 41:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, totally agree. So being blown away by wind sounds kind of nuts unless you think about it. Uh, in which case it's not super nuts in this instance, at least. There were more slightly nuttier explanations. And like, the thing is, you can't fully discount any one of these because the men's bodies were never found. So there was never any conclusive proof of what happened, even still to this day. Um, and some of the the likelier, less likely scenarios seem to always focus on Donald MacArthur, who was supposedly a bit of a hothead, quick to fists kind of dude.

• 42:24Josh Clark?

  Not necessarily the kind of occasional keeper you'd want to have on rotation for two weeks with you. But that's, that's what a lot of these secondary theories kind of presuppose.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  He would have been the Willem Dafoe, right?

• 42:38Josh Clark?

  I guess so, yeah. I, I kind of imagine him as such. He had a

• 42:42Speaker 02

  He probably, he got the story from this, didn't he?

• 42:45Josh Clark?

  I, I don't know.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  I'm curious. I bet you did.

• 42:48Josh Clark?

  I don't know, I'd have to watch it again now that I know that. I hadn't even heard of this story when I saw the lighthouse. So I, um, I need to watch it again and see, see what I think.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  I'm gonna do some research on that. I doubt if he like based it on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it triggered the idea or something.

• 43:03Josh Clark?

  Gotcha.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  All right, so he, uh, MacArthur was, like you said, a tough guy, a hothead. And he, of course, there's gonna be speculation that he started a fight and they all got in a big fight and they all fell off the cliff together. Or maybe he murdered these two guys and then knew what his comeuppance would be and flung himself off the cliffs himself in sort of a murder-suicide situation.

• 43:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, again, it's plausible, like some people can go nuts, like especially in extreme isolation kinda thing, but there's just no evidence whatsoever of any sort of fight. It's possible the fight started entirely outside, but it just doesn't satisfy all of the evidence, right?

• 43:45Speaker 02

  I don't think so.

• 43:45Josh Clark?

  Like the, the guy whose, um, weatherproof coats were still there was Donald MacArthur. So why would he start a fight outside in weather that was bad enough that his, his comrades would put on their weather gear?

• 44:01Speaker 02

  Right, or maybe when it comes to fighting, you don't want that raincoat on.

• 44:05Josh Clark?

  I guess, maybe he found it restrictive, that's entirely possible too. But that's, again, as far as like the secondary kind of paranoid theories go, those make a lot more sense. The other ones just are much more squarely in the realm of paranormal.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, you could say that. Uh, the Outer Hebrides are home of the Kelpie. And the Kelpie is a water spirit, a shape-shifting water spirit that drowns human victims. Uh, but there are two problems with this. One, that is not real.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  And two, even if it was real, let's just do a thought experiment. Everyone knows that the Kelpies are not seaside dwellers. They are inland at the Lox.

• 44:46Josh Clark?

  Right. They're not known to frequent the seaside.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  No, they don't like that saltwater.

• 44:51Josh Clark?

  No. So the Kelpies probably did not kill these men and cart them away.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  There's more supernatural there, right?

• 44:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the island being named after Saint Flannan and that ruined chapel being there. And the idea that the locals just kind of view that island as a weird place. There is this one author, a supernatural, like a Fortian-type author, who came along and said, "All right, I've got it." Everybody ready for this? So the locals think that this place is kind of inhabited by spirits. I'm guessing that the pagans who used to live here sacrificed people on this island and that the gods came to be used to a certain type of sacrifice. And that was the Northern Lighthouse Board installed these three men in a tower on Island Moore.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  It awoke something?

• 45:45Josh Clark?

  And the gods mistook it as a sacrifice, so they took their sacrifice. And that's what happened to the three men.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  I think you skipped over the best part of this whole thing, though.

• 45:53Josh Clark?

  What?

• 45:55Speaker 02

  It was an ancient race of tiny people.

• 45:57Josh Clark?

  Well, so I can't tell if that guy made that part up or if that is actually a local belief, but yeah, that was part of it, too.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  How small were they?

• 46:07Josh Clark?

  Supposedly, they found small bones that seemingly belonged to humans. And so there was a race of tiny people who supposedly lived there before.

• 46:16Speaker 02

  But are we talking like, are they the size of a sea rat? Or a like two or three feet tall person?

• 46:22Josh Clark?

  I don't, am I Scottish? I don't know.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Uh huh, all right. I was just curious.

• 46:27Josh Clark?

  A sea rat?

• 46:29Speaker 02

  He was tiny!

• 46:30Josh Clark?

  That's a very tiny, tiny person, pagan. But I think that's really interesting, the idea that the gods mistook the lighthouse keepers as a human sacrifice. That's what happened to them. I love that one.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  It was like a big wicker man or something.

• 46:45Josh Clark?

  Yes, exactly. I think that's exactly the point the guy was making.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  All right, so those, those are obviously all bunk. What probably really happened is as follows, and I think this is a pretty plausible. I think this is pretty plausible was.

• 47:02Josh Clark?

  But even still, it's still astounding if you step back and look at it.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and well, and there's no way to prove it, so it's, I kind of like these mysteries where you just don't know, you know? So here's what could have happened is that there was bad weather reported, but it wasn't maybe that bad on the 15th. But let's say that that box is, is loose or, well, how could it get loose? Let's say that box needs tending to, that's holding all this stuff.

• 47:34Josh Clark?

  Right, it's an important box, don't forget.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  It's an important box, and I think Marshall had previously been fined, what would be about 20 pounds today for having lost some equipment. So he may have been like really quick to like, hey, we gotta secure that box. And so maybe Ducat and Marshall went out there to, like, they left their quarters, while the other dude, the occasional keeper, MacArthur, is up there in the lighthouse still. And they're securing this box down, and then maybe this freak wave comes through, or maybe they just get in trouble, and then MacArthur needs to really leave quickly, which would explain why they did have their rain gear on and MacArthur didn't, because MacArthur had to leave really quickly to go down there and help these guys.

• 48:18Josh Clark?

  Yes, so like that, that definitely checks all the boxes, that after that, MacArthur was swept away as well. But the thing is, is like, that, that supposes something really amazing, Chuck, that there was a freak wave that the, the men just did not expect, that carried at least one of them away. The second one who survived that wave ran back to get help from MacArthur to help get the first guy who went in.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:50Josh Clark?

  And a second freak wave washed those two away, just cleaning the island of its human inhabitants in two swift waves over the course of a minute or two.

• 49:00Speaker 02

  Because the idea is that the storm wasn't bad enough to just sweep them all away.

• 49:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and the actor.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  It had to be a rogue wave.

• 49:07Josh Clark?

  Right, and the steamer, the actor noted that the area, because the actor passed by just a few hours, a couple hours probably after this event happened.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 49:18Josh Clark?

  And they noted that it was calm but stormy, which is the opposite of what you would think. You would think it was not stormy, which would draw the men out to make them, I mean, stormy enough that they needed to secure the box, but not so stormy that they they felt like they couldn't go out. But calm really kind of makes it, the idea of two freak waves, really freaky, because that would mean that those waves just came out of nowhere and swallowed the men up.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  But isn't the whole, I mean, we did an episode on rogue waves, and the idea is that it's a wave?

• 49:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Or is there a set of rogue waves?

• 49:52Josh Clark?

  I think if I remember correctly, it was a wave, but.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  That's what I think.

• 49:57Josh Clark?

  Maybe, maybe there is more, I don't know. But yes, that's how this, that's the only way that could happen, is because MacArthur wasn't wearing his rain gear, which suggests that he ran out in a hurry into bad weather, which means that one of them would have had to have come and gotten him. He wouldn't have been there with the other two. So it could not have just been one freak wave. It would have had to have been two successive freak waves that cleared all three.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  Well, and this does lend some credence to the idea that this thing was big enough to damage the turf, you know, 200 feet above sea level and destroy that box and wash that 2,000 pound stone down the cliff, too, right?

• 50:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and there was also, there's a, there's a chance that all that stuff that that just was evidence of a terrible storm actually came after the men had been washed away from the island several days later, when there was a really bad storm on December 20th.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  Okay, that makes sense. I didn't think about that.

• 50:55Josh Clark?

  But isn't that weird to think that that damage had happened after the, after the fact?

• 50:59Speaker 02

  Right, and it, and it, sure, that makes sense.

• 51:02Josh Clark?

  Because it's almost certain that they, that this event happened on December 15th. The last info they had on the log slate was 9:00 AM, December 15th, like we said. So it couldn't have happened earlier than that. And it would have happened before dark on December 15th, which would have happened about 4:00 PM. Uh, because otherwise, they would have lit the light that night. And the, the steamer actor would have seen the light in the lighthouse as it passed by on December 15th.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  That's right. Uh, I think all this gets really interesting in the 1950s. When a lighthouseman named Robert Alderbert, who worked there, served as principal keeper between 53 and 57. He lived there, obviously had a little time on his hands and was really enthralled by this mystery. And was like, I'm gonna do some research and I'm gonna take a lot of pictures and do, keep a lot of records in my diary. And, uh, he said that, you know, I've, I was in the lighthouse, uh, itself and got, and so that's how many feet above sea level?

• 52:05Josh Clark?

  Like 275?

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, like 200, it's close to 300 feet up and got sea spray from some waves. So he's like, it's very possible that a big wave could come through and reach these heights.

• 52:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he did tests where he took coils of rope and put them on the, the top of the cliff and they'd get washed away by some of those horrible waves. So he basically said it was almost certainly a wave that got these guys. That's not the craziest part. The craziest part is it was two waves, almost like the sea was waiting for all three of them and took them all.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  That's pretty weird. I wonder if he got fined for losing those ropes?

• 52:40Josh Clark?

  I don't know, maybe so. If the, if the, if it's the Northern Lighthouse Board, I know he definitely did.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Well, and he, uh, what was his final expe-, cause he's the one that we mentioned earlier that said that, uh, that the, one of the chairs was turned over in the kitchen, right? Like he kind of bought into that, that false narrative?

• 52:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but I wonder, cause this was a good, you know, 40 years after that poem had been written. Maybe it was so woven into the story by then, he just presumed that it was true or not.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  So how that comes in is he's basically like, all right, after dinner happens,

• 53:14Speaker 02

  like, there's bad weather going on. These two guys go out there and are, and are, see, this doesn't make sense to me. And I'll tell you why in a second, but these two guys go out there to secure this box or whatever. Cookies back in there washing up and cleaning up. And that's where everything's nice and tidy.

• 53:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  And then all of a sudden they need help. And so he turns the chair over because he just like runs out of there real quick.

• 53:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  But wouldn't that be, wouldn't someone have to be in the light too? Isn't that four guys?

• 53:42Josh Clark?

  No, that's why they think that this happened in the afternoon of the 15th, because they never went to light the light. They hadn't lit the light yet. Remember the light was all set up and ready to be lit for the evening?

• 53:54Speaker 02

  It was daytime.

• 53:55Josh Clark?

  Yes, it was before, it was before sunset, which would have been before 4:00 PM.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  All right, that's the one part I didn't get. I get it now.

• 54:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Lighthouse is shine at night.

• 54:03Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  I forgot that part when I wrote my movie. Everything takes place during the day.

• 54:08Josh Clark?

  Right. I left the mainland for this.

• 54:14Josh Clark?

  You got anything else?

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Good stuff. No, I like a good mystery. You're good at finding these.

• 54:18Josh Clark?

  Man, I love this one. So thank you very much. Yes, well, if you want to know more about the Flannan Isles mystery, go read Mike Dash's work on it. It's really interesting stuff. It's pretty comprehensive, too. And since I said it's pretty comprehensive, everybody, that means it's time for listener mail.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  I thought this was really interesting. This is a follow up to the Dingo's episode about dingos not really barking much. Hey, guys, in response to the statement that dingos don't bark, you left out a very fun fact and perhaps a topic for another show. While domesticated dogs bark throughout their lifetimes, wild adult dogs do not routinely bark. One popular theory is that domesticated dogs were bred for tameness, which as a result selected for dogs that never reached full maturity. The upshot of this is that our domesticated dogs are trapped in a state of suspended adolescence. They're more or less trapped in puppyhood, an age where all dogs, wild and domestic, bark, play, lick, and most important of all, don't kill, which is an important trait for the family pet.

• 55:21Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  And send an article from TampaBay.com.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  Why Dogs, Why Do Dogs Bark from 1991? Love the show. That is from Peter Vonier. V O N I E R, Vonier.

• 55:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, either one of those will work depending on whether you're in France or not.

• 55:43Speaker 02

  And Peter's a PhD in owl oncology research.

• 55:47Josh Clark?

  Awesome. With an interest in dog barking.

• 55:51Speaker 02

  Sounds like Peter just is interested in stuff, which is our favorite kind of listener.

• 55:54Josh Clark?

  Yes, that is a die-in-the-wool-stuff-you-should-know listener. Thanks a lot, Peter. That was a very interesting email and we appreciate it. Belated congratulations on your PhD. If you want to get in touch with us like Peter did, you can send us an email, right Chuck?

• 56:09Speaker 02

  You surely can, and you might get a response even.

• 56:11Josh Clark?

  Yep. Or you might end up on listener mail. Who knows?

• 56:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I try to answer these.

• 56:16Josh Clark?

  Why don't you roll the dice and find out by sending your email to [email protected]?

• 56:26Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 56:42Josh Clark?

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• 57:13Speaker 04

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• 58:03Speaker 04

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