SYMHC Classics: The Flannan Isles Disappearance

This 2013 episode delves into a maritime history mystery. The Flannan Islands have been rumored for centuries to be haunted or have some supernatural darkness. In 1900, three men vanished from the lighthouse on Eilean Mor, leaving behind an unfinished meal and a mystery that's never been conclusively solved.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, Happy Saturday everybody. Today we are revisiting a history mystery,
and that's the case of the flann and Niles disappearance,
in which several lighthousekeepers all simply vanished. We will probably
never know exactly what happened to these men, but this
episode gets into some of the possible causes that have
been proposed over the years. Enjoying Welcome to stuff you

(00:25):
missed in history class from house stuff Works dot com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. My name is Holly fro
and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson, and today we're going to
talk about another maritime mystery which I know a lot
of our listeners have written when we've talked about ship

(00:46):
bricks and they really enjoy them. But this one does
not involve a ship. It involves them, but in a
sort of way. Uh it doesn't center around a ship
at all, but in fact a lighthouse. Yes, uh so,
just for a little bit of background. The Flannin Islands,
also called the Flannin Aisles, are named after a sixth
century Irish bishop who is storied to have brought good

(01:08):
fortune to everything and everyone he touched in the Flannin Aisles,
which are off the coast of Scotland have been rumored
for centuries to be haunted by either c spirits or
other supernatural powers. But the event that we're talking about
today is uh an incident that happened in nineteen hundred.
Construction of the Flannin Lighthouse ran from eighteen ninety six

(01:31):
to eighteen ninety nine and it costs seven thousand pounds
to build. David Stevenson was a relative of Robert Louis
Stevenson and he was the person who designed it, and
the contractor on the job was named George Lawson. The
lighthouse officially started its duties in December of eighteen ninety nine,
and the lighthouse was owned by the Northern Lighthouse Board

(01:52):
in Edinburgh, which is a company that at the time
owned and operated more than six dozen lighthouses and employed
six hundred men. That company does still exist today, but
that was those were its stats at the time. The
lighthouse was built on Eilean Moore, which is the largest
of the seven islands that make up the Flannins, and
these are also called the Seven Hunters Eileen Morrise. It's

(02:14):
about eighteen miles from Gallon Head on the west coast
of Louis in the Outer Hebrides. This area, prior to
their being a lighthouse, there had been extremely dangerous for
merchant ships. Uh. And so that's really why there was
calls for a lighthouse to be built. And for stats
on the lighthouse itself, it was seventy ft tall. It

(02:34):
still is. In fact, it stands at the top of
a hundred and fifty ft cliff and it's a pretty
sheer drop off to kind of raging waters between the islands.
And when it was built, it produced one hundred thousand
candle power and it flashed twice every thirty seconds. Uh.
And those flashes were visible theoretically for a radius of
twenty miles. It was built to be incredibly sturdy, and

(02:58):
it really had to be because it was sitting there
on a rocky cliff in the North Atlantic. An aside
from the lighthouse keepers, there were no other inhabitants on
the Flannens. If you look at pictures of them, there
is pretty much empty desolate rock. They're they're very small
and there's not really much you could do with that
lands desolate in a beautiful, very remote The wildlife in

(03:20):
that area there is some of it's really unique it's
a very pretty area, but yeah, not so hospitable for
people to make their lives there. No, there was always
a list of men willing to work the lighthouse, and
it used a rotating schedule of two weeks shifts. The
duties of the men who were employed there by the
Northern Lighthouse Board included polishing the lenses every day, keeping

(03:42):
the mechanics working and clean, maintaining the buildings, and generally
keeping the place tidy. And because of the lack of
radio contact at the time, the Northern Lighthouse Board had
actually made a deal with a gamekeeper on the island
of Lewis named Roderick Mackenzie, in which they would pay
him eight per year to keep an eye on the lighthouse,
and he was instructed to report to the board's headquarters

(04:04):
if the light ever went out. So in mid December
of nineteen hundred, the lighthouse was manned by three people.
There was James Ducat the principal. He was forty three
and he had two decades of lighthouse experience. He was
also married and had four children. His second assistant was
Thomas Marshall and he was twenty eight and not married.

(04:28):
Then Donald MacArthur was an occasional keeper and he was
serving an alternate. He was serving for William Ross, who
was the first assistant and was out on sick leave.
So Donald was forty and married. And on December fifteenth,
nine hundred, an American vessel, the s S. Arch Tour,
which was on route from Philadelphia to Leith, passed by

(04:51):
Eileen Moore just before midnight, and the captain of that vessel,
Captain Holman uh noted that there was no light emanating
from the lighthouse, and when the arch Tour made port
three days later, he reported that missing light to the
port authorities, but for some reason, that information was never
relayed to the Northern Lighthouse Board at that time. It

(05:11):
just kind of died on the vine. And also in
the for some reason category gamekeeper Mackenzie also hadn't reported
the outage to the board. Will actually come back to
why that may have been the case in a bit,
but uh so that had been again on December fifteenth,
and then they reported it three days later, but it
wasn't until December that some someone arrives to check out

(05:35):
the situation, and on that day Captain James Harvey, who
was aboard the Northern Lighthouse board boat, the s s
Hesperus approached Eileen Moore, and on board with him was
a man who had been intended to replace one of
the three men stationed at the Flannin Lighthouse, so he
was going to be a shift change and they were
going to rotate one man out. The Hesperus had actually
been originally scheduled to make the relief personnel switched on

(05:57):
December twenty, but because of advert whether they weren't able
to stick to their schedule and they were delayed by
several days. At this point, the lighthouse had been dark
for eleven days and people were really worried about what
was going on. No one welcomed Harvey's boat at the
landing stage, so the captain at first he blew the
ship's whistle uh and siren, and then he fired at

(06:20):
a stress signal repeatedly so that he could alert the
keepers of his arrival. But no response ever came. No
one came down from the lighthouse relief keeper Joseph Moore
road Ashore. He went up the cliff steps to the lighthouse,
and it's worth noting that because no one was at
the landing stage to help them, he had to kind
of back into the landing and jump ashore. So this

(06:43):
was a tricky maneuver and possibly dangerous. More made his
way to the lighthouse and he proceeded initially to the kitchen,
and there he found a few things that were a
little off. He found an overturned chair, the remains of
an unfinished meal, and a clock which stopped. And that
clock comes up a lot. This being one of those

(07:05):
history mysteries, some people want to give it some sort
of supernatural element, like the clock stopped, but remember clocks
had to be wound at this time, so that's that's
really not a hint at anything supernatural going on. It
had wound down. Yes, the beds were all made, the

(07:31):
fire grate was cold, and Moore went on to investigate
the rest of the lighthouse, but he couldn't find the keepers.
There was a pet canary in a cage which appeared
not to have been fed for a while. The lighthouse mechanism, though,
appeared to be fully functional, so there was no mechanical
problem that would cause it to go out. And Joseph

(07:52):
Moore wrote a letter and his own description of the
incident two days after this, which was on December, and
in it he says, on entering the kitchen, I looked
at the fireplace and saw that the fire was not
lighted for some days. I then entered the rooms in succession,
found the beds empty, just as they left them in
the early morning. I did not take time to search further,

(08:13):
for I only too well knew something serious had occurred.
I darted out and made for the landing. When I
reached there, I informed Mr McCormick as an aside. Mr
McCormick was the second mate of the Hesperus. I informed
Mr McCormick that the place was deserted. He with some
of the men came up a second time so as
to make sure, But unfortunately the first impression was only

(08:34):
too true. So after more reported back to the Hesperus
that he couldn't find any sign of life at the lighthouse.
More men from the boat joined him and started a
thorough search of the small island, and there was no
trace of the three missing men. So Joseph Moore, along
with three volunteers, which included Um and Alan McDonald who

(08:56):
was a boy master, and two seamen, Mr Lamont and
Mr Campbell, remained on the island to keep the lighthouse
in operation. While the investigation continued. Because while this mystery
slash tragedy had occurred, they still had to warn ships
away from the rocks. Captain Harvey sent a telegram to
the Northern Lighthouse Board telling them about the tragedy and

(09:17):
UH letting them know that arrangements had been made for
the lighthouse. And then on December twenty nine, so three
days after the initial discovery, UH Board Superintendent Robert and
Ware had arrived at Eileen Moore to probe the matter,
and he made arrangements for a new crew for the
interim management of the lighthouse station, and then he set

(09:38):
to the business of investigation. He went through the lighthouse
again looking for for clues, but he couldn't find anything
suspicious aside from the overturned chair and the abandoned meal,
and the last slate entry, which was written on the
morning of December fift had not yet been transferred to
the log. So we've talked about this before, where often
there's the book log, but what will often happen is

(10:00):
on a chalk boarder of slate, they'll write down log
entries before they transfer them down. It's kind of like
an interim step. So that last slate entry not in
the log um included no extraordinary information. It was you know,
standard barometer, thermometer readings and then notes about the wind conditions,
but nothing jumped out as odd. The work that would

(10:21):
have been done the morning of the fifteenth had all
been done from weird heads of report. The lamp was crimmed,
the oil fountains and canteens were filled up, and the
lens and machinery cleaned, which proved that the work of
the fift had been completed. So the afternoon of the
fifte was pinpointed as the probable time of the disappearance.

(10:41):
And uh it was also noticed that only one set
of wet weather gear was remaining in the building, and
that was MacArthur's, which meant that Ducotton Marshall had been
wearing their's. And it also you know, suggested that MacArthur
went out in his shirt sleeves, which further suggested a
possible emergency situation because remember it's December, yes, well and

(11:04):
then sort of imagine the Atlantic, yes, the it's like.
The logical conclusion is two men were outside in their
wet weather gear. MacArthur was inside getting ready to eat,
knocked over the chair in his haste to exit. That's
sort of seems like a logical progression of events, but
we don't really know. According to lighthouse regulations, all three

(11:25):
keepers were not supposed to be outside at the same time.
Somebody always had to stay put inside the lighthouse, so
something had caused them to break with their procedure. There
was coiled rope discovered strewn about the rocks below the
crane platform, but the crane was secured, so that rope
was not in use when the men disappeared, and the
railings there were bent out of shape. There was also

(11:48):
a block of stone that was estimated to wait at
least a ton that had been dislodged from the cliff
wall and had fallen onto the landing stage. Normally, all
of this rope would have been stored in a box
near the crane, but the box itself was missing. In
the superintendence report, he stated quote the ropes were strewn
in the crevices of the rocks near the crane platform

(12:10):
and entangled among the crane legs, but they were all
coiled up, no single coil being found unfastened, so it
didn't really look like the ropes had been uncoiled in
some sort of rescue effort. Yeah. I think a lot
of times when you read accounts of this incident when
they say that the ropes were strewn about it in
my head the first time I read about it, I

(12:31):
was like, Oh, they must have unfurled the ropes to
try to reach someone. But then when you read wareheads report,
it clearly says like, no, no, they were still all
tied tight. They had just fallen out of their box.
They were sort of scattered haphazard more scattered. Yeah. Uh.
And there had also been a life boy that had
been fastened to the railings and it was gone, But
it appeared to have been swept away rather than used

(12:53):
for an emergency evacuation, because the fastening ropes that would
have held it were still in place and time aid
with bits of canvas still attached to them, So it
looked much more like a breakage than anyone had cut
or unfurled them. We're Head's assessment. Uh. Theorized that three
men probably tried to secure the wooden box during some

(13:15):
rough weather and then were swept away by a large
wave while they were trying to work. He wired his
findings to his superiors and then called the widows of
Duckett and MacArthur in his report, where Head notes that
Joseph Moore was severely shaken by the events that had
happened to Eileen Moore and stated quote, if this nervousness

(13:36):
does not leave more, he will be he will require
to be transferred. But I am reluctant to recommend this,
as I would desire to have one man at least
who knows the work of the station. So at that point,
because the other three men were gone, uh, he wanted
someone on shift who was familiar with that particular lighthouse
and its workings. He also investigated the seeming negligence of

(13:58):
the gamekeeper mckenns. So, as we talked about earlier in
the podcast, the light had been out for a while,
he hadn't said anything about it. After first talking to
Mackenzie's sons and then with Mackenzie himself and discovering that
the light had not been seen between December seven and
twenty nine, he reported quote Mackenzie stated, and I have

(14:20):
since verified this. The lights sometimes cannot be seen for
four or five consecutive nights. But he was beginning to
be anxious at not seeing it for such a long period,
and had for two nights prior to its reappearance been
getting the assistance of the natives to see if it
could be discerned. Had the lookout been kept by an
ordinary lightkeeper, I believe it would have struck the man

(14:42):
ashore at an earlier period that something was amiss, And
while this would not have prevented the lamentable occurrence taking place,
it would have enabled steps to have been taken to
have the light re lit at an earlier date. So
he's basically shocking all of this up to the fact
that Mackenzie was not an experienced lighthousekeeper. It was it
was a problem of inexperience rather than just falling down

(15:03):
on the job, right. Uh. Yeah, And Mackenzie, it turned out,
had kept records and had noted these you know, times
when the lights would go dim but they always came back.
So so that was Weareheads report. And as Tracy mentioned earlier,

(15:24):
based on the weather proof gear being gone, it seems
like two men went out to do something, something took
place in a third men left, which is basically kind
of what We're Head suggests. But despite that report, uh,
there are some sticking points that bother people that really
love a good mystery and to theorize about other things.
And some of those sticking points include number one, none

(15:47):
of the bodies ever washed back on shore, and as
the second one, the men were generally fairly experienced semen
and lighthousekeepers, it would be odd for them to be
taken unawares by a wave. However, freak waves do happen
in the North Atlantic, as they do in other bodies
of water, so it's conceivable that they could have just
been surprised by a water wall whipping up. It's also

(16:10):
really not addressed why one of them would have been
out in the december wet weather without his wet weather
gear on. Yeah, although you know, there are lots of
theories that pretty quickly explained that away. It's it seems
pretty logical and believable that if there were a dire
emergency somebody could run out without their coat on. Uh.

(16:31):
And while the tipped chair and the abandoned meal found
in the kitchen suggested an emergency, the gate and the
door to the lighthouse were actually closed when Joseph Moore
first arrived there, which seems contradictory initially, but uh, many
have kind of written that off as it being entirely
possible that the wind just blew them shut. It is
a very windy area. Another problem was that the weather

(16:54):
on the day of the last entry in the lighthouse
log and the first time the light was noted to
be missing, which December fift that had been a clear day.
There were storms the day after, but not on the fifteenth,
So again, if it were a weather thing, it would
have to have been a freak wave. So because there
are just enough question marks still on this story. Uh,

(17:16):
many other theories and stories grew out of the mystery
to had to explain what had happened to the keepers,
And we'll do a short list of them, and some
of them are very funny, but again, remember the three
men didn't lose their lives. But some of these really
are outlandish. I find all of them to be very silly. Yeah. Uh.
One is that a foreign power had landed and captured

(17:38):
the men, because lighthouse keepers or who you want to
take prisoner totally spaceships. Spaceships, they really there were people
theorizing the aliens had landed. Also ghosts and alcoholic murder, suicide.
My favorite the c monster theory that some sort of
ce monster had come out of the North Atlantic and
dragged them off. That they okay, this one's not actually funny,

(18:02):
but that maybe they were lost trying to help a
vessel that was in distress. Yeah, although to the best
of my knowledge, there are no records of a distressed
vessel happening at the same time. Uh. And the last
one on our list, but there are more is that
they were carried off by giant birds. That there are
only two things on this list that seemed remotely to

(18:24):
the murder, suicide or the lost wall. Yeah. Yeah, trying
to help another vessel, yeah, yeah, most people agree. I
think that one or two of the men likely went
out to the landing stage to secure something, probably this
box with the ropes in it, and UH was swept

(18:44):
away one or both of them, and that the room
whoever was remaining went out to help and got swept away. Also.
At the end of his report, which was dated January nine,
Superintendent Muir had said, I was with the keepers for
more than a month during the summer of when everyone
worked hard to secure the early lighting of the station

(19:06):
before winter, and working along with them, I appreciated the
manner in which they performed their work. I visited Flannon
Islands when the relief was made so lately is seventh December,
and have the melancholy recollection that I was the last
person to shake hands with them and bid them ado. Yeah,
that's uh. Sort of an interesting point that adds color

(19:28):
to this whole story is that we're had knew all
of these men personally. He wasn't just like a big
wig from the company that came to look things over
and write his report. He was investigating the deaths of
men that he knew and appeared to have really liked.
If you read his report, he really says very good
things about them, even beyond that that brief bit that

(19:48):
Tracy just read. So it's a little bit extra melancholy
to think of him, you know, having to investigate the
death of people who were basically his friends, uh and
born of this tragic incident. There have been a couple
of interesting pieces of art. One is a poem entitled
Flanning Isle, which was written in nineteen twelve by Wilfred
Wilson Gibson, and it uh tells the tale of a

(20:10):
mystical force that turned the men into sea birds. There
is another story that goes along with the landing of
the Hesperus and Joseph Moore's exploration. That says that Joseph
more allegedly saw these three odd birds on the island
when he first landed on December six, and that story
is what provides the inspiration for that poem. The opera

(20:31):
The Lighthouse, composed by Sir Peter Maxwell Davis, was also
inspired by the vanishing at Flannon Isles. It debuted at
the Edinburgh Festival. In this version becomes more about the
tension among the three men trapped together at the lighthouse. Yeah,
it almost goes along with the alcoholic murder suicide theory.

(20:51):
I have not actually seen that opera, but it seems
to be much more about interpersonal communication in the drama
of that Uh, and the flat and lighthouse still stands.
It remained manned peacefully and without incidents, so for all
of the stories of the islands being haunted didn't seem
to have any effect on the functioning of the lighthouse. UH.

(21:12):
It continued to be manned by a crew until September twenty,
nineteen seventy one, and at that point the lighthouse at
Eileen Moore became what's called a major automatic light, so
it's fully automated, it's unmanned. Uh. It receives maintenance visits
and annual inspections, but it doesn't have a crew that
stays there. In two thousand, the three lost lighthouse keepers
were commemorated in a ceremony attended by residents, relatives, and

(21:36):
officials from the Northern Lighthouse Board. And mystery levers, of course,
still bandy about theories as to what really happened on
December fifteenth of nineteen hundred, although I think most historians,
except some variation and weareheads, report that it was really
just sort of a an unfortunate accident that happened while
trying to secure something at the crane and the landing stage.

(21:59):
I think I would have liked to have been a lighthousekeeper.
You think, allegedly this one of the reasons they always
have people wanting the job is that compared to other
jobs at the time, it was a pretty sweet deal
when you had to be away from your family, but
you you know, basically got free room and board. During
that time. It wasn't particularly horrible or arduous work. If

(22:19):
you had any experience with the sea, it probably seemed
pretty easy. By comparison, so it was a really good
job to have all those solitary jobs that don't really
exist anymore, like lighthousekeeper or the people who manned fire
watch towers in florests. Like all of those want them.
They're pretty appealing to see the appeal of them, but
I would go a little crazy after a bit. Yeah,

(22:41):
I think. Thank you so much for joining us on
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that might be out of date now, you can email
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(23:03):
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