A MYSTERY OF THE SEA EXPLAINED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1973, 6 May 1919, Page 1

A MYSTERY OF THE SEA EXPLAINED.

A number of years ago a vessel named the Marie Celeste was found drifting about on a calm sea without a soul aboard. A fire was burning in the galley, however, and culinary operations evidently had been suddenly interrupted. A woman’s sewing was in place under the needle of a sewing machine, and a spool of thread stood delicately poised on the edge of the machine. An ample supply of food and water was found in the lockers; apparently there had been no plague aboard, for the ship’s log bore no entry concerning any illness; there was nothing to indicate that any disorder or any struggle of any kind had taken place, and there had been no storm for many days. The question, therefore, was: What had become of the crew and-passengers if any passengers were aboard? Who or what had carried them off so suddenly, what catastrophe could have swept them all away without damaging the ship or leaving something to serve as a clue, or how could all have destroyed themselves and why should they have done so? These questions, which are much dismissed to this day by seafaring men, have never been answered, and (lie ease of the Mario Celeste is catalogued among the baffling mysteries of the deep. Sir P. L. Rees, of Toronto, has now advanced the following ingenious theory, which would seem to account for some of the most puzzling features of the ease, which is something that no previous suggestion has done. He writes; —

A peculiar slender object, like ;ui iron pipe projecting a short distance above the surface of the sea was one day described by those aboard the Marie Celeste. R moved ramd!y through the water, and as it drew nearer, the look-out, greatly astonished and puzzled, called the captain. The latter took a good look, aval thou called all hands to see the strange phenomenon. As they watched there was a wild, furious swirling of the water, and (hey were amazed to sec a long, slimy black body arise from the sea. There was a rattle of machinery, the strange body gradually came to a halt, and with a metallic rattle a door in a tower which rose from the upper side opened, disclosing a man in naval uniform. Having supposed that the sea at that point was completely deserted, this man, actually

a sailor of the German navy, was greatly surprised and not a little alarmed, and he lost no time in calling his superior officer, who thus communed with himself:

“The All Highest” wishes omwonderful submarine to remain a secret to all the world outside of Germany until “the day.” Now, unless I act quickly and prevent these people from reporting what they have seen all the world will soon know the secret. There is only one thing we can do —make prisoners of every man, woman and child on that ship, then destroy her, “sperlos versenkt,” “Deutschland über alles.”

Accordingly all aboard Ihe Marie ’Celeste were taken off and placed in the underwater vessel; but before the surface craft could be destroyed the submarine’s lookout sounded an alarm, and reported that another surface vessel was approaching. In terror of being discovered by those aboard this second ship, and being unable to dispose of them as had been done in