Five-Masted Schooner Found Aground Off Carolina With Sails Set and Crew Gone

OFF THE NORTH CAROLINA COAST — The waters off North Carolina, long known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, are the setting for one of the sea's more perplexing puzzles, according to a preview article published by Ancient Pages and credited to Ellen Lloyd.

The piece describes a large five-masted schooner lost in winter. Lookouts who spotted the stranded vessel, it says, saw every sail fully set, as though someone had deliberately driven the ship onto the sand.

When rescuers climbed aboard, the article states, they found that the entire crew had vanished without a trace. The preview adds that investigators made what it calls an eerie discovery in the galley, but it does not say what they found.

The author goes on to say that the crew's final days involved a bizarre radio broadcast and suspicious activity witnessed by a coastal lightship. Federal authorities, it claims, were completely baffled by the investigation that followed.

The vessel's sole survivor, according to the headline, can never reveal what happened, and the text says that the survivor's story brings us no closer to the truth. The identity of the ship and the nature of the survivor are not given in the portion available to the public.

The remainder of the article is reserved for paying members of the site. Readers seeking the full account, or the name of the vessel, will need to consult it directly. Related pieces linked beneath the preview concern the Great Dismal Swamp and another ship found with no crew.