Canada Post issued a strange stamp in 2014. It depicts a burning ship on the crest of a wave. A brand from the Paranormal Canada series is dedicated to the ghost ships that terrified the inhabitants of the Atlantic coast.
Flame over the strait
In the Northumberland Strait, which separates Prince Edward Island from the mainland, over 4,500 ships were lost. The locals do not know which of the ships turned into a flaming ghost, but no one doubts its existence.
“It was a beautiful day at the end of September,” a resident of the village of Murray Harbor told reporters. - It was calm, the sun was shining. Then I saw a ship sailing in the distance. He was approaching. Never in my life have I seen such a beautiful sailing ship. I called my friend Fred to admire him too. But in some ways it was different from other ships. The sails were white and the hull was coal black. He began to slow down and stopped in front of our house. There was no one on board.
In about ten minutes smoke began to rise over the ship, and from somewhere below, apparently from the hold, sailors appeared. They darted about the deck. Then a flame appeared, and the team began to climb the masts. No sooner had they reached the middle than all the sails were engulfed in fire. I never saw the sailors disappearing behind the fiery shroud. The flames consumed everything that rose above the deck, and then went out. The black hull began to sink and sank.
I ran to my brother to tell about the disaster, but he calmly said: "Have you forgotten about the ghost ship?"
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Residents of those places know that even in winter, when the Northumberland Strait freezes over, ice does not prevent the ghost from gliding silently over it. Once the crew of a real ship that was frozen solid (the inexperienced captain underestimated the situation) saw a flaming sailing ship instead of the icebreaker coming to the rescue. Panic arose: the sailors thought that the ghost was coming right at them. The burning ship disappeared at the very side, harming no one.
There is no one to save
The fiery ghost is seen not only during the day, but also in the dark. Clifton Ince, an old-timer from Desable, showed the researchers a diary entry:
“October 14, 1914. My father and brother and I saw a ghost ship at sea. The sailboat, engulfed in flames, continued to sail. The fire from time to time extinguished, leaving visible the hull glowing with red coals, and again flared up, outlining the masts against the background of the night sky.
“I came to the island to talk to someone who saw a burning ship,” said Julia Watson, author of the book "Ghost Stories and Legends of Prince Edward Island." “There were so many witnesses that I had to choose whose stories were worth recording. The inhabitants of the island do not raise the alarm, do not call the coast guard - they know that there is no one to save on such sailboats.
The lights of St. Elmo?
Canadian scientist William Francis Ganon (1864-1941) heard about the burning ship of the Chaleur Bay at the beginning of the last century. His lecture, read at the Natural History Society, was published in 1907: “It is impossible to live long in the Chaleur district and not hear about the fiery ghost ship. Until recently, I considered this to be pure fiction, but I changed my mind after twice visiting Shaler and questioning many people. Now I believe that in fact there is some kind of natural phenomenon that appears to observers in the form of a ship engulfed in flames.
It is usually seen at night, both in summer and winter, when the surface of the bay is covered with ice. Sometimes he looks brighter than usual and appears to be dancing over the water. A resident of Grande Anse, Joseph Poirier, saw it so bright that flames appeared on the walls of the houses.
Most of all, Ganon was interested in the story of Captain Robert Wilson, who saw the ghost several times. Once he was able to approach it from the windward side at a distance of at least a hundred meters and saw "something like a hemisphere lying flat on the water, or a vessel with a bowsprit, but without any masts and the like, shining like hot coals."
William suggested that an electrical corona discharge was ignited over the bay - the lights of St. Elmo. However, the ghost ship was seen not only ablaze, but sailing under full sail.
Herald of trouble
Locals believe that this portends an imminent misfortune in the family of an eyewitness.
“In June 1912, when I was 12 years old, I saw a giant sailing ship between two rocky headlands,” said Joseph Como from Carlton. - I shouted: "Dad, look, there is a ship!", Father was silent for a long time, and then said: "My child, this is a fiery ghost, take a closer look at him." A huge ship with dark gray sails covered with white spots was no more than a hundred meters from us. It seemed like a monolithic mass - I didn't see the steering wheel or other details. I couldn’t see any people either, but I noticed some black shadows on the deck that looked like barrels. The ship passed quickly. After 10-15 minutes, already far in the Shaler Bay, it broke into pieces. A huge wave swept away the debris.
At dinner, my father said: “The year I first saw this ship, my father died. When I saw him for the second time, a brother died on the Klondike. This time I don't know who will die this year. My little sister passed away in October.
Tell your meanness to the tide
Legend has it that in 1500 the territory of the future Canada was visited by the ship of the Portuguese captain Gaspar Cortereal. He lured the Indians aboard and got them drunk. When they woke up, they found themselves in chains. In Portugal, Gaspar sold the unfortunate into slavery.
The following year, the captain decided to repeat the dastardly trick elsewhere. He anchored near an island in the Gulf of Chaleur and began to trade with the Indians. The sailor did not take into account that his treachery became known to the natives. At night, the Indians killed all the sailors, and the captain was captured. After being tortured, Gaspar was tied to a rock.
“Sit down and think about what you've done,” they said. “Then tell the tide about it.
The rising water rose to the hapless captain's throat. The dying man's cry turned to a gurgle and was cut off as the tide flooded the rock.
Two years later, Miguel Cortereal set out to find his brother. He saw Gaspard's ship, still at anchor, and approached without fear. But there was an ambush on board the Portuguese.
The Indians killed most of the crew that did not expect an attack. Miguel with the surviving sailors locked himself in the wheelhouse. Gunpowder stocks have run out. Miguel decided to give the Indians one last fight. Someone from the crew set fire to the ship so as not to leave it in the hands of the Redskins. Instead of throwing themselves overboard, the attackers climbed up the masts and burned down. The wounded and dying Portuguese were unable to leave the ship and died with it. The ghost of the flaming ship still haunts the Gulf of Shaleur, reminding of the drama that was unfolding.
The death of "Young Teaser"
A third flaming vessel is often seen off Mahone Bay on the shores of Nova Scotia. The ghost appears like a ball of fire, transforms into a ship and disappears in a blinding flash. Sometimes he skips the middle phase: a fireball flares up in the darkness of the night and floods everything with streams of light.
Locals believe the bay is visited by the ghost of the American marque Young Teaser. It operated in the British rear during the Anglo-American War of 1812-1815, capturing merchant ships. With each hijacked ship, the Young Teaser crew melted away: it took several men to send the booty home. By June 1813, there were almost no sailors left on it.
On June 27, the British battleship Hoge and the frigate Orpheus drove the Americans into Mahone Bay. The pursuers had 110 cannons against two on board the privateers, but the British decided to board the enemies. Young Teaser captain William Dobson assembled his small team to plan the defense.
Lieutenant Frederick Johnson said resistance was futile and rushed into the powder magazine. A minute later, there was an explosion that tore the Young Teaser to pieces. It was so powerful that window panes were shattered in a nearby town. The British only had to catch a few miraculously surviving sailors.
“A year later, a burning ship first appeared in Mahone Bay,” says Pat Hancock, author of The Ghosts of Canada. “Since then, hundreds of people have seen it. Some were at sea when the ship came out of nowhere. Sometimes the sailors thought that he was going to ram. At the last second, the ship disappeared. Sometimes the ship went so close to the shore that eyewitnesses could make out the sailors on its deck. But usually the ghost appeared in the form of a sailing ship engulfed in flames. Some even said that they heard the screams of sailors burning alive."
Burning ships cannot be records of ancient disasters, imprinted in the depths of space and time. They are not tied to a specific place, they float in any direction, react intelligently to the situation. The stories of fireballs that precede the appearance of ghosts also make one think. One captain chased the burning ship midnight, but it kept the same distance in front of the ship. Then the "flaming body" split into three parts, which turned into three balls. They combined into a large ball that disappeared at dawn. UFOs behave in much the same way. Until the mystery of the burning ships is solved, we cannot reject even the hypothesis of a holographic projection created by aliens.