The mystery of the three missing lighthouse keepers Eilean Mor has finally made it to Hollywood.
In 2018, The Vanishing was filmed based on this story with Gerard Butler, and by March 2019, the film had finally reached the UK, where the story took place.
Still from the movie * Disappearance * (2018).
True, not much remains of the real story in the film. In reality, no one ever found out what happened to the three lighthouse keepers and where they disappeared, and the film tells about this in detail and not at all from a mystical point of view. According to the authors of the film, the whole thing turns out to be in gold and human greed, and the ocean has always coped with the problem of absorbing human bodies perfectly.
The story in the film keeps the viewer in suspense until the very end, but the details of the real incident contain so many truly unusual mysteries unanswered that it seems like a waste of time and material to create an ordinary action movie out of it.
And now the real story
Promotional video:
Even before the construction of the lighthouse on the tiny islet of Eileen More in the Outer Hebrides (Scotland) archipelago, locals opposed it. They said that the lighthouse would anger St. Flann and there would be a great cataclysm. On one of the islets nearby, there is still a dilapidated chapel of St. Flann, an Irish monk who lived there in the 7th century AD.
Even centuries after his death, local residents were afraid of these places. Shepherds sometimes brought their sheep here to graze, but they themselves never stayed here for the night.
Nevertheless, the lighthouse was built and a year later, in December 1900, three caretakers were on duty: Thomas Marshall, Donald MacArthur and James Ducat. Until December 15, everything was fine, and then the captain of the cargo ship "Arcturus" announced that the lighthouse on Eileen Mor had ceased to shine. Later, other captains of ships sailing past the island said the same.
On December 16, the commander Joseph Moore was going to sail to the island, but because of the storm that began, he was delayed for 10 days. Moore was only able to get to the island on December 26. He knew all three caretakers well, two of whom were experienced employees, so he understood that if the lighthouse was still off, something really serious had happened.
And he was right, no one met him at the pier, and when he walked to the lighthouse, he did not find anyone there, and the windows and doors were locked. Inside, too, everything was in order, except for the neatly overturned kitchen table. It is curious that the other table, the dining one, was safe and sound, and there were even plates on it.
There were no people anywhere inside, and the last log entry was dated December 15th and said the storm was finally over.
Along the way, Moore spotted three large black birds sitting low on the lighthouse and closely watching his every move.
Returning to the ship, Moore said that it was necessary to search the island and find the missing rangers. With the help of three sailors, he searched every crevice on the island, but found no one. But he discovered new riddles.
First, they saw that the lamps of the lighthouse had already been filled with oil and cut the wicks, but the fire was never lit, as if the person who was doing this was suddenly distracted by something and never came back.
Secondly, someone destroyed the eastern pier, which was rarely used. Steel handrails were ripped out of concrete and twisted (what power the unknown thug had!), The supply box bore the marks of blows like from a large hammer, and all the things from it were scattered on the stones.
Third, someone moved a huge piece of granite rock at the top of the hill. He weighed at least a ton.
When the sailors sailed away, Moore decided to stay at the lighthouse for a few days for a detailed inspection, and these days he spent in a very frightening and tense atmosphere. At some point it even seemed to him that he hears from somewhere the voices of the missing caretakers. The call was so insistent that Moore even jumped out and began to shout back. And at some point it seemed to him that someone had answered his calls.
During these days, Moore studied the log entries in detail and found the December 15 storm entry very strange. He was sure that there were no storms in this area either on December 14 or 15. The storm began a day later - December 16.
On December 29, the head of the Scottish Lighthouse Administration, Robert Muirhead, arrived on the island, and the mysteries of the disappearance of the caretakers worried him much less than the need to pay compensation to their families.
He concluded that the violation of job descriptions caused all three of them to have been washed into the ocean during the storm as they were fortifying the supply crate on the east wharf.
This version did not explain how the three men went to the pier to strengthen the box without warm clothes (and it was December!), Because all their jackets and sweaters remained inside the lighthouse. However, Muirhead did not pay attention to these details.
Moore worked in shifts as the caretaker of this lighthouse for another three months, after which he finally lost his nerves and he quit. Now the Eileen Mor lighthouse works automatically without the presence of people.
Over the years, local residents have developed their own legends about this event. Someone assured that the three caretakers were turned by fairies into large black birds - the same ones that Moore had seen at the lighthouse. Others said that all three were kidnapped by the crew of a foreign ship for seeing something forbidden.
The American paranormal writer Victor Hayes Gaddis was convinced that the mysterious storm in magazine inscriptions was caused by a supernatural dark force.
Also, it was Gaddis who, in his book in 1965, reported on more entries in the journal, the authenticity of which has not been confirmed since then, but has not been denied, because the lighthouse journal disappeared under unexplained circumstances shortly after the incident.
These notes preceded the storm records and were also unusual: on December 12, Marshal's handwriting read "Dukat is annoyed", on December 13 he wrote "Dukat is calm, MacArthur is crying." On December 14, the entry read "Dukat, MacArthur, and I Prayed."
Thus, it turned out that something incomprehensible happened to these people between December 7, when they were last seen alive, and December 15, when the lighthouse did not light up.