Why Have So Many People Seen Ghost Ships?

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For thousands of years, people have reported seeing ghost ships. From the Flying Dutchman to the Palatine to the Noah's Dove, sailors and passengers and landlubbers alike have long sworn they've seen something haunted out on the seas. But why? Turns out, there's some real explanations. Come learn with me!

00:00 Introduction
02:33 Sponsor
04:27 Some ghost ship stories
24:18 Why we see ghost ships
33:10 credits

I'm on TikTok @ kazrowe

Filmed using:

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Sources

The White Ships and the Red by Joyce Kilmer

The Palatine Wreck: The Legend of the New England Ghost Ship By Jill Farinelli

Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew By Brian Hicks

Phantom Bark: The Chronotope of the Ghost Ship in the Atlantic World by Julia Mix Barrington

Ghost ships, gales, and forgotten tales : true adventures of the Great Lakes By Wes Oleszewski

True Ghost Stories: Hauntings at Sea: Real Haunted Ships, Boats, Oceans and Beaches by Zachery Knowles

New Tales of American Phantom Ships by Henry Winfred Splitter

Haunting the Wide, White Page – Ghosts in Antarctica by Johanna Grabow

Haunted Houses, Sinking Ships: Race, Architecture, and Identity in Beloved and Middle Passage by Samira Kawash

California Ghosts by Rosalie Hankey

The Ghosts of New York: An Analytical Study by Louis C. Jones

Mail Order Magic: The Commerical Exploitation of Folk Belief by Loudell F. Snow

[swaghettiartz]

I find it so amazing that boats are probably one of the oldest things to exist. From Polynesian Voyagers, Ancient Greek/Rome sea battles to medieval times, warships in World War II to now. History is so crazy man.

[k_rinabeena]

the way kaz always got both the facts And aesthetics on point 😳 one of my fave channels to watch

[lizabee]

This video, when combined with Ask The Mortician’s “The Lake That Never Gives Up Her Dead, ” and Jacob Geller’s recent “Fear of Big Things Underwater, ” makes for a truly *impeccable* triple feature. 😍 Would HIGHLY recommend the experience! Amazing job as always Kaz! I might be stealing that makeup look to incorporate into my own spooky sea related look later this season, provided you don’t mind of course.

[natmorse-noland]

I went to school on Lake Superior, which is notoriously dangerous to ships. My favorite story is that of the SS Kamloops, which foundered in a blizzard. It turns out that some of the passengers managed to escape in a lifeboat, only to be marooned on Isle Royale without food, fire, or shelter. They sadly froze to death, but not before one of them wrote a message in a bottle and cast it into the lake, where it was eventually found.

The Kamloops is still at the bottom of the lake, and one of her crewmembers is still with her: Old Whitey, who's called that because the freezing conditions of the lake have turned his body pure white.

[HayleyNoelle]

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the art, intelligence, care, respect, and creativity Kaz brings to each video!? I’m a new subscriber and I have to say I ADORE everything about these videos! 🤩💙

[confused]

this is a story my dad told me. he works on a ship and one misty morning they saw a shadowy ship in the fog that sailed along side them.

but eventually they realized it was just the shadow of their own ship.

[lobstersocks]

Being born and raised in Cape town, I get a strange feeling of pride every time the flying dutchman is mentioned internationally. It's like having someone from your small town high school become famous!

[kyoyameganebereznoff]

My favorite ghost ship is the Octavius! It disappeared in 1762 near Alaska and reappeared in 1775 near Greenland after having been trapped, frozen and unfrozen in sea ice for over a decade. The story goes that the frozen, preserved bodies of the crew were still onboard, having sailed the Northwest Passage posthumously. The Franklin expedition is also very interesting.

[mflynn]

Hi! Massachusetts native here. It’s not pronounced “pubity” but rather “peebity”. There’s an issue with people from out of state pronouncing the town of Peabody as “pee-body” and emphasizing that letter O which is why we always correct them by letting them know that the pronunciation is actually closer to “peebity”.

[wngjemg]

Kaz nailed it with people in the sea being in the perfect headspace to see ghosts.
First there is a slowly growing exhaustion from monotonous work with no days off.

Then there is watchkeeping. If it's a cloudy night, the sea and the sky appear similar, two almost identical colours stretching in all directions. And all you listen to are monotonous sounds of waves/radio static of emergency frequency/hum of the engine.

It's basically a light form of sense deprivation, along with tiredness it makes you see things

[greed]

As a sailor myself, I can already tell you that every good sailing story deserves a bit of embellishment.

[ratboyugly]

My grandfather is a woodcarver and he always says that wood has the spirit of the tree it came from, and it remains no matter what you make with the wood. Also, I’m very into urbex and have always been taken by the notion of people’s lives and everyday activity ruined and gone. If not actual ghosts, there’s absolutely a strong presence of history in those places. It’s fascinating :)

[chornethefirstborn]

My dad liked using the Edmund Fitzgerald as a way to get my siblings and I to be cautious out on the lakes as a kid. Mostly because of the storms and the currents... but the part that scared me the most about the story is the idea that the ship and its crew are *still down there*, preserved by the cold and conditions.
I think the ghostliness of the Great Lakes is less in the idea of ghost ships sailing the lakes themselves, and more in the idea of what's lurking below you when you're way out on the water - There's thousands of frozen snapshots in time, mariners still preserved and hovering at their stations - you can imagine them still down there, wandering the decks where no living eyes can see.

[mollywantshugs]

The vastness, unpredictability and isolating nature of the ocean terrifies me. Space is like that too but more extreme. We’ll probably have space ghost ship legends one day if space travel continues to advance

[breamaykaitlin]

I think the idea of haunted objects is absolutely fascinating; in Japanese folklore there's the tsukumogami which are objects that have taken on a spirit. It's not a super definite idea, as it's folklore, but it's basically the idea that anything old enough (tools, plants, animals, etc) can take on a personality and change form. I've heard it explained before as something taking on a personality (like a stubborn umbrella that won't open on command anymore) but I've also seen it also expressed quite literally in folkloric paintings too showing mundane objects turning into things with human-like forms. The way that it's a cross-cultural phenomenon is so interesting!!

[Sam-yhgh]

I absolutely love how artistic each set is! like no other channel matches the vibes you have

[extrahistory]

I live in Dallas, which does have a couple of legends, myths and urban stories. Aside from the obvious ones about JFK's assassination, the most well known among the locals are the supernatural stories surrounding White Rock Lake. The Lady of the Lake is said to have been a young woman from the 1920s that drowned in the lake. There are variations on the story, but the consensus is that during night time, she will emerge from the darkness, all wet, and ask an unsuspecting driver to give her a ride back home. By the time the driver arrives at the location (usually somewhere in Oak Cliff) she would disappear, and leave a puddle of water where she had once sat.

[ediffgutz]

LBC native here! I grew up going to the Queen Mary often just to walk around, and there are definitely permanent residents. You can feel a heaviness in the hospital/quarantine ward especially.

That aside, I love the way you present the subject matter no matter the subject in your videos. Your writing is eloquent, and the visuals are beautiful, but they don't take away from the topic. Thank you for telling these stories

[GrimmeSharkey]

You’re an amazing script writer! Your visuals and costumes are always on point as well as your research and sensitivity to the subject matter, but I just want to take a moment to say how much I admire how beautifully and skillfully you create a narrative.

[courtneybermack]

I think people also personalize ships, in particular. They get gendered, they get assigned particular personalities, they can have moods of their own. A ship doesn't have a soul just because it was made by people, but because she's a ship at sea.

The "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is the only shipwreck story I grew up with, but the only song I remembered from my childhood choir was about a sailor seeing one on his midnight watch. I always loved it. Now my favorite song is from Sting's musical Last Ship, called "Ballad Of The Great Eastern, " about a ship built by Brunell.