Speaker 1: Unsolved mysteries. Truth is stranger than fiction. The story which
Speaker 1: you are about to hear is a true narrative, based
Speaker 1: upon actual recorded facts.
Speaker 2: Yet the exact solution.
Speaker 1: Has baffled authorities the world over, and the case remains
Speaker 1: even today as one of the unsolved mysteries of.
Speaker 2: The high Seas.
Speaker 1: Tonight we hear a true sea mystery, the story of
Speaker 1: the American brigantine, the Marie Celeste, a vessel of five
Speaker 1: hundred tons burthen carrying a crew of thirteen. The scene
Speaker 1: is the broad sweep of the North Atlantic. It is
Speaker 1: the morning of December fifth. Officers and crew of the
Speaker 1: British ship De Gracia are about their duties. Mist Rising
Speaker 1: from the water assumes weird and groutesque forms in the pale,
Speaker 1: uncertain sunlight.
Speaker 2: The captain the first.
Speaker 1: Made her on the bridge, unmindful of the tragedy they're
Speaker 1: about to discover. All unmindful that bailed in the morning
Speaker 1: mists bearing down on them.
Speaker 2: Is that which every sailor fears.
Speaker 1: A ship of death, a ghost ship. Oh, I'm gone deck.
Speaker 1: We can starm a bow herd. Report her, report, hard, report,
Speaker 1: it is sir Ward, Miss Terdams. Did you see that.
Speaker 1: I don't understand it, Sir. She fell away and the
Speaker 1: wind Sirs, oh, she were the wind, Hi, Sir. He
Speaker 1: acts like a ghost ship ship without a crew. Yet
Speaker 1: she ship shape and trimming up and looks run up
Speaker 1: a danger horse. And we'll see if she'll answer. Hi. Iye, sir,
Speaker 1: run of a danger o eyes, Sir, bade the salta
Speaker 1: no answer from the American, Sir, I have been watching
Speaker 1: it through the glass. There isn't a living soul on deck.
Speaker 1: I don't like that. Hunt. Give order us to stand
Speaker 1: by the board. I'm going to order aye aye, sir,
Speaker 1: and by all hands to board. I bring her about,
Speaker 1: mister quartermaster, ring her about, Hi, Sir. All our boats
Speaker 1: seem to be in place. She can't be abandoned. I
Speaker 1: will soon find out. We're well in all away about
Speaker 1: on this turbot. Sigh. Come along, mister Adams. We'll go
Speaker 1: aboard right with you, sir, all right, all away. She
Speaker 1: doesn't look as if she'd been through any heavy seas. Huh.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the name the Murray slast seem to
Speaker 1: remember seeing her in New York. I was thinking the
Speaker 1: same thing, sir. Here pass me that botocop and off
Speaker 1: the trailer robe amidships. We can bore it a bugle, sir,
Speaker 1: I've got it. Take your head for that rope. He's fast, sir.
Speaker 2: Can you see anything?
Speaker 1: No ship shape on the deck here. I'll give you
Speaker 1: a hand.
Speaker 2: Better be careful, sir. It could be plague.
Speaker 1: No miss Adams. If it were plague, there would be
Speaker 1: bodies on deck, not below. Together, Captain Boyce and his
Speaker 1: first mate make their way below decks. Not a thing stirs,
Speaker 1: not a sound save the creak of timbers and the
Speaker 1: slap slap of water against the hull. Almost on tiptoe, silently,
Speaker 1: as if in the very presence of an unseen death,
Speaker 1: the two men searched the hold from keel to bridge,
Speaker 1: from stem to stern. Nothing nothing but an empty earliness,
Speaker 1: a ship trim as if she had been rigged in
Speaker 1: all before, but a ghost ship, a ship without crewe
Speaker 1: or living thing aboard. All the superstition of the seas
Speaker 1: is in the minds of the captain and the mate.
Speaker 1: As they climbed through the hatch, onto the deck and
Speaker 1: down the alley way of the ship's galley. Good lord,
Speaker 1: look there. They even left the cruise meal on the
Speaker 1: galley stove half cooked. Something terrible must have happen cause
Speaker 1: them to leave the ship in such a hurry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we don't know that they left their own free will.
Speaker 1: No boats miss them, not anything he used to make
Speaker 1: her rivet How could they leave except by except by exactly, sir,
Speaker 1: except by what I tell you, Surry. I don't like it.
Speaker 1: It's uncanny, isn't real, It can't be yet it is.
Speaker 1: Go on, let's hurry, look into the chart room and
Speaker 1: get off this ship as fast as we can. Shodrum
Speaker 1: doors closed, it's not locked. Breakfast here too, and the
Speaker 1: baby's high chair at the table, and the captain's chronometer
Speaker 1: is still running. It's ghastly simming this silence, this trim
Speaker 1: rig ship in perfect condition, without a soul, no signs
Speaker 1: of anything. Let's get off, sir. Right, I'm not easily flighting,
Speaker 1: but dash it all, sir. Here's something that isn't human,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. Well, I don't want her,
Speaker 1: but we must take her in tow. We've got a
Speaker 1: note of everything, we can enter into a log book.
Speaker 1: Boat's all in place, captain's chronometer's still running to watch us.
Speaker 1: Lye on the skipper's table, breakfast with the crew ready
Speaker 1: in the galley raide the porridge half eaten on the
Speaker 1: saloon table. No preparation is made to abandon everything, trimanship shape.
Speaker 2: Are not a soul of board?
Speaker 1: Dead?
Speaker 2: All alive?
Speaker 1: Right? Well, come along, Adams, we'll get back aboard our
Speaker 1: own ship, and we'll booth hey o better. Sixty two
Speaker 1: years have passed and the mystery of the maure Celeste
Speaker 1: remains a mystery. The United States authorities notified the consuls
Speaker 1: in various countries to keep a sharp lookout for survivors,
Speaker 1: but to this day nothing has been seen or heard
Speaker 1: of captain, crew, the captain's wife, or baby in the
Speaker 1: annals of the sea. It is one of the great
Speaker 1: unsolved mysteries. Yet there is one explanation. It is based
Speaker 1: on the knowledge that Captain Briggs of the Marie Celeste
Speaker 1: was ill ill mentally, and his temporary mental aberration took
Speaker 1: the form of swimming around his ship with all his
Speaker 1: clothes on. It is the morning of November twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: the morning of the last entry in the Mauri Celeste's
Speaker 1: log book. The captain is in the chart room and
Speaker 1: his wife Mary is on the bridge talking to the
Speaker 1: first officer.
Speaker 3: Oh, mister Anderson, I'm agree the captain is going to
Speaker 3: have one of his.
Speaker 2: Spelled him will but makes you think so?
Speaker 3: No, he's been muttering to himself all morning about swim around.
Speaker 1: The ship with all his clothes on. I suppose, yes, I.
Speaker 3: Want you to promise me something. Yes, if he insists
Speaker 3: on swimming around the ship when.
Speaker 1: You go with him, if you off me too, I will.
Speaker 3: Oh, Mary, very Mary, what are you here on the bridge.
Speaker 4: I'm going for a swim. Oh, it's a beautiful day.
Speaker 4: Calm was a meal pond, and I.
Speaker 1: Feel the need of it. Tell you what, so let's
Speaker 1: make a contest out of it.
Speaker 4: What are you talking about, Anderson?
Speaker 1: Oh? I could do with a swim myself. And I thought,
Speaker 1: let's have a race, you and me. We'll dive off
Speaker 1: amidships and swim once a round. Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's a good idea, mister Emerson. A competitione Yeah.
Speaker 4: But I'm going to swim with all my clothes on.
Speaker 1: I've got to keep.
Speaker 4: Him practice, you know, to get ship wretched someday and
Speaker 4: have to swim fully dressed. Can't do it unless you practice.
Speaker 2: Yes, of course I'm game. I wish you weren't a mary.
Speaker 4: You leave that to me.
Speaker 2: Oh, by the.
Speaker 1: Way, Chips has made a sort of a crib for
Speaker 1: the baby. He called it the baby's quarterdeck. Rigged it
Speaker 1: up after sir, so you wouldn't be worrying about the
Speaker 1: baby crawling under the rail and falling overboard. Oh that
Speaker 1: was nice.
Speaker 3: And Chips, I'll go below and thank you.
Speaker 1: Don't belong or you'll miss the race. I'll be back
Speaker 1: on deck in a moment. Chips took baby after a
Speaker 1: few minutes ago. He's playing with him in the crib.
Speaker 4: Come on, then, we'd better leave our watchers in the
Speaker 4: chart room. And that reminds me I mustwhine by chromometer.
Speaker 2: Oh here, skipper, take my watch with you too.
Speaker 1: I'll go aft and see how Chips is getting along
Speaker 1: with a laby.
Speaker 4: All right, Henderson, be ready for that swim when I
Speaker 4: come back.
Speaker 2: Worries there, I'll be waiting.
Speaker 3: He's still determined.
Speaker 2: All right, I thought you went below.
Speaker 3: I was standing behind the hedge.
Speaker 2: Oh, let's go after and see the baby's quarterdeck.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm afraid I call it whatever you want to.
Speaker 3: I have a feeling that they'll clangs of its own free.
Speaker 1: Will now, Mary, don't worry. I'll look out to the
Speaker 1: skipper when we get in the water. Besides, he's a
Speaker 1: good swimmer.
Speaker 3: Oh look at baby. That clever and good morning, Chips,
Speaker 3: Good morning, ma'am.
Speaker 5: What do you think of our baby's quarter deck?
Speaker 3: I think it's very clever of each me.
Speaker 5: I've got children to be out.
Speaker 1: I know what the little blight is like.
Speaker 5: You know, it's just like giving a rail in around
Speaker 5: your own porch.
Speaker 1: He can't pull that. Don't you think, Chips, that the
Speaker 1: baby's quarterdeck ought to be lished down?
Speaker 5: Oh no, sir, not unless the wind picks up a bit.
Speaker 5: So it's a Siphe has been in your own yard,
Speaker 5: says I.
Speaker 1: But Chips was wrong. It wasn't as safe as being
Speaker 1: in your own yard. And it was the so called
Speaker 1: babies quarter deck that resulted in the mystery of the
Speaker 1: Marie Celeste. Out of deference to people who may still
Speaker 1: be living, character names in some of these unsolved mysteries
Speaker 1: have been changed inasmuch as any solution must have necessity
Speaker 1: be's supposition, liberties of time, place, and characters have been taken.
Speaker 1: In just a moment, you will hear a solution to
Speaker 1: the mystery of the Marie Celeste, Ladies and gentlemen, the
Speaker 1: solution for which you have been waiting, and so Chips.
Speaker 1: The carpenter places the baby in the crate like structure
Speaker 1: he has made, while the mother looks on. He turns
Speaker 1: to her as the captain walks down from the ChartHouse.
Speaker 5: There he is, ma'am, all safe and signed. Can't fall
Speaker 5: out and can't get out.
Speaker 1: It was very good of you to think of it. Chip.
Speaker 1: Oh is the skipper? Oh holy bear, mister Emerson, are
Speaker 1: you ready already? Skipper?
Speaker 4: You'll be the judge, Mary, although I know I'm going
Speaker 4: to win, all right.
Speaker 3: I'll be judge the first around the ship and up
Speaker 3: the trailing rope onto the deck.
Speaker 1: Win.
Speaker 2: Then you give the word to go.
Speaker 1: Now, both of you get up on the rail, ready,
Speaker 1: said go?
Speaker 5: No, the skipper, he's the way to a flying start
Speaker 5: is he's.
Speaker 1: A powerful swimmer. But that's the same. What the price
Speaker 1: is the ship she held over the wind.
Speaker 4: We're in for a blow.
Speaker 1: The baby's crave it sliding. The ship's carpenter and the
Speaker 1: baby's mother rush across the sanding deck in a vain
Speaker 1: effort to save the baby. Again, the vessel heels, and
Speaker 1: together they slide over the scuppers into the sea one
Speaker 1: after the other. Every member of the crew leaps overboard
Speaker 1: to the rescue. The freshening wind fills the sagging sails,
Speaker 1: and the Marie lest fully rigged her ship's bell clanging
Speaker 1: a sailor's dirge. Without a living soul aboard, gets on
Speaker 1: their way and leaves the crew struggling in the water.