Eileen Moore's lights came on
The frequent storms that characterize the Outer Hebrides and the often foggy and unfriendly weather have long presented a serious challenge to sailors. Despite the harsh weather conditions, the region is crossed by important commercial shipping routes, which is why it was decided to be the westernmost part of the island chain. Moron Island The lighthouse was built to make navigation easier and safer. The lighthouse is 23 meters high, and was built on top of a rocky cliff 88 meters high, rising above the surface of the ocean. It was designed by the most famous lighthouse architects in England. David Alan Stevenson Planned.
The lighthouse was commissioned in December 1899, and its continuous service and operation was ensured by three employees. On a small, uninhabited island far from the mainland and battered by storms, performing the duties of a lighthouse keeper was far from a girl's dream. with this Northern Lighthouse CouncilThe leaders of the government organization that ran the lighthouses were also aware of this, and they rewarded the hard service they had done voluntarily for three years with wages well above average.
When the lights of the Eileen Moore Lighthouse were lit for the first time in December 1899, the 43-year-old James Ducataged 34 years Donald MacArthuras well as the youngest member of the three-person group, who was 27 years old at the time Thomas Marshall Entered service on the deserted island.
The three of them were employees of the Northern Lighthouse Council, so they knew each other from before. The three men occupied their new and inhospitable station on December 8, 1899.
Under the contract concluded with the company, they pledged to complete three years of service.
Their housing was in the building belonging to the lighthouse, along with the oil needed to operate the reflectors and the food stores that provided their supplies. The sailors who sailed there were happy to notice the newly lit lights of Eileen Mor, which greatly assisted them in reaching a safe passage from the raging ocean.
The lighthouse on the haunted island goes dark
For a year, everything went well, until dawn broke on December 15, 1900. On this day, in the evening hours, when complete darkness fell over the Atlantic, it was SS Archer The signalman on duty on a steamer – bound from Philadelphia on the east coast to Scotland – reported to the captain of the steamer, Captain Holmer,
That he couldn't see the lights of Eileen Moore.
It seemed even more strange because the weather that night was clear and fog-free. On the bridge, the captain made a quick navigational check on the charts, and confirmed that the watch report was correct, as Archer was now within sight of the lighthouse.
Since the crew had sailed this way often and were therefore familiar with the waters around Eilean Mor, the defunct lighthouse did not pose a major problem to their progress. When the ship docked in Oban, Scotland, the next day, the harbormaster announced that despite the clear weather, they had not seen the lights of Eilean Mor. The local pilot sent the report to officials of the Northern Lighthouse Board, which operates the lighthouse. At that time, no one thought anything bad, because they thought that perhaps a technical problem had occurred and that the Eileen Moore Lighthouse might have gone dark.
The duty officer of the Northern Lighthouse Board decided based on the operations order that within four days a ship carrying supplies for the island would depart, and since he did not classify the situation as exceptional, he decided that it would be sufficient to hold the supplies. -Site inspection and troubleshooting at that time. But due to the severe storm that broke out in the meantime and continued for several days, the ship transported supplies to the island. Hesperus He was not able to run out to sea until December 26, the day after Christmas.
A storehouse of oddities on an island that suddenly became uninhabited
When the ship Hesperus anchored off the coast of Eilean Mor in the early afternoon of December 26, James Harvey The captain was surprised to notice that, despite established custom, no one from the lighthouse crew welcomed them. Therefore, he gave the order to sound the ship's horn, but no one from the lighthouse building heard the sound of the horn that could be heard several kilometers away. Then, on the instructions of the Captain, an employee of the Northern Lighthouse Board, Joseph Moore Get into the boat and paddle to shore.
When Moore arrived at the lighthouse, he found all the windows and doors closed.
He found that the door of the staff room was open, but when he opened it, he did not find a single created soul inside.
Then he hurried to the cliff towering above the island, from where the entire small area of Eileen Mor could be clearly seen. With no trees on the island, only sedge grass growing on the rocky ground, a dog-sized creature could easily have been seen from this key point, but Moore saw nothing: Eileen Moore was completely deserted. Captain Harvey therefore ordered a fire sweep of the entire island area. At the crew quarters, they found the three beds made, the furniture in place, only one overturned chair noticed, and the ashes of the stove were cold. They also found that the lighthouse's reflective mirrors were nice and clean, the oil tank was completely filled, and the entire equipment was in good condition. One of the waterproof coveralls stored in the closet was still hanging on the hanger, indicating that a crew member had departed without this vital piece of clothing.
On the rocks below the tower, they found torn remains of arm's-length ropes used for mooring, which greatly shocked the sailors, as they had no idea about it.
What force was capable of tearing these extremely strong ropes into small pieces.
One of the sailors participating in the search also found the Tower diary, in which the last entry was made at nine o'clock in the morning on December 15, 1900. The last note was that the storm that had lasted for several days had ended. At the end of the short entry, some blurred and illegible punctuation marks were found, but at that time they did not attach much importance to this.
To this day, there is no explanation for one of the most horrific disappearances
After completing the search, the Hesperus picked up anchor and sailed back to Earth. The captain gave a detailed account of what he experienced on the island to the Northern Lighthouse Board Committee, which was set up to investigate the mysterious disappearance. The commission interrogated not only the captain, but also all the sailors involved in the search. The investigation team is headed by the NLB Regional Director, Robert Muirhead Led by Muirhead and members of the commission also visited the island, but did not find any new evidence that had not been mentioned by the sailors who had already been interrogated. At that point, the director in charge of the investigation reviewed the Tower's notes again. From the indistinct fragments of the written words of the last post, he managed to lick out the following short text: “God is over everything“, any. “God is above everything“However, neither he nor anyone else could figure out what this mysterious suffix meant.
Muirhead even discovered some equally strange observations. Thus, for example, on December 12, one of the guards, Thomas Marshall, wrote that the weather was unusually calm and calm, and that one of their comrades had had a fit of crying. However, this was far from the end of the strange and seemingly inexplicable December 12 posts. Marshall wrote that around noon, “Everything turned grey“, then “It's all hipchip“(Everything is ship shaped), and the “We could see the cabin lights“( You can see the cabin lights) Follow up entries. These last two comments are also incomprehensible because according to the ship's movement log
No ships passed near the island that day.
The creepy oddities don't end there either. According to the memoirs of the tower, between December 12 and 15, a terrible storm broke out off the coast of the island, but the British Royal Meteorological Service, known for its accuracy, Meteorological Office According to his data, calm and sunny weather prevailed in the Eileen Mor area during this period, and the storm did not reach the island until December 17.
The investigation data raised questions to which there are no answers, neither at that time nor now. The first question is what prompted the three men to leave the island in a state of panic? One of them even left behind the waterproof coveralls that ensured his survival.
That is, it is possible that he fled under the influence of some kind of intense fear.
What kind of force could tear ropes, which can easily withstand a pull of several tons, into small pieces, and how could they end up on coastal rocks? Why is there no entry from December 14 in the diary? How is it possible that the entry into the weather record on December 12 and 15 was a violent storm, while according to data from the Meteorological Authority, calm and sunny weather prevailed in the region on these two days?
They also couldn't find an explanation for what kind of force could push the pieces of rock that had just collapsed at the western end of the island into the depths. In the same place, they discovered a broken sailor's trunk with the steel lid fasteners attached
This unknown force duly collapsed,
On the other hand, the wooden platform and wooden railing, located 130 meters away from it, remained intact. No crew of the Eileen Moore Lighthouse has been found alive or dead. Their mysterious disappearance remains one of the biggest unsolved mysteries.
