Dark mystery of the missing lightkeepers
It’s a truly spine-tingling tale. But now a new film attempts to shed light on whether a biblical storm, a crazed murderer or an even more sinister force was to blame for three lost souls
HIS heart racing and his mind filling with fear, Joseph Moore hurried towards the Eilean Mòr lighthouse, desperately yelling out the names of the fellow lighthouse keepers he’d expected to greet him. But the only reply came from the gulls and petrels shrieking in the skies above the tiny, lonely island in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides.
It was late afternoon on December 26, 1900. After enjoying some festive celebrations on the Isle of Lewis, some 32km away, assistant keeper Moore had boarded the steamer Hesperus, a supply vessel that was taking him to Eilean Mòr for his next six-week stint of duty.
Married with two young children, 28-year-old Moore had been delighted that his last period of shore leave had coincided with Christmas.
But the fortuitous timing went beyond that – it probably saved his life. A chilling new film, The Vanishing, starring Gerard Butler, is based on the true story of how the three men Moore had waved goodbye to on Eilean Mòr only two weeks before disappeared without a trace.
They had no boat, and no bodies were ever found, leading some to suggest that supernatural forces had been at work in the Flannan Isles, the group of seven islands to which Eilean Mòr, barely 150 metres across, belongs.
The Flannans were much feared by sailors – and with good cause. Numerous ships had foundered on their unforgiving coastlines, which are often hidden by dense fog. In the aftermath, the bodies and bones of victims had littered the shores.
For centuries the only signs of human habitation were the ruins of a chapel devoted to St Flann, an Irish monk who lived there during the 7th century. In death, he was said to regard Eilean Mòr as his own – a sinister, watchful presence that terrified shepherds who ferried their sheep over to graze there, but who never stayed the night.
When a lighthouse was built in December 1899 to guide ships through one of the wildest reaches of the North Atlantic, locals warned that the intrusion would unleash St Flann’s wrath. So did these misgivings come true almost exactly a year later, when the lighthouse keepers went missing?
This maritime mystery is as intriguing as that of the Marie Celeste, and to this day goes unanswered. The first sign that something was amiss came when the SS Archtor, a cargo ship en route from Philadelphia, passed Eilean Mòr at around midnight on December 15. The captain noticed that the lighthouse was dark.
He reported this upon docking in Leith, near Edinburgh, three
days later. But for some reason the information did not reach the Northern Lighthouse Board.
And so when Joseph Moore left Lewis to join his fellow keepers, he was expecting a hearty welcome and more Yuletide celebrations.
But, as the Hesperus approached Eilean Mòr, he felt the first inklings of fear. The winter afternoon was dark but no light beamed forth. Something was up.
Even when the captain sounded the steamer’s horn and sent up a distress flare, there was no response from anyone in the lighthouse. There seemed little choice but to send Moore to investigate. He clambered onto the landing stage and raced up the long wooden staircase that zig-zagged up the cliff face. He saw the gate to the lighthouse enclosure was closed, as was the door to the tower. Then he looked up and saw three giant black birds perched above. They seemed to be monitoring his every move.
Moore made his way into the silent lighthouse, heading first to the kitchen, which was normally the cosy hub of lighthouse life. Yet the room had a deathly chill about it. The clock had stopped and the ashes in the grate were cold. A poem about the incident, written in 1912 by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, describes an untouched meal on the table – there was cold meat, pickles and potatoes. A kitchen chair lay on its side, and the only sign of life was the keepers’ canary, half-starving on its perch.
It is not known if this was accurate, but what Moore saw clearly terrified him. Tearing back down to the landing stage, he pleaded with the crew from the Hesperus to help him search the tiny island. They found nothing.
Reluctantly, Moore agreed to stay to tend the light. It’s not difficult to imagine how scary the nights that followed were for him, alone in the light room, listening to the wind howling all around as the revolving lamp cast shadows. The Northern Lighthouse Board’s superintendent, Robert Muirhead, arrived three days later to investigate and described Moore as being in a state of ‘nervousness’. He may have heard voices on the wind, calling out the names of the three missing men – a claim later made by others. While keeper Thomas Marshall was single, the other two – James Ducat and Donald MacArthur – were married, with six children between them. The task of breaking the news to their widows fell to Muirhead.
The last record left by the men was on December 15, chalked on the slate where they noted down weather conditions and their daily activities, which included trimming the lighthouse lamp, filling its oil fountains and cleaning the giant lenses. Nothing amiss was mentioned, but the fact the lighthouse had not been operational that evening strongly implied this was the day they disappeared.
As to the cause, Muirhead noted that the landing platform on the western side of the island had suffered severe storm damage. He concluded that the men must have gone to repair the damage and been swept away by a wave.
The problem with this theory is that while the boots, capes and oilskins belonging to Ducat and Marshall were missing, Donald MacArthur’s were still inside.
It’s possible that Ducat and Marshall had run into trouble at the landing stage and that, on hearing cries for help, MacArthur had rushed down to their assistance in his nightclothes before being washed away himself.
BUT if he had left the lighthouse in a panic, why had he wasted precious time on closing both the entrance door and the gate to the yard? And why was none of their bodies ever washed up?
Over the coming years, speculation mounted about the keepers’ fate. Among the more fanciful explanations was a claim by locals that the keepers had been changed into those three giant birds Moore had seen upon landing. Others said they had been kidnapped by a foreign power after seeing something they shouldn’t have – perhaps a secret warship. Or did one of them murder the other two – MacArthur was said to have a volatile temper – and throw himself off the cliffs in an act of remorse?
Or was US author Vincent Hayes Gaddis – who specialised in tales of the paranormal – correct in suggesting that in the days before the trio vanished, they had been tormented by a tempest so violent that it must have been caused by a supernatural dark force?
In a book written in 1965, Gaddis quoted entries supposedly written in the lighthouse log by Thomas Marshall. ‘Never seen such a storm,’ he is recorded as writing on December 12. ‘Ducat quiet. MacArthur crying.’ He added the next day: ‘Storm continued through night. Grey daylight. Me, Ducat and MacArthur prayed.’
It has since been suggested Gaddis might have fabricated these entries. But we simply don’t know, as the original logbook went missing. That in itself might be regarded as suspicious.
The island is now home to an automated lighthouse that continues to illuminate a safe passage for seafarers. But, to this day, it has failed to shine a light on the fate of its keepers, whose existence was simply erased on that fateful day over a century ago.
The Vanishing is out in cinemas now.