Archaeology & History

Mystery of the Mary Celeste ghost ship may have finally been solved

By T.K. Randall
May 18, 2026

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) Discovered in the waters off the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean on December 4th of that year, the Mary Celeste - a merchant brigantine - was the focus of a mystery that has remained a topic of heated debate to this day.

The vessel was found adrift and abandoned under partial sail and with one of its lifeboats missing.

There was absolutely no sign of any of the crew and no indication of what might have happened to prompt them to abandon a ship that was, at the time of its discovery, still perfectly seaworthy.

Entries found in the ship's log indicated that it had left New York City for Genoa on November 7th, with the last log entry being ten days before the ship was found.

There had been a plentiful supply of food and provisions onboard and even the cargo was intact.

Now, though, after more than a century of speculation, researchers believe that they have been able to confirm what is thought to be the most likely reason that the crew had abandoned ship.The Mary Celeste had been carrying 1,700 barrels of pure alcohol at the time, but when the ship was searched after its discovery, it was found that 9 of the barrels were empty.

This prompted the theory that the barrels had leaked, filling the hold with flammable vapors that eventually ignited and caused a violent explosion.

Upon witnessing this, the crew most likely abandoned ship in fear for their lives.

To demonstrate that this is what happened, researchers conducted an experiment in which they triggered an identical ethanol explosion on a scale model of the ship.

Just like on the real ship, there was no evidence of an explosion after the fact and it did not set fire to the other barrels of alcohol.

This means that the ethanol leak theory is most likely to explain what happened to the crew.

Source: Mail Online

Tags: Mary Celeste