Hey.

Hi.

Welcome back. Welcome to the Sea Zen.

Insert Ocean Background Noise.

Part three.

Should we do a refresher on what the Sea Zen is for our new listeners?

Well, that’s a good idea.

Because I don’t know if we’ve re-explained what it is. Each summer, we decide to do episodes inspired by the sea, because how much of the ocean do we actually know? 3%.

3% of the ocean. There are so many unknown creatures that we had too many, and so we decided to make a series of episodes annually inspired by them. Exactly.

We’ve done dolphins, we’ve done octopi, we’ve done eels, we did megalodon. We do USOs. USOs, submersibles.

We’ve done a lot. This is season three. Add some season.

Give me a little salt and pepper.

Last week, we did a little super episode of our favorite animal, underwater animal mystery.

My favorite part about that remix is the cover you chose for the Spotify page.

That was good.

That was funny.

Yeah, Lisa Frank.

Yeah. That was iconic.

AI made that. But yeah, I said, in the style of Lisa Frank, please, because Kait said, I don’t want to hear about the dolphins. I just want to be a dolphin girl with my Lisa Frank.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, dolphins have been in the news recently too.

Oh my God.

Gerald in Florida, but then also for the military. Yeah. Which we did talk a lot about in that episode.

So again, guys, if you didn’t listen. You heard it first here.

Yeah.

Heard it first here. All right. Well, it’s summer, it’s getting hot.

So should we get into our drink chat?

Drink check.

It’s summer, we’re not allowed to talk about the weather.

Now that we’re in our third season and it is summertime once again, and every episode we get a little thirsty. And what are we drinking today?

Oh, I’m so happy you asked. Our friends at Element sent us some electrolytes to try.

You got a little PR package.

Yeah. We are not new to Element because, you know, we do some long hours and we get thirsty. So we fill up on some electrolytes.

So today we’re drinking the lime salt. I really like this.

Yeah, it’s not too sweet at all. It’s like a perfect mix.

Yeah, I prefer, I do like to drink this after I have had a little too much.

The morning after. Yeah.

I think it helps with hydration. Another fun thing that you could do with this is, if you’re by the pool, you can have a little mocktail, but you also have a little cocktail.

I’m thinking, this is delicious, and I was just thinking, what if we just put a little tequila? Exactly. A little tequila, a little splash of seltzer in there.

Yeah.

I love it with bubble water.

Yeah. It’s delicious, but full. So thanks, Elemet.

Thank you.

Yeah.

3:54

Flannan Isles Mystery

For the first episode of season 3, we’re talking about a lighthouse mystery.

Oh my gosh.

Selt oceanic.

Which coast?

Off the coast of Scotland.

Oh, right.

As I’ve said, because Colleen has been practicing her Scottish accent. And it’s not good. Shout out to Mermaid Girl.

I went to Scotland and heard nobody with a Scottish accent.

I met only British people.

Mermaid Girl usually encourages Colleen and all of the crazy things that Kait and I discourage her from.

She’s been shutting me down now.

But she did say something after a couple of drinks, where you were like, I’m so good at accents. And she just looked at you and said, She made fun of me. Are you?

Yeah. It was funny because also when she said, are you, she was sitting right next to Megan. And then Colleen didn’t really hear, like, who actually said it.

Colleen started yelling at Megan.

I was in the cops and I was mad.

So anyway, I picked this because we’re, it’s a lighthouse that felt, I love lighthouses. Merry time. Yeah, it does feel, this story feels a little bit cold and windy and maybe not quite summer summary, but we’re gonna talk about it.

I’m so excited.

I’ve been inside many.

On a remote cluster of windswept islands off the coast of Scotland, three lighthouse keepers vanished without a trace.

No bodies, no signs of a struggle, just an abandoned lighthouse, a stopped clock and a mystery that has haunted the sea for more than a century.

Whoa, This week, we’re headed to the Flannan Isles Lighthouse where in December of 1900, keepers James Ducat, Thomas Marshall and Donald MacArthur disappeared from the isolated island of Eilean Mòr.

When the relief ship finally arrived after days of storms, something felt wrong immediately. The lighthouse was dark, the dock was empty.

One set of oil skins remained hanging inside, suggesting one man had gone out into the storm without proper gear.

The logbook entries described violent winds and terrified behavior, even though weather reports later suggested that the seas had been calm. The bodies were never recovered and the mystery remains to this day.

So what really happened on the Flannan Isles? Was it a rogue wave powerful enough to sweep all three men into the Atlantic? A tragic accident compounded by brutal weather?

Or did something stranger happen on that isolated rock in the North Atlantic? Over the years, theories have ranged from sea monsters and ghost ships to paranormal forces, secret espionage, and even the island’s supposed curse.

This week, we’re diving into one of the most chilling unsolved disappearances in maritime history, the Flannan Isles Lighthouse mystery.

All three of them were on the island together.

Yeah.

Okay, before hearing any further details, it was like, it’s crazy. I think they fell in love.

All three of them, it’s like polyamory.

I think they fell in love.

There actually are a lot of, nothing is verified just when you see like the YouTubers.

I’m like giddy for them.

The YouTubers online, there’s theories that like, there was a love triangle, or that two of them were having an affair and one of them killed them because of it, or were they a grapple who ran off? I do not believe that. We have no proof of that.

What if we fell in love with the lighthouse?

I would read that.

I feel like they’d die in the sea.

No, they probably did.

But shockingly, Colleen is not the first person to propose that, even though Colleen always wants to find the LGBT relationship and the mystery that explains it all. It’s not just a hetero relate. It’s the LGBTQ+.

But picture the romance of being isolated on an island surrounded by sea.

Wasn’t this her job?

And then they get lonely.

You ever see Brokeback Mountain? And then they fall in love.

Okay. You think the ocean?

Yeah.

I think they got lost in the ocean or like a shark ate them or what? Nessie.

Atlantic? What side of the UK are we on? The Atlantic.

Okay. That’s rough waters.

But isn’t Nessie really more?

Nessie’s in the lake, in the loch.

Yeah, freshwater.

Yeah, Nessie’s in the loch.

I just dropped Nessie for funsies.

Allegedly. There’s rivers. The lochs are all connected.

Yeah.

And they also say that some of the theories about Nessie that we didn’t talk about when we did our episode say that maybe she has portals that she goes through.

Yeah.

And, you know, portals.

You know.

Are you sure we didn’t talk about that in the episode?

Loch Ness is the deepest lake there ever is. And like we don’t know what’s at the bottom.

Is it deeper than Lake Bacall?

I do think so.

I hate to fact check you Colleen. Lake Bacall is vastly deeper than Loch Ness.

Anyways, 10 percent.

Lake Bacall is 5,400 feet deep, making it the deepest lake on earth. Loch Ness is 750 feet.

So 750 feet? No way.

Yeah. So Lake Bacall is 7. I mean, that’s a mile, half down.

That is still deep, but I’m just saying, it’s not the deepest lake. Maybe it’s only four miles away. So rewind to like, you know, months ago when we were going around the moon.

And I kept thinking about that, that it was like, it was really taking them like over a week to get to the moon. And they’re traveling so fast. And I kept thinking about Colleen being like, the moon, way to the moon is like Arlington to DC.

Vertical. Vertical. Look it up.

Vertical.

Look it up.

Well, I hope that they fell in love and escaped, but I think Kait’s right.

I think they probably died at sea somehow.

Fell in love and escaped in the 1900s?

Yeah.

Maybe they, maybe they turned into vampires. There are mermen in this story.

Okay. Start with that next time. Anyways, tell us about the gay lover lighthouse people.

Okay.

Lighthouse men.

What do we call them?

We call them lighthouse keepers.

That’s cute.

In 1899, a lighthouse was built on an outpost in the remote islands of North Scotland. The Flannan Isles are about 90 small islands, only about 15 of which are inhabited, and they are located 80 miles off the Scottish coast.

As Colleen told us, conditions here can be rough with gale force winds. Eilean Mòr, the largest of the islands, was home to the 75-foot-wide stone structure located atop a 200-foot cliff.

So this lighthouse was to get people around all of these islands.

It was on top of the cliff?

Yes.

They fell off the cliff. Why is this even a mystery?

So this lighthouse was manned by three keepers.

Okay.

Marshall was the senior keeper.

Okay.

Donald MacArthur and James Ducat were assistant keepers. It’s going to get even more complicated than this because there is this thing called occasional keepers, which are like locums.

They only come in for a week or two at a time to provide relief for the permanent keepers. Usually, there’s four keepers and they rotate every two weeks. One person goes home and the other two stay.

Four keepers, three on the lighthouse at a time, and one of them on two-week leave and they rotate. But in this case, the fourth member of this group, MacArthur was actually covering for William Ross, a permanent assistant keeper who was sick.

Okay. Why do they need so many people? Do they not just keep the light on?

There’s no electricity. I forgot about that part.

So, lighthouses now are generally automated.

This is like flames.

But this is 1899 here. We’re starting that.

I’m with you.

So again, these people would be like four weeks on, two weeks off, and they rotate through this group.

Okay.

So this lighthouse was about a year old at the time of the story. Okay.

11:37

The Eerie Discovery

So December 26th, 1900, the Hesperus, a lighthouse relief tender, was sent to deliver supplies and perform a routine crew change.

So usually this boat just comes again every two weeks, they drop off a new light keeper, they take one person home, and they give them all of their supplies.

Okay.

Provisions. But it’s kind of a process. So customarily, there would be this flag out that would greet them.

There would be empty provision boxes ready, and there was this cable car. So like the tender would, somebody would be there to greet them, bring them in. They would load up this cable car with provisions, and then run them up to the lighthouse.

But nobody was there to greet the Hesperus. The relief lighthouse keeper, Joseph Mòr, was sent to shore, and he climbed the 160 steps of the lighthouse. When he opened the door, he discovered an eerie scene.

The clock on the wall was frozen, the table was set, and there was a canary sitting quietly in its cage. Canary? Canary, still alive.

That’s kind of weird. There was no other evidence of life. Joseph Mòr wrote, I did not take time to search further, for I only too well knew something serious had occurred.

I darted out and made for the landing. He returned to the Hesperus, and after describing the scene, returned to the lighthouse with two sailors. They discovered an oil skin.

Oil skin is like this heavy waterproof coat that lighthouse keepers usually wear to keep them dry. One of those was sitting there. This indicated at least one of the three lighthouse keepers had fled the lighthouse without appropriate weather gear.

In a letter describing what he found, Joseph Moore described Donald MacArthur as an occasional keeper and claimed that his coat was the one left behind. Because again, these are all buddies, they know each other.

This guy who came in and found it, knows these three people pretty well. He said, Marshall’s sea boots and oil skin were missing, as were Ducat’s boots, and he had not an oil skin but like an old waterproof coat.

Again, all that’s left behind is this coat belonging to Donald MacArthur, the occasional keeper who was subbing in for someone’s sick leave.

As they investigated Eilean Mòr, they discovered iron railings bent in the wind, a railway track torn away from concrete, an enormous boulder heavy men dislodged, and a supply box which was used to hold ropes and tackles smashed on the ground with

Why was there a railway track?

It’s what I was saying they used to use to get the supplies.

The investigation revealed that a vessel had passed the Flannan Islands at about midnight on December 15th, 11 days before this. A vessel passed the islands and reported in their log that no light had been seen.

When they arrived to their port three days later, they reported, hey, the lighthouse is out, there was no light on, but this was not communicated to the Northern Lighthouse Board who oversaw the lighthouse.

When the investigators examined the lighthouse, they noted that the exterior gates and the building doors and windows were secure from the inside and there were no signs of forced entry.

Lamps were left burning indicating that men had left it in a hurry. It was like everything was all set up for the lighthouse to be lit that night. They had done their chores, their cleaning, they had filled it with oil.

Something happened.

We were good to go.

14:44

Official Theory Logs

After the investigation is complete, Robert Moorhead, the Lighthouse Board Superintendent, declared that two of the men had traveled to the West Landing at dinnertime on December 15th, hoping to secure the ropes and supply box.

He suspected that a large wave had gone above them and coming down with immense force had swept them completely away.

The wind at that time was blowing into the west side of the island, so it would have had to have been a wave because he said, if it was just wind like Kait thought, it would push them into the island.

He wouldn’t have been pushing them off the island. He said, it must have been a wave that came up on the west side.

Then dragged them out.

Then dragged them down. He surmised that the third keeper ran out to help them and also washed away. This is supported by rumors that MacArthur had previously been fined for failing to secure the box.

One of these guys might have been like, it’s raining, we got to go secure the box, ran out there without his cold weather gear because he was so stressed, and then this happened.

Or maybe he went out to rescue the two people, that’s why he fled without his gear. The lighthouse keepers are never permitted to leave the lighthouse unattended, so one of them always has to be there when they’re doing chores and that kind of thing.

They were like, it would be really abnormal. Something would have had to have happened to make this third person break the rules and flee. If we believe the official story from Robert Morehead.

The wave.

The wave would have had to have been over 110 feet high.

They did say that 200 feet up at the base, there’s some grass and then there’s like the lighthouse, that there was evidence that grass had been ripped up and destroyed. So are we to believe there was a 200 foot rogue wave that took these people out?

It would have been not only one rogue wave, but two, right? Because a wave would have had to have taken out these people, the other guy runs out to help them and he gets taken out by the rogue wave.

Yeah, because they’re high up above the water. They’re 200 feet above the water.

Do you want to make a guess? I know you guys like to play this game. I want to make a guess what the largest officially recorded wave, like a tsunami.

Yeah. I was thinking like, I don’t think there’s been any tsunamis that are like over 100 feet. They didn’t go.

It’s like, what, 70 feet is the highest? So what I found is that the largest officially recorded wave was a 100-foot tsunami that struck Alaska in 1958.

Wow, Alaska.

I did also see though somewhere that there was a lighthouse in Ireland that was damaged by a wave in 1985 that they estimated to be 150 feet. But anyway, but it was saying like an officially recorded wave, 100 feet is the max.

So like the idea that there would be a 200-foot rogue wave that would have come in to do this. Yeah, seems weird. Yeah.

Sounds like a double homicide suicide.

Or like that. And then throw the bodies off the cliff.

So the thing is too that we do have some evidence, I’ll talk about this in a moment, that there was between December 15th and December 26th window, there was some bad weather, but not really evidence that on December 15th, when we estimate they

disappeared, the weather wasn’t that bad then, and that other boat that went by and said, hey, the light’s out, how were they able to get, they said it was calm but stormy, how were they able to get to port if this weather was so bad that it took

these people out? So the story goes, the story that circulates about this case is that when they reviewed the logbooks, the investigators, there was an entry on December 12th in which Marshall recorded that a great storm was hitting the isle,

claiming it was the worst storm he had ever seen. He claimed that Ducat was quiet and MacArthur was weeping. A later entry reported them all praying in the eye of the storm and then a final entry on December 15th claimed the storm had passed and all

was quiet. He made no mention of anyone dying or being injured. So if they were alive after the storm, that story kind of falls apart.

Like right, if he’s documenting December 15th that the storm has passed and we’re all good, then that would be weird.

Mike Dash, a reporter and non-fiction author, looked into this and found the story of the December 12th to 15 logs all started circulating later in a 1921 magazine, True Confessions, and was repeated over time.

So this story that has been told for a hundred years is not of just this log part is not real. He pointed out that it would be completely unprofessional for the log book to contain like descriptions of people’s feelings and that sort of thing.

Like this wasn’t a diary. This is like an official log of like weather. And it would have been MacArthur’s responsibility to keep the logs not Marshall’s.

So he kind of debunked this whole story. He thinks that like people were already like trying to figure, solve this mystery and somebody just made this up to thicken the plot.

That’s crazy.

The real story about the logs, the first hand accounts of the investigators say that the last written entries into the Keepers logs were from December 13th, but they had a slate.

They would write notes on a slate and then it would get like transcribed into the logbook. So the logbook was updated up to December 13th.

On the slate, there were details for December 14th, including extinguishing the light on December 15th in the morning, as well as a barometer, thermometer and wind readings all recorded at 9 a.m. on December 15th. So we know that at 9 a.m.

on December 15th, they were alive. The lamp appeared ready to be lit.

So based upon this documentation and the reports of the ship that reported that the light was on on December 15th, we can surmise that something happened on the afternoon of December 15th. And sunset was at 4 p.m.

Does that just give you like seasonal effect of disorder thinking about it? 4 p.m. Sunset was at 4 p.m.

So if the, again, if that boat went by and it was not lit, something had to have happened before 4 p.m. After the daily chores were done in the morning, before it was lit at 4 p.m.

There was also a lifeboat that was missing, but it appeared that there were pieces of canvas attached to curing ropes indicating it had likely been torn off the ropes.

So again, what we know is that there was a storm on December 20th, but again, not so bad on December 15th. So some of this damage you see, like the boat being missing and that damage to the grass might have happened five days after. Right.

They did the shear.

Because how long did it take them to figure out that they were missing?

11 days.

Oh, that’s definitely from the 20th storm. Yeah.

21:05

Unexplained Disappearance Theories

So here are the theories.

If you don’t believe this was a rogue wave or wind.

I like the murder-suicide. Okay. I like that.

That is one of the theories.

A couple of people throw in this love trite.

Yeah, I also like that.

It has no proof that they just believe.

It’s cute. In all period piece LGBT stories, they end in death and zero happiness. So it’s accurate.

Donald MacArthur was the occasional lighthouse keeper that I told you subbed in.

He had a reputation for being a bit of a hothead. So pretty much any of the theories that there was foul play amongst one of these three did it, people will allege it was most likely Donald MacArthur.

Did he start a fight and they all fell off the cliff? Also, why would he take them out to fight on a cliff? Did he kill them in a fit of rage and then commit suicide?

Was being stuck on the island for 19 days without any human contact beyond these other two people? Did a district drive him mad? You said you wouldn’t want to be on the island.

What if they got the flu?

Where are their bodies?

In the ocean.

What if they went like-

The flu made them all jump into the ocean?

What if-

What if they get encephalopathic? He was former military. He had come directly from another job, so he probably was already-

That’s crazy.

He was probably already stressed and tired.

I just don’t understand how flu equals-

You’re septic and you’re overheating and then you come run out of your lighthouse and then you just accidentally fall off the cliff.

But why is the clock- Well, here’s-

The clock is weird, actually. Hold on.

Well, no, not really, because if you think about it, the old fashioned clock, you got to wind it.

That’s true.

If it doesn’t get wound every week, I mean, it was more than a week. I think it’s creepy to describe that they went in and time had stopped. The clock had just not been wound.

The wind clock every week?

Here is one of the theories if you’re talking about encephalopathic patients.

These large Fresno lighthouse lenses like the one in the Flannan Isles lighthouse, they float on baths of liquid mercury.

Oh my god.

The massive lens assemblies could rotate smoothly with very little friction.

Here you go. They had mercury poisoning.

Over time, workers maintaining these systems could potentially inhale mercury vapor, especially in enclosed lantern rooms with poor ventilation. But usually, this requires chronic mercury exposure.

Symptoms would be tremors, anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, memory problems, insomnia, mood swings and irritability, and cognitive decline. But again, we don’t really see this happen over a period of days.

This usually takes years as a slower progressive onset. It is. That’s why they call them the Mad Hatters.

That’s right.

If you want to stay on this murder theory, there is another suspect.

What if they just fell down the hill?

What if they were goofing around?

All three fell down. Is this the military guy?

He definitely cut something. Look at that mustache.

That guy, look at his eyes. Dead inside?

He’s dead inside. He’s got those eyes. That’s a thing where you can see the white underneath them.

I think that’s like an 1800s photo that has over penetration.

It doesn’t matter.

Over penetration? I’ll tell you, over penetration.

He’s trying to make, he’s making jokes.

He knows who he is. He’s smart. He is smart.

Okay. What’s the murder, Megan?

Roderick MacKenzie was this gamekeeper who lived on an island 18 miles east on the Isle of Lewis. He was made by the lighthouse people to keep an eye. Because again, there’s no phone.

We’re like, how was the Northern Lighthouse Board going to know if something goes wrong with the light? That’s Roderick MacKenzie’s job. They had a system set up where they could send a distress signal to him.

If he noticed anything out of sorts, like the light not being lit, he was supposed to report that to the Northern Lighthouse Board. He is getting a salary to do this.

Yeah.

Well, after the disappearance was discovered, they reached out to him and he admitted he had not seen the light for eight days.

He never reported it?

He said the first seven, he was convinced that the Haar, which is like Seamist, was just obstructing the view. But the eighth day was clear and he still didn’t see any light. He never reported it.

What?

In fact, from December 7th, when Joseph Mòr last saw his coworkers, until December 25th, he had only seen the light on two times.

So the only reason people are like, did he kill him, is because why was he so unhelpful? Right.

Yeah, why didn’t he report it?

And also theoretically, he is like the closest person to, he can take his little tender run over. There’s also some folklore about the Mòr that predated the disappearance.

Okay.

Many believe the islands were inhabited by, this is their term, little people. These are fairy-like entities from Gaelic folklore. I was like, what little people are we talking about?

Why don’t you just call them fairies, Megan?

The Mòrs call them little people.

Maybe like leprechauns. Fairy-like entities from Gaelic folklore. In Highland tradition, remote islands, caves, and cliffs were often viewed as thin places where the boundary between the human world and the spirit world was weaker.

Yes, I like that.

Rumor is that shepherds who visited the island refused to stay overnight.

Fishermen would remove their hats when passing the island as a sign of respect. There’s also another fable about a sleeping giant who slept beneath the cliffs and that loud noises or disrespect could awaken dangerous forces.

Some people believe that the little people did something or these secret giants did something.

Okay.

That’s all the folklore.

Okay.

I like that folklore. I appreciate that.

I hope they brought them into the faerie world and didn’t kill them.

There’s also thought.

They could be gay together. Yeah. There should be a movie.

There should be a movie.

There’s also Kelpies.

These are the seal people, right? They’re humans but also are also seals. Anyways, 10 percent.

People think of them as mermaid-like, but they’re really mostly horses.

The Kelpie is a shape-shifting water spirit that primarily hunts the deep locks and lonely pools of Scotland. Most commonly, they appear as a magnificent, powerful horse roaming the water’s edge.

It entices weary travelers or curious children to mount its back. However, the moment a victim touches the creature, its skin acts like an inescapable adhesive, trapping them completely.

The Kelpie then plunges into the murky depths to drown and devour its prey, leaving behind only the entrails.

While it usually adopts the form of an equine, often distinguishable by constantly dripping main, can also shift into human form, frequently appearing as a handsome stranger with waterweeds tangled in its hair. So did a Kelpie get them?

I don’t know.

I don’t think I believe in Kelpies. Kelpies generally live in locks. They don’t like saltwater.

Okay.

That makes sense because of their skin.

Actually, it would shrivel. So that’s the reason I’m not believing the Kelpies, okay? On the island, there was also a tiny chapel called St.

Flannan’s Chapel. Sailors would visit it to perform rituals like walking around it clockwise for protection and they would leave offerings to St. Flannan.

There are theories that they may have been punished for violating sacred ground with the building of the lighthouse and the island demanded the sacrifice of three people, because three is an occult number, to appease the island.

In reality, a lot of these elaborate occult tales and folklore didn’t circulate until after the disappearance. So it’s like the story of the bad logs that the story circulates and people start to build on it to make it more exciting.

There’s also a theory out there that I wasn’t able to verify. I looked. There was a story that they may have encountered survivors of a wrecked Scandinavian vessel.

So maybe they went to help this distressed boat. What about Vikings?

Well, this is in the 1900s.

This is a little late. What about the Vikings?

Way earlier than that.

What about pirates?

That’s a good thought.

We still have pirates, you know? Yeah.

Pirates is a good thought actually. Hold on.

There was one podcast that was like, there was in fact a Norwegian wreckage. This might be the story, but I couldn’t find. That’s all the information I have.

I think the story did evolve. There’s a very famous poem about Flannan Isle that I think added a lot of these tales. But anyway, I have a thought, I have an opinion.

What do you guys think?

Let me just walk through.

Recap for us.

Recap just in my head. We don’t think it’s a wave because the wave would have to have been massive. Yes.

But what if they were just casually lower on the island, and a smallish wave could have gone?

Maybe. But again, the thought would be that this lighthouse could never be left unattended.

I bet they broke that rule.

It’s not like the three of them. It had to have been like they were in trouble and somebody rushed out. Exactly.

That’s what I think that’s like. They weren’t having a picnic together. Okay.

So you think road waves.

No, I’m just trying to think process. Then the wind would have pushed them into the island, what if they were on the, but it’s an island. What if wind came from the other direction and push them off?

I mean, they could have caught up the east.

The reason that they’ve determined that they must have been on the west side of the island is because it looked, they found that box that was open with like rope and stuff. They thought they were probably trying to secure everything for the storm.

Okay.

But you’re right. Maybe he was, maybe they weren’t on the west side. Maybe they were on the east side and it was windy.

I don’t know what I’m thinking.

I’m thinking an accident of some sort in an emergency. But for all of their bodies who have gone missing, it had to have been wind or the water. Were there any wild animals out there that would have eaten them?

The Kelpies.

Maybe sea creatures. But no wild animals. That was a really small island.

It was a pretty small island. So there’s nothing that’s native to that island? Well, there were stories of three black crows that were waiting for the relief when they approached.

That’s also been debunked, though. Someone made up that. Oh, okay.

Birds. Yeah, but birds seem to be more like picket things. They would be remains, not like a bear.

I’m thinking an accident of some sort.

Somebody slipped and hit their head.

Again, it’s like you would just expect that there would be like a body. Well, so were there any provisions found? Were any of the provisions stolen?

Also, I don’t think so. That’s a great question. If you came on to the island and robbed them.

Yeah, and like that’s why one of the boxes was kind of on the other side. Well, I don’t think the box is a provision box. No, I know, but like maybe they didn’t know that.

And then they went to go get them and then they got. No, I think the box lived where it was.

Here’s a thought. What if they all got hurt somehow? Okay.

And then like two people got hurt.

Sure.

Then there’s one person left. And then the storm came on the 20th because they weren’t found until after that, right? So what if the bodies were there, but got blown away on the storm that was allegedly reported on the 20th?

You know what?

That’s not a bad…

That’s probably what happened.

Because there was a boulder that they said weighed more than I think a human body.

Yeah, that was moved.

That had moved.

Yeah.

Okay.

That’s probably what I’m leaning more. Like something happened that they all got incapacitated or whatever. And then a storm came days later.

An enormous, yeah, a one ton boulder had been shifted from its position.

Oh, they got blown into the ocean.

There’s not a doubt in my mind. A boulder could be moved.

One ton?

That’s a lot. That’s a big boulder. That’s a bit, that’s an ice boulder.

You can just roll down the hill at some point.

Yeah.

Now I’m believing the giant theory.

Hold on.

The giant was going to set up the pit.

Way to set up the pit.

I think realistically, they got hurt and blown away in the following storm. Unrealistically, it was the giant and the little people.

But what about the love triangle?

I also want that to happen. I don’t know.

She wants it to happen. Does she believe that?

I don’t know.

I think that the nature of it had to have been, two people were caught in something. They called for help.

The third person heard them went or maybe saw them because he was manning the lighthouse so where he should have had a view of whatever was happening on the island. Right. Yeah.

And then ran to them. And then whatever happened became their fate.

Yeah.

I mean, I think even if you don’t believe the waves were big enough to pull someone under, they at least probably were big enough to make the grass slick or the rocks slick, slippery. Right. So again, but I’m just like, all three of them slipped?

I know.

I mean.

It’s like the fact that if it was one lighthouse keeper, I feel like you could easily. And like, why would you go outside in a storm? That’s what they’re saying too.

They’re like, these theories about like a fight, they’re like, why would they go outside in a storm to fight? If they were getting a fight, they could just fight in the lighthouse.

Right. Right.

Or like, yeah, in general, so I think a lot of why people are like, this is this official story they told us of this rogue wave is not realistic, because lighthouse keepers know like a storm is coming, you lock it down. Right.

You don’t say like, let’s go do some errands or whatever. Right. I think that this story has evolved and gotten more and more dramatic over time.

Because again, there’s a lot of rumors that were not reported early on, that have now kind of been inserted into the story. Then I told you there was this 1912 poem that dramatized the story.

We read it in a voice.

It added further embellishments. Read it in a voice. It’s so long.

That’s where they talk about tables and chairs overturned and made up logs, and three black birds waiting when the relief ship arrived. It’s called Flannan Isle if you’re going to look it up.

This is when the stories of the keepers behaving irrationally or something more sinister than a tragic accident took place. It sounds like the theories like 1900 like, okay, it was a wave, that’s what happened.

Then all this press came out, this poem came out, plot thickened, and suddenly people were like, oh, wait, it’s the giant or it’s something else had to have happened. I think, yeah, it was probably some tragic accident.

Again, unclear to me how every single body was able to wash into the ocean, like that there’s really just no evidence. You would think they’d be like someone with a head trauma or something.

Or blood or something.

I don’t believe they were taken up by multiple freak waves, maybe the ground was slick and they were blown off by gusts of wind.

Could have been icy.

Yeah.

It’s Scotland, so it’s always raining. Do we know anything about their personal lives? Are they married with kids?

Two of the three are married with kids.

There goes my gay theory.

It could still be a thing, but it’s all for-

I’m sorry, do you watch SVU on the down low?

Yeah.

Could there have been a flash type of storm, like a flash flood, flash winds, something very quickly that came on and quick onset, quick offset, you know what I mean?

It’s the ocean, right? You never know.

The ocean is a scary, scary place. It is. I don’t mean a tidal wave, but a freak hurricane.

A freak hurricane or a water spout. I mean, maybe it was Amelia Earhart style and there were some crabs that came in and ate these.

Maybe.

Maybe it was an octopus. Maybe it was the Philadelphia ship, and the ghost ship popped up, portal, time stops. Tanner believes me.

I’m with it.

Okay.

These are a lot of great theories, but it sounds like on a serious note, we’re all believing weather.

Yeah.

Especially back then, there’s no sonar, radar. There’s no real way to figure this out. So of course, it’s going to be a mystery because there’s no eyewitnesses and that’s all you have back then, is like eyewitness accounts.

It’s not like they had helis that could go with their spotlights and go into the-

There’s no coast guard.

Yeah.

It was definitely the weather, but I like a little gay love story.

Guys, just a reminder, don’t forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages at 3SchemeQueens. That’s the number 3 SchemeQueens, all one word. We’re also on Reddit, same username.

If you want to check out our website, go to 3schemequeens.com, and you can find links to our social media accounts, our Buzzsprout page, all of our episodes, additional content, and our contact page where you can engage with us and share any updates

on the topics that we have discussed. Let us know how we’re doing and what you want to hear next. There are also opportunities to financially support us with links to buy us a cup of coffee and links to our merch store.

As always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, and the listens, the likes. Kait, what should the people do?

Yeah, if you like this episode, I want you to scroll on down, leave us a five-star review, interact with us on our social media, share a comment, and then I want you to take your phone out and text three people that you really think would like this

episode. Maybe some people who like Scotland.

Or like lighthouses.

Or like lighthouses, or from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where there’s a multitude of lighthouses, for which I did lots of projects on, because I hail from North Carolina.

Maggie.

That sounds good. What do the people have to look forward to this season then? Maybe some more sea creatures, maybe some ghost ships?

Those ships are kind of scary.

Possible.

Those ships are crazy for the same reason. I think the story is creepy, is the idea of just like showing up and it just being like… I don’t know if you guys have ever heard of this.

Lived in, but empty. Yeah, that’s weird. So we’ll see you next Tuesday for…

See you next Tuesday.

Another fun episode.