Anyone else fascinated by this?

[_testify_]

I watched a History Channel special recently about 'ghost' ships...not like the Flying Dutchman, but real ships found derelict at sea, with no signs of the crew or any sort of distress. One vessel was found with food cooking on the stove.

Sort of like the Roanoke mystery. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for all of these, but it just creeps me the hell out!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_ship#In_reality

[Cabcere]

1. Yes, I do find that really interesting.

Kinda gives me the shivers, you know? :) Thanks for the link! :hi:

[Richard Steele]

2. Some of them, yes.

A few of the most infamous ones are just DAMNED fascinating, aren't they?

Not the "Roanoake" thing, though...that "mystery" there was
a politically-motivated fiction. Everyone knew what happened there,
back when it happened. The notion that there was some "mystery"
was just BS that grew into a tourist-attracting "legend".

[_testify_]

3. Well, tell me!

What happened there?

[Richard Steele]

6. I warn you- this is DISAPPOINTING and BORING!

What happened is pretty much exactly what anyone could GUESS happened.

The "mystery disappearance" story always mentions how
the re-supply ships arrived and found the word "croatoan"
carved on that tree.

What it DOESN'T mention is that the captain of that mission
met with representatives of the local native Nations, asked
what had happened to the colony, and was told in no uncertain terms:
"We killed them".

The colony was basically unprepared for self-sufficient existence in
a strange new land. It contained more IDEALISTS than survival experts.

It didn't have the skills or materials to GROW enough food, and it
couldn't forage or hunt much game because it was surrounded by
a union of civilized, well-organized Nations who had firm concepts
of "borders" and who didn't care for illegal aliens much.

So, the colony started to starve. Their diplomatic
relationships with the locals had never been "good"; only
their superior weapons had forced the natives to tolerate
their presence on that small & undesireable plot of land in
the first place.

When they finally got desperate enough to try raiding a native
town for food, that was all the reason that the natives needed
to mount a cooperative counter-raid and wipe them out.

Some women and young children were left alive, and assimilated
into the conquering nations. For generations after, blue eyes
and blond hair were occasionally seen in their populations.

NONE of this was a secret; it was just an unflattering failure story
that was spun, distorted, played down and polished up back in Europe
until the TRUTH was lost to history and what remained was a fairy-tale
about a MYSTERY that never was.



See how much LESS interesting that was? What a DISAPPOINTING
explanation that is, compared to the "mystery of Roanoake" story
we all heard? I suspect that's why the STORY continues to this day-
the fake mystery is so much more intriguing than the boring old truth.

[lost-in-nj]

9. Thanks

its kind of what I thought happened....
No romantic disappearance
but either disease or the locals!!!
Where did you hear/find out about this?

lost

[Richard Steele]

10. I'm CERTAIN I used to have a bookmarked link to an authoritative source...

...but I sure can't find it right now. (I looked for it for that post)

I'll ask Sweetie when she gets in tonight; odds are she can
help me find it again.

[Cabcere]

4. I'd be interested to hear about the Roanoke mystery, too...

:hi:

[Richard Steele]

7. I warn you- you'll be disappointed! See #6 above. nm

[lost-in-nj]

5. yeah me to!!!

:)


lost

[Richard Steele]

8. I warn you- you'll be disappointed! See #6 above. nm