On 17 October 1917 the schooner Zebrina was found stuck aground ground at Rozel Point, south of Cherbourg in northwestern France. The ship was undamaged in any serious way (there was "some disarrangement of the sails"), with her sails all set, but with no-one on board. All five crew were missing. The last log entry was the day she'd left Falmouth.
At about 2PM on 15 October she departed Falmouth, carrying a cargo of about three hundred tonnes of Welsh coal, for Saint-Brieuc in France. The journey should have taken about thirty hours but in the early morning of the 17th a French naval patrol found the ship adrift in a flat calm and boarded her. There they found a table set for a meal that had been partly prepared, the galley fire still burning, but no crew.
A search of the ship found the men's clothing and personal belongings still on board. Likewise the log book and other ship's papers were in the captain's cabin. The single, small wooden lifeboat still hung in the davits.
Mystified by the discovery, the French navy towed the ship to Cherbourg. There the cargo was removed and the schooner was examined in detail. No damage was found, in fact marine surveyors judged her in excellent condition, with no significant leaks.
At first it was assumed that the crew had been taken off by a German submarine, their ship having been caught in a calm and stopped. This was ruled highly unlikely as the schooner hadn't been sunk, usual practice in such cases, and by the presence of the papers. German submarine commanders were under orders to confiscate and return ship's papers.
Another popular theory was the severe, and sudden, gale of the night of 16 October had swept all five men overboard. Perhaps a giant wave had struck when then were on deck attempting to keep the ship heading into the wind. Though the fact that when found all the sails were still set, and the lack of storm damage, would seem to contradict this.
After the war no German sources had any information on the disappearance of the crew, nor have any remains ever been found. No known submarine or other naval vessel intercepted the ship, nor does the incident correlate with the known movements of sunken submarines.
It's a mystery. :jaw-dropp
Note that the Zebrina was not found drifting (as some accounts state) nor is there any truth to her being used as a Q-Ship.
The mundane explanation is that for some reason a submarine boarded the ship, removed the crew, but never made it back to base. This is, however, rather unlikely as there seems no reason to act in this atypical manner.
Other explanations. Originally for gaming BTW.
1. Aliens.
While the English Channel isn't as well known as the Bermuda Triangle for weirdness there are odd stories. Did the crew of the Zebrina witness the crash of an alien spacecraft and investigate? And what happened to them? Were the killed to eliminate witnesses, their bodies dumped in the sea or disintegrated? Or take away for detailed examination, duplication or cybernetic conversion...
Or did the Zebrina pass too close to Fang Rock, where a remnant of the Rutan scout had been slowly regrowing since most of it was destroyed fifteen years earlier?
2. Scareships.
Or maybe the ship the Zebrina encountered during that gale wasn't alien, but a piece of advanced human technology constructed using recovered alien technology. Forced down by the storm, or a problem with it's gravity nullifier, the crew ruthlessly eliminated the witnesses but left without sinking the ship.
Who's behind the mystery craft? Britain? Germany? Or an independent operator in the mold of Verne's Robur or Nemo.
What happened to the airship?
3. Fu Manchu.
Did the crew play some part in one of the Devil Doctor's schemes? Transporting some of his minions from wartime Britain to France perhaps? Or equipment and supplies. Were they supposed to meet another vessel near the French coast, or did the passengers bring a boat of their own and eliminate the crew?
Interestingly one historian (Wallace Harvey) claimed that the Zebrina carried 23 crew on her last trip instead of the usual five. He believes that the schooner was being used as a Q-Ship (a merchant ship with concealed armament) though absolutely no evidence has emerged of any such conversion, or the time necessary for it to have happened. Had a number of passengers been crowded aboard?
4.Silurians Earth Reptiles Indigenous Terrans.
Or rather their aquatic cousins the Sea Devils. Why would they attack a lone sailing ship carrying coal? A mistake perhaps? Or was the Zebrina carrying another, secret, cargo? Hardly unusual in wartime, perhaps Captain Martin had been entrusted with a package (a recovered artefact of some kind) to deliver in France and it's presence awoke a group of Sea Devils.
Or they were a deliberate sacrifice.
For a Lovecraftian feel the aquatic attackers could have been Deep Ones, operating from a base in the Channel area.
5. Time vortex
The lack of disturbance to the ship's fittings and cooking utensils suggests the Zebrinadidn't experience that storm at all. Was it caught in a rip in space-time and transported elsewhere? Did the crew leave to investigate the place they'd found themselves? Or were they overpowered and taken off, perhaps while unconscious from the transition, while the ship returned.
So what caused the time-slip? A weird natural effect, Mad Science, wake from a passing (and poorly shielded) time-vessel or that alien gadget they'd been paid to transport, there are many options.
- The crew were: the master, Archibald Martin, and four British seamen; W. H. Beck, W. F. D. Bourke, M. Faus, and G. Steward.
- The ship was wooden hulled, about 33m long, of 185 tons with three masts and schooner rigging, and had been constructed at Whitstable in 1873. Intended for the long distance meat trade to South America (specifically to Fray Bentoas in Uruguay, then possessor of the world's largest slaughterhouse) the Zebrina had a flat bottomed hull (in the manner of a barge), which enabled her to sail up shallow rivers.
At about 2PM on 15 October she departed Falmouth, carrying a cargo of about three hundred tonnes of Welsh coal, for Saint-Brieuc in France. The journey should have taken about thirty hours but in the early morning of the 17th a French naval patrol found the ship adrift in a flat calm and boarded her. There they found a table set for a meal that had been partly prepared, the galley fire still burning, but no crew.
A search of the ship found the men's clothing and personal belongings still on board. Likewise the log book and other ship's papers were in the captain's cabin. The single, small wooden lifeboat still hung in the davits.
Mystified by the discovery, the French navy towed the ship to Cherbourg. There the cargo was removed and the schooner was examined in detail. No damage was found, in fact marine surveyors judged her in excellent condition, with no significant leaks.
At first it was assumed that the crew had been taken off by a German submarine, their ship having been caught in a calm and stopped. This was ruled highly unlikely as the schooner hadn't been sunk, usual practice in such cases, and by the presence of the papers. German submarine commanders were under orders to confiscate and return ship's papers.
Another popular theory was the severe, and sudden, gale of the night of 16 October had swept all five men overboard. Perhaps a giant wave had struck when then were on deck attempting to keep the ship heading into the wind. Though the fact that when found all the sails were still set, and the lack of storm damage, would seem to contradict this.
After the war no German sources had any information on the disappearance of the crew, nor have any remains ever been found. No known submarine or other naval vessel intercepted the ship, nor does the incident correlate with the known movements of sunken submarines.
It's a mystery. :jaw-dropp
Note that the Zebrina was not found drifting (as some accounts state) nor is there any truth to her being used as a Q-Ship.
The mundane explanation is that for some reason a submarine boarded the ship, removed the crew, but never made it back to base. This is, however, rather unlikely as there seems no reason to act in this atypical manner.
Other explanations. Originally for gaming BTW.
1. Aliens.
While the English Channel isn't as well known as the Bermuda Triangle for weirdness there are odd stories. Did the crew of the Zebrina witness the crash of an alien spacecraft and investigate? And what happened to them? Were the killed to eliminate witnesses, their bodies dumped in the sea or disintegrated? Or take away for detailed examination, duplication or cybernetic conversion...
Or did the Zebrina pass too close to Fang Rock, where a remnant of the Rutan scout had been slowly regrowing since most of it was destroyed fifteen years earlier?
2. Scareships.
Or maybe the ship the Zebrina encountered during that gale wasn't alien, but a piece of advanced human technology constructed using recovered alien technology. Forced down by the storm, or a problem with it's gravity nullifier, the crew ruthlessly eliminated the witnesses but left without sinking the ship.
Who's behind the mystery craft? Britain? Germany? Or an independent operator in the mold of Verne's Robur or Nemo.
What happened to the airship?
3. Fu Manchu.
Did the crew play some part in one of the Devil Doctor's schemes? Transporting some of his minions from wartime Britain to France perhaps? Or equipment and supplies. Were they supposed to meet another vessel near the French coast, or did the passengers bring a boat of their own and eliminate the crew?
Interestingly one historian (Wallace Harvey) claimed that the Zebrina carried 23 crew on her last trip instead of the usual five. He believes that the schooner was being used as a Q-Ship (a merchant ship with concealed armament) though absolutely no evidence has emerged of any such conversion, or the time necessary for it to have happened. Had a number of passengers been crowded aboard?
4.
Or rather their aquatic cousins the Sea Devils. Why would they attack a lone sailing ship carrying coal? A mistake perhaps? Or was the Zebrina carrying another, secret, cargo? Hardly unusual in wartime, perhaps Captain Martin had been entrusted with a package (a recovered artefact of some kind) to deliver in France and it's presence awoke a group of Sea Devils.
Or they were a deliberate sacrifice.
For a Lovecraftian feel the aquatic attackers could have been Deep Ones, operating from a base in the Channel area.
5. Time vortex
The lack of disturbance to the ship's fittings and cooking utensils suggests the Zebrinadidn't experience that storm at all. Was it caught in a rip in space-time and transported elsewhere? Did the crew leave to investigate the place they'd found themselves? Or were they overpowered and taken off, perhaps while unconscious from the transition, while the ship returned.
So what caused the time-slip? A weird natural effect, Mad Science, wake from a passing (and poorly shielded) time-vessel or that alien gadget they'd been paid to transport, there are many options.
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/397T2lU
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire