The Mysterious Flannan Isle
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Author: Britney B.
Released 26 November 2003
Flannan Isle Lighthouse
Since so many of you enjoyed the Daylight Robbery article and have expressed your love of the narrative poem, here’s another one from my school verse speaking choir days.
I can’t remember if we won anything with Flannan Isle by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, though I think we may have achieved a third place.
Located in the Atlantic Ocean 15 miles west of the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides, the Flannan Isle Lighthouse, built in 1899, is most renowned for the mysterious disappearance of its three lighthouse keepers in the winter of 1900.
A rotation system ensured a change of personnel every 14 days and on December 7, 1900, Head Lighthouse Keeper, James Ducat, arrived at the island to begin another tour of duty. His First Assistant, William Ross, had been taken ill and a local man, Donald Macarthur, had taken his place. Second Assistant Thomas Marshall made up the trio. Accompanying the three men on the relief vessel was Robert Muirhead, the Superintendent of Lighthouses. Routine inspections were a part of his brief and Muirhead always liked to keep in close touch with the men under his supervision. The Superintendent spent some time on the island, reassuring himself that everything was running smoothly. He had a brief discussion with the Head Keeper concerning improvements in monitoring, then bade him and the others farewell. The Superintendent was the last person to see any of them alive.
As was standard practice, the island was kept under periodic observation from land and a telescope would be trained on it at regular intervals. In case of emergency, the lighthouse-keepers could hoist an appropriate flag and assistance would be sent out to them but as the lighthouse was often obscured by mist, there was no guarantee that the signal would be seen. It was this very problem that Ducat and Muirhead had been discussing on December 7. During the next two weeks a heavy mist enveloped the island. The lighthouse would not be visible again from land until 29 December.
On the night of December 15, 1900 it was noted in the log of a passing steamer that the light on the Flannan Isle lighthouse was not working, though passing ships had seen it on the night of the 14th. Before this could be reported, the lighthouse relief boat Hesperus had sailed for Flannan Isle. She had to battle through Atlantic gales and didn't arrive until December 26, but no one was waiting to greet the crew of the Hesperus, and no one replied to their siren or steam whistle. The crew entered the lighthouse to find no sign of Ducat, Marshall or Macarthur. The clock on the inner wall had stopped, there was no fire in the grate and all the beds were empty. A meal had been prepared but was uneaten. The island was searched from end to end, but nothing was found to explain the disappearance of the men. The last log entry was at 9am on December 15.
Accurate record keeping was mandatory for all lighthouse crew and the Head Keeper had conscientiously compiled reports up until the 13th. Draft entries for December 14 and 15 had been written indicating there had been a storm on the 14th but by the next morning it had blown itself out. There was no indication of any further problems. Whatever had happened to the three men, it had happened to them that afternoon.
In 1912, Wilfrid Gibson published his famous poem, Flannan Isle. The piece lacked historical accuracy, but it created a disturbing sense of danger and uncertainty. In many ways it is this work, rather than the actual events, which captured the imagination of the public. It has inspired music and fiction, and the inevitable crackpot theories of aliens, mermaids or sea monsters presumed as alternative explanations for the disappearance.
FLANNAN ISLE, by: Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
Though three men dwelt on Flannan Isle
To keep the lamp alight,
As we steered under the lee, we caught
No glimmer through the night.
A passing ship at dawn had brought
The news: and quickly we set sail,
To find out what strange thing might ail
The keepers of the deep-sea light.
The winter day broke blue and bright,
With glancing sun and glancing spray,
As o'er the swell our boat made way,
As gallant as a gull in flight.
But, as we near'd the lonely Isle,
And looked up at the naked height;
And saw the lighthouse towering white,
With blinded lantern, that all night
Had never shot a spark
Of comfort through the dark,
So ghostly in the cold sunlight
It seem'd that we were struck the while
With wonder all too deep for words.
And, as into the tiny creek
We stole beneath the hanging crag,
We saw three queer, black, ugly birds -
Too big by far, in my belief,
For guillemot or shag -
Like seamen sitting bolt upright
Upon a half-tide reef;
But, as we neared they plunged from sight,
Without a sound or spurt of white.
And still too mazed to speak,
We landed; and made fast the boat;
And climb'd the track in single file,
Each wishing he was safe afloat,
On any sea however far,
So be it far from Flannan Isle:
And still we seem'd to climb, and climb,
As though we'd lost all count of time,
And so must climb for evermore.
Yet, all too soon, we reached the door -
The black, sun-blistered lighthouse-door,
That gaped for us ajar.
As, on the threshold, for a spell,
We paused, we seem'd to breathe the smell
of limewash and of tar,
Familiar as our daily breath,
As though 'twere some strange scent of death:
And so, yet wondering, side by side,
We stood a moment, still tongue-tied:
And each with black foreboding eyed
The door, ere we should fling it wide,
And leave the sunlight for the gloom:
Till, plucking courage up, at last,
Hard on each other's heels we passed
Into the living room.
Yet, as we crowded through the door,
We only saw a table, spread
For dinner, meat and cheese and bread;
But all untouch'd, and no one there:
As though when they sat down to eat,
Ere they could even taste,
Alarm had come; and they in haste
Had risen and left the bread and meat:
For at the table-head a chair
Lay tumbled on the floor.
We listen'd; but we only heard
The feeble chirping of a bird
That starved upon its perch:
And, listening still, without a word,
We set about our hopeless search.
We hunted high, we hunted low,
And soon ransack'd the empty house;
Then o'er the Island, to and fro,
We ranged, to listen and to look
In every cranny, cleft or nook
That might have hid a bird or mouse:
But, though we searched from shore to shore,
We found no sign in any place:
And soon again stood face to face
Before the gaping door:
And stole into the room once more
As frighten'd children steal.
Aye: though we hunted high and low,
And hunted everywhere,
Of the three men's fate we found no trace
Of any kind in any place,
But a door ajar, and an untouch'd meal,
And an overtoppled chair.
And, as we listen'd in the gloom
Of that forsaken living-room -
A chill clutch on our breath -
We thought how ill-chance came to all
Who kept the Flannan Light;
And how the rock had been the death
Of many a likely lad:
How six had come to sudden end,
And three had gone stark mad:
And one whom we'd all known as friend
Had leapt from the lantern one still night,
And fallen dead by the lighthouse wall:
And long we thought
On the three we sought,
And of what might yet befall.
Like curs, a glance has brought to heel,
We listen'd flinching there:
And look'd, and look'd, on the untouch'd meal
And the overtoppled chair.
We seem'd to stand for an endless while,
Though still no word was said,
Three men alive on Flannan Isle,
Who thought on three men dead.
Superintendent Muirhead joined the others at Flannan Isle on December 29. His official report is the most detailed account of the state of the island at that time. The storm on the night of December 14 had clearly caused substantial damage. The jetty was warped and the railings were clearly battered. A store containing mooring ropes and crane handles had been washed away. The ropes from the box had become entangled on a temporary crane some 70 feet above the normal level of the sea.
Muirhead concluded that the men had left the lighthouse in order to secure this store against the storm. Then, Muirhead believed, they had either been blown off the edge of the rocks or - more likely - an unexpectedly large wave had swept over the top of them and dragged them out to sea. The first theory could be discounted, as the wind that day had been in a westerly (uphill) direction. It was Muirhead's conclusion, therefore, that a freak wave - referred to in his report as a roller - was ultimately responsible for the men's disappearance. The sea had claimed them and nothing could have been done to prevent it. A new crew was installed on Flannan Isle and efforts were made to increase the effectiveness of daily monitoring.
Although the memory of the disappearances lives on, no one seriously disputes the findings of Superintendent Muirhead. It was not aliens or sea monsters that killed the unfortunate Keepers of Flannan Island - it was the Atlantic Ocean.