100\. The Flannan Isle Mystery
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That's N-O-O-M dot com. You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the most amazing, brilliant, beautiful podcast you'll ever hear. I am your host, Peyton Moreland, and I am so glad that you are listening to Into the Dark today. If you don't know, Into the Dark is a true crime podcast that also ventures into ghost stories, hauntings, UFOs,

Tinfoil tales. Honestly, anything dark and spooky, if that's what you're wanting, you've come to the right place. Thank you so much for the continued support and love for this show. I feel it, I see it, and I love you guys back.

If you are watching on YouTube, please subscribe, turn on notifications, leave a comment down below. Maybe your favorite Christmas emoji or holiday emoji. Leave it down below. If you are listening on podcast and can leave a review, turn on automatic downloads. It's a great way to support the show. Again, thank you for being here. Before we jump into the nitty and gritty, we are going to start off this episode with my 10 seconds. And all I have to say is happy holidays.

holidays. I cannot believe that it is right around the corner. This year honestly went by so fast, but also I lived eight different lives this year. So I'm really confused about how that works and the timeline of all of that. But yeah,

It's the holidays. I think I mentioned this a couple episodes ago, but have been feeling in the Christmas spirit far more than I have in the past couple years, which has been super fun. The house is decorated. I've been wrapping presents and coloring and all my favorite things. But yeah, I'm just trying to end this year on not necessarily a good note, but just a note. I just want to...

Tie it up with a bow and put it away in a way that I can accept everything. And if you are in the same boat with me, I think it's a good I think it's a good boat to be in. To be honest, not everything has to be perfect. Not everything has to be good for it to have been a progressive year for you. And so you guys, we got this round of applause for making it a whole other year.

With that, let's get into the episode. All right, so as you guys know, in this show, I have talked a lot about different disappearances. People who went missing because they'd been murdered or because they were on the run after committing a crime.

Sometimes people vanish after tragic accidents or because they've decided to get a fresh start. But today's case is a disappearance with no clear explanation. And again, you guys, this is gonna be one of those disappearances that takes you down a rabbit hole and you're not gonna stop thinking about.

Three men go missing and there were no signs of foul play, no indication that they'd fled and no possible accident that made sense.

It was a baffling mystery and one that can maybe only be explained with some wild theories. Ones that people who believe into the Into the Dark genre have thrown around, like sea monsters, ancient fairy magic, ghost ships with undead crews.

I know it sounds wild, but you may be more willing to believe in magic if you spend any time off the western shore of Scotland where our case today takes place.

There in the chilly northern Atlantic, there are a chain of islands. Some of them are large, but the further west you go, the smaller the islands get. One group of particularly tiny isles are known as the Flannan Isles. They are rugged and rocky and not very welcoming.

Think of these cliff-lined beaches, and from these cliffs you can see dolphins and whales, and generally speaking, the seven Flannan Isles are small and rocky, and nobody lives there permanently.

But over a century ago, there was an exception to that rule on one aisle, a part of these seven, known as Aileen Moore. So this little aisle is just 38 acres across, end to end. This makes it smaller than New York's Grand Central Station.

But as minuscule as this isle is, Eilean Mor is the largest of these seven. And it has a 200-foot tall cliff just off the beach. Now, there are a lot of stories and myths about Eilean Mor, so this specific isle.

Local legends say that in ancient times, druids used the isle as a burial ground. They may have done this because there was something magical about the land. And perhaps those supernatural forces are still at work on it. Some power that's beyond our understanding. You have to think, these are very tall, rocky, powerful, scary creatures.

A bunch of islands together, these seven, and they have a lore to them. Like there is a history to these and they might just be stories probably. But what I do know for sure is that in the 1890s, Scottish officials decided to build a lighthouse on that massive 200 foot cliff on Eilean Morne.

That way, ships on their way to the mainland could see the light and know that they were getting closer to their destination, which wasn't these islands, but the big one, right? And that particular isle was chosen because it had the right geography for ships to pull up and dock nearby. They could regularly stop and drop off supplies for the keepers who worked in the lighthouse.

And of course, the glow from the lighthouse could be seen for miles in every direction, thanks to the high vantage point at the top of that cliff. So the authorities built the lighthouse there, plus a residence for the keepers and a chapel so they could worship. And again, this is in the 1890s. So residence is finally built. Everything was up and running.

Now, to keep things going smoothly, there were always three men stationed at this lighthouse. That way, there were enough people to keep it lit and make sure the bulb was cleaned and to ensure the fuel got refilled every day so the light wouldn't go out. There also had to be someone in the keeper's residence to cook, clean, and handle repairs. I mean, these people are living on this very small property.

200 foot cliff. They're getting supplies from ships passing through. So if a window broke or the chimney was clogged, someone had to handle that. One of the three men. And on top of that, they had a policy that there always had to be at least one person inside the lighthouse at all times. So that meant one person on duty manning the light. And the

and the other two would handle everything else on the island or have time off to rest and relax until it was time to swap duties.

So at one point in 1900, when the lighthouse had been standing for less than a year, three men were working in it. James Duquant was in charge. His title was Principal Lightkeeper. He was 44 years old and he'd spent most of his adult life working in jobs exactly like this one. He traveled from remote island to remote island, tending to lighthouses. This was a real thing.

And his wife, Mary, came from a whole family of lighthouse keepers. So she'd probably understood the challenges of this lifestyle when she'd agreed to marry a man who'd spend most of his time away from home on islands.

James had two men reporting to him as assistant light keepers. One was named Thomas Marshall, and he was 27 years old. He had spent his early years as a sailor, and now he had found a job that gave him a bit more stability while letting him still live near the sea. Again, he's a man who's alone because this is a hard job to have if you have a lot of friends and family.

And then the last assistant light keeper was a man named William Ross. Now, unfortunately, we don't know much about his history or his life before he came to the Aylen Moore Isle. We do know that for these three men, their time in the lighthouse was both exhausting and pretty lonely.

Sure, James, Thomas, and William had each other for company, but they never got to see their families. Their loved ones didn't live on Aylenmore with them. Periodically, new keepers would come to the island and give the men a break. This didn't happen very often. It wasn't like a normal job where you could come home in the evenings and weekends. They would go weeks or months at a time without setting foot on the mainland. And in the meanwhile, all they did all day every day was just work, eat, and sleep.

And eventually this caught up to William. So he gets sick and this was a problem for two big reasons. First, there is no hospital on the Flannan Isles. So the fear was that if he took a turn for the worse, he probably wouldn't be able to get treated very quickly.

And even more concerning, though, was that while he was ill, he couldn't work. And there were too many chores that needed to be done for James and Thomas to handle all on their own. So there was only one solution. William needed to go back to the mainland while he recovered. And in the meanwhile, a replacement would come to stay on the isle.

His name was Donald MacArthur. So that's where things are in the history of this aisle by the time we hit December 15th, 1900. And it's so weird to say 1900 and think that we have a case like this documented from that time, but either way.

James, Thomas, and the replacement Donald were working at the lighthouse and William was recovering back home. Now everyone assumed that the three of them had it under control without William, that they'd keep everything running normally. Except that night, a ship left Scotland on its way to the United States.

and it sailed right by the Flannan Isles. Now, this captain had made this specific voyage many times before. He was used to passing Eilean Mor and seeing a cheerful gleam from the lighthouse shining in the dark. Except that night, the captain of this ship from Scotland didn't see anything. The isle was pitch black. The lighthouse was dark.

So he can tell right away that this was not right. He even ran from the steering wheel and stood on the deck, scanning the horizon. Any second, the glow should have flickered into sight, except it never did. And that captain wasn't the only person who could tell that something was wrong. There was another island just 20 miles away from the Flannan Isles, and it had a lighthouse there too.

Now, usually its keeper could see the lights from Alyn Moore from his post. And they were a friendly reminder that he was not the only one out there in the middle of the ocean in the night. And there were others doing the same work that he was. But that night, no matter how long he stared into the distance, he did not see any sign of the distant lighthouse.

Now keep in mind, 20 miles is pretty far. I mean, there were many nights when this particular keeper would be unable to see the glow due to fog or other factors. Sometimes he'd go a week at a time without spotting the alien more light. So in the moment, he really didn't think much of it. But back to that ship's captain, he was a lot more worried.

As soon as he stopped at his next port, he told someone about his concerns. He explained that the lighthouse was supposed to be lit 24-7, and it wasn't. So he thought that someone should go check on the men of the Flannan Isles. But for whatever reason, nobody passed the tip along. The officials who were supposed to keep the lighthouse keepers safe never heard about the light being out.

So 11 more days passed before anyone decided to look around the island, see what was going on. And it's important to note that in those 11 days, no one saw any light coming from that lighthouse. But still, word never got to the proper officials, and so they didn't take any action. Do you guys know that solving mysteries keeps me on my toes? But staying fit?

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And a man named Joseph Moore was on his way there too. He was there to fill in for one of the other workers so they could take a break and go back home to the mainland. Now, as the ship got closer to Alyn Moore, they put up a flag.

Keep in mind, it was 1900. They didn't have a lot of technology on the ship, so the easiest way to communicate with the lighthouse keeper was with flags. Now, usually, ship Hesperus would wave the banner a certain way to signal that they were planning to dock off the shore, not just passing by.

Then the men on the aisle would respond by putting up a flag of their own so they could signal to each other about water conditions, what was going on in the lighthouse and anything else the crew might need to know.

But that day, the Hesperus didn't see anything on the isle. No flag went up at the lighthouse. It was like the keepers hadn't seen them. In fact, that's what the crew of this ship figured at first, that something had prevented the men from spotting their approach. So the crew kept waving the flag and they also tooted their horn. The thinking was if the lighthouse keepers just weren't paying attention, then they'd hear the sound and respond with a flag.

except still there was no response. Now, eventually the captain decided to send a rowboat full of men to the shore to investigate. I mean, what else are they supposed to do? A few sailors got into the rowboat plus Joseph, the assistant lighthouse keeper who was there to work his shift. And when they made it to the land, Joseph had an eerie feeling. The men were all hoping to see James, Thomas and Donald waiting at the shore to greet them and say hello,

But when they pull up, the entire beach is deserted. So Joseph told the other men in the rowboat to wait there where it was safe. He said he'd go explore alone. I mean, you have to imagine not many people know the layout of this place. So someone who's worked there before would probably have better luck.

Now from there, his next move was to head straight to the keeper's house. He must have been hoping that the other three had been held up somehow. Maybe they'd got sick or distracted. But as soon as he got inside, he thought, okay, I'll go to the house. They'll be there. However,

He couldn't shake this uneasy feeling the whole time he was making his way up to the residence. And I think this is because he knows how important it is to keep that light running, to wave the flags. This is a pretty well-oiled machine at this point. So with no response, what's wrong? At one point, he saw three black birds take off all at once. And he said this felt like an omen to him.

A sign that there was tragedy on Alyn Moore. So as soon as he gets there, the home is locked up and so is the lighthouse. And nobody answered when Joseph knocked. Since he didn't have a key, he had to break in.

Now, once he was inside, he found that the residence was spotless. There was no sign of foul play or an indication that a terrible accident had happened, a fire or something. In the kitchen, the dishes were washed and put away. The table was set for dinner, but there was no food out. It looked like someone had cleaned up after lunch, but hadn't begun preparing the evening meal yet.

Now, one of the chairs at the table had tipped over, but that was the only thing in this residence that was out of place. The entire rest of the home was perfect. There were ashes in the fireplace, but when Joseph touched them, they were cold, so he knew nothing had been burned here in a while. Each bedroom was clean, all the beds were made, but there was no sign anywhere.

of James, Thomas, or Donald, the only three residents of this aisle. They weren't in their house and they hadn't left a note or anything to point at where they could have gone. But there was one detail that struck Joseph as particularly creepy. Every single clock in this house had stopped.

Every single one. And the keepers had a pet canary and it was still alive in its cage and it was perfectly healthy. There was no sign that it was starving or dehydrated or that it had been hurt. So from there, Donald decides to go investigate the lighthouse itself. And again, everything was clean and properly put away and the fuel canisters were all full. Clearly the men had been taking care of the facility before I guess they vanished.

There were no signs that anything had gone wrong other than the fact that all three keepers were gone. So basically, it felt like James, Donald, and Thomas had just flipped out of existence. I mean, where were they going to go? But there were two small clues about what might have happened to them.

However, these were clues that raised as many questions as answers. See, Thomas and Donald had oil skins, which are clothes that have been treated with oil to make them extra warm and waterproof. These two always wore their oil skins anytime it was cold or raining. And given that this was December on a windy seaside, it was definitely cold basically every single day.

Now, James didn't own any oil skins, but he had a different kind of heavy coat that he preferred to wear. The point is, Joseph knew that he should check on the coats and oil skins because if those were gone, that would mean that the men had put on their coats and then left somewhere. And if they were there, well, then that meant that the keepers either didn't have enough time to get them on before they left or

Or it wasn't an option. Maybe they didn't leave voluntarily. When Joseph checked, he only found one set of oil skins and they were Donald's, which told Joseph that when James and Thomas had disappeared, they had been dressed and prepared to go outside. Maybe they had already been wearing it, but Donald wasn't.

So now, Joseph had worked with all of these men before, and he knew Donald well. He also knew that it was out of character for him to do something so careless and reckless as to leave the house without his winter clothes. Maybe he could have run out in a rush if he was panicking or if there was some kind of disaster going on. But he couldn't have been in that much of a hurry because clearly James and Thomas had put their gear on. It was odd and hard to make any sense of. However...

Joseph knew there was one last place that he could check for clues. All of the lighthouse keepers were supposed to keep a log. It was basically a formal written record of all the work that they'd done. So he read the logbook and he saw that the last entry was from December 15th. This is the same day the other lighthouse keeper and the ship captain had noticed that the light was out.

Now, this also wasn't a full entry. It was a couple of quick notes, like whoever wrote it didn't have time to jot down a lengthy report, but they were maybe planning on coming back later to finish writing. All they said was that the weather was bad that day and it looked like a storm was coming in. Now, I do think it's worth mentioning that in the years since this mystery,

A lot of rumors and allegations have gone around about those logbooks. If you're familiar with this story, you may have heard that there were entries about the men acting very strange prior to their disappearance, bursting into tears for no reason, flying into unprovoked rages, almost acting like they were possessed, like something was wrong on the island.

The thing about these stories is they're most likely not true. Those entries did not exist. Misinformation sprang up after the disappearances became more famous. The truth is that all Joseph knew from the logbook was that a storm seemed to be coming in on the 15th. Every other entry before that, according to Joseph, was normal.

But it told him that the keepers were alive and working at some time on the day that the light eventually went out. He also knew that there were certain duties that were always done in the morning and others that needed to happen in the afternoon and evening. So based on what had and hadn't been done around the home and the lighthouse, his best guess was that a disaster or whatever had happened

had happened sometime in the afternoon of December 15, 1900. So given all of this evidence, the Hesperus's captain, Jim Harvey, came up with a theory about what might have happened to the now missing lighthouse keepers. You have to think about how eerie this is to show up to an island where three men are

living alone. And all three men are gone. And there's no traces to where they've gone or what happened. So the captain knew that a terrible storm had hit the isle on December 15th.

So his assumption was that James and Thomas had gone out to check on some equipment, make sure that it was secure. They didn't want anything to get blown away or damaged in the heavy winds. In fact, that was one of the main parts of their job. If something did get lost or broken, they could be fined. And none of the men wanted to have to deal with that. So the thought was that Donald maybe stayed behind because of that policy that someone always needed to be in the lighthouse.

And Thomas and James bravely went out into the storm. This could be why James's coat and Thomas's oil skins were missing when Joseph searched the home because they'd worn them out to handle their chores.

Except the winds were very fast and violent that day, and the isle did have a lot of steep cliffs. So in Jim's mind, what had to have happened is an unusually strong gust must have blown James and Thomas over a ledge. And they had landed in the ocean and they'd either drowned or died on impact.

Eventually, Donald may have gotten nervous when his colleagues never came back from their duties. He might have gotten so worried, in fact, that he went outside to go look for them. He left the lighthouse. Maybe he left in such a hurry that he never even bothered to put on his own oil skins. And then he met the same fate as his companions. He was blown off a cliff and killed.

Now, at first, that explanation does sound pretty believable, but there are a couple of problems with it once you scratch beneath the surface. First, like I mentioned before, the keepers were never supposed to leave the lighthouse unattended. There always had to be someone there to handle sudden problems. Even if Donald was really worried about his friends, he would have known better than to run out into a storm on his own without anyone manning the lighthouse,

Also, let alone without a coat. There were other steps he could have taken to try and help them without putting his own life in danger and leaving his spot. And there's one other really big factor that makes this explanation seem impossible. And that is during the storm on December 15th, the wind was blowing from the west toward the east.

and the lighthouse was on the western side of the aisle meaning even if a gust did knock james thomas and donald over it wouldn't have swept them off a cliff it actually would have pushed them inland to safety they probably would have survived or if they did die in the storm some other way their bodies would have ended up somewhere on the island not in the water

However, their remains were never found. Even after multiple searches, Donald led different crew members to all different parts of the island over and over again, and nobody ever found any indications of what had become of these three men.

So understandably, a lot of people had a hard time accepting Jim's theory. And it was only a matter of time before wilder gossip started spreading around Scotland. I mean, this is the perfect haunted story. You have these three men alone on this creepy, dark, large cliff island, living there alone, manning this place. And then they just, poof, disappear.

So one popular theory was that James Thomas and Donald had lost their lives to a sea monster. Now, unfortunately, that theory didn't specify what the sea monster was or what it looked like. Honestly, it sounds like that's kind of part of the point. The Flannan Isles were very isolated and the waters around them hadn't really been explored thoroughly. It really felt like

Anything could have lived around this area. Let's keep in mind, Scotland is also home to the Loch Ness Monster. So the people of this country are no strangers to mysterious creatures from the sea. The theory went that there was something big and vicious in the waters around Eilean Mor, a creature that had the ability to drag itself onto land, which is actually terrifying.

People in Scotland believe it could have attacked the lighthouse keepers during this storm. Now, the main problem with this theory is that you'd think there'd be some sign of a large animal attack somewhere in the residence, but there wasn't. But if you really believe this sea monster could have been anything, you might also believe it had some way of killing its victims without leaving a trace. This episode of Into the Dark is brought to you by Wild Grain.

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Now another theory had to do with those legends I mentioned earlier that Alyn Moore is an ancient druid burial ground. So maybe there was some kind of ancient magic from the days before Christianity that cursed the men. And there's one very interesting piece of evidence to back this theory up.

Remember I mentioned before that when Joseph went to check on the missing men, he found their residence spotless. The lighthouse itself was also in good condition and pristine. There was a third building on the island, remember? A chapel. And I'm not sure on the timeline, but sometime between the disappearances and now, that chapel has collapsed.

Which has made many people wonder, did the spirits of these deceased Druids or the powers they worshipped destroy the chapel because they were offended by what it represented on this land? And if so, did they also do something to the keepers to make them vanish?

Now, if that sounds wild, just wait until you hear some of the other things people are saying. In fairness, I don't think these explanations are necessarily credible or believable. I just think they're worth mentioning because they are a part of the lore of this story. Some guesses were that James, Thomas, and Donald were abducted by aliens or fairies. There were also wild stories about a giant bird swooping down and snatching up the three keepers.

Others said maybe it was a ghost ship with a crew of the undead that had docked on Eilin Mor. Somehow these ghoulish sailors got James, Donald, and Thomas out of the lighthouse and onto their ship and sailed away with them.

make it sound like paranormal explanations are the only possibility here. Some of the speculation was more grounded. For example, some people thought Donald was at fault. He was known to have a bad temper and gossip suggested that when he got mad enough, he could become violent.

So maybe Donald got into some kind of fight with James and Thomas. They'd gone a little crazy alone on this island and he may have flown into a murderous rage and pushed them off a cliff. And then once he realized what he'd done, he jumped off too. He could have taken his own life rather than turn himself in for the crime. Another possibility was that James, Thomas and Donald all ran away together to start a new life. The thought is that they couldn't handle the stress and the isolation of life on Aylan Moore.

And for whatever reason, none of them were willing to just quit and return to their families. Instead, they took off in a rowboat and were now living somewhere new with fake identities. One last theory suggests that Donald, Thomas, and James were standing on the shore during the storm. There was some equipment that was right on the beach and they may have been tending to it when a huge wave came in and swept them away.

I mean, that could happen. But none of those explanations could say why all three men were outside at once in violation of lighthouse policy or why Donald would leave home at all down to the shore without his oil skins. So after he searched the aisle, their colleague Joseph wrote a letter with his thoughts and he insisted that all three men were professionals. They followed the rules. They did good work and they knew what they were doing.

They weren't the sort to make stupid mistakes to lead to these kinds of preventable disasters. The fact of the matter is, there is just no way to explain the disappearance that still fits the evidence in this case. So, to this day, nobody knows what happened to the men of Alyn Moore, James, Thomas, and Donald. I mean, it's honestly baffling.

And it was equally confusing back on December 26th, 1900, when Joseph and the crew of the Hesperus were searching the isle and finding nothing. Of course, they knew they couldn't drop everything and investigate forever. It would take a while to learn what had happened to the keepers if they ever did. And in the meanwhile, passing ships still needed a functional lighthouse to be able to sail safely.

So when it was time for the Hesperus to leave Eilean Mor, the captain actually ordered two of his crew members to stay behind along with Joseph. Their new job was to stay in the abandoned residence and keep the lighthouse running. He assured the crewmen this wasn't a permanent posting. They'd be back on the ship in another week or two once they could find more experienced replacements and possibly figure out what had happened. And interestingly, the two sailors accepted their orders without argument.

It was actually Joseph who really didn't want to do it. Keep in mind, he had just lost two colleagues and he had to be thinking, you guys, we still don't know what happened here. What if it happens again? Like, aren't we in danger?

What kind of danger would he and the other men be in while they were serving in the lighthouse? After all, it had only been built about a year before. There was no way to know what sorts of forces or people were active on Alyn Moore that the public didn't know about. I mean, at this point, the entire island must have felt eerie and scary and cursed.

But there were only a few men there at the time and nobody else had the experience he did. So even though he begged the captain to take him back on the ship, Jim refused to help him. And when the Hesperus departed, he was left on the isle with two other temporary lighthouse keepers. Now the good news is nothing bad happened. And after his stint on the isle, Joseph was fine.

There were no more mysterious disappearances in the next 124 years in the history of this lighthouse.

Now, eventually in 1971, the technology in the lighthouse was updated. So now everything is still automated. Yes, I'm telling you that this lighthouse still stands and welcomes incoming ships to the Scottish shores, but computers handle everything now. There's no need for anyone to live on Eilean Mor these days, which means today the isle is back to being empty and ominous once again.

It's most famous for the disappearances. Almost a century has passed since James, Thomas, and Donald vanished without a trace. And people are still coming up with wild theories to try and explain what happened to them, which just goes to show, even though you can come up with an answer,

it doesn't mean it's going to be the right one. So right now, go to the Into the Dark Instagram page or YouTube video and leave a comment as to what you think happened to these three men. The mystery here. Can you solve it? All right, you guys, that was our episode. And I will see you next week as we go further into the dark together. Goodbye.