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On the stormy night of December 15, 1900, the captain of the steamship

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Arthur was sailing by the Flynn and Isles off the coast of Scotland

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when he was suddenly surprised to notice that the lighthouse on the isolated island was unlit.

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Now, this was extremely unusual.

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There was supposed to be a minimum of three lay keepers manning the lighthouse at all times.

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And these keepers definitely knew that they were supposed

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to keep the light on at night for safety reasons,

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especially during a dangerous storm like this.

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So there was really no logical reason for it not to be on.

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However, despite just how strange and out of the ordinary this was,

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the captain figured that there had to be some sort of rational explanation for it.

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He figured that he would just make his way to the nearest city

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and inform the Northern Lighthouse Board about the issue

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and that they would be able to get to the bottom of everything.

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But little did this captain know this case was nowhere near as simple

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as he thought it would be, and it would end up as one of the most eerie and unexplained disappearance cases in history.

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Or was it really? Welcome back, guys.

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My name is Andy Chang and this is Hidden

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Stories.

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After hearing from the captain about the flat and isles, lighthouse is strange malfunctioning.

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The Northern Lighthouse Board decided to send out a ship

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called the Hesperides to investigate the island.

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However, because of bad weather that has, Bruce and its crew

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were only able to reach the island an entire 11 days

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after the captain of the after had first noticed that something was wrong.

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In the very moment that this crew even began

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approaching the small island of Ireland more where this lighthouse was positioned,

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it was immediately clear that something was very wrong indeed.

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For starters, there was no flag on the island's flagpole,

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which was something that should have always been there, just as a rule.

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Furthermore, when the crew aboard, the spirits tried sounding the horn

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and using their flares to get the attention of the lighthouse keepers, they received no response.

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And even more ominously, once the crew had actually made it to land and so did setting foot onto the island,

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there was absolutely no one there to meet them like they're always surfing.

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The three lighthouse keepers who were supposed to have been manning the flat and a lighthouse at the time.

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James through Thomas Marshall and Donald MacArthur were seemingly nowhere to be found,

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although prior to arriving to the island, these crew members may have suspected

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at first that these lighthouse keepers had simply been knocked out due to illness or had

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run out of some sort of key material that they needed to keep the lighthouse burning.

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It soon became clear that they were just no longer even on the island anymore.

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When the ship's crew approached the eerily silent, seemingly abandoned lighthouse,

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they found the outside gate closed and the door to the lighthouse itself

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closed, as well as the crew tentatively walked inside and took a look around.

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It was obvious that nobody had been there for at least several days already.

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The clocks in the building were all stopped.

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The beds of all the lighthouse keepers run on.

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There was no fire in the fireplace, and there was even

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one of the lake keepers oil skin coats that had been left behind.

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All things that were extremely unusual and simply shouldn't have been the case.

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By this point, the ship's crew were really starting to get spooked out.

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They knew that under normal circumstances, the lake keepers would never even consider not coming down to greet them,

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not making their beds, and not keeping track of time.

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Not to mention, even if they'd all decided to just leave and go somewhere together,

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there was simply no reason that one of them would ever decide

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to just leave their oily skin color behind, which was something

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that was always required for the often harsh climate of the island.

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The crew members were convinced that whatever had happened on this island

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had to have taken these lighthouse keepers by surprise, maybe even by force.

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But the more they continued to search and investigate around island more,

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trying to piece together clues, the more confusing still the whole situation became.

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Although the east side of the island where the crew members had landed had been completely normal.

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When they made their way over to the far west side of the island,

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they were shocked to find a scene of absolute destruction.

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Solid iron railings along the island's sides had been ferociously bent

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and twisted. Iron railway tracks have been torn clean out of the concrete

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and boxes of supplies had been ripped completely apart.

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Perhaps most shockingly, a border that we had over £2,000

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that had to move for years had somehow been dislodged

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from its resting place and shifted several feet away.

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Although by far the most obvious explanation

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for all of this carnage was that the island had been hit by a massive storm.

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The more that the crew members tried to wrap their minds

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around this explanation, the more it just didn't make sense.

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First of all, the destruction was just so severe and so widespread

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that it was hard to even imagine it could have been caused by just some wind in waves.

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Second, and most importantly of all, some of the damage had occurred at heights

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over 200 feet above sea level, says the tallest wave that had ever been

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recorded out in the open ocean at the time had only been around 95 feet tall.

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Less than half of that height. It was clear that the crew members were still missing an extremely important

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piece of the puzzle. And that was when they came across the Lake Keeper's logbook entries.

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Although at first it seemed like these entries

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would finally be able to shed some light on this entire confusing mess

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and what it really happened to the lay keepers.

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It soon became apparent that these entries were just as perplexing, if not even more perplexing,

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than everything else the crew members had uncovered so far.

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In the first entry, the third and least experienced lay keeper Thomas Marshall,

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described the lighthouse being hit by a great storm unlike anything

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that he'd ever seen before. He then went on to detail how Donald McArthur, their leader

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and the most experienced lay keeper with 20 years under his belt,

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had immediately started crying when the storm first hit.

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This was extremely shocking and puzzling for the crew members since Donald

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was generally known as this big and tough guy

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who would never cry and was never scared of anything.

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A second entry then described all three of the men

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firmly believing that this was the end for them and described them desperately

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praying for this monstrous, almost divine storm to spare them.

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And then in the third and final entry, the lay keepers simply noted

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that the storm had passed. Writing Storm ended.

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Second, God is overall.

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After finishing these logbook entries, the crew members were left

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with even more questions than they had first started with.

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Why had Donald been crying if they had managed to survive the storm?

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Where were the lay keepers now? Why have they still left everything behind in such disarray?

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What exactly had happened to the lay keepers after this final entry?

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With all these pressing questions bouncing around their minds

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and still being nowhere near any closer to finding answers, the ship's crew members

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left island more and made their way back to the mainland to report their findings.

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In their minds, the only logical explanation

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for everything that they could possibly muster up

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was that the lay keepers had been swept away by a rogue wave

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while they were checking on the outskirts of the island after the storm.

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However, when these crew members had finally made it back to the city

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and informed the Northern Lighthouse Board, as well as some locals about their theory,

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the locals suddenly became really confused.

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You see, whenever there was a storm out at Avonmore, these locals along

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the shoreline of the mainland could always see it,

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since they were pretty close to the island.

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However, on the dates of the Light Keeper's log, book entries

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had been written December 12th to December 15th.

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The locals all stated that not only had there never been a storm,

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the island's visibility was actually better than it had

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been in a very long while, meaning either all three of those lay

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keepers had somehow hallucinated this massive storm or something else.

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Something a whole lot more sinister, perhaps even paranormal, had happened on

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that island to cause all that destruction and to leave such a bewildering scene behind.

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Over the next few years, people came up with countless different theories

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as to what could have happened to those like keepers, including giant seabirds, snatching them up, monstrous sea serpents rising

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from out of the ocean and eating them, then being abducted by aliens,

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then intentionally faking their disappearance to make a new life for themselves somewhere else.

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And even one of the lake keepers suddenly snapping and killing the other two before

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then taking his own life, among numerous other theories.

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But although all of these theories are just based on wild speculation,

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one slightly more logical theory has often been overlooked

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and might just actually be able to realistically explain

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all the completely confusing and strange details that happened in this case.

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You see, although almost all of the online news sources, videos and podcasts

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that have covered this disappearance case report on the bewildering log book

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that the lighthouse keepers kept no such logbook actually existed.

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This fact was uncovered by a historian named Mike Dash,

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who was so fascinated by the story that he decided to dig deeper

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into it, to learn more, and found that all of the details about this mysterious log book

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had actually been made up by locals who wanted to make the case seem more interesting than it really was.

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They really didn't need to do this, though, because even without the log book and without the net,

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the detail about the locals never having seen a storm on island more.

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This case is already fascinating enough and the question

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still remains, what really happened to those like you?

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Well, as it turns out, although it was extremely unlikely

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that a storm would cause the world record 200 foot tall wave to cross onto the island,

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what could have happened was that a smaller wave got pushed up

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to heights of 200 feet by the island's unique geography.

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Since the island's cliffs had several deep and narrow inlets.

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It's possible that a wave had rushed up the side of one before exploding up

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and outwards with immense force and causing the insane destruction that was found at those heights.

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If this had been the case, the lay keepers have been standing in the area at the time, certain

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that they were completely safe at that height would have immediately been swept out to sea by the powerful water.

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This theory could also potentially explain the other highly mysterious details

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in this case, including why a lake keeper had even been outside

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during such a big storm. Why all three of the lake keepers had vanished instead of just one,

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and why the lighthouse itself had been left in such a puzzling state

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of disarray with an oil skin coat left behind and everything.

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Shortly before the Lake Keeper's disappearance, one of the three.

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Thomas Marshall, had been fined five shillings

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for allowing some of his equipment to be washed away in a storm.

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Since this was a lot of money back then, especially for a lay keeper

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who didn't make that much, it was entirely possible that Thomas could have left the lighthouse

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during the next big storm to try and secure supplies to avoid another fine.

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While doing this, he could have been suddenly swept away with a warning

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by the waves that hadn't made their way up the side of the island.

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And when the other two lay keepers saw that their friend was in a life

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threatening trouble, they could have immediately rushed outside to try and rescue him

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and been swept away as well. But yet another wave.

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And one of them may have been so worried about Thomas that he could have just

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completely slipped past grabbing his oil skin coat on the way out.

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But although this theory does explain everything fairly well,

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at the end of the day, it's still just the theory.

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To this day, we still don't know for certain

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what happened to the flat and Lake Keeper's, but we can assume

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that there had to have been some sort of logical explanation.

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Well, hopefully.