Science solves the mystery of the Flying Dutchman ship, which has always baffled minds
The history of the legend of the ship “The Dutchman” dates back to the early eighteenth century, when sailors were sharing testimonies that they saw a “ghost” ship, the vision of which directly foretells the occurrence of misfortunes, disasters, or inevitable doom. Reports of a ghost ship continued to spread here and there among sailors around the world. For a full 250 years despite the lack of any conclusive evidence that it existed in the first place.
The first written reports about the sighting of the Flying Dutchman go back to the early eighteenth century near the Cape of Good Hope. At that time, ships used this route around the Green Cape in South Africa on their trips from Europe to the continent of Asia, because there was no Suez Canal at that time. Yet, during these many voyages, one ship never came back.
Captain Hendrik van der Decken, or as he was known as the Dutch Man, embarked from the port of Amsterdam heading towards the East Indies, where he loaded his ship with spices, silk, and paint to resell it in the Netherlands. After making some repairs to the ship’s hull in the East Indies, he set off. Again, returning to Amsterdam in the year 1641.
When his ship was sailing around Cape Verde, a violent sea storm appeared on the horizon, and it was clear that its path would inevitably intersect with that of the ship. The crew members begged Captain Van der Decken to change the course of the voyage or completely reverse it to avoid the devastating storm, but he insisted on moving forward. Without debate, some believe he was a crazy person, while others suggest he was extremely drunk and unable to make a sound decision.
While he refused to avoid the path of the storm, his ship was wrecked and he and what was on board sank to the bottom of South African territorial waters, and from here emerged the story of the ship (the Flying Dutchman) and the curse that haunts everyone who sees it.
Literary writings and compositions written around the years 1790 and 1795 tell the story of a ghost ship that appears to sailors when the weather is bad and stormy. However, it was not until the year 1843, in one of the opera performances, that the story of the ship (The Flying Dutchman) became a real and eternal legend, as it was mentioned in that show. The play was created by the author (Richard Wagner) that the cursed ship (the Flying Dutchman) was eternally doomed to fly over the seas during sea storms, and from this many people at that time came to believe that the ghost of Captain (Van der Decken) and his ship and crew roam the seas.
A painting of the Flying Dutchman by Albert Pinkham Ryder, which now hangs on one of the walls of the Smithsonian Museum.
Another original story tells that Captain Bernard Focke, or as he was called Falkenberg, who was commanding a ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company, was able to sail from Amsterdam to Indonesia in a period not exceeding only three months. This was a very short period in view of the prevailing standards at the time and in view of the long voyage, which led many sailors to believe that he had traded his soul in exchange for being able to sail at great speed in a game he played with the devil. Many did not hesitate to link it to the subject of the ship (the Flying Dutchman), and some of them deliberately He is the devil who gave Falkenberg the ability to sail at extreme speed.
However, the legend did not stop here, as most of the stories about the flying ghost ship came from Prince George, who would later become King George V of England. On July 11, 1881, he and his brother, Prince Albert Victor, Sailing near Australia as part of a three-year sailing voyage on board the British ship HMS Bacchant. There, the Bacchante crew saw the Flying Dutchman ship when it appeared to them in a glowing red light around four in the morning. When the ship they were on approached the point where they saw the ghost ship, they did not find anything, not even a trace of it, and after seeing it. Immediately within moments, the crew member who was the first to see it fell from the top of the main mast and was killed instantly, and this only added some kind of credibility to the legend of the curse that haunts everyone who glimpses it among sailors.
In the year 1939, residents of the city of Cape Town in South Africa claimed that they saw a ship at full sail before it disappeared from their sight in the blink of an eye. During World War II, reports were received from the crew of a German submarine that they saw a ghost ship sailing in the Suez Canal. The British writer Nicholas Monsarrat also told that he glimpsed something at sea similar to the Flying Dutchman ship during his service in the British Royal Navy during World War II.
All of these stories and reports had to have a possible scientific explanation, which is what scientists know as a light-physical phenomenon known as Fata Morgana, which is a type of mirage that occurs when light rays are refracted and twisted as they pass through layers of air. varying temperature.
The surface of the ocean is considered the best place for this phenomenon to occur, which may make the observer see a mirage or a specter at the borders of the horizon when it occurs. This phenomenon can also occur on the surface of very hot asphalt during the summer seasons, especially in desert areas when the temperature rises from the surface, and during this The phenomenon is that many strange shapes are formed due to the movement of refraction and twisting of light.
Regarding the ship (the Flying Dutchman), the phenomenon of (Fata Morgana) shows images of real ships, except that they are behind the point of the horizon, because the light rays bend over the curvature of the planet in the appropriate way, and as soon as the sailors reach the point where they saw the ship, they find that it has disappeared.
Modern cargo ship “airplane”
These movements of light sometimes cause tampering with the minds of some people, in this case the minds of sailors who thought they saw a ghost ship, and seeing this ghost ship causing accidents and disasters sometimes is nothing more than a strange coincidence, which can also be linked to a causal factor. In other words: sailors die as a result of accidents they encounter when they become stunned or excited as a result of their belief in seeing a ghost ship, which causes them to lose focus.
But if all sailors at the time had been aware of this scientific explanation, these fatal accidents would not have happened to them in the first place. However, if they had done so at the same time, we would not have had an epic legend that inspired many literary and artistic works, and the makers of the Pirates of the Caribbean series would not have found a beautiful plot. They add it to the stories of their famous films.
Source: all that is interesting website