Solved: The Flannan Isle Lighthouse Mystery

Mystery Explained

When the first crew member, the replacement staff, Joseph Moore reached the Lighthouse, he found the lighthouse door firmly shut but unlocked, sign of someone leaving the house in a very normal situation. Apart from all the exaggerated events highlighted in the narration, the only thing which holds any remarkable significance inside the lighthouse was the missing oilskin coat of only ONE member. The possibility of them being washed away by a wave or during that supposedly 'Superstitious' storm is nothing but a misguided belief of story-cookers. The main information for unraveling the puzzle lies in the log book entries. Since the entries started sounding ominous from 12th Dec, we can presume that it was not made in that same elaborative fashion prior to that date.

The entries made from 12th to 15th were a mere fabrication to divert the crime which happened just day before that date. There must have been a quarrel between the members which turned ugly and got elevated to a rough fist fight in which the iron railings next to the walking path was torn out from the ground. My theory based on the personality and other details, says the fight must have happened between young brawler, McArthur on one side while Ducat & Marshall on the other. During the fight the two of them beaten Donald McArthur who was the occasional staff among the three and must not have such a good bonding as Ducat and Marshall, being the permanent colleague must have had.

After knocking McArthur off, the two of them must have dragged him to throw over the cliff which ripped off the turf near the cliff's edge by tying a stone to his body to let it sink in a well-planned way. The incident happened on 11th Dec and after that Ducat and Marshall devised a strategy to evade the punishment by disappearing from the island by taking the leverage of ominous tales and beliefs about the Island and leaving the impression of some supernatural incident to have caused the mysterious disappearance of all three members.

After murdering one of their colleagues, both of them stayed there and planned to create the scene of storm hitting the Island between 12th to 15th Dec. Deranging the Island in a fashion which resembles calamity included moving the heavy rock from its place, strewing the crate ropes on the West landings. To put final seal on their claim, they then made a superstitious story through log entries which depicts the timid behavior of McArthur and petrified feeling among all the members during supernatural storm.

Suspicious thing about the entries was the contradictory nature of the 'description' with the 'ineffectiveness' on the person who was making those entries. If one goes by the details of the log entries, at the time when something such petrifying was taking place and all the members were in a state of mental disturbance, how can one be in his sanity to make detailed description of people's behavior? Also, if one among the three was in his stable mental state, doesn't it sound weird that instead of looking after and pacifying his colleagues he was very calmly doing the regular job of making the log entries? Most importantly, since all three survived the storm till 15th Dec, what else had happened to them after that when the storm passed away? And the biggest mistake they did was forgetting to dispose the oilskin coat of that keeper.

There are various explanations and theories about the case. Very obvious and non-supernatural speculation says that 'two of the three men were securing supplies when a massive wave hit them and hearing this the third one rushed out of the house, turning over the kitchen chair and leaving his coat behind.' Now on the face of it this occurs very feasible and acceptable as a singular incident but when viewed in connection with other events of log entries, uprooted railings, torn up cliff's turf and the big rock moved from its position, there is no connection between these occurrences. On one side if one accepts the unhappy ending of three men caused by high wave which swept them away when securing the crate and ropes on Western landing, then there remains no justification of those ominous log entries and storm hitting the Island from 12th to 15th Dec. Keep in mind that they all were experienced staff and cannot be presumed to have left the lighthouse unguarded (as per the rule) just for securing the ropes and crate. Also, had that been the situation when two of them got blown away by high wave and the third one rushed out to save them, whom was he saving when the two were already blown by the wave? Now this would be completely unacceptable that being an experienced seaman the man put his life at risk and went down to the platform alone to save the blown away men.

Well, I guess that's the whole narration of the complete event justifying all the occurrences at the Eilean Mor Island in Dec, 1900.