Ghost Ship Of Block Island
Posted: Tuesday, October 20, 2009
by Paul Schroeder
alien / demonic attachment
In 1980, in late September I and my wife stayed at the hotel 1661 INN at Old Harbor on Block Island for a week to celebrate our honeymoon.
We enjoyed an island off season, almost totally bereft of tourists from the mainland and watched an island gearing down from summer and closing up in preparation for the winter.
Only a few bird watchers clubs frequented the island then and the weather was windy, cold, blustery and rainy which added to our desire to stay close to the inn and in each other's close company.
One stormy and windy evening at about ten o'clock in the evening, I went out to the backyard of the inn tacitly to watch the view of whitecaps roiling on Old Harbor and to socialize with a pair of goats that roamed freely on the property.
Out on the harbor, about a quarter of a mile from the shore among the rolling whitecaps, I saw a flickering, blue triangular light that vanished and then reappeared a short distance from where it had been.
At first glance, it looked like the angular sail and mast of a middle sized sailing craft, a craft in distress that struggled to make headway in the stormy waters, except that the sail radiated a surreal phosphorescent light and glow that ebbed and waned like a dying flame .
One stormy and windy evening at about ten o'clock in the evening, I went out to the backyard of the inn tacitly to watch the view of whitecaps roiling on Old Harbor and to socialize with a pair of goats that roamed freely on the property.
Out on the harbor, about a quarter of a mile from the shore among the rolling whitecaps, I saw a flickering, blue triangular light that vanished and then reappeared a short distance from where it had been.
At first glance, it looked like the angular sail and mast of a middle sized sailing craft, a craft in distress that struggled to make headway in the stormy waters, except that the sail radiated a surreal phosphorescent light and glow that ebbed and waned like a dying flame .
The bluish sail color glowed and turned to a purplish light and then vanished completely only to reappear another distance from where it was sighted.
I watched in more wonder as its shifting movements seemed to make it jump from one location to another location every few seconds; its odd flickering flame like nature, in triangular form, was something I'd never seen before.
I watched in more wonder as its shifting movements seemed to make it jump from one location to another location every few seconds; its odd flickering flame like nature, in triangular form, was something I'd never seen before.
It vanished completely after a few minutes among the stormy waves as though it had sunk.
The image of that strange vessel has haunted my memory for many years.Not until recently, some twenty-nine years later, after having read "Livermore's History of Block Island", did I realize that the book's description of an oddly lit and shifting Palatine Ghost Ship off Block Island was similar to what I caught and observed that windy white capped and rain swept evening.
The image of that strange vessel has haunted my memory for many years.Not until recently, some twenty-nine years later, after having read "Livermore's History of Block Island", did I realize that the book's description of an oddly lit and shifting Palatine Ghost Ship off Block Island was similar to what I caught and observed that windy white capped and rain swept evening.
This Article has been viewed 1,098 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Two people are standing in the same room- one of them sees and experiences the presence of "ghosts, spirits etc... whatever you want to call them- the other sees nothing. What is the difference between these two people, and people like you who see and experience the things you do? There's a channel within your brain which is open, whereas it is closed-off in the brains of the rest of us. There are reasons why this happens.Please log in to respond to this comment.I and many others are 'haunted' people.Please log in to respond to this comment.I pray regularly that my 'third eye' be closed as more 'sharks' cruise in than do ' porpoises'.Please log in to respond to this comment.I agree Ella. I am a skeptic because I simply do not see the specters that others claim to see. I long to see one, but I think those channels aren't open in my own brain. I do agree that we have such channels, but they are vestigial in most people.Please log in to respond to this comment.It just may be that some people create these channels themselves- I suppose in order to invent an alternative to normal thinking channels, which don't produce, for them, the desired excitment. I think there are some people who are able to deduce, from a set of circumstances, a prognostication of natural consequences.I personally have never seen a ghost nor an alien, and do not know anyone who has. I believe that dreams come from our unconcious mind- those few who believe they are imposed from outside sources, just do not want to believe that some of those things could possibly come from their mind- so blame it on something else!Faithfully Yours, EllaPlease log in to respond to this comment.I, too, used to say and feel exactly as you've said but have learned the hard way that such unimaginative declaratives are stuff and nonsense; one's higher self may be preset to exclude such phenomena but one can virtually will its override.To presume that I or another creates these excitements is an insult to both you and me.And now that you know me and I hazard to say that you do, you can no longer say such things;that you know no one who has seen ghosts or aliens.Your limited experiences and your cynicisms do not set the world on its ear.This ghost ship has been seen often in stormy weather by many others before and after me.I initially thought it to be a flame above the waves from ignited methane from the ocean floor but Livermore's History of Block island's plethora of such sightings persuaded me otherwise.Please log in to respond to this comment.Greg is dubious and skeptical which is honorable; you are cynical, which is a slap in the face to us both.Please log in to respond to this comment.That story that you told me about you in childhood climbing a tree to view a red bird and then missing a whole day's time as your next immediate recollection is a CLASSIC abduction tale.You Have seen aliens; you just don't remember.I have some odd knack for staying lucid in the midst of similar experiences, that's all.Please log in to respond to this comment.The story about the bird was true, except the bird was yellow. As I review the whole event, I see that everything that happened could have had a logical explanation, which is why I doubted it's supernatural nature. Until which time that I may conclude that there is no logical explanation, I'll probably remain cynical-dubious- skeptical. That's why I don't believe the bible to be filled with supernatural happenings and events, as religions would have us believe. It does not defy all logic- there are logical explanations for everything in it- it's just that some people don't know what these are, so they think it supernatural.Yours Truly- EllaPlease log in to respond to this comment.
I was fishing off Misquamicut Beach in Rhode Island in 1995. I was in a boat, and we watched a big cloud of smoke appear off Block Island in the distance. What had happened was an airplane crashed into a restaurant.Please log in to respond to this comment.That is another beginning to a lurid true ghost story which has likely unfurled.Please log in to respond to this comment.I researched and re-researched this and found you true to your word; a young child, a wife and a doctor and his mother all perished enroute.They had done what I had, left in a small aircraft from Montauk heading to Block Island, an oasis off the coast of Rhode Island where I spent off time musing and walking, as yet then unaware of the touch of spirits.It was a place bereft of cars, radios, televisions and newpapers, a step back into the 18th century.The small plane hit a restaurant taking an additional islander life.(odd confluence of lives leaving in a synchronicity as the island was then very sparsely developed then but then again it wasn't a far miss of a 'landing' as the one small airstrip lay 500 yards parallel to and 300 yards beyond the line of three coastal restaurants.)There will be ghosts; there will be more ghosts.There was talk of ghosts always; in the Village Inn, a location more central to the island , a State Senator was reputed to have not only lived there but to have murdered his ailing mother there, for his inheritance, by throwing her down the long narrow stairway, still in evidence.The owner told me, unsolicited, that the bare bulb in the basement often spun of its own accord and kept any workmen away, who were too leery to spend any real time down there doing essential repairs.When restorations were initially done all doors were found removed and when queries by new owners were put to contractors as to why this had been done, the answer returned that the many doors' constant opening and closing by themselves had unsettled the mainland workmen.Guests often asked about the woman they say they saw from their upstairs windows who walked in the deeper shadows of the garden in a pink long flowing gown and carrying a parasol;she was seen in the back garden late at night.This inn was a favorite of mine because it was far from views of the harbor and thus tourists and even more reclusive which is my nature.A cat was seen by me one windy afternoon's walk to scurry under the foundation of the inn, a cat in color as orange as the September Maple leaves.I was informed when I inquired , that she was feral and overwintered ; she had a litter somewhere under the cellar.The staff would leave by October.The hotel wouldn't open until mid April; in deep winter snows, she was on her own.I was moved enough to go into town and buy some canned cat food and presented these to the kitchen staff who cared for her who told me to feed her myself; she was outside.I opened two cans and watched as she fed.Later, about ten, a knock on my door stopped my writing and the chef asked me to follow him to the kitchen. She was grateful and had brought me a thank you gift in eloquent cat artistryA large marsh rat lay by the door displayed; proud, she paraded back and forth over it.She had brought it for me.Please log in to respond to this comment.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.