Ghost ship

A ghost ship is an unexplained ghostly ship. They are usually ships that have been lost at sea or have been sunk, but somehow mysteriously reappear. Some ghost ships are merely ships that reappear after their crew mysteriously disappears without any explanation.

Among the most famous of these ships is the Flying Dutchman.

The Mary Celeste is another example, when the ship was found abandoned between Portugal and the Azores in 1882, devoid of all crew although the ship was completely intact.

Ghost ships in English literature

Well-known examples of ghost ships in English literature include:

• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1797-1798) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Rokeby (1813) by Sir Walter Scott.
• The Demeter, featured in Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker.
• Ampoliros, the legendary "Flying Dutchman" of space, mentioned in Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert.