Thinking Sideways: Disappearance of the USS Cyclops

and solve another really cool mystery. Right, No, we solve them. Oh yeah, we saw them. Yeah, I mean we solve them of course. Yeah. Yeah. We use our amazing powers of ratios and nation to deduce the answers. Or we just that was a really big word that I don't understand, so let's just go yeah, or we just tortured the data intel what confesses. But you know, one way or the other we get our answer. Okay, let's talk about

this week history. Uh, this week we're going to talk about the cyclops yea, and by that I don't mean the huge Harry dude with an eyeball in his forehead Cyclops Harry um depends on the version. Yeah there were a lot of different versions of Are you're thinking of the Sinbad version, the old sixties movie or no, not that one. That's only one of them. Yeah, this is

actually had to deal with the Cyclops she's talking about. Yeah, and he he was kind of clever about he just poked his eye out after that, he was about his mercy him pretty much. Okay, let's talk about our cyclops. Different one. We're talking about the U. S. S Cyclops, which some of you may may have heard about. This was a huge deal way back in the day when it happened, and then it sort of went away, and then it sort of made a comeback, as mysteries go. Yeah,

there's a reason for that also. I'll explain that a little bit. But the Cyclops was a coal carrying ship that was built for the U. S. Navy in the early nineteenth century. I think it was actually launched in nineteen ten, but it didn't get commissioned into the navy seventeen. But on March fourth, the USS Cyclops left Barbados for Baltimore, Maryland with three six crew and passages on board and a load of manganese or and it vanished without a trace. Yep,

it was it near Bermuda. They did, They did go through the Bermudi triangle. As a matter of fact, there were a lot of people theorizing about that. But yeah, there was no radio distress call. No wreckage at all was ever found, not even an oil slick on the water they searched for it. Ever, Well, somebody did claim in nineteen twenty two have found the wreckage of a lifeboat that had us like us Cyclo stanciled on it. And he claimed, but that's something that's obviously a boat

called the Cyclo and not the cyclops. So yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's the thing about it is, it's a It was a large ship, five forty two ft long, big, the big ship, and the ship that size doesn't just sink, you know, I mean, it takes a while usually. I mean the Titanic, which was even bigger, of course, but it had a catastrophic collision, catastrophic damage, and it still took hours to sink. And yet this thing thanks so quickly or else it was beamed up to a spaceship,

it seems to have. If it sunk, sunk so quickly nobody got a chance to run to the radio and get the help button, yeah, or launch the lifeboats or anything anything like that. Yeah, so that's where the mystery is. Normally at this point in the story, i'd stop and thanks somebody for suggesting it. But but actually there was no suggestion. So I had to put on my internet boots and go out and find this mystery myself, honest word. Yeah, And it was on a page with the heading tendisterious

Disappearance is so creepy you'll wet your pants. Actually, think I've watched that YouTube video. Yeah, I gotta tell you. I mean I spent more time perusing pages like this. I think I've seen every single page that has a heading like this tend Mysterious murders or stint Downstairs. I've seen every single one of them, which is pretty creative. Thought your pants. Yeah, yeah, there was another one that's like evill slowly or drawers. Yeah, some variationally, you know.

I mean, it's true, like we've talked about, I watched the we watched those videos at my house on YouTube, and I think we've kind of hit a point where I'm like, have we seen this one? And he's like yeah, like five times, and I'm like, well, it's less than most of them. So let's watch this one. Okay, Yeah, yeah, they're good. I mean, they're good fodder. But you know, at this point we've covered a lot of them. Yeah, we really have. We're gonna have to start making stuff

up here, pretty good. The disappearance of the Cyclops was a pretty big deal at the time. I think well over ten years it was. All kinds of articles were being written, tons of speculation, and a lot of theories have been floated, ranging from a giant octopus, Bermuda triangle, Shenanigan's mutiny, murder, treason. You both it down. I stopped after the second one. I realized I didn't have anything else. All, Right, back to it, you guys be serious now, sorry, Yeah,

so I'm gonna go back to the beginning. The Cyclops was one of four ships built for the Navy in a very limited class. It was called the Proteus class. Uh. They were built the Hall coal for refueling US warships because this was before the transition to oil, and and that's a that's a big problem in war when you run on coal is delivering coal, you don't have fuel, Your warships can't fight, can't do a lot. Believe it

or not. That's not how it works. It is, so you basically have to have a big You gotta get a big tanker. He used to run around and deliver cold everybody. Yeah, and that's what they did. Obviously, it's better in these days we have nuclear reactors and fun stuff like that. Oh yeah, because those are so much better. Or as the captain of my cruise ship used to say, they just have an electric cord. Yeah that plugs in in Miami, just goes along the floor. Yeah, I mean

the ocean the Bahamas aren't that far. Yeah, the ocean that long of extension cord like the home depot or something together. Remember when you plug them together though the tie. Well that's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, is that not true? Was he lying to me? He wasn't lying to you. Uh oh where was I? Oh? Yeah. The other ships in the class were named Proteus, Jupiter, and near Us. Uh And in a fun fact, every ship in this class came to a bad end. And this was not

a good design. Well maybe not, I don't know. Anyway, the Cyclops displaced andeen thousands, six hundred seventy tons that's loaded. So that was a big ship. Also mentioned the captain of the Cyclops because he was kind of a character and he figures in a few of the theories about what happened to the Cyclops. His name was George Worley. He was German by birth and rumored rumored to b pro German. And did I mentioned this was during World War One? Yeah? I mean you mentioned the year, but

some of us don't like automatically. Yeah, okay, so yeah, and uh, Worley was not his original name. More on that later. But as far as the Navy knew, he was George Worley and he had been born in San Francisco. At this point in time, they found out their background checks were maybe not the best. No, really no, but Captain Worley was not well liked by his crew. He had some strange habits, apparently, like walking around in his long underwear wearing a bowler hat carrying a cane. Is

that not a thing that people like? I guess people thought it was weird. I guess I'll go put some clothes on, hold on it. Yeah, sorry, guys. Yeah, I don't know if he did that all the time. I have a feeling that the bowler had long underwear. Instance, was at one of the times that he was medicinally taking sherry in great quantities, taking sure did. Actually, he defended himself once in court by saying, the crew get upset because I take sherry for medicinal reasons. Well, he

was known for being drunk and disorderly. Yeah, that's what the crew accused him of. But actually he said in the hearing about this, he said that he had to He had had berry berry apparently previously, and he still had problems associated with that, and so he had to take a couple of different medicines to come to come this. Spoilers, Wait, spoilers, because right, the crew disappeared forever. Yeah, right, everybody, everybody, everybody disappeared forever. So like, why how did they do

an interview with him? This is a this is three previous the voyage that the ship disappears on. This happened. This happened in August. He came back. Yeah, they all came back in the dead. But that's like that guy recently who got caught drunk driving a truck and said, no, I have that disease where my body metabolizes food as alcohol. Were like, I mean, that's the thing people do have that. There are people that had that, but I maybe like, if you have that, maybe don't be a truck driver. Yeah,

that's it. That's not not a good excuse. Yeah, it's similar to me. That would be I mean, in a way, that would be a really cool disease to have. At the same time, it would be it would kind of But no, this guy he was he was not like by his crew at all. He was like, oh no, But anyway, back to the show. He didn't take the sherry for medicinal purposes, but apparently the stuff that he had to take for his symptoms was so foul that he had to mix it in with alcohol to make

it more palatable, and so that's why. So that was his big excuse. Apparently that was enough to get him by. But he still loved to chew people out. Oh yeah, yeah he did. He did. He had to chew people out. Apparently sometimes got kind of violent. At the Official Board of Inquiry in August nine, forty crewman had signed a petition accusing him of being drunk, foul mouthed, and unfit for command. That the ACCUSI was chasing an enstant named G. G.

McCain around the boat with a pistol one time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was an interesting character. And this of course was sort of after the fact, after the disappearance, but the U. S. Council in Barbados, and a guy named Charles Livingston wrote a telegram to the State Department that there had been a quote disturbance unquote on the ship before had it had arrived in Barbados, perhaps a mutiny, and he said that the miniment can find the quarters

and that would have been executed. Although that on the ship, well there it appears that there might have been a little confusion about that. They took on five prisoners in Rio. Yeah, and and three of those had been three of those have been accused of committee murder on another U. S. Warship. They were being taken back, and on them was to be executed. You had already apparently been convicted by a Navy board, I think, and so he was to be executed.

So that might be where the confusions said. I don't think. I don't think that war actually executed. No, no, I don't know that worly executed anybody. But you and I, Joe were talking about this earlier. Some stuff I had found was that this was not the first time that Worley had been in hot water, and that he had been If we're saying that this was a would we call what was going on here? This was a complaint,

not a mutiny? Right? Yeah? Okay, Well there had evidently been a mutiny slash complaint at sea, whenever you want to call it, and somebody had been beheaded under his command on the boat, and he was never fingered for being the one who committed the act, but it was believed that it was at his direction, whether that was directly saying cut his head off or indirectly. So like he he really was kind of a tyrant, and people died under his command and he was he's a bit

of a nutter. Yeah, it sounds like in his in his defense, he was in a tough position because he was running a big ship that has crew like two thirty six, and almost everybody in his crew was young and inexperienced to me, because there was so much recruit Yeah, they weren't. They weren't regular navy men. So I will give you that. I can understand were reservist didn't who just suddenly got called up because of the war. Yeah,

and shoved onto this boat. And so from Warley's point of view, he's an experienced captain and everybody under him was kind of an inexperienced and incompetent. I mean, I can imagine its frustration. Yeah, yeah, And I guess it's also, you know, plausible that the crews that he would have been used to working with would have been used to taking orders and maybe if you're just kind of a

young reserve guy, you're not so used to that. And so you know when your captain says do this, and you're like, well, I don't know, he's kind of a jerk, yeah, you know, versus like, yes, sir, whatever, sir. You see that in jobs too, so that if you're if you're hauling your coal ship, all you do is run around in hall coal that is a wet, dirty, cruddy, unforgiving. Jobs are going to run high. Not the most glamorous

job in the navy. Although on the plus side, and you're not writing the miss in the heat of battle all the time, there's a benefit right there. And you're still in a little bit of danger because obviously you're a viable target. Somebody might just decide to sink you because obviously if you deprived the battleships of their coal, and hey, that that accomplishes something, right there. Yeah, Okay, let's get back to our story. Let's talk about their

final mission. And of course it wasn't supposed to be their final mission. It turned out it was to leave the Chesapeake Bay go to the South Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to fuel British warships. And the plan wasn't they would pick up a little manganese or to take back to the United States. Yeah, very sweet. And they left Rio apparently, and there's there's a little bit of infusion about this where they whether they picked it up in Rio or they picked it up in Bahia, Brazil.

Um the most most of the things that I see say they picked it up in Rio. Eleven thousand tons, which by the way, is more than the ship was designed to carry. Yeah, they're they're covering a higher load than rated for. Yeah. Yeah, well were they how much more? I have heard anywhere between eight thousand and nine hundred fair amount? Yeah, yeah, And the said yeah, nine six hundred tons, and so yeah, they're well over anywhere from ten more than they were supposed to. Yeah, we're not

talking Yeah, We're not talking like just a mirror. Hundred tons, yeah, a substantial amount. Also, they took on seventy three passengers who were sailors and marines from the South season, who are also equivalent to about a hundred tons. Yeah. When you talk about all those guys and at all the extra food and water that you're gonna have to feed them with soot, you know. Yeah, then they stay to

sail to Bahia in Brazil. And I'm not sure why they went there, but they went there because why wouldn't you, Brazil, Let's go have some fun. You know, you're on a boat with a lot of dudes free weeks. A thing I got to find out at that Martin Moules. You ever heard men by Martin Mule? So they departed for Baltimore if every nineteen eighteen, And by the way, the starboard engine was out. They had a crack cylinder head, which meant that they when you only have one screw,

that's going to greatly reduce your speed. It was it was only able to do what two thirty miles a day? I think that equates. It was like two hundred two five miles a day. And that wasn't something that could have been fixed in Brazil. Apparently they looked at it there and then and they decided that it should go back, so I should go back to the US to be repaired. I believe it was a cracked piston, as a crack cylinder.

I've heard it was cylinder act manifold or non man so maybe something that had to be in dry dock for and that you wouldn't you'd have to offload all of them. You wouldn't just weld it together. They probably bring in a whole new piece. Yeah, I don't. I don't know that it required actual engine replacement. I mean it's possible if it's just like a cylinder head, they might have just been able to replace it without even dry docking it. But I don't know. But I doubt

that they had that custom part. I probably haven't, and it might might well have been to that the Navy was going to hurry to get their manganese which there, and so they decided rather than waiting, we'll just send me to sea with one motor, or ex sees me one engine only. So I don't think it's always a great idea of personal It didn't work out, let's see less it didn't work out for the circuf. It didn't work out for the chow either. It's just not worked out. Yeah, Yeah,

it really doesn't always work out. More often than not, it doesn't work. Yeah. The Cyclops made an unscheduled stopover in Bridgetown, Barbadoes. Again, I mentioned Charles Livingstone, the console before Consul general Console General. Yeah, in Barbados, Worsley told him that he needed six hundred tons of coal and he also needed more supply. Sorry, weren't they transporting they

that fueled boats. Yeah, they transported coal down and they and they offloaded on the on the other ships, and they didn't have Okay, presumably presumably they kept a little of reserve for their own engines. Yeah, because they also but he apparently, which is weird. Also, because they were only feeding, they were feeding half the engines they would have normally been feeding, right, so it seems like they would have extra. Yeah, I know Livingstone was suspicious about

that because he thought that they should have enough. I didn't look this up, Joe. How many boilers did this ship have? Do you know? You know, I don't know. I'm sure at least two, if not four. Yeah, that's what I mean I never saw that in any of the stuff. No, I never did. Still, they shouldn't have. You would think they would not devil brings up a great point. You wouldn't burn but half of what you normally do, even if you're running that boiler full tilt,

you wouldn't be burning the normal daily amount. Probably not. I don't know, I don't know. I mean, it might be that you can run all all the boilers and just direct all that all that energy to one engine and get extra poop out of it. Yeah, I mean, it could be that they that one screw can take that much torque. I don't know. Yeah, but so Livingston was suspicious, and I don't know if he was suspicious at the time or if this is just in retrospect

after the different retrospection. Yeah, but yeah, the but they took on like a ton of meat, a ton of flour, half a ton of vegetables, so they are just continually adding more and more lates. Presumably though, if they're taking on all that stuff, that means that they're out of a lot of that stuff, right, They've used a lot of that presumably presumably, Yeah, theoretically presumably, but maybe not.

Probably I'll talk I'll talk a little bit more about Charles Livingston and his suspicions in a bit here, Okay, okay. As I said before, the Cyclops departed bridge Town on March fourth with three hundred six crewmen, officers, and passengers and just for unit pickers out there. I know this number varies among different accounts. Some people have it at three hundred nine. You see it swing twenty people in either direction, ball back. Yeah, it possible, they just don't

know for sure. That's that's a good point. Yeah. Well, any way, they left with all these a whole bunch of people, over three hundred people, and it was never seen again. The last contact was the Cyclops made radio contact, according to one source that I found with a passenger liner called the Mistress on March five, and they reported

good weather. That's a day later, and that was the last anybody heard of the Cyclops, although it's possible it's been seen since then because in but there was no jar. There was actually one other pose in sighting not too long after that. Yeah, you're talking about the molasses tanker. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that thing that appears to not be true, though it was obviously Canadian. I was going to say, was it slow? Yeah,

there was. There was a ship that said that it sawed off of the northeastern US Cone and it was a Canadian molasses. But there's no way that it could have made it there in enough time. I guess I didn't feel I want to make sure that we're covering all our basis of that's not the only report. Ok. Yeah, yeah, that's going to keep making. That's why I didn't stop.

It was slow going. Yeah, it's called the Amulco. I guess I just didn't realize that there was such a demand that they had to put tankers full of molasses to float them down the river. I kind of like the idea. I think it's got a cool it's the tanker of molasses heading to the tanker of flapjacks. Oh my god. It's kind of like that how peanut butter cups got invented, you know. I mean, so there's a there's a guy, and there's a guy in a car

with this this scarping peanut butter is speeding along. Yeah, and then there's a police been standing at the bloody rackage and he reached it in there and taste it and it's like, wow, this is awesome bank bang yeah, okay, where was I no idea? Yeah, but it may have been seen actually in n A Navy diver named Dean has was diving about forty nautical miles northeast of Cape Charles. Uh. And this was actually during the search for the scorpion,

which I've mentioned. So Cape Charles for those who don't know, if you know what the Chesapeake Bay is, you can google that, which in Baltimore is on the Chesapeake Bay way up in the north end of the bay, and there's this long peninsula that's part Maryland, part Delaware. The bay is kind of V shaped and yeah, yeah, but anyway, this this peninsula is called del Marva. And because my brother used to live in Maryland, so he took a little tour of del Marva. It's kind of interesting actually.

But anyway, at the very very tip of that peninsula, just northeast of Norfolk, Virginia, that is Cape Charles. So and so it was forty miles northeast. So they missed their target by a little bit. We're about to talk about, is right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, if it was indeed the cyclops. Back to our diver, Dean haws. He was diving at about a hundred and eighty feet of water. Uh, and he found this wreck of a really strange ship, and he went down and he actually wanted he stood on

the bow of the ship and looked at it. The bridge of the ship was raised up on steel stilts, and it had this strange superstructure which was described in the nineteen seventie newspaper are Nicle as quote upright beams running its length, resembling the skeleton of a skyscraper unquote, which really any of you have looked at the picture of the Cyclops, I didn't, by the way, talk about

how weird the cyclops looked falling down on the job here. Yeah, we kind of are, yeah, because it didn't look real weird. I did. And if you got the cyc of our website or whatever you see in the pictures, so you know how weird it looks, but or looked, well, let's

give it to Let's give him that in a sack. Okay, I finish about this diper guy though, Well, yeah, so Dean Hollis didn't know what he was looking at at the time, but like some years later, like five years later or something like that, he read an article about it in a magazine and there was a picture of the Cyclops in there. When he saw the picture, he was like, oh, wow, that's the boat or that's the ship I guess that I saw in the Atlantic, and uh.

So he went to the Navy with his suspicions and eventually in nineteen seventy three convinced him to reopen the search and they did do some searching, but they didn't find the wreckage, so oh sorry, but yeah, I know. And he eventually teamed up with Clive Cussler. I think this is three one. And didn't you know who Clive Cussler? Yeah, if you don't know who Clive Cussler is, he writes the sort of adventure, kind of pulpy novels. He's one of He had a recurring character named dirt Pit. I

love that name, dirt Pit. Uh. And I've read actually two of his books, and actually I thought that they were even though they were pretty absurd, they were actually fun. You know. I see why he's been writing for as long as he's been writing. Yeah, I see why he's I see why he's got a best selling fan base because his stuff is fun. Yeah, there's a lot of authors out there like that. Yeah yeah, yeah, so it's yeah, totally unbelievable, but still a lot of fun. So yeah

yeah yeah, also a murders like great beat reads. Yeah, but anyway, we never do we never explain the structure of the ship. Just let me finished up with with then't realize we're done. Sorry. Clive Cussler, besides writing this stuff, he is really interested in a lot of his stuff is sort of ocean based and and he's really interested in finding Rex. And he actually he actually found the Huntley, which do you guys know what the Hundley is, right,

doesn't ring a bell? The Hunley was a submarine built by the Confederacy. Oh yes, yeah, do you remember this one? Yeah, yes, so yeah it was it was most notably that the most thing was good at killing was its own crew. Because but but the Hunley was basically the first, uh or at least one of the first submarines. And it really was just a ship with a structure built around the top of it that sank a couple of you're

thinking about you're thinking about like the Monitor or the Merrimack. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that the Hunley was a little different it was actually cylindrical with tapered ends and tell us like a folded piece of paper. Yeah, and it's like uh, and it had I can't remember how many crew I think half of does. And and basically they sat inside this tube and just cranked, uh these cranks to turn the screw. And then at the front of it, oh yeah, and

at the front of it there was the torpedo. The torpedo turned out was not a great design because it was a long pole with a big, big powder charge, black powder charge on the end of it. And so they would go run up to a ship and and ram the ship and the chart the charge would go off, and but then they would be stock to the ship and then we go down with the ship. So it

didn't really work out that one. And it was I mean there's pictures right where it's like a dude standing next to it, you know, and it's it's smaller than he is. It's not a huge a very small vessel, right, Yeah. I would I couldn't even get into something like that, you know, I mean I would call the claustrophobia would overwhelm me that, you know, and much less go underwater. Yeah, no way. But anyway, that's so he found that. He helped find that, Yeah, he did. He was part of

the effort to find that, which is pretty cool. Now do we want to talk about the ship? Oh yeah, let's let's get back to talking about the ship. So

it's you facilitate loading coal on other ships. They had this superstructure that was basically a lot of it was kind of like a box, like a skeleton ice box that were like vertical vertical steel posts on either side and then cross members, and then they had these cranes that could they could either move it by bags of coal or else they could scoop coal out and dump it into the holds of other ships with these with these cranes. And so they had like a whole bunch

of cranes on this thing. So it was this the this was I know that the Cyclops was a colier. Was this it's Was this the standard design or was this a kind of a new design. I don't know enough about this loading of vessel steaming to guess. Yeah, I I to tell you that I don't know how many colliers were built with this particular design, just the class of four I know, Well that's I knew that much. But I'd never I'd never heard of anything that was this way. So that's why I was wondering if it

was unique. The class was unique that way. I don't know how unique this class was, to be honest with something I should have checked on. Actually it's hard to say. Okay, yeah, so it's got a whole bunch of upright. Yeah, it's got this whole big superstructure. Yeah, this whole big, huge superstructure that's like like a friend, like the framework of a building almost, And then they've got all these cranes and stuff to to move cold back and forth. And

actually that's considered. Well, we'll talk about that later, I guess, Okay, yeah, I don't. I don't want to get too far ahead. I just knew we needed to explain that, and we screwed up and didn't. Yeah, I did mention the course, said the guy named Donald Fraser did find what looked like the wreckage of a lifeboat from the USS cyclo. Has nothing to do with ours, But that's it. I mean,

that's possible if this guy was telling the truth. But he also said that he out of the suck on the hull of the ship about two thousand yards away and this was in uh, this was a gun key in the Bahamas. Yeah. Yeah, and so the second all of the ship about two thousand yards off of the key. And I'm not sure what to make of this because this would be way far off of the cyclops. Is cool? Then, and I was gonna ask, did he spot this ship below or above water? Under the water? Was he above

or below water when he spotted it? He was above he was in a boat. Yeah, So I'm not sure what to make of that. I would imagine that it would have been spotted again since then if he well yeah, and uh, it's not there now, it would have been. It would have had to have been in pretty shallow water for him to spot it. Yeah, that's why I was asking. Yeah, and you know, if he was diving, I could see where he could have made a significant depth and that's why nobody had noticed it. Yeah, and apparently,

uh yeah, they went back. When they went back and looked, I don't know if the Navy went back and looked at whoever did, but it wasn't there anymore. And I'm sorry, ship for X don't just move right, No, not really, no, they don't. Yeah, there they go and they plucked themselves down to the sand, and they're pretty much they're roots. Something pretty enormous to uproot those things and move them. This this was in the twenties, right, this is in February.

It's going to say most of the k's or keys, depending on what if you're in the Bahamas or are the United States, are now owned by cruise ships, by cruise liners. They're all owned private. Yeah. Most of those caves are the ones in between, like the main islands of the Bahamas and Miami, because they're good stop points on the way back. So yeah, and you know, looking up gun K, it looks like it's it's probably owned by it looks like it's be one of those islands

that's probably owned by something else. But in the nineteen twenties it probably wasn't. But you know, I was going to say, if it was more recent, that seems like this is a thing that a cruise ship company would haul away pretty quick. It's definitely not. Yeah, so never mind. My point is moot, Okay, where were we? So that's about the end of the story. Really. Now it's time

for the theories. Yeah, Okay, these are all theories which have been floated, either at the time or since there's quite a few of the Yeah, there really is, Okay. Our first theory is that it was an octopod um Doctor whom you're familiar with, Yeah, I know. He discovered that the cyclops have been attacked by an octopod whose spacecraft had crashed in the BERMDA triangle. Was this was the one? Wasn't this the one? That was the that

was the pirate ship one? There? There have been a ton of nautical ones nautes, And I am ashamed as a Hoovian to admit that I actually don't know what episode I was talking about. No, actually I don't know either. I just stumbled across this. But you also don't love Doctor Who. Like well, I love Doctor Who. I just haven't watched it nearly as comprehensively as you have. But I still like Doctor Who. It's awesome. But I got

to get back into watching Doctor Who. I Well, you picked the wrong time, but really, I know because of Netflix. I mean, either Doctor Who wouldn't lie about it, but turned out. I don't know if you guys know this or not. I know this blasphem, but Doctor Who's not real? What don't tell anyone. Can you hear them yelling at us, what's the next one. We're gonna be responsible for a lot of broken eye? Yeah, alright, well I was going to say the mystery is solved because doctor who's never wrong. Okay,

let me let me go to the next one. Somebody actually put out an account claiming this is true. A giant octopus. You know, at the time that this happened, giant octopuses were responsible for everything. On the flip side. There are such a thing as giant octopus. There are, But every ship that went down was taken down by a iron octopus who was angry for some reason. And actually, and by the way, although giant occupied do exist, I

don't know that there's anything that could take down this ship. Yeah, yeah, just by grabbing it and sing. I don't know. If it was severely overburdened already, probably wouldn't take all, you know, Yeah, and just down over Yeah, everybody who's not in the studio, devon just mimicked the sucker motion of an I made the noise something and pulling it. They didn't see what was happening. They don't know. The octopus probably didn't actually

even care if he sunk the ship or not. He probably just wanted to turn it upside down and shake it so all the goodies would fall out it into Yeah. But anyway, this this did appear in a magazine called Literary Digest. Yeah, alright, why not? Next theory? It was the Bermuter Triangle. Now you don't like that, okay, actually talking about that, I wasn't. I was actually heavily investigating the thing and until I got a threatening note from

the Bermuda Triangle. And I was just gonna say that it cracks me up all of the coverage of the Permiuter Triangle gets when A it's actually not a defined space, and B it is just a clever use of statistics. You're the one shut up. It's a real thing. Yeah, God damn it, I thought seen. I have seen maps of the Bermter Triangle. Dude, the triangle, the real thing. It just cracks me up that all of the reported sinkings and downings, and yet the number of things that

go through that area are never talked about. So the bath comes out to not that amazing. No, No, it's a pretty it's a high traffic area, there's no doubt about us. I think of all the cruise ships that are running on the power chords, how do they at those tangled up? What? Listen? It's very complex. Okay, yeah, it's the system of boys. I can't I can't explain it to you as it's very classified. Okay, Okay, my

memory I think was wiped. Probably, I'm not totally sure. Yeah, I don't remember that nine months of my life for a long What else is up here? Oh? What are we looking at? For? Nothing? In gas pockets? And this series has been floated for a while now, but apparently there are big pockets of mehing gas in the seafloor.

So about this in a different episode? Didn't we I think we did, but I can't remember which one, can't um it would have been, yeah, the one I think it was the Ring mcdan, yeah, which obviously wasn't right, but yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, okay, could stay more things. I'm sorry, y uh yeah. Anyway, So if you just happened to be sailing over that exact patch of water,

well it's kind of bad luck for you. Apparently the density of the water drops so much that your ship loses buoyancy and you just dropped like a rock and down you go. And this has actually been confirmed and tests. Some researchers actually built or required a large ship model, put it in the tank, released a bunch of methane

underneath it, and it did go down. What changes the displacement is when it changes, well, it changes that the buoyancy or it exeums me the density of the water becomes so much less that essentially you don't have enough buoyancy been much wider to keep afloat. So the theory that that it could sink a ship has been proven. But has the theory that methane bubbles of this size actually exists interrupt in the sea frequently? Has that been?

That has never been established. Nobody's you know, nobody has ever actually recorded any actually incidents of the wait is the theory, like, Okay, the methane gas bubbles burst in the ocean, presumably, but we don't have any records of it because well, guess what if we did have a record of it, that ship wouldn't have sung can. Yeah, it probably happens on a frequent basis, but they're not large enough. That's that's the thing here. It's all in

the size, not the matter that it's happening. Or when it's happening, but it's in the concentration. You wouldn't have to be that. But I mean, you know, really all you need is a small a smallish pocket when something, you know, something that's a fourth of the size of your ship. If your ship is overburdened already, the front of it loses buoyancy, you're probably going to go taking on water. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. So it wouldn't have to be that it was as large as the ship, right,

but that's still a huge pockets. That would be a lot of that thing to be suddenly burping up from the seafloor. Yeah. Going back and forth on this, I kind of like the idea that those like, not only are are you losing buoyancy with somebody on the bridge and it's just lighting a cigarette at that exact yeah, you know, but quite quickly. So yeah, so you burn in sinc. Yeah, someone's like smelling around like who farted? Yeah,

and why are we thinking gross? Yeah, that's what methane is. Uh. But that's so that's a good theory, but it is it's partially proven, right, then it could happen. But also we don't think that methane probably is probably not. It's like it's been proven in theoria that could happen. But again, it just doesn't appear to have ever actually happened in your life. But who knows. I mean, but we wouldn't have proof of it, would not proof Yeah, because this

ship just disappeared. Ye yeah, although generally speaking when ships, when ships go down, it's usually because of things like bad luck, bad weather, human air more things like that. Especially Yeah. Yeah, alright, the next our next theory. I've seen this one out there and the series that the manganese or in the hold was unstable and it exploded. Yeah, well, according to my research, maganese manganese is actually pretty stable. Yeah yeah, And so I don't know what that. I

don't know who the hell came up with this one. Okay, so what do you guys have any thoughts on that? Yeah? Okay, now this page of theories ahead of us. No, yeah, there's better ones out there. If we needed to pad this episode, I'm could. I just didn't want to cheat our listeners. I want to I found every last possible and people people put forth a lot of theories about this. They really have our next one a boiler explosion took

out the radio room and set the ship on fire. Yeah, except the boilers would have been in the back of the ship near the stern, and I can't imagine why the radio room would have been back in the stern of the ship then not up near the bridge or even next to the bridge. So I in a way, I could see there being some viability to this theory, though I don't see it working on its own. There's some stuff that we're going to talk about a little farther along that I think could have happened in conjunction

or exasperated the problem if the boiler had gone. You might need me to say exacerbated, Yeah, that word. If the boiler had gone and exploded and caused structural damage, that would have, you know, then just set off a chain reaction of problems. But I don't think that if it was in a ship that was in perfect health and the and a boiler had blown, now, I don't think that that's possible. Yeah. The thing about this this ship is too is that the Cyclops apparently reportedly had

some problems. It did, but it was still a relatively young ship, and I don't think the boilers were. Actually, I don't think the boilers would have been the problem. I think the boilers were in perfectly good shape. It's also I mean, I guess it's also hard to tell where your satellites. But you know, looking at the ship,

there's so much structure there. I can't tell all if even if the radio room was where the bridge was, because that would make sense, right if your antennas are maybe in the back or maybe part of the structures. If something in the back did explode, regardless of the health of the could you know without taking the radio room out. I don't think it's a good theory, but

I just wanted to add that. So Joe just said something that that got me thinking, which is the ship was young enough that the boilers and I agreed wholeheartedly. Now I'm I'm second guessing that is this ship was young enough and should have been good enough condition, and yet it had an engine problem that was significant enough that that engine had to be shut down. So that could be you know, that could show a larger issue

in terms of the entire propulsion system. So potentially the boiler could have not actually been in that greative condition. I guess for me, I'm inferring the condition of one

thing based on an which is not right. Well, and I'm more willing to say, like an engine that's in the water and sucking a lot of stuff through it is way more likely to have something, you know, accidentally get pulled through it or get damaged and have that be an external damage that happened to it that was unfortunate, but that happens sometimes versus the boiler just being crappy and exploring. You know, you're not getting external stuff like if you accidentally, as macab as it is, suck a

dolphin through your I think they have filters. I think they too, write But if you, I mean, you know that obviously, But if you or anything, I mean, you pull anything through, even a tin can, oh my goodness, do we just go back and your corn that I'm sorry, I'm sorry you have just set against I know. I'm sorry. There's gonna be a lot of upset people, you know.

But so if you, I mean, if you pull anything, you know, the filter for some reason is failing, or even if it's just a tiny little thing, a tiny little rock, even pulled through something like that is enough to really buck it up. And I don't think it had caused an explosion. No, I don't think it cut But I'm saying like through an engine submerged, that makes more sense to me than you know, saying, well, it's

a problem system wide. I'm just I what I was inferring was the health of one component is indicates the health of the entire system, and that is not a correct assumption, but that is just kind of where I went. It's a possibility. But yeah, that the cylinder head that was cracked, if that indeed was what it was, it's probably made by somebody else other than the boiler maker. Anyway, I don't like the boiler explosion series simply because I still think the crew, even if the radio that would

have had time to deploy the lifeboats. So yeah, that's why I'm not buying this one. Or the very least degree would have been found. Yeah, that's for sure. If the ship exploded, yeah, there there would have been the would be stuff floating around. Probably. The next theory is that they were torpedo by German U boats, which was a very popular theory at the time, but there's no

supporting evidence. They've gone back and looked. Yeah, after the war, they asked the German government, the Germans who Germans, by the way, they're very good at keeping records. Yeah, yeah, that kind of very good. After the Holocaust, that kind of got them in hot water actually, But yeah, and this is not a joke. Yeah, now it's not a joke. But yeah, I mean that certainly was got a lot

of them strung up after the war. But anyway, back to that, they had no U boats in the area at the time of the disappearance, they said, and they had no record of sinking the cyclopes. And also again, when you torpedo ship, they usually don't just explode and and burst into flames. Usually it takes a little while to sink. Yeah, and somebody on the bridge probably sees that ship coming. Yeah, they don't see the shot coming.

Let's say it's at night, it explode Rhodes and the ship takes a while to go down, Yeah, it should. It should. I mean unless it just broke the ship into and it just like the perfect None of this makes sense because nobody was there next our next srey mutiny. Uh yeah. Now, there was an article of Time magazine just last year, mark of last year. Yeah, we speculated

that the disappearance might have been a quote botched mutiny unquote. Uh, the uncovered startling new evidence that Captain Wary was disliked by other officers goods and that attempted mutiny. But actually what they're doing, they're just quoting from that same telegram from David Livingston and Barbados, so that was talking about uh, and then they're going to explain that the mutiny caust of disappearance by well, actually they don't. That was a

pretty crappy little article. Uh. Yeah, it's like they say it might have been a botched mutiny and that they don't explain the exactly how so I think we can dismiss this one. You know, I do for entertaining reading, I would recommend that people go look up the records on Worsley because there it's pretty funny some of the things that he says. And it's funny because of the time the language is different. So alcohol for medicinal reasons, but then accusing people of being sex maniacs and so

it's it's really an entertaining read. Yeah, actually it is. And yeah, when he was accused of all this stuff, he made some counter accusations. Yeah, it's it's and who knows who's right. I mean maybe maybe Worsley has been defamed. I don't know. Yeah he could have been, yeah, I mean yeah, alright, so we got that so much from Utty. Let's move on to our next one. And this was this was a big one at the time. Yeah, I would believe that, Yeah, this is treason that that did.

I mention earlier that Captain Worley was suspected of having pro German sympathies. Well, you had talked about that. We didn't that his name wasn't originally that, but then that was all gave people. Yeah, yeah, Worley as far as a navy and you had been born in San Francisco. But it turns out that he didn't was born in San Francisco. He jumped ship from a German ship in

San Francisco. Yeah, it turns out Worley was actually born Johann Vikmon in Germany, and he jumped ship in San Francisco in eighteen seventy eight, and he illegally entered the US and e actually sometime after that changed his name and eventually became like a ship's master or whatever you would call it, and captained a lot of ships and doing, you know, more or less cargo for the far East to the US then jumping ship. Yeah, I believe it was so. Yeah, I think he was quite a young

man when he did it. Then, well, he was born I think I have heard in eighteen sixty two, so at the time of the sinking of the Cyclopes, and he would have been in his mid fifties. Yeah, okay, but he would have jumped ship. Yeah, that happens, Yeah, he would. He turned out to be a German. They found this out after the after the vote went missing, and one of the passengers who joined at the last minute was Alfred gut Schalk, who was the U S

Council General in Brazil at that time. But he uh supposedly quit his job and said that he wanted to go back to the States and enlist to go fight the Germans, although other people said that he was very pro German, and also it was suspected there were a lot of other German sympathizers in the crew. David Livingston, again the Council General in Barbados and it sent his telegram to the State Department said quote have names of crew,

but not of all the officers and passengers. Many Germanic names appear while not having Yeah, while not having any

definite grounds, I fear fate worse than sinking unquote. And of course I talked about his suspicions about about the extra stuff that he took on board in Barbadoes, and that would have and in fact, if they did intend to sail across the Atlantic to Germany and turned the Cyclope and its cargo over to the Germans, this would kind of explain the unscheduled stuff in Barbados to pick up the extra cold and the extra food and and everything.

According to David Livingston's telegram, the Cyclops took on a ton of meat, a ton of flower, half a ton of vegetables, and so to him it looked like Worthy was planning extended cruise, Yeah, exactly. And he also took on another six hundred tons of coal, So that was

livingston suspicion. And also I read this in an old, an old article in Popular Science that the Navy at some point got and this was before the end of the war, they got word from an Asian in Germany that he had seen the Cyclops in Kiel, Germany, so that that also feels suspicions uh, that they followed up on that. It turned out to be a German ship that just happened to be named Cyclops. It wasn't our Cyclops. Yeah,

it wasn't our Cyclops. Uh. There was another room at the Navy got a letter from a pow Germany who said that he had talked to several members of the Cyclops crew in his pow camp in Germany. I'm kind of discounting that one. And so this could have happened, I mean it maybe, But the reason I don't really buy into this one, even though it was a very popular one at the time, it was seemed to me to be very foolhardy to try to cross the Atlantic with only one engine functioning. I would say more than

fool hard Yeah. Yeah, that's a very gentle term. Yeah yeah. And again there's no there was actually no reason to suspect either warlies, loyalties or got chalks. Loyalties were all the rest of those Germanic people that were in the crew. I think that the Cyclops would have been a much greater danger if they had sailed across, because they might have they might have run into a U boat and they would have been a juicy target. They would have had no way. U boats don't radio over. Are you

a friendly? Yeah? They just shoot? Yeah. Well so Also, I mean if you look at if you look at the profile the cyclops, you know, they have these things called ship profile charts, you know, and and and the Germans look and they see, is there anything in the German navy that looks like that? Nope, Okay, kill them, And that's what they did. Also, cyclops had a really distinctive look, and it certainly would have been spotted in whatever port it wound up in unless the cruise thumb

oh hell yeah. And of course the Germans would have had to kill everybody in the ship who wasn't pro German, since nobody ever turned up. Again, the records don't show this, although maybe they would have covered that up. I don't know. It probably is kind of important to point out that the Germans, the Germans of World War One, weren't quite like the Germans of World War Two. It's completely different mentality. Yeah, yeah, they I don't think they would have committed mass murder,

you know, of civilians. Now, that wasn't that wasn't on the dock. And so I think we can discount that one. I don't think that's what happened. I think we need to discount the next one too, But go ahead and tell people, oh yeah, well this one has been floated also that there were German a German agent or agents on the ship and they committed sabotage. They basically wanted a bomb or numerous bombs. Yeah. Yeah, Steve has his notebook out, but I'm not sure if it's about this

one or the next One's for the next one. Okay, yeah, okay, So anyway, so they plant time bombs, sabotage the radio, pop in a lifeboat and row away away and then the ship goes bluey and goes down. Yeah so yeah, I don't think so either. Also, what do they do with the lifeboat? What do they do with the lifeboat? They got to some somewhere and then they sank it, burned it or maybe or maybe that was that that wreckage that that guy found on gun Key two years later.

The cyclot paint trying to paint over the name, but they didn't have enough. Yeah, they left the extra can on the ship. Maybe yeah, yeah, what's next? R next one is actually a little more credible. Um. This essentially is that a combination of things bad weather, poorly loaded cargo, and just bad design caused the boat to roll over,

take water, and just sink suddenly. Yeah, and that's the That was the U. S. Navy's official theory pretty recently after that and that, But although they have stressed that they don't really know. First of all, the Cyclops was overloaded. I believed that the cargo was not well trimmed, and that there was explained to people what you mean by

well trimmed? Yah, welcome, Yeah, welcome. When a ship is out of trim, that means that well, in this case, stepping forward or back, left or right, exactly the ship is the centered balanced, Yeah, exactly balanced. It's the same

thing by trim all his nautical terms. Yeah. One thing that people point to this, this is another thing that Worley gets a bad rap for, is he was known for being a jerk and locking up or confining to quarters the experienced mans retribution for some slight and putting the guy who wasn't very good at the job in his place. So there's you'll see people say that was directly at his his fault. But yeah, I've heard it

both ways. I have heard like for example, the Wikipedia page on this particular thing claims that the guy who would have been in charge of supervising this, who was much more experienced and supervising the loading of the of the manganese coal, was gonna fined to quarters, and a much less experienced crew member was was actually supervising the loading.

But then I heard from another very credible source that the Cyclops was loaded into the supervision of Captain Warley himself and also a guy from the Brazilian colding company named Manuel Pereira. I guess I'll just bring up quickly that just that just because you're the captain of a ship doesn't mean you know how it should be loaded, right, I mean, I don't know that necessarily a pilot of a plane could look at a cargo hold and be like, yeah,

that's right. The one thing I will point out about word is he had been doing this job long enough that you know that, like we talked about before, there was the the failed mutiny and I and all of those things had happened, and he had been brought under scrutiny, but he never got kicked out of his job for the very basic reason nobody else could fill his shoes. Nobody else knew how to pilot or I shouldn't a pilot,

but captain this particular brand of beasts. But just because you know how to drive the thing doesn't mean you know how to load it. That's true, Just as I'm not going to disagree with that. I'm not going to say either way because I've never had to load a cargo. Yeah.

But yeah, but it's that same thing, right. It's like, I don't know if just because you can captain a thing, if it means you know what it would look like when it's loaded, right, So just if even if he did oversee the loading of it, doesn't necessarily mean it was loaded, right. Yeah, No, not necessarily no. But and again, most of his experience, and this guy named manage Mentoi of the Brazilian coal company, those guys were used to dealing with coal and that manganese, which is a completely

different critter. Yeah, manganese is twice as dense as coal, and which means that you normally, if you feel with the whole of the cyclops the hold, uh, you're filling it all up. You're filling it all the way up with coal. And so cargo shifting is not a problem. But since you're only filling it up about halfway or maybe two thirds at the most, then the cargo has moved has room to move around. Is that this may be a silly question about coal, I assume is like

bricks of coal. Well, it's like rocksna manganese. How's that transported? Also chunks yeah, chunks yeah, yeah, chunks of more. Yeah, but it's it's not going to fill the entire space to the ability to shift, right, yeah, right. And actually also mentioned something else. The ship was top heavy because of the superstructure all all that whole framework and the crane and everything like that. That's a lot of weight really high up in the air. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, might

expect in the Bahamas. I always this makes me if you're trying to understand what the problem is is have you ever seen the drinking bird, that silly little thing that people have on their desk, which is water on the bottom and then a tall long tube and then a weight on the top that but those on their desks anywhere? But yes, okay, that was that was ok I have one shut up. The point is that this the way this ship is with that weight only filling part of its hold is exactly like the drinking bird.

If you tap the bottom, it's going to very easily roll because there's a ton of weight up high and a ton of weight up down low, but nothing in the middle to stabilize. Yeah, and it's just nobody knows exactly how well they did. Well they did they? And I've got a quote here. If I was gonna this guy named Alfred P. Wrack R E c K about the wreck. Does he write about undersea Rex? Yeah? Well

he wrote about this rack. Yeah. He wrote this long article in the June nine issue of Popular Science called Strangest American c Mystery has Solved at last, longest article title ever in Popular Science. Yeah. Now, so he actually got access to Navy documents from the investigation. Uh. And he quotes from one report quote ten thousand, eight hundred thirty five tons of manganese stowed direct on wood, dunnage

and bottom of hold. Reports differ as to whether cargo was trimmed level or left somewhat higher in the middle inclined to ladder belief. Vessel also had four thousand tons of water, mostly in double bottom. So far as ascertaining those steps taken to prevent increasing of metacentric height governing top heaviness, and this must have been considerably increased. That's not a good way to load that. Yeah, no, if

they that the big question. He basically saying the weight was put at almost the waterline so that it would make the center of the ship the pivot point. Is that what that says? Well, I think I think what he's saying is that the is that by piling it high in the center, because if you do just stump it in there and you don't spread it around, then and you've gotta and you've gotta higher in the middle.

So it's an that that raises your center of gravity. Yeah, and I think increase also the possibility of cargo shifting because well, and it's unsecured, right, we're saying basically in my image, right, they have this big old hold that's just like a big with a pile of raa in it, and they're like, that's fine, whatever, that's cool. And you know, if it were full and you would have your canvas over it or whatever, if it were coal, right, it's

not going to shift around really that you're fine. But if it's only half full, Yeah, you said that, whatever we throw the canvas over it. You hit a wave, most of it goes fly in one way or the other. You're you're out of luck like that. It's a really bad news, especially if you're top heavy. Yeah, because you're just going to keep going. It kind of depends too. I mean, there's such a thing as rogue waves. Yeah, if you hit a rogue wave, if you have a

rogue wave hits it broadside. Um. And also again, the other thing we don't know is what kind of shape there they're functioning engine was in. I mean it could have quit. And if you're in a storm with heavy seas and suddenly you've got no power, you're really screwed. Even if you only have half power, Even if you only have power on one side, that's true, it would be hard. Rogue wave hits you on the other side

and all your cargo goes. Let's talk about the storms, because I've heard conjecture that there was and was not storms during their time. So what what is the official the official prognancy? It was there storms? Yeah, that was that was a storm. There was that was most definitely a storm. I think that one of the guys that has put out this idea that there was it was

all a calm and sunny and nice. Is this guy whose name eludes me and besides which I don't want to give him publicity anyone, but he was promoting the whole Bermuda triangle and scary stuff. Okay, I'm fine with ignoring nothing. Yeah. So he's all like it was calm and sunny, but no, that it was. It's well documented that storm warnings went out late on March ninth, nineteen eighteen,

March tenth. The winds were the winds got up to like sixty miles an hour as well as were huge reported again by that molasses tanker that we were talking about, the mulco Um. They passed through the same storm, and the captain himself said that he was certain that that storm sank the Cyclops. He his his boat, of student say, his boat is ship, the Amalico suffered a hundred fifty dollars in damage from the storm. And uh and again this is nineteen eighteen, so that's real money. Yeah, I

know it's chump changed today, but it's real money. That's real money back in those days. Yeah, so I was the storm. Let's talk about the storm angle here for a second. So One of the things that I wanted to talk about with the storm is for ships that are this big and and larger. I started doing some research on cargo container ships, and I've heard about this, but for the life of me, I couldn't find the name of the ship or the suit that was involved

with it. But the common perception and understanding of how to deal in a large ship in a big storm is to stay in the trough You don't want to be, you know, running up and down the peak of waves. You want to try and stay in the troughs as much as possible. It's kind of hard to do that. It is hard to do that, but there's you know, to a degree it prevents, you know, a cargo container ships.

They're super crazy tall and they don't want to roll around, and so there's ways to go about that, and there was this common perception of the best way to do it. And this was I think five or ten years ago. A ship went down in insurance company was like, no, we're not paying out your claim. Your guys obviously didn't do what they were supposed to. So they got some

very smart people involved who started figuring it out. And what they determined actually happened is if the winds are at the right speed and the waves are actually the right duration apart, the common way to approach of trying to stay in the trough doesn't work. Instead, it creates this this frequency of role which very quickly escalates and will roll a ship over. So it's a thing that

you know, everybody on board is not aware of. It just it just a little bit, a little bit, and then it just builds and accelerates and we'll roll the ship this phenomenon. And so that's why I wonder where the ship that's as top heavy as the cyclops in a sea where they're like, oh, well, no, it's but we definitely don't want to be rolling over the top of that big wave and back down the next one.

Let's try and stay in between them. They could have got themselves into a scenario where that that frequency would have happened and would have rolled the whole thing, which would then would explain everything's okay, everything's okay, we're on the side and we're under From my time on a cruise ship, uh, in my nautical experience, no one of the things they treating about is like, if you're in enough seas if you start taking on water, you're s o l an inch of water is what they always

told us, And this could be totally wrong, but all it takes is an inch of water on your like middle deck, and as soon as that starts hitting it's it's gonna increase it so much. So they always said to us, Yeah, the most effective way to survive a storm is to drive around it. Storm. You run away as fast as you can. Oh yeah, no, I'm a coward. You run away every time, literally do. But you just go, you know, you you try to hit as far as the edges you can and then you just kind of

just try to ride it out and but if you can't. Right. But the other thing that I will say is that from where they were going, especially since they were and they were in the Palma's right, it was documented they were they were in Barbados. But Barbados, Yeah, I mean, it's not like wildly open seas out there, you know, Like it's one thing if you're doing an Atlantic crossing and you're like, Okay, we're screwed. There's this huge storm. We're going to ride the trough and just hope for

the best. But it's there another to be going up the Atlantic coast like they were going up the coast. Actually, Barbados is actually just go straight up. He's almost directly south of Baltimore. It's almost I mean it's not. Yeah, but it's but you don't necessarily, I mean, there are shipping lines like you don't you're not just like, but I don't know, there's a straight line here, so we're

going to take that. You ride the currents. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly, but I would I would guess it's not let's go all the way out to the open sea and they well they would have been pretty much out in the up and sea, but you know, they could have gone straight as an arrow. They probably sort of veered towards the coast. And when they weren't like hugging the coast. No no, no, I don't mean like

right up on it. But if you're also not like, you know, seventy eight nine hundred miles out in the middle of the ocean where you can't go around things, you can't just drop anchor and try to write it out or whatever you do. But it is, it's it's one of those things where it's just like once you're out there, you're out there and you're done. Yeah, they could have very easily run around the storm. But I think and they may not have had the power to run around the store on a single engine. They may

have looked at it and said all hell yeah. But as I'm saying, you know, if if an inch of water will make a difference, imagine what a half full hole of really dense material if it's swaying back and forth. I don't and the waves don't even have to be there. Yeah, no,

there was. Yeah, It's been said that if you get water into the hole and and and you get water in the hole, then apparently it makes the manganese much more slippery and it becomes a slurry you just slide back and forth, just turns into gel basically, not quite that, but essentially it'll be a lot more mobile than it would be if it was dry. Yeah. Okay, So the cargo shift, rogue wave, top heavy, all that stuff. That's that theory any more thoughts you guys? Yeah, yeah, I mean,

I mean this is actually a viable theory. It's one of the more viable theories that I've seen. The road waves slash, cargo shift, Yeah yeah, yeah, Well and by the way, did we We didn't say what a road wave is. Yeah, road waves. It's like this, this wave that's kind of had a bad up gramming bread. It's uh yeah, exactly. Yeah. The rogues waver are just out of the blue, amally. Yeah. And they happen, they do,

they do. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you're not expecting it and it suddenly washes over the deck of your ship, it's gonna cause a lot of problems. Yeah, And they do happen. And so especially in things like storms, you can get big waves. You gotta have a few that are extra big waves. Alright, But so much of that theory, I think it's a very strong possibility. And uh, but let's look at our last theory, which says that it was a design flaw in the ship itself, which

has some good lakes to stand on. It kind of does. Yeah, there was uh, as I said earlier, the ships in the class, there were four of them. They all met a bad end. One of them, that Jupiter, was converted to an aircraft carrier and it became the Langley. It was the first aircraft carrier built by the U. S. Navy. It was damaged by a Japanese attack in World War two in nine two in the Pacific and it was scuttled by the crew and uh so there's no mystery there.

But the other two Proteus and Nereus uh left St. Thomas virgin Islands in November and December one respectively, and they were both headed to Canada with loads of box side or and both of them vanished without a trace. Also also with this exactly like the Cyclops, they just vanished. But they're somehow not mysteries I'm seeing. I've seen the pattern there. Yeah, for some reason, the Cyclops, this is a big mystery. But interesting it because they had is

it like a racist thing? Like it's because they had a German captain the Cyclops. It's probably that could be part of it. Um Now box eye. Box eye is used to make aluminum and it's not nearly as volatile under wet conditions as manganese. Is that correct? I have no idea, to be honest with him, Okay. I remember reading about box side just because it was weird and it related to last week's episode with Bob Marley because it's something that comes from Jamaica. But I didn't remember

if there was the slurry effect with it. Yeah, this I'm not really sure about. Yeah, but it has been suggested that maybe the cargo shift isn't the deal. And what it was is they all suffered catastrophic structural failure due to correl from cold dust. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, you said you found a quote. Yeah, yeah, yeah, found a quote from a study called Corrosion and biled Steel

by Coal and iron Ore, which is this quote. They pronounced increase in corrosion rate was observed at a moisture content between six and eight percent of the maximum water holding capacity for all samples. The corrosion rate was also observed to increase with decreasing particle sized distribution, meaning that the fight of the dust, the nasty of the corrosion, and uh, he's gonna find a lot of moisture and a lot of coal dust on the Cyclops and also

on the proteus and nereus. Well, they were all called floating rust buckets. Yeah, and they weren't that old. I mean, they weren't that but yeah, a crewman that was on the cyclops, he was got off of it before they sank. Yeah, I said it was in terrible shape. I would also explain maybe why and engine yeah, you know at that point if something had corroded there. Yeah. Yeah. And there have been other instances of not just chips in this class, but are freighters snapping in two and these two these

three boats were excuse me, ships were very long. And now how did the hold was in the middle? Yeah, and how did they seal the hole with canvas covered? So you know, obviously water got in there and mixed in with the cold dust and rusted the hell out of everything every time. Yeah. And so between this, between it being structurally compromised and going to really heavy seas in a storm, it's not hard to imagine it just snapped into yeah, absolutely, Yeah, and bam uh. I justn't

something you really want to think about. If you've ever really been on any kind of ship. Didn't a new vehicle. I don't want to think about corrosion snapping. I don't either. That's why we don't do that with coal anymore, right, we don't power cars with coal anymore. Well, then it turned out, yes, yes, Stefan, that is exactly okay, cool, good reason. Yeah, By the way, cruise ships these days, they're not coal powered. I know, I told you they're electric.

We plug them in, but they they have a ridiculously shallow draft. And I know they do this so they can get into harbors and stuff like that, but some of them do not. All yeah, well, and they're stabilizers and there's lots of technology. Oh because yeah, I was just I was just wondering about that. But no, I mean the bigger the ship that obviously the deeper. Yeah, the draft and the ones that make the cross atlantic journey have our way. But you know, most ships don't

do that. Most of the cruise ships these days, they just kind of hug the coast and stop a lot of places, even the ones that it doesn't matter. I know our listeners like to listen to me talk about cruise ships sometimes, but I'm not going to go too far that interesting. I agree. Actually they need to like it.

So one of these is we're gonna have one of those cruise ship junkets where you can you can take a cruise with the cast of Thinking Sideways podcast right for it'll be just Joe and Steve because it is not going back, not going back in there, man, alright, gon, We're gonna hire an actress to play devon as long

as that scarlet Johnson, I'm okay with them. I'm all out of theory is unfortunately, I know you'd like to go on with us forever, and you guys have any more thoughts on this about breakings, I mean, because if you think about it, Okay, so we've got a slight, we've got a compromised structure into because of the coal

dust and it's eroding everything. And if you're in heavy seas and the waves are far enough apart and they're rising, so the bow in the stern are being lifted, but the middle of the ship is no longer supported by as much water, that weight is gonna make it snap. I mean, if if, if suddenly the for sure the structure is weakend. Yeah, it's not good, but it probably it's much more likely. And again given that the two sister ships both disappeared equally as suddenly, Yeah, I don't know, radio, Yeah,

I don't know. Does it though, Like I mean, we were just talking about like the Titanic, right, it took it suffered a very catastrophic event until it took hours for that thing to think once it's snapped, though it didn't take hours Yeah, if it's snapped. If it's snapped into it went down really fast. And here's the deal. That's like a couple of minutes, a couple it's not as if a couple of seconds snap and it's not it's not a cartoon. It's not where it goes whoop

bloop and goes straight down. It's gonna roll over on itself and the bridge is gonna go underwater. Yeah, therefore, no no radio content. Although if you see that rough, maybe you like the last contact with the cyclops, right, was like that good weather a good yeah right, I'm like the sort of thing if you hit rough seas you would say, like, hey, everybody out there in the radio world, just so you know, it's really rough out here. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure exactly what the rules

were then. I mean it was it was because it was wartime, and so you didn't want to just be broadcasting willie nilly because you transmission. But if you're well that big, you probably do want to let even you even don't really want your enemies to be caught in something like that. And if you ship it out there, even they're gonna get screwed just as hard as you are. They're not going to torpedo you. You're They're going to be like, well, I guess we better survived this thing

for a couple of minutes. Yeah, I don't know. It could be Remember like also radios weren't as reliable because and yeah, it might have been like in the case of Joida, that maybe they had had something out, like a Nintendo was down and they didn't even realize it and they're busy broadcasting and nothing is getting out. Possible. No, there are a lot of options here, and I I'm totally happy to agree with you that it probably was some porrible mixture of Rough Season Rust that yeah, I

think so. Um, but it will be a great band name, by the way, Rough Season Rust. Yeah, that's already in my band name. Just trying to like girl band name. Yeah. Yeah. So the Cyclops was a huge deal back in the nineteen twenties. It was one of the one of those huge unsolved mysteries. It just captivated everybody's attention eventually because it's it's kind of like the Titanic, it's too big to sink. Yeah, I know, and and uh, and then

it sort of faded. But then along came this whole idea of that for me to try and go back in the nighteen twenties and ninteen tens, nobody knew about the Revater triangle. It didn't exist if nobody had invented the story exactly. So of course not yeah, and so interesting. The Cyclops got revived because of that, and uh, and so it's still with us today. I mean I I found articles from on the internet about it. People are still writing about it. But the Cyclops are the Permeter

triangle about the Cyclops about the Bermeter triangle. Say, we're never going to get rid of that story triangle, Oh no, no, but but there, Yeah, they're still writing about it. And and the thing that really revived it was all this interested in the Bermeter triangle and and the Cyclops. You know, as far as we know, it wasn't even in the Bermuter triangle when it's sank. If indeed it sank, it might indeed have been transported to Germany or picked up

by the Martians. It might have been in the Bermuda octagon. Yeah, it might be on the vast oceans of Mars. Yeah, it could be curiosity. Yeah, well, isn't it um platoon that, it turns out, is totally water under the surface. It's not Neptune. It is a moon. It's on the top and liquid underneath. Probably nice to know that we've got a fresh reserve of water if we use a all the water on Earth. Yeah, I remember that. I don't know. But are we done? What's going on? That's it for

the theories. Uh, you know, I think that one of these days the wreckage and the Cyclops will be found. Uh. And we have a pretty good idea where it is. Although that Joe you think, you don't think it's was as much of a rust bucket as they say it was when it went down to the point that it's let's just say it's snapped in half. That thing is our That steel is so compromised. I can't see it surviving another fifty years in salt water. Here. My heart

will go on. Good job, I'm sure just like the Titanic, Just like the Titanic, we will find the Cyclops. We will, I think. So it's near or far wherever it is, Okay, I was I was gonna I was gonna give a like asc our listeners to start a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds so us to go because we have the latitude and longitude of where Dean Hass saw his wreck. Yeah you know what, No, no, no, we have to go further than that. We have to go to all of the different case and the bomb. I gotta go

to Brazil. I'm saying whatever he thought, I don't care. We have to start the source. I think you're right. I think you all right. So you guys U, Yeah, raise some more funds. Yeah, addition, Yeah, that's to Brazil. Yeah, it's an extra. It's an extra for like waxes and stuff like that in bating suits. We're a Harry bunch. Yeah. I was like, thanks, Oh damn, Yeah, you're welcome. We can watch your head. What do you want to go for? You want to go for the doctor? You want to

go for breaking in two? I think we gotta clean one. I'm breaking in two. So after breaking into Yeah, the doctor, the doctor. I always go with the doctor too. I think it rolled. Do you think it roll? You don't think? You don't think I've broken too. I think that it may have begun to break once it rolled, But I have a few I just feel like it rolled over alright. Well, second, my second theory after the doctor is breaking into Yeah,

now I'm gonna go with the design flaw. Yeah. Okay, well we've obviously settled on an exact answer doctor yeah, the doctor. Ah yeah, so you're at doctor who half of this tom foolery. Um. So, folks, if you don't know where to find us and get your episodes, we are at Thinking Sideways podcast dot com where you can download episodes. Uh, and you can also leave comments and we'll have links out there, so we'll post some links to this one. And also you can find us on iTunes.

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you very much. Yeah, there's lots of people who have and really appreciate it. Because we do have expenses, believe it or not, and bribes must be paid. Yeah, yeah, pay off Theodore Bundy, Yeah, pretty much, theater Bunday Chuppy has to be paid protection. How come? How come Choopy never made an appearance in this episode? Why is he not the culprit? He doesn't want to be anymore? Do you did you miss that meeting? Do you miss that email? Threat?

Chuopy doesn't talk to me anymore? Chippy Chippy has an alibi. Yeah, Chippy Chuppy actually was in Europe scaring the pants off the natives at the times. Yeah, though he might have farmed the workout. You never know. I mean, there's no saying Chippy can't hire a sub contract. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, Okay, we're done. I guess we're done. Yeah, I'm glad we got to the bottom of this. This is a very solemn subject. I can't be laughing about it. Yeah, to lu be careful, what should you get on? Like we

aren't we? In order to Caprio, I was like what it did for him