The Unexplained Disappearance of the United States Naval Collier Causes a Marine Expert to Discuss the Fantastic Possibilities of Encounters Between Ships and Gigantic Octopuses
The disappearance of the great United States naval collier Cyclops during the year 1918 has now been ranked among the famous unexplained mysteries of the sea, like the fate of the crew of the brig Marie Celeste and many another ocean tragedy.
The Cyclops, a ship of 19,000 tons, sailed from Barbados in the West Indies on March 4 last on war duty and has never been reported since. This great steel ship, with all her crew and arms and equipment, her wireless and her boats has vanished from the seas just as feeble sailing ships did in ancient times when the ocean was an uncharted wilderness.
By order of the Navy Department all available naval craft In Southern waters have been making a dragnet for the ship, but steadily the conviction grows among officials that the great modern mystery of the sea will remain unsolved.
Cruisers and patrol boats have retraced the route of the collier. Every island among the scores that dot that portion of sea has been carefully scrutinized for any clue. But unremitting search has failed to disclose any trace of a ship apparently plucked in a moment from the busy lanes of the Southern American trade routes.
What can have happened to the Cyclops? George Noble, a writer In the National Marine magazine, after discussing various suggested explanations—sinking by a German submarine, destruction by treachery, capsizing in a storm, etc.—take up the most startling possibility of all—that some, at least, of the vanished ships of the past and, perhaps, the Cyclops may have owed their doom to gigantic cuttlefish, specimens of which are known to attain a length of 135 feet.
About the only possible explanation incapable of contradiction,” says this writer, is that Gargantuan squids—monster cuttlefish—treated of in fiction and in fact, may have reared themselves out of the sea and, instead of winding their tentacles around the hulls and rigging and crushing the structures to matchwood before dragging it to their lair at the bottom, may have helped themselves to the ship’s people as delicately and effectually as one plucks gooseberries off a bush—then sunk out of sight and left scarcely a ripple behind.
The writer points to the evidence of depredations by gigantic cuttlefish or octopuses in the region where the Cyclops was lost:
“The French writer, Denys de Montfort, gravely declares that six men-of-war captured from the French by Admiral Rodney in the West Indies, April 12, 1782, together with four British ships detached from the fleet as a convoy were suddenly engulfed by colossal cuttlefishes. He also records a statement of Captain Jean Magnus Deus, by repute a respectable and veracious man, a trader to China, of an instance when the captain was becalmed and having his vessel’s bottom painted while crossing from St. Helena to Cape Negro.
“The story runs that three men were standing on planks slung over the side when an enormous cuttlefish rose from the water and threw one of its arms around two of the sailors, whom it tore away with the scaffolding on which they stood. With another arm it seized the third man, who held on tightly to the rigging and screamed for help. His shipmates ran to his assistance and succeeded in rescuing him by cutting away the creature’s arms with axes and knives, but he died delirious on the following night.
“The captain tried to save the other two sailors by killing the animal, and drove several harpoons into it, but they broke away and the men were carried down by the monster. The arm cut off was said to have been twenty-five feet long and as thick as the mizzen yard and to have had on it suckers as big as saucepan lids.”
Undoubtedly the theory that the Cyclops may have been attacked by an octopus presents some difficulties. It could hardly be claimed that one or more of these creatures, however gigantic, could sink a great steel steamship, as they are said to have sunk various old sailing ships.
The Cyclops, if attacked or obstructed by any number of cuttlefish, could have steamed away from them. But it may be imagined that she became disabled through engine trouble or some other accident and that while rolling helpless in the trough of the sea the monsters threw their arms over the deck in the manner described and carried all or many of the crew overboard in their dreadful clutches.
The ship, thus left helpless, would then have more easily foundered in a heavy sea and gale and thus have vanished completely, leaving not a trace behind.
Many other theories have been advanced to account for the disappearance of the Cyclops, but none of them is quite convincing.
“Was she blown Into fragments by a heavy charge of explosives placed In her hold before she left port?” continues the writer in The National Marine. “This explanation is hardly acceptable, because wreckage would have covered the sea for many miles around.
“Was she torpedoed and sunk without a trace by a German submarine which had crossed the western ocean to prey on comparatively unprotected shipping? That theory is discounted, because in such cases at least a few S. O. S. calls would have been sent out before the Cyclops went under. Moreover, floating wreckage certainly would have been found.
“Was she attacked and captured by a marauding enemy raider, which had slipped into the Atlantic after eluding the British fleets? Even if attacked, it is claimed, the collier’s wireless would have put her in communication with other naval vessels or merchant shipping.
“Did enemy agents, carefully planted among the ship’s personnel, seize control of the Cyclops in the night and dismantle the radio to make wireless communication with the outside world impossible? This explanation has little support, because it is pointed cut that a small enemy force could hardly be expected to reduce to prisoners a crowd of nearly 300 men, many of them naval reservists.
“Again, if taken by an enemy force abroad, where Is the Cyclops now? Every bay, every inlet capable of admitting a vessel of her draft, has been searched. She had not enough coal in her bunkers to make the transatlantic trip to some German port. Moreover, one engine was out of commission, cutting down her speed to ten knots an hour. Even if additional coal had been procured, she could hardly have slipped past the British patrols Into some German port. Her limping gait would have made her an easy victim for the fast Allied cruisers or destroyers.
“Did her crew succumb to the effects of some poisonous gas given out by her cargo of manganese? Hardly, it is thought, because all shipping men used to cargoes of that character take precaution to eliminate the danger.
“Did this big vessel, constructed with a view to withstanding the heaviest weather, founder in a severe tropical storm? This theory sounds unreasonable to many who considered the ship capable of riding out safely any storm she might encounter; yet, in view of all known circumstances, that explanation is accepted by most naval officials as the most probable cause of her disappearance.
“The Cyclops, though of deep draft and broad beam, carried a remarkably high and heavy superstructure. Eight great steel derricks towered over her hull, and there was other heavy framework placed above her decks to give her a maximum of efficiency in loading or discharging coal. In case of a heavy list to port or to starboard, perhaps to the extent of 45 degrees, the Cyclops, burdened with her heavy derricks, was perhaps unable to swing back to equilibrium, crashed over to one side and quickly settled. The heavy cargo might have shifted and hindered the vessel from righting after a severe list.
“After the antics of Hun submarines off the Jersey coast and the capes of Virginia and the New England coast many inclined to the belief that the Cyclops had been betrayed into German hands, and was serving somewhere off the coast of Mexico, and there was acting as the mother ship to a flock of submarines, desirous, yet Incapable, of preying on our coastwise commerce, with a base of some sort.
“Yet, if this, were the answer; she would surely have been seen by somebody in the Caribbean who would have reported her.”
The vanishing of the Cyclops seems destained to take its place among the many similar mysteries, most puzzling of which, perhaps, is that of the brig Marie Celeste.
She sailed from New York for Genoa with a cargo of alcohol In 1872. On December 4 of that year she was sighted simultaneously by a German tramp steamer and by the British brigantine Del Gratia about 300 miles west of Gibraltar.
The German went on, but the Dei Gratia found the brig scooting about like a brainless chicken under topsails, foresail, jib and foretopmast staysail, with yards squared. The gangway was unshipped, the fore hatch was lying bottom up on the for’ard deck. The longboat was gone, and her jolly-boat, too. The log-book was left behind, but the chronometer and the ship’s papers were missing. The last entry in the log-book was on November 25th, indicating the brig had been cruising without a crew for eight or nine days.
Upon the cabin floor lay a naked cutlass with some dark stains upon its blade which afterward proved to be only rust. A vial of medicine stood upon the table, together with pieces of cloth, needle and scissors. The pumps were dry and the cargo was intact.
When the Del Gratia, which had sailed from New York five days after the Marie Celeste, overhauled her, the brig’s topgallantsall was snugly furled and the head sheets were flowing. She had evidently been running before a strong breeze previous to her abandonment.
No trace was ever found of the lost crew of the Marie Celeste. Some of the greatest and most Ingenious minds have tried to solve the mystery—among them Edgar Allan Poe and Conan Doyle. Their solutions are not generally regarded as convincing by seafaring men. Now a new solution is offered that some gigantic squid caught the Marie Celeste in its tentacles. Who can say?
There Is abundant evidence that the giant members of the octopus family are very dangerous enemies to man and at least to moderate sized craft To say that the squid is a creature monstrous and horrible beyond comparison with any other animated product of nature is not to put the fact too strongly.
There is no good reason for supposing that it is a rare animal, though seldom seen. It is a creature of the remote regions of the ocean, seeking Its prey far below the surface, and not often present lug Itself to view by human eyes. Apparently its worst enemy is the sperm whale, which, when captured, is commonly found to contain in its stomach great chunks of the tentacles or other parts of squids. This mighty fighting whale is, however, only able to overcome young members of the squid family.
On a recent occasion boats of ha Gloucester fishing fleet picked up remains of twenty-five or thirty giant squids in the neighborhood of Flemish Cap, near Newfoundland, and used them for bait. This is recognized as the greatest breeding place for squids. The body of one of them was cut up and packed Into a 75-galIon hogshead tub, which it filled, the weight being about 700 pounds.
Another specimen found dying, which had suffered less mutilation, possessed tentacles thirty-five feet long. This was about the size of the life model of a giant squid which hangs from the ceiling of a great hall In the Smithsonian Institution at Washington.
Dr. Paul Bartsch, of the Smithsonian Institution, our foremost authority on marine invertebrates, says there. Is no doubt that creatures of this family attain a length of at least 135 feet This reckoning allows 100 feet for the two major tentacles. There are eight shorter arms for grasping and holding the prey which the two long ones have seized.
Being a hunter of the ocean depths, the giant squid Is provided with enormous hob-goblin-llke eyes, Incomparably larger than those of any other known animal. They are great staring disks, ghoulish and horrible designed to catch all possible rays of light in the darkness down below.
Dr. Bartsch says that the giant squid is a very Intelligent creature. It has a highly specialized and rather complex brain, in a cartilaginous skull, which protects the principal nerve centres, encloses the organs of hearing and supports the great eyes.
The two major tentacles are provided at their ends with powerful suckers and similar suckers grow upon the shorter arms all along their length. These suckers act like the cupping apparatus surgeons used. Air being exhausted from them when the animal seizes its prey, the grip of its arms is so tremendous that nothing can tear it loose.
The bases of the eight shorter arms encircle the front of the head, and in the middle Is a great beak resembling In shape that of a parrot. Behind the head Is a neck and (beneath) tubular siphon through which water may be rapidly expelled toward the front, causing the creature to progress backward. It is the only marine animal that can swim either backward or forward, and probably no fish-of the sea can outdo it in swiftness.
The Washington Times, Washington, DC, March 23, 1919