The Moncton Transcript, Tuesday October 14, 1969
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Phantom Ship of Bay Chaleur Area Sighted Again
By Ken Saunders
Staff Writer

One of New Brunswick's most persistent ghosts the "Phantom Ship" of the Bay Chaleur area, seen many times in the past century, was sighted again last month by a Stonehaven family.

Known also as the "fire ship", the nocturnal vessel is one of the best known pieces of provincial folklore, and strange theories of fact, and fantasy have been, dredged up and examined by scientists and armchair philosophers alike to explain its eerie presence.

Whether one believes in the supernatural or not, it will have to be admitted that this articularly persistent phenomenon does tend to stretch the credibility gap. Seeing is believing, after all.

And the Phantom Ship has been seen many times by many different people. And if you happen to be a believer, the fact that it has never been photographed may not only be a matter of circumstances. Spirits, they say, are not able to cast a reflection in a mirror, either.

But there are practical theories surrounding the legend too. They run the gamut from explosions of inflammable gas, to the night-time activities of phospherescent marine life.

Last reported sighting of the spectre was in the Bathurst weekly newspaper, The Northern Light, which said Bert Wood of Stonehaven, his wife, Winona, son Hadley, 21, and daughter Betty, 12, saw the ship one stormy evening last month.

Stonehaven is a coastal community, some 18 miles east of Bathurst.
First to spot the vessell was Mrs. Wood who initially thought it to be a tanker. Then she realized "It seemed more of lights and fire" than an ordinarily lighted ship.

She alerted her family, who had already gone to bed, and it was Hadley who first realized the Phantom Ship was on the rampage again.

" I told Mom it had to be , the Phantom Ship, It was a mass of light from one end to the other. It was lit up too much for a tanker."

Bert later said, "The lights would flare up like a house burning and within 10 minutes or more, all would die down again until you only seem to see quite bright lights in the stem (or bow) and stern. But even these were brighter than normal lights.

"They were sparkling bright, like a star, and much brighter than those we could see along the water line.

"Then suddently they'd roll up again. There were large flames like a burning building. The flames would flare awhile then fade away again to the poInt where the ship almost seemed to disappear. Then about 15 minutes later, the flare-up was so brilliant you could see the outline of the stern and bow.

The Phantom Ship seems to enjoy putting on disguises, for although others gave similar descriptions to the Woods', it has also appeared in other forms.

To some, it was merely a mass of flame movingover, the black waves. Others have claimed they could see the forms of sailors climbing the rigging and even the figure of a beautiful, richly clad women, standing with her arms outstretched, her hair flying in the wind. To some, the buring vessel was at a standstill, to others it was moving at a quick rate of speed.

The Woods saw it at its speediest.

"At first the ship was running fast up the bay, just off Stonehaven, and next she was off left around the Janeville and Clifton area. It was going so fast I figured she couldn't be an ordinary ship -and lit up like a Christmas then.

"Hadley and I (Mr. Wood) lined her up with a pole standing outdoors, then Hadley lined it up from another pole and the boat kept moving back and forth, first on one side of the house, then on the other side.

"Vessels travel around 12 to 14 knots an hour at the most around here but this one was running that many knots in five to 10 minutes it seemed.

"She's appear to be speeding northerly towards Petit Rocher then Beresford. Meanwhile, she'd appear all lighted up and flaring then fade away to the bright twinkling bow and stern lights and dim ones at the water line. The ship seemed no more than a mile away at times, working inshore and out as it dimmed and blazed."

The ship was still scooting around the bay when the family finally went to bed after midnight. No one else has reported seeing the Phantom Ship that night. The Woods had tried to alert neighbours, but the telephones were out of order.

That was the last reported sighting and when it will appear again is anyone's guess. It has been seen during each of the four seasons. It is not known when the Phantom Ship was first sighted.

Even the dates of its origin conflict.

Some prefer to believe it is a French frigate driven into the Restigouche River and sunk by the British in 1760. If this is the Phantom Ship, some of its shell is missing because after lying on the bottom of the bay for 179 years, her hull was salvaged timber by timber by Capuchin monks, who with the aid of a sea captain, managed to reconstruct it.

The hull now reposes in a monastery garden at the Indian Reserve at Cross Point, Que.

Others like to think the Fire Ship is the ghost of the John Craig, the name of a barque which sank off Shippagan Island near the turn of the 19th, century. All drowned except a cabin boy, who managed to reach shore, but died of exhaustion.

And, according to Caraquet, folklore the spectre was once a corsair and met with a horrible fate in Bay Chaleur in the 17th century. A traditional poem relates that a ball of fire fell from the heavens and lit the ship from shore to shore. "That was the end of the pirate crew."

Other accounts tell of a pleasure ship from a United States port carrying a drunken party and no less inebriated crew. It last its way and drifted into Bay Chaleur.

A fight in the captain's cabin caused a lamp to explode and the entire ship's company is said to have perished with the craft. Now, says the old tale, the phantom ship, crew and passengers wander through the years on their ceaseless voyage.

There is also a story of an immigrant ship which sailed into the bay, mistaking it for the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Off the Gaspé coast, a storm arose and the ship was struck by a bolt of lightning.

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