12. The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering
On January 31, 1921, lookouts at the Cape Hatteras Coast Guard station spotted a vessel aground on Diamond Shoals. The shoals are a major reason the area is known as the “Graveyard of Ships”. Foul weather prevented the Coast Guard from reaching the vessel until four days later, when it was discovered the ship had been abandoned. Two lifeboats, the crew’s personal gear, and the ship’s log were missing. After the Coast Guard determined the vessel was both unsalvageable and a hazard to navigation it was blown up using dynamite on March 4. Extensive investigations into the missing crew and abandoned vessel were conducted by the US Government, including investigation whether the vessel had been hijacked by rumrunners to use to carry illegal liquor (Prohibition then being in effect). But no official finding was ever released.
The ship had been sailing from Rio de Janeiro to Hampton Roads, Virginia, when whatever happened to it occurred. It was found off Hatteras, miles south of the Virginia Capes. It had hailed the Cape Lookout Light on January 28, 1921, and the Coast Guard there reported the vessel had several crewmen aboard. The crew informed the Coast Guard that the ship had lost its anchors in their hail. The Carroll A. Deering tale is an enduring mystery of the sea, but whatever happened to the ship and crew clearly took place well outside the defined borders of the Bermuda Triangle. That has not prevented the perpetuators of the urban myth from citing the Deering as a victim of the triangle. Some use the mystery to alter the vertices of the triangle expanding the allegedly deadly seas to support their theories.