The Mysterious Sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald

I personally owe the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald a great deal. After all, if it were not for this ship sinking on the Great Lakes, it is highly unlikely that I would ever have come to work for Simon. I don’t know if he remembers but we began chatting after I uploaded my first video to my own YouTube channel.

Being a complete novice when it came to these things, I sent emails to all of my favourite YouTubers asking them if they could possibly take time out of their busy days to watch my video and offer constructive criticism. The only person who bothered to do this was Simon. Even with his incredibly useful expert advice, I was unable to forge a career as a YouTube superstar.

However, we vaguely stayed in touch, throwing emails back and forth about once a month. One afternoon, as I sat unemployed in my lounge, my then three-year-old child somehow managed to make our Amazon Alexa play the Gordon Lightfoot classic “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. As I listened to the song, a song I had heard on countless occasions, I thought, “Hmmm.

This is the sort of thing that Simon would cover,” and, grabbing my phone, I sent him an email asking him why he had not done so already, along with the suggestion that, if he was interested, I would probably have a crack at writing the script. The rest, as they say, is history. Simon accepted the script and I was transformed from an unemployed person to a published writer within a matter of weeks, and absolutely nothing at all went wrong with my original first draft.

Sadly, although I look back on the script with some fondness, it is utterly terrible. I can only assume that Simon saw in it some untapped potential because I certainly would not have employed me on the strength of its content alone. Now, some three years later, I’m excited to revisit the wreck, retell the story in a hopefully much more professional manner, as well as to delve into some of the conspiracy theories that surround the sinking.

Conspiracy theories which, I must be honest, I had no idea existed until fairly recently. So, put on your life jackets along with your tin foil hats, and join me as we take another look at the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The Ship

Ordered in 1959 by the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, who had decided that investing in the iron and minerals industries had the potential to be exceptionally profitable, the Edmund Fitzgerald was a beast of a ship! In fact, had it been a few centimetres wider, it would not have been allowed to pass through the Saint Lawrence Seaway, a system of locks and waterways which allow passage between Port Colborne, Ontario and Montreal and provide access to ports in all five of the Great Lakes.

Even being built to these ever so slightly limiting specifications, the Fitzgerald was, and would continue to be for several years, the largest vessel ever to carry cargo on the Great Lakes. Although very definitely designed as a cargo vessel, the Edmund Fitzgerald was actually a pretty nice place to be.

According to a video on the YouTube channel “Maritime Horrors,” whose channel owner was not only happy for me to quote his work but provided me with contact information for perhaps the single greatest expert on Great Lakes shipping – legend! – which contained a huge amount of information that I had not previously known about the Fitzgerald: “the interior could honestly be described as lavish.” The vessel included two guest staterooms and a lounge, a laundry room, a recreational deck, oversized crew cabins outfitted with luxury carpets, bathrooms, and private showers, along with air conditioning. Even the crew lounges, usually rough and ready places on other ships, contained luxury leather sofas and recliners and had been designed with a stunning panoramic window.

In addition to these creature comforts, the owners had spared no expense when it came to technology. The massive engines made it one of the fastest boats on the lakes, and the wheelhouse was equipped with the very latest in navigational and communications equipment. Finally, instead of the usual single mess hall that you might find on similar ships, the Fitzgerald had two separate dining rooms, both of which were serviced by an almost restaurant-quality kitchen.

As somebody who has just recently returned from what was allegedly a luxury cruise with gastrointestinal issues that caused germaphobe Simon to have a bit of a meltdown when I told him about them over WhatsApp, it really does all sound rather awesome.

The second captain sounded like a bit of a legend as well. Peter Pulcer, for that was his name, took over command from Captain Bert Lampert, a man about whom I was able to find very little information, and earned the Fitzgerald the nickname of “the singing ship” due to his propensity to play music over the ship’s loudspeaker and, whenever they were passing close to the shore, he would come out on deck with a megaphone and shout out to anybody who might be watching them pass.

Although he was invariably referred to by those who sailed under him as an easy-going, affable captain, he still ran an exceptionally tight ship. During his time as captain, he set a single hauling record of over 30,000 tons on four separate occasions. Not only that, in 1969, under his command, the Fitzgerald transported a total of 1,349,404 tons of taconite, smashing the Great Lakes record.

It wasn’t just the captain who was a consummate professional. Fully aware that the ship was a Great Lakes icon as well as a record-setting behemoth, its operators sought out and employed the most talented and experienced sailors that the shipping industry had to offer.

Now, it might appear that I am unnecessarily blowing sunshine up the arses of everybody who worked on the ship, but there is a point to this, and it will become apparent later on. For now, however, let us move on to the next important player in the story.

Captain Ernest M. McSorley

If you search Google for Captain McSorley, then there really isn’t a great deal of information to be had. However, I was fortunate enough to come across a YouTube video made by a man who, shall we say, had somewhat of an obsession with the Edmund Fitzgerald’s final captain, so here is a little bit of background information.

Born in Canada during 1912, incidentally the same year that the Titanic sank, McSorley had a pretty rough early life. After losing his mother at the age of five, he was moved to Ogdensburg in the state of New York, just off the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and it was here that his fascination with shipping began. Initially, he started his career on seagoing vessels at the age of 18, before quickly moving into Great Lakes freight shipping. Signing on as but a humble wheelsman, it would not be long before he progressed to third, second, and first mate.

McSorley wasn’t prepared to spend the rest of his career as second in command, however, and very quickly obtained his master’s licence which allowed him to assume the role of captain. In fact, so ambitious was McSorley that he appears to have been the youngest captain ever on any ship that travelled the Great Lakes. By the time he took over from Peter Pulcer at the start of the 1972 season, he had over 40 years of experience and had already been the captain of nine other vessels.

Although described as slightly less personable and withdrawn than his predecessor, McSorley was still well respected among the crew and, given his previous service record, was certainly in keeping with the habit of only employing the very best. To those proponents of the conspiracy theories we shall get into later, it is exactly this level of crew experience and professionalism that leads them to doubt what has become the official version of events.

The Official Version of Events

Had my original script been any good, I could simply sit back, relax, and copy and paste a huge chunk of it here. Sadly, it was not, so I shall have to rewrite it.

So, here we go.

On November 9, 1975, two ships, the Edmund Fitzgerald and the Arthur Anderson, departed from Canada. The Fitzgerald from Burlington Northern Railroad Dock, Superior, Wisconsin, and the Anderson from 2 Harbours, Minnesota. The Fitzgerald, as verified by the shipping records, the news, and later the Gordon Lightfoot song written about the voyage, was loaded with 26,116 tons of tiny taconite pellets, basically pre-processed iron ore to be used for whatever it is they use iron ore for.

Just quickly before we move on, I may have misled you all just a little bit. Whilst the song I mentioned stays remarkably accurate to the story, it actually lists the weight as only 26,000 tons, presumably because the line “with a load of iron ore 26,116 tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty” just has not got that roll-off-the-tongue feel to it that lyricists crave. Anyway, moving on.

Being the faster ship, the Fitzgerald took the lead with the Anderson following behind at a range of between 10 and 15 miles.

According to people who know about these things, November is notorious for horrendous storms on Lake Superior, and this day was slated to be no exception. In fact, there were already reports of quite the hooley — a term I first heard from sailors down at Portsmouth docks, so I assume it is a proper technical term — on its way from the Great Plains, so both captains had agreed to take the longer northern route, because it would offer them quite a bit of protection from the highlands on the Canadian shore.

From around 2:30 p.m. until around 4 p.m., everything seemed to be going fine. It was windy, but certainly nothing that would have troubled even an inexperienced captain, and as we have already established, McSorley was the best of the best, and Captain Bernie Cooper of the Anderson was no slouch either.

As far as we know, neither of them were at all bothered when, at around 7 p.m., gale warnings were issued — “sustained winds of 39 to 50 miles an hour” — and still elected to continue when the gale-force winds became storm-force winds “upwards of 64 miles an hour.”

Given that these were accompanied by 16- to 20-foot waves, conditions on board can’t have been particularly pleasant. However, both captains had survived worse, and turning back wasn’t really an option either.

It was not until around 2 p.m. the next day, the 10th of November, that things showed any signs of going wrong. Captain Cooper would later report that he saw the Fitzgerald passing far too close to Six Fathom Shoal, a notoriously dangerous area of shallow water to the north of Caribou Island, and it is this uncharacteristic moment of carelessness that people not determined to believe that the ship was attacked by the Kraken or the crew was abducted by aliens, think that things started to go wrong.

The thing is, when the Fitzgerald first launched, it was allowed to carry quite a lot less than it was on this trip. Although I could not find an actual deadweight capacity at the time of manufacture — and believe me, I really did try — we can attempt to work it out with some crude mathematics. Well, I say we, I got a proper math nerd to do it for me.

We know that between the time of launch and the time the ship sank, the Coast Guard increased the high-water line three times. By the time the final increase was authorised, the ship would sit around 3½ feet lower in the water than when it was new. I have been reliably informed that, if you take all the necessary numbers into account, this means that she was carrying around 4,000 extra tons, somewhere between a fifth and a sixth more than she should have been.

Whether or not this was the cause of the problem, we do know that not long after, at around 3:30 p.m., McSorley radioed Cooper to tell him that things were not going particularly well. The following is a transcript of their radio conversations, presumably copied from Cooper’s logbook originally, but in this case lifted directly from my previous script:

Anderson, this is the Fitzgerald. I have a fence rail down, two vents lost or damaged, and a list. I’m checking down. Will you stay by me till I get to Whitefish?

For those of you who are not up on your boat lingo, checking down means slowing down. The first time I read that, I was convinced it meant putting everything away so it did not get washed overboard.

Next, Captain Cooper asked McSorley if he had his pumps going, and McSorley said, “Yes, both of them.”

Throughout the afternoon the two ships exchanged several more radio messages but it appears that they were only to discuss navigational data. There are no further reports of trouble until about 6:55 p.m. when Captain Cooper reports that the Anderson was hit by a wave large enough to drive the stern of the boat underwater. This was followed by another wave of similar size. As to whether or not this would have happened if the ship was 4,000 tons lighter, nobody seems to be able to tell me.

In my not-an-expert-on-boats opinion though, probably not.

Captain Cooper reports that he watched those two waves head down the lake towards the Fitzgerald, later reporting that he believes that they were the two that caused the ship to go under. At this point, the Fitzgerald was already in a bad way: they had lost both radar arrays, one of the pumps was broken, and they were listing heavily to one side. So, it is quite likely that Cooper was correct.

At about 7:10 p.m., Morgan Clark, the first mate aboard the Anderson, spoke to the Fitzgerald via radio one last time.

Fitzgerald, this is the Anderson. Have you checked down?”

“Yes, we have.”

“Fitzgerald, we are about 10 miles behind you, and gaining about 1½ miles per hour. Fitzgerald, there is a target 19 miles ahead of us. So the target would be 9 miles on ahead of you.”

“Well,” answered Captain McSorley, “Am I going to clear?”

“Yes, he is going to pass to the west of you.”

“Well, fine.”

“By the way, Fitzgerald, how are you making out with your problems?” asked Clark.

“We are holding our own.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll be talking to you later.

Clark signed off. As far as I can tell, nobody would hear from them ever again. There are records of the Fitzgerald communicating with other boats in the area, but that was all much earlier in the day.

Cooper said that they could see the Fitzgerald on radar for a short while afterwards, but only intermittently because of the choppy conditions. At 7:15 p.m., they disappeared for the final time. Several members of the Anderson’s crew attempted to contact them via radio, but were unable to do so.

After subsequently reaching out to the other ships in the area to see if they had received any communication and not getting a positive response, Cooper immediately contacted the Coast Guard to let them know what he believed had happened, and the official search for survivors began at 8 p.m. Shortly after that, after battling through some of the worst weather they had ever experienced, the crew of the Anderson arrived safely in Whitefish Bay and, presumably, were rather looking forward to spending some time on ground that wasn’t trying to pitch them into the water.

Given that the conditions were only worsening, you can probably imagine how welcome the Coast Guard’s next radio message to Cooper was. The only ship that stood a chance of finding any survivors under those conditions was the Anderson, so they wanted him to once again leave the safety of Whitefish Bay and do what they could.

All credit to Cooper and his crew, because they did just that. After making their way back to the place that Cooper was fairly sure the Fitzgerald had gone down, they would eventually find a couple of lifeboats, an oil slick and some debris. Sadly, the lifeboats were empty, and a further search of the area would turn up no survivors, so the Anderson and her crew made their way back to the safety of Whitefish Bay.

Around four days later, according to an article from the National Weather Service:

On November 14, 1975, a U.S. Navy plane with a special magnetic anomaly detector located a strong contact about 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point. During the next three days, the Coast Guard cutter Woodrush located two large pieces of wreckage in the same area under about 535 feet of water. A Navy underwater recovery vehicle photographed the wreckage on May 20, 1976. The pictures clearly showed the words ‘Edmund Fitzgerald’ on the stern piece of the sunken ship.

So, there we have it, all the things that we know to be true. Although it seems to be a fairly complete story, there is still quite a lot of debate as to just why the Fitzgerald sank. On paper, she should have been capable of handling those conditions, and the theory that she sustained damage to the north of Caribou Island is just that, a theory. After all, if the captain knew that he had sustained damage at that point, and there is no way that he could not have known if the expert that I was lucky enough to speak with can be trusted, then why would he not have told Captain Cooper just how serious the issue was?

Could it simply just be a matter of pride? Did he, the seasoned, well-respected captain, not want to admit that he had messed up? Or, was there something else going on?

Everything that I have read about McSorley, and I have been working on this on and off for about a year now, leads me to believe that he was not the kind of man who would risk his entire crew just to save face.

So, if I am right, then whatever happened must have happened so fast that the crew did not have the opportunity to put out a Mayday call.

Let us now take a look at what the Coast Guard suggested in their official report, shall we?

Just to clarify, we will not be looking at the entire report as it comes in at just slightly over one hundred and twenty pages. What we have here is a summary.

After three years of investigation, it was concluded that these were the main factors leading to the sinking:

• The Fitzgerald sat very low in the water, increasing the frequency and quantity of water that could flood the deck.
• The loose hatch covers allowed water spilling onboard to enter the cargo area, causing the ship to sink even lower and take on more and more water.
• More water could have entered through damage in the hull caused by the possible grounding near Caribou Island.

Although there is speculation that the Fitzgerald broke in half on the surface as the bow and stern rode the crests of the two large waves that struck the Anderson earlier, the Coast Guard’s final report suggests the Fitzgerald instead nose-dived into a large wave, was unable to recover because it had lost so much buoyancy, and plunged to the bottom of Lake Superior in seconds. As the heavy cargo shifted forward quickly while the Fitzgerald was going down, the bow of the ship hit the bottom with such force that the vessel snapped in two.

The findings go on to heavily imply that negligence was afoot. The hold of the Fitzgerald had twenty-one hatches, each of which was held in place with a steel cover equipped with sixty-eight clamps.

Presumably, it was the job of the crew to check these clamps regularly to ensure that they were functioning optimally. Again though, and I know that I keep coming back to this, but I found only good things about the work of the crew prior to their signing up with the Fitzgerald, so I am inclined to believe the Lake Carrier’s Association when they claimed that they did not believe the crew to be at fault.

In a letter sent to the National Transportation Safety Board in September 1977, they said that they were ‘inclined to accept that Fitzgerald passed over the Six Fathom Shoal Area as reported by Captain Cooper,’ and that extensive damage to the front of the superstructure lent greater credence to the theory that this is how she sustained the damage which ultimately caused her to sink.

Still, these were different times. Back then it was still considered rude to speak ill of the dead, so it is possible that there was some damage control going on. Perhaps it is better to blame a single captain rather than laying the blame on the entire crew?

Captain Cooper certainly seemed to think so. In a recorded interview with the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, he maintained that he believed Captain McSorley was immediately aware that the ship had sustained irrevocable damage when she passed through Six Fathom Shoal and, from that point on, he knew they were sinking. This theory was further backed up when the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society carried out three further investigatory missions to the wreck, and the damage certainly appears to be indicative of having been sustained earlier on in the voyage.

Defenders of McSorley argue that, even if he did know what had happened, there was very little he could do. Turning back wasn’t an option as they were more than halfway to Whitefish Bay, and it is certainly believable that a confident captain could overestimate his abilities and convince himself that they could make it without tragedy.

Those who lay the blame squarely at his feet, however, ask why he would not call for help as soon as he knew about the damage and not place his crew in unnecessary danger.

And that leads us smoothly into the first conspiracy theory surrounding this incident.

Conspiracy Theory: Secret Nuclear Cargo

If you poke the Reddit swamp just a little, it will not be long before this little gem floats to the surface. The idea focuses on the fact that McSorley did not ask for more help, and questions just exactly why that might be. What if, people ask, the reason he did not ask to be rescued was that the Fitzgerald was carrying something other than pre-processed iron ore? If you try not to think about it too hard, this could make a little bit of sense.

After all, 1975 was right in the middle of the Cold War; all kinds of top-secret things were undoubtedly going on. There are all sorts of suggestions as to what might have really been on board, but I think that this is my favourite.

Imagine, if you will, the following scenario. McSorley’s story is largely the same. He works his way up the chain of command and becomes a captain, proving his abilities, resourcefulness and trustworthiness.

Then, because the United States government need to move some top-secret stuff from Canada to the US, they infiltrate a suitably boring company who just happened to own their own freight hauler—like, I don’t know, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee—and depending on the size of the aforementioned secret cargo, nobody is going to know anything about it. Even if the cargo was massive and required the majority of the ship’s capacity, who is going to notice the Fitzgerald making a few extra trips every year? As long as they fling in a couple of thousand tons of iron ore as well, it’s the perfect camouflage.

Right? Obviously, there will always be one weak link in this plan. Whether or not he knew everything that was going on, McSorley would have to know some of it, especially if—and I swear to you that this is a genuine conspiracy theory with far more than a handful of supporters than you would hope—the things that the Fitzgerald was carrying were nuclear warhead–equipped missiles.

That’s right, there are genuinely at least a few people out there who think that the US government, in order that they might keep under wraps the true amount of nuclear weapons they were packing, were having them manufactured in Canada and then shipped in—well, in ships like the Edmund Fitzgerald over the Great Lakes, some of the most turbulent waterways in the world, to the good old United States of America.

Now, I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person who refuses to go outside and touch grass, but let’s take a look at this and see if there are any little problem threads that we might be able to pull on.

As it transpires, and I highly doubt that anybody out there will be surprised to hear this, there are indeed. Let us start with the actual logistics of the idea. By 1975, the United States already had not only a sizable stockpile of warheads, but also plenty of places to make their own.

Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Hanford, Rocky Flats, the list goes on and on. Actually, I have no idea whether or not it does. That list came directly from a Google search and the page suggested that there were more, but I thought that was probably enough to be getting on with.

Still, even if that is the entire list of facilities, it rather proves that they didn’t need to be made anywhere else. Even if they only had one place to make them, it took absolutely ages, and they could be made faster, cheaper, and better in Canada, the idea is utterly ludicrous. Why would they outsource something that they wanted to keep entirely secret?

Even the United States government of today wouldn’t be that stupid (probably), and they were a lot better at keeping secrets back then.

Next, let’s take a look at the Edmund Fitzgerald itself. Although, for a Great Lakes ore carrier at least, it was positively decadent when it came to fittings, fixtures and overall comfort, it was still in the end a great big barrel designed for transporting crap that couldn’t really be broken beyond use. The very idea that it might be used to transport nuclear warheads, fairly delicate pieces of equipment that can theoretically go off bang if mishandled, is right up there with the Hollow Earth theory, Microsoft coming up with an idea that they didn’t steal from someone else, and the concept of TV personalities being elected to high office. Wait, maybe not that last one, that keeps happening.

Why is that? Maybe an idea for an episode?

Just in case there are any of you out there who are still prepared to give this idea the time of day, let us keep going. One of the only even slightly cogent—perhaps even the only slightly cogent—arguments to support this theory is that it may explain why McSorley was so reluctant to call in the ordinary Coast Guard for a rescue and risk abandoning the cargo. Obviously, such reckless behaviour could result in the whole plan being discovered.

As I said, only slightly cogent, because if there was even the slightest chance that such a cargo on such a ship was at all in danger, it would be swarmed on all sides by any number of military vehicles. Furthermore, if it actually had gone down with anything like that on board, it’s fairly unlikely that it would’ve been reported on the news, and there would’ve been a much better cover-up.

Lastly, if you still want more, then before the wreck was designated as a protected gravesite in 2006, people used to dive on it all the time. If there were abandoned nuclear warheads kicking around on the bottom, chances are they probably wouldn’t have been allowed to do this.

So, I think we can put this one to bed, lay it to rest on the seabed if you will. There is absolutely no chance that any of this is true, and anyone who thinks that it is should immediately apply for a job on the History Channel.

Conspiracy Theory: The Negligent Captain

So, what else do we have? Well, this next theory is what I like to call the “Captain Ernest M. McSorley was actually a massive Bell End” theory. Do you remember way back when I said that I could find nothing to indicate that McSorley was anything other than a consummate professional legend?

Well, I lied. Actually, I did not directly lie, I just had not found out about this at that point, and chose to leave it in so I could crowbar in this little reveal. According to a video from the “From Waterline Stories” YouTube channel, McSorley may not have been the fantastic guy everybody made him out to be. Furthermore, he may have been given advanced warning that there were problems with the ship’s hull and, rather than attempting to do anything about it, simply hoped that it would last until the end of the season when he was retiring.

Prior to the 1975 season, the Edmund Fitzgerald was taken out of the water so that routine maintenance and cleaning could be performed. During that time George Burgner, a cook on board the Fitzgerald who would miss the final voyage due to problems with his feet, claimed to have witnessed some rather suspicious behaviour. According to an article that I obtained in full at great expense from the archives of the Minneapolis Star:

Prevailing wisdom is that the Fitz was sturdy and well-maintained and that McSorley was an excellent captain. Government investigators theorized that the ship sank from taking on water through hatch covers that may not have been properly clamped. But most sailors and ship owners believe that, hampered by broken radar and inaccurate lake charts, the Fitz was punctured by Caribou Shoal, slowly foundered and eventually went under.

Burgner’s story supported a third theory: weakened metal or unrepaired cracks and damage caused the Fitz to tear open or even break in half, just like the Carl D. Bradley on Lake Michigan in 1959 and the Daniel J. Morrell on Lake Huron in 1966.

He even offered ‘proof’ that McSorley and Oglebay Norton [the company currently leasing the Fitzgerald] knew about the damage. He testified that he witnessed a company official being told about the loose keel, and he relayed part of a conversation he said he overheard between McSorley and crew members who had been digging mud out of the ship’s bottom and reported that the keel was loose again. Burgner testified that the captain said: ‘All this son of a bitch has to do is stay together one more year.

After that, I don’t [care] what happens to it.’

The article goes on to say:

During winter, Burgner cared for the Fitzgerald at Fraser Shipyards in Superior. He said he was there in the winter of 1973–74, when a government inspection showed that the keel — a steel backbone running from stem to stern — had broken loose in several places. Coast Guard reports confirm that new breaks or repaired cracks were found in that area but required only ‘simple rewelding.’ Burgner also testified that by the summer of 1975, McSorley, a year from retirement, was preoccupied with his wife’s failing health, rarely anchored for bad weather and sometimes sailed with most hatch clamps off until the next work shift, to avoid paying overtime to deckhands.

Another, later published, article from the same paper says:

Former Fitzgerald cook George Burgner recently called the wife of one of the victims of the tragedy and told her he gave the information in a deposition 20 years ago, but the information was suppressed and he was told to move to Texas. He says the ship’s owner, Oglebay Norton Co. of Cleveland, told him, ‘If nobody brings your name up, we’re not gonna mention it either.’ Maritime law requires proof of negligence before ship owners are required to pay damages.

Without Burgner’s statement, the sinking appeared accidental. Burgner said he made his information public because the widow of Allen Kalmon told him she had not yet received any compensation from the company. An attorney who represented several of the victims’ families said settlements ranged from $100,000 to $500,000.

He said the company paid more than would have been required had a court found the vessel seaworthy.

As you can see, far from being a clear creation of crazy, tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy mongers, this one may have some truth to it. Granted, it seems to rely largely on the testimony of one person, but it does seem to be backed up by the payout discrepancies. Whether or not I should continue to refer to it as the “Captain Ernest M. McSorley was actually a massive Bell End” theory is perhaps up for debate though.

If everything we have learned is actually true, he is perhaps more guilty of becoming tired and disillusioned than of outright wilful negligence. It would appear that the majority of scorn should be heaped upon the company leasing the Fitzgerald for not maintaining the ship properly and concealing information about this failure.

Conspiracy Theory: Resonant Lattices

So, before we round things up for the day, let us take a look at one more shall we say, slightly more outlandish possibility. I actually came across this whilst researching for a script about the dark web that, for reasons that temporarily escape me, never actually came to fruition.

The thing about what the media refers to as the dark web, is that it is not actually as evil as some of you may have been led to believe. Yes, there are undoubtedly sites on there that, should you have the misfortune of visiting them by accident, will make you want to not only erase your hard drive but burn all of your computer hardware just in case, but there is also a bunch of really cool and interesting stuff available if you know where to look. I love the dark web, it is one of my favourite ways of wasting the time between 3 and 5 am when I almost invariably wake up and can’t get back to sleep.

The best part is that everyone, or almost everyone, who reads any of what is on there is half asleep, and a sleep-deprived brain can take the mildly weird and turn it into something which, if you’re not careful, you could accidentally believe.

If you think that the conspiracy theories of Reddit are wild, then just think what somebody who is prepared to put a lot of time and effort into publishing something that they are sure hardly anyone will ever see is capable of.

Given that I have been somewhat Edmund Fitzgerald obsessed since I first read about it, I was delighted to stumble across this one evening.

Let’s have a chat about resonant lattices.

When I first read about this, I thought that it was for sure the work of my old nemesis Dave Hatcher Childress. For those of you who don’t remember, he is the guy who, among other things, thinks that Stonehenge is a charging pad for the space ships of visiting aliens. Whether or not it is his work is not clear, but I am guessing not, if only because he would have put his name all over it.

Anyway, a resonant lattice, according to people who know about these things, is a strange, but very definitely not made up, phenomenon that can occur in the Great Lakes. As far as just exactly what they are, opinions appear to be divided, at least when it comes to their origin. Before the physics nerds come after me in the comment section, I am fully aware that a resonant lattice is a real thing.

Google describes them as: “a periodic array of nanoparticles or other nanostructures that exhibit Surface Lattice Resonances (SLRs) or lattice resonances, which are collective, light–matter interaction phenomena occurring when the array spacing supports a standing wave of light.” For those of you who didn’t pay attention in physics class, don’t worry about it. All we need to ascertain here is that these, and the things that appear in this theory, are different things.

We are told that this type of lattice is something between an acoustic reflector, a focusing cone and an amplifier. Basically, whenever one is in range of any given sound source, in this case the exceptionally loud engines of the Edmund Fitzgerald, that sound is reflected, concentrated and enhanced into a tight beam. Once this beam hit the hull of the ship, it increased the vibrations caused by the engine to such a degree that the whole thing literally shook itself apart.

There are two suggestions as to exactly why this happens in the Great Lakes and nowhere else, and I am afraid that it really is a matter of the usual suspects. Although the source article mentioned both, the writer certainly had a favourite, and that was of course abandoned ancient alien technology. You see, when earth was constructed by some sort of ultimate master race, they naturally have to bring a lot of construction equipment with them.

In much the same way that one of the excavators used to dig out the Channel Tunnel was buried in a side passage because the designers never thought it might need to go backwards (I know it’s much more complicated than that but this is not the topic of the video), our intergalactic builders left a bunch of their dangerous equipment behind. The really dangerous stuff got huge pyramids built on top of it, but the lattice was either not deemed to be dangerous enough or intergalactic builders are as stupid as normal builders and they just forgot it. Either way, it is, allegedly, responsible for many of the shipwrecks on the bottom of the Great Lakes, not just the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The other theory that the writer briefly alluded to is basically the same idea, but instead of aliens it’s the government and instead of construction equipment it’s an advanced superweapon being tested.

So, I hear you yelling through your screens, just exactly what kind of evidence does this theory have? Well, there is actually quite a lot of evidence; it’s just that none of it is really any good. We have: a redacted company memo that references “anomalous acoustic returns” with the handwritten instruction “destroy after reading”; a blurry photograph of a fractured steel plate supposedly recovered from the site marked with unusual ridges; and even a corrosion lab report from Duluth that allegedly noted “unexplained crystalline growths” and “magnetostrictive anomalies.”

I have no idea if “magnetostrictive anomalies” are even a thing, but they sound suitably technical. The final piece of evidence is actually intriguing though, not because it makes me believe the theory but because it is a fantastic demonstration of just how far people are prepared to go with this sort of thing. As any of you who have followed me through Brain Blaze will know, I have tried my hand at many things over the years, but the one thing I do know a lot about is sound.

I spent three years studying audio production at a fairly prestigious college, and I know when something is actually old or when it has been digitally altered to make it sound old. This makes the alleged recording of a former deckhand claiming that he had experienced this phenomena whilst travelling on another ship a year previously quite interesting. I don’t believe for a single second that the voice in the lossless audio file is telling the truth, but I would be prepared to bet heavily that the original sound was recorded on a reel-to-reel tape deck using appropriate equipment from the era.

All in all, I don’t set any store by the theory itself, but I wanted to include it more to show just how much the idea of something nefarious being afoot has captured people’s minds, even so long after the accident.

Conspiracy Theory: The Cursed Ship

This next theory is probably about as likely as the last, but it actually does have some “corroborating evidence,” especially if you are a believer in superstition, and boat people really are. To give you an idea of just how mental owning a boat can make you, when my stepdad met my mother he was working as a fisherman on a trawler out of Brixham Harbour. The first weekend that she went to visit after they met, he was showing her around town and, naturally, she wanted to know a little bit about where he worked.

Newly in love and wanting to make his new girlfriend happy, he drove her down to the harbour where the ship was docked and showed her around. This, as far as nautical superstition goes, is a big no-no. The rules clearly state that bringing a lady on board before a voyage will result in any manner of catastrophes.

You might think that this is just one of those things people say but never actually enforce, but apparently nobody on board would speak to him for the entire duration of the next trip. Whether or not they were angry at him for placing them in danger or simply jealous that he got laid the night before and they didn’t, is a matter I might delve into a little more if the story didn’t involve my mother.

Still, the launching of the Edmund Fitzgerald was very definitely anything but smooth sailing, and things happened that day that would have had seasoned sailors jumping directly into the icy water rather than taking a chance on such a cursed vessel. For a start, back in the day it was considered exceptionally bad luck to name a boat after a man. The Edmund Fitzgerald, named after the president of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, could well have been doomed from the start.

If that is not enough for you, and quite frankly it should not be, there was the ship’s unofficial nickname. Although many would simply refer to her as the Queen of the Lakes, other people, presumably those less acquainted with tragic maritime history, referred to her as “the Titanic of the Lakes.” I couldn’t find anything written down that says it is bad luck to name a ship after another ship that is famous for sinking, but maybe that’s just because it really should be self-evident.

But it’s not all just name-related coincidences, some actual things happened on launch day that should perhaps have led people to know what would happen one random day seventeen years later. Traditionally, when one launches a ship, a bottle of the finest champagne is wasted when it is smashed on the side. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, the wife of the boat’s namesake, was chosen to carry out this most important of duties, and it quickly became evident that she had not grown up in the right pubs.

Most people I know can pretty much guarantee the breakage of a bottle on a single swing, but it apparently took Elizabeth between three and ten attempts depending on which source you believe. Then, things got worse — actually, genuinely worse — and somebody died. After struggling to release the logs that were holding the ship in place — thirty-five minutes’ work with a sledgehammer, apparently — the Fitzgerald slid down the ramp all off-balance, striking and destroying a nearby pier and sending a massive bow wave right across the harbour, soaking many eager spectators on the other side.

One man got more than soaked, however. Apparently, he had somewhat of a weak heart and the excitement of it all caused him to drop dead from a heart attack.

I didn’t really believe any of this to be particularly significant during my initial research, but it turns out there are genuinely people out there who believe that this was an omen and nobody should have ever sailed on the Fitzgerald at all.

Depending on where you stand on such things, this could either be a complete answer to the problem, the ship was cursed and therefore sank seventeen years later, or a semi-interesting footnote about her first day on the water. Personally, I don’t take superstitions all that seriously. Or, at least, I tell people that I don’t. Although I will genuinely scoff when I hear stuff like this, you wouldn’t catch me walking under a ladder, deliberately breaking a mirror or crossing somebody on the stairs.

So, I guess it is up to all of you to make up your own mind.

Conclusions

This, for today at least, brings the conspiracy theories to a close. As to what actually happened to the Edmund Fitzgerald, here are my thoughts for what they are worth. I think that there are bits from most of the theories that make sense.

From all the evidence I have examined, including the testimony of Captain Cooper, I am inclined to believe that the Fitzgerald really did sustain damage off the coast of Caribou Island. Sticking with Captain Cooper, I also think that McSorley would have definitely noticed. If we take the transcript of the radio messages as fact, we know that the Fitzgerald started taking on water quite soon after that, but I believe that the damage was not yet substantial enough for McSorley to call it in or request immediate assistance.

We know that he asked the Anderson to get closer and stay with them until they reached Whitefish Bay, so it’s probably safe to assume that the idea of the ship going down was at least in his mind. Nevertheless, if the damage at that point was minor, he may well have believed that they could still make it under their own steam. So, they continued on.

Now, let’s look at what we may or may not know about the state of the ship. If it is true that the hull was again damaged, then it is possible that, when the two big waves that Captain Cooper mentioned in his report hit the Fitzgerald, they made the small amount of damage that they picked up off Caribou Island into much, much more damage. If the metal plates were already weakened due to lack of maintenance, then the extra stress from those two waves could very easily have caused said plates to buckle inwards, creating a much larger hole and, given that the ship was already overloaded, half filled with water and in extremely choppy conditions, it really wouldn’t have taken long for her to succumb to the waves.

Incidentally, I didn’t claim to know anything at all about metal, welding, or shipbuilding in general. So, I called a shipbuilder who I vaguely know and asked them, and they confirmed that my hypothesis was indeed valid. “Thank you, Sadie.”

This would also explain why they never put out a distress call. They just did not have the time. One minute they were struggling but, as McSorley said “holding our own,” the next, they were gone.

I also have no real reason to discount the testimony of the former cook who said that McSorley had turned into a miserable old bastard! A few people online said that he probably made it all up to get in the paper, but what he said just comes across as too mundane for that. It is entirely believable that an ageing man in a difficult job with a wife whose health was failing could stop giving a fuck, and it is hardly stretching the boundaries of credulity to imagine that a big company would do everything they could in order to lessen their culpability in a legal case.

I don’t know what Simon and all of you think, but I think we may have cracked it. I certainly don’t believe that nuclear warheads, aliens, or top-secret government weapons testing was involved, and I have scoured both the clear net and the not-so-clear net for any scrap of evidence to suggest that they were. This is a shame, because after all this time I kind of wanted there to be something more. Still, at least I now know.

Thanks again to all of you for staying until the end, and thanks to Simon for the opportunity to revisit this topic. If there are any of you out there who remember my first attempt, I would be very interested to hear your comparisons in the comments. One last thing before I go. I just want to say thanks to the owner of the “Maritime Horrors” YouTube channel, without whom a lot of the information contained within this script would have been very difficult to obtain.

Congratulations, you now have the second most extensive video about the Edmund Fitzgerald on YouTube. To everybody else, I shall hopefully see you again soon.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the cargo of the Edmund Fitzgerald?

The Edmund Fitzgerald was loaded with 26,116 tons of tiny taconite pellets, which are pre-processed iron ore.

Who was the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald during its final voyage?

Captain Ernest M. McSorley was the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald during its final voyage.

What were some of the luxurious features of the Edmund Fitzgerald?

The Edmund Fitzgerald had two guest staterooms, a lounge, a laundry room, a recreational deck, oversized crew cabins with luxury carpets, bathrooms, and private showers, air conditioning, and two separate dining rooms serviced by a high-quality kitchen.

What was the official cause of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking?

The official report concluded that the Fitzgerald sat very low in the water, allowing water to flood the deck. Loose hatch covers allowed water to enter the cargo area, and possible damage to the hull from grounding near Caribou Island contributed to the sinking. The ship is believed to have nose-dived into a large wave and plunged to the bottom of Lake Superior in seconds.

What was the significance of the Six Fathom Shoal in the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald?

The Edmund Fitzgerald passed too close to Six Fathom Shoal, a dangerous area of shallow water, which may have caused damage to the ship’s hull. This uncharacteristic moment of carelessness is believed to have contributed to the ship’s eventual sinking.

What were some of the conspiracy theories surrounding the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald?

Some conspiracy theories include the ship carrying nuclear warheads, the captain knowing about hull damage and ignoring it, and the involvement of resonant lattices or ancient alien technology causing the ship to shake apart. Another theory suggests the ship was cursed due to various superstitions and bad omens.

What was the role of the Arthur Anderson in the events leading up to the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald?

The Arthur Anderson was following the Edmund Fitzgerald and maintained radio contact. Captain Cooper of the Anderson reported seeing the Fitzgerald pass too close to Six Fathom Shoal and later witnessed two large waves hitting the Fitzgerald, which he believed caused the ship to sink.

What was the significance of the radio communications between the Edmund Fitzgerald and the Arthur Anderson?

The radio communications revealed that the Edmund Fitzgerald was experiencing problems, including a fence rail down, vents lost or damaged, and a list. Captain McSorley of the Fitzgerald indicated they were ‘holding our own’ but did not send a distress call, suggesting they did not have time to react before sinking.

What was the author’s personal connection to the Edmund Fitzgerald?

The author’s interest in the Edmund Fitzgerald led to a career opportunity after he suggested writing a script about the ship to Simon, who accepted it. This script was the author’s first published work.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: The Mysterious Sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald
• Hero image source by Brandon Zhang / openverse, cc0.