It was a synchronicity that led us to the island of Chiloe, Chile, and the legend of ghost ship Caleuche. We first heard about the ghost ship on a flight from Miami to Santiago, in July 1983. We were on our honeymoon and Chile was our first destination. We struck up a conversation with the woman who sat next to us and asked her where the mythology, the mystery, of Chile could be found. “Chiloe,” she said without hesitation.
We’d never heard of it.
“It’s an island off Puerto Montt, where land transportation ends in my country. From Puerto Montt, you take a ferry to Chiloe.The name means land of sea gulls. There, they believe in a ghost ship, the Caleuche, that is manned by sorcerers or brujos, who are immortal and possess the power to alter their shapes at will. They can transform themselves into wolves, fish, rocks and birds, and when they take human form, they are tall, foreign, blond.” She went on to say that some islanders believed that the ship itself could transform its shape.
But first, we stopped at the pier where a fisherman offered us a local delicacy – a sea urchin cut in half, spines removed and the jelly-like innards splashed with lime juice. Rob tried one, and while he was devouring it, I asked the fishermen about mermaids. He sort of chuckled. “The legend says that when the fish are running, the mermaids face shore. When the fish are gone, the mermaids face the ocean, so their backs are to us.”
My next question – had he ever seen one – brought a response that turned out to be fairly common. “My father did.” Or, my cousin, grandmother, friend etc. But there were also people who claimed to be actual witnesses.
We walked on toward the outskirts of town and paused on a bridge, gazing out over the harbor where the Caleuche supposedly had been sighted. One night in 1968, a pastor in Ancud was startled to see a large sailing vessel enter the shallow, unnavigable waters of the Rio Pudeto, where we were standing. “I saw several brilliant lights, then a mast, then two more masts and finally, a ship illuminated in brilliant colors.” Father Garcia watched the ship for half an hour before it disappeared in the same slow manner that it had materialized.
Chilean author Antonio Cardenas Tabies believes he sighted the ship in one of its altered forms – as a small launch that approached him and his four companions in the fog. Even though the boat passed within several feet of their boat, they didn’t see anyone on board and didn’t hear any noise from the motor. Then Cardenas and his buddies seemed to have some sort of space/time slippage. They kept rowing for hours and at dawn, found themselves in the same spot. “We hadn’t advanced a meter in any direction,” Tabies wrote in Aboard the Caleuche, published in Santiago in 1980. But that experience led him to interview dozens of islanders who had witnessed an appearance of the ship or encountered its crew members.
Many of the experiences Tabies recounts seem to deal with individuals who bear an uncanny resemblance to MIBs. The crew has been blamed for abductions of islanders. When these abductees returned to their villages, they didn’t have any memory of where they’d been. One man who was supposedly abducted at the age of 18 and returned to his village 50 years later, claimed he had been on a boat and implored his brother not to ask anything more about it.
We’ll continue this be story in a subsequent post. We still have the article that we wrote for FATE in May 1984, but have to figure out a way to scan it into PDF format so we can make it available.
wow I finally could read your story have been trying to access it and it would not come up..I could pull up everyone's post but yours.. but today I finally get to read this..facinating!!! yes a movie would be wonderful..its something totally new…I can't wait to read the next…
Wow, Ray, you really were on Chiloe! And you even heard the ghost ship story. Very cool. I know what you mean about Chile. It's one of our favorites, too. The pictures of the earthquake were shocking and sad.
I just realized that when I was in Castro I was on Chiloe. My bad.
Ray
I was in Puerto Montt in 1983. I can't remember the exact month, but it must have been later than July. My wife and I had a second honeymoon in Rio de Janeiro in November. I was on a Navy goodwill tour called UNITAS.
One night in Puerto Montt the wind caused the ship to drag anchor and with 2/3 of the crew still ashore we had to get underway to avoid crashing onto the rocky shore.
After leaving Puerto Montt we sailed to Castro 75 miles to the south. After Castro we sailed the Intercoastal Waterway south to the southern tip of Chile. One old salt told a story of a ghost ship sometimes seen in the Chilean Intercoastal Waterway. It may have been a version of the same story.
It was foggy during our transit through the waterway. We passed a wooden ship that had run aground many years before close enough that I could have hit it with a baseball. It looked like something out of a scary movie.
I wish I had heard of the legend of Chiloe when there would have been time to visit.
I am saddened by what I saw of Talcahuano on TV. I spent nearly three weeks there on the voyage through Chile. I went to church there. I got talked into giving talk about North America to the English class at a church school.
I wondered if some of the thirty something people I saw wandering around were some of the children from that day at school in 1983.
I can't wait for the second part of your story. Of all the places I have ever been outside the US my favorites are Chile and Spain.
Ray
I'm with Jeff. Sounds like Norse ghosts to me…..but still! Riveting stuff.
Good point, Jeff. There are so many parallels you have to wonder about such parallels in other cultures as well.
The tall blond description reminds me of what some people refer to as 'Nordic' aliens.
Can't wait to read the next installment!
Haven't there been UFO sightings where the craft then flew into the water near Nova Scotia?
Maybe the ships are UFO's in disguise?
Movie? Oh, how much fun would that be?
A duplicate of a village. Wow. That's better than a ghost ship! And you're right, there's so much we don't know.
OMGosh! fabulous story-telling – i'm still glued to the screen! where's the movie???
just can't tell you how i love this story! the story itself and the telling of it!!!!
oh, and did i ask, where the movie is?
WW, yep, that trip inspired some of the scenes for Interior World.
Love this. Do tell us the rest.
That is some story and look forward to reading the continuation. Love how you followed the synchronicity, it's perhaps the ideal way to live.
Hmm, this all sounds VERY familiar for some reason… 🙂
I can almost hear the 'Raiders March' playing right now!