Mary Celeste

A Merchant ship known as the Mary Celeste was discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic in 1872. The last log entry was 10 days before her discovery. When another ship happened upon her, all of the provisions and belongings of the crew were perfectly intact, but the whole crew was missing. Even her cargo of denatured alcohol was intact. Investigating officers considered various possibilities of foul play, including mutiny by Mary Celeste's crew, piracy, and conspiracy to carry out insurance or salvage fraud. No convincing evidence supported these theories, but unresolved suspicions led to a relatively low salvage award.