The Dreaded Ghost Ship

drowningThis post will be a little different than past blogs, for today I have a ghost story for you my devilish readers. Even better than that, it’s a story about a horrifying ghost ship, a ship that took the lives of many crew members – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Ivan Vasilli is the name of this ship, a Russian steamer to be exact. The ship was built in 1897 and was home to an insatiable murderous vampire-like ghost, but not until 5 years after the ship was built. It wasn’t until 1903 that the deaths began, the year the ship was used for warfare.

It began with strange occurrences; the crew was first overwhelmed with unexplainable bouts of fear and even paralysis after seeing a mysterious glowing shape of a human in the distance. Then, one night shortly before the ship entered port, one of the crew members suddenly let out a dreadful scream that sent everyone into a panic. The crew literally lost it, and a wild fight ensued, the men having no idea what they were doing as they beat each other and themselves. This episode ended with one of the seamen hurling himself into the dark waters below, killing himself.  Afterward, the other men collapsed on the deck, and everything returned to normal.

These events continued and the surviving crew members tried to escape once they hit land, but they were quickly brought back. After many more episodes, more visions of phantoms in the mist and even more deaths, the remaining crew members managed to escape. But rumors of the ghost ship spread and it became difficult to find anyone willing to join the crew, but eventually they found a brand new crew. Once again the episodes happened, and once again there were deaths. By this time three of the ship’s captains had committed suicide aboard the ship; three captains were driven by an unknown force to kill themselves. Even the final captain, a skeptical man that didn’t believe in curses or ghosts ended up putting a revolver to his head, ending his life and his time on the horrendous ghost ship.

After this everyone refused to go aboard the ship, even after promises of rewards and bonuses, not a single soul would go near the Ivan Vasilli. Because of this the ship sat in the harbor for many years until it was finally destroyed by fire. Those that watched the ship go down swore they heard screams coming from the burning vessel and believed that it was the end to the ghost, phantom, vampire, spirit… or whatever may or may not have been.

The strange thing about this story is that it’s somewhat similar to that of the crew on the Demeter, the ship in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The famous vampire book that was published in 1897… the same year the Ivan Vasilli was built.

– Moonlight

By Moonlight

Moonlight (aka Amanda) loves to write about, read about and learn about everything pertaining to vampires. You will most likely find her huddled over a book of vampire folklore with coffee in hand. Touch her coffee and she may bite you (and not in the fun way).

5 comments

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  3. I remember an episode of Supernatural – can’t remember which season now, but they did a Ghost Ship story. That was when Bela was still on the show… maybe season 3.

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