The Flannan Isles are a group of seven small islets situated some 20 miles west of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland and they were to be the setting for this strange disappearance. The islands themselves were named after the 7th Century Irish priest, St. Flannan, and for as long as anyone could remember they had remained uninhabited. The settlers on the neighbouring island of Lewis and the rest of the Hebrides always viewed this bleak and deserted group of craggy rocks with great superstition.
Many fishing boats and merchant vessels had foundered there over the years, and although the Hebrideans often ferried sheep to graze on the Flannans’ lush turf, they believed it very unlucky to spend a night there. During the 1890’s the Northern Lighthouse Board decided to construct a lighthouse on Eilean Mor, the largest of these seven islets. It took four years, and building work was constantly hampered by the tempestuousness of the wild Atlantic Ocean, which made it very difficult to land supplies.
The lighthouse was completed, and went into operation on 7th December 1899. It had no wireless communication and the only way of conacting the mainland was through the use of visual signals which could be seen by the Hebrides on a clear day. The lighthouse itself would have been operated by up to three men at a time, with a fourth keeper on shore rotating in as relief. The mystery began on the night of the 15th of December 1900 when a sudden squall broke out in the vicinity of the islands.
The first sign of anything amiss came when the captain of an American steamer, the SS Archtor -- making its way from Philadelphia to the port of Leith in Edinburgh -- passed close to Eilean Mor just before midnight and noticed that the lighthouse was eerily dark. This was something almost unheard of,for an operational rock station like the one on the Flannans, and it was reported when the ship reached its destination three days later. A dark lighthouse was considerable cause for alarm, but no immediate action could be taken due to the harsh weather.
