The lighthouse keepers who vanished forever [Futility Closet 015]

Futility Closet 10:37 am Tue Jun 24, 2014

In 1900 three lighthouse keepers vanished from a remote, featureless island in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. The lighthouse was in good order and the log showed no sign of trouble, but no trace of the keepers has ever been found.

In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll explore the conundrum of the men's disappearance — a classic mystery of sea lore.

We'll also ponder the whereabouts of Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday, admire Esaw Wood's quest for a wood saw that would saw wood, and wonder why drinking a glass of water might necessitate a call to the auto club.

Hosted by Greg and Sharon Ross, Futility Closet is a celebration of the quirky and the curious, the thought-provoking and the simply amusing. This podcast is an audio companion to the popular website that catalogs more than 8,000 curiosities in history, language, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and art. In each episode we explore intriguing finds from our research, share listener contributions, and tackle an entertaining puzzle.

[Please take a moment to write a review of Futility Closet on iTunes. If you could subscribe to the show on iTunes, that would be great, too. This will help Boing Boing continue to deliver this show and other great shows to you. Thank you! – Mark]

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[Image: Louisbourg Lighthouse CC BY-SA 2.0. Dennis Jarvis from Halifax, Canada]

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