Lost Ship of the Mojave

deserts are brutal bear and barrack but one desert in Southern California is said to hold something truly astonishing the lost ship of the Mojave is one of the greatest legends that it were ever told according to the myth somewhere in the Mojave Desert is a shipwreck the idea that a ship got lost inland in the desert is unheard of and this isn't just any shape oh it's laden with gold it's got silver bars it's got jewels black pearls just got everything under the Sun but could it possibly be real one man believed it was he was convinced that there was a ship out there he just doesn't know where his search would take him across one of the harshest environments on earth the desert and reach temperatures over 120 down and 25 degrees and then that's in the shade there are no settlements there's no support crew there's nowhere else for him to turn if you're not properly prepared and you head out to the desert you will die this is the amazing story of Charlie clusky and the mystery of his quest for the legendary lost ship of the Mojave Desert in 1847 the man who would risk everything to find the lost ship was in search of a new life demobilized from the army after fighting in the Mexican War Charlie Classica decided to head west to America's new frontier California the Charlie California would have been this place of extraordinary possibility California even in the 1840s was a place of magic the very name signified fertility potential under-exploited mineral wealth a place where white Americans like him could go and potentially make their fortune but getting there was far from easy it involved a perilous journey of over two thousand miles that would take Charlie more than three months Charlie took the southern overland route to California this was the cheapest way of getting to California it wasn't the quickest and it definitely wasn't the safest this wasn't the journey for the faint-hearted you had to endure huge heat cold snow mud as well as desert conditions this was a difficult arduous process and it wasn't just the environment that was hostile charli's root cross the heartlands of fierce native-american tribes Charlie may well have been worried about possible Indian attack he may well have heard some rumors about that in a sense you were taking your life in your own hands but instead of attacking Charlie it seems that when he met one tribe a Cahuilla they told him a tale he would never forget they said the desert was once covered with a great stretch of water one day a great bird with white wings came floating down it stopped then the water went away and the bird was left lying in the sands its white wings fell down leaving a tall bare tree sticking up after a while the wind blew and blew and the bird was covered with sand Charlie couldn't stop thinking about the story he was sure it wasn't describing a bird he puts two and two together he's thinking the white wings of the bird sound an awful lot like the sails of a ship and the tree sounds very much like the mast of the ship and all of a sudden for him it's starting to make sense but how could there really be a ship in the middle of the desert Charlie and the Cahuilla tribe were miles away from the sea and so Charlie put it to the back of his mind and carried on to California in spring 1848 he finally arrived in Los Angeles but it wasn't what he expected when Charlie arrives in California at the beginning of 1848 it's still essentially a wilderness there's barely a population of 20,000 in a vast expanse of territory the city that's going to become San Francisco has fewer than a thousand residents so really it's a vast expanse with very few people in it and the people who are there mainly ranching cattle it's nothing like what he envisioned you know he was thinking it was going to be the land of milk and honey and prosperity but it's barren no one's there there's no prosperity and he's really disappointed after just two weeks in California charlie packed up his bags and headed for another new American territory Texas a decision he would come to regret Charlie made a major error he clearly didn't give California Chapter he's impatient and he leaves and he leaves at the worst possible time in 1848 the California Gold Rush began as news spreads of the gold rush and so too does Gold Fever and Gold Fever spreads across America it spreads but throughout the globe there is a mania to get to California and as far as everyone's concerned every second counts it's not as getting there but it's getting there quickly it's getting there near to first as you possibly can to get the easiest in the riches pickings in 18-49 alone more than 50,000 people crossed America in search of gold suddenly everyone wants to be in California people from China from Europe from Australia from South America all are fixating on getting to California that's the one goal when Charlie heard about the gold discoveries he was sixteen hundred miles away in Texas Charlie would have been absolutely kicking himself when he found out about the discovery of gold in California he could have been in on it he could have been one of those who made incredible riches he is about it in Texas at the same time everyone else is hearing about it he's lost any advantage you may have gained by being in California in those earliest days of the gold rush now he has to do anyone else is doing which is get back to California as quickly as possible and so Charlie's set off for the West once again as Charlie heads to California for the second time he is fraught with anxiety he wants to get the gold and every hour he's not in California someone else is mining the gold that should be his Charlie's second journey to California was nothing like his first which was him alone in a second time there are hundreds even thousands of people doing the same thing he is so it's almost like a superhighway and not so much the speed but the fact that there's so many people making the same journey that he is on and when Charlie arrived in California it had been transformed it's completely unrecognizable he can't believe his eyes it's like nothing that he remembers the first time whereas previously it had been relatively empty unpopulated now all of a sudden this was a bustling anarchic place with a large and dynamic and ever-expanding population it was suddenly a place where everything seemed to be happening when Charlie arrives and he essentially arrives in the most exciting point in the most exciting country in the world at this moment he's really arrived at the place in the world that is the center of the action in this frenzy Charlie wasted no time staking his claim if you wanted to stake a claim you had to do it physically you had to literally go and drive a stake into the ground and defend your turf at first charlie's luck was in he found what he'd come for so Charlie must have felt absolutely elated the first time he found gold it was his dream since he set out from Texas but he had this fear that it would be all gone by the time he got there but it wasn't he found some but after this initial small success it seems Charlie's luck ran out after the easy pickings are gone charlie like many other miners is faced with the fact that getting hold of other gold remains in the ground is going to be much harder work you're going to need more equipment you're going to have to invest heavily in whatever claim that you have obviously none of that came cheap shopkeepers that are price gouging as hard and as fast as they can there is a limited supply of the things that are necessary for life whether its food whether it's shovels and so shopkeepers charge what they like but Charlie would not give up his quest for gold he was in the grip of gold fever a kind of madness possessed some of these people especially if like Charlie you have one stroke of luck early on then like a gambler you want more and you want more a Charley's losing streak continued as more and more people make their way to California competition increases the struggle for for land for good claims increases and so Charlie's chances of really finding gold of really striking it rich get less and less every year Charlie found himself in a desperate situation the dark side of the expectations and the hopes and the dreams of the gold rush is the crushing bitterness and the disappointment by 1855 the Californian Gold Rush was largely over after six years of trying charlie had failed to make his fortune Charley's experience of the gold rush is very common very few people very very few people achieve this fantastical dream of sudden wealth people who made money from the gold rush were the merchants the people selling equipment the people providing services that people's applying food in 1862 news broke of gold discoveries in neighboring Arizona Charlie headed south to try again his wound took him back across the lands of the Cahuilla tribe but he traveled through five years earlier and it seems his mind turned back to the incredible story of the ship stranded in the desert he'd heard all those years ago could the Native Americans story be more than a myth the idea of a ship getting lost in the desert seems like a fantasy seems like a folklore tale or a myth but the reality is it can happen the Koreas story suggested this area of the desert was once covered in water in fact this was true and it was called Lake Korea the Native American myths actually oftentimes relate to real historical events it's entirely possible that the myth of the bird could relate to not only a real historical event but that event could be the creation and evaporation in the creation and evaporation of lake ahia lake hawea was tremendously important for all the Native Americans in the area it was a lifeblood it's how they basically lived they needed the water in order to survive there's remnants of the old shoreline all over the desert geological studies have shown that since around 700 AD the Colorado River has filled an area called the Salton sink many times forming Lake Korea each time the lake would eventually evaporate returning the area to desert once more but it's thought that at times the lake wasn't just an isolated stretch of water in the years late Korea was full some experts believe that when the Colorado River was in the flood it formed a link between lake and sea there is scientific proof out there that the waters can actually connect to Lake Hawea and it's easily possible for a ship to get up into that particular area but any ship that found its way into the lake would soon have been left high and dry once the ship would have entered lake hawea the receding waters would not allow the ship to leave the area if I was so that really could be a ship in the desert and it could still be out there in September 1870 Charlie was now in Southern California still hunting for good pay dirt when the story goes he picked up a copy of his local newspaper the San Bernardino Guardian while scanning the pages a small article caught his eye it told of a ship that had been spotted out in the desert a party of Americans found imbedded in the sands the wreck of a large vessel he must have been flabbergasted he's thinking ha I knew it see it does exist nearly 1/3 of the ship is plainly visible you can imagine his eyes just popping out of his head as he reads this the description made it sound like a ship worth finding the stump of the bowsprit remains and portions of the Timbers of teak are perfect he's seeing dollar signs because the ship sounds like it it's big and he knows a big ship is always carrying cargo and Charlie started a wonder what sort of cargo it was carrying at the time speculation was rife but the wreck was a lost pirate ship between the 16th and 18th centuries the Gulf of California was teeming with Spanish ships here enterprising pirates preyed on mighty galleons carrying priceless treasures from all over Asia back home to Spain oh it's labeled with gold it's got silver bars it's got jewels black pearls it's got everything under the Sun the newspaper article even told Charlie where to look the ship lay just under 70 miles away 40 miles north of the San Bernadino Fort Yuma Road and 30 miles west of Dos Palmas Charlie wanted to set out for the ship as soon as possible because it's been published now he knows he's not the only one who wants to find the cargo there's going to be competition and he doesn't want to be second on the scene like in the gold rush Charlie started preparing to head into one of the harshest environments on earth crossing the desert in charlie's table would have been a tremendous undertaking you can go for days without seeing a soul it's a forbidding place that's for sure if you're not properly prepared and you head out to the desert you will die period the expedition is very very risky you would face death almost on a daily basis there were several things that were out there that could threaten his life coyotes wolves snakes there's other miners Mexicans coming up from the border you had the local Native Americans there new settlements there's no support crew there's nowhere else pay him to turn charlie had to take with him everything he thought he was going to need dry foods a jerky type of meat beans bacon anything he could get his hands on that would get him through the day he would have to really be very cautious about what he took how much he took of it and why he was taking it Charlie knew there was one thing he needed to take above all else water the desert out in that area can reach temperatures of 120 225 degrees and then that's in the shade the water points out of the desert are not something you can get to with it a day the lack of water for him or his animals would mean he would be stranded out there and if his animals went without water he would have a long walk to get back to some water source which would have meant surly probably death this is not something for the average Joe that would be working in San Bernardino but Charlie wasn't your average Joe whether in his childhood or more recently during his military service Charlie would have been used to living in wild areas of one form or another he would have significant experience of using firearms so that would have been extremely useful when it came to protecting himself and possibly even finding food so Charlie had survival skills but finding the ship was such a massive undertaking the Charlie felt he needed help Charlie could have done it by himself but I think it makes a lot more sense to go out in a party you could easily make one mistake and die on your own so people or a group of adventurers or travelers was highly important you probably didn't have that much trouble finding people that were interested in going out looking for the ship I'm sure he probably had people that were volunteering to go with them on the 1st of October 1878 our Lee's teams set out at first they followed a route he knew well this was the trail he had taken to try his luck in the Arizona Gold Fields in the early 1860s from San Bernardino they followed the old Bradshaw wound working their way through the San Gorgonio Pass and Amoco hlo Valley to Martinez but soon they would find themselves in totally uncharted territory Charlie wouldn't have had a map finding his way was going to be a difficult task Mojave Desert is one of the most difficult places to navigate especially in Charlie's time you can look out on the desert and what may appear to be a miler to actually be 30 40 miles so at first you may think ah not a problem but the reality of the situation is when you get out there it's a whole new ballgame most of their traveling was done with what we call dead reckoning they would look for certain objects or certain places that they would remember and they would know at this particular rock grouping we would turn left but then if you're in a place where you don't know where you are you can get lost very quickly but after days of struggling to find our way charlie was sure they were getting close to the ship's location Charlie must have been so excited when he realizes he's only ten miles away from the ships reported location and there's a chance they can make it there by nightfall then something happened that filled Charlie with panic Charlie sees that the tracks that he's making are starting to fill up with water and he realizes that he's standing quicksand it was really a horrific situation for Charlie he's in the middle of nowhere and his horse is disappearing into the sand he's going to lose his horse he's gonna lose everything he's gonna die he has to pull the horse out and it's screaming and the hair is being ripped off its legs and it's signaled to Charlie this is too dangerous to go on he must retreat Charlie returned to San Bernardino despite is now risky he started planning his next expedition immediately even though his companions were less than enthusiastic about returning to the desert Charlie couldn't wait to head back out there it's the prospector mentality he has that failures part of the job and he needs to persevere only next time he needs to be even more prepared this time Charlie was determined he would not fail he gathered together as many wooden planks as he could get his hands on to help him cross any challenging ground just three weeks later on the 5th of November 1872 set out into the desert once more he was certain he would find the ship he even took a different route to avoid the quicksand that had foiled his first attempt but it wasn't long before Charlie was in trouble again it seems that Charlie is so preoccupied with the horrific experience with the quicksand that this time he's forgotten to bring the basics first his food supplies run out if you're out on the desert you run out of food you're pretty well doomed even if you were lucky kill a rattlesnake and probably eat it but there wasn't a lot to eat out on the floor of the desert in that area despite his gnawing hunger he plowed on towards where he was convinced the ship lay then Charlie ran out of water running out of water or the desert is huge you're facing death you got to find water now not tomorrow not the next day now you simply cannot survive these conditions without water and Charlie the very best he's got a couple days left even though he was still 30 miles away from the ships reported location charlie didn't turn back for water he carried on into the desert I think it'd be crazy because when you're out in the desert in your face and the possibility of dying because there's no water and you're still focused in on a lost ship oh that's huge then charlie spotted something on the desert floor that told him he was getting close these shells convinced him this area was once linked to the sea now there was no way he was turning back after a couple days in the desert without water keep in mind it's a hundred degrees plus every day Charlie would have been in a really bad way dehydration's started to kick in your muscles would start to ache your central direction would probably be AA diminished eyesight tremendous headaches the inability to be coherent he was in a very serious very bad state he needed to get some sort of help or at least water as soon as possible Charlie realized he had to turn back Charlie would have been extremely frustrated I mean this is the second time I'm this close and I'd have to turn away I bet that just irritated him to no end Oh utterly dejected Charlie took one last look around suddenly something on the horizon caught his eye at first he thought his eyes were deceiving him but as he gazed through his telescope he was convinced he could see the mast of a ship and it wasn't just an issue it was huge about two hundred and fifty feet long a mighty Spanish galleon so when Charlie sees the ship he would have been so excited this story is true the myth is true charli's location of the lost ship would make sense in the area that he was talking about the ancient shoreline for Lake Cahuilla was right there so that makes absolute sense that the ship could have been there Charlie was desperate to get to the ship but by this stage he was close to death physically he would have been completely drained his body was done there's no way Charlie could have physically gone on he sees the ship he wants to go forward but he has no choice but to retreat for he had to go back or die but Charlie still wasn't defeated when he arrived back in San Bernadino his mind was already full of plans for his return Charlie was extremely determined to go back out find a ship and put the legend to rest word of his adventures quickly spread the town would have been going crazy town would have been back and forth talking everybody hey did you hear the news oh my god they found the ship and Charlie gets back to San Bernadino he's like a rock star so he becomes a bit of a local celebrity Joshua told the editor of the San Bernadino Guardian was just about to go to press when Charlie returned but he was anxious to report the local heroes amazing discovery it has all the elements that the readers are looking for it's a story of individual adventure it's into a mysterious and essentially unknown part of California steel so it's romantic it's exciting and it also has the possibility of treasure at the end of it as well so this is a story that's really almost tailor-made for the California market tolbert published the ship has been found and promised his gripped readers of full account in next week's edition but a rival newspaper beat Talbot to the scoop he's interviewed by the Alta California which is really that the premier newspaper the is the newspaper the biggest circulation in California at this time it was huge competition among newspaper editors to be the one who was first on a story and Charlie's story was an extraordinary one on one that could sell newspapers soon the story went national this story was picked up back east in the New York Press indeed Cincinnati press where Charlie came from newspapers in Kansas the New Orleans times-picayune they run the story as well so Charlie is becoming increasingly famous across America Charlie's story had become big business tolbert couldn't afford to miss any more scoops he decided he must join Charlie's next expedition this kind of first person tested me that he's going to bring to it is really going to help to to enliven the story and to really sell it to his readership the San Bernardino Guardian is a relatively new newspaper as well at this point it's found in 1867 so you can imagine that this also seems like a good story to try and try and make the name of this newspaper on and Talbots interest was potentially very valuable to Charlie I think it's very likely that the editor of the San Bernardino Guardian was paying Charlie for access paying too as it were embedding himself in Charlie's expedition in order to be the first on this story and to have exclusive access to interviews and to be there with Charlie when he makes this great discovery whatever the case it seems Charlie was much better funded for his third attempt to find the ship this time Charlie had a wagon large enough to carry a hundred and eight gallons of water food for two months and he had another crew he's not leaving anything to chance this will be the trip that he actually gets to the ship on the 30th of November 1870 they plunged into the desert Charley's attitude when he sets out for the third expedition is one of defiance there is no way he will be stopped he is enough supplies for a small army and he's determined to succeed at any cost to ensure he didn't run out of water on his latest campaign Charlie had a new strategy that involved yet another route he approached the ship from a rare water source in the desert Carrizo Creek but the terrain on this new approach was tough progress was slow there's small rolling hills there's large mountains there's deep depressions it's sandy he would be lucky if he averaged 10 to 15 miles a day worse from this new angle Charlie seemed to struggle to identify any of the landmarks he'd noted on his last mission that he needed to find his way back to the shape landmarks change those sand berms have a tendency to move you know what could be under 40 feet of sand today could be barren tomorrow the desert is living breathing thing days turned into weeks and Charlie still hadn't found the ship Talbert was expecting the ship to be found expecting Charlie to say here it is this is where it's at this is what we have let's take a couple artifacts so we can prove that we actually found the ship and be done with it but in reality the desert takes a long time to explore Talbert would have reacted in the desert a very harsh way as a newspaperman not realizing what the trials and tribulations would be like out in the desert I think the very short time on the desert he had enough you can imagine what Tolbert is thinking as really every hour that goes by he's losing more and more confidence in Charlie he's losing more and more confidence in the story eventually after 20 days Talbot abandoned the expedition he had a newspaper to run Charlie stayed out in the desert for a further three weeks but he still couldn't find the ship after six weeks he too returned to San Bernardino empty-handed so when the third expedition fails like the first two Charlie is absolutely gutted he has spent six weeks he has every supply he needs but he returns without a single piece of evidence that the ship exists inevitably the press loses interest in Charlie failures don't sell newspapers utterly defeated charlie abandoned his quest for the lost ship of the desert it all begs the question if he had really seen it why couldn't Charlie find the lost ship again in hindsight you have to wonder is there any way Charlie could have seen a ship on that second expedition that wasn't really there and of course there is the man is dehydrated he's ready to die he hasn't had water in days and when people are severely dehydrated they can hallucinate so was Charlie hallucinating there is another possible explanation the Charlie really did see a ship but it was a mirage the desert can play some very very funny tricks on you you may see something you may swear it's there and it's not there simply called a mirage in contrast to a hallucination which exists only in the mind a mirage is a real optical phenomenon differences in air temperature caused light rays to refract to form a false image but interpreting what the false image is depends on the mind of its observer Charlie wanted so bad to see that ship that he just imagined something that wasn't there but Charlie had been adamant that what he'd seen was real they even asked him if it wasn't a mirage if he was quite certain he had saw the ship and he without a doubt verified that he had saw the ship that he had a telescope that was of good quality and he knows exactly what he saw there is another more disturbing possibility back in his office Tolbert started to write up his adventures with charlie and he started to focus on some strange patterns in Charlie's behavior Hulbert can't help but notice that Charlie doesn't appear to really be in a hurry he's taking this time he's looking around him as though he's looking for something along the way as opposed to having his eyes set on the ship off in the distance and that wasn't the only thing that struck Tolbert as odd he knew it was you go straight there but every day he goes into a different direction and this leaves Tolbert to wonder what is it that he's really looking for the ship or could it be something else in fact Charlie's roots on each of his three expeditions seem to make no sense Talbot started to wonder what was Charlie really up to each time he approached the ship from further and further away searching a broader and broader area and each time from different compass points Torbett realized this wasn't the behavior of someone trying to find the ships reported location perhaps Charlie wasn't really searching for the lost ship perhaps he was hunting for something much closer to his heart gold it would make sense that Charlie was looking for gold simply because old habits die hard it's in his blood it's what he's done for decades now but if Charlie was really after gold why claimed to be searching for a lost ship from his years of prospecting Charlie knew there was one thing above all a miner needed to be successful money money for supplies for tools for everything he would need to stay in the desert for weeks to try to find the goal Charley's problem was how to get the funds he needed charlie's method for finding gold in the desert is really quite cunning for charlie the ship was potentially a means to an end if he claimed to be hunting the legendary lost ship charlie was no longer just another prospector looking for financial backers he was a hero Charlie would have wanted media attention I imagine because it would have been a way of raising money and he can attract this kind of attention then he can get people to invest in his expedition everybody would have known that he was looking for the ship so it'd have been quite easy for him to get just about anything he needed in order to go on an expedition so was it all a tall tale to get money charlie was definitely a man who could spin a yarn he claims that he was playmates with Abraham Lincoln as a young boy at a point when Lincoln was certainly nowhere near where Charlie clásica was whatever the truth Charlie went on to live to a grand old age he died in 1915 aged a hundred and five a local tribute made no mention of his quest for the lost ship but it did some him up rather well mr. Kloster was a typical prospector and miner sometimes he had wealth in hand always he possessed wealth in prospect but does that mean there never was a ship in the desert over the years many claimed to have seen it and 1892 there was one in 1907 there was one in 1933 there was one in 1944 there was one the puzzling thing is all these people see different ships including a Viking longboat though how that might have got into the Californian desert nobody can explain and that's not the only problem with the numerous lost ship sightings nobody seems to see the ship twice they'll see it get all excited retreat amount another expedition they never see it again and that's all symptomatic the fact that it wasn't there in the first place if the ship really exists you'd be able to find it a second time and you would surely be able to bring something back despite all this still the legend lives on the legend of the last ship has continued we'll continue and when all of us here are said and gone it will still continue for some that will always be a lost ship in the desert I absolutely think there's a lost ship out there and I would love to find me

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Length: 50min 21sec (3021 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 05 2016