The so-called Eilean Mòr journal entries occupy a curious space in the history of the Flannan Isles lighthouse mystery, half-fact, half-folklore, anchored to one of the most haunting disappearances in maritime history. When three keepers vanished from Eilean Mòr in December 1900, investigators searched the lighthouse for any written record that might explain their final days. What they found were the standard logbooks required by the Northern Lighthouse Board, along with the routine notes that marked the keepers’ daily duties. Yet within decades, another set of entries began circulating, journal lines that depicted fear, storms, and a mounting sense of dread. These entries, intense and atmospheric, became part of the folklore surrounding the case. But their origin has never been verified, and the debate over their authenticity remains as persistent as the mystery itself.
The official logbook kept by Thomas Marshall contains entries up through December 13, noting heavy seas and repairs to the west landing. These lines have survived in formal reports and archival copies, preserving the measured tone typical of lighthouse logs: references to barometric pressure, wind conditions, and routine checks of the light. Nothing in these documented entries suggests imminent danger or psychological distress. They form the last confirmed written record from the island before the keepers vanished sometime between December 15 and December 20, when the Hesperus arrived for its scheduled relief.
The so-called “mysterious journal entries,” however, first appeared in print many years later. They describe Marshall as writing that severe storms had struck the island, that the men were “praying,” that one of the keepers, usually said to be Donald MacArthur—was crying, and that the storms ended abruptly in what he called a “calm God is over all.” These entries circulated widely in retellings of the disappearance, appearing in newspaper features, books, and radio programs throughout the 20th century. Their dramatic tone captured imaginations everywhere, painting a picture of three men confronted by something far beyond the natural fury of the North Atlantic.
Yet historians and archivists who examined the case found no trace of such entries in the official Northern Lighthouse Board files. The surviving logbook pages contain none of the emotional language attributed to Marshall. No contemporary record from 1900, neither in the Sheriff’s Court inquiry nor in the testimony of relief keeper Joseph Moore, mentions any journal entries of fear or panic. When researchers reviewed the earliest sources that referenced them, they found they appeared only in much later sensational retellings, not in the primary documents preserved from the inquiry.
Some scholars believe these fabricated entries emerged as part of the natural evolution of the story. The Flannan Isles mystery, with its abandoned lighthouse, stopped clocks, and missing men, invited speculation from the moment it entered public consciousness. The lack of a clear explanation left space for embellishment. By the 1920s and 1930s, ghost stories, maritime legends, and supernatural interpretations had woven themselves into the narrative, and the dramatic journal lines fit neatly into that expanding mythology. Their craftsmanship, vivid, emotional, ominous, suggested more of a storyteller’s hand than that of a disciplined lighthouse keeper trained to report weather and procedure.
Others argue that the entries may have originated as misremembered or exaggerated summaries of Marshall’s genuine notes about earlier storms on the island. It is true that previous entries mention difficult weather conditions, repairs, and concerns about heavy seas threatening equipment, but nothing close to expressions of panic. As oral retellings traveled farther from their archival origins, details may have shifted, growing more dramatic with each generation. In some cases, storytellers blurred the difference between logs, personal notes, and secondhand accounts recorded by islanders decades after the disappearance.
Despite their dubious authenticity, the Eilean Mòr journal entries endure as part of the cultural memory of the event. They shape the atmosphere of the story, drawing readers into the mental landscape of isolation, harsh weather, and the pressures faced by keepers stationed in one of the most remote posts in the North Atlantic. Whether invented or distorted, the entries act as a mirror for the anxieties the real disappearance left behind. They remind us that mysteries rarely remain confined to the facts, they expand into story, into meaning, into the human need to fill the silence left where three men once stood watch. And in the absence of a definitive explanation, the imagined words of those final days continue to turn through the narrative like the revolving beam of the lighthouse itself, casting light and shadow across a mystery without end.
Sources & Further Reading:
- The Flannan Isles Mystery
– Northern Lighthouse Board archival documents and official logbook transcripts, 1900
– Sheriff’s Court inquiry records, Stornoway, January 1901
– National Records of Scotland: Flannan Isles correspondence and investigation files
– Mike Dash, historical analysis in “The Vanishing of the Flannan Isle Keepers”
– British newspaper archives, early 20th-century reporting on the lighthouse disappearance
(One of many stories shared by Headcount Coffee — where mystery, history, and late-night reading meet.)
