Disappearing Acts: Jack the Ripper, The Flannan Isles, and the Enigma of Vanishing in Gothic and Weird Fiction

The Flannan Isles (a small group of islands off the coast of Scotland) are part of the Outer Hebrides, about 20 miles west of the Isle of Lewis. The lighthouse on Eilean Mòr, the largest of the islands, was built in 1899 to help guide ships through the treacherous waters. The lighthouse was manned by a team of three keepers, with a fourth rotating between the mainland and the island to allow for regular shifts.

In December 1900, three lighthouse keepers - James Ducat (the principal keeper), Thomas Marshall (the second assistant), and Donald MacArthur (a relief keeper filling in for the regular third assistant) - vanished from their post. Their disappearance has never been fully explained, and is one of the most enduring maritime mysteries, giving rise to numerous theories and speculations.

On December 15, 1900, a passing ship, the SS Archtor, noted that the lighthouse was not lit at night, which was unusual, as it was always supposed to be in operation.

On December 26, 1900, a relief vessel, the Hesperus, arrived at Eilean Mòr, bringing a replacement keeper. However, upon arrival, the crew found the island eerily deserted, with no one coming to greet the ship or to help with the landing.

Joseph Moore, a relief lighthouse keeper, was sent ashore to investigate. When he entered the lighthouse, he found everything in order, except that the keepers were missing.

The clocks had stopped, indicating that they hadn’t been wound in some time, and one of the keepers' oilskins (protective rain gear) was still hanging on a hook, suggesting they hadn’t all gone outside together in bad weather.

A logbook found in the lighthouse revealed some odd entries:

December 12: Thomas Marshall wrote about severe winds "the likes of which I have never seen before," even though weather records showed only a moderate storm on that day.

He also noted that James Ducat had been "very quiet" and that Donald MacArthur had been crying, both of which were out of character for the experienced keepers.

On December 13, the log indicated that the storm continued, and all three men were praying, despite being seasoned lighthouse keepers who wouldn’t typically be frightened by storms.

The final log entry was on December 15, stating "Storm ended, sea calm. God is over all," despite there being no record of storms in the area after the 12th.

The most widely accepted explanation is that the men were swept away by a freak wave. The western landing platform had sustained damage, and equipment was found washed away, suggesting a large wave had struck the island. One theory is that the men were securing equipment during a storm when they were caught by a massive wave and drowned.

Some have speculated that one of the men went mad, killed the others, and then took his own life, or that there was some kind of violent altercation that led to their deaths.

There is a theory that they may have been taken by a passing ship, whether accidentally or intentionally, though there is little evidence to support this idea.

The Flannan Isles disappearance has captured the imagination of many over the years, in part because it’s a story of isolation, nature's unpredictability, and the unknown, which aligns perfectly with Gaslamp horror. The mystery has been the subject of poems, films, and literary works, including Wilfrid Wilson Gibson’s poem Flannan Isle (1912), which describes the eerie disappearance. The 2018 film The Vanishing, starring Gerrard Butler was also based on the mystery of the lighthouse keepers.

Despite the many theories, no definitive explanation has ever been found. The case remains open, contributing to its legendary status in maritime folklore.

Photo by Daniel Gregoire on Unsplash

Blink & You’ll Miss It

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Man with the Twisted Lip (1891) is a Sherlock Holmes story that revolves around the theme of going missing and changing identities.

The story begins when Dr. Watson is summoned to an opium den in East London to retrieve someone. While there, he unexpectedly encounters Sherlock Holmes, who is investigating a separate case - the disappearance of a man named Neville St. Clair.

Neville St. Clair, a respectable businessman, was last seen near the same opium den. His wife had witnessed him looking out from a window in an upstairs room in a state of apparent distress, but when she rushed to the building, he had vanished. Only his clothes and some bloodstains were found, leading to fears of foul play. Suspicion falls on a disfigured beggar named Hugh Boone, who had been seen in the area and is known for begging on the streets of London.

Holmes, in his usual fashion, unravels the mystery by discovering that Hugh Boone is Neville St. Clair in disguise. St. Clair had been leading a double life. By day, he was a prosperous man, but by night, he disguised himself as a beggar to earn money from the streets. St. Clair had hidden his alternate identity from his family.

The apparent disappearance of Neville St. Clair creates the central mystery. His wife sees him briefly, but then he vanishes, leaving behind only traces of his presence. This disappearance drives the narrative, as everyone assumes he has met with foul play.

The story plays with the assumptions people make about missing individuals. The clues left behind (his clothes, some blood) suggest foul play or murder, but these are misinterpretations. His disappearance isn’t due to crime, but rather his secret life, which ties into how society perceives people based on class and appearance.

His double life is the key to his disappearance. He ‘goes missing’ from his respectable life by choosing to live, at least part-time, as a beggar. This transformation into Hugh Boone allows him to vanish from society’s expectations and norms, effectively disappearing from the view of those in his higher social circles.

The opium den itself adds another layer to the theme of disappearance. It’s a place where people go to escape reality, often leading to a kind of personal disappearance by escaping from the responsibilities or visibility of their normal lives.

It offers an interesting twist on the missing-person theme, combining elements of mystery, societal critique, and the transformation of identity, making it a perfect fit for the darker, more psychologically complex tales of the Gaslamp genre.

Photo by JUNHYUNG PARK on Unsplash

H.G. Wells's The Invisible Man (1897) explores the theme of going missing in a much more literal and physical sense than Arthur Conan Doyle's The Man with the Twisted Lip. In this science fiction novel, the protagonist achieves actual invisibility, which allows him to disappear from society. The story deals with the terrifying consequences of this disappearance and how invisibility alters both Griffin’s identity and his relationship with society.

The Invisible Man follows Griffin, a brilliant but unprincipled scientist who discovers a way to turn himself invisible through a combination of chemical and optical experiments. After successfully making himself invisible, he finds himself alienated and unable to reintegrate into society. Unable to reverse his condition, Griffin’s sense of isolation grows, and he becomes increasingly violent, using his invisibility to commit crimes.

The most obvious aspect of Griffin’s disappearance is his literal invisibility. Griffin’s body disappears, allowing him to move through society unseen, but this also renders him ‘missing’ from a societal and personal standpoint. He becomes an invisible outcast, as he can no longer participate in normal social life, or interact with others face-to-face. He cannot be part of the world anymore, and his invisible status becomes a metaphor for his complete alienation.

Griffin’s invisibility leads to the loss of his identity. He can no longer be identified by others, and this lack of visibility strips him of his social and personal identity. Throughout the novel, Griffin struggles with the idea that being invisible robs him of his humanity, and he spirals into madness as he loses his moral compass.

As the story progresses, it becomes clear that invisibility, while physically advantageous, also comes with the heavy psychological cost of isolation and anonymity. In becoming invisible, Griffin loses his place in the world.

Wells uses Griffin’s invisibility as a metaphor for the dangers of being unseen or unnoticed. When Griffin becomes invisible, he feels empowered to act without consequences because no one can see or judge him. This leads to moral corruption, as he believes he can now commit acts of violence and theft.

The novel critiques the idea that the absence of social scrutiny leads to a loss of accountability. In a broader sense, invisibility acts as a metaphor for the dangers of complete anonymity. When people are unseen, they may feel free from social rules.

Photo by Giorgio Grani on Unsplash

The fictional place Carcosa is a recurring motif in weird fiction and horror, appearing first in Ambrose Bierce’s short story An Inhabitant of Carcosa (1886) and later expanded by Robert W. Chambers in his influential 1895 collection The King in Yellow. Carcosa represents a mysterious, decayed, and ancient city, often associated with madness, existential dread, and the supernatural. Concerning the theme of going missing, Carcosa is a place that embodies disappearance in both literal and metaphysical ways.

In Bierce’s original story, the protagonist awakens in a desolate and strange landscape, not knowing where he is. As he wanders, he realises he is in the ruins of his own city, Carcosa, and that he is, in fact, dead. Carcosa in this sense is a place of the dead, where the boundaries between life and death, past and present, are blurred. The protagonist has effectively ‘gone missing’ from the living world.

Chambers greatly expands on the mythos of Carcosa in his collection The King in Yellow, particularly in stories like The Repairer of Reputations and The Yellow Sign. Here, Carcosa is depicted as a city ruled by the mysterious King in Yellow. Carcosa is often linked to madness, and reading the forbidden play The King in Yellow drives characters insane by revealing the true, horrific nature of Carcosa.

In this context, Carcosa represents a psychological and existential disappearance. The characters who encounter the concept of Carcosa in Chambers' work tend to lose their minds, their sense of self, and their place in reality. They become ‘missing’ from the world in a very real sense as they succumb to the influence of this alien city, disappearing into madness or some otherworldly realm.

Carcosa itself is a disappearing place. It’s a city that exists outside of time, appearing and vanishing depending on the observer's mental state or connection to otherworldly forces. Those who do encounter it, either physically or mentally, often become lost forever. This links to the idea of people going missing in traditional horror and weird fiction, except that Carcosa also pulls its victims into a metaphysical disappearance. They are lost in a place that doesn’t fully exist in the known world.

Characters who encounter the King in Yellow or the city itself often disappear from normal society and human understanding, becoming lost within their own minds or drawn into a realm that they cannot escape. Characters who encounter Carcosa often experience literal disappearances from the known world. Whether they vanish into the city itself or fall into madness and oblivion, Carcosa acts as a conduit for vanishing, where the boundaries of the real world break down and those who cross them are lost forever.

In addition to people disappearing, Carcosa also represents a disappearing reality. The city’s unstable nature and connection to cosmic horror suggest that those who find Carcosa are not only lost themselves, but witness reality itself collapsing. This adds a layer of horror, as the fear is not just of going missing but of reality itself becoming untrustworthy, leaving no solid ground for existence.

Photo by Magda Smolen on Unsplash

The theme of ‘going missing’ in the story Watchdog from my Collection In Plain Sight, Unseen, is deeply embedded in both the physical and metaphysical realms of the story. The young protagonist’s encounter with Mr. Crope’s antique shop, which later vanishes, introduces a key aspect of this theme - the transient nature of the supernatural. The shop itself is a disappearing place, existing only long enough to set the protagonist on his journey before fading away like a mirage, symbolising how some things are meant to exist only briefly in the fabric of reality.

The boy's connection to Balthazar, the spectral hound summoned through the pocket watch, also reflects this theme. Balthazar appears and vanishes at the will of the protagonist, tied to the watch’s mechanism, which blurs the line between presence and absence. His role as a ‘guardian of forgotten souls’ emphasises the idea that there are forces and beings that come into existence when needed but otherwise remain unseen, perpetuating the theme of things and beings disappearing into the shadows of time.

The protagonist himself feels as though he has ‘gone missing’ from the regular world, inhabiting the fringes of society. His bond with Balthazar and the supernatural elements of the story further pull him away from the ordinary, marking his journey as one that is constantly between existence and nonexistence, between the tangible and the forgotten. 

In the end, the disappearance of the shop and the uncertainty about the boy’s injuries make it unclear whether these events were real or simply figments of his imagination, reinforcing the theme of vanishing in both the physical world and the realm of perception. The protagonist’s relationship with the supernatural leaves him permanently changed, as if he, too, is becoming part of the world of forgotten things. This reflects the deeper thematic exploration of how encounters with the mysterious and otherworldly can make one feel detached from the known world as if they are disappearing into a different realm.

Photo by Lucas Santos on Unsplash

Where’d You Go?

Across the tales of missing lighthouse keepers, men who disappear behind disguises, individuals who become invisible to society, and cities that slip through the cracks of reality, vanishing is a unifying thread in Gaslamp horror. Whether grounded in real-world mysteries like the Flannan Isles or steeped in the speculative realms of literature, vanishing reflects the genre’s preoccupation with the unknown and the unseen.

Jack the Ripper's case fits seamlessly into the theme of going missing, both literally and symbolically. He is the embodiment of the unknown and the unseen - an elusive figure who committed horrific crimes and then vanished into the shadows of history, never caught, never identified. His sudden disappearances after each murder and the fact that he was never apprehended make him an ever-present unknown.

Jack the Ripper echoes many of the stories in this essay. Much like the Flannan Isle lighthouse keepers, whose disappearance remains a chilling enigma, Jack the Ripper vanished without a trace, leaving behind unanswered questions and a legacy steeped in mystery. His sudden disappearance after committing gruesome crimes, and the subsequent failure to ever identify him, places him alongside these figures and places that seem to evaporate into thin air.

Vanishing is not only physical but also psychological and existential. Figures like Griffin from The Invisible Man lose their identity as they disappear from the social world, while characters encountering the alien city of Carcosa are drawn into madness and oblivion. Even Sherlock Holmes’ case in The Man with the Twisted Lip highlights how individuals can disappear from the social order through deception, class transgression, or addiction.

Much like Jack the Ripper, whose vanishing acts after each murder cemented his legacy in history and myth, the concept of vanishing in Gaslamp horror taps into our deepest fears: that people, places, and even reality can dissolve into the shadows without a trace. In essence, vanishing in Gaslamp horror is a metaphor for the instability of existence. Whether through madness, death, or physical disappearance, the act of vanishing leaves us with a profound sense of loss and dread, perfectly encapsulating the fascination with what lies beyond the visible world.