Case file · Anomaly hotspot
Henry Hudson set adrift
In June 1611, after a winter trapped in James Bay, Henry Hudson's crew mutinied and set him, his son and seven others adrift in a small boat; none was seen again.
1611 CE · 52.00, -80.00 · status: unexplained
The account
Cree oral traditions and later stories place survivors or relics on the shores of the bay, but nothing has been confirmed.
The researched reading
Castaways in an open boat in a subarctic bay almost certainly died there. Their exact fate is unrecorded, and later relics and stories are unconfirmed.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Undetermined | 42% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 40% | Nine people, some sick, in an open boat on James Bay with little food and no shelter. Exposure, starvation or drowning would be expected within weeks. |
| Something known, misidentified | 8% | Relics and stories later tied to Hudson’s party, such as European goods on the bay shores or Cree accounts of white men, could come from later traders and explorers. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 6% | The surviving mutineers’ testimony was self-serving and blamed dead men. A carved stone found in Ontario in 1959 reading “HH 1611 captive” is widely regarded as a fake. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 1% | No perceptual claim is involved. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 1% | Not needed. |
| Secret human technology | 1% | Not applicable to 1611. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 1% | Their fate is unrecorded, but there is nothing anomalous about it. |
Official position: An Admiralty court tried surviving mutineers in 1618 and acquitted them; Hudson’s fate was never established.