Case file · Haunting
The Palatine Light
A burning phantom ship said to appear off Block Island, Rhode Island, is linked to the 1738 wreck of the Princess Augusta, an emigrant ship that 19th-century writers renamed the 'Palatine'.
1738 CE · 41.20, -71.59 · status: legend
The account
Legend accused the islanders of luring the ship ashore and burning it; John Greenleaf Whittier's poem 'The Palatine' (1867) made the story famous.
The sceptical view
Historians find no evidence the islanders wrecked or burned the ship; the light is a sea legend.