S.S. Watertown faces

Sixth and final photo taken by Keith Tracey

The S.S. Watertown faces were ghostly apparitions appearing in the ocean in the wake of the S.S. Watertown shortly after the senseless deaths of two crew members who were buried at sea.

James Courtney and Michael Meehan, crew members of the S.S. Watertown, were cleaning a cargo tank of the oil tanker as it sailed toward the Panama Canal from New York City in December of 1924. Through a freak accident, the two men were overcome by gas fumes and killed. As was the custom of the time, the sailors were buried at sea. The next day, and for several days thereafter, the phantom-like faces of the sailors were seen in the water following the ship. The crew reported that the faces would appear, stick around for five to ten seconds, then disappear. When the ship’s captain, Keith Tracy, reported his crew's sightings to his employers, the Cities Service Company, they suggested he try to photograph the eerie faces, which he did.

When the faces next appeared, he took six photographs then sealed the camera and film away until they reached port to have them processed. The first five photos showed nothing but waves, but the sixth had captured the faces. Supposedly the company (now known as Citgo) took them to the Blake detective agency who stated they showed no signs of tampering, though recent attempts to find records of this have found nothing to suggest they ever investigated the case. The negative has since been lost.

Skepticism

In a 2010 issue of the Fortean Times, an article written by Blake Smith came to the conclusion that the picture had been faked. He traced the story back to the Cities Service's company magazine Service from February 1934. The article included the photo and stated that the incident took place five years before the issue's publication date. Cities Service oil company even hung a blown up copy of the picture in their lobby.

The version of the Watertown photograph usually seen on the internet or in books is not from the 1934 issue of Service but a 1963 issue of Fate Magazine, which also published a piece on the photo in 1957 as well, but without an accompanying picture.

Smith was unable to find the exact spot on a similar ship (the S.S. Baldhill) where the photo might have been taken from on board. From this comparison, Smith determined that the faces were most likely about fourteen meters form the upper deck where the pic was most likely taken from. Recreations were attempted with friends based on the measurements and found that although the heads were said to be bigger than normal, the size of their heads at the same distance was even larger than the ones in the photo.

Smith also contacted Securitas, a security company that had bought the Burns Detective Agency which had allegedly vouched at some point for the photos authenticity. The company could find no record that Burns Detective Agency had ever investigated the S.S. Watertown matter nor the photo, although this could always be a case of lost records. Additionally, no records of the deaths of the two sailors matching the circumstances in the tale could be found.

It was also discovered that the author of the 1963 Fate Magazine article, Michael G Mann, was a UFO/paranormal researcher who was not above faking a good UFO photo. Mann had died in 2001, so there was no way of confronting him on the matter.

Motives for a fake are hard to determine as there was no monetary gains made from the photo by any party. However, perhaps it garnered some free publicity in being displayed by the Cities Service oil company lobby.

External sources

• Fortean Times article (subscription required)