The Herald's tale of the ghost ship MV Lyubov Orlova, which could be floating towards the Devon coast with a cargo of cannibal rats, has prompted national discussion on the issue of abandoned vessels.
The Yugoslavian built pleasure cruiser was being towed from Canada to the Dominican Republic for scrap when it broke free - and is believed to have drifted across the Atlantic towards our coastline.
Experts say disease carrying rats could be on board eating their own kind.
But the phenomenon of abandoned ships floating across our oceans is not an unusual one.
John Murray, the maritime director of the International Chamber of Shipping, told the Independent ships are used to navuigating around objects.
He said: "Shipping containers and adrift crafts don't creep up on ships.
"Navigation warnings from other vessels and radar usually ensure they are spotted from quite a distance away. Ships navigate around them."
The most famous "ghost ship" is the Mary Celeste, found floating, crewless but well-provisioned, in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872.
In June last year, the 69ft Nina, heading to Sydney from New Zealand, was caught in a storm and has not been seen since.
A Japanese fishing boat, the Ryou-Un Maru, floated abandoned across the seas for 11months before being sunk by US authorities.
Even locally there have been examples.
Donald Crowhurst sailed from Teignmouth in 1969, taking part in the first single-handed race round the world.
But as the racers logged their positions at sea, reporting in by radio at a time long before sophisticated GPS positioning, it appeared that Crowhurst was closing in on the favourite.
However, his voyage was a sham, and Teignmouth Electron was eventually found drifting and abandoned in mid-Atlantic.
Crowhurst's logs revealed his anguish, and the fact that he had spent eight months out in the Atlantic, fabricating his details.
It is thought that he jumped overboard. He was never found, and Teignmouth Electron is believed to be somewhere in the Cayman Islands.
Colin Firth and Kate Winslet were recently reported to be in very early discussions about starring in a film based on the Donald Crowhurst story.
The actors, both Oscar winners, have read a screenplay by Scott Burns, and Firth would portray Crowhurst with Winslet playing his wife Clare.
Historically attested Ghost Ships
1855: HMS Resolute was discovered drifting off the coast of Baffin Island. It had been one of four vessels from Edward Belcher's search expedition for John Franklin that had been abandoned the previous year when it was trapped in pack ice in Viscount Melville Sound. The ship drifted some 1,200 miles (1,900 km) before it was found, freed from the ice.
Amazon (later renamed Mary Celeste)
Carroll A. Deering as seen from the US Coast Guard lightvessel at Cape Lookout (North Carolina) on 28 January 1921
Ryou-Un Maru adrift near Alaska
1872: The Mary Celeste, perhaps the most historically famous derelict, was found abandoned between mainland Portugal and the Azores archipelago. It was devoid of all crew, but largely intact and under sail, heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar. While Arthur Conan Doyle's story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" based on this ship added some strange phenomena to the tale (such as that the tea found in the mess hall was still hot), the fact remained that the last log entry was 11 days prior to the discovery of the ship.
1884: The Resolven was found abandoned between Baccalieu Island and Catalina, Newfoundland and Labrador, with its lifeboat missing. Other than a broken yard, it had suffered minimal damage. A large iceberg was sighted nearby. It has been claimed that none of the seven crew members or four passengers were accustomed to northern waters and it was suggested that they panicked when the ship was damaged by ice, launched the lifeboat, and swamped, though no bodies were found. Three years later, Resolven was wrecked while returning to Newfoundland from Nova Scotia with a load of lumber.
1917: Zebrina, a sailing barge, departed Falmouth, England, with a cargo of Swansea coal bound for Saint-Brieuc, France. Two days later she was discovered aground on Rozel Point, south of Cherbourg, without damage except for some disarrangement of her rigging, but with her crew missing.
1921: The Carroll A. Deering, a five-masted cargo schooner, was found stranded on a beach on Diamond Shoals, North Carolina. The ship's final voyage had been the subject of much debate and controversy, and was investigated by six departments of the US government, largely because it was one of dozens of ships that sank or went missing within a relatively short period of time. While paranormal explanations have been advanced
, the theories of mutiny or piracy are considered more likely.
1931: The Baychimo was abandoned in the Arctic Ocean when it became trapped in pack ice and was thought doomed to sink, but remained afloat and was sighted numerous times over the next 38 years without ever being salvaged.
1933: A lifeboat from the 1906 wreck of the passenger steamship SS Valencia off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island was found floating in the area in remarkably good condition 27 years after the sinking. Sailors have also reported seeing the ship itself in the area in the years following the sinking, often as an apparition that followed down the coast.
1955: The MV Joyita was discovered abandoned in the Pacific. A subsequent inquiry found the vessel was in a poor state of repair, but determined the fate of passengers and crew to be "inexplicable on the evidence submitted at the inquiry".
1959: A ghost submarine was found floating without a crew in the Bay of Biscay off northern Spain. It was later discovered that the empty sub was being towed by another vessel and the chain had snapped.
1969: The Teignmouth Electron was found adrift and unoccupied in the Atlantic Ocean. Investigation led to the conclusion that its sole crewmember, Donald Crowhurst, had suffered a psychiatric breakdown while competing in a solo around-the-world race and committed suicide by jumping overboard.
2003: The High Aim 6 was found drifting in Australian waters, 80 nautical miles (150 km; 92 mi) east of Rowley Shoals, with its crew missing. The derelict was subsequently scuttled.
2006: The tanker Jian Seng was found off the coast of Weipa, Queensland Australia in March. Its origin or owner could not be determined, and its engines had been inoperable for some time.
2006: In August the Bel Amica was discovered off the coast of Sardinia. The Coast Guard crew that discovered the ship found half eaten Egyptian meals, French maps of North African seas, and a flag of Luxembourg on board.
2007: A 12-metre catamaran, the Kaz II, was discovered unmanned off the coast of Queensland, northeast Australia in April.The yacht, which had left Airlie Beach on Sunday 15 April, was spotted about 80 nautical miles (150 km) off Townsville, near the outer Great Barrier Reef on the following Wednesday. When boarded on Friday, the engine was running, a laptop was running, the radio and GPS were working and a meal was set to eat, but the three-man crew were not on board. All the sails were up but one was badly shredded, while three life jackets and survival equipment, including an emergency beacon, were found on board. A search for the crew was abandoned on Sunday 22nd as it was considered unlikely that anyone could have survived for that period of time.
2008: The abandoned 50 ton Taiwanese fishing vessel Tai Ching 21 (Chinese: 大慶21號) was found drifting near Kiribati on 9 November. The ship had suffered a fire several days previously, and its lifeboat and three life rafts were missing. No mayday call was received, and the ship had last been heard from on 28 October. A search of 21,000 square miles (54,000 square km) of the Pacific Ocean north of Fiji by a US Air Force C-130 Hercules and a New Zealand Air Force P-3 Orion found no trace of the Taiwanese captain (顏金港) or crew (18 Chinese, 6 Indonesians, and 4 Filipinos).
2012: The Ryou-Un Maru, a Japanese fishing vessel swept away by the March 2011 tsunami, was found floating adrift towards Canada after nearly a year at sea, no crew believed to be on board. The vessel was sunk on April 5, 2012 by the United States Coast Guard.
2013: The MV Lyubov Orlova, a former Soviet cruise ship was being towed from Canada to a scrapyard in the Caribbean in January 2013 when a cable snapped setting it adrift in international waters. The crew did not pursue the vessel due to safety concerns. It was most recently spotted on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Ireland.