Wyoming’s Death Ship
On the Platte River, somewhere between Torrington and Alcova, the legend of a Ship of Death sails endlessly in Wyoming. It is said that, out of nowhere, a phantom ship rises from a rolling fog. Often, the sails and the masts are stiff with a frost, no matter the time of year of the sightings. But the deck isn't empty...a ghostly, frozen crew stands. Huddled around something sinister. As the ship grows closer, the thing that the crew is huddled around is a near-perfect recreation of someone, often the viewer or someone close, foretelling their death.
The first alleged sighting of this strange ship dates all the way back to 1862. He was a man named Leon Weber, and when he saw the ship, he was horrified to see the frosty crew crowded around the body of his fiance. Tragically, she died later that very same day. Another man, Gene Wilson, saw the ship in 1887, and his wife's body was the one laid out on the deck. Most recorded cases, at least the early ones, happened in late fall.
The true origin of the sailing vessel now known as the Platte Death Ship or the Wymoning Death Ship is entirely unknown. And no name has ever been proposed or shared. Though, I suppose, if I saw the body of a loved one on a ghostly ship being tended to by a ghostly crew…I might also miss the name printed on the side.
Should you decide to look and see if the death ship is harboring anyone you know or love, you're most likely to see it in late fall. While there are sightings reported here and there, it seems the most credible or detailed happens around every 25 years. Most sightings also happened during the workday, largely in the mid-afternoon when the sun was out.
Today, the Cheyenne Bureau of Psychological Research is credited as the organization that tracks the reported sightings, and a handful of books document the few reports that exist on the Death Ship of the North Platte River. However, nothing substantial has been released or recorded as of late.
It is believed the ship is an omen of death rather than the bringer of death. It isn’t necessarily unlucky to see the ship or bear witness to it, and none of the sightings have had negative consequences besides the early knowledge of the death of a loved one.
The image depicts the North Platte River Bowstring Truss Bridge, Spanning North Platte River, Fort Laramie, Goshen County, WY. This image or media file contains material based on a work of a National Park Service employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain in the United States. See the NPS website and NPS copyright policy for more information.