In popular culture, the mystery of the Mary Celeste has been used frequently as an icon by writers of fiction. This can take the form of either direct adaptations of the story, or stories based on the idea of an abandoned ship, inspired by the Mary Celeste incident.
The first significant appearance of the Mary Celeste in popular culture is found in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1884 short story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement", which is written as a fictionalized eyewitness account. In the story, Doyle changed the spelling of the ship's name from Mary Celeste to Marie Celeste. This, along with other elements of his narrative, has influenced future portrayals of the story in popular culture.
The first[1] film version of the account was the now rare 1935 British film entitled The Mystery of the Marie Celeste. This film presented a non-supernatural explanation of the event.
In 1949, the comic book Adventures Into the Unknown!, No. 5, June-July, by Edvard Moritz, Charlie Sultan and various, published by B. & I. Publishing Co., Inc., featured a story based on the Mary Celeste entitled "The Ghostly Crew," currently available through the Wowio book service.
The December 27, 1955 broadcast of the radio program Suspense presented a fictionalized account of the disappearance where the crew disappeared leaving one man behind (a criminal played by John Dehner). In the epilogue, the host suggests the main character's story was discovered in a bottle washed ashore years later. They also suggest he may have hidden aboard after the ship was found by hanging off the ship by a rope tied to his belt and that the rope and belt (still attached) was later found but it had broken in the middle. Alternatively, the host puts forward a theory that the ship may have beached on a rare and very temporary island that forms from the outflows of an African river. These islands wash away as quickly as they surface.
The Goon Show aired an episode called "The Mystery of the Marie Celeste (Solved)" on November 16, 1954.
The 1956 book The Wreck of the Mary Deare, by Hammond Innes, drew inspiration from the Mary Celeste story.
Numerous episodes of the Star Trek series recycled the central Mary Celeste myth of an abandoned ship found with no crew aboard.
The Doctor Who serial The Chase (1965) suggested that the arrival of time-travelling Daleks caused the terrified crew of the ship to jump overboard.[2]
In the 1967 short story A Toy for Juliette by Robert Bloch and Harlan Ellison, the sadistic title character thinks back fondly on previous 'toys' kidnapped out of time for her to torture them, including the crew of the Mary Celeste, who apparently kept her "entertained for weeks".
In 1973, science-fiction author Philip José Farmer penned a novel, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, in which he has two of Jules Verne's most famous characters, Phileas Fogg and Captain Nemo, square off against one another in a scene on board the Mary Celeste.
The 1970s British sci-fi serial Sapphire & Steel suggested in Adventure 1 that, in unseen events set prior to the story, the inter-dimensional operatives were assigned to deal with a time break aboard the Mary Celeste (according to Sapphire, the trigger was an out-of-date ship's log—a nautical souvenir belonging to the Captain), which would have caused the end of time itself. Steel had been forced to send the original ship and crew out of time (and presumably to their deaths); although he left behind a replica of the ship, he unfortunately forgot to replicate the bodies.
The 1973 Thomas Pynchon novel Gravity's Rainbow briefly mentions the ship—though as the "Marie-Celeste"—comparing it to the tunnels of Mittelwerke: "Though found adrift and haunted, full of signs of recent human tenancy, this is not the legendary ship Marie-Celeste—it isn't bounded so neatly..."
Stephen King's story "The Langoliers", from Four Past Midnight, refers to the incident.
Al Stewart, in the song "Life in Dark Water" from the album Time Passages, refers to the vessel, perhaps to imply that another ship (a submarine) has been abandoned.
Greg Vandike recorded a song in 1980 called Marie Celeste
In Greg Bear's book Eon, published in 1985, there is a reference to the Mary Celeste. "The Stone", a mysterious and empty asteroid (possibly an object from another dimension), arrives in Earth's atmosphere, found to be empty yet references a once-advanced society. A character, Patricia Vasquez, comments that she "feels like she is on the Mary Celeste" when the first exploratory mission is undertaken.
In the 1990 horror-film remake of Night of the Living Dead, a plaque outside the front door of the farmhouse reads "M. Celeste". Director Tom Savini states on the DVD's commentary that this is a reference to the Mary Celeste. Further details include scenes of still-smoldering cigarettes in ashtrays and food still cooking on the stoves, but the residents are missing.
In the 1994 science-fiction novel The Woman Between the Worlds, by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, an Englishman in the year 1898 enters a portal connecting London to an alien world that exists in the same space as Earth but in another dimension. One of the human prisoners on this planet is a European sailor named Volkert; in real life, one crewman who vanished from the Mary Celeste on its final voyage was a Dutchman named Volkert Lorenzen.
An episode of the 1996 series The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest titled "In the Wake of the Mary Celeste" deals with the ship as well.
In the 1999, British movie Guest House Paradiso, starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, a couple come to stay at the hotel, but think for a few moments nobody is there after ringing the reception bell a few times. Richard (Mayall) and Edward (Edmondson), are watching them from the top of the nearby staircase and then eventually descend with Richard bellowing "Good morning!, good morning!, good morning!", before the wife of the couple claimed she thought the hotel for a minute was like the Marie Celeste, due to the lack of people on reception, with Richard then for about five minutes laughing hysterically, with some of the laugher near the end forced deliberately for comedy effect. After a while he writes it down, and then realises what the wife meant by saying, "Sort of implying the sort of hotel, nobody wants to stay".
The song "Sinking", from the 2000 Alabama 3 album La Peste, is about a ship that is stranded at sea after its captain dies of a drug overdose. In the song, the captain's dying words are: "Beware, don't stare at the Mary Celeste, this quest of ours is cursed."
The title of Nurse With Wound's 2003 album Salt Marie Celeste is a reference to Mary Celeste.
In Roger Zelazny's short story "And I Only Am Escaped to Tell Thee", a seaman escapes from the accursed Flying Dutchman, only to be rescued by the Marie Celeste.
Dean Koontz wrote a novel, Phantoms, that explains mass disappearances like the Mary Celeste. In the book, the "Ancient Enemy" is blamed. It lives at the bottom of the ocean and feeds mostly on aquatic life, but every once in a while, it surfaces and consumes large quantities of animals, including the crews of ships.
In Babylon 5, a transport ship named the Marie Celeste can be heard mentioned in background public announcements. Specifically, it is the ship that transports Thomas (aka Jinxo) off the station in the episode "Grail".
The Mary Celeste features in Vampire Hunter D: Raiser of Gales by Hideyuki Kikuchi. D escapes from a dimensional prison, causing a tear in the time-space continuum. This causes many disappearances across history before it seals itself, the crew of the Mary Celeste being among them.
In the 2001 SciFi-channel movie Lost Voyage, Judd Nelson briefly recounts the tale of the Mary Celeste.
The 2002 movie Ghost Ship makes a lengthy and mostly inaccurate reference to the ship.
In Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga, an alien spaceship which crash landed on the planet Far Away is named the Marie Celeste.
In an episode of the TV series Space: 1999, "Guardian of Piri", first broadcast in 1975, astronaut Alan Carter boards an abandoned Eagle spacecraft adrift in space and describes her as the Mary Celeste.
In .hack//G.U. Vol.2 Reminisce the member Silabus says, "This reminds me of 'Mary Celste'..." while on "The Silent Chim" quest.
One of the "ships" that acts as a playing field for the online game Robo Runner is named the Mary Celeste. Unlike most ships, where the goal is to touch a series of inspection points in order, the Mary Celeste requires that players initially attempt to push other players onto a path to certain doom several times so that as they are "killed" the doomed player can work on establishing an exit for the remaining players.
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