An ABANDONED ship has been dubbed “haunted” after its passengers contracted a dangerous lung disease three years ago – but its casino equipment remains largely intact.
Explorer Ben Stevens shared photographs of the creepy vessel in Florida after bravely venturing inside.
The 30-year-old from from Cambridge, Massachusetts, found slot machines, playing cards and a room filled with dozens of casino chips.
But he says the boat’s eerie history keeps people away – and its casino rooms and machines predating the outbreak are still intact.
“It’s been abandoned ever since there was a Legionnaires’ outbreak on the ship three years ago.”
Legionnaires’ disease is a lung infection you can get from inhaling droplets of water from things like air conditioning or hot tubs.
“The people living on the dock next to it told me some people died from the outbreak and the ship is haunted by their ghosts, so they won’t have anything to do with it.
“It was literally like a ghost ship.
“It’s like people were gambling one day and then they all vanished.”
Ben, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the US, spent a few hours exploring the deserted boat.
He even found $50 on board, but says it was ruined with mould.
He said: “It was both creepy and interesting as everything had been left from money and poker chips to all the furniture.
“There was one room with a safe and all the chips that would have been traded in for cash.
“I was there for a few hours but it was so hot inside and the smell of mould was crazy.”
Ben added: “It looks like the boat may stay there forever but I’m used to exploring funeral homes and hospitals so this was really different.”
This comes after soon after the abandoned cargo ship MV Alta washed up along the rocks near Ballycotton in County Cork, Ireland in February 2020 – without a single soul onboard.
Eerily, it washed up along the coast after nearly 17 months adrift in the ocean.
Its arrival came following Storm Dennis, which battered Britain and Ireland, leading to several deaths and flooding thousands of homes.
Now nicknamed the “Ballycotton Ghost Ship“, the MV Alta has remained in the same location since it ran aground.
In October 2018, the Alta was travelling from Greece to Haiti when it suffered a main engine failure in the Atlantic.
The crew of 10 people was then rescued by the United States Coast Guard around 1,380 miles southeast of Bermuda.
The 253ft Tanzanian-flagged cargo ship, which had been without power for 20 days, was abandoned, and mystery surrounds its movements for the following months.
In September 2019, the Royal Navy‘s HMS Protector spotted it in the mid-Atlantic, writing on Twitter at the time: “We closed the vessel to make contact and offer our assistance, but no one replied!
“Whilst investigations continue we’re unable to give you more details on this strange event.”
The ship likely just kept on drifting, doing so for just under 17 months, covering a distance of 2,300 nautical miles before it ran aground along the coast of Ireland.
