One report said a starving canary was found. The log kept by the men showed there had been a storm on December 14, but it was recorded that it had abated by the following day. December 15 was the final entry. Since then, historians and storytellers have puzzled over these clues, and the theories they have come up with include a pirate raid, a sea monster and ghosts. According to the legend that has grown up around the true facts, three black shags or cormorants are said to have dived off the rocks as the Hesperus arrived at the jetty.
Ghosts stories abound.
Even superstar Phil Collins and his colleagues in the band Genesis penned their own album track with their particular slant on this most puzzling and chilling of modern maritime mysteries. Alasdair Macaulay, a reporter with BBC Radio nan Gaidheal in Stornoway, who also hails from Breasclete, has been researching the soundness of the various theories that have surrounded the mystery. She was said to have told of having seen a massive wall of water coming in from the west. She apparently ran back to the house as this large wave hit the shore. When she came back outside afterwards, she said that her washing and washing line had been swept away.