Note: today's crop was almost entirely YouTube Shorts, which usually don't clear the quality bar. This one is the least bad of the bunch — it tackles a genuinely fascinating historical mystery with real documentary substance behind it.

In December 1900, the relief vessel Hesperus arrived at the Flannan Isles Lighthouse off the Outer Hebrides of Scotland to find it completely deserted. Three experienced keepers — James Ducat, Thomas Marshall, and Donald McArthur — had vanished without a trace. The lamp was ready to be lit, a meal sat half-eaten, and one keeper's oilskin coat still hung by the door, suggesting he'd rushed outside in a storm without it.

The official investigation concluded a rogue wave likely swept the men from the western landing during a storm, but the physical evidence — twisted iron railings, boulders moved dozens of feet, damage far above the tideline — has fueled over a century of speculation. The Flannan Isles case became one of the most enduring maritime mysteries in British history, inspiring poetry (Wilfrid Wilson Gibson's "Flannan Isle"), an opera, and the 2018 Gerard Butler film The Vanishing.

At under a minute, this Short is a teaser rather than a deep dive, but it's an accurate hook into a story worth researching further.