The Terror on The Parrier and Ivan Vassili, Russian Ghost Ship
The Ivan Vassili… if you don’t use a reverse image search…
On April 21st, 1907 the Chicago Tribune published a story of a Russian steamer called The Parrier docked off the coast of Santa Monica, California. Constructed in 1897 in Germany and owned by a Russian company the steamer was considered an excellent ship but just 10 years later it sat in port, empty and lifeless.
Except for something that stayed on board, a thing with no known origins spread quickly among the men who had sailed on the ship previously. A terror and fear-like hysteria that caused death and despair not seen again until several decades later when The Minneapolis Star published a story in 1940 of The Ivan Vasilli, another Russian steamer headed for San Francisco.
The crew aboard would succumb to the same ghostly terror that infected the Parrier and one by one would meet similar fates.
Today we’re looking at two stories of Russian ghost ships that share more than just the deaths and threats the crew faced. Both were published in newspapers and widely considered true stories but did they really happen?
PART 1 - The Terror on the Parrier
“The Ocean is an object of no small terror.”
Edmund Burke
In the early 1900’s Japan, like many other countries, was looking to expand its sphere of influence into mainland Asia. At the same time, Russia was looking for a warm-water port to increase trade and to acquire another port for its navy.
At this time Russia’s main port was Vladivostok which due to the cold winter months was only operational during the summer, they had also leased Port Arthur from China in 1897, a port that was operational all year round.
With both countries attempting to expand, the Japanese government saw Russia as a threat and after several attempts at peaceful negotiations, both countries went to war in 1904.
Activating the Parrier
The year prior in 1903, with Russia foreseeing the possibility of war, activated the Parrier with the intention of using it to carry military supplies to Vladivostok. The steamer, at the time docked in St. Petersburg, would travel through the Suez Canal, dock at Port Arthur in China for resupply, make its way to Vladivostok, Russia to drop off the military supplies, and finally make its way back to Port Arthur before the ice froze them in Vladivostok.
The crew was composed of Scandinavians, Portuguese, Englishmen, and Russians, led by Captain Andrist and second officer Hanson. It seemed like a simple trip, the weather had been fair and the sea calm. At first, this was reflected by the crew but after leaving the Suez canal the crew would begin to report feeling uneasy while on the ship.
They couldn’t explain the feeling but they could feel something awful was coming. Just two days away from reaching Port Arthur on a peaceful night under a full moon, at around 3 am a scream shook the ship. And then another. And another.
Waves of screams were coming from the men in their bunks where just moments prior they were sound asleep they were now screaming in terror and panic. The officer in charge and the night watch had no idea what to do. They tried to calm the men but before they could start the men were now running through the ship screaming and praying.
Like a fast-moving plague the terror gripped even the men who were awake, they ran wild about the deck, some sank to the ground their eyes helpless and hopeless as the terror gripped them. Others began attacking each other, fighting, tossing each other around.
One young sailor named Alec Govinski shouted curses and prayers at no one as he ran straight towards the deck. The officer in charge watched Govinski without any hesitation reach the edge of the ship and jump over the railing into the sea below them.
The moment he hit the water, the terror stopped.
“The Thing”
The men snapped out of their trance, they were weak and trembling but whatever spread through them was gone. They lowered boats to look for Govinski but his body was never found, he was lost to the sea.
Whatever attacked the men had no name, no face, no wants or needs, they didn’t know what it was and could only name it “The Thing” as they carried on with their mission. The ship made its way to Port Arthur with the men aboard hoping The Thing wouldn’t return.
For a while, it seemed like it wouldn’t. They reached the port without incident and made their way to Vladivostok, on the third day, The Thing came back. Terror gripped the men again in the middle of the night, this time there were no reported deaths but they were no closer to figuring out what it was and they now knew it could return.
Upon reaching Vladivostok a dozen men tried to desert the mission, half of them were caught and brought back to the ship. Captain Andrist couldn’t promise safety and given more time maybe they could've investigated but the men had to leave for Port Arthur before the winter froze the harbor in Vladivostok.
Unfortunately, the thing came back; every night. One man died of fright in his sleep, screaming in fear until his heart gave out. Two others couldn’t take the terror gripping them night after night and killed themselves. And just three days away from reaching Port Arthur Captain Andrist killed himself.
When the ship finally arrived in Port Arthur. All but six men deserted the ship. Many hoped they would never have to go on another voyage aboard the Parrier.
PART 2 - The Voyages of The Parrier
“He who is afraid of a thing, gives it power over him.”
Moorish Proverb
A Second Voyage
The six men who stayed with the ship included second officer Hanson who was now appointed command by the ship’s owners. The other five men stayed with the ship believing The Thing causing the terror would now stop with the ship under new command.
They had no way of knowing how wrong they were.
The owners of the Parrier requested Hanson gather a crew and bring the remaining supplies and cargo to Sydney. The only record of the voyage was that of Hanson’s own journal where he made mentions of The Thing returning over multiple nights, killing his crew one by one. Some men killed themselves while others would kill their own crewmates all the while screaming from the horror of their actions and the thing making them do it.
Hanson’s journal ended one day before reaching Sydney as the fear grew too much for him to bear and he shot himself.
Upon reaching Sydney the remaining crew deserted the ship telling all they could about the evils on the ship, many stayed away except for one man, Captain Govinski (no relation to the sailor who killed himself during the first voyage). He was a man said to fear nothing. He was sent by the owners to take over the ship and return it to Port Arthur.
Govinski’s Voyage
Despite the word spreading about the ship, he was able to gather a small crew to help him bring the ship back including one man named Nels Nelson, who wanted aboard not only to help but to find out what caused the deaths.
On their way to Port Arthur the thing struck again, among the screams of terror, Nelson questioned the men who were somewhat sane, asking them what they felt and saw if anything.
Nelson would go on to describe the thing as a sudden gust of warm, dry air sweeping through the ship. It brought madness, creating a stampede of bloodthirsty horrified men, attacking each other until someone died. Once a death occurred, whether it be through suicide or someone bludgeoning another to death, everyone returned to normal.
Once the crew reached Port Arther they once again deserted all except Captain Govinski, Nelson would also leave but eventually returned. For some time the ship had no reason to set sail again and the men hoped the peace would cause the thing to leave.
New Orders
Finally, in February of 1907, Captain Govinski received new orders to deliver hemp and merchandise to San Francisco. He recruited another crew and along with Nelson, they set sail once again hoping the thing wouldn’t return.
The crew sailed for several days, tense and worried about what would come in the night but nothing came. It appeared they were now safe from the thing. They made their way to Honolulu for resupply and this time no one deserted the ship.
They set sail once again heading to their final destination of San Francisco confident they were safe. That night the crew was finally able to go to sleep peacefully without the worry of death. And then, a scream rang out in the ship.
The night watch quickly gathered two screaming men and locked them below in the ship’s hold hoping they stopped the thing from spreading but they were too late. The thing had already spread, it returned bringing fresh terror among the crew, it was more vile and hungry than before. Reports say the crew slashed and beat each other screaming in agony until one died.
This went on for three nights until the fourth night when Captain Govinski shot himself in the head. They had finally reached San Francisco but were redirected to Santa Monica, the crew almost deserted the ship instead, but in the end, made their way. Eight hours before reaching port another crewmember tossed himself overboard.
When the ship docked the crew deserted, refusing to return. Nelson sent word to the owners telling them no amount of money or rewards would convince anyone to board the ship and as far as the story goes… no one ever did.
PART 3 - The Ivan Vassili and The Truth of The Parrier
“History is full of ghosts, because it’s full of myth. All of it woven together depending on who survived to do the telling.”
Roshani Chokshi (Roshni Chockshee)
The Ivan Vassili’s story is extremely similar to the Parrier, so similar in fact, it’s the same ship. The same story, told decades later with just a few details changed.
The story of the Parrier appeared in the Chicago Tribune in April of 1907, as was common at that time, includes no byline and no author to attribute the story to but after some research, I found the article in the Sunday issue of the paper, dated April 21st, 1907 titled “The Mystery of the Haunted Ship”. It appears on page 50 of 97 in the Special Features section.
Another common thing in newspapers, especially prevalent during that time was writing articles with no sources or any way to confirm what was written. For example, In the same paper, there was also a small article entitled “Whiskey kills Like Consumption” with a little drawing showing the Devil sitting on top of a barrel of Whiskey.
The article says a French doctor claims Whiskey kills more than opium, morphine, and cocaine. The doctor wasn’t named, there was no source, and no statistics, just an assertion that it’s true.
The same is true for the article of the Parrier, the author makes no mention of how he or she attained the information, who they interviewed, or what they witnessed. At the beginning of the article, the author claims, “The tale of the Parrier is not… some wild freak of the imagination of some drug-crazed novelist. It is a true story of the present day,”.
In reality, the Parrier never existed and the men who died, never lived. No records list the Parrier ever reaching any port and there are no records of a ship by that name under the Russian fleet during the Russo-Japanese War.
After doing some more research it turns out the editor of the Special Features section had a habit of letting ghost stories with no basis in fact be printed. The following week on April 28th, 1907 the Chicago Tribune printed a story entitled “Did A Ghost Drive Mrs. Marshall Field Jr from Ashby St. Legers?”
The article states Mrs. Marshall Field Jr lived in the manor where Guy Fawkes conspired to kill King James the first in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 until a ghost drove her from her home in 1907. The issue with the story is a Mrs. Marshall Field Jr never lived in the manor. In 1903 it was sold to Ivor Guest the 1st Viscount Wimborne.
Although I couldn’t find information on the Chicago Tribune website or anywhere else I assume the Special Features section in the Sunday paper was possibly known for creating entertaining stories and it’s completely possible at the time everyone knew the story was false.
The thing about a good fictionalized story is, no matter how dead it is, you can change a few details and bring it back to life if you give it some time and that’s exactly what happened here. I searched the names of the crew mentioned in the Parrier story to find the origin of the Ivan Vasilli story. This led me to The Minneapolis Star, which printed a story entitled “More Proof That Hoodoos Ride Ships” on April 14th, 1940.
The article tells the same story with a few minor alterations but most of the names of the crew are the same, the captains are the same, the same thing spread through the men in the same fashion and the first to die was Alec Govinski in both stories. Besides going into a few extra details the ending was slightly different, after the ship, The Ivan Vassili in this version reached San Francisco, it just stayed there.
After doing some more digging I found an article in the Skeptical Inquirer Volume 8, Number 2 by Robert Sheaffer in 1983. Apparently, he heard the story of Ivan Vassili and also tried to find the origin of it.
He was able to track the story to a Vincent Gaddis book titled “Invisible Horizons” published in 1965. In this version the Ivan Vassili is brought back to Russia and then set aflame to destroy it, the story in the book is perpetrated as a true story.
But Vincent Gaddis was known for making up stories and telling them as fact, in fact, Gaddis is the reason the “Bermuda Triangle” legends exist as he made them up in the same book. Knowing this, Sheaffer contacted Gaddis about the Ivan Vassili story asking about his sources and Gaddis told him he had read it in an issue of the Coronet from 1942 and The American Weekly published on April 14th, 1940. The same day it first appeared in the Minneapolis Star.
Unfortunately, the American Weekly also doesn’t cite a source or author but it was well-known for telling fictional tales, sort of like the National Enquirer of today. As for the Coronet, the article that mentioned the Ivan Vasilli was written by R. DeWitt Miller, a science fiction writer.
We may never know who revived the fictional story of the Parrier in 1940 as the Ivan Vasilli but like the Parrier we know it never existed with there being no record of it reaching port in San Francisco or anywhere for that matter.
Despite this, many accounts of the story appeared in books throughout the second half of the 20th century with many claiming it as a true story, even today plenty of websites tell the story claiming it’s real. Some include a picture of the supposed ship but a quick reverse image search shows the picture, widely used, is that of a Russian Hospital Ship from 1918 called the Ocean.
There are no pictures of the Parrier or The Ivan Vassilli because the stories are made up and the ships never existed but like the thing in the story that terrorized the crew with no known origin, I suspect the legend of the Parrier and The Ivan Vassilli will continue to spread as fact, maybe even under another name.
But how about you, do you think the terror that drove all those men insane actually existed? Maybe on another ship?
