James Courtney & Michael Meehan were crew members of the S.S. Watertown. They were cleaning a cargo tank on the oil tanker as it sailed from New York city to the Panama Canal in December of 1924. A freak accident occurred & the two men were overcome by gas fumes & died. Customary at the time, they were buried at sea on December 4th.

The next day, before dusk, the ship`s first mate reported seeing the faces of the dead men in the waves off the port side of the ship. They remained in the water for ten seconds, then faded. For several days thereafter, the phantom faces were seen in the water following the ship by several crew members.

Upon arrival to New Orleans, the ship`s captain, Keith Tracy, reported the strange events to his employers, The Cities Service Company & they suggested he take pictures the next time the faces appeared. The captain purchased a camera for the continuing voyage & when the faces appeared again, he snapped six photos & locked the camera in the ship`s safe.

When the film was processed by a commercial developer in New York city, five of the photos revealed nothing but sea foam. But the sixth showed the ghastly faces of the doomed sea men. The negative was examined by the Burns Detective Agency & determined to be real. The faces were never seen again.






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