The Flying Dutchman Phantom
According to folklore, the Flying Dutchman is a ghost ship that can never go home, but must sail "the seven seas" forever. The Flying Dutchman is usually spotted from afar, sometimes glowing with ghostly light. If she is hailed by another ship, her crew will often try to send messages to land, to people long since dead.
A ghost ship, in fiction, is a ship crewed by the not-living. The term may also refer to a real ship that was reported to have been seen – often as an apparition – after sinking, or to a ship found floating with no crew members on board.By far the most famous fictional ghost ship is The Flying Dutchman. The ship has become synonymous with the phenomenon so that "Flying Dutchman" is often used as a generic term for any apparition-type ghost ship.

Versions of the story are numerous. According to some, the story is originally Dutch, while others claim it is based on the English play The Flying Dutchman (1826) by Edward Fitzball and the novel The Phantom Ship (1837) by Frederick Marryat, later adapted into the Dutch story Het Vliegend Schip (The Flying Ship) by the Dutch clergyman A.H.C. Römer. Other versions include the opera by Richard Wagner (1841) and The Flying Dutchman on Tappan Sea by Washington Irving (1855).

According to some sources, the 17th century Dutch captain Bernard Fokke is the model for the captain of the ghost ship. Fokke was renowned for the uncanny speed of his trips from Holland to Java and was suspected of being in league with the devil to achieve this speed. According to some sources, the captain is called Falkenburg in the Dutch versions of the story. He is called Van der Decken (meaning of the decks) in Marryat's version and Ramhout van Dam in Irving's version. Sources disagree on whether "Flying Dutchman" was the name of the ship, or a nickname for her captain.

According to most versions, the captain swore that he would not retreat in the face of a storm, but would continue his attempt to round the Cape of Good Hope even if it took until Judgment Day. According to other versions, some horrible crime took place on board, or the crew was infected with the plague and not allowed to sail into any port for this reason. Since then, the ship and its crew were doomed to sail forever, never putting in to shore. According to some versions, this happened in 1641, others give the date 1680 or 1729.

Many have noted the resemblance of the Flying Dutchman legend to the Christian folk tale of the Wandering Jew.
Terneuzen in the Netherlands is called the home of the legendary Flying Dutchman, Van der Decken, a captain who cursed God and was condemned to sail the seas forever, as described in the Frederick Marryat novel The Phantom Ship and the Richard Wagner opera.

Perhaps the most famous of the real ghost ship is the Mary Celeste, a ship that was found abandoned between Portugal and the Azores in 1872, devoid of all crew although the ship was completely intact. Another of this type of ghost ship was the MV Joyita discovered abandoned in the Pacific in 1955. In 2006, the Jian Seng was found off the coast of Australia, and as of 26 March little is known of its origin, or reason for being here.

Sailors have reported seeing the sunken steamship SS Valencia floating off the coast of Vancouver Island, often as an apparition that followed them as they sailed down the coast. Her #5 lifeboat was also found floating nearby, unmanned and in remarkably good condition, 27 years after the ship sank. The Ourang Medan is often cited as a ghost ship, although skeptics have an explanation for the crew's death there. The Baychimo was abandoned in the Arctic Ocean in 1931 when it became trapped in pack ice and was thought doomed to sink, but remained afloat and was sighted numerous times over the next 38 years without ever being salvaged.