This story kind of freaks us out. Is there really a ghost ship full of cannibalistic rats about to crash on the shores of Scotland.
And why are Canadians being blamed for this?
The ship is making its way to the British Isles but exactly what’s inside them or where it originated is under dispute.
Here are some of the headlines:
Ghost ship full of cannibal rats could be about to crash into Devon coast (Plymouth Herald)
Ghost ship adrift for a year and crewed by CANNIBAL rats ‘heading for Britain’ (Daily Mirror)
Ghost ship full of diseased cannibal rats could crash into coast of Devon or Cornwall (This is Cornwall)
We love how everyone mentions ghost ship and cannibal rats.
The ship, named after a famous Soviet-era actor Lyubov Orlova, was a cruise vessel for the rich and powerful in the 1950s and 60s, but has gone derelict. It was berthed in Canada for a more than a year over financial issues when the crew abandoned the vessel over lack of pay.
As our old stomping ground the Toronto Star reports, tales that the rats boarded the Lyubov Orlova during its time here are an exaggeration.
There were also reports the Irish Coast Guard was mad at Canada for letting the ship go adrift. But a spokesman cleared that up for the Star’s Lesley Ciarula Taylor.
“It’s a good exaggeration. It was berthed in Canada for over a year and there were reports while it was in Canada that it was infested by rats.”
The spokesman also said it’s an urban myth that when a ship is headed east and has rats on board, they eat themselves.
The latest reports are that the ship has sunk somewhere in the Atlantic which means, of course, that there are now ghost cannibal rats clinging to lifeboats adrift in the ocean.
