On a stormy January morning in 1921, a massive schooner was found aground off the North Carolina coast. The ship was intact. The crew was gone. The mystery has never been solved.

She was one of the last great wooden sailing ships ever built, a 255-foot, five-masted schooner named after the son of her wealthy owner. She had completed a successful voyage to Rio de Janeiro and was heading home. Her captain was an experienced mariner. Her crew was mostly Scandinavian, seasoned sailors who knew the sea.

Then, on January 29, 1921, the Carroll A. Deering passed the Cape Lookout Lightship. The lightship keeper reported seeing the crew milling about in a chaotic manner. A crewman shouted that the ship had lost its anchors. The following day, the Deering was seen steering a peculiar course. Then she vanished.

On January 31, 1921, she was found aground on the Diamond Shoals, a notorious graveyard of ships off Cape Hatteras. Her sails were set. Food was laid out for a meal. The ship's running lights were still burning. But the crew of 12 men had vanished without a trace. Three half-starved cats were the only living things on board.

In the weeks that followed, a note in a bottle was found, claiming the ship had been captured by pirates. Handwriting experts authenticated it. Federal experts proved it was a hoax. The FBI investigated. Theories multiplied: mutiny, Bolshevik pirates, rum-runners, the Bermuda Triangle. No explanation has ever been proven.

In "The Ghost Ship of the Outer Banks," investigative journalist Alex R. Morgan presents a comprehensive, chronological investigation of one of America's greatest maritime mysteries. Drawing on original Coast Guard reports, FBI files, newspaper archives, and decades of research, Morgan examines:

• The construction of the Carroll A. Deering and her place in maritime history
• The captain and crew and their fateful final voyage
• The strange encounter at Cape Lookout and the final sightings
• The discovery of the abandoned ship on January 31, 1921
• The eerie scene on board and the missing men
• The hoax note in the bottle and the man who wrote it
• The federal investigation involving Herbert Hoover and the FBI
• The competing theories from mutiny to piracy to the Bermuda Triangle
• The wreck and its legacy as the Ghost Ship of the Outer Banks
• The unanswered questions that continue to haunt us

This is a story about a beautiful ship, a vanished crew, and a mystery that refuses to die.