The Spectral Sea

The Spectral Sea is a book written by Jeremiah Lynch in late 1959 and privately published by him. Similarly to his previous book, The Atlantean Bequest, Being a Meditation on the Megaliths of Eyre, it explores his feigned theories about the existence of the mythical city of Atlantis. This book was likely an attempt by Lynch to profit upon the gullibility of his readers.

There's Something in the Sea
During Orrin Oscar Lutwidge's journey to the Frozen Triangle in 1959 he stopped in Ireland and visited Jeremiah Lynch. While he was there he read a manuscript of The Spectral Sea which he used to create a riddle for the third level of the Vault Puzzle:


 * "All the red pawn's ancient lore should be studiously ignored. The stones are mute. They tell you not. Yet in his pack of lies, he's caught an accidental truth. The tales they tell in Reykjavik of sailors lost and broken ships all end in tragedy, save one. Tell the name, and you'll be done, save five more steps, forsooth."

During Phase Three of "There's Something in the Sea" Mark Meltzer discovered that the Red Pawn's "pack of lies" referred to Lynch's book, The Spectral Sea, and it's accidental truth was a mention of the "Phantom Lighthouse;" the Lighthouse that housed the bathysphere which brought Jack to Rapture at the beginning of BioShock.

Transcript



 * The Spectral Sea                               381


 * There is no question why the icy waters beneath Greenland and
 * Iceland remain, even today, haunted by dark rumours of
 * ghostly ships, of grotesque leviathans and of strange disappear-
 * ances. For these waters are the home of a network of vortices
 * - dark portals of negative spirit energy. The forces tapped by
 * Atlantis are, even now, only barely understood by mortal men.
 * Superstitions can but hint at how we must navigate these
 * spectral forces. It is said by some that the ancient mariners
 * possessed secret charts which told how to navigate the angles
 * around Atlantis. If the cautious sailor travelled from one
 * vortex to the next in a set and specific pattern, he could avoid
 * triggering the dark forces that consumed the unwary.
 * These dark waters, no doubt, present dire dangers for the
 * novice; the entrance to Atlantis may still be accessible to the
 * adept - but how, pray tell, would the sailor recognize his desti-
 * nation?
 * The marker was the most awful dolmen of them all!
 * As we have witnessed in our researches, the megaliths and
 * dolmens of old are remnants of a long-forgotten culture. The
 * stones at Carrowmore are but one example, a nexus of
 * numerous points of ley lines. The energy at this portal is self-
 * evident to anyone who has ever stood in its presence: the
 * hackles fairly rise. Yet its power is but a hint of the awe-inspir-
 * ing dolmen that towers in those icy waters!
 * It is described a looming black oblelisque topped by a
 * shining light. It has fallen into fisher-men's lore as "the
 * Phantom Lighthouse." It is no specter, though, but the final
 * risen marker of the sunken city.


 * hopefully THIS isn't the "secret"
 * that Lutwidge found - mystical bull shit !