- Date: 29 August 1925, boat arriving to landing at 14:25.
Ship: USLHT Maga
- The ship has recently been returned to duty in the 9th Lighthouse District, based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, after refitting. The delay in resupplying the light has accordingly been longer than usual, at six months, but it was planned for ahead of time. (The ship was already being loaded and expecting to set out in a few days.)
The moon is a waning crescent and so they very definitely can't leave the light unlit, ships will be seriously likely to hit the reefs.
Hurricane: passing north of Navassa 29 August - 2 September; severe thunderstorm storm/rain on 30 August. Clear on the 31st-1st. Position: 29: NE of PR. 30: N of PR. 31: NE of Hispanola. 1 Sep: NNE of hispanola. 2: far east of florida.
Sequence of events in chronological order:
- In the past, Haitian fishermen are seen fishing on the reefs. The keepers think they do "voodoo rituals", which may or may not be true but has nothing to do with the mystery.
- A small population of nocturnal prehistoric avian predators exists in the remote jungles of the Yucatan peninsula. They are vaguely like the Quetzalcoatlus.
- One such animal was blown far from its usual haunts in the recent hurricane, coming to rest on Navassa on 24 August, shortly before which it ate a Haitian fisherman. One guy saw it, but he was drunk at the time and not believed. The wild story is nontheless available if the fishermen are interrogated by someone who speaks Haitian creole.
- The animal proceeded to eat feral dogs, the remains of one of which were seen by a child on the morning of the 25th, and a hog, the absence of which was noted in the afternoon.
- the third assistant lightkeeper, shortly after finishing with his duties and making the light ready, went to look for the hog in the evening. He was eaten by the predator that evening while searching for it.
- The principal lightkeeper and his teenaged (15) son went to look for the lightkeeper when he was not at the quarters around midnight, heading to the place where his lantern was though to have been seen by the second assistant, in Lulutown.
- The principal lightkeeper and his son were eaten. The first assistant, his wife, was standing the watch at the time, and saw him outside the lantern, the bird having dropped him in his struggles. Unfortunately, he died before communicating anything useful and fell off the railing to the foot of the lighthouse, where his body remained (the slightly wounded bird having been deterred).
- The first assistant and second assistant decided to raise a distress signal. The second assistant went to the keeper's quarters to get a box of signal flares to be ready should a ship be sighted.
- The first assistant heard a gun being discharged about ten minutes after the second assistant left the lighthouse.
- She heard screaming but could not leave her watch and honestly was terrified of what was outside.
- After sunrise, a distress signal (inverted flag) was raised on the morning of 26 August by the first assistant, and seen by an Eastbound ship the same day. The ship had a radiotelegraph and the message was received in San Juan in the late afternoon.
- The first assistant and her two younger children (12 a girl, 10, a boy) have been holed up in the lighthouse since noon on the 26th. They found the signal flares strewn around the ground on between the keepers' quarters and the lighthouse but no body. The body of the principal keeper was tentatively seen but they did not investigate for understandable want of nerve.
The Maga sailed for Navassa from San Juan around noon on the 27th of August having hastily completed preparations to get underway in response to the report of the distress signal.
- In the interim, no more attacks have occurred, as the first assistant has kept her family holed up during the night and only made brief excursions in the daytime.
- A horrible stench is noted in the oil house on the afternoon of the 28th. The badly wounded second assistant made it there and expired behind some barrels.
The Maga seen approaching by the 12-yo girl, who woke up her mother.
- The children will not be allowed to leave the lighthouse to greet the ship, nor will their mother leave.
- The usual rope ladder is present but pulled up. Normally the keepers put it down for the tender when it is sighted. They are afraid of the fishermen and so leave it up ordinarily.
Important clues
- The monster was shot by the second assistant and can now barely fly. It left a blood trail to its roost in a cave in the upper bluffs.