//ARCHIVED PARANORMAL IMAGEBOARD POST//

//A small story would be posted to a popular paranormal imageboard. It was rather old, but could still be accessed through imageboard archival sites.//​

Okay guys, I think I've got a good one. Real story too. I know you're all sitting there calling bullshit, but believe me, this isn't a joke.

The first reported sighting of this was a few years back. It basically started with someone calling out on a distress signal channel, ship engines failed, they were stranded out in the middle of nowhere. They got the usual radio chatter back from some emergency ship-repair company, asking for coordinates and the like. You get the gist, we’ve all been there. But, after the repairs company cut out, the chatter didn’t go silent. There was this buzz, like if someone was sitting on the other end with the button held down, but they weren’t saying anything. The guy tried to talk to them, get a call sign or something, but there wasn’t any response.

After about a minute or two the dead signal cut out and the channel went back to general radio silence save for the usual signal bleed, so the guy goes around making sure his ship is ready to get fixed up for when the mechanic shows up. While he’s cleaning up and getting his stuff in order, his ship console goes off, some in-coming FTL movements. Of course, he thinks it is obviously gonna be the mechanic, so he heads on up to the console to get on the radio, but to his surprise, as he looks out of his windshield, there’s nothing out there but empty space. As the man goes to check the scanners for nearby ships, however, the scanner lights up with hundreds of pings surrounding the ship, ranging from corvettes to even battlecruisers all sitting around his ship. The man flips over to his local radio worriedly, trying to call out to see if there are any ships nearby. Silence is all the man receives.

When he flips back to his scanner, it seems as though the dots are gone, perhaps some kind of malfunction with the scanners? Though, as the man stares down at his console trying to figure out what the problem might be, bright blue light floods in from the windshield and blankets the cockpit, the light that emits when ships burst off into hyperspace. The man quickly looks up, and sees the bright FTL signs of seemingly thousands of ships, but with no ships attached to the light, flying off into space and fading away quickly after, gone without a trace of the seemingly massive fleet that they would have belonged to.

These sightings have come to be known as the “Ghost Fleet”. A mysterious apparition that arrives with little warning, visiting those who utilize deep-space distress channels. The reasons for these sightings or the manifestation of this phenomenon are entirely unknown, and theories range from the paranormal to mass-malfunction of equipment due to nearby solar flares. Whatever the cause, we will likely never know why or how this armada of phantom ships appears to those in need.

//END​