It is rumoured that a human skeleton was found inside
Great Eastern's double hull, a rumour that forms the topic of
Sting's song "Ballad of the Great Eastern." However, the same thing has been said of
RMS Titanic and the
Hoover Dam (among others), and inspection hatches in the inner hull would have provided an easy escape. The ship was the subject of one programme in the
BBC documentary series
Seven Wonders of the Industrial World that repeated the tale about two dead bodies in the hull, including a child worker, although stated it as a rumour. An episode of
Haunted History implied that the find of the skeleton was indeed factual. One of the narrators of the segment read an article published from the time when
Great Eastern was being dismantled. The article stated that the workers broke into a compartment in the inner shell on the port side, and did find a skeleton.
[22] Harold Wilkins in his book
Strange Mysteries of Time and Space said, in chapter 9, that no skeleton was found.