The Foghorn of Gannet Point

What it looks like, and what it does

A white concrete foghorn station, its trumpets turned to the sea, fog rolling in. A lamp lit in a keeper's window long since empty. Footprints in wet grass approaching the door.

Silent in clear air. In fog, sounds when it is needed and for as long as it is needed.

What is known

The foghorn at Gannet Point was automated in 1971 and has not been serviced since 1994. It sounds in fog, but not on a timer. Search volunteers learned that it sounds when someone is out on the headland who should not be.

The note changes: lower when the lost person is inland, higher when they are near the cliffs, long and steady when they are on the path. Searchers follow the long note.

What it can do

• Sounds when someone in its fog is lost
• Changes its note to point the way

Where it stops

• Works only in fog
• Cannot help anyone who is deliberately hiding

An encounter

Eriksen's team found a hiker by following the horn for ninety minutes in whiteout. The hiker said that all he had heard was a gull. Eriksen asked where he had been heading. “Toward the sound,” the man said. “It seemed like the only thing that wanted me home.”

Bjorn Eriksen, search volunteer, Gannet Point, A foggy evening, April

What is established, and what is only said

• established: Rescue logs record twenty-six finds assisted by the horn, none of them on a night it was scheduled to sound.
• incomplete: The mechanism is a pneumatic unit with no timer. No power supply to it has been traced.
• rumor: That the 1983 prints are still there under the moss.

Still unresolved

On the foggiest night in 1983 it sounded for a full hour and no one was found. In the morning a set of footprints led to the horn from the sea.

Where it has been recorded

• Gannet Point (confirmed) — Recorded by Bjorn Eriksen, search volunteer.

Connected entities

• The Anchorite — Both guide the lost by sound from a fixed place. Both are cared for by the people who have been found.