The Barisal Guns: The Phantom Cannon of the Bengal Delta

The Kirtonkhola River at Barisal, Bangladesh, in the Ganges delta

About 7 min readFor more than a century, people across the Bengal delta heard what sounded like distant cannon fire rolling in from the sea — in threes, in fair weather, with no fleet, no fort and no battle anywhere. The British called them the Barisal guns, and they never found the guns.