Ordered on 20 May 1916, the U-boat was built at the Vulkan Werke shipyard in Hamburg, launched on 26 June 1917, and commissioned on 18 August 1917, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Martin Schelle.

A survey of the wreck showed no obvious indication of weapon attack being the cause of loss (although this could not be ruled out; damage assessment expert David Manley determined that shock damage from a depth charge attack could have caused loss through failure of internal seawater systems and hull penetrations that would not be obvious from an external examination).

According to official German Naval records the boat was presumed lost following a premature explosion of one of her own torpedoes on 10 July 1918, south of the Irish coast.

[2] According to United States Navy records it was reported that, whilst returning from patrol and near Fastnet Rock, the U.S. submarine L-2 observed what the captain Paul F. Foster first took to be a buoy on the horizon.

Indeed, the building of the ship was plagued by disaster, including asphyxiation of three crew members by diesel fumes in the engine room and the crushing of two more by a falling girder.

During the first test dive of UB-65, a fracture occurred in a ballast tank, causing the submarine to sink to the bottom of the sea.

[7][8][9] In his book "Tales of Real Haunting", Tony Allan quotes "According to one source, the American officer thought he saw someone on deck just before UB-65 went down.

According to researchers George Behe and Michael Goss, the stories about hauntings from UB-65 were invented by the journalist Hector Charles Bywater, who wrote about the subject.

They speculated that Bywater was a good story teller who had invented some of his references, such as a post-war pamphlet written by a "Dr. Hecht".