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No-one-believed-him-until-the-calls-star_Media · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to tell you a story that at
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Speaker 1: first feels like a sort of typical survival story, but
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Speaker 1: it kind of takes a turn and becomes something else,
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Speaker 1: something spooky. But before we get into that story, if
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Speaker 1: you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered
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Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. In the early morning hours
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Speaker 1: before sunrise on April twelfth, nineteen ninety, a thirty one
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Speaker 1: year old man named Nathan Nesmith pushed down on the
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Speaker 1: gas throat of the fishing boat that he was steering
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Speaker 1: just off the coast of Georgia, and as he did this,
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Speaker 1: he expected the boat to naturally kind of kick into
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Speaker 1: a higher gear and go faster. But as he pushed
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Speaker 1: that throttle down, nothing really happened, and the boat just
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Speaker 1: kind of sputtered along, going about half the speed that
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Speaker 1: he expected it to go. Confused, Nathan stepped away and
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Speaker 1: began making his way out towards the deck where his
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Speaker 1: younger brother, Billy Joe, who was actually the captain of
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Speaker 1: this fishing boat, was out there taking a nap, and
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Speaker 1: Nathan vigered, you know, if there was any issue with
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Speaker 1: the boat, billy Joe was the guy to talk to.
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Speaker 1: He would know how to fix it. Now, for context,
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Speaker 1: the two brothers were on the first day of a
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Speaker 1: seven day fishing trip that actually Nathan was not supposed
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Speaker 1: to be a part of the crew. Was originally going
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Speaker 1: to be billy Joe, the captain and the one who
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Speaker 1: actually rented the boat, along with billy Joe's nephew and
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Speaker 1: also two other commercial fishermen. But at the last second,
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Speaker 1: those two other commercial fishermen had bowed out and Nathan
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Speaker 1: and a friend had volunteered to go to round out
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Speaker 1: the crew. Now, Nathan and billy Joe, they came from
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Speaker 1: a fishing family, but it was really only billy Joe
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Speaker 1: who had pursued the family business. Now, Nathan was perfectly
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Speaker 1: handy out on the water and didn't know how to
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Speaker 1: fish and knew his way around a fishing boat, but
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Speaker 1: compared to Billy Joe, there was a massive gap and experience.
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Speaker 1: Billy Joe was the fisherman and Nathan really was not.
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Speaker 1: But Nathan and billy Joe were very close, and so
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Speaker 1: as soon as Nathan heard billy Joe was in trouble
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Speaker 1: and needed some more fishermen, Nathan didn't hesitate to say
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Speaker 1: he would do it, because really, for their entire lives
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Speaker 1: that was sort of their dynamic. Even though Nathan was
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Speaker 1: the older brother, it was Nathan who looked up to
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Speaker 1: billy Joe and any chance he got he would do
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Speaker 1: anything to help billy Joe, and billy Joe really respected
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Speaker 1: that and loved that about Nathan. But now, as Nathan
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Speaker 1: made his way out to the deck to wake his
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Speaker 1: brother up to tell him on the first day of
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Speaker 1: the trip, you know, right as Nathan's taking the wheel
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Speaker 1: that something's wrong with the boat and I can't fix it.
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Speaker 1: And also, Nathan was enormous, like two hundred and fifty pounds,
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Speaker 1: well over six feet tall. He was huge, this big
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Speaker 1: physical presence, but he really was not mechanically savvy at all.
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Speaker 1: And so again Nathan is sort of feeling like, you know, sorry,
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Speaker 1: and also maybe even second guessing whether or not it
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Speaker 1: was even a good idea for him to have come along.
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Speaker 1: You know, if he can't even fix a minor issue
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Speaker 1: with the throttle or the engine, you know, what's he
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Speaker 1: doing here. But when Nathan woke up his younger brother
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Speaker 1: and explained the issue, Billy Joe was not upset. He
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Speaker 1: was like, okay, we'll go down below and we'll take
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Speaker 1: a look at the engine and make sure everything is okay. However,
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Speaker 1: when they went down and Billy Joe opened up this
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Speaker 1: hatch to look at the engine, smoke immediately came out,
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Speaker 1: and it was very clear to Billy Joe anyways, that
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Speaker 1: this was not like a minor issue. Something seriously was
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Speaker 1: wrong with the engine. This was a big problem. And
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Speaker 1: so Billy Joe began cussing. You know, he's totally frustrated,
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Speaker 1: and he just told Nathan to, you know, go down
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Speaker 1: below and tell the other two to wake up and
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Speaker 1: come help. And so huge Nathan turned around and went
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Speaker 1: down into the bunk room down below, and the second
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Speaker 1: he got down to that level of the fishing boat,
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Speaker 1: he just stopped because there was at least a foot
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Speaker 1: of water in the hallway and in the bunk room
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Speaker 1: when he went inside, and so Nathan screamed at the
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Speaker 1: other two fishermen to get up, and so they got
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Speaker 1: up and they're looking down they're seeing all this water,
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Speaker 1: and so they're starting to panic. And Nathan he goes
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Speaker 1: back upstairs and he yells to Billy Joe, who's dealing
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Speaker 1: with this engine issue, that in addition to that, it
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Speaker 1: appears the boat is also sinking, and so Billy Joe
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Speaker 1: is like, get buckets, go down there and start bailing
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Speaker 1: out the water. I'm gonna call may day. And so
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Speaker 1: Billy Joe runs back up to the steering wheel, he
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Speaker 1: grabs the radio, and Nathan and the others can hear
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Speaker 1: him yelling over and over again, may Day, may Day,
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Speaker 1: may Day. And as that was happening, Nathan and the
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Speaker 1: other two fishermen put on their life vests, grabbed buckets,
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Speaker 1: and went down below to begin manually bailing out the water.
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Speaker 1: But the second they got down there, it was very
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Speaker 1: obvious the water wherever it was leaking into this ship
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Speaker 1: was coming in way faster than they could potentially bail out.
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Speaker 1: But they kept doing it, you know, getting the water
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Speaker 1: out as fast as they could, trying to stay calm.
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Speaker 1: They can hear Billy getting more and more frantic, yelling
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Speaker 1: may Day over and over again. And then all the
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Speaker 1: lights inside of the ship began to flicker, and then
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Speaker 1: they went out and they were cast into total darkness.
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Speaker 1: The engine basically had stopped and it was just silence,
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Speaker 1: just the sound of water rushing into this boat. Also,
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Speaker 1: Billy Joe had stopped yelling may Day because clearly the
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Speaker 1: boat had lost power and the radio didn't work. And unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: before the power cut out, nobody had heard any of
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Speaker 1: Billy Joe's may Day calls, so nobody knew where they were,
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Speaker 1: nobody knew they were sinking, and without power, they had
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Speaker 1: no way to communicate to anybody. They were totally alone.
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Speaker 1: So Nathan, Billy Joe, and the others did the only
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Speaker 1: thing they could do. They went up to the main deck.
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Speaker 1: They grabbed their inflatable life raft. They blew it up,
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Speaker 1: chucked it over the side, They grabbed as many supplies
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Speaker 1: as they could put it in the raft. They all
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Speaker 1: made sure they had all their flotation on, and then
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Speaker 1: they jumped into the life raft, abandoning the sinking fishing boat.
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Speaker 1: Now once all four men were safely inside of this
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Speaker 1: life raft. They were not as panicked as you might
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Speaker 1: think they would be because they had put enough food
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Speaker 1: and water in this raft to last them at least
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Speaker 1: several days. They all again had their life vests on,
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Speaker 1: so proper floatation, and even though nobody responded to those
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Speaker 1: may day calls, it wasn't impossible to think that maybe
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Speaker 1: somebody had heard the mayday calls and they just had
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Speaker 1: not called back. You know, maybe there was a rescue
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Speaker 1: operation coming to their location right now. They didn't know,
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Speaker 1: but it felt plausible that they could be rescued. They
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Speaker 1: would just need to kind of ration out their supplies
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Speaker 1: and stay optimistic. However, their optimism quickly faded when after
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Speaker 1: only being in this life raft for thirty minutes, right
6:26
Speaker 1: as the sun was starting to come up, Nathan began
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Speaker 1: to hear a strange sound, and it was coming from
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Speaker 1: somewhere in the life raft. He couldn't quite place the sound,
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Speaker 1: and so at first he kind of tried to ignore it,
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Speaker 1: but then he noticed the life raft was becoming softer,
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Speaker 1: and then he realized the sound he heard was a
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Speaker 1: small hiss. The raft had a leak, and even though
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Speaker 1: the four men were able to trace the sound of
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Speaker 1: this leak to the actual puncture. They didn't have a
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Speaker 1: patch kit or any meaningful way to patch up this hole,
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Speaker 1: and so all they could do was just put their
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Speaker 1: hands over this leak and do their best to seal it.
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Speaker 1: But it didn't stop the air from coming out. It
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Speaker 1: just delayed it. And so over the next hour again,
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Speaker 1: as the sun is just coming up on the second
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Speaker 1: day of their big fishing trip, the raft finally completely
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Speaker 1: deflated and all four men were suddenly bobbing in the
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Speaker 1: freezing cold ocean, surrounded by the wreckage of their sinking
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Speaker 1: fishing boat. And so eventually the men grabbed the biggest
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Speaker 1: piece of wood from the wreckage that came floating by,
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Speaker 1: and it was buoyant enough that it kind of served
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Speaker 1: as like a makeshift raft, but it wasn't buoyant enough
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Speaker 1: to hold all four of them at once, which meant,
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Speaker 1: you know, they had to take turns resting on this raft,
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Speaker 1: and then they'd have to get back in the ocean
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Speaker 1: and kind of wait their turn again. I mean, totally miserable.
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Speaker 1: And as this was happening, they just stared at the
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Speaker 1: hull of their sinking fishing boat that was still poking
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Speaker 1: up out of the ocean just drift farther and farther
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Speaker 1: away from them because the current was pretty strong. And
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Speaker 1: as they watched their ship just kind of disappear into
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Speaker 1: the distance and they're just kind of drifting out into
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Speaker 1: the middle of the ocean. They were all just stunned
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Speaker 1: into silence. They could not believe how this had happened
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Speaker 1: and so quickly, and also what were they going to do.
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Speaker 1: I mean, they're in the worst possible situation here. It
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Speaker 1: just didn't seem possible that they could actually survive this now.
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Speaker 1: For reference, even though the men had salvaged a lot
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Speaker 1: of their food and water from the sinking life raft
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Speaker 1: and they had their flotation devices on, that didn't protect
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Speaker 1: them from hypothermia. It wouldn't matter if it was super
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Speaker 1: warm outside. What mattered as the ocean was really cold,
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Speaker 1: and because they couldn't stay on that raft, they had
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Speaker 1: to keep cycling through, going back in the ocean over
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Speaker 1: and over again. It was just a matter of time
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Speaker 1: before they would get hypothermia. And sometimes hypothermia can kick
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Speaker 1: in in just a couple of hours. I mean we're
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Speaker 1: not talking days here. This is going to be quick,
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Speaker 1: and all these guys knew that. And so as these
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Speaker 1: men were forced to have these really morbid discussions around
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Speaker 1: who's going to stay in the water and who's going
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Speaker 1: to stay on the raft, Nathan made a drastic decision.
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Speaker 1: Nathan being by far the biggest physically out of the
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Speaker 1: four men, he knew that if he wasn't there right now,
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Speaker 1: the other three could easily fit on their makeshift raft
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Speaker 1: and stay out of the water, delaying hypothermia, thereby increasing
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Speaker 1: the odds that they got rescued. And so Nathan did
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Speaker 1: what he always did, and he turned to his younger brother,
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Speaker 1: who he looked up to so much, who he just
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Speaker 1: wanted to help all the time, and Nathan told him,
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna swim to the wreckage. I'm gonna swim back
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Speaker 1: to the hull of our sinking ship, and I'm gonna
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Speaker 1: fashion my own makeshift raft. That way, you guys can
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Speaker 1: have this one and I'll have my own, and we
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Speaker 1: can all get out of here in one piece. Now,
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Speaker 1: keep in mind, it was fairly obvious that the hull
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Speaker 1: of the sinking ship, which was barely visible near the horizon,
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Speaker 1: was at least three miles away just from their own
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Speaker 1: rough calculations. So this is a monster swim to get
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Speaker 1: to that. And so immediately Billy, Joe and the other
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Speaker 1: three were like, no, that is a suicide mission. You
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Speaker 1: cannot do that. Do not swim to the hull. You're
9:45
Speaker 1: not gonna make it now. Just to give some additional
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Speaker 1: context here, if you're not familiar with just how challenging
9:51
Speaker 1: swimming in the open ocean is, I'm gonna give you
9:53
Speaker 1: my limited experience. So when I was in the military,
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Speaker 1: we had to do one five and a half mile
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Speaker 1: open ocean swim, and then also we did a whole
10:00
Speaker 1: bunch of two mile ocean swims. And even though we
10:03
Speaker 1: were allowed to use amazing wetsuits and fins, we had
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Speaker 1: a swim partner with us. We had the land nearby
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Speaker 1: to use as a reference to make sure we're going
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Speaker 1: the right direction. If we had food, we had water,
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Speaker 1: we were in great shape. Even with all of that.
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Speaker 1: Open ocean swims are miserable. You get all the salt
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Speaker 1: in your mouth and your nose, you start cramping and chafing.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it takes hours and hours and hours to
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Speaker 1: swim some of these distances, and you're constantly fighting against
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Speaker 1: the waves. I mean, it is an absolute chore swimming
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Speaker 1: in the open ocean again, even with all the right
10:33
Speaker 1: stuff in place. And you got to remember, Nathan is
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Speaker 1: this big guy. You know, he's got this big, bulky
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Speaker 1: life fest on that's going to make it hard to swim.
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Speaker 1: He doesn't have fins, he doesn't have a wet suit,
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Speaker 1: and he's got no landmarks around him, you know, to
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Speaker 1: make sure he's going in a straight line. Typically when
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Speaker 1: you're swimming in the ocean, you're constantly looking at the
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Speaker 1: land or some other landmark to make sure you're going
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Speaker 1: in the right direction. He wouldn't have had that. And
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Speaker 1: also it's this unknown distance he's covering, and there could
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Speaker 1: be predators in the water. I mean, there's so many
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Speaker 1: beare here that basically there was like a zero percent
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Speaker 1: chance this swim would be successful. But Nathan totally understood
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Speaker 1: what he was really doing here. He didn't really know
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Speaker 1: if he was actually gonna make it to that boat. Frankly,
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Speaker 1: that was not really the point. What he was really
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Speaker 1: doing was choosing to sacrifice himself to potentially save his
11:19
Speaker 1: brother and the other two. And so even though they
11:21
Speaker 1: were telling him, do not go, do not swim in
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Speaker 1: that direction, You're not gonna make it. Nathan just turned
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Speaker 1: to his brother Billy Joe and said, I love you,
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Speaker 1: and then he turned and began swimming, and by some miracle,
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Speaker 1: eleven hours later, right as the sun was setting, Nathan
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Speaker 1: was still alive and still swimming, and he did reach
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Speaker 1: the sinking boat that still had its hull poking out
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Speaker 1: of the water. Now, when Nathan got to the sinking ship,
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Speaker 1: he was almost dead from dehydration from hypothermia. I mean,
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Speaker 1: he's miserable, but he's made it to his destination, completely
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Speaker 1: against all odds. And he climbed up onto this hull
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Speaker 1: and he found a spot on the hull of the
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Speaker 1: ship that supported his weight, and he managed to tie
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Speaker 1: himself using some rope or maybe his life fast to
12:01
Speaker 1: the hall so he was anchored in place. And then
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Speaker 1: he didn't get to sleep because the whole time he's thinking,
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Speaker 1: you know, this thing could sink under the water at
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Speaker 1: any point, and it will drag me with it because
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Speaker 1: I'm tied to it, or he could just drift off
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Speaker 1: of it if his rigging kind of came undone, if
12:13
Speaker 1: he was asleep. And so all night beyond exhausted, he's
12:17
Speaker 1: just holding onto this hall, you know, not really sure
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Speaker 1: what's gonna happen, but here he is just waiting it out.
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Speaker 1: And then finally, when the sun came up that next morning,
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Speaker 1: as Nathan looked around him, he's in the middle of
12:28
Speaker 1: the ocean, he sees in the direction he had come from,
12:32
Speaker 1: this pillar of smoke coming up over the horizon. And
12:35
Speaker 1: so Nathan, you know, he rubbed his eyes. He can't
12:37
Speaker 1: believe it. He's thinking, there's no way there's already a
12:39
Speaker 1: ship out here. You know, we're in the middle of nowhere.
12:42
Speaker 1: But sure enough, slowly, but surely, this massive freighter ship
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Speaker 1: came into view that was very far away. You know,
12:48
Speaker 1: it's not near Nathan, but he can see it clear
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Speaker 1: as day. And where this ship was basically circling was
12:54
Speaker 1: roughly where he believed his brother and the other two
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Speaker 1: fishermen were still floating. And so he's thinking, oh, my goodness,
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Speaker 1: the the freighter is going to save them, and then
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Speaker 1: it's going to come save me. And so Nathan just
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Speaker 1: clung onto the hall and watched as this freighter made
13:07
Speaker 1: these big, slow loops right around that same area, and
13:10
Speaker 1: then the freighter came to a full stop and it
13:12
Speaker 1: appeared to lower something down into the water. It seemed
13:16
Speaker 1: very much like a full blown rescue operation. And then
13:18
Speaker 1: about three hours after he first spoted this freighter, the
13:22
Speaker 1: freighter began to move again, and this time directly towards Nathan.
13:26
Speaker 1: Nathan was so relieved he could practically cry, but instead
13:29
Speaker 1: what he did is he thought, they're going to be
13:30
Speaker 1: here in a minute. I'm finally just going to close
13:33
Speaker 1: my eyes and go to sleep, and so he put
13:34
Speaker 1: his head down on the hall, looked one more time
13:37
Speaker 1: at the freighter, and then closed his eyes. Now Nathan
13:40
Speaker 1: would be rescued, but it would not be by that
13:42
Speaker 1: huge freighter ship. Nathan eventually had opened his eyes after
13:45
Speaker 1: closing them for a second, and he saw this freighter
13:48
Speaker 1: that had been coming straight for him at some point
13:50
Speaker 1: had kind of deviated and gone in the wrong direction
13:53
Speaker 1: and then vanished over the horizon, never to be seen again.
13:55
Speaker 1: And it would take three more days before a separate
13:58
Speaker 1: ship happened to find Nathan. They scooped him up, and
14:01
Speaker 1: they rescued him. But even though Nathan had been really
14:04
Speaker 1: crushed when that freighter had gone the wrong way, he
14:07
Speaker 1: held on to this idea that you know, that freighter
14:09
Speaker 1: had clearly rescued his brother and the other two fishermen,
14:12
Speaker 1: and certainly, even if they couldn't find him, they would
14:15
Speaker 1: go back and they would tell the authorities that Nathan
14:17
Speaker 1: is out there. You know, he swam back to the
14:19
Speaker 1: hull of the ship. We got to go find him,
14:21
Speaker 1: and so certainly a rescue effort would be on the way.
14:24
Speaker 1: And it was true a rescue boat had come out
14:26
Speaker 1: and found Nathan. So everything seemed to be tracking. And
14:29
Speaker 1: when Nathan woke up inside of his hospital room back
14:31
Speaker 1: on land, his friends and family were all by his bedside,
14:35
Speaker 1: and he's looking around. He can't believe he survived. And
14:38
Speaker 1: the first thing he asks is how's my brother? How
14:40
Speaker 1: are the other two fishermen? And why didn't that freighter
14:43
Speaker 1: pick me up too? And at this all the people
14:46
Speaker 1: in the room just kind of looked at Nathan with
14:47
Speaker 1: a very confused look on their face, and eventually they
14:50
Speaker 1: asked him a question that made Nathan burst out in tears.
14:53
Speaker 1: They said, what freder It would turn out Billy Joe
14:56
Speaker 1: and the other two fishermen were still missing at this point,
14:59
Speaker 1: and no nobody had heard a thing about some big
15:01
Speaker 1: freighter in the area. As far as anybody knew, at
15:04
Speaker 1: least in Nathan's family, that freighter ship did not exist.
15:08
Speaker 1: The search for Billy Joe and the remaining two crew
15:10
Speaker 1: members went on for weeks and weeks, and while the
15:13
Speaker 1: active search out in the ocean was going on, the
15:16
Speaker 1: Coastguard and police were searching through every record they could
15:19
Speaker 1: possibly find of basically any ship that was even roughly
15:23
Speaker 1: in the area where Nathan and the others had been.
15:25
Speaker 1: But despite looking everywhere, there was basically no sign that
15:29
Speaker 1: any ship of any kind had been there beyond the
15:32
Speaker 1: rescue operation that eventually scooped up Nathan, and so again
15:35
Speaker 1: it seemed very likely that that freightership didn't exist, and
15:39
Speaker 1: you know, it was possible that Nathan, in his very
15:41
Speaker 1: deteriorated state, had maybe hallucinated it. Although Nathan was adamant
15:46
Speaker 1: he definitely saw that ship, it did not feel like,
15:49
Speaker 1: you know, a multi hour long hallucination. It felt like
15:52
Speaker 1: he was watching a ship. He was sure of it,
15:54
Speaker 1: but again there was just no proof, and so nobody
15:56
Speaker 1: knew what to think of that. And then eventually, even
15:58
Speaker 1: though there was this huge search going on, there was
16:01
Speaker 1: just no sign of Billy Joe or the others, and
16:04
Speaker 1: so eventually the search was called off, and unfortunately the
16:07
Speaker 1: presumption was Billy Joe and the other two were now dead.
16:11
Speaker 1: Five months later, on the afternoon of October fifth, nineteen
16:14
Speaker 1: ninety the phone rang inside of Nathan's sister's home. Now
16:17
Speaker 1: by this point, the victims' families had all tried to
16:20
Speaker 1: sort of restart their lives following this tragedy, but deep down,
16:25
Speaker 1: none of them could truly accept that Billy Joe and
16:27
Speaker 1: the other two fishermen were just gone. They just couldn't
16:30
Speaker 1: do it. It was too soon. It felt like, you know,
16:32
Speaker 1: any moment they were going to get news that, you know,
16:34
Speaker 1: they had been rescued by some freightership or something. And
16:37
Speaker 1: so anytime a phone rang in any of these families' homes,
16:40
Speaker 1: it's like they would rush to the phone with a
16:42
Speaker 1: sense of hope that this time it's going to be different,
16:44
Speaker 1: their loved ones are going to be okay, only to
16:47
Speaker 1: obviously be crushed when that was not the case. But
16:49
Speaker 1: on this day, on October fifth, that phone call that
16:53
Speaker 1: came through in Nathan's sister's home, that one was different.
16:56
Speaker 1: When Nathan's mother picked up this phone call in Nathan's
16:59
Speaker 1: sisters home. She answered it and said hello, and right
17:02
Speaker 1: away she thought, oh, this has to be a wrong number,
17:04
Speaker 1: because the person who was calling was speaking in rapid
17:06
Speaker 1: Spanish and she didn't understand what they were saying. But
17:09
Speaker 1: as she was about to hang up, the caller, intermittently
17:13
Speaker 1: throughout their rapid Spanish, began saying something in English that
17:17
Speaker 1: Nathan's mother could understand, and it totally shocked her. The
17:21
Speaker 1: caller kept saying Nathan's sister's name over and over again,
17:25
Speaker 1: followed by Nathan's sister's phone number, like on repeat, the
17:29
Speaker 1: name the phone number in English, over and over and
17:31
Speaker 1: over again, and Nathan's mom is so caught off guard
17:34
Speaker 1: by this that she just listened, not even sure what
17:37
Speaker 1: to do. And then before she could ask any follow
17:39
Speaker 1: up questions, the caller cut the line and the phone
17:41
Speaker 1: call was over. And then a few minutes later, another
17:44
Speaker 1: phone rang in a home that was not far away
17:46
Speaker 1: from Nathan's sisters home, and this other home belonged to
17:49
Speaker 1: the boat owner who Billy Joe had rented the fishing
17:52
Speaker 1: boat from that unfortunately sank and caused this whole tragedy.
17:55
Speaker 1: And so this boat owner he picks up the phone
17:57
Speaker 1: he answers it, and just like the call that had
17:59
Speaker 1: come through in Nathan's sister's house, this call was the same.
18:02
Speaker 1: It was somebody calling speaking rapid Spanish, and the boat
18:05
Speaker 1: owner was about to hang up when he heard something
18:08
Speaker 1: that he understood because it was in English, and what
18:10
Speaker 1: he heard was his own name followed by his phone number,
18:14
Speaker 1: over and over and over again, basically the same type
18:17
Speaker 1: of call that Nathan's mom had just heard. And then
18:19
Speaker 1: before the boat owner could ask any questions, the line
18:22
Speaker 1: went dead. Now, one phone call like this you could
18:25
Speaker 1: chalk up to maybe a prank or a wrong number,
18:27
Speaker 1: or just a really weird coincidence. But to have those
18:30
Speaker 1: two calls happen within minutes of each other and basically
18:32
Speaker 1: take on the exact same form but different names in
18:35
Speaker 1: different phone numbers, it just seemed way too coincidental to
18:39
Speaker 1: not be somehow connected to the missing fishermen. Because the
18:42
Speaker 1: link between these two households where these calls came in
18:46
Speaker 1: was the doomed fishing trip, and these calls did not stop.
18:50
Speaker 1: Every few weeks after this first time these calls came
18:52
Speaker 1: through the phone would bring in Nathan's sister's house or
18:55
Speaker 1: in the boat owner's house, and it would be the
18:57
Speaker 1: same thing all over again, rapid Spanish, followed by either
19:00
Speaker 1: Nathan's sister's name and then her phone number, or the
19:03
Speaker 1: boat owner's name and his phone number, just like that
19:05
Speaker 1: for weeks and weeks and weeks. And so as soon
19:07
Speaker 1: as this started happening, Nathan's family and the boat owner
19:10
Speaker 1: they figured out they were both getting these weird calls,
19:13
Speaker 1: and they contacted authorities, which kind of restarted the search
19:16
Speaker 1: for Billy Joe and the missing fishermen, because now it
19:19
Speaker 1: seemed very plausible that maybe Nathan really had seen a
19:22
Speaker 1: freighter and that frader really had picked up Billy Joe
19:25
Speaker 1: and the others, and you know, maybe they had been
19:27
Speaker 1: taken to another country, a Spanish speaking country, and maybe
19:30
Speaker 1: people were trying to get in touch with the families
19:32
Speaker 1: now to get them back home. Or of course, there
19:35
Speaker 1: could be a negative side to this, that maybe they
19:37
Speaker 1: were captured by some rogue vessel and were being held
19:40
Speaker 1: by these people who were calling. I mean, there's any
19:42
Speaker 1: number of theories, but it made authorities wonder, you know, hey,
19:45
Speaker 1: what's going on here, And so authorities got in touch
19:48
Speaker 1: with Mexican authorities and other Spanish speaking country authorities and
19:51
Speaker 1: tried to figure out if there was any chance that
19:54
Speaker 1: there was, you know, a vessel out there around the
19:56
Speaker 1: time that Billy Joe and the others were missing that
19:58
Speaker 1: in theory could have made illegally been in that area
20:01
Speaker 1: or something. But despite this kind of exhaustive effort to
20:04
Speaker 1: kind of look again to see if maybe there was
20:06
Speaker 1: a freighter in that area, there was just no evidence
20:10
Speaker 1: that there was. It made no sense. But the authority said, look,
20:12
Speaker 1: we have no idea what these calls are about. We
20:15
Speaker 1: still do not think that Freder or any ship that
20:17
Speaker 1: even resembled a frader was out there. We still believed
20:20
Speaker 1: that Billy Joe and the others are dead. But as
20:23
Speaker 1: for the victims' families, they just didn't buy that. They
20:25
Speaker 1: really believed that these strange phone calls were somehow connected
20:30
Speaker 1: to Billy Joe and the missing fishermen. Specifically, these calls
20:33
Speaker 1: must signal that Billy Joe and the others were still alive.
20:37
Speaker 1: They just had no evidence to support that. That is
20:39
Speaker 1: until March sixth, nineteen ninety one, so almost a year
20:43
Speaker 1: after the doomed fishing vessel sank and Billy Joe and
20:46
Speaker 1: the others went missing. On that day, the phone rang
20:49
Speaker 1: inside of Nathan's sisters home and she answered it, and
20:51
Speaker 1: it was the voice who spoke in rapid Spanish, but
20:54
Speaker 1: this time they spoke in perfect English and all they
20:57
Speaker 1: said was I'm bringing him home. The line went dead
21:01
Speaker 1: and Nathan's sister screamed and she yelled for her husband
21:03
Speaker 1: to call police. They contacted the authorities, and again it
21:07
Speaker 1: kind of brought back to life the search for Billy
21:09
Speaker 1: Joe and the missing fishermen. And then after this call,
21:12
Speaker 1: there was a near constant presence of authorities on the
21:14
Speaker 1: Georgia coast line, basically looking out to the water, waiting,
21:18
Speaker 1: hoping for Billy Joe and the others to return, but
21:21
Speaker 1: unfortunately they never did. And following that last phone call
21:25
Speaker 1: where the caller spoke in perfect English and said I'm
21:27
Speaker 1: bringing him home, after that the call stopped. And so
21:30
Speaker 1: to this day, no one has ever been able to
21:33
Speaker 1: actually figure out what happened to Billy Joe and the
21:35
Speaker 1: other two fishermen. They are presumed dead at this point.
21:38
Speaker 1: But there's this one nagging question that surrounds the whole story,
21:42
Speaker 1: and that is what did Nathan see? Was that actually
21:45
Speaker 1: a freighter picking up Billy, Joe and the others, and
21:48
Speaker 1: if so, what did they do with them or was
21:50
Speaker 1: Nathan just hallucinating. It's entirely possible, but Nathan has always
21:54
Speaker 1: said he knows what he saw and that was not
21:56
Speaker 1: a hallucination. As for the families of the victims, they
22:00
Speaker 1: still firmly believe that their loved ones are still out
22:03
Speaker 1: there and someday they will come back home, and the
22:05
Speaker 1: families just hope they're alive long enough to be there
22:08
Speaker 1: for the reunion. So that's going to do it. If
22:14
Speaker 1: you enjoyed today's story and you want more strange, dark
22:17
Speaker 1: and mysterious content, keep in mind we have a whole
22:20
Speaker 1: slew of podcasts under the Balin Studios umbrella. All you
22:23
Speaker 1: have to do is go to any podcast platform that
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Speaker 1: you like, search for Ballin Studios and you can find
22:28
Speaker 1: mister Ballin podcast. You can find mister Balin's Medical Mysteries,
22:32
Speaker 1: run Full Bedtime Stories. All of these are available right now.
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Speaker 1: I mean, you've got hundreds of hours of strange, dark
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Speaker 1: and mysterious content to go bitch, So again, look up
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Speaker 1: Ballin Studios on any podcast platform and boom you're in.
22:44
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