Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast will feature two horrifying stories that both take place out on the open sea.
The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.
The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.
The first story you'll hear is called The Perfect Bait, and it's about a fishing trip that turns into a tragedy.
And the second and final story you'll hear is called The Gray Blanket, and it's about Japanese fishermen who endure a two-week-long nightmare that would mark the first time in history humans experienced a particularly terrifying phenomenon.
But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
So if that's of interest to you, the next time the follow button is fast asleep, secretly take their phone and change their language setting to Chalkatongo Mixtec.
Okay, let's get into our first story called The Perfect Bait.
Let's be honest, we all want a better understanding of our physical health, but we might not know what's truly going on in our own body.
We need to be well-prepared with data to see trends and make informed decisions about our wellness and future.
This is not science fiction. This is function health.
Function Health is your pivot to proactive care.
Function Health can assess your body's data all in one place, from 160 biomarkers, heart health, hormones to toxins, and so much more.
Imagine combining your own personal health data with multi-region MRI and CT scans, giving you a full 360-degree view of what's happening inside of your body.
That's why people are choosing Function Health as the game-changer in preventative healthcare.
With Function, you can get cutting-edge insights that are unique to your own health for just $499 a year, just $1.37 per day.
For reference, this could cost over $10,000 if you did them on your own.
And the best part? There aren't any unnecessary incentives.
Function feels like empowerment, designed to help you own your own health with unbiased healthcare data.
Learn more and join using our link. Visit functionhealth.com slash mrballin.
When life is passing by, payday shouldn't stop you from enjoying it.
The money you're earning could be in your hands today with Earnin.
Earnin is the app that gives you access to your pay as you work, up to $150 daily with a max of $750 per pay period.
Just download the Earnin app and verify your paycheck.
Any money you access is automatically repaid from your next paycheck.
Earnin is the app that's empowering millions of Americans to live life to the fullest and to be self-sufficient.
Download Earnin today, spelled E-A-R-N-I-N, in the Google Play or Apple App Store.
When you download the Earnin app, type in Mr. Ballin Podcast under Podcast when you sign up because it'll really help the show.
Mr. Ballin Podcast under Podcast. Earnin is a financial technology company, not a bank.
Cashouts are based on your available earnings.
Standard cashouts take one to two business days with no mandatory fees.
Option to expedite your transfer for a fee.
Tips are voluntary and don't affect the service.
See the cashout user agreement for details.
Service is not available in all states. At around 1 a.m. on August 27th, 2000, a fisherman named Sam Watts did his best to keep his balance on the wet deck of the huge commercial fishing boat that he was working on.
And as he tried to do that, he looked over at his crewmate, Michael Edwards, another fisherman, who was grabbing onto the mast as the ship rocked underneath their feet.
Sam and Michael and the four other crew members onboard this boat had just dropped their anchor 56 miles off the northeast coast of Queensland, Australia.
And up until about an hour earlier, the sea had been very calm.
But now, you know, this huge storm had rolled in, the wind had picked up, the waves were huge.
And while the four other crew members had already gone below to try to catch some sleep, Sam and Michael were now on the deck doing their best to try to secure everything before they went down below.
And so as the wind is whipping and the waves are smashing against the side of this boat, Sam and Michael decide they should split up to work more efficiently, where Sam will go to the front of the boat, then Michael will go to the back of the boat, and they would each kind of work towards the middle of the boat, checking all the fastenings and the knots to make sure everything was good.
And then when they reached the center, they would be good and they could go down below.
And so they did that. Sam went to the front, Michael to the back.
And as they began to work, they kept constant eye contact with each other because this was obviously a very dangerous thing they were doing.
But at some point, as Sam was making his way, he had to duck down to check a particular fastening And so when he ducked down, he lost sight of Michael just for a second.
But in that split second, this huge rogue wave smashed the side of the boat, practically capsizing it, sending Sam flying towards the railing.
But Sam luckily grabbed onto the railing before being thrown into the water.
And then as the boat kind of began to rock back to level, Sam instinctively looked back down the ship to look for Michael.
And he watched through the darkness and the rain as Michael went careening off the side into the ocean.
He hadn't been able to grab onto anything.
And so the instant the boat kind of leveled out again, Sam screamed for Michael, but he couldn't see him.
And so he ran down below, woke up the whole crew.
And so moments later, the crew was on the deck.
They had their big spotlights out, scanning the water, you know, through this big storm, looking for signs of Michael.
And at the same time, the captain had come up and he was on the radio talking to police.
And so several minutes later, a police boat managed to come out to the fishing boat.
And at the same time, you know, the crew is still desperately looking for Michael.
They haven't found him yet. And now the police began circling around the whole area, calling out for Michael, throwing out buoys into the water in hopes of, you know, maybe Michael sees one and grabs hold.
But nobody could find Michael. He was just gone.
And so all that morning into the early afternoon, the police continued to look in the area for Michael.
You know, the crew on board the fishing boat did the same thing, but still nobody could find a trace of Michael.
And so around noon that day, the search was called off and the police told Sam and the rest of the crew of this fishing boat that unfortunately, you know, at this point, it seemed very likely that Michael had drowned.
And so, of course, Sam and the rest of the crew were basically in shock.
I mean, this happened so quickly. How could it be that, you know, Michael just a few hours ago was joking around with them, part of the crew, and now he's dead?
I mean, it was just unbelievable. But now, unfortunately, Sam and the rest of the crew had to basically put their grief aside and make a very practical, albeit very cold, decision, which was, you know, even though Michael's dead, do we stay out here and continue fishing?
Or because of his death, do we just go back home?
And you might think that decision was actually super easy to make, that of course, you know, they would pack it in and go back home.
How could you possibly stay out here and go fishing considering what had happened?
But you need to understand it cost a lot of money to go out on these fishing excursions and they had just left and so they had not caught anything.
They had spent all this money and they had no return from it.
And these fishermen were not wealthy. In fact, honestly, they needed the money from this trip just to provide for their families.
And so if they did turn around right now, I mean, it would really hurt all of them.
And it would also make it really hard to get the funding again to go out later.
And so after some pretty awkward deliberation, the crew decided that, you know what, we've got to stay out here and fish.
But the silver lining was, hey, you know, if we stay out here for another day or so, you know, maybe Michael's body will float to the surface and we can at least recover him and bring him back home to his family.
And so all day that day, the fishermen stayed out and fished, and they were very successful.
I mean, one after another, they were catching these cod that were six feet long and nearly 100 pounds.
They're called flowery cods. But despite how incredible this was for their business, you know, this was not a cause for celebration because they had just lost their friend the day before.
And so it was a very somber day. And all day, you know, all the fishermen really are looking out at the water, hoping to see Michael's body.
But by the end of that 24 hours of fishing, they didn't see any sign of Michael.
And so they packed everything in and they headed back to port.
They sold off all of their cod that they had bought.
And then each of the fishermen went back to their families and grieved the loss of their friend.
A few days later, a factory worker was standing in front of a fish processing line with this huge 97 pound cod right in front of them.
This is one of the flowery cods that Sam and the other fishermen had caught 24 hours after their friend had gone overboard.
And so this worker took their knife and like they did every day all day long, began opening up this fish.
And at some point after cutting it open and looking inside of this enormous cod, the worker just stopped and couldn't believe what they were seeing and then they began to scream.
It would turn out a few days earlier, after Michael had been thrown overboard during that storm, he very likely had been alive when he hit the water.
But the area where they were fishing off the coast of Queensland, Australia, was known for having lots of sharks and saltwater crocodiles in the area.
And so pretty much immediately, Michael was attacked by either a shark or a crocodile or maybe both.
And during this feeding frenzy, as Michael's getting ripped to pieces, his head got ripped off and began to float away.
And at some point, one of those huge flowery cods saw the head and ate it whole.
And then later that day, Michael's colleagues caught the cod who caught Michael's head.
And so that factory worker who opened up that particular cod saw Michael's undigested head looking up at her, and apparently his face was fixed in terror with his eyes wide and his mouth open as if his final moment had been him screaming.
Babbel Language Learning App helps crack the case of confusing foreign conversations.
Every unsolved mystery starts with a miscommunication.
But with Babbel's expert-designed 10-minute lessons, you'll be fluent in the facts faster than you can say person of interest.
Over 200 language experts have crafted these lessons using real-world conversations. making sure you're ready to communicate anywhere your investigation takes you.
And this isn't just hearsay. Studies from Yale and Michigan State University prove that 15 hours with Babbel equals an entire college semester of language learning.
Right now, decode a new language for 60% off when you visit babbel.com slash truecrime.
That's B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash truecrime.
Rules and restrictions apply. Hey, it's Mr. Ballin.
I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, my show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now.
Or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus.
The next and final story of today's episode is called The Gray Blanket.
At around 1 a.m. on March 1, 1954, a 20-year-old fisherman named Oishi Matashishi finally headed down to his bed on the lower deck of the fishing boat that he worked on, which was called the Lucky Dragon No.
5. Oishi was totally exhausted. He and the other 22 crew members had been working practically around the clock, 18-hour days for the last six weeks, trying to catch tuna, but so far, this trip had really been a disaster.
They had gotten stranded on sandbars, there had been these terrible storms that had nearly capsized the boat, and then also they had lost a lot of their fishing lines when they got snagged on coral reefs.
And so, as a result, their tuna hauls so far had been devastatingly low.
And Oishi and the rest of the crew were very aware of this.
In fact, Oishi was very worried that he would not bring home enough money to support his family.
Back when Oishi was 14 years old, his father, who had been the breadwinner for their family, had been crushed to death when he was repairing a ship.
And so now Oishi had stepped into that patriarch role, taking care of his mother and his five other siblings.
And so Oishi really needed a solid paycheck from this trip, and it wasn't looking like that was going to happen.
And so Oishi staggered his way into his small room and he collapsed onto his bed.
And as he lay there trying to sleep, he felt the ship gently rocking side to side.
The ship, the Lucky Dragon No. 5, was anchored relatively close to the Marshall Islands, which is a strip of islands right about halfway between Hawaii and Australia.
But what's unique about the Marshall Islands is they sit over these huge ancient underwater volcanoes.
Now, these volcanoes are dormant, but the captain of the Lucky Dragon No.
5 was weary enough about getting too close to these dormant volcanoes in fear they might erupt that he intentionally kept them about 80 miles or so away from the Marshall Islands.
And so eventually, Oishi did drift off to sleep in his bunk.
But five hours later, Oishi suddenly sat up wide awake because the little room he was in was now completely flooded with this very bright yellowy light.
And so Oishi, you know, he's kind of confused.
He felt like it was too early for sunrise.
And he checked his watch and he saw it was only 6.45 a.m.
And so, yes, it was too early for sunrise.
So whatever this was, it was not the sun.
And then when he went to the little porthole window where all this light was coming in, you know, he had to squint his eyes, but he looked outside and he couldn't tell where this light was really coming from or what it was.
But he could clearly see it was coming from the west and the sun rises in the east.
So really, whatever this light was, it was not the sun.
At the same time, the rest of Oishi's crewmates who were in this room with him, they were also starting to wake up and kind of looking around like, what's going on here?
And then without even saying anything, all of them just rushed out of the room and ran upstairs to the top deck to look around and see what was going on.
And when they got up there, Oishi looked out towards the west where these lights were up in the sky, and he couldn't really see a clear point of origin.
It wasn't like there was an obvious thing creating these lights.
It was more like the western sky was just unbelievably bright and yellow and orange, and it seemed like the light was kind of hovering over where the Marshall Islands would be.
And so everyone's thinking, you know, is it possible this is a volcano eruption?
You know, is there something else going on here?
And then as the crew is just watching in stunned silence at all these crazy lights in the sky, the lights kind of began to fade, and they turned blue and purple, and then they just went away, and the entire crew was pitched back into darkness.
And as everyone's just standing around having no idea what to make of these lights, the oldest crew member on board, who was 40 years old, he said the one thing that everybody kind of in the back of their mind was thinking about but didn't want to say.
The oldest crew member just said, atomic bomb.
Just nine years earlier, the United States had dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II.
Now, Oishi, who was Japanese, he was 11 years old at the time this happened, and it had a profound impact on his life and his family's lives, his friends.
I mean, anybody who was alive when this happened, it changed everything.
But as Oishi and the rest of his crew are kind of staring out to the west, which was all dark at this point, Oishi thought, you know, there's no way this could have been an atomic bomb.
Number one, World War II is over, so there's no reason a bomb would get dropped again.
And two, when those atomic bombs were dropped on Japan nine years earlier, it vaporized basically everything and everyone in its path.
And so for them to be this close to these huge lights, you know, if that were an atomic bomb, wouldn't they too be vaporized?
Like they would not be able to see that and live.
And so Oishi began to tell himself, you know, okay, it probably was not a volcano eruption.
It probably was not an atomic bomb. I don't know what it was, but we're okay.
And while many of the other people onboard the ship felt the same way Oishi did, very quickly the call came out amongst the crew to just go ahead and bring in the lines right now.
We don't know what these lights were, but we need to head back to port back in Yaezu, Japan.
And so quickly, Oishi and the rest of the crew got to work pulling these lines in and prepping the boat to head back to port.
And then at some point after Oishi had done what he was supposed to do, he began walking his way down below to the galley to get some food.
But when Oishi was about halfway, he suddenly heard this deafening explosion outside coming from the west where these lights had been.
And immediately, Oishi just jumped onto the ground, covering his head, thinking that was gonna protect him.
And as he's laying there listening to this unbelievable exploding sound, he's thinking, oh my gosh, one of those volcanoes under the Marshall Islands has indeed erupted.
That's what's happening. And any minute now, a giant tsunami wave from this eruption is gonna flip us over.
We're gonna get killed here. And so Awishi, as this massive exploding sound is going on, he jumps to his feet and he runs upstairs and he finds the majority of the crew that was still up there had jumped to the ground and they were just kind of protecting themselves.
A couple braver crew members had stood up and were kind of looking out towards the west to see if they could see what was going on, but there were no lights now.
It was just these crazy loud exploding sounds coming from the west.
And then suddenly all the sound stopped and Oishi and the crew at that point braced for what they believed was this inevitable tsunami wave that was going to hit them.
But the weird thing was, is after the exploding sound stopped, everything was totally calm.
In fact, Oishi glanced over the edge of the boat and he saw the water was totally placid, more calm than normal.
And after a few more minutes went by and no massive tsunami wiped them all out, the crew was like, what's going on here?
And so as Oishi and the rest of the terrified crew on deck began exchanging wild theories about what these lights and these sounds could have been, ranging from, again, the volcano or maybe an atomic bomb, or some said maybe an asteroid hit the Earth.
And as they're doing that, the ship captain called out again, hey, finish pulling in the lines.
We need to get out of here right now. We don't know what that was.
We don't know what's coming next. We got to go.
Now, for reference, pulling in these lines was not as simple as it sounded.
It was kind of a long and complicated process.
And so Oishi and the rest of the crew, they began doing their best to pull these lines in as quickly as they could.
But when the sun finally rose in the east, the crew on board the Lucky Dragon number five, as they looked out towards the west, towards the Marshall Islands, they began to notice these weird gray clouds forming over these islands.
And as the crew began to talk about these strange looking clouds, they noticed that despite the wind blowing from east to west, these clouds, these weird clouds over the islands, were actually making their way towards them.
Basically, they were moving against the wind, which made no sense.
And so as these clouds got closer and closer, the ship captain was screaming at Oishi and the others to hurry up, get these lines in, we gotta go, we don't wanna wait for this cloud.
But it just was taking so long to pull in these lines.
And before long, these weird gray clouds had moved directly over them and blocked out the sun.
It was like it was nighttime all over again.
And as soon as these clouds were right above them, Oishi and the others, they just stopped and looked up and suddenly it started to rain.
Except not normal rain. It was like this weird milky substance, like gray milky color, and it was also hot.
And so Awishi put his hands out and he cupped all this weird liquid in his hands, and nobody knew what it was.
And then before long, the rain turned into sleet, still kind of gray and milky, and then the sleet turned into what looked like snow.
And so Oishi and the others, they had their hands out still and they were catching these weird snowflakes, but they didn't melt in their hands.
They just kind of pulled on their hand and just sat there.
Now, Oishi and the others were definitely unsettled by the snow and frankly by everything that had happened that morning.
They really did not understand what was going on, but there was something kind of incredible about this weird substance that was coming out of the sky to the point where many of the fishermen on board grabbed bags and saved some of this weird mushy snow stuff to bring back home to maybe show their families and friends or even to give to science to see if maybe they could study it and see what it was.
And so after Oishi and the rest of the crew had kind of gotten over the novelty of this weird snow coming out of the sky, they just got right back to work pulling in these lines.
And the whole time, remember, they're getting dumped on by this weird stuff that's not melting and it's building up on the deck to the point where they have to stop what they're doing and shovel this stuff off the deck just to continue pulling in the lines.
And for hours and hours, they did that just under this weird snowstorm.
And then finally, right around noon, all the lines had been pulled in and the ship's captain turned the wheel and they began heading towards port.
Hey, listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light, and it's called Lawless Planet.
Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds, or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
The next morning, Oishi woke up inside of his bunk on board the Lucky Dragon No.
5. It would take several days to make it all the way back to port.
And when Oishi woke up, he was suddenly struck with this intense nausea.
And so he got up and stumbled his way into the bathroom, and just kind of out of instinct, he grabbed his toothbrush and began brushing his teeth.
And as he did this, he had this weird feeling that his teeth felt like they were loose, that if he brushed too hard with his toothbrush, that he could knock his teeth clear out of his jaw.
And then when Oishi spit into the sink, he saw there was all this blood.
And so Oishi began to panic and he opened up his mouth and he stared in the mirror to see if maybe he had lost some teeth, but his teeth looked okay.
But again, it just, everything felt wrong and he felt so sick.
And so Oishi, he left the bathroom and went upstairs to the top deck.
And when he got up there, he saw many of the other members of the crew and they looked terrible.
Their skin was a weird gray color, and some of them had blisters all over their skin.
And so to Oishi and to the other crew members, it now seemed kind of obvious that whatever was coming out of the sky, that weird milky substance and that weird snow that didn't melt, you know, clearly it must be toxic in some way, or maybe it's led to some horrible allergic reaction.
And so Oishi and the others began referring to the stuff that came out of the sky as death ash.
And the fishermen who had gathered up a lot of this death ash into bags to bring back home were now too scared to even touch the bags.
Like, they wanted to take the bags and dump the contents overboard, but the fear of interacting with that weird death ash was too much.
And so there were these bags kind of draped all over the ship that nobody went near that contained this stuff.
And over the next few days that the lucky dragon number five continued its journey towards port, Oishi and the rest of the crew members continued to get sicker and sicker.
In fact, on one day, Oishi was outside unfurling one of the sails, and as he was hoisting this rope, he noticed the rope was covered in blood.
And then when he looked at his hands, he realized it was because his hands were basically disintegrating as he was touching the rope, like his skin was just falling apart.
And then in addition to his skin falling off, Oishi's hair began falling out in huge clumps.
And he was not alone. Many of the other crew members on board the Lucky Dragon number five had the same things going on.
It was like everybody was just totally deteriorating and they all knew it had to be connected to whatever the heck they had heard and seen when there was that explosion in the lights and the stuff raining out of the sky.
They didn't know what it was, but it could not be a coincidence that happened and now this was happening to them.
And so finally, on March 14th, the crew of the Lucky Dragon No.
5 pulled into port in Yaezu, Japan, and as they got off, they made this interesting decision to not tell anyone what happened to them.
They all had this fear that, you know, if it got out, that people knew what happened to them, that somehow they'd get in trouble.
And so they all decided they would treat whatever was happening to them, but they would do it kind of secretly.
And so Owishi, as soon as he left the boat, he went straight to the doctor's office.
And as best as he could, he tried to kind of discreetly tell the doctor what had happened during this fishing trip.
And then he showed the doctor all these lesions on his skin and the bald spots and the fact that he was so sick and that his teeth felt loose.
And the doctor's like, I got no idea what's wrong with you.
And so all he did was prescribe Oishi some zinc ointment to put on all of these blisters and lesions on his skin.
And he told Oishi that, you know, this should work.
It should clear everything up and you should be okay.
But, you know, come back if this ointment doesn't work.
A few hours later, a woman was inside of her home in the port city of Yaizu, right near where the lucky dragon number five had docked, when she heard a knock on her front door.
And so she put her broom up against the wall, she walked to the front door, she opened it up, and standing right outside was this horrible looking man who had gray skin and lesions all over him and all these bald spots.
And he was smiling and his teeth were all red, like there was blood all over his teeth.
And for a second, she thought about slamming the door, but then she looked more closely and she realized it was her neighbor, Oishi.
As soon as she realized this, she said, Oishi, what happened to you?
And he just kind of shrugged his shoulders like he didn't have a way to explain all of this.
And then he held out a small gray package and he just said, you know, here's some extra fish that we caught on the last fishing trip I was on.
I just wanted to give it to you. And the woman who is still totally caught off guard by how terrible Oishi looked, she just turned and pointed at her kitchen table, telling Oishi to put the fish on the table.
And so Oishi came inside and limped his way into the kitchen and put the package down.
And then when he turned to leave, the woman stopped him and she said, Oishi, tell me what's going on here.
You look horrible. You have all these bloody bandages on you.
Was there a fire on the boat? Was there some sort of accident?
You know, tell me. And so Oishi, you know, he looked down for a second and then he looked back at her and said, I'm sorry, I can't tell you.
Because again, remember, Oishi and the rest of the crew had decided they were not going to share details of what happened.
And so this woman who really liked Oishi and wanted to make sure he was okay, she just said, okay, you don't gotta tell me about it, but here, have a seat.
You know, we'll catch up about other things.
And so Oishi, you know, he nodded and took a seat inside the living room.
And as he sat there, the woman went into the kitchen and she got a cup of water.
She brought it back and she handed it to him.
And Oishi, he took the cup with a trembling hand and he sat there drinking his water, just looking so terrible.
And the woman, she really didn't know what to say.
She did not understand at all what was happening, but she could tell, you know, Oishi does not want to talk about it.
So to kind of break up the silence, she just began talking about stuff she had heard on the news.
And the big news story that everybody was talking about was the science experiment that was done out near the Marshall Islands.
And when this woman talked about a science experiment and the Marshall Islands, Oishi dropped his glass and it shattered on the ground.
And he just stared at this woman with a look of absolute terror on his face.
And at this point, Oishi decided he was not gonna keep his story secret anymore.
And so he told his neighbor what had happened out on the water, the explosions, the lights, the rain, the snow, all of it.
And after he did, the woman became terrified and said, get out of my house, go, go, go.
And so Oishi, he got up and he kind of ran out of the house, not really sure what was going on.
And then the woman, after Oishi was gone, she turned and she realized the package of fish that Oishi had left was sitting inside of her kitchen.
And so she screamed and she too ran out the door.
Over the next few days, more and more of the fishermen from the Lucky Dragon No.
5 began to talk about what had happened out on the water, and as those stories began to circulate, they began to make the news all over the world.
And as this happened, fish markets all over Japan had to shut down and destroy thousands and thousands of pounds of fish in fear that it might have come from the Lucky Dragon No.
5. And the reason why everybody was so scared of coming in contact with anything that had been on board the Lucky Dragon, whether it was the fish or the people, is because on March 1st, 1954, when Oishi was suddenly woken up by the bright light outside coming from the west, and then there was that loud explosion, and then the cloud, and the rain, and the snow, all of that was not a volcano.
It was not an atomic bomb. It was not a meteorite.
It was not a fire. It was that science experiment that was talked about on the news. the US military was testing a brand new weapon that is quite possibly the most lethal weapon ever made.
It's called a hydrogen bomb, and for reference, hydrogen bombs are a thousand times more powerful than atomic bombs.
Now, they detonated this hydrogen bomb far away from all of civilization.
However, the lucky dragon number five was just close enough to this explosion that the crew onboard the ship became the first humans in history to experience something called fallout. which is when deadly radioactive particles from this explosion get thrown up into the sky from the blast, and then they rain down on you like snow.
That weird material they were feeling that they called death ash, that's the fallout.
It's all radioactive. And in fact, the actual material itself that was raining down on them was coral reefs.
They had basically been liquefied from this hydrogen blast.
They got shot up into the sky and then that's what fell down on them.
That's why it wasn't melting. It was coral reefs.
And so the reason Oishi and the rest of the crew got so sick and their skin began falling off and their hair began falling off was because of their contact with this fallout, this death ash.
And so once they began sharing their story of what happened out there and it began making the news, the crew of the Lucky Dragon was rounded up and sent to a special medical facility where they were quarantined.
And unbelievably, only one of them died.
He was the oldest crew member who had brought up that maybe the lights they had just seen was an atomic bomb. but even though the rest of the crew survived, they would spend the rest of their lives battling strange diseases and cancers, and many of them would become sterilized, and those that weren't, their children often had birth defects.
As for Oishi, he gave up being a fisherman and instead became a dry cleaner, but he wound up spending the bulk of the rest of his life being an anti-bomb advocate and author until his death in 2021 when he would pass away at the age of 87.
A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts.
There's this one, of course, the Mr. Ballin Podcast, and there's Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Full, Redacted, and Late Nights with Nexpo.
All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts.
To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin.
So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support.
Until next time, see ya. Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Hey, listeners, big news for true crime lovers.
You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.
Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts, completely ad-free.
No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest…
Ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime.
To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to amazon.com slash ballin.
That's amazon.com slash b-a-l-l-e-n. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today.
