Ships Filled With Corpses Are Washing Up On Japanese Shores And No One Knows Why

The idea of a ghost ship is almost archetypal. Every seafaring culture seems to have its own variation of this spooky maritime phenomenon. There's something that's intrinsically terrifying about a ship floating on the open water without a crew. Take the case of the Flying Dutchman; the spectral vessel that's allegedly crewed by the dead, or the mysterious case of the Marie Celeste - the ship that was found in the Azores - bereft of captains and sailors, but with all the places still set at the table. You'd be forgiven for thinking that the ghost ship is nothing more than a curio of years gone by. Yet on the coast of Japan, entire fleets of ghost ships have been washing up on the beaches, some of which are filled with the rotting corpses of men, women and children. So where have these tomb ships come from and what happened to those poor people formerly crewing them?

Since November 2017, a total of four ships have been washed up on the west coast of Japan, some laden with decomposing cadavers, others completely deserted. So far, the Japanese authorities haven't managed to discover the origin of these eerie ships, but there is evidence to suggest they might be from North Korea. The largest such ship was discovered by bystanders in the early hours of Sunday November 27 at Japan's northern Akita Prefecture, bobbing on the waves with a terrible smell of decomposition emanating from within. Inside, investigators from the coast guard discovered eight corpses, all of which had succumbed to various stages of necrosis. Some of them were even skeletonised, which meant that they had obviously been exposed to the elements for some time. Just how long had the boat been out on the water?

The boat itself was fairly unremarkable: approximately 20 meters long from stern to bow, yet missing a superstructure, a rudder and masts. Despite being deserted, investigators were able to discover some clues: an eight-figure number in fading red paint was discovered printed on the hull. Police also stumbled across life jackets emblazoned with Korean characters, as well as boxes of North Korean cigarettes. Worryingly, this was not an isolated incident either. Mere days earlier, another wooden boat, which contained two other bodies in equal states of putrefaction, was discovered on a beach on Sado Island, off the northern coast of Japan, about 300 kilometres away from the Akita Prefecture. Prior to that, the Japanese Coast Guard managed to rescue three people from a North Korean ship that sank, leaving another dozen North Koreans dead at sea. On November 23, residents of the town of Yurihonjo reported that a number of unfamiliar men were loitering by the marina late at night. Officials learned that these men were also from North Korea and that their squid fishing vessel had drifted into port after an unfortunate engine failure. The fishermen were later returned home.

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How have these people, if they are indeed North Korean, ended up dead and adrift in a boat out at sea? One theory is that they are smugglers who have been killed by the North Korean navy, who did not bother to sink the ship. Others believe that the bodies are actually those of North Korean defectors, who commandeered wooden fishing vessels in order to escape to the relative sanctuary of Japan. The government has also put pressure on North Korean fishermen in recent weeks to bring in bigger and bigger hauls in order to combat severe food shortages, which means that these fishermen may have strayed further out to sea than would otherwise be advisable, gotten lost, and then died of disease, starvation or drought. Furthermore, the majority of the wooden dinghies are far too fragile to cope with the choppy waves and strong currents of the Japanese sea in autumn, which means that it is likely that more boats and bodies will wash up on shore in future, assuming that there are all North Korean in origin. The situation has got many Japanese people worried. Takeshi Suma, head of the prefectural government's International Affairs division, stated: "The people of Akita Prefecture are certainly worried. We have heard that they are from North Korea, but nothing has been confirmed. All we hear is that the police are investigating," while Satoru Miyamoto, a professor at Seigakuin University and Japanese authority on North Korea, stated: "It's after Kim Jong Un decided to expand the fisheries industry as a way of increasing revenue for the military. They are using old boats manned by the military, by people who have no knowledge about fishing. [This] will continue."

It's the only working theory on the mystery so far and seems to be confirmed through the accounts of North Korean defectors, who claim that the situation in the totalitarian state has only gotten more grim, which would explain the suicidal risks taken by seafarers. Former army officer Kang Ri Hyuk, who escaped North Korea four years ago, told CNN that the situation on the home front was: "Brutal. Everyone was hungry, even the soldiers. The UN is sending rice and fertiliser and it all goes to the ranking officials under Kim Jong-un. There are many soldiers who also die from disease because they're not given medical treatment."

We may never know exactly what happened to the poor people on board. But this isn't the first macabre sight to be spotted on beaches lately. In Canada, a number of severed human feet have been washing up on shores without any explanation.

Ships filled with corpses are washing up on Japanese shores and no one knows why