Mr. Ballin (21:17)
And Nathan, he goes back upstairs, and he yells to Billy Joe, who's dealing with this engine issue, that in addition to that, it appears the boat is also sinking. And so Billy Joe is like, get buckets. Go down there and start bailing out the water. I'm going to call mayday. And so Billy Joe runs back up to the steering wheel, he grabs the radio, and Nathan and the others can hear him yelling over and over again, mayday, Mayday. Mayday. And as that was happening, Nathan and the other two fishermen put on their life vests, grabbed buckets, and went down below to begin manually bailing out the water. But the second they got down there, it was very obvious the water, wherever it was leaking into this ship, was coming in way faster than they could potentially bail out. But they kept doing it, you know, getting the water out as fast as they could, trying to stay calm. They can hear Billy getting more and more frantic, yelling mayday. Over and over again. And then all the lights inside of the ship began to flicker, and. And then they went out, and they were cast into total darkness. The engine basically had stopped, and it was just silence, just the sound of water rushing into this boat. Also, Billie Joe had stopped yelling mayday. Because clearly the boat had lost power and the radio didn't work. And unfortunately, before the power cut out, nobody had heard any of Billie Joe's mayday calls. So nobody knew where they were. Nobody knew they were sinking. And without power, they had no way to communicate to anybody. They were totally alone. So Nathan, Billy Joe, and the others did the only thing they could do. They went up to the main deck, they grabbed their inflatable life raft, they blew it up, chucked it over the side. They grabbed as many supplies as they could, put it in the raft. They all made sure they had all their flotation on, and then they jumped into the life raft, abandoning the sinking fishing boat. Now, once all four men were safely inside of this life raft, they were not as panicked as you might think they would be, because they had put enough food and water in this raft to last them at least several days. They all, again, had their life vests on, so proper flotation. And even though nobody responded to those mayday calls, it wasn't impossible to think that maybe somebody had heard the mayday calls and they just had not called back. You know, maybe there was a rescue operation coming to their location right now. They didn't know, but it felt plausible that they could be rescued. They would just need to kind of ration out their Supplies and stay optimistic. However, their optimism quickly faded when, after only being in this life raft for 30 minutes, right as the sun was starting to come up, Nathan began to hear a strange sound. It was coming from somewhere in the life raft. He couldn't quite place the sound, and so at first, he kind of tried to ignore it, but then he noticed the life raft was becoming softer, and then he realized the sound he heard was a small hiss. The raft had a leak. And even though the four men were able to trace the sound of this leak to the actual puncture, they didn't have a patch kit or any meaningful way to patch up this hole. And so all they could do was just put their hands over this leak and do their best to seal it. But it didn't stop the air from coming out. It just delayed it. And so, over the next hour, again, as the sun is just coming up on the second day of their big fishing trip, the raft finally completely deflated, and all four men were suddenly bobbing in the freezing cold ocean, Surrounded by the wreckage of their sinking fishing boat. And so eventually, the men grabbed the biggest piece of wood from the wreckage that came floating by, and it was buoyant enough that it kind of served as, like, a makeshift raft, but it wasn't buoyant enough to hold all four of them at once, which meant, you know, they had to take turns resting on this raft, and then they'd have to get back in the ocean and kind of wait their turn again. I mean, totally miserable. And as this was happening, they just stared at the hull of their sinking fishing boat that was still poking up out of the ocean, just drift farther and farther away from them because the current was pretty strong. And as they watched their ship just kind of disappear into the distance, and they're just kind of drifting out into the middle of the ocean. They were all just stunned into silence. They could not believe how this had happened and so quickly. And also, what were they going to do? I mean, they're in the worst possible situation here. It just didn't seem possible that they could actually survive this. Now, for reference, even though the men had salvaged a lot of their food and water from the sinking life raft, and they had their flotation devices on that didn't protect them from hypothermia. It wouldn't matter if it was super warm outside. What mattered is the ocean was really cold. And because they couldn't stay on that raft, they had to keep cycling through, going back in the ocean over and over again. It was just A matter of time before they would get hypothermia. And sometimes hypothermia can kick in in just a couple of hours. I mean, we're not talking days here. This is going to be quick. And all these guys knew that. And so as these men were forced to have these really morbid discussions around who's going to stay in the water and who's going to stay on the raft, Nathan made a drastic decision. Nathan being by far the biggest physically out of the four men. He knew that if he wasn't there right now, the other three could easily fit on their makeshift raft and stay out of the water and delaying hypothermia, thereby increasing the odds that they got rescued. And so Nathan did what he always did, and he turned to his younger brother, who he looked up to so much, who he just wanted to help all the time. And Nathan told him, I'm going to swim to the wreckage. I'm going to swim back to the hull of our sinking ship and I'm going to fashion my own makeshift raft. That way you guys can have this one and I'll have my own and we can all get out of here in one piece. Now, keep in mind, it was fairly obvious that the hull of the sinking ship, which was barely visible near the horizon, was at least three miles away, just from their own rough calculations. So this is a monster swim to get to that. And so immediately, Billie Joe and the other three were like, no, that is a suicide mission. You cannot do that. Do not swim to the hull. You're not going to make it. Now, just to give some additional context here, if you're not familiar with just how challenging swimming in the open ocean is, I'm going to give you my limited experience. So when I was in the military, we had to do one five and a half mile open ocean swim. And then also we did a whole bunch of two mile ocean swims. And even though we were allowed to use amazing wetsuits and fins, we had a swim partner with us. We had the land nearby to use as a reference to make sure we're going the right direction. We had food, we had water, we were in great shape. Even with all of that. Open ocean swims are miserable. You get all the salt in your mouth and your nose, you start cramping and chafing. I mean, it takes hours and hours and hours to swim some of these distances, and you're constantly fighting against the waves. I mean, it is an absolute shore swimming in the open ocean again, even with all the right stuff in place. And you got to remember, Nathan is this big guy. You know, he's got this big, bulky life vest on that's going to make it hard to swim. He doesn't have fins, he doesn't have a wetsuit, and he's got no landmarks around him, you know, to make sure he's going in a straight line. Typically, when you're swimming in the ocean, you're constantly looking at the land or some other landmark to make sure you're going in the right direction. He wouldn't have had that. And also, it's this unknown distance he's covering, and there could be predators in the water. I mean, there's so many barriers here that basically there was like a 0% chance this swim would be successful. But Nathan totally understood what he was really doing here. He didn't really know if he was actually going to make it to that boat. Frankly, that was not really the point. What he was really doing was choosing to sacrifice himself to potentially save his brother and the other two. And so even though they were telling him, do not go, do not swim in that direction. You're not going to make it, Nathan just turned to his brother, Billy Joe, and said, I love you. And then he turned and began swimming. And by some miracle, 11 hours later, right as the sun was setting, Nathan was still alive and still swimming. And he did reach the sinking boat that still had its hull poking out of the water. Now, when Nathan got to the sinking ship, he was almost dead from dehydration, from hypothermia. I mean, he's miserable, but he's made it to his destination completely. Against all odds, he climbed up onto this hull, and he found a spot on the hull of the ship that supported his weight. And he managed to tie himself using some rope or maybe his life vest to the hull so he was anchored in place. And then he didn't get to sleep because the whole time he's thinking, you know, this thing could sink under the water at any point, and it will drag me with it because I'm tied to it. Or he could just drift off of it if his rigging kind of came undone, if he was escaped sleep. And so all night, beyond exhausted, he's just holding on to this hull, you know, not really sure what's going to happen. But here he is, just waiting it out. And then finally, when the sun came up that next morning, as Nathan looked around him, he's in the middle of the ocean. He sees in the direction he had come from, this pillar of smoke Coming up over the horizon. And so Nathan, you know, he rubs his eyes, he can't believe it. He's thinking, there's no way. There's already a ship out here. You know, we're in the middle of nowhere. But sure enough, slowly but surely, this massive freighter ship came into view. That was very far away. You know, it's not near Nathan, but he can see it clear as day. And where this ship was basically circling was roughly where he believed his brother and the other two fishermen were still floating. And so he's thinking, oh, my goodness, the freighter is going to save them and then it's going to come save me. And so Nathan just clung onto the hull and watched as this freighter made these big slow loops right around that same area. And then the freighter came to a full stop. And it appeared to lower something down into the water. It seemed very much like a full blown rescue operation. And then about three hours after he first spotted this freighter, the freighter began to move again, and this time directly towards Nathan. Nathan was so relieved, he could practically cry. But instead what he did is he thought, they're going to be here in a minute. I'm finally just going to close my eyes and go to sleep. And so he put his head down on the hall, looked one more time at the freighter, and then closed his eyes. Now, Nathan would be rescued, but it would not be by that huge freighter ship. Nathan eventually had opened his eyes after closing them for a second, and he saw this freighter that had been coming straight for him at some point had kind of deviated and gone in the wrong direction and then vanished over the horizon, never to be seen again. And it would take three more days before a separate ship happened to find Nathan. They scooped him up and they rescued him. But even though Nathan had been really crushed when that freighter had gone the wrong way, he held on to this idea that, you know, that freighter had clearly rescued his brother and the other two fishermen. And certainly even if they couldn't find him, they would go back and they would tell the authorities that Nathan is out there. You know, he swam back to the hull of the ship. We gotta go find him. And so certainly a rescue effort would be on the way. And it was true. A rescue boat had come out and found Nathan. So everything seemed to be tracking. And when Nathan woke up inside of his hospital room back on land, his friends and family were all by his bedside. And he's looking around, he can't believe he survived. And the first thing he asks is, how's my brother? How are the other two fishermen, and why didn't that freighter pick me up too? And at this, all the people in the room just kind of looked at Nathan with a very confused look on their face. And eventually they asked him a question that made Nathan burst out in tears. They said what freighter? It would turn out Billie Joe and the other two fishermen were still missing at this point. And nobody had heard a thing about some big freighter in the area. As far as anybody knew, at least in Nathan's family, that freighter ship did not exist. The search for Billie Joe and the remaining two crew members went on for weeks and weeks. And while the active search out in the ocean was going on, the Coast Guard and police were searching through every record they could possibly find of basically any ship that was even roughly in the area where Nathan and the others had been. But despite looking everywhere, there was basically no sign that any ship of any kind had been there beyond the rescue operation that eventually scooped up Nathan. And so again, it seemed very likely that that freighter ship didn't exist. And you know, it was possible that Nathan, in his very deteriorated state, had maybe hallucinated it. Although Nathan was adamant, he definitely saw that ship. It did not feel like, you know, a multi hour long hallucination. It felt like he was watching a ship. He was sure of it. But again, there was just no proof. And so nobody knew what to think of that. And then eventually, even though there was this huge search going on, there was just no sign of Billy Joe or the others. And so eventually the search was called off. And unfortunately the presumption was Billie Joe and the other two were now dead. Five months later, on the afternoon of October 5, 1990, the phone rang inside of Nathan's sister's home. Now by this point, the victims families had all tried to sort of restart their lives following this tragedy. But deep down, none of them could truly accept that Billy Joe and the other two fishermen were just gone. They just couldn't do it. It was too soon. It felt like, you know, any moment they were going to get news that, you know, they had been rescued by some freighter ship or something. And so anytime a phone rang in any of these families homes, it's like they would rush to the phone with a sense of hope that this time it's going to be different. Their loved ones are going to be okay, only to obviously be crushed when that was not the case. But on this day, on October 5th, that phone call that came through in Nathan's sister's home, that one was different. When Nathan's mother Picked up this phone call in Nathan's sister's home. She answered it and said hello. And right away she thought, oh, this has to be a wrong number, because the person who was calling was speaking in rapid Spanish and she didn't understand what they were saying. But as she was about to hang up, the caller intermittently throughout their rapid Spanish began saying something in English that Nathan's mother could understand. And it totally shocked her. The caller kept saying Nathan's sister's name over and over again, followed by Nathan's sister's phone number. Like on repeat, the name, the phone number in English over and over and over again. And Nathan's mom is so caught off guard by this that she just listened, not even sure what to do. And then before she could ask any follow up questions, the caller cut the line and the phone call was over. And then a few minutes later, another phone rang in a home that was not far away from Nathan's sister's home. And this other home belonged to the boat owner who Billy Joe had rented the fishing boat from that unfortunately sank and caused this whole tragedy. And so this boat owner, he picks up the phone, he answers it. And just like the call that had come through in Nathan's sister's house, this call was the same. It was somebody calling, speaking rapid Spanish. And the boat owner was about to hang up when he heard something that he understood because it was in English. And what he heard was his own name, followed by his phone number, over and over and over again. Basically the same type of call that Nathan's mom had just heard. And then before the boat owner could ask any questions, the line went dead. Now, one phone call like this you could chalk up to maybe a prank or a wrong number or just a really weird coincidence. But to have those two calls happen within minutes of each other and basically take on the exact same form but different names and different phone numbers, it just seemed way too coincidental to not be somehow connected to the missing fisherman. Because the link between these two households where these calls came in was the doomed fishing trip. And these calls did not stop. Every few weeks after this first time these calls came through, the phone would ring in Nathan's sister's house or in the boat owner's house, and it would be the same thing all over again. Rapid Spanish followed by either Nathan's sister's name and then her phone number, or the boat owner's name and his phone number. Just like that, for weeks and weeks and weeks. And so as soon as this started happening, Nathan's Family and the boat owner, they figured out they were both getting these weird calls and they contacted authorities, which kind of restarted the search for Billy Joe and the missing fisherman. Because now it seemed very plausible that maybe Nathan really had seen a freighter and that freighter really had picked up Billy Joe and the others. And, you know, maybe they had been taken to another country, a Spanish speaking country, and maybe people were trying to get in touch with the families now to get them back home. Or of course, there could be a negative side to this, that maybe they were captured by some rogue vessel and were being held by these people who were calling. I mean, there's any number of theories, but it made authorities wonder, you know, hey, what's going on here? And so authorities got in touch with Mexican authorities and other Spanish speaking country authorities and tried to figure out if there was any chance that there was, you know, a vessel out there around the time that Billie Joe and the others were missing. That in theory could have maybe illegally been in that area or something. But despite this kind of exhaustive effort to kind of look again to see if maybe there was a freighter in that area, there was just no evidence that there was. It made no sense. But the authorities said, look, we have no idea what these calls are about. We still do not think that freighter or any ship that even resembled a freighter was out there. We still believe that Billy Joe and the others are dead. But as for the victims families, they just didn't buy that. They really believed that these strange phone calls were somehow connected to Billy Joe and the missing fisherman. Specifically, these calls must signal that Billy Joe and the others were still alive. They just had no evidence to support that. That is, until March 6, 1991. So almost a year after the doomed fishing vessel sank and Billie Joe and the others went missing, on that day, the phone rang inside of Nathan's sister's home. And she answered it. And it was the voice who spoke in rapid Spanish. But this time they spoke in perfect English. And all they said was, I'm bringing him home. And then the line went dead. Nathan's sister screamed and she yelled for her husband to call police. They contacted the authorities, and again, it kind of brought back to life the search for Billy Joe and the missing fisherman. And then after this call, there was a near constant presence of authorities on the Georgia coastline, basically looking out to the water, waiting, hoping for Billie Joe and the others to return. But unfortunately, they never did. And following that last phone call where the caller spoke in perfect English and said, I'm bringing him home after that the call stopped. And so to this day, no one has ever been able to actually figure out what happened to Billie Joe and the other two fishermen. They are presumed dead at this point. But there's this one nagging question that surrounds the whole story, and that is what did Nathan see? Was that actually a freighter picking up Billy Joe and the others? And if so, what did they do with them? Or was Nathan just hallucinating? It's entirely possible, but Nathan has always said he knows what he saw, and that was not a hallucination. As for the families of the victims, they still firmly believe that their loved ones are still out there and someday they will come back home. And the families just hope they're alive long enough to be there for the reunion. 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. The Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive Produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach Levitt. Produced by Jeremy Bone Research and fact checking by Shelley Shue, Samantha Vanhus, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway and Camille Callahan Research and fact checking supervision by Steven Ear Audio editing and post produced by Whit Locasio and Cole Locasio Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain Production coordination by Samantha Collins Production support by Antonio Manada and Delaina Corley Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts. There's this one, the Mr. Ballin podcast, as well as Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories Run Fool Redacted, Late Nights with Nexpo and a Twist of History. 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 gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See you.
