Secret note found on abandoned ship

this is one of those stories that reminds you just how dangerous the open ocean really is but before we get into today's story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you've come to the right channel because that's all we do and we upload three four even five times every week if that's of interest to you the next time you're over the like buttons house sneak up stairs and steal all of their left socks and then also unplug their wi-fi also please subscribe to this channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads alright let's get into today's story on july 20th 1968 a small fishing boat called el fausto took off from their port on la palma island which is part of the canary islands which is a spanish archipelago and they took off for el hierro which was another island about 50 miles to the south on board el fausto were three very experienced fishermen and sailors they were the brothers ramon and aliberto hernandez as well as their cousin miguel acosta their trip to el hierro was uneventful it took about seven hours they arrived at the port in the early evening hours and they unloaded their cargo onto the island which was actually explosives used in agriculture so they unloaded all that and then the three of them went to get some food and relax for a few minutes before they came back to the dock and began preparing to leave so that evening as the three men are standing on their boat repacking the ship and getting ready to leave in the next few minutes they see this man running down the dock who's frantically waving at them trying to get their attention and so they stop what they're doing and they beckon him over and say you know what what do you need and the man introduced himself as julio garcia he was clearly very upset he was talking really quickly and they had to slow him down a couple times to try to understand what he was saying but he communicated that his wife had called him earlier that day and she said their two-year-old daughter was very sick and he needed to come home right away and he ran down to catch the ferry back to his home island of la palma so the same island these three men are from and he missed the ferry and the next ferry going back to his home island was not for another two days and so julio was running up and down the dock trying to flag anybody who owned a ship that might be willing to take him to la palma even if it was out of the way he was prepared to pay for it and so of course the el fausto crew said we're actually going to la palma we lived there too and we'd be happy to take you you don't need to pay for this and so julio begins to help them load the rest of their equipment onto the boat which included some food they had 22 pounds of fruit and they had some fresh water and then once everything was loaded up they undid their lines and they set sail for la palma they took off at about 2 30 in the morning on july 21st the water was very calm during their return trip the only thing they had to contend with was a light mist that formed over the water in the early morning hours right after the sun came up but it really wasn't enough to affect their ability to navigate but even if the mist was more severe than people realized ramon aliberto and miguel were very experienced sailors that in fact had been sailing on this particular stretch of water ever since they were teenagers and they had navigated these waters in far worse conditions and had always managed to get through it but at 10 am that morning when the fausto crew was supposed to arrive at la palma they didn't and the owner of the boat itself was waiting at the dock for them and when they didn't show up he wasn't overly concerned because he knew these three men he regularly went out on this particular boat with them in fact he normally would have gone on the trip to el hierro with them but he had commitments on the palm up so he didn't go and so he's not particularly worried about them he figures they ran into some mechanical issue and you know they're getting it figured out but they're just late but after a little while the families of the alfausto crew started to ask the owner you know where are they why aren't they here and so the owner who again is not overly concerned but wants to make sure the families are not worrying says you know what i'll send a a search boat that will take the exact route el fausto was on but in reverse and i'm sure they can just drive straight out there and they'll run into them and they will help them fix you know whatever issue they have which is more than likely mechanical that's an old boat and we've certainly run into other mechanical issues in the past so this search boat goes out and for hours and hours and hours they're looking along the exact same charted course that el fausto was supposed to be on and they're nowhere to be found and so they radio back in to the owner of the boat and they say look we can't find him what do you want us to do and he called them back in and he realized that you know what if we can't find them anywhere near the route that probably something more sinister has happened to them and it was at this point that he got in touch with authorities and they launched a much more formal search and rescue effort planes and boats spilled out over the sea to look for el fausto and her crew and everybody who was looking was operating with an enormous sense of urgency because anybody who was looking had been told these guys don't have much in the way of supplies they have 22 pounds of fruit and they have a very limited fresh water supply and so if we don't find them within a couple of days there's a very good chance that we're gonna find four corpses but despite searchers motivation to find these guys a couple of days passed and there was no sign of them and unfortunately people did start to think i think it's more likely we're gonna find four dead bodies than four sailors waiting to be rescued but on july 25th four days after el falco left el giero on their way to la palma and then of course got lost four days after that a british ship called dukesa radioed in an incredible message they said they had found this fishing boat that was drifting along and there was four people standing on the deck and they were waving flashlights around to try to get their attention and as this british ship moved up closer to the fishing boat they were able to read on the hall the call sign of the boat and it was of course el fausto where al fausto had been found was 120 miles west of la palma so they had drifted way way off course but once they pulled up alongside of them they could see that not only were the four crew members alive they actually seemed like they were in pretty good spirits they certainly were dehydrated and were very thankful to get some water and they were starving and they were obviously pretty freaked out because they had just been adrift in the middle of the ocean and probably were realizing that this could end really badly for us but beyond all that they seemed okay and very quickly that message was passed to friends and family of the alfausto crew back on la palma who's waiting anxiously to hear any news about their loved ones and when they were told they had been found and they were alive they were overjoyed because they thought they were dead but after the initial transmission had been sent out by dukesa saying hey we found the crew and they're alive and they're good well a couple hours went by and the ducassa sent another transmission that was very strange they said the crew of el fausto was refusing to be towed back home they were saying that our boat's just fine you know we're good we just we just need a couple of supplies and and we'll be on our way and so the captain of ducassa says to the men then why are you out here how did you get 120 miles west of la palma something had to have gone wrong with your boat so so what happened but the men didn't really answer his question they just said oh no there's nothing wrong with our boat there's no mechanical issues everything's fine you know we we we appreciate your offer but we just need a couple of supplies and we'll be on our way even julio who had made this special effort to get home to his sick daughter and to see his wife even he is saying no we don't need a toe we're good and so the captain of the dukesa is looking at these guys thinking what am i missing here you just drifted 120 miles away you probably should have died you're very lucky that we happened to find you in the middle of the atlantic ocean you know had we not found you you probably would have died of dehydration in the next couple of days and so we've found you we're offering to bring you to shore to guarantee that you will get to see your sick daughter and to see your wife and for you all to see your families and your friends and you're telling us to leave and you're telling us that there's nothing wrong with your boat when clearly something happened but the captain of the dukesa could not convince them to get towed in they were totally not gonna do it and apparently they were very polite about it they they said look we really appreciate the offer but really our boat is just fine we just need some some food water cigarettes and some fuel and and we'll be good and so ultimately the crew of the ducassa obliged their request and they gave them 18 hours worth of fuel along with a whole bunch of cigarettes and water and food and they watched as the four men sailed east towards la palma and they were waving the whole time everything seemed fine and then they vanished over the horizon and the captain of duquesso would call in over the radio that based on where they were and how close they were to la palma they should expect to see them arriving at port at about 7pm that night back on the palma friends family and hundreds of other people from the island went down to the dock and were drinking wine and having a big party celebrating the imminent return of their friends and their loved ones but unfortunately 7pm came and went and they didn't show up and so of course the family of the crew became very worried that oh my gosh this nightmare is starting all over again and the owner of alfausto came over to them and reassured them that he's been in touch with the authorities who were speaking to the captain of the dukesa who were speaking to our friends and family and loved ones on el fausto and everything's fine they have all the supplies they need they have all the fuel they need i'm sure they're just running a little bit late everything is totally fine and so friends and family and some die hard supporters stayed down at the dock for several more hours until it became clear that something's gone wrong and unfortunately this nightmare is not over the next morning after el fausto and her crew were once again labeled missing spain kicked off their largest ever search for missing people they had bombers flying overhead they had military and civilian ships all over the area where the ducassa had made contact with alfausto they had so many people combing the water so many planes overhead and for two weeks they looked everywhere and they couldn't find anything and finally they had to call it off and they said look we don't know what happened to them and they declared them lost at sea which basically meant we think they're dead but we'll probably never know for sure two months later on october 9th an italian merchant ship called the anna demayo who was on their way to venezuela spotted a small fishing boat way off in the distance that was just bobbing around aimlessly and the first thing they noticed was this ship is far too small to be making a cross-oceanic voyage they shouldn't be out here and as they got closer they could tell that there was no one standing on deck or in the cabin there's no one driving this boat and so finally they got so close they could read the hull and it says el fausto so the ana demaio pulls up right alongside alfausto they tether themselves together so it doesn't float away and two of the italian sailors get on board al fausto and they're yelling out to see if anybody's there but you know no one's responding and they're looking around and the ship is in great condition there's there's no sign of obvious damage or any violence that might have taken place on here they go into the cabin where the steering wheel is and they're looking for some sort of log book that would have documented you know what happened on the ship but there's no logbook and so the italians were left scratching their head thinking how could a perfectly seaworthy boat wind up abandoned in the middle of the atlantic ocean where's their crew but they still needed to go down below into the little space that was the engine room and so the two sailors that had boarded to look around they make their way over to the section of the deck where there's this hatch that they open up and they look down and they smell this horrible smell and they turn on their light and they're met with this horrible and inexplicable scene laying on the ground inside of the engine room on his back was a dead man who was partially mummified he had no clothes on and he was clutching a transistor radio and so the two italians that found him they stepped back and they had to compose themselves and then one of them actually went down to look around for clues and see if perhaps there's other bodies down there and so when he went down it was just the one body and he could only find one other clue and it was this small notebook that was positioned right behind the dead body that they didn't see when they first looked down so the italian sailors leave the engine room and they take the notebook back to their ship and they open it up and the first thing they see is the middle section of the notebook has been torn out in fact 28 pages were missing and all they were left with was a couple of pages at the beginning and a single page at the end the first couple of pages just were a couple of notes and some simple math calculations nothing significant the last page appeared to be a farewell of sorts but the language that was used was a little bit confusing and it was difficult to read and so the italians were not entirely sure what any of it actually meant and so they figured it would be best to just give the notebook to authorities and they could figure out what it meant and so the captain of the anna demaio radios in to spanish authorities that they found el fausto and that they intend to tow it back to venezuela where they were already going at which point they'll turn over everything they found and authorities can take it from there so the italians put a tow line on the bow of alfausto and began towing two days later spanish authorities received a crushing telegram apparently the night before as alfausta was being towed it suddenly lurched forward and went bow down into the water and sunk so rapidly that it ripped the toe line off of the back of the ana demayo and was under water well before they could do anything to try to stop it the crew of the anna demaio swore they had followed procedure and they knew what they were doing and this was just kind of a freak thing but regardless of how or why it happened the ship was now gone and so too was the dead body so they couldn't even positively identify whoever that was all they had was that notebook they were covered from inside the engine room the notebook was sent to la palma where it was put in front of the families of the four men who were on al fausto and very quickly julio's wife was able to identify his handwriting he apparently had a unique way of writing and she was used to reading it and so she said that's definitely his writing and in fact i recognized that notebook he kept that notebook to track payments because he was a mechanic and people requested his services and that's what he used to track payments this of course meant the dead man inside of the engine room was almost certainly julio julio's wife examined the notebook and she was able to decipher that last page at least most of it and she said it was this very detailed description of exactly what she needed to do once he died because clearly based on the way he was writing he knew he was about to die and at first it says you know here's how you access my insurance policy and here are the different properties i own and how you go about selling them and then in his final moments he scrawled one last message at the very bottom of the last page that said don't ever tell our son all that has happened to me you know that god wanted this fate for me love you so if julio was so sure he was about to die that he would take the time to write out a detailed list of instructions for his wife to follow when he died well then why didn't he take the time to also offer a small explanation as to what happened to he and the other crew members of al fausto he had to have known that whoever was going to find his dead body and this notebook was going to have an awful lot of questions unless he did know that and did write a description except it was in those 28 pages in the middle of the notebook that had been removed and if that's the case then who removed them and why and where's the rest of the alfausto crew and why did they tell the dukesa that nothing was wrong with their ship and why didn't they take the toe into shore which would have guaranteed their safety there's just so many questions that have never been answered in 50 years the most widely accepted theory is the crew of el fausto experienced a series of small but compounding setbacks that combined with panic led to really bad decision making and ultimately their death others say there are just too many anomalies and oddities about this case to just be a product of bad decision making that there has to be something else going on and so there are lots of alternative theories about what happened ranging from abduction to illegal trafficking gone wrong to perhaps they saw something they shouldn't have but sadly no one will know for sure what happened to these guys until there is a major break in the case and at this point people are just hoping those missing 28 pages turn up and that those will be able to explain what happened to el fausto and her crew so that's gonna do it guys i hope you enjoyed today's story if you found today's secret in the video tell us in the comments what it is and where it's located give us the time stamp and if you're the first to do that we will pin you at the top of the comment section if you enjoyed today's video and you haven't done this already the next time you're over at the like button's house sneak up stairs and steal all of their left socks and also unplug their wi-fi also please subscribe to this channel and turn on all notifications so you don't 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Channel: MrBallen

Views: 1,175,877

Rating: 4.9582844 out of 5

Keywords: scary, ocean, el fausto, spain, Canary Islands, spanish, search and rescue, sar, open ocean, boating disaster, boating horror, horror, horror story, true story, MrBallen story, scary story, sea, deep sea, shipwreck, sinking ship, British, farming, agriculture, fishing boat, fishing, lost at sea, storm, sea storm, lost, adrift, survival, sailors, fisherman, mist, mountains, thunder, lightning, horror fan, chills, mystery, unsolved mystery, unsolved mysteries, strange, dark, mysterious, mysteries, unsolved

Id: -yNVelnkfZo

Length: 17min 56sec (1076 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 05 2020