In the early morning hours of March first, 1954, a Japanese fisherman was asleep inside of his bed, onboard this fishing vessel, when suddenly he sat up because the room he was in was now completely illuminated in this unbelievably bright, orangey white light. Now he looked at his watch and saw it was too early for sunrise, and so whatever this light was, it was not the sun. And so this fisherman leapt out of his bed, he ran upstairs to the top deck, and he looked out towards these lights in the sky, and then the lights just vanished. And so for a minute, this fisherman and the rest of the crew were relieved because they're thinking, okay, this seemed bad, whatever it was, but it's gone now. However, they didn't know this yet, but those lights were just the beginning of a two week long nightmare that would go down in history as the first time ever humans experienced this particular horrible, horrible thing. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of The Strange, Dark, and mysterious delivered in stories, story format, then you come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload once a week.

So if that's of interest to you, the next time the like button is fast asleep, secretly take their phone and change the language settings to chau kutong-go Mixtec. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story. At around 1:00 a. M. On March first, 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 number five. 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 a 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 number five, 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 number five 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 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, he's confused. He felt like it was too early for sunrise. And he checked his watch and he saw it was only 6:45 AM. 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 port hole window where all this light was coming in, 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 crew mates who were in this room with him, they were also starting to wake up and 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 hovering over where the Marshall Islands would be. And so everyone's thinking, is it possible this is a volcano eruption? Is there something else going on here? And then as the crew was just watching in stunned silence at all these crazy lights in the sky, the lights 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 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, Oichi, 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 Oichi and the rest of his crew are staring out to the west, which was all dark at this point, Oichi thought, 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, if that were an atomic bomb, wouldn't they too be vaporized? They would not be able to see that and live. And so Oishi began to tell himself, 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 Yasu, Japan. And so quickly, Oichi 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 going to 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 going to flip us over. We're going to get killed here. And so, Owishi, 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 protecting themselves.

A couple braver crew members had stood up and were 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 sounds 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? Thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring today's video. In 2017, I was medically retired from the military, and at first, this was awesome. It was like, finally, I had my life back again. However, not long after becoming a civilian again, I started becoming restless, and before long, it was like, everyone and everything around me just totally annoyed me for really no reason. Over time, this caused a lot of problems because nobody wanted to be around me.

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Also, you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Go to our sponsor, betterhelp. Com/mr. Bollin, for 10 % off your first month of therapy with better help, and get matched with a therapist who will listen and help. 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 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 got to go. We don't want to 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, OOishi 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 OOishi 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 gray and milky.

And then the sleet turned into what looked like snow. And so Oechie 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 pulled on their hand and just sat there. Now, Oechie 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 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 family and friends, or even to give to science to see if maybe they could study it and see what it was. And so after OOISI and the rest of the crew had 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. The next morning, Oishi woke up inside of his bunk, onboard the Lucky Dragon number five. 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 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 stare in the mirror to see if maybe he had lost some teeth, but his teeth looked okay. But again, 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 obvious that whatever was coming out of the sky, that weird milky substance and that weird snow that didn't melt, 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. 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 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 onboard 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 and 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 number five pulled into port in Yasu, 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 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 secretly. And so, Oishi, as soon as he left the boat, he went straight to the doctor's office, and as best as he could, he tried to 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 have 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 this should work. It should clear everything up, and you should be okay, but come back if this ointment doesn't work. A few hours later, a woman was inside of her home in the port city of Yasu, 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 shrugged her shoulders like he didn't have a way to explain all of this. And then he held out a small, great package and he just said, 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 accident? Tell me. And so, Oishi, 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 got to tell me about it, but here, have a seat. We'll catch up about other things. And so, Oishi, 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 to 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, Oishi does not want to talk about it. And so to break up the silence, she just began talking about the 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 stare at this woman with a look of absolute terror on his face. And at this point, Oishi decided he was not going to 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 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 number five 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 number five. And the reason why everybody was so scared of coming in contact with anything that had been onboard the Lucky Dragon, whether it was the fish or the people, is because on March first, 1954, when a Uishi 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 thousanda 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 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. In the winter of 2001, inside of a Southern California police department, a fax machine in the corner of the room suddenly came to life. A moment later, a few pieces of paper fell out of the machine onto a tray, and a police officer walked over and began reading them. And as he did, his eyes went wide because the facts was a gold mine of evidence for an ongoing murder investigation that had begun to stall. So this was a major breakthrough.

But as other officers rushed over to see the facts for themselves, they all started to feel like something was off about this facts. It just seemed too good to be true. But regardless, the police followed up on the contents of this facts, and sure enough, it did lead them to their killer. However, the killer was not who anyone thought it would be. So that's going to do it. If you enjoyed today's story, be sure to check out our podcast, called the Mr. Ballin' Podcast, where we have hundreds more stories just like this one, but many of them are only on the podcast. Again, that podcast is called the Mr. Ballin' Podcast, and it's available on Amazon Music.