Post: #1

I didn't know about this story until today when news came out of him being sued for 1million for cannibalism.

Here is the original story in a very good interview with the Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...anion.html

He was a fisherman from El Salvador fishing in Mexico fishing with a young kid with no fishing experience. They got caught in a four day storm and ended up adrift in the pacific for thirteen months until he landed on Ebon atoll in the Marshall islands

He has said from the beginning that he didn't eat him or kill him. He said his mate gave up and died from dehydration and starvation.

He says his conscience wouldn't allow him to eat him and he had five days worth of food.

I don't believe him.

There was a knife on that boat, and I've heard stories about fishermen in the pacific who take a pig on the boat with them. If they get stranded at sea they will kill the pig and drink its blood to avoid dehydration.

He probably did have no need to eat raw human, when there was raw fish, birds and turtles. However I genuinely wonder how you would stay hydrated, and I think a whole human full of blood might have been what kept him alive.

However his strong Christian beliefs may have prevented him from doing this, and he may have chucked the body overboard as he says.

The family of his dead fishing mate are trying to sue him for 1 million.

http://www.fox26houston.com/news/57938089-story

It's pretty impossible to prove this lawsuit but it could be because the family want a cut of the book that's come out about his ordeal. I'm not saying I think he should be sued if he did eat him, just that I'm not sure I believe his story completely.

Here is an excerpt from the book called 438 days on the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/no...ok-extract

What do you think happened?

Post: #2

"I didn't know about this story until today when news came out of him being sued for 1million for cannibalism."

It doesn't matter if he ate his buddy or drank his blood. He was in international waters so there is no jurisdiction and no Salvadorian or Mexican laws were broken. IANAL but unless someone can prove that he munched on the kid he should be considered innocent. The onus is on the state or the prosecution to deliver clear proof.

And maybe the kid died before him due to exposure (happens quickly in the ocean without protection) and THEN he decided to eat him. I wouldn't admit to it either but what would YOU do? None of us have been in this situation before and it is very easy to judge others from behind a keyboard. You would be surprised what you are capable of when things get rough and your own survival is on the line.

Post: #3

Occam's razor, among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

You're making a lot of assumptions

(12-17-2015 09:53 AM)RedPillUK Wrote:  There was a knife on that boat,

It was a fishing boat. Have you ever been fishing?

Quote: and I've heard stories about fishermen in the pacific who take a pig on the boat with them. If they get stranded at sea they will kill the pig and drink its blood to avoid dehydration.

Why wouldn't they just take a container of water the size of a small pig. Who would want a pig running around a boat? Are pigs that cheap in coastal fishing towns? If pigs are that disposable why are they even going fishing.

Quote:He probably did have no need to eat raw human, when there was raw fish, birds and turtles. However I genuinely wonder how you would stay hydrated, and I think a whole human full of blood might have been what kept him alive.

How long is the blood of an emaciated corpse going to last a sea? How much water would be left in someone who died of dehydration?
Maybe the other guy died like he said, and he kept on eating turtles and fish until he was rescued.....like he said.

Post: #4

I'm not assuming anything. I don't know what to believe. I mostly believe his story, I just think that there are parts that may not be true.

The kid was young and he didn't know him very well, he was inexperienced and from his own account more of a burden than a help. I would consider eating him if he died. and if things got tough and he was crying, screaming, acting depressed and not helping as he said. I would also consider murder. Although I don't think he did murder him the way he talks about him, and the fact that he went to his families house in Mexico to explain to his mum for two hours.

I'm just saying it seems very likely you would resort to cannibalism in that situation. Which I also said I don't condemn him for at all.

They did have water on that ship. I'm just saying I've heard about a pacific islander surviving on a small boat on open sea for a several months, by killing the pig on board and drinking it's blood.

Why should I have to believe his story?

Post: #5

The only way the family is going to win is if they get the Saudi Prince's "dick trip accidental penetration" lawyers.

Post: #6

So you're saying he kept a human body fresh for 13 months?

Post: #7

RedPill, he was on the boat for 13 months, even if human blood stays good for a year (I highly doubt), it wouldn't have been nearly enough to keep him hydrated. He obviously had a source of water somehow.

The most surprising thing to me is you could stay adrift for nearly 14 months without being rescued by another ship. I guess that shows just how vast the oceans are.

Post: #8

(12-17-2015 11:29 AM)RedPillUK Wrote:  I'm just saying it seems very likely you would resort to cannibalism in that situation. Which I also said I don't condemn him for at all.

It seems unlikely he would resort to cannibalism since he was already eating fish, turtles and seagulls. There's no snow in the story, its not like he could keep the body cool and feast on it when he wanted like the Doner Party. He probably kept him around a couple days for sentimental reasons and then pushed him overboard when he became unbearable........like he said he did.

Post: #9

(12-17-2015 11:29 AM)RedPillUK Wrote:  They did have water on that ship. I'm just saying I've heard about a pacific islander surviving on a small boat on open sea for a several months, by killing the pig on board and drinking it's blood.

Just how many liters of blood do you think there are in a pig?
And remember, if the boat is small the pig is small too, not a huge boar.
How would that last for months?
Also, how would the blood stay fresh in a decomposing body for months?

Post: #10

And the blood hydration thing is quite ridiculous too. Even after an hour, blood congeals into solid mass and whose to say every human being can stomach blood? They tell you to not swallow blood for very good reasons.

Post: #11

(12-17-2015 11:48 AM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  The only way the family is going to win is if they get the Saudi Prince's "dick trip accidental penetration" lawyers.

hehe - I'm going to put those fuckers on speed dial.

Post: #12

Haha ok, maybe my idea is not that likely, especially with the really hot temperatures. However he did have a cooler and stuff like that for the fish which he possibly could have kept him in, or just drunk his blood and chucked him over. I have definitely heard of that sort of thing keeping people alive on the open seas before though.

At times he said he was eating his own fingernails and raw jellyfish burning his own throat, so I still don't think it's that unlikely.

They collected rainwater during storms and that was their main source of water. Although rain was not common, they were pretty dehydrated and they had to resort to drinking animal blood and their own piss at times.

I just find stories like this and all the details of surving in remote places fascinating.

Post: #13

I'm not sure if I buy the story at all, to be honest.

By his own account it took him 14 months to drift 6,500 miles on the ocean current. 14 months at sea is an astonishingly long period of survival, especially without a reliable source of water. Surviving on rainwater is chancy at best and without a water source the absolute maximum you can go without dying of thirst is 10 days, with 3 or 4 days being much more likely.

But here's the other thing: I think it might be a bullshit story because he got to the Marshall Islands too fast.

I looked up this site: http://www.adrift.org.au/ It basically predicts where your message in a bottle is going to end up over a given period of time given what we know about how ocean currents work (and from a lot of statistical data on the subject). Mass of the boat doesn't really change this result - if anything I would have thought a greater mass means you're going to move slower, not faster than what they predict. Anyway, if you click on a starting point anywhere on the west coast of Mexico -- roughly where this guy reckons he started from -- then you'll see from the time lapse that it takes plastic, drifting objects roughly 3 years to drift from Mexico to the Pacific Ocean region where the Marshall Islands lie. This guy managed that drifting voyage in 14 months. And it might just be me, but the picture of the guy on landing looks in much better health than you'd expect from someone living on an absolute subsistence diet for 14 months at sea. He doesn't appear sunburned, not even tanned, which again is really odd for someone in the open ocean for that time period.

Post: #14

Survival kits in boats are remarkable, I would suggest someone to take a look through them and see just how many incredible emergency tools are in them.

The Scandinavians did a longer journey, in a raft, in a shorter period of time (Kontiki).

Nowadays, the only limitations to how long you can drift for will be your sanity.

Post: #15

If I was on the jury I'd probably acquit even if he did it.

The way it sounds, I doubt it. Other shipwrecked crews that have engaged in cannibalism tend to leave the human remains scattered on the boat. You can always eat the bone marrow later.

Post: #16

Post: #17

@ Paracelcus Yeah the length of journey and how he survived without a reliable source of water is insane and hard to believe. Although I read that journey should take about 16 months but it might be possible in 14 months. He doesn't look so bad, but his hair looks bleached from the sun. Apparently he ended up with parasites in his liver due to the raw birds and fish, and he started to swell up in hospital because the tissues in his body were trying to keep as much water in his body as possible as he had been dehydrated for so long.

But what's the alternative to believe? It's damn hard to get to a place as remote as that atoll in the marshall islands. There were reports of his boat going missing in Mexico and them searching for it, and he turned up in the marshall islands on the same boat.

Post: #18

I've read into it abit, in some articles it says they drank urine and tortoise blood mainly to stay hydrated.

I should also warn people he has a book about the experience that didn't sell to well, regardless of whether the cannibalism act is true or not he is getting alot of exposure from this so maybe it's a publicity stunt to sell his book, a fucked up one but one none the less.

Post: #19

My only skepticism with the story is holding onto a body for nourishment over an extended period. Even in a cooler it will start to decay and the blood will be of no use after two hours unless he had it in a cooled circulation unit.

I will admit though, human beings can do crazy shit when survival comes down to it. Some have it in them to do anything. I remember reading about the downed plane in some mountain range and they resorted to eating the dead people. They weren't thrown in prison for it and a movie was made about it.

Post: #20

There's plenty of ways to get water, and since he's on a fishing vessel (blown motor/no gas I'm guessing) there's plenty of parts to make a simple condensation still. Heck even a plastic sheet, weight, and two containers would work to slowly get pure water from ocean water. With plenty of fish to catch, there really shouldn't be much of a problem surviving for one person, not sure how effective it is for two.

Post: #21

(12-17-2015 10:00 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  But here's the other thing: I think it might be a bullshit story because he got to the Marshall Islands too fast.

I looked up this site: http://www.adrift.org.au/ It basically predicts where your message in a bottle is going to end up over a given period of time given what we know about how ocean currents work (and from a lot of statistical data on the subject). Mass of the boat doesn't really change this result - if anything I would have thought a greater mass means you're going to move slower, not faster than what they predict. Anyway, if you click on a starting point anywhere on the west coast of Mexico -- roughly where this guy reckons he started from -- then you'll see from the time lapse that it takes plastic, drifting objects roughly 3 years to drift from Mexico to the Pacific Ocean region where the Marshall Islands lie. This guy managed that drifting voyage in 14 months. And it might just be me, but the picture of the guy on landing looks in much better health than you'd expect from someone living on an absolute subsistence diet for 14 months at sea. He doesn't appear sunburned, not even tanned, which again is really odd for someone in the open ocean for that time period.

It's all good and well to say that you don't believe 100% of his story, but to say that it's bullshit based on what amounts to a very rough calculation for plastic trash in water (which is mostly submerged) and is NOT AT ALL based on the current during the same time frame is really disingenuous. Not only do you have the changes in currents but the affect of wind and storms on his very exposed (compared to plastic in the water) boat hull as well.

Finding anything floating in the ocean is immensely difficult without any technology on the boat. As time passes it becomes nearly impossible. I know you had good intentions with your statement, but it's simply without merit.