Here is a very strange story over at Asahi, 29 empty boats within a span of just two months have washed up onto coastlines of seven prefectures that face the sea of Japan. Out of those seven prefectures, Ishikawa and Niigata have the highest concentration of abandoned boats. These empty boats are a real cause for alarm because it is not often that a person looses or throws away a perfectly good boat for no particular reason.

With mystery comes fear, and it was too long before people started to investigate whether these boats belonged to North Korean spies, or smugglers. Or they could be North Korean defectors, who might have perished on their way to freedom. Which might be the case seeing as some of the boats have Korean characters scratched into their hulls.

However, these boats were constructed for shallow waters, with flat bottoms instead of rounded ones. It would be wise to assume that a spy would have more common sense to take out a boat better suitable for a journey out on the sea. Or maybe a better explanation is that the boats broke free from their moorings during bad weather and floated to Japan on their own. I personally blame Cloverfield.

[Via Asahi]