On October 3rd 1955 , MV Joyita started a trip from Samoa's Apia to the Tokelau Islands. Although, it was supposed to start this trip one day earlier, the ships's departure was delayed, because its port engine clutch failed. Joyita eventually left Samoa on one engine.
On board there where 25 people, 16 Crew members and 9 passengers. Among the passengers there where a government official, a doctor, a copra buyer and two children.
They were supposed to arrive at Tokelau Islands in about two days after they departed from Samoa. Something that never happened. On October 6th, a message from Fakaofo port reported that the ship hadn't arrived. No one has gotten a distress signal from Joyita. A search was launched with airplanes and ships looking and covering an area of nearly 100,000 square miles. Still no sign of Joyita and its passengers.
After five weeks, on November 10, captain of the ship "Tuvalu", Gerald Douglas, found Joyita, partially submerged in the sea, 600 miles away from her scheduled route. The discovery team mentioned that the radio was turned to the distress channel, but there was a break in the wires that was covered with paint, limiting the rage to 2 miles. No crew member or passengers were found on board or close to the ship's area.The dinghy and the three liferafts of the ship were missing. When they managed to get it out of the water, it was discovered that a pipe had rotted away, letting water into the vessel, causing it to sink. The interesting part is that even though there was water in the ship, Joyita was still seaworthy and the Captain probably knew that.The hull had not been breached, and the small amount of water was basically due to the fact that the ship was abandoned in the sea for weeks.
And yes, there were more weird findings. All windows of the ship were smashed, as well as the bridge of the ship. The one engine working was covered, for no reason, with mattresses. The doctor had left his bag behind. The tools were missing and instead in the bag, rags filled with blood were found.All of the navigational equipment was gone, including the logbook.
The navigation lights of the ship were on and ,to add some creepiness, all electric clocks on the ship has been stopped at 10.25pm, which means something have occurred at night.
There has given many explanations as to what happened to Joyita's crew and passengers that night. Theories vary from Captain being injured, resulting to crew panicking and ending in the rafts and eventually eaten by sharks, to pirates who has stolen what they could find and killed or took under captivity everyone on board. There was even a theory saying that Joyita was at the wrong place, the wrong time and saw something,probably illegal, from a Japanese ship.
No one has ever discovered what happened at 10.25 that night to Joyita.None of the passengers or crew were ever found...
Sources:Wikipedia, Crasstalk.com and Fijitimes.com
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