Top 3 final messages from people about to die | Part 1

Today we'll look at three

final

messages

from

people

who knew they were about to die, but before we get into those stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious presented in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's it. which we make and upload three or four times a week, so if that's your thing, replace all the like buttons with salted butter with unsalted butter. Also subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any. of our weekly uploads, well, let's get into today's stories on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the American military base in Hawaii, but Pearl Harbor was not the only American base attacked by the Japanese that month, of fact, just a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese shifted gears and attacked American military personnel on Wake Island, which is a coral atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. After two weeks of fighting, the Japanese had seized Wake Island from the Americans and sent most American military personnel and American civilian contractors to prisoner-of-war camps in Asia, but retained 98 of these prisoners of war for remain on the island and strengthen the defenses for the next few years. The Americans would periodically bomb Wake Island, but there was never any concerted effort to take it from the Japanese. However, that all changed on October 5, 1943, when the Americans decided it was time to take it back and launched a massive air raid on the island that was so violent that the Japanese admiral on Wake Island was convinced that an invasion of large scale was imminent and so in his paranoia. ordered that the 98 prisoners of war they had held on the island be executed and then they marched these 98 prisoners of war to the edge of the sea, blindfolded them and then shot them dead, but in the chaos of the air raid and the execution one of the American prisoners of war somehow managed to escape after the Japanese left the area.

This POW sneaked back to the execution site and carved into the rock a monument to the 98 POWs, so he included himself in that number because I'm sure he knew he would eventually be recaptured. This was a small area and he was the only American there and sure enough, this prisoner of war was recaptured that day and he was personally executed by the Japanese admiral. The identity of this prisoner of war has never been determined after the war ended. The Japanese admiral who ordered these executions was tried for war crimes, found guilty and executed himself. The so-called rock 98 can still be seen today on Wake Island on January 25, 1998.

American tourists Tom and Eileen Lonergan boarded a ship in Queensland, Australia. The couple was from Louisiana. Tom was 34 and Eileen was 28. They had spent the last two years in Fiji and Tuvalu serving in the Peace Corps. Australia was just a stop on their way back home. They were both avid divers and wanted a chance. to dive the largest coral reef system in the world, the great barrier reef, once Tom Eileen and the other 24 Taurus boarded this boat, the captain took a head count and then once he had everyone, he turned the boat and headed out to sea after traveling 25 miles, the captain stopped the boat and then told the group to put on their diving equipment, so Tom Eileen and the others happily put on their fins, their masks and their tanks and then when they were ready they inspected them and then allowed them to jump into the water. coral sea less than an hour later, the divers returned to the surface and the captain began to pull them back to the boat.

Once everyone was back on board, the captain did another head count just to confirm that he had everyone and once he was safe. He did so, turned the boat around and headed back to shore, except the captain miscounted and neither he nor anyone else realized shortly after that the boat had left the area. Tom and Eileen Lonergan emerged from their dive, looked around, and realized they had been abandoned. After the initial panic passed, they probably told each other not to worry, as soon as the ship returns to shore, they will find our wallets, passports and other personal items inside the ship and they will know that we are not with them. and they will come out looking for us, so the couple was most likely quite optimistic as they just kept afloat waiting for someone to show up at any moment, except they didn't show up at all, it was 48 hours before anyone showed up because that's how long it took before anyone saw that their wallets, passports and personal items were still inside that dive boat and in those 48 hours Tom and Eileen were exposed to the intense summer heat, no fresh water and sharks when Finally his personal effects were found, a great search began?

She dove towards them but there was no sign of them. A month later a women's wetsuit washed up on the shores of Australia and was the same size as Eileen's and an expert analyzed it and said it had been floating in the water. for about a month, so that lined up with when tom and eileen went missing five months later, more scuba gear washed up on the shores of australia, among those items were life jackets with lonergan's name written on the back, as well as an air tank and a scuba fan that belonged to eileen but the most disturbing thing that washed up on the shore was the couple's diver board a diver board is like a dry erase board that works underwater on this board was Lonergan's

final

message saying to anyone who can help us we have been marooned on the Aegon Court reef please help us before we die please help the message above was a date it was January 26, 1998 That would have been a day after they were abandoned at sea, so we know the couple was alive for at least 24 hours. but beyond that no one knows what happened some say the couple staged their disappearance so they could start a new life somewhere or to take their own lives others say they were eaten by sharks most experts believe they eventually became delirious from dehydration and that would have caused them to voluntarily remove their diving equipment and without that equipment they would not have floated and therefore at some point they would not have been able to continue floating in the water and would have drowned, but regardless of which theory is correct, Tom and Eileen. have never been found bryce gilles was born in 1989 in northern virginia, on the outskirts of washington dc, from a very young age bryce's parents knew that he loved the outdoors and that is why they enrolled him in the boy scouts and, as an explorer, bryce He learned, among many things, how to survive in the wilderness and routinely put this training to the test by leaving his house and heading to the nearby Appalachian Trail and sometimes hiking up to 20 miles in a single day.

He eventually became an Eagle Scout, which is the highest rank of anyone. can obtain within the boy scouts a rank that only about eight percent of scouts will achieve after graduating from high school in 2007 bryce decided he wanted to go to school in the west and during a visit to the university of northern Arizona Bryce fell in love with her school because around its campus there were amazing hiking trails that were nothing like anything she saw growing up on the East Coast. Bryce decided that this was his dream school, so he applied and a couple of weeks later he was accepted.

I was totally excited during his first couple of years at Nau Bryce took full advantage of these totally amazing hiking trails just a couple of hours from campus. He also spent some time abroad in West Africa helping to build a medical clinic for

people

in need during the summer holidays of 2009, so he entered. His junior year at Nau Bryce was still living in Arizona in an a

part

ment and was still a few weeks away from classes starting, so he decided to go to the nearby Grand Canyon to do some hiking that he had recently read about. an outdoor magazine about this lesser known but incredible trail that was for experts only in the canyon he wanted to try.

It was called Deer Creek Thunder River Loop and it brought hikers to this remote place where water gushed out of this huge limestone rock. wall that transforms the desert landscape below into this incredible green oasis. The article said that very strong hikers could complete this nearly 28 mile loop in about three days as Bryce considered himself a very strong hiker and decided this was perfect for him. Bryce called his parents and left them. He knew that he was going to do this loop and that when he returned in a couple of days he would make a trip to Virginia to visit them, so Bryce called some friends in the area to see if they wanted to go with him.

This hike, but no one was available so Bryce decided to go alone, so the next day, which was Saturday, July 18, Bryce loaded up his car and began driving several hours to the closest parking lot to the trailhead. Bryce parked his car. He grabbed his gear from the trunk and then headed down the trail. Bryce had not obtained a backcountry permit for this hike. This was a requirement for anyone spending the night in the canyon, which Bryce planned to do. Bryce didn't either. present his route to the park rangers if he had told them where he was going, they would have tried to dissuade him from doing so.

The Deer Creek Thunder River Loop had no protection from the sun the entire time and since it was July, it would be hit with the highest temperatures in the most direct sunlight, all this on top of the fact that even in the coldest times of the year this trail continues to be extremely difficult due to the terrain that must be navigated, in fact, when hikers presented their route at the ranger park and indicated that they were going to do this expert circuit, they would be asked to provide information from their closest relatives. nearby in case they died during their walk.

It is unclear if Bryce was simply very confident in himself and his abilities or if he was being reckless from his car, Bryce walked about two miles up some switchbacks into the canyon, once he reached the bottom he would have found himself in this area. flat and open called esplanade that looked like the surface of the moon with all these potholes everywhere. At this point in Bryce's hike it would have been dark, so he would have set up his tent somewhere on the rocks and camped for the night. People who have done this and camped on the esplanade have said that it is incredibly beautiful because most people experience the Grand Canyon from the top of one of the rims looking down, but the esplanade is literally inside the canyon, so what you have this unobstructed view in both directions and apparently it's quite beautiful the next morning bryce got up at dawn and packed up his camp and then continued his hike the first challenge he would face that morning was navigating what is called the wall red wall which is a fairly steep and treacherous descent that would take an experienced hiker about an hour to navigate safely and then at the end of the red wall you would enter this area called surprise valley.

No one really knows why it's called that, but hikers who have been to this valley believe it's called that because of the surprise you feel when you walk in there and realize how much hotter it normally is, about 10 or 20 degrees warmer. inside this bowl after Bryce successfully navigated the red wall and entered this totally miserable surprise valley, but he would have known it was only half a mile away. His target destination was the Deer Creek Thunder River, where he planned to jump and cool off, he was so eager to do so that Bryce took off but made a critical mistake, he went the wrong way and it is unclear exactly how this happened.

Experts believe that his ears played tricks on him. Hikers are told that when they approach this river in the middle of the desert they should be alert because when they get close enough you can hear the sound of rushing water, but hikers should be careful because sometimes when the wind blows. In a certain direction, the sound of the river will resonate within this bowl and appear to come from the opposite direction. It is believed that Bryce was following his map when he heard the sound of this river coming from a different direction, so he abandoned the map and followed the sound.

Price walked for quite a while in the wrong direction until he climbed a hill and probably the whole time he heard the sound of water and probably thought that once he reached the top of this hill. I'll look the other way and see water, but when he got to the top of the hill he looked down and saw only an arid valley. If he had continued another quarter mile into the valley and then the other side, he could have turned around. and he could havespot an obvious landmark that would have led him to the river, but Bryce was most likely exhausted from the extreme heat, sunlight, and the hike here, so he felt it was probably too risky to continue any further.

He came down into this valley because he had no idea where he was going, so in accordance with the wilderness training he received as a boy scout, he left all his heavy equipment on the side of the trail in an area he had marked for to be able to return eventually. and he got it back and then he took his water meal and his headlight turned around and started backing up after a while bryce decided to leave the trail and actually veered off into a dry creek bed in the boy scouts, they were taught that any dry stream bed will eventually disappear. connect to water, so at this point Bryce is probably running out of water and wondering if this takes him to the Deer Creek Thunder River or some other body of water.

He didn't care, he just needed water, so he went to this dry creek bed. but after a while he saw less and less vegetation, it was just this barren desert in every direction after a while more Bryce dropped all his gear on the ground after finishing his water, at this point he would have known that if he didn't . If he finds a water source soon, he won't make it, so Bryce just continues to trudge along this dry riverbed, seeing no indication that he's getting close to water, but then he looks up and sees that the land in front of him looks like lean down out of sight and then beyond he sees in the distance what looks like the south wall of the grand canyon and below the south wall is the colorado river and then bryce would have known that if he could go down this slope, surely would get to this river and be saved, so bryce headed to where the ground started to slope down towards the river, he started descending safely quite slowly and then he came to a very steep section called spill which is a dry waterfall and they vary in height, but they are quite steep and quite slippery.

Once Bryce fell down one of these things, there would be no way to get back up. So this was a one way trip, but Bryce was desperate, he knew his only chance was to get to that Colorado River that he could now see, so Bryce went down this first spill and then he found another one and another and went ahead. He went down these spills and they got steeper and more challenging and the temperature continued to rise as he descended deeper into this canyon finally Bryce reached a spill that was very very steep it was almost vertical but again Bryce couldn't get back up the path. came, he had to keep going so at some point he threw himself off the spill and fell 30 feet but he survived, got up, dusted himself off and continued walking forward, he passed these rocks into this clearing and right in front of him is the Colorado River, it's half a mile down in front of it, but the only way to get to it was to navigate another spill and this spill was 80 feet high and almost completely vertical, there was no way to survive that. kind of fell and bryce couldn't just turn around and try to find an alternate route because this was a one way trip, he couldn't get back up because of the spills he had just gone down to get there, to his left and to the right of he.

Were these steep canyon walls that bordered the space he was in and had no handholds so he couldn't climb up or down them? Bryce was stuck and he found out the following Tuesday, when Bryce was supposed to be home in Virginia for a visit. his family didn't show up so his family tried to call him but they couldn't get through to him. It seemed that his phone was turned off and they called the authorities. A search

part

y was sent to the grand canyon to go searching. bryce and on Saturday, July 25, so this is six days after bryce found himself trapped on that ledge overlooking the river, a search party was on the colorado river and they happened to look in the direction where bryce had been and noticed what looked like a person and then they took their climbing equipment and they went up that spill to this ledge and they found Bryce, he was sitting against a rock and he had died, he had died from heat stroke and dehydration, in his hand was his phone Blackberry cell phone.

He would have had no service inside the canyon, but Bryce used it as a notepad to write a final message to his family and friends. In it he writes that life is good, whether long or short. I was lucky to be able to do many things. more than most people and that's why I'm very grateful that his message also had some humor. He told his family that he was very grateful to have his Blackberry phone because it would have been much more difficult to record his final message on a rock, he also said that he didn't know what the afterlife held for him, he just hoped they had water and then when His phone battery was dying, he typed one last sentence.

I feel like going into nature is a calling, we all feel like someone answers it and some die from it and shortly after writing that message, Bryce clutched his phone to his chest and died. He was only 20 years old, so that'll be it guys, if you found the secret in today's episode, let us know in the comments which one it is. and where you found it and if you are the first person to do so, we will pin you at the top of the comments section. If you got something from today's episode and haven't already, replace the Like button with salted butter. with unsalted butter also subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our 3 or 4 weekly videos if you want to contact me you can direct message me on instagram or twitter my username for both platforms is the same, it's johnballen416.

I also have a lot of content on tick talk where my username is mr ballin. I also have a second youtube channel called mr ball and shorts where I post random short videos and missing episodes if you have a story suggestion please submit it to our subreddit simply called mr ballen it's linked in the description below so if I see it on instagram, twitter, tick tock, reddit, youtube or some combination, know that I really appreciate your support and until next time, that's it. already