If you follow childhood horror maestro R.L. Stine on Twitter you know that he is a fan of sharing “True Horror” tales with his unsuspecting Twitter audience. These are real life things that are absolutely terrifying. Mr. Stine, this one’s for you!
CANNIBAL RATS!!! GHOST SHIPS!!! MURDER!!!
OK, I made up the “murder” part…
The 40-year-old Lyubov Orlova, a cruise ship built in the former Soviet Union, is adrift, and no one seems to be able to find it. Seriously. According to the Daily Record the ship’s “current position is unknown despite several high-level searches.†The U.K. publication went on to say that “[l]ast year satellites picked up an unidentified blip off Scotland large enough to be the ship – but search planes found nothing.†I know what you’re thinking, and yes, the enormous thing that the satellite picked up off the coast of Scotland was probably Nessie and not the abandoned cruise liner…
“Why is this so scary, Clarke? It’s just a ship adrift at sea…†Did I mention that the missing ship is full of disease-carrying cannibal rats that have been feasting on each other to survive and will probably wash ashore in Europe sometime soon? Surprise!
So how exactly did all of this happen?
Back in 2010, the Lyubov Orlova was impounded in Canada. Apparently the owners didn’t pay the crew, so they split. There were debts owed and the ship ended up being left in Newfoundland. So, the Canadian government decided to sell the ship for scrap to the Dominican Republic. While being towed to the Caribbean, the tow line broke, and the Canadian government decided to let the ship go. Now, it’s just out there, floating around with a bunch of We Are What We Are rats on board. Thanks, Canada! We always wanted a cruise ship full of rat kings to crash land in Europe.
But don’t worry, citizens located around the south of England, west coast of Ireland, or Scotland! Chief Irish coastguard Chris Reynolds has vowed to “stay vigilant” on the hunt for the missing vessel. In the meantime, you may want to rewatch Willard or cross your fingers that they haven’t eaten Nicodemus yet.
HT: Daily Record
Thank you for that Secret of NIMH reference. 🙂
Err the rat part was speculation. Nobody’s been on board that ship for over a year. Someone said if there WERE rats. They’d have to eat each other as there was no food… Lol so yeah not so ghost ship not necessarily heading to London since the coast guard isn’t worried and the rats? Likely. But not confirmed.
Fueling unfounded hysteria just seems so unnerdlike.
A more factual, rational account:
http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/shortcuts/2014/jan/24/lyubov-orlova-ghost-ship-cannibal-rats