Eleven wooden fishing boats carrying a total of 25 dead bodies have been found off the coast of Japan in the last two months. The boats are believed to have come from North Korea but how and why still remain unknown.

At least two of the 25 total bodies found were headless and one boat contained six human skulls. The bodies have been said to be in the latter stages of decomposition while some even looked ‘Skeletonized’.

The mystery behind these death boats has been focused around two separate theories. The first one being that these boats are in fact fishing vessels. The ships are all old and wooden, without proper engines to move against the strong currents of the open seas, lacking GPS and other basic radar functions. This has given claim to the theory that these active fishing vessels fell off course leading them to drift out into open water for an unknown amount of time before showing up off the coast of Japan.

The second theory and more likely scenario, is that these boats were manned by defectors from North Korea fleeing the repressive regime in hopes of reaching South Korea.

This phenomenon of North Korean ghost ships showing up off the coast of Japan may seem strange and unsettling but by no means is it new.

There were 80 boats found off the coast of Japan in 2013, 65 found in 2014 and 34 so far this year.

However, not all of these boats contained corpses. Some contained families whom were still alive when spotted drifting in the ocean, while others were empty.

The most recent boat to show up contained 7 bodies and was spotted off the coast and towed into a Japanese harbor last Tuesday.

At this time there are still no conclusive theories as to why these ghost ships are showing up off the coast of Japan but some experts believe that, “the fact that there have been so many cases in such a short space of time is worrying because it suggests there is a serious instability just below the surface in North Korea”