January 10, 2004
This is a definite candidate for the urban legends page...
[Forwards lost at sea]
> -----Original Message-----
>
> Earlier this year, the dazed crew of a Japanese Trawler were plucked
> out of the Sea of Japan clinging to the wreckage of their sunken ship.
> Their rescue, however, was followed by immediate imprisonment once
> authorities questioned the sailors on their ship's loss. To a man
> they claimed
> that a cow, falling out of a clear blue sky, had struck the trawler
> amidships, shattering it's hull and sinking the vessel within minutes.
>
> They remained in prison for several weeks, until the Russian Air Force
> reluctantly informed Japanese authorities that the crew of one of its
> cargo planes had apparently stolen a cow wandering at the edge of a
> Siberian airfield, forced the cow into the plane's hold and hastily
> taken
> off for home. Unprepared for live cargo, the Russian crew was
> ill-equipped to manage a now rampaging cow within its hold. To save
> the aircraft and themselves, they shoved the animal out of the cargo
> hold as they crossed the Sea of Japan at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
