On Tuesday 5 July 1955, THE AGE, an Australian newspaper, ran the following story.

PLANES SEARCH FOR MYSTERIOUS ISLAND MANILA, JULY 4 – THE PHILIPPINE AIR FORCE IS SEARCHING THE SOUTH CHINA SEA FOR A MYSTERIOUS ISLAND SETTLEMENT CALLED THE ‘KINGDOM OF HUMANITY’.

THE PHILIPPINES PRESIDENT (MR RAMON MAGSAYSAY) SAID ON SUNDAY THAT HE WANTED TO KNOW WHETHER SUCH A PLACE ACTUALLY EXISTED. IF IT DOES, MR MAGSAYSAY WANTS TO DETERMINE WHETHER IT IS A LEGITIMATE SETTLEMENT WITHIN TERRITORIAL PHILIPPINES WATERS OR A CLANDESTINE BASE FOR SMUGGLERS AND COMMUNIST AGENTS.

SO FAR, THE ONLY FIRST-HAND DESCRIPTION OF THE ‘KINGDOM’ HAS COME FROM AN AMERICAN WHO CALLS HIMSELF ‘CONSUL FOR THE SOVEREIGN’. MR MORTON F. MEADS, AGED 33, TOLD THE COMMANDER OF THE PHILIPPINES AIR FORCE, BRIGADIER-GENERAL PELAGIO CRUZ, THAT THE ‘HUMANITY’ SETTLEMENT HAS A POPULATION OF 3,400 INCLUDING CHINESE, AMERICANS, FRENCH, INDONESIANS, MALAYANS AND JAPANESE.

Meads traced his ancestry to James George Meads, master of the British ship MODESTE, who in 1877 laid claim to an archipelago on behalf of the world’s downtrodden and persecuted. Meads dedicated the island nation to a peaceful existence and proclaimed himself King James I.

Morton Meads enlisted in the US army during World War II as the best way to fight for his country against the occupying Japanese force, and was cited for bravery in official dispatches. Since the war, the Philippines has not been the only country sniffing around Moroc-Songhrati-Meads, whose seabed contains rich deposits of oil and natural gas. In June 1972, Morton Meads led a delegation bound for the United Nations in New York to plead his nation’s case against the region’s bullies.

They never arrived. Tragedy struck when their ship, the E PLURIBUS UNUM, was sunk by Category 1 Typhoon Ora off the Filipino coast. There was just one survivor: Morton Meads.