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FOUND-FOOTAGE-fuels-decades-long-MYSTERY · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty nine, an adventure magazine reporter named Milt
0:03
Speaker 1: Macklin flew to New Guinea with his film crew to
0:07
Speaker 1: shoot a documentary about a missing person who had gone
0:10
Speaker 1: missing in that area. Milt's hope was he was actually
0:13
Speaker 1: going to find this missing person and capture it on film,
0:16
Speaker 1: really pushing his documentary over the top. But despite shooting
0:20
Speaker 1: all this footage and looking all over the place, they
0:22
Speaker 1: never found the missing person, and so Milt ultimately went
0:25
Speaker 1: back home and just put all the footage in storage,
0:28
Speaker 1: never even watched it. Well forty years later, that footage
0:31
Speaker 1: got pulled out of storage because another crew wanted to
0:34
Speaker 1: make a documentary about this missing person, and when they
0:38
Speaker 1: watched this footage, they found something totally unbelievable on it.
0:43
Speaker 1: And so today I'm going to tell you the story
0:45
Speaker 1: of what they found and then more importantly, what it
0:49
Speaker 1: revealed about this missing person. And I will say right
0:52
Speaker 1: now it is highly disturbing. But before we get into
0:56
Speaker 1: that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark
0:58
Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in Sons story format, and you've come
1:01
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Speaker 1: don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get
1:21
Speaker 1: into today's story. On the morning of Saturday, November eighteenth,
1:37
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, a twenty three year old man named
1:41
Speaker 1: Michael Rockefeller reached down and grabbed the pull cord that
1:44
Speaker 1: was connected to the outboard motor that was on the
1:47
Speaker 1: boat that Michael was riding in. And Michael he pulled
1:50
Speaker 1: and pulled on that cord, but he could not get
1:53
Speaker 1: this engine to restart. It just sputtered and wouldn't turn over.
1:57
Speaker 1: And without power, that meant that Michael and his small
2:00
Speaker 1: crew just continued to drift farther and farther out to sea.
2:04
Speaker 1: But that wasn't even the worst of this situation. The
2:08
Speaker 1: boat that Michael and his crew were on, which was
2:10
Speaker 1: a forty foot long catamaran, it was two hand crafted
2:13
Speaker 1: canoes tied together well, it was starting to sink. Minutes
2:17
Speaker 1: before Michael and his crew had been happily traveling along
2:20
Speaker 1: the beautiful green jungled coast of New Guinea when they
2:24
Speaker 1: had to cross over this area where the water was
2:27
Speaker 1: particularly turbulent. There was this river in New Guinea that
2:31
Speaker 1: was feeding out to the Era for a Sea, which
2:33
Speaker 1: is where Michael and his crew were, and where this
2:35
Speaker 1: brown river met the blue water, it became very choppy
2:39
Speaker 1: with lots of rough waves, and so as Michael and
2:41
Speaker 1: his crew tried to cross that area, the waves came
2:44
Speaker 1: on board, they flooded the engine and shut off, and
2:47
Speaker 1: then as more and more waves landed inside the boat,
2:50
Speaker 1: the boat began to sink. The reason why Michael and
2:53
Speaker 1: his crew were even out here and taking these chances
2:55
Speaker 1: to begin with is because Michael wanted to go see
2:58
Speaker 1: this tribe called the Asthmats that lived in New Guinea
3:02
Speaker 1: basically right past this area where this river was. They
3:04
Speaker 1: lived right on the coast. Michael was obsessed with the
3:08
Speaker 1: artwork that the Asmat tribe created, in particular the very
3:12
Speaker 1: unique bis pole. These poles are created by the master
3:16
Speaker 1: carvers within the Asthmat tribe. What they do is they
3:19
Speaker 1: take a single piece of wood and they etch it
3:22
Speaker 1: away until it looks like it's a bunch of men
3:25
Speaker 1: standing on each other's shoulders. Now, these bispoles are totally
3:29
Speaker 1: beautiful and intricate and wonderful to look at, but the
3:33
Speaker 1: Asmat tribe doesn't make them for art. They make them
3:36
Speaker 1: because they believe they contain the souls of the warriors
3:40
Speaker 1: from their tribe who have been killed in combat. And
3:44
Speaker 1: until the Asmats avenge these downed warriors, basically until the
3:49
Speaker 1: tribe kills their enemies, these souls remain trapped in these
3:53
Speaker 1: bis poles, which means the Asmats don't really ever get
3:56
Speaker 1: rid of these poles. They don't sell them, they don't
3:59
Speaker 1: throw them away. They are just part of their culture
4:02
Speaker 1: and society. But months ago, Michael had come and visited
4:05
Speaker 1: the Asmat tribe. He had learned about these bis poles
4:09
Speaker 1: and what they meant, and he believed he had successfully
4:12
Speaker 1: negotiated a deal where he would barter some of his
4:15
Speaker 1: own goods in order to get one of their bis poles.
4:19
Speaker 1: But even though Michael gave them all the things he
4:21
Speaker 1: had offered, they had not in return sent the bis pole.
4:25
Speaker 1: And so now Michael was coming back to hopefully be
4:28
Speaker 1: able to claim the bispole and take it with him.
4:31
Speaker 1: But as Michael sat in his sinking catamaran, watching the
4:35
Speaker 1: muddy shores of New Guinea get farther and farther away
4:38
Speaker 1: as he drifted farther and farther out into the arafora
4:41
Speaker 1: s The last thing on his mind was the bis pole.
4:44
Speaker 1: He needed to figure out what they were going to do.
4:46
Speaker 1: Michael's crew consisted of three other people. There was a
4:50
Speaker 1: French anthropologist named Renee, and there were two teenagers who
4:53
Speaker 1: were actually asthmat guides, and their names were Simon and Leo.
4:57
Speaker 1: And so after Michael was unable to start the engine up,
5:00
Speaker 1: all three of them took their turn yanking on the cord,
5:03
Speaker 1: but they too could not get it to start. Finally,
5:06
Speaker 1: Simon and Leo spoke up and they said to Michael
5:09
Speaker 1: and Renee that at this point they believed their only
5:12
Speaker 1: hope was abandoning the catamaran, jumping into the ocean and
5:16
Speaker 1: swimming to shore, which for now was about a half
5:19
Speaker 1: mile away. But they were drifting so quickly out to
5:21
Speaker 1: sea that if they waited any longer, they might be
5:24
Speaker 1: too far away to actually make that swim. But Renee
5:28
Speaker 1: was not a good swimmer at all, and Michael was
5:30
Speaker 1: just not ready to totally abandon ship and leave this
5:34
Speaker 1: thing out here to sink, because on board the catamaran
5:37
Speaker 1: was all this stuff he had brought along, like tobacco
5:41
Speaker 1: and fishing line and clothes and candy and all this
5:43
Speaker 1: different stuff that he knew this tribe wouldn't have, and
5:46
Speaker 1: he could use it as leverage to continue bartering to
5:49
Speaker 1: get his this pole and to get other artwork they
5:51
Speaker 1: might be offering. And so, even though Michael understood that
5:55
Speaker 1: obviously this catamaran and everything on it is going to
5:58
Speaker 1: sink into the ocean at some point, he just wasn't
6:01
Speaker 1: there mentally to jump off now and just kind of
6:03
Speaker 1: abandon all this stuff. And so a decision was made
6:06
Speaker 1: that the two asmat guides, the two teenagers, Simon and Leo,
6:10
Speaker 1: they on their own, would jump out, swim to shore
6:13
Speaker 1: and try to get help, while Michael and Renee stayed
6:16
Speaker 1: back and waited for that help to come. And so
6:18
Speaker 1: a few moments later, the two teenagers jumped into the
6:21
Speaker 1: water and began their long swim to shore, and as
6:24
Speaker 1: they did, Michael watched, and it suddenly dawned on him
6:27
Speaker 1: just how far away he was from his own home.
6:30
Speaker 1: It had been months since Michael had last showered, so
6:33
Speaker 1: he smelled terrible. He was totally sunburned and caked and dirt,
6:37
Speaker 1: and his hands were rough and calloused from all the
6:39
Speaker 1: rowing he was doing. But this was not really Michael's
6:43
Speaker 1: real life, because Michael was not from New Guinea or
6:46
Speaker 1: from anywhere near here. He was actually from America, where
6:50
Speaker 1: his family was one of the most well known, influential
6:53
Speaker 1: and richest families ever. Like in the history of humanity,
6:57
Speaker 1: the Rockefeller family are in like the top ten of
7:00
Speaker 1: the most powerful people ever. Michael's grandfather was the oil
7:05
Speaker 1: tycoon John D. Rockefeller, who at the time was literally
7:09
Speaker 1: the richest man in the world, and Michael's father, Nelson Rockefeller,
7:14
Speaker 1: was at the time the Governor of New York and
7:17
Speaker 1: the future Vice President of the United States. But despite
7:20
Speaker 1: having these unbelievable resources at his disposal, Michael was not
7:25
Speaker 1: compelled to kind of be a Rockefeller. Instead, he found
7:29
Speaker 1: his calling in the wilds of New Guinea. He had
7:32
Speaker 1: first come here seven months earlier with a team of
7:35
Speaker 1: Harvard University filmmakers who were looking to document a very
7:39
Speaker 1: remote tribe, and Michael just fell in love with the
7:43
Speaker 1: adventure of this trip. Even though on this trip, while
7:46
Speaker 1: they were filming a battle between this remote tribe and
7:49
Speaker 1: another tribe, Michael got shot accidentally in the shoulder with
7:53
Speaker 1: an arrow. So despite being wounded effectively in combat, Michael
7:58
Speaker 1: just loved being in New Guinea. In fact, Michael actually
8:01
Speaker 1: never told his family about getting shot in the shoulder
8:04
Speaker 1: with this arrow because he was worried if he told
8:07
Speaker 1: his family, the all powerful Rockefeller family, they would respond
8:11
Speaker 1: by seeking out retribution against one of these tribes that
8:15
Speaker 1: had inadvertently harmed Michael Rockefeller. And so Michael was just
8:19
Speaker 1: very respectful and protective of the people he came in
8:23
Speaker 1: contact with in New Guinea, and in many ways he
8:25
Speaker 1: viewed them as more like his people than his family.
8:29
Speaker 1: And so after the Harvard University filmmakers wrapped up their
8:32
Speaker 1: documentary and went back to America, Michael had stayed in
8:36
Speaker 1: New Guinea and in the meantime, his father, Nelson Rockefeller,
8:40
Speaker 1: had opened up a museum back home in New York
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Speaker 1: called the Museum of Primitive Art, and what it displayed
8:46
Speaker 1: was artwork from places like New Guinea. Now, this was
8:49
Speaker 1: the early nineteen sixties, and so many Westerners viewed natives
8:54
Speaker 1: of New Guinea like the people of the Asthmat tribe
8:56
Speaker 1: as being very primitive and backwards, and so as a result,
9:00
Speaker 1: there was a lot of people that were drawn to
9:02
Speaker 1: this new museum in New York just for the spectacle
9:05
Speaker 1: of it, to see what these primitive, backwards people were creating.
9:09
Speaker 1: But Michael felt like he had a deeper understanding of
9:12
Speaker 1: the natives of New Guinea, and he felt like it
9:14
Speaker 1: was his responsibility to go out and find the incredible
9:18
Speaker 1: artwork all around New Guinea, including like the bispolls from
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Speaker 1: the Asthmat tribe, and send that artwork back to his
9:25
Speaker 1: father to be put up in this museum, so that
9:27
Speaker 1: it was more than just a spectacle. Michael wanted the
9:30
Speaker 1: people of the West to appreciate and respect the natives
9:34
Speaker 1: of New Guinea the same way he did, and he
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Speaker 1: believed through art he could do that, and so Michael
9:38
Speaker 1: had teamed up with Renee, the French anthropologist, to go
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Speaker 1: all around New Guinea to find this artwork to send
9:44
Speaker 1: back to his dad. A few hours after Simon and
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Speaker 1: Leo had leapt off the sinking catamaran and began their
9:51
Speaker 1: swim to shore, Michael and Renee had no idea if
9:54
Speaker 1: they'd even made it to shore. They hadn't seen anybody
9:57
Speaker 1: show up to rescue them, and so as far as
9:59
Speaker 1: they knew, they had no idea how close they were
10:02
Speaker 1: to being rescued or not. And as they looked down,
10:04
Speaker 1: they saw their catamaran was sinking lower and lower in
10:07
Speaker 1: the water, and so at some point Michael and Renee
10:10
Speaker 1: just grabbed buckets and began bailing the water out of
10:13
Speaker 1: the catamaran, which was totally useless. The water was coming
10:16
Speaker 1: in way too quickly, but they had nothing else to do,
10:18
Speaker 1: and so they're baling the water out and then a
10:20
Speaker 1: rogue wave comes through and flips the entire catamaran over,
10:24
Speaker 1: sending Michael and Renee into the sea. And so luckily
10:28
Speaker 1: Michael and Renee were able to swim to the surface.
10:30
Speaker 1: They swam over to the now upturned catamaran, but there
10:33
Speaker 1: was an air pocket kind of trapped underneath it, and
10:36
Speaker 1: so it was staying afloat, and so Michael and Renee
10:38
Speaker 1: grabbed onto the catamaran, and Michael actually grabbed a gas
10:42
Speaker 1: canister that had come off the boat and he attached
10:44
Speaker 1: it to his belt like a floatation device, and so
10:47
Speaker 1: he and Renee just kind of held on to this
10:49
Speaker 1: upturned catamaran. Michael was also supported by this gas canister,
10:53
Speaker 1: and they just continued to wait, hoping that Simon and
10:56
Speaker 1: Leo had made it to shore and that help would
10:58
Speaker 1: be arriving soon. But in the back of Michael's mind,
11:01
Speaker 1: he knew that if help didn't come soon, Michael might
11:04
Speaker 1: have to do something drastic like attempt the swim himself,
11:07
Speaker 1: which now was way farther than half a mile away.
11:10
Speaker 1: By the next morning, when the sun came up, Michael
11:13
Speaker 1: and Renee were still in the water, holding onto that catamaran,
11:16
Speaker 1: waiting for help to arrive. But no help would come. Now,
11:20
Speaker 1: Michael was a very good swimmer, but by this point
11:23
Speaker 1: he knew they were at least five or maybe even
11:26
Speaker 1: ten miles from shore, so this would be a gargantuan
11:29
Speaker 1: swim in pretty rough waters. But you know, Michael, he's
11:33
Speaker 1: a Rockefeller. He had a lot of confidence, and he
11:35
Speaker 1: began telling Renee that, hey, I'm gonna do this swim.
11:38
Speaker 1: I know I can do it. I can swim the
11:39
Speaker 1: whole distance, even if it's ten miles, I can do it.
11:42
Speaker 1: You know, you're gonna have to just hang tight. It's
11:44
Speaker 1: gonna take a while, but I'll get us help. Renee
11:46
Speaker 1: begged Michael not to go, but Michael said, I have
11:50
Speaker 1: to do something otherwise we're going to die out here.
11:52
Speaker 1: And so all Renee could do was watch as Michael
11:54
Speaker 1: stripped off some of his clothes and attached another gas
11:57
Speaker 1: canister to his belt to give him a little bit
11:59
Speaker 1: more flotation. And then Michael shook Renee's hand, and then
12:03
Speaker 1: right around eight am on Sunday, November nineteenth, nineteen sixty one,
12:07
Speaker 1: Michael began the swim. About twelve hours later, so that night,
12:12
Speaker 1: while Renee is still just holding onto this catamaran, hoping
12:15
Speaker 1: help is going to come soon, suddenly, kind of without warning,
12:18
Speaker 1: the sky suddenly erupted with this incredibly bright flame. And
12:22
Speaker 1: what it was was a plane flying overhead that had
12:25
Speaker 1: spotted Renee and the upturned catamaran. They had fired a
12:29
Speaker 1: flare into the air to be like, hey, we see you.
12:32
Speaker 1: We're gonna send help. And then just a couple of
12:34
Speaker 1: hours later, a boat came around and picked Renee up.
12:37
Speaker 1: And when Renee climbed on board, he was so relieved
12:40
Speaker 1: and he asked the captain, you know, hey, did Michael
12:42
Speaker 1: Rockefeller tell you I was out here? Is that why
12:45
Speaker 1: you knew I was here? And the captain said, no,
12:47
Speaker 1: we were told by two teenagers, two guides, Simon and Leo,
12:51
Speaker 1: that you were out here. No one's heard from Michael.
12:54
Speaker 1: Now you need to remember that Michael Rockefeller was a
12:57
Speaker 1: Rockefeller And so as soon as Renee heard, oh my goodness,
13:00
Speaker 1: we don't know where Michael is, and he told the
13:02
Speaker 1: captain that Michael had begun this unbelievably long swim to
13:06
Speaker 1: shore to get help. It was like suddenly a bomb
13:09
Speaker 1: had gone off in the Rockefeller family, and they committed
13:12
Speaker 1: all of their money and their resources and their influence
13:15
Speaker 1: to launch the biggest manhunt basically ever to find Michael.
13:19
Speaker 1: They dispatched ships and helicopters and planes. They got in
13:23
Speaker 1: touch with the US Navy and got them to be
13:25
Speaker 1: fully involved. I mean they looked everywhere for weeks, but
13:29
Speaker 1: they could not find Michael. This search for Michael would
13:32
Speaker 1: continue four years. Now it wouldn't be as intense as
13:35
Speaker 1: the first few weeks, but there was always somebody or
13:38
Speaker 1: some entity looking for Michael around the area where he
13:42
Speaker 1: had begun that swim. But by nineteen sixty four, so
13:45
Speaker 1: three years after Michael had begun the swim to shore.
13:49
Speaker 1: The Rockefeller family finally accepted that Michael had to be dead,
13:53
Speaker 1: that he had to have drowned on that five or
13:56
Speaker 1: ten mile swim to shore. For the last sixty years,
14:04
Speaker 1: I've been a hardcore whale mail enthusiast. Every morning, I
14:09
Speaker 1: wake up and I break up my quill and parchment,
14:11
Speaker 1: and I draft up the various messages I need to
14:14
Speaker 1: send to my team, and then after slapping those in
14:16
Speaker 1: my backpack, I dive into the ocean and I swim
14:19
Speaker 1: out until I encounter a whale, and then I jump
14:21
Speaker 1: on its back and I spend forty five minutes wrestling
14:24
Speaker 1: with it until I've secured my packages to its hefty trunk,
14:27
Speaker 1: and then I leap off that beast, wish it good luck,
14:30
Speaker 1: swim to shore, and wait for my mail to get delivered.
14:33
Speaker 1: But despite how glorious this shipping system sounds, unfortunately in
14:38
Speaker 1: the past six decades, not one whale has understood it
14:43
Speaker 1: was my courier, and so as a result, all of
14:45
Speaker 1: my mail has gone undelivered. So after sixty years, I
14:50
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15:55
Speaker 1: family finally kind of accepted that that is what happened,
15:59
Speaker 1: that became the story in America about what happened to
16:02
Speaker 1: Michael Rockefeller. In fact, his sister even wrote a best
16:05
Speaker 1: selling book about grieving his loss. But in New Guinea,
16:09
Speaker 1: a very different story began to spread about what happened
16:13
Speaker 1: to Michael. Rumors about his fate were whispered along trade
16:16
Speaker 1: routes and between visiting missionaries, and gossiped about in tabloid
16:21
Speaker 1: and adventure magazines. In nineteen sixty nine, so five years
16:25
Speaker 1: after Michael was declared dead by his family, an adventure
16:29
Speaker 1: magazine reporter named Milt Macklin heard from this mysterious Australian
16:34
Speaker 1: person who was a source for this magazine that they
16:37
Speaker 1: had actually run into Michael Rockefeller recently in the jungle
16:41
Speaker 1: of New Guinea, not far from where he supposedly disappeared.
16:44
Speaker 1: And Milt would actually follow up on this tip, despite
16:48
Speaker 1: how not credible it was, and he would go to
16:51
Speaker 1: New Guinea with a film crew and he would go
16:53
Speaker 1: to this area and he would look everywhere from Michael.
16:56
Speaker 1: He would talk to locals, I mean, he really scoured
16:58
Speaker 1: the area, but there was no sign of Michael. And
17:01
Speaker 1: so Milt, feeling very let down by this, he came
17:04
Speaker 1: back home and he actually wrote a best selling book
17:07
Speaker 1: about his quest to find Michael Rockefeller. But crucially, even
17:11
Speaker 1: though he had shot all this footage both at a
17:14
Speaker 1: distance and up close of all these tribes in the
17:17
Speaker 1: area where Michael supposedly was. He and his team never
17:21
Speaker 1: really reviewed the footage. They basically shot all this footage
17:24
Speaker 1: while they were there looking for Michael. Couldn't find him
17:26
Speaker 1: and said mac and put the footage aside. But forty
17:30
Speaker 1: years later, another documentary film crew decided they were going
17:35
Speaker 1: to go to New Guinea and look for Michael because
17:37
Speaker 1: there were still all these rumors floating around that Michael
17:40
Speaker 1: was alive and living in the jungles of New Guinea.
17:42
Speaker 1: And before they actually went to New Guinea to go
17:45
Speaker 1: looking for Michael, they uncovered this unwatched footage from Milton Macklin,
17:50
Speaker 1: and they watched all of it, and they discovered something unbelievable.
17:54
Speaker 1: Amongst the hours and hours of footage, there is this
17:58
Speaker 1: brief shot taken from a distance where the film crew
18:01
Speaker 1: was shooting on land out towards the water, and you
18:04
Speaker 1: see this canoe come into frame and it's full of
18:07
Speaker 1: Asmat tribe warriors. This is a war party and they're
18:10
Speaker 1: making their way presumably into battle with some other tribe.
18:14
Speaker 1: But amongst these big strong men is one man who
18:18
Speaker 1: totally stands out because he doesn't look like the other
18:22
Speaker 1: Asthmat warriors. He is a naked, bearded white man who again,
18:26
Speaker 1: even though the quality of the film was poor, he
18:29
Speaker 1: totally looked like Michael Rockefeller. And so as soon as
18:33
Speaker 1: word got out about this footage very quickly, rumors began
18:36
Speaker 1: to spread all around the world about how this air
18:39
Speaker 1: to a billionaire's fortune had decided to turn away from
18:43
Speaker 1: his family and just live amongst the Asthmat tribe as
18:47
Speaker 1: one of theirs. Now, again, we have no idea if
18:50
Speaker 1: that really was Michael Rockefeller. It could easily have been,
18:54
Speaker 1: you know, a missionary or some other white person that
18:56
Speaker 1: happened to be in New Guinea. But the story was
18:59
Speaker 1: incredible and so it spread everywhere. In twenty twelve, so
19:02
Speaker 1: four years after this unwatched Milt Macklin footage came to light,
19:07
Speaker 1: and over fifty years since Michael Rockefeller actually went missing,
19:11
Speaker 1: a national geographic journalist named Karl Hoffman, who had grown
19:15
Speaker 1: up totally fascinated by the mystery surrounding Michael Rockefeller. He
19:19
Speaker 1: decided that he would go to New Guinea and finally
19:22
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of what happened to Michael Rockefeller.
19:25
Speaker 1: And after Carl and his interpreter went to New Guinea
19:29
Speaker 1: and lived with the Asmat tribe for months and gained
19:32
Speaker 1: their trust and gained their respect. They began to tell
19:36
Speaker 1: him a brand news story that he had never heard
19:38
Speaker 1: before about what happened to Michael, the real story, and
19:41
Speaker 1: they gave him a dire warning that if he ever
19:44
Speaker 1: told anyone what actually happened to Michael, that the whole
19:47
Speaker 1: village would likely be killed, and maybe even he too
19:50
Speaker 1: would be killed. But Carl didn't listen. After hearing what
19:53
Speaker 1: really happened to Michael, he left New Guinea and wrote
19:56
Speaker 1: a book about it called Savage Harvest. And from his book,
20:00
Speaker 1: here is what happened to Michael Rockefeller On the morning
20:04
Speaker 1: of November nineteenth, nineteen sixty one, so roughly twenty four
20:08
Speaker 1: hours after Michael had jumped into the water and began
20:11
Speaker 1: this five to ten mile swimmed ashore to get help,
20:14
Speaker 1: three Asmat tribe elders named Finn A, Gem and Pep
20:19
Speaker 1: sat amongst fifty other tribe members in eight long canoes
20:23
Speaker 1: and they weren't going anywhere. They were just kind of
20:25
Speaker 1: resting at the mouth of this river, the same river
20:29
Speaker 1: that dumped out into the aur for a sea, which
20:31
Speaker 1: is exactly where Michael and his crew had ran into
20:34
Speaker 1: all those rough waters and overturned, causing their whole situation.
20:38
Speaker 1: And so all these tribes people are just sitting there
20:40
Speaker 1: in their canoes. Some of them are smoking loosely wrapped cigars.
20:44
Speaker 1: Others are chewing on flour made from a palm plant
20:47
Speaker 1: called sago. And they're all naked minus a couple of
20:50
Speaker 1: bands around their knees and their elbows, and some of
20:52
Speaker 1: them had very intricate piercings in their noses and their ears.
20:56
Speaker 1: But they're all just kind of sitting there. It was
20:58
Speaker 1: a long day, and they're enjoying some piece of quiet.
21:00
Speaker 1: But then suddenly a gym, one of the elders noticed
21:04
Speaker 1: something making its way into the river from the sea.
21:07
Speaker 1: It was this white thing kind of slithering towards them,
21:10
Speaker 1: and immediately a gym called out to the others to look,
21:13
Speaker 1: there's something over there. It's a white crocodile, it's a serpent,
21:16
Speaker 1: it's something, and they all look and they're watching, and
21:19
Speaker 1: slowly this white thing is moving its way closer and
21:22
Speaker 1: closer to them, and so, not wanting to be caught
21:24
Speaker 1: off guard, the entire group got ready and began paddling
21:28
Speaker 1: over to see what this thing was, because if it
21:31
Speaker 1: was a threat, they could deal with it. If it wasn't,
21:33
Speaker 1: you know, so be it. And so as these eight
21:35
Speaker 1: canoes converged on this white thing, some of them had
21:38
Speaker 1: their spears up ready to attack. But when they finally
21:42
Speaker 1: saw what this creature was, they realized it was not
21:45
Speaker 1: some serpent or crocodile or something. It was a white
21:48
Speaker 1: man and he was floating on his back, and he
21:50
Speaker 1: had these weird flotation devices on, but he was not
21:52
Speaker 1: a threat. And so right away, you know, all the
21:54
Speaker 1: tribesmen they put down their spears, they kind of laugh,
21:57
Speaker 1: you know, thinking that they were in danger for a second.
22:00
Speaker 1: And this white man, who was Michael Rockefeller, he rolled
22:03
Speaker 1: over and he looked up and he couldn't believe what
22:05
Speaker 1: he was seeing. You know, he just swam like ten
22:08
Speaker 1: miles to get here, and he's seeing the tribe that
22:11
Speaker 1: he had come to see in the first place. They've
22:13
Speaker 1: come here to rescue him. And so practically crying with relief,
22:17
Speaker 1: he turned around and grabbed one of their canoes, and
22:20
Speaker 1: as soon as he did, one of the elders pep
22:22
Speaker 1: looked down at Michael holding onto his boat, and then
22:25
Speaker 1: Pep looked up at the other two elders, Finn and
22:28
Speaker 1: a Gym, and they just stared at each other, then
22:30
Speaker 1: back at Michael, then back at each other, and then
22:33
Speaker 1: they nodded in agreement, and then Pep helped Michael into
22:36
Speaker 1: the boat. Michael immediately just laid in the middle of
22:39
Speaker 1: the boat. You know, he was so exhausted from that swim,
22:42
Speaker 1: but he was so relieved, and he just laid there
22:44
Speaker 1: while the tribe kind of got back into position. They
22:47
Speaker 1: turned their canoes around and began paddling back up the
22:50
Speaker 1: river back inland. And as they paddled, they began this
22:54
Speaker 1: very strange chant. All eight canoes, all fifty plus members
22:57
Speaker 1: of the tribe, all in unison, began chant. And Michael,
23:01
Speaker 1: you know, he had studied the Asmat tribe and felt
23:04
Speaker 1: like he knew a lot about their culture, but he
23:06
Speaker 1: had never heard this particular chant before, and so he
23:09
Speaker 1: was enchanted by it, and he tried to ask them,
23:11
Speaker 1: you know, what does this mean? But they just completely
23:13
Speaker 1: ignored Michael and just continued to paddle and change, and
23:17
Speaker 1: so Michael just laid there listening, getting carried along to safety,
23:20
Speaker 1: when all of a sudden, the chanting stopped, and the
23:23
Speaker 1: canoes turned and kind of made their way into this
23:25
Speaker 1: little inlet that led to a clearing right on the shore,
23:28
Speaker 1: and so Michael noticed they were slowing down, and so
23:31
Speaker 1: he kind of barely got up and looked over the
23:33
Speaker 1: edge of the canoe to see if they were at
23:35
Speaker 1: their village. But when he looked up, he saw there
23:37
Speaker 1: was no village in sight. It was just this clearing
23:40
Speaker 1: out on the shore. And right away Michael's like, well,
23:42
Speaker 1: I hope we're going to the village soon, because I
23:44
Speaker 1: have to find someone who can get in touch with
23:47
Speaker 1: the authorities who can then go and rescue Rene and
23:50
Speaker 1: hopefully find Simon and Leo as well. And so Michael
23:53
Speaker 1: began trying to ask the men in his canoe if
23:56
Speaker 1: they would help him, but there was, of course a
23:59
Speaker 1: massive language barrier, and neither side really understood the other.
24:03
Speaker 1: And then at some point one of the men from
24:05
Speaker 1: the Asthmat tribe just began laughing at Michael, and when
24:09
Speaker 1: he did, the majority of the rest of the tribe
24:12
Speaker 1: looked over saw what was going on, and they too
24:15
Speaker 1: began laughing at Michael. And so Michael had no idea
24:18
Speaker 1: what was going on. And then before he could do
24:20
Speaker 1: anything else, the entire tribe stopped laughing, and it was like,
24:23
Speaker 1: in an instant they were back into that rhythmic chanting
24:27
Speaker 1: as they slowly began making their way out of their canoes,
24:30
Speaker 1: making their way onto shore. And so Michael began to
24:32
Speaker 1: sense that something was wrong, and instead of getting out
24:35
Speaker 1: of the canoe with the rest of the tribe, he
24:37
Speaker 1: kind of instinctively laid back down on the canoe, almost
24:40
Speaker 1: like he was trying to get away from them. And
24:42
Speaker 1: when he did that, the tribesmen who had first laughed
24:45
Speaker 1: at Michael, he stood right over Michael as he's doing
24:48
Speaker 1: this chant and he smiled at Michael, and then he
24:50
Speaker 1: raised his spear and he drove it into Michael's side,
24:54
Speaker 1: and the second he did that, other members of the
24:56
Speaker 1: tribe raised these horns they were carrying and began lasting
25:00
Speaker 1: into their horns. And so Michael he's screaming out in pain,
25:03
Speaker 1: but he's got no strength to defend himself, and so
25:06
Speaker 1: we kind of like rolled over onto the other side
25:09
Speaker 1: on this canoe, kind of trying to protect himself. And
25:11
Speaker 1: when he did that, the guy just lifted his spear
25:13
Speaker 1: again with a big smile on his face, and drove
25:16
Speaker 1: it into Michael's other side. After the man pulled the
25:19
Speaker 1: spear out, Michael, who's in horrible pain, managed perhaps with
25:23
Speaker 1: his adrenaline, to pull himself up and over the side
25:26
Speaker 1: of the canoe. So we kind of fell out onto
25:28
Speaker 1: the mud, and he tried to stand up to get
25:30
Speaker 1: away from them, but there was nowhere he could go.
25:33
Speaker 1: And so as he's kind of fumbling in the mud,
25:35
Speaker 1: two of the tribesmen walked up behind him, grabbed him
25:38
Speaker 1: under the arms, and they began carrying him across the
25:41
Speaker 1: clearing towards the jungle. And as they walked, that rhythmic
25:44
Speaker 1: chanting continued, and periodically Michael would hear someone blast on
25:48
Speaker 1: their horn. And so Michael was dragged across the shoreline
25:51
Speaker 1: into the jungle and then finally to another clearing in
25:54
Speaker 1: the jungle, not anywhere near their village, and Michael was
25:58
Speaker 1: positioned in the middle of this clearing and put on
26:01
Speaker 1: his knees, and so Michael's kind of guarding his sides
26:03
Speaker 1: with his arms. He's incredibly weak. He's on his knees.
26:06
Speaker 1: The tribe kind of formed a circle around him, and
26:09
Speaker 1: they're continuing this chant and then at some point one
26:12
Speaker 1: of the tribesmen walked up to Michael, grabbed his head
26:14
Speaker 1: and pushed it forward, exposing the back of his neck.
26:17
Speaker 1: And then another tribe member walked in and again the
26:20
Speaker 1: whole time this chanting is going on, horns are being blown,
26:24
Speaker 1: and this other tribesman comes up and he raises an
26:26
Speaker 1: axe and he brings it down on the back of
26:29
Speaker 1: Michael's neck. It would turn out the Asmat tribe knew
26:32
Speaker 1: who Michael was. They remembered him from his visit several
26:35
Speaker 1: months earlier when he had attempted to barter for their
26:39
Speaker 1: bis poles, and they had been totally offended that this
26:43
Speaker 1: rich white man had shown up and thought he could
26:45
Speaker 1: just buy one of their sacred artifacts, like it was
26:48
Speaker 1: some trinket to be put on display in a museum.
26:51
Speaker 1: And so they had held on to a deep hatred
26:53
Speaker 1: for him. That was why they didn't send their bispole
26:56
Speaker 1: to him. They weren't going to give it to him.
26:58
Speaker 1: But when Michael had kind of magically floated into their
27:01
Speaker 1: river and suddenly the Asthmat tribe has him sitting in
27:04
Speaker 1: their canoe, the three village elders, finn A, Gim, and Pep.
27:08
Speaker 1: They all just kind of looked at each other and
27:10
Speaker 1: nodded in agreement that they were going to ritualistically kill
27:14
Speaker 1: Michael to avenge the deaths of many of their fallen warriors,
27:19
Speaker 1: that those bis poles apparently contained the souls of, because
27:22
Speaker 1: many of their warriors had been killed by white men
27:25
Speaker 1: in the past, and so Michael was going to be
27:27
Speaker 1: their way to avenge their souls. And so that chant
27:30
Speaker 1: that Michael heard them all saying, that was the chant
27:33
Speaker 1: they did when they performed this execution ritual, except they
27:37
Speaker 1: didn't just kill Michael. After one of those tribesmen brought
27:41
Speaker 1: the axe down on the back of Michael's neck, another
27:44
Speaker 1: tribesman walked up and grabbed Michael's hair, pulled his head back,
27:47
Speaker 1: and used a knife to slash at his throat to
27:50
Speaker 1: actually remove his head. And then after his head was
27:53
Speaker 1: removed again, with all the chanting continuing in this circle
27:56
Speaker 1: the whole time, members of the tribe came up and
27:59
Speaker 1: began cutting Michael's body absolutely to pieces, separating his organs
28:04
Speaker 1: and his flesh, his bones into different piles. And then
28:07
Speaker 1: very quickly they got a fire going and cooked and
28:10
Speaker 1: ate Michael, and of all the parts of his body
28:13
Speaker 1: that were eaten, his brain was apparently the most important,
28:16
Speaker 1: and so only Finn, a, Jim, and Pep, the three elders,
28:20
Speaker 1: were allowed to eat the brain. And then finally, after
28:22
Speaker 1: they had finished eating, and took all the remaining meat
28:25
Speaker 1: that had not been consumed, and they put it into
28:27
Speaker 1: their pouches to eat later, Finn, one of the elders,
28:31
Speaker 1: took Michael's skull and he would bring it back to
28:33
Speaker 1: the village and he would cover it in banana leaves
28:35
Speaker 1: and he would paint it and treat it like a trophy.
28:38
Speaker 1: A few days later, when that huge search party came
28:40
Speaker 1: through the area looking for Michael, the Asmat tribe knew
28:44
Speaker 1: they could never whisper a word about what happened to Michael,
28:48
Speaker 1: because if it got out, you know, it's very likely
28:51
Speaker 1: that Westerners would want to retaliate against them. And so
28:54
Speaker 1: for decades and decades, their secrets stayed safe until Karl
28:58
Speaker 1: Hoffman of the National Geograph heard the story and then
29:01
Speaker 1: wrote the book about it, Savage Harvest. But despite publishing
29:05
Speaker 1: this book and lots of people reading it, there was
29:07
Speaker 1: always some question about the credibility of the story, because remember,
29:12
Speaker 1: there's all this intrigue and mystery around Michael's story to
29:15
Speaker 1: begin with, and now we have this account coming from
29:18
Speaker 1: the Asthmac tribe, and so no one really knew how
29:20
Speaker 1: legitimate it was. And so to this day, the Rockefeller
29:24
Speaker 1: family and generally speaking, authorities at large still say that
29:29
Speaker 1: Michael Rockefeller drowned on his swim to shore trying to
29:32
Speaker 1: get help, and that's it. So that's going to do it.
29:40
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to check out
29:43
Speaker 1: our podcast called The Mister Ballen Podcast, where we have
29:46
Speaker 1: literally hundreds more stories just like this one available for
29:49
Speaker 1: you to listen to right now, and many of them
29:52
Speaker 1: are exclusive to the podcast, so you can only get
29:55
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29:58
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