Have you ever noticed how lost things often turn up in the unlikeliest of places? It turns out that missing people occasionally follow the same strange rule. From the missing millionaire found starting a new life with a remote tribe, to the impossible case of the man found inside a dinosaur, let’s take a look at some impossible places people were found.
The Disappearance Of Michael Rockefeller
In 1969, celebrated American journalist Milt Machlin, along with a documentary film crew, traveled to Papua New Guinea to investigate a missing person’s case that was sweeping the nation: the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller.
While Milt had hoped to capture the magic moment he found Michael Rockefeller alive and well, sadly, his search wasn’t successful. After returning home to the States, most of the footage shot by the crew was put into storage. But little did Milt realize he was storing away a vital piece of evidence to the whereabouts of the famously missing Michael Rockefeller. Born in 1938, Michael was the son of New York Governor and later US-vice-president Nelson Rockefeller, of the famously ultra-wealthy Rockefeller dynasty. But while his relatives spent their time navigating the world of business, Michael was more interested in adventure and had spent much of his time exploring the tribal cultures of Papua New Guinea. On November 17th, 1961, Rockefeller was traveling up a region of notoriously crocodile-infested swampland known as the Land of Lapping Death, when his small catamaran was swept out to the sea and capsized in rough waves. After spending the night clinging to the overturned boat, Michael struck out for land, telling his sole companion, anthropologist René Wassing, that he was going to swim the several miles to shore for help. René stayed with the vessel and was rescued the next day. But Micahel never returned.
Three years after he vanished, Michael Rockefeller was declared legally deceased, but with no real confirmation as to what happened to him, the rumor mill was spinning with intrigue. Many claimed that Michael drowned trying to swim to shore, or met his maker in the jaws of a crocodile. But others insist he met an even more horrible fate. Retired missionary, Jat Smith, who is said to have known Michael personally, had an extraordinary tale to tell about the millionaire’s end. Jat claimed that members of the Asmat tribe had told him that Michael made it to shore, before being picked up by the tribe. The tribe then proceeded to consume a hearty dinner of Roasted Rockefeller.
While this may sound crazy to us, the
Asmat people did have a history of such behavior, and reports of it continued well into the 1990s, so it’s definitely possible that this is what happened to our missing millionaire.Some wild theories indeed, but where does Milt Machlin’s missing documentary footage fit in? Well, back in 2011, another documentary crew was looking to make a film about Michael’s disappearance, and got Milt’s old footage out of storage. But, when reviewing the footage, the documentary crew spotted something more incredible than they could have possibly imagined. In one shot of numerous Asmat people paddling in war canoes, the camera caught a momentary glimpse of a white man amongst them that looked nothing like the rest of the islanders. But could it really be Michael?
Seeing as the footage was dated to 1969 it’s possible that, as opposed to meeting his end in 1961 as originally thought, Michael actually joined the Asmat people and lived out the rest of his days with them. A happy, but certainly strange ending indeed. But while the pale man’s appearance certainly stands out amongst the rest, there is another theory to explain the clip. When asked about the mind-boggling footage, cameraman Malcolm Kirk said that he didn’t remember taking much notice of the man at the time. However, he did find a vague reference to an albino tribe member in the journal he kept at the time, which is the only loose thread that might offer an
alternative explanation.
Alaskan Airlines Flight 448: Worker Trapped In Cargo Hold
When Alaskan Airlines Flight 448 soared out of Seattle towards sunny Los Angeles on April 13th, 2015, passengers settled in for what they assumed would be an uneventful trip. Little did they know, a peculiar twist was about to unfold beneath their feet.
As the aircraft ascended, a strange commotion began to reverberate through the passenger cabin. First came the ominous sounds of banging, soon accompanied by the unmistakable cries of desperate screams echoing from below. With panicked passengers and cabin crew alike, a mere 14 minutes of takeoff, the pilot found himself making a hairpin turn back towards the airport for an emergency landing.Upon touchdown, airport personnel rushed to the cargo doors, behind which they were shocked to find that, huddled inside the plane’s cargo hold, was a person. That person was Willa Junior, one of the airport’s baggage workers. He recounted to bewildered onlookers that he had drifted off for a nap in the hold during his shift, but failed to reawaken in time, and no one had realized he was in there before takeoff.
Waking up in pitch darkness, Willa was initially confused and disoriented. But he quickly realized where he was, and that plane was now on the move. The phone call he initially made to Menzies Aviation, his employer responsible for baggage services, was dismissed as a prank. Even 9-1-1 proved futile as the call abruptly cut off, leaving Junior with no lifeline to cling to. Faced with what he thought was certain death, Junior took one last-ditch effort and pounded relentlessly on the metallic ceiling. Miraculously, his cries for help captured the attention of passengers above.Fortunately for Junior, the cargo hold of passenger flights is a far cry from the inhospitable void it might seem. With temperature control and pressurization geared towards ensuring the safety of live cargo like pets, Junior's inadvertent nap-adventure actually posed minimal risk to his well-being.
Baggage Handler Describes Waking Up in Plane's Cargo Hold by ABC News Junior got away with his health intact after his ordeal, but the
same can’t be said for his career. While Junior somehow managed to keep his job with Menzies, Alaskan Airlines swiftly banned him from working on any more of their flights. Talk about a grounding experience.
Naked Man Trapped In Vent Shaft
At the crack of dawn on a chilly Tuesday morning, just as a construction crew arrived at a Togo's sandwich shop on Soscol Avenue in Napa, California, they were greeted with a peculiar sound. As they entered the store to carry out work before opening hours began, their ears caught unmistakable human cries emanating from one of the vents, prompting them to call authorities to investigate.
As emergency services arrived and searched the premises, they were greeted by an utterly bizarre sight, a man, disrobed and disoriented, clinging to the inner recesses of Togo’s vent shaft.
After being extracted from his peculiar prison, 48-year-old Robert Turbidy confessed to quite the inebriated adventure the night before. Spurred by an intoxicated quest to find a mythical wishing well, apparently, he’d climbed to the roof of the building armed with a white rope which he’d used to try lowering himself into the building. But his dreams of finding a wishing well in the vent were dashed when the rope quickly snapped, leaving him to tumble down into the shaft. From then, he spent the night within the hollow confines of the vent, with any wishes he may have uttered drowned out by the grim reality of his situation.
Robert was taken to hospital with minor injuries and was later
arrested on suspicion of attempted burglary of the restaurant, which, honestly, is a much more believable explanation than the one he provided. That's surely a stern lesson in being careful what you wish for.
Man Survives In Whale Stomach For 3 Days
In September 2016, Spanish fisherman Luigi Marquez found himself in a fishy situation during a storm. A set of extremely rough waves threw Luigi overboard and, losing track of his boat, he wound up seemingly lost at sea. The coast guard didn't hold out much hope for a safe return home. But lo and behold, three days later, Luigi returned to land with a tale worthy of its own chapter in the Bible.
When asked what had happened to him, Luigi claimed that after he fell overboard, he wasn’t only swallowed up by stormy waves, but also by a whale. Surviving on raw fish, guided by the faint glow of his waterproof watch in the belly of the beast,
Luigi’s epic tale concluded with being quote unquote “flushed out” of the whale’s exit passage.
But if you’re thinking this fishy tale reeks a little too potently, well, you’d not be wrong. Originating from the infamous World News Daily Report, known for its biblical satirical spins on fake news, Luigi's story was more humorous fiction than fact. Marine biologists swiftly debunked the tale, citing the lack of air and corrosive chemicals in a whale's stomach, not to mention the fact that, aside from sperm whales, even the largest whale’s gullet is only about as wide as a human fist. And as for Luigi himself? Turns out, he's about as real as a mermaid. The photo attached to the article was a case of mistaken identity, actually featuring a screenshot of a man named Mike demonstrating a DIY emergency air flotation device made of pants, in a now-deleted YouTube video from 2015.
So, while the story may have reeled in clicks, and was spread as truth by websites with less fact-checking than your weird Uncle’s opinionated Facebook posts, it was a load of hogwash.While Luigi’s ordeal is nothing more than a phony fisherman’s tale, for diver Michael Packard, whale tales aren’t a thing of fiction. In a
bizarre incident on a June morning in 2021, while diving for lobsters, Michael found himself inside the mouth of a whale for real, off Herring Cove Beach in Massachusetts. Initially, Michael thought he was inside the jaws of a great white shark, but after noticing the lack of teeth and injury, it quickly dawned on him that he was actually inside the mouth of a humpback. After about 30 seconds of struggle, the whale breached above the water’s surface and spat Michael right out. After being fished out of the water, he emerged after a check-up at Cape Cod Hospital with some soft tissue damage but no broken bones.
But how exactly did this diver almost end up as whale’s krill? When humpbacks feed, their mouth opens wide like a billowing parachute, hindering their vision, which experts suspect is what led to Michael’s mistaken encounter. Thankfully, as mentioned earlier, the humpback's throat is too narrow to swallow a human, so thankfully, the only way was out.
Woman Found In Airport Suitcase
From someone found sleeping next to a bunch of suitcases to someone found inside one. Customs officers were doing their routine checks at the Sarpi Border Crossing between Turkey and Georgia in March 2015, when they noticed one border-crosser acting just a little shifty. But this crosser didn’t have a secret up his sleeve, he had one in his suitcase!
When they popped open his luggage, they found his girlfriend, curled up like a cat inside. Turns out, this girl had been banned from crossing the border into Turkey and was now trying to outsmart border patrol in a rather uncomfortable fashion. But now, the jig was up, and these two were sent packing back to Georgia.
And it's not even the first time someone tried this stunt. Another incident in March 2015 saw
a Russian lady tried to sneak into Poland in her hubby's suitcase. People being smuggled through customs is a serious problem on both sides of the issue and it’s, of course, very much illegal. Not to mention the fact that humans and very tightly enclosed spaces for extended periods aren’t exactly a match made in heaven. While the problem may not be going away any time soon, what is for sure is that the folks at border control really have seen it all.
Tourist Stuck Overnight In Alberta Cave
In April 2016, a group of tourists were almost at the end of a guided tour through the caverns of Rat’s Nest Cave in Canmore, Canada when they noticed something. One member of their party had inexplicably disappeared.
Tracking back a bit, the tour guide soon realized the missing guest was inside what’s known as the Laundry Chute, the tightest part of the Rat’s Nest cave system that requires cavers to move through on their back or belly. It wasn’t unheard of for cavers in the Laundry Chute to become momentarily wedged between rocks, but mostly it only took a quick squeeze or a helping hand to put it right. But not this time.
After trying and failing to release the caver, the cave guide had no choice but to abandon the trapped man and head to the cave’s entrance to call emergency services. More than 50 personnel from Canmore Fire Department, Alberta Cave Rescue and paramedics turned up to the cave and set to work on what they hoped would free the caver.
When they arrived, the man had already been underground for over six hours and based on his position, it wasn’t going to be a quick rescue. Armed with drills, jackhammers and chisels, responders were forced to literally carve the caver out of his stone prison. Six palm-sweating hours passed and eventually, the unnamed tourist was able to shimmy his way back to the fresh air above
completely unscathed. Thankfully, people getting stuck inside caves is quite rare. But needless to say, when it happens, very unhappy endings aren’t at all uncommon, so this brazen explorer can count his lucky stars that there was a light at the end of this impossibly small tunnel.
She Was Frozen Solid For 6 Hours
On December 21st, 1980, Wally Nelson awoke around 7am in his small hometown of Lengby, Minnesota. Looking out of the window he saw his frozen front yard, as was usual for that time of year. But what didn’t seem usual was the small mound on the snow-covered lawn.
Confused and intrigued, Wally ventured out to investigate, but what he found sent both literal and figurative chills down his spine. There, curled up on his lawn, as stiff as a board with her eyelids frozen open by the cold was Wally’s friend, 19-year-old Jean Hilliard.
Wally had no idea how long Jean had been lying there, but when he heard what he thought was a slight moan from her he knew he needed to act fast. Jean was so frozen Wally couldn’t bend her joints to sit her in his car, so after placing her as-is in the backseat, he hotfooted to the nearest hospital.The doctors who examined Jean compared her condition to that of a piece of meat just taken out of deep freeze. Her skin was too hard for doctors to insert an I-V into her frozen arm and her body temperature was under 80 degrees Fahrenheit, 15 degrees below hypothermia’s starting point.
Not only that, but Jean’s heartbeat had dropped to a shockingly low eight beats per minute and her frozen eyes did not respond to light. While doctors feared the worst, miraculously after just a few hours of being warmed by heating pads, Jean did the impossible: she stirred; and after a few hours more, regained the ability to move, and all other normal body functions. In a matter of days,
she had returned to health, with little more than a few blistered toes as evidence of her ordeal, which, had she not been rescued just in time by Wally, could’ve seen her end up looking like this human-like popsicle of ice that formed from a leaking pipe. But how did Jean end up frozen to begin with? And more importantly, how did she survive?
The night before being found in Wally’s front yard, Jean was driving home to Lengby when she suddenly slid off the icy road into a ditch. Believing herself to be just a short walk away from Wally’s house, Jean decided to set off on foot into the frozen Minnesotan terrain. That night the temperature dropped to negative 22 Fahrenheit and after walking for two miles, Jean’s body just gave up. In a twist of fate that was simultaneously cruel and kind, she’d made it all the way to Wally’s front yard before passing out and spent the next six hours freezing in the snow before waking up in hospital.
While many considered Jean’s recovery a miracle, biology also had a say in this snow queen’s tale. Scientists have found that in extremely cold environments, the body can enter a kind of chemical hibernation. When this happens, the systems that keeps our organs and cells functioning slow down, demanding less oxygen and allowing for a much lower breathing rate, which Jean exhibited. This cooling process is also deliberately induced by doctors in
cryonics, a controversial technology in which recently expired patients’ bodies are preserved in the hopes that future science could revive them.
Imagine the long-distance space-travel preservation pods in sci-fi movies like
Event Horizon, except, kept somewhere safe on earth. Over the course of several weeks, the post-life cryonic patients are gradually cooled in a refrigerator, where they’ll stay preserved for the foreseeable. The big hurdle is, ice crystals cause cell damage, so people in cryonic preservation typically have their body injected with a kind of anti-freeze to attempt to stop them forming. While in cryonics the medically induced process is precisely controlled, Jean’s naturally-induced state of chill and then revival, without major, widespread cell damage from ice forming, is something that’s almost entirely unheard of. A true anomaly, Jean’s miraculous recovery is, to this day, considered as unique as a snowflake.
Medieval Skeleton Found In Toppled Tree's Roots
Picture this: it’s a dark and stormy day in Ireland, the wind is howling like a banshee, when suddenly, an old tree decides it's had enough and comes crashing down pulling its roots out for all to see. Hidden within the gnarled roots lay a shocking secret that set off the imaginations of archeologists and mystery lovers alike.
So, what did they discover? Brace yourself, because it's straight out of a spine-tingling thriller: a human skeleton, tangled amidst the roots. But here's the kicker, while the tree itself was no spring chicken at 215 years old, the skeleton had been chilling in the ground beneath it for a millennium. Radiocarbon dating revealed this poor soul met his maker between 1030 and 1200 AD, but there were few clues as to exactly how he’d ended up in
his root-filled grave.
Standing at five feet ten inches, this man was tall by early medieval standards, leading experts to believe he was probably from a well-off family with access to plenty of food for a growing boy. But hold your horses because this medieval mystery man’s life most certainly wasn’t all feasts and festivities. His demise tells a different tale. Forensic tests later revealed that his skeleton showed evidence of wounds that were inflicted by a sharp blade, but the circumstances around the attack are unclear. Was it a personal vendetta? A clash of Gaelic titans? The plot thickens!
Archeologists have found some evidence that there used to be a church near the site, but with no other burials discovered, it’s possible the poor fellow was hidden there as opposed to formally buried. So, next time you're wandering through the woods, and you spot a particularly ominous-looking tree, remember this tale of intrigue and mystery.
Drone Finds Fugitive Living In Cave For 17 Years
In September 2019, Chinese police were using drones to survey the mountains of China’s Yunnan province, when officers spotted something rather peculiar down below. As the drone lens slowly zoomed in, there were signs of what appeared to be a crudely built campsite, including multiple tarps and a whole lot of garbage. After discovering the site via drone, police moved in on foot and found what appeared to be an old hermit living inside a tiny cave.
But this wasn’t just a humble hermit choosing to live away from mainstream society. It was Song Jiang, one of China’s most wanted fugitives who’d escaped from prison almost two decades previously. After being convicted for some nefarious crimes, Song escaped from the prison camp he was being held at back in 2002. But his discovery, while most certainly as miraculous as finding a needle in a mountainous haystack, wasn’t exactly a coincidence.
In fact, Chinese police had been acting on clues they’d received about Song’s whereabouts which led them to searching the mountains behind the fugitive’s hometown. When the authorities found their mark, Song had been living in seclusion for so long that it was difficult for police to communicate with him. But after some convincing, he did manage to tell them that
he’d been living in the 20-square-foot mountain cavern for 17 years after escaping prison. In that time, he’d barely washed himself, picked dry branches to light his own fires and carried drinking water in a plastic bottle from a nearby ravine. But despite Song’s unquestionably impressive survival skills, there was no comfort waiting for him as he was led away by police all the way back to civilization, to serve the rest of his prison sentence.
Body Of Missing Man Found In Spanish Dinosaur Statue
On a balmy Saturday in May 2021, a father and his young son embarked on a leisurely stroll through the suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, nestled on the fringes of Barcelona. But their day took an unexpected turn of the most extreme kind, when they noticed a pungent odor wafting from the vicinity of the town’s prized stegosaurus statue.
The papier-mâché statue had been erected to generate publicity, to help bring customers into an old cinema. However, the statue wound up bringing the area attention for all the wrong reasons. As the father and son ventured closer to investigate the stench-ridden stegosaurus, they stumbled upon a ghastly sight, a crack in the statue's leg revealing the unmoving form of what looked to be a person. They called the police, and officers coordinated with the local fire department to remove what did indeed prove to be an
expired human from their papier-mâché tomb.
Police confirmed the man's identity as a 39-year-old man who’d been reported missing that morning. While the unnamed man had been reported missing by his family just a few hours before he was discovered, police estimated he’d been inside the dino for around two days.
But how exactly did he end up in this prehistoric position? Well, here’s the worst part. Police theorized that the man had somehow dropped his phone inside the sculpture from a viewing platform above and had become trapped headfirst while trying to retrieve it. Talk about going the way of the dinosaurs! If you were amazed at these impossible places people were found, you might want to read
part 1. Thanks for reading!
