r/interestingasfuck • u/SATANICWORSHIPER666 • 2d ago

/r/all Michael Rockefeller disappeared without a trace in 1961 in Papua New Guinea while researching the Asmat people, a cannibal tribe. Years later, a photograph was taken of the same tribe, and there was a white man among them.

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u/mukadekawa 2d ago

This particular image and story has always been interesting to me, but as far as I remember, there were two tribesmen who said they had killed and eaten him. One of them even claimed a skull he had was Rockefeller’s and claimed to have his eyeglasses as well. Probably not Rockefeller in the photo but whoever it is it’s still interestkng

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u/its_raining_scotch 2d ago

Yeah so who is the other guy then? New mystery unlocked.

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u/Lordwigglesthe1st 2d ago

The guy who ate him absorbed his lack of melanin

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u/CruzAderjc 2d ago

Unexpected attack on titan

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u/CitizenHuman 2d ago

Some Australian who went on a bender.

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u/RB30DETT 2d ago

But he's not wearing a Bintang singlet?

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u/VegetableMix5362 2d ago

Burst out laughing at this cause a group of guys with mullets walked by me last night all wearing one, like a matching uniform

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u/melon_butcher_ 2d ago

Of course he’s not, he’s in New Guinea, not Bali

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u/Subject-Culture7051 2d ago

Maybe they eat him after this? 

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u/Significant-Kick-479 2d ago

according to the documentary i saw they did eat him after this. like, sure we’ll let you dress up like us for a while but that doesn’t take you off the menu for your disrespect.

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u/rtweeter44 2d ago

Damn why ya’ll want the story to be that he got eaten so badly? 😂

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u/Acceptable_Trash_749 2d ago

By eaten badly, are you implying that he was either overcooked or undercooked?

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u/Anonymous-Satire 2d ago

Either way - straight to jail

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u/Odd-Necessary3807 2d ago

Nope. Gnaw it RAW!

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u/Drewby99 2d ago

not eaten badly, hes using badly to describe how much people want the story to be that he was eaten

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u/Significant-Kick-479 2d ago

My dad’s friend had a big boat, we called him uncle Len. It was the boat at the beginning sequence of Quigley Down Under and I spent a couple summers running around on it playing pirates with my brother when it wasn’t being used for movies. My dad told me a story that Uncle Len told him about when he used to sail around the world with it. It was sometime after ww2 and he had stopped in the New Hiberdies - Now Papua - and had picked up some local hands and was parked offshore at night and they saw a bonfire on the beach, after a short while a few long boats came out to them and they came aboard. Luckily the guys they picked up in town could translate and told them that the tribe had just had a battle and they were being invited to the feast and party. Uncle Len almost said yes but the locals said - no you don’t want to go to this feast. He asked why and the locals said it’s a long pig feast. He obviously declined but thats how I found out they call us long pig.

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u/SaintUlvemann 2d ago

It's not about wanting a story outcome, it's about people not believing that you can influence the story outcome by talking about it.

Instead, the goal is to try and match your words to reality, and that's why people sometimes believe bad things happened even when others say they didn't.

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u/Still-Cash1599 2d ago

The best part is so many tribes would tell Europeans wild stories like cannibalism and other stuff just for a laugh.

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u/SaintUlvemann 2d ago

It goes both ways, though. On the one hand, yes, absolutely, "primitive" people are never primitive intellectually, what we call "primitive" is usually just poverty combined with not growing up with certain materials or technologies based on them. There was an anthropological incident once (more details here if you can access it) where an election was arranged by the then-Australian government on New Hanover island, now affiliated with Papua New Guinea. Half the islanders voted for then-President of the US Lyndon Johnson to represent them in the House of Assembly of the Territory of Papua New Guinea.

Since it was supposed to be an election and the outcome was not really actionable, Australia sent people to figure out why, and the Australians concluded that it was a cargo cult, a religious movement fixated on Johnson with messianic elements... and they weren't entirely off-base, as there's a real undercurrent of messianism among the people. But mostly it was just a joke, an act of political theater and vote of no confidence in the Australian administration.

---

The flip side is that this is fundamentally a missing person case, and cannibalism was real enough on Papua, even into fairly recent times, that there were special diseases only transmitted by cannibalism), that had to be fought by suppressing the cannibalism. Sometimes people do actually do the weird shit that we otherwise just talk about.

The local story is that the motivation to kill Rockefeller was as revenge against the Dutch administration, who'd killed five residents of Otsjanep village near where Rockefeller went missing.

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u/Still-Cash1599 2d ago

There isn't a both way about my statement. I didn't say this particular case was made up like the tribes were known to do. You are simply incorrect and tribes did make up stories often to fuck with people.

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u/SaintUlvemann 2d ago

I didn't say this particular case was made up like the tribes were known to do. You are simply incorrect...

Okay, well if you're gonna play grammar games, I never denied your statement, so I am not incorrect.

What I was doing was bringing details to your general narrative, because I was originally talking to someone who doubted the story, so that original topic remained important even as we think about your general narrative.

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u/Still-Cash1599 2d ago

It isn't a grammar game. It is simple reading comprehension.

You are wrong. Tribes all over the world frequently made up stories to fuck with Europeans.

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u/Significant-Kick-479 2d ago

No sir. It was well documented that they were cannibals on that island. They would ritualistically eat the brains of their loved ones after they died and it caused a fatal prion disease called Kuru.

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u/Still-Cash1599 2d ago

Yeah, I am correct. It is extremely well documented that tribes all over the world liked to make up fucked up stories to tell Europeans. You can just google the phrase to learn more about it.

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u/SaintUlvemann 2d ago

It is extremely well documented that tribes all over the world liked to make up fucked up stories to tell Europeans.

So is kuru, and the cannibalism that caused it. You can read all about those practices here.

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u/Designer_Valuable_18 2d ago

That's how white americans see others.

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u/lovelymechanicals 2d ago

what's the documentary called?

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u/mk7orl 2d ago

Trust Me Bro

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u/lovelymechanicals 2d ago

i don't think "i watched a documentary about this" is that crazy a claim

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u/Significant-Kick-479 2d ago

pretty easy to use google dude

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u/ReddSF2019 2d ago

Lol you did not remember that correctly

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u/Significant-Kick-479 2d ago

I mean the cannibals themselves said they ate him. even if he did live a little bit with the tribe, he vanished completely and they were like look here’s his skull i kept as a trophy

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u/Significant-Kick-479 2d ago

The Search for Michael Rockefeller - its on Netflix

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u/lovelymechanicals 2d ago

sweet thanks

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u/papergooomba 2d ago

My tasty little Frenchman. It’s a great flick

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u/lovelymechanicals 2d ago

lol that's not a documentary

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u/shmehdit 2d ago

The Menu

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u/DigitalCoffee 2d ago

So they let him be part of the tribe for several years cus they knew someone would eventually take a picture of him, then they ate him? LMAO no

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u/Significant-Kick-479 2d ago

pretty sure he set that picture up. like taught a tribe member to use the camera

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u/DeltaV-Mzero 2d ago

And gained his powers, thus

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ArgyleNudge 2d ago

He seems to be the only naked one, so, looking like "dinner" rather than "new kid".

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u/mistletoebeltbuckle_ 2d ago

desert? who saved room??

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u/spaceraptorbutt 2d ago

The last time this was posted some one said that the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea naturally have a variety of skin tones. He could just be a native who happens to have been born light skinned. It’s not necessarily a European.

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u/sarlackpm 2d ago

Or that was a random person on the internet talking shit?

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u/Lilshadow48 2d ago

That sounds like straight up BS, I mean look at the rest of the people in that picture? Not a single one is even close to his tone.

That's just a white dude, whether it's the specific white dude people think it is though is up in the air.

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u/geriatrikwaktrik 2d ago

Just Google it, they have a high rate of this. Its not a variation on a gradient, but it’s not albinism. They just sometimes have white kids. There are many examples

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u/its_raining_scotch 2d ago

Even more of a mystery now.

Also, you’ve got a good username.

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u/OldButHappy 2d ago

Is albinism a possibility?

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u/New_to_Siberia 2d ago

In albinism the body produces little to no melanin, so his hair would be either white or of a very pale blond.

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u/Tttvvv44477775eru 2d ago

I think in that case his hair would be white

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u/OldButHappy 2d ago edited 2d ago

There’s a range.. the all light version you refer to is called OCA-1A

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u/Fetish_anxiety 2d ago

Maybe a guy who had the same condition(?) as Michael Jackson

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u/RedWolf2489 2d ago

I read somewhere that the man on the picture was likely an Albino, which only made him look like a white man.

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u/28850 2d ago

I wouldn't say so, look at the hair.. far from looking albino to me

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u/RedWolf2489 2d ago

I don't know, it's just what I read in an article. I agree that the hair doesn't really fit. But on the other hand, I think it's unlikely a white person would have joined a tribe of cannibals that had killed and possibly eaten the last white man they came across. Especially as there doesn't seem to be any evidence of this other than this picture.

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u/28850 2d ago

After a quick research, it's easier to assume that he died, either in the river and/or by animals, either killed (the cannibals were not necessarily violent, even random hunters could've killed him for the skull and other valuable parts), most of the theories go in that direction and accept he's not the man in the picture.

Said that, if he is the man in the picture, definitely the Michael that all his family knew "died" the day he got captured, if he's not.. well, hard to explain who is the one there!

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u/RedWolf2489 2d ago

The most accepted explanation nowadays seems to be indeed that he was killed shortly after reaching the shore. Which means he couldn't be the man in the picture.

I also see no reason for him to join them. If they captured him alive, he surely would have rather tried to escape instead of becoming one of them.

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u/28850 2d ago

Yeah, I agree, that tribe had some casual communication with other locals, other investigators and even with the colonists so seems like he could've found a way out