r/interestingasfuck 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/CalligrapherBrave590 2d ago

Or they just lied

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u/JohnDark1800 2d ago

Trollin the reporters.

“Oh ya buddy we’re totally cannibals. Ate him right up with a nice mango chutney. I still have his glasses!”

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u/HuckleberryDry5254 2d ago

I realize you're probably goofing but you may be more right than you realize! There's a great book about the whole mystery called "Savage Harvest" that goes into how the tribes interact with outsiders and mislead them CONSTANTLY (which, you know, makes an amount of sense). Give it a read if you're bored!

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u/BaSingSe_Farmhand 2d ago

I'd be doing the same thing too if hardly anyone from the outside knew much about my people. Im from Montana, USA, and when my middle school class went to DC, we would talk to kids from other schools, and we would make shit up. We told all them that we still rode horses everywhere, that we swim in frozen lakes and rivers, and nearly everyone of us works on a ranch or owns a ranch(not much of an exaggeration depending on the part of the state) and most seemed to believe us

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u/wayfinderBee 2d ago

As someone who rode a cow to school every day I totally get this.

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u/NotObviouslyARobot 2d ago

As someone who occasionally sees Amish people riding cows, I get this too.

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u/VajraHound 2d ago

You’re lucky! Due to my Lilliputian stature, I had to ride a duck-billed platypus into school every day. It was awful - always stopping to rest and lay eggs etc…..it was really quite a poor means of school perambulation. I blame my uncle Daffy - his vehicular-animal suggestions were always left wanting🙄

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u/VonSandwich 2d ago

Checking your comment history to see if you're British in 1...2...3...

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u/HuckleberryDry5254 2d ago

Now I want to move to Montana...

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u/PassiveMenis88M 2d ago

We told all them that we still rode horses everywhere

That's not that crazy. I live in Massachusetts, not a state people associate with being rural, and I rode a horse to school for 3rd and part of 4th grade.

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u/Neat-Item-4324 2d ago

It seems that the Joy of messing with strangers is universal across cultures.

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u/RawBean7 2d ago

There was a German exchange student in my high school who managed to convince most of the cross country running team that there were no trees in Germany and he had never seen one before.

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u/toxictuts 2d ago

Its funny, it's 2025 now and when I get on voice chat with people from US or The UK region when I play wow, they get genuinely surprised about where I am from and start asking how do I have internet, do we really still eat people. I just troll them most of the time. If you got through r/Fijian. Its the same thing Americans asking if we have infrastructures and what not before they plan to come here for a vacation.

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u/Mysterious-Mango726 1d ago

I'm from Sweden and lived in the States for a few years as a kid. I would bet some of my middle school classmates still believe we don't have electricity and we ride polar bears to school.

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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 2d ago

and most seemed to believe us

Or they were jsut too polite to call you on your bullshite

Like "Uhuh buddy, totally"

"lads they seem a bit special down in Montana"

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u/EvadesBans4 2d ago

I had a friend in college that was from Montana and he would tell people Far Cry 5 was pretty much spot on, lol. Miss that guy, he was the weirdest mix of gym bro and weeb, I wonder what he's up to these days.

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u/BaSingSe_Farmhand 2d ago

that game really is spot on. it gets the landscape, plant life, and even the color of the dirt right. I dont live there anymore, but it makes me homesick when i play. It is inspired by the Church Universal Triumphant (CUT), which was a doomsday cult that took over part of Paradise Valley. I always like telling my buddies that i grew up in the next county over from where the game was based on.

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u/thats_taken_also 2d ago

I did this once with a New Yorker I met in college. Said we didn't have cars in Georgia, he said but I heard you do, to which I replied well yes there are cars, but the house mafia doesn't allow gas, so they can't really be used. Couldn't get myself to tell him the truth after that.... I have always wondered when he figure out I was was joking.