The riddle of a missing millionaire may have been solved after a film of a nude white guy hunting among members of a cannibal tribe surfaced. Michael Rockefeller, a member of the well-known Rockefeller family, went missing in Papua New Guinea in 1961. The small boat transporting Rockefeller and Dutch anthropologist René Wassing to the island got into difficulty on November 17. “I think I can make it,” Rockefeller told Wassing as he began swimming the three miles to shore.
Rockefeller was discovered in the New Guinea forests long after he was assumed dead
He was never seen again, and it is largely assumed that he was slain by the tribe. However, recently unearthed film footage taken near the site of Rockefeller’s disappearance may change that. Mr. Ballen, a podcaster, described how Rockefeller was discovered in the New Guinea forests long after he was assumed dead. “A reporter named Milt Macklin heard from this mysterious Australian person who had actually run into Michael Rockefeller recently in the jungle of New Guinea not far from where he supposedly disappeared,” he said.
Macklin failed to find the missing man but shot a great deal of film showing the Asmat and their home. “But 40 years later,” Mr. Ballen says, “another documentary film crew decided they were going to go to New Guinea and look for Michael because there were still all these rumors floating around that Michael was alive. “They uncovered this unwatched footage from Milt Macklin, and they watched all of it, and they discovered something unbelievable amongst the hours and hours of footage”.
It was a momentary glimpse of a white man among the islanders, manning a war canoe. “You see this canoe come into frame, and it’s full of Asmat tribal warriors. This is a war party, and they’re making their way, presumably, into battle with some other tribe.
“But amongst these big strong men is one man who totally stands out because he doesn’t look like the other Asmat Warriors.
“He is a naked, bearded white man who, even though the quality of the film was poor, totally looked like Michael Rockefeller.”
Michael Rockefeller becoming a native among the Asmat is not the only explanation for his disappearance
Rockefeller becoming a native among the Asmat is not the only explanation for his disappearance. Lorne and Lawrence Blair met a man who claimed to have eaten the multi-millionaire New Yorker in their video Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey. Tobias Schneebaum, an explorer, heard a similar story from a tribe of Asmat villagers and wrote about it in his 200-page book Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale.
Carl Hoffman, a National Geographic journalist, discovered additional evidence of that claim and published a detailed account of Rockefeller’s death. Pip, Ajim, and Fin, three Asmat tribal elders, discovered Rockefeller floating, weary, close to shore. Pip agreed to kill Rockefeller in retaliation after a brief talk about a bridge the Asmat had with some Dutch explorers. He was speared in the ribs by the laughing tribesman. The three dragged Rockefeller, who was still alive but mortally injured, back to their village. They sliced off his head there.
“Members of the tribe came up and began cutting Michael’s body absolutely to pieces, separating his organs and his flesh and his bones into different piles, and then very quickly they got a fire going and cooked and ate Michael and of all the parts of his body,” Mr. Ballen said. “His brain was apparently the most important part, and so only Fin, Ajim and Pip were allowed to eat the brain, and then finally, after they had finished eating, they took all the remaining meat that had not been consumed and put it into their pouches to eat later”.
