r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Practer • Feb 04 '23
These are the last known photos of Michael Rockefeller (1961), pictured with a New Guinean tribe known for cannibalism. Michael disappeared without a trace during his 1961 New Guinean expedition and his body was never found.
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u/Practer Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23
There might be more to the story which makes it even more interesting:
Someone took this photo of the same tribe years later and there was a white man among them who looked like Michael. Although the footage only shows a glimpse of the appearance of a white man with a beard among the ranks of black Papuan indigenous people riding a canoe, it is strongly suspected that this person is Michael Rockefeller.
The official explanation given by the Dutch authorities, who oversee the colonies in Papua, is that Michael Rockefeller drowned after he tried to swim to shore when the boat he was traveling in capsized. While other statements insist, Michael Rockefeller suffered a more terrible fate, he was killed and eaten by a tribe of cannibals who took revenge on the white people for the Dutch attack on their village.
The researchers also said that film footage of the mysterious white canoe shows an astonishing possibility. Instead of being killed and eaten, Michael Rockefeller who is a Harvard graduate in the US rejects his civilized past and joins a tribe of cannibals.
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u/Vasteras_HF Feb 04 '23
I'll believe it. I bet he's happier there.
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u/J-Love-McLuvin Feb 04 '23
Kinda an even trade when you think about it.
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u/DefinitionBig4671 Feb 05 '23
Harvard, cannibalistic tribe.... yeah I can see what you mean.
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u/Londonfall1828 Feb 04 '23
Ha it seems pretty reasonable. I would have done the same but occams razor...
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u/ben1481 Feb 04 '23
occams razor
how does that even apply to this?
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u/Pandaburn Feb 04 '23
I’m assuming they’re implying that the simplest explanation for Michael not coming home is that he’s dead.
But in the other hand, the simplest explanation for a white man being photographed among a tribe of black people with little outside contact, is that it’s the white guy who went there and didn’t come back.
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u/AadamAtomic Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23 •
I’m assuming they’re implying that the simplest explanation for Michael not coming home is that he’s dead.
He's a Rockefeller, One of the richest and wealthiest families on the planet.
If a word ever got out that he left his family and all his possessions behind in order to join a bunch of ""heathens"" , it would make the family look bad and smear the family name. (In the eyes of super wealthy, pretentious people.)
You're damn right they tried to cover it up as best they could with all the money they could.
The tribe is known to eat small pieces of their dead out of respect, and tradition. They don't eat live people or eat humans on a regular basis. It's just a ceremonial tribe thing.
They would not have eaten him unless he was of higher ranking in the tribe, and already dead from natural causes.
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u/FlexMeta Feb 05 '23
What do you give the man that has everything? The only thing you can give him: nothing. Which may have been exactly what he wanted, and found. Only the family couldn’t move on fiscally, legally without a death certificate…
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u/uchman365 Feb 05 '23
The tribe is known to eat small pieces of their dead out of respect, and tradition. They don't eat live people or eat humans on a regular basis. It's just a ceremonial tribe thing.
Thank you I was looking for this! So much misinformation about this "cannibalistic tribe". Most of these tribes don't just kill and eat random people, it's supposed to be ceremonial
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u/randomnameandanumber Feb 04 '23
They also used t eat the warriors from neighbouring tribes who they were at war with. These are people who lives mostly on Sago, protein was always a valued commodity.
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u/Lewdtara Feb 05 '23
I bet that was the inspiration behind the Mud People in The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.
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u/Gwynne9 Feb 05 '23
Also, you don't want someone turning up fifty years later claiming to be the lost heir. If he's accepted to be dead, then anyone turning up can safely be labelled a fake. And after a few decades of neolithic living, he'd probably have lost a lot of English, his appearance would be different, maybe a few teeth gone... easy to label him an imposter. And keep all that lovely money safely in the hands of the people wearing nice clothes.
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u/Digital_Negative Feb 05 '23
That’s one way to look at it but it’s difficult to argue that many of the explanations/narratives people are using to make sense of this apparent mystery are anything but post-hoc. There’s a huge amount of candidate explanations for what happened to the guy and no real good reasons to necessarily choose one over another without any sort of evidence whatsoever.
For example, he could’ve been on his way traveling home and just got bitten by a venomous snake or some random nonsense and none of his guides knew who to contact or how to contact anyone to give the details to. We just have no clue and have no way to get any good information about it.
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u/Weak_Ad_9253 Feb 05 '23
That white guy also knew how to communicate and wasn’t the happiest back home
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u/8urnMeTwice Feb 04 '23
Listen, Michael went out for cigarettes and he's going to be back soon, so stop asking so many questions, OK. HE STILL LOVES US!
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u/Bright_Ad_113 Feb 05 '23
Yeah, Civilized is for charlatans. I’d make they same choice right now if given the opportunity. Way better quality of life.
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u/ghostofdemonratspast Feb 04 '23
A guy described how he ate dude. Goes into detail about grabbing him by the hair and stabbing him in the neck paralyzing him and then cuts him from the neck to his taint spilling his guts and harvesting meat. It fucking gross and i hope it isnt true but someone had a bad day that day.
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u/SwampCrittr Feb 04 '23
Was this a TED talk? Or just someone speaking at your local youth group?
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Feb 04 '23
Honestly him being from such a wealthy prominent family lends more credence to the idea imo and they certainly wouldn't want to make that the confirmed story, imagine the embarrassment.
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u/randomnameandanumber Feb 04 '23
My parents lived in PNG in the 60's and moved back just before Australia gave them their independence. The last theory here is probably the least believable, the highlands of PNG are incredibly harsh, it's not like Dances with Wolves, people there are incredibly tribal, very superstitious, will blame and kill outsiders for any bad thing that happens to the village. There's a good chance he went into the remote areas, was welcomed into a village, then the villagers came down with colds and killed him for being an evil witch.
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u/ioisis Feb 05 '23
"The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" has earlier been mentioned as a cause of unfortunate outcomes...
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u/uchman365 Feb 05 '23
the highlands of PNG are incredibly harsh
For him to leave all his money behind to spend that much time with them, suggests he doesn't mind the discomfort.
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u/Emotional_Ad_8010 Feb 04 '23
This was my first thought. Of course people would think "scary cannibal tribe eats foreigner first chance they get," but that feels a bit too stereotypical. And I know it's common for people like anthropologists to live long term with the communities they study.
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u/purinnie Feb 05 '23
Also, Michael was outspoken about his depression and his lack of will to will. He said he felt happiness among the tribe men. So, you know maybe he did choose to stay.
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u/No_Breadfruit_2639 Feb 05 '23
The story have been concluded by analytical Redditors and am happy to announce to all of you that he stayed, not eating, and somehow he was still able to get in touch with his family. Maybe through the Dutches, Jus saying...
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u/a_filing_cabinet Feb 05 '23
And it's not like cannibalism was widespread or casual. It was almost always very ritualistic and special. The most common form has always been the consumption of elders, as a form of letting them pass onto a new life. It's pretty unlikely that he would have been just eaten for the heck of it.
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u/BeavisLawGroup Feb 05 '23
so it wasn't like
"what's for lunch today?"
"Bob. Bob is lunch today."
"oh ok. sucks for Bob. thanks, see you in a couple hours."
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u/Shuteye_491 Feb 04 '23 •
You're implying most Harvard graduates wouldn't gladly cannibalize the rest of society for the sake of their own convenience.
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u/EMCemt Feb 05 '23
You're implying most Harvard graduates wouldn't gladly cannibalize the rest of society for the sake of their own convenience.
They just take little pieces ceremonially because of longstanding traditions.
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u/MyGruffaloCrumble Feb 05 '23
Most cannibal tribes weren't just running around eating everyone, but used it as a way to honour their ancestors, eating only those who they lived with or admired (like a good adversary) because you would take that person's strength and spirit into your own.
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u/s3dfdg289fdgd9829r48 Feb 05 '23
Not to mention many people reading this take weekly communion which is literally a cannibalistic ritual (at least under their own beliefs).
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u/Modest_Ubermensch Feb 05 '23
I think symbolic cannibalism is a bit different than actual cannibalism.
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u/SanianCreations Feb 05 '23
It's not symbolic if you actually believe it though. If you say it's only symbolic then you're saying you know it's bs.
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u/s3dfdg289fdgd9829r48 Feb 05 '23
Under, for example, Catholic doctrine, communion literally becomes the blood and body of Christ so Catholics would (or at least should if they know their own religion) say it's not symbolic.
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u/ooouroboros Feb 05 '23
Can you substantiate that because I'm skeptical.
I don't know about cannibalism in New Guinea but have read about it in other civilizations, sometimes its dressed up in fancy language about 'respect' but IMO at its core cannibalism is a display of dominance (and on occasion, an actual lack of protein).
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u/MyGruffaloCrumble Feb 05 '23
Certainly there’s a history of nutritional cannibalism for survival. In the time of this report, the bulk of cannibalism in a tribal setting was predominantly to honour the dead or consume the power of an enemy. Here’s a decently recent paper:
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u/Electrical-Act-7170 Feb 05 '23
I seem to recall there were some soccer players who were forced into nutritional cannibalism not so long back, maybe in the Seventies?
Thus giving rise to that bumper sticker I saw once.
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u/abliss66 Feb 04 '23
Didn’t realise that was a Dutch website and thought I’d had a stroke trying to read the article
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u/mtkveli Feb 04 '23
How do you mix up Dutch and Indonesian
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u/ColdFudgeSundae Feb 04 '23
Because as an american if youve only seen a language maybe once ever it would be kinda hard to go "oh thats obviously indonesian". Not to mention he was with a dutch guy and the dutch govt made stuff on it so i can def see how
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u/DemonicFluffyMog Feb 04 '23
Imagine the howling insanity that guy must have suffered...then to leave it all behind and go and live with some cannibals.
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u/aekjysten Feb 05 '23
I enjoyed reading this piece on the whole thing, and more
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/What-Really-Happened-to-Michael-Rockefeller-180949813/
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u/vanityklaw Feb 04 '23
If you read the wiki article on Rockefeller it seems much more likely that he was killed and eaten in retribution for the Dutch killing several members of the tribe a few years before.
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u/Practer Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23
Rockefeller the third son of seven children fathered by Nelson Rockefeller, former US Vice president. After graduating from the Philipps Exter Academy in New Hampshire, where he was a student senator and exceptional varsity wrestler, Rockefeller graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in history and economics. In 1960, he served for six months as a private in the US Army and then went on an expedition to study the Dani tribe of western Netherlands New Guinea.
On November 17, 1961, Rockefeller and Dutch anthropologist René Wassing were in a 40-foot canoe about 3 nautical miles from shore when their double pontoon boat was swamped and overturned. Their two local guides swam for help, but it was slow in coming.
After drifting for some time, early on November 19, 1961, Rockefeller said to Wassing: "I think I can make it." He then swam for shore. The boat was an estimated 22 km from the shore when he made the attempt to swim to safety, supporting the theory that he died from exposure, exhaustion, or drowning.
Wassing was rescued the next day, but Rockefeller was never seen again, despite an intensive and lengthy search effort. At the time, Rockefeller's disappearance was a major world news item.
It was originally reported that Rockefeller either drowned or was attacked by a shark or saltwater crocodile. However, because headhunting and cannibalism were still present in some areas of Asmat in 1961, there has also been speculation that Rockefeller may have been killed and eaten by tribespeople from the Asmat village of Otsjanep.
In 1969, a journalist traveled to the island to investigate Rockefeller's disappearance. He dismissed reports of Rockefeller living as a captive or as a Kurtz likeigure in the jungle, but concluded that circumstantial evidence supported the idea that he had been killed. Several leaders of Otsjanep village, where Rockefeller likely would have arrived had he made it to shore, had been killed by a Dutch patrol in 1958, thus providing some rationale for revenge by the tribe against someone from the "white tribe". Neither cannibalism nor headhunting in Asmat were indiscriminate, but rather were part of a tit-for-tat revenge cycle, so it is possible that Rockefeller found himself the inadvertent victim of such a cycle.
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u/MoJoRisin125 Feb 04 '23
Holy shit. Imagine swimming *22* kilometers and washing ashore completely exhausted, exhilarated, but ecstatic to be alive only for some asshole to wander along and eat you for dinner. Life can be a real bitch sometimes.
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u/Practer Feb 04 '23
Interestingly, some say he's alive and now a part of the tribe: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2946787/Is-proof-lost-Rockefeller-heir-joined-tribe-naked-cannibals-Picture-shows-white-man-Papuan-man-eaters-eight-years-mysterious-disappearance.html
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u/BaubleBeebz Feb 04 '23
"Bro, you didn't have to swim that. We were coming back....22km!? Hey, you wanna hang out with us? You seem tough..."
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u/NickSwardsonIsFat Feb 05 '23
The last potential sighting was 1969 - 54 years ago. Presumably Michael is dead now, or he would be an extremely old man, but if there is probably someone who was in their teens back then still alive now.
Why doesn't someone just go ask some old tribe members there if they remember a white dude chilling with them for a while? It probably wouldn't be something you forget.
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u/mrnastymannn Feb 05 '23
I can’t provide a source, but for some reason I do recall journalists and anthropologists interviewing the tribesman some 20, 30, 40 years after the events. I believe a few of them recalled eating a white man many years before. I had only heard that story, never the theory that he survived
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u/SeriouslyTho-Just-Y Feb 05 '23
Definitely looks like a Caucasian man to me… at least I hope so…. It’s better than thinking the alternatives 🥺
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u/8KoopaLoopa8 Feb 05 '23
Some one was very lucky that day for dinner to just wash up on shore, and someone was not lol.
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Feb 04 '23
Well if he didn't want to be eaten then he shouldn't have been so delicious.
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u/EmpathicAnarchist Feb 04 '23
You know they ate bro's glasses and that camera too.
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u/MordunnDregath Feb 04 '23
You can see it the one dude's grin: "Hell yeah, we gonna eat this guy!"
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u/EmpathicAnarchist Feb 04 '23
Cameraman really should've seen this coming
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u/DweEbLez0 Feb 04 '23
Plot Twist: The Camera man was at 90% whole at the time this photo was taken.
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u/DweEbLez0 Feb 04 '23
Ya boi with the Gremlin smile definitely savored every bit of him.
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u/ConteleDePulemberg Feb 04 '23
Yeah...that was like my first impression as well in the first picture you can see a couple them mouth watering and thinking Yeah boy... Steak dinner tonight...
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u/WaitingForNormal Feb 04 '23
So, who took these pictures and why did they make it out alive.
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u/Morepastor Feb 04 '23
Those are not from the tribe that allegedly killed him. He was in a canoe with another person. He tried to swim ashore and was never seen again. He could have drowned, been eaten by animals, or killed by a local tribe. It’s unknown.
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u/WaitingForNormal Feb 04 '23
But what about ops title that these were the last known pictures of him with the cannibal tribe?
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u/skonevt
Feb 04 '23
•
Good Smithsonian article here. Claims to know how and when he was killed, by whom, and which individuals are/were in possession of his... bones. And clothing.
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u/YoDJPumpThisParty Feb 05 '23
here
Holy shit. I have seen this story posted on reddit repeatedly for at least a decade and I have NEVER heard anything about the rest of the story. This is arguably more interesting than the "he went native" narrative.
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u/finalgirl08 Feb 04 '23
Thanks! That was an excellent article and I have no doubt what happened to Michael Rockefeller. The author's research was impressive and hard to overlook.
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u/mrnastymannn Feb 05 '23
This was the story I remember. I knew there were secondhand stories about him being killed and eaten, but I didn’t realize the stories came so soon after the event happened. That’s pretty dang compelling evidence for me. He should have waited in the boat. Very sad
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u/DelightlessMan Feb 05 '23
Looks very long, what’s the tldr?
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u/WagglyJeans4010 Feb 05 '23
The Dutch killed some important members of a village, so when the successors to the dead found a white guy floating in the river they killed him in vengeance.
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u/DelightlessMan Feb 05 '23
he Dutch killed some important members of a village, so when the successors to the dead found a wh
Oh wow... Interesting... Thanks.
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u/BriefWay8483 Feb 05 '23
they killed him in retaliation of a Dutch man, Lepre’s raid of their village (4 Great warriors killed in an instant by a gun, completely foreign to them, for them it felt like the spirit killed them but why?) so they killed Rockefeller in revenge.. what ensued was them hiding in fear from helicopters and 70 of them dying from Cholera, which they saw as the Spirits punishing them for killing Rockefeller, so they vowed to never talk about it to any other village.
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u/chururusindondondo Feb 05 '23
That is the most interesting thing I've read in a while, I have to get this book
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u/brazyaleks Feb 04 '23
If mfs that eat others mfs are dancing around me while I’m on my knees that’s a sign in itself
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u/ivanvanrio Interested Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23
The smiling guy in the photo knows exactly where the body is. He has the same face as me when the food delivery order arrives.
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u/Gumshoe1969 Feb 04 '23
When you’re the only one smiling in the center of a cannibal dance ceremony……..
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u/II1134II Feb 04 '23
Michael Clark Rockefeller (May 18, 1938 – presumed to have died November 19, 1961) was the fifth child of New York Governor and former U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. He was the grandson of American financier John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the great grandson of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He disappeared during an expedition in the Asmat region of southwestern Netherlands New Guinea, which is now a part of the Indonesian province of Papua. In 2014, Carl Hoffman published a book that went into detail about the inquest into his killing, in which villagers and tribal elders admit to Rockefeller being killed after he swam to shore in 1961.[1] No remains or physical proof of Rockefeller's death have been discovered.
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u/leftover_bacon Feb 05 '23
people are always ready to blame guys wearing rams horn cock holsters with a belt loop
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u/jtlyles3 Feb 05 '23
Isn’t there a video where you can see him on a paddle boat afterwards living with the tribe?
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u/Imfrom_m-83 Feb 04 '23
I think the loose translation for the formation in the second pic is “run around your dinner.”
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u/randomnameandanumber Feb 04 '23
The face on that guy, That's the exact face I make when a friend shows up at my door with a case of beer and a bucket of KFC.
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u/Aspel Interested Feb 05 '23
How many times is this going to be posted where people point out that later there was an incredibly white dude living with the tribe and it was probably him?
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u/unknowntravellert Feb 04 '23
Anyone else see the look on that guy and think “‘meats back on the menu boys!”?
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u/Pugslue2000 Feb 05 '23
Gee, just look at the guy smiling, that should give you a clue as to what happened
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u/GU2CU Feb 05 '23
It clearly does not appear to be doing anything that assumes he was entertaining those people with a joke. So I don’t know why they could or would be grinning ear to ear.
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u/Necessary_Row_4889 Feb 05 '23
I've been meanin' to tell you
I've got this feelin' that won't subside
I look at you and I fantasize
You're mine tonight
Now I've got you in my sights
With these hungry eyes
One look at you and I can't disguise
I've got hungry eyes
I feel the magic between you and I
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u/nzdennis Feb 05 '23
Parbooh: Mr. Michael, we want to have you for dinner tonight.
Michael: Jolly nice of you, Parbooh. Around what time, good sir? ....
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u/AltoLizard Feb 05 '23
I’m be always wondered… who took this picture? Why didn’t the tribe also murder and eat the photographer?
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u/WYinFL Feb 05 '23
Dude... look at the grin on the MF in the middle of the first picture. He be smiling because he knows white meat is on the menu.
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u/elonbrave Feb 04 '23
Any fight can be a food fight when you’re a cannibal. If you don’t like that joke, then eat me.
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u/2-022 Feb 04 '23
Some think he’s still alive and part of the tribe, Because there have been pictures of the same tribe where a white person can be seen with glasses, u can see his face properly because it seems that he’s trying to hide his face.