Deadly Revelation 29:47

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. In 1969, an Adventure Magazine reporter named Milt Macklin flew to New Guinea with his film crew to shoot a documentary about a missing person. Milt's hope was that he was actually going to find this missing person and capture it on film, really pushing his documentary over the top.

But despite shooting all this footage and looking all over the place in New Guinea, they never actually found the missing person. So Milt ultimately went back home and just kind of put the film in storage and never watched it.

Well, 40 years later, that footage would get pulled out of storage because another film crew wanted to make their own documentary about this missing person. And when they watched this footage, they found something totally unbelievable on it. So today, I'm going to tell you the story of what they found in that footage. And then more importantly, I'm going to tell you what this footage revealed about the missing person. And I will say now, it is highly disturbing.

But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please point at the Amazon Music Follow Button shirt and tell them they have something on it. And then when they look down, just flick them in the nose. Okay, let's get into today's story. ♪

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On the morning of Saturday, November 18th, 1961, a 23-year-old man named Michael Rockefeller reached down and grabbed the pull cord that was connected to the outboard motor that was on the boat that Michael was riding in. And Michael, he pulled and pulled on that cord, but he could not get this engine to restart. It just sputtered and wouldn't turn over. And without power, that meant that Michael and his small crew just continued to drift farther and farther out to sea.

But that wasn't even the worst of this situation. The boat that Michael and his crew were on, which was a 40-foot-long catamaran, it was two handcrafted canoes tied together. Well, it was starting to sink.

Minutes before, Michael and his crew had been happily traveling along the beautiful green jungled coast of New Guinea when they had to cross over this area where the water was particularly turbulent. There was this river in New Guinea that was feeding out to the Arafura Sea, which is where Michael and his crew were. And where this brown river met the blue water, it became very choppy with lots of rough waves. And so they had to cross over this area where the water was particularly turbulent.

And so as Michael and his crew tried to cross that area, the waves came on board, they flooded the engine, it shut off. And then as more and more waves landed inside the boat, the boat began to sink.

The reason why Michael and his crew were even out here and taking these chances to begin with is because Michael wanted to go see this tribe called the Asmats that lived in New Guinea, basically right past this area where this river was. They lived right on the coast. Michael was obsessed with the artwork that the Asmat tribe created, in particular, the very unique Bispol.

These poles are created by the master carvers within the Asmat tribe. What they do is they take a single piece of wood and they etch it away until it looks like it's a bunch of men standing on each other's shoulders.

Now, these Bispoles are totally beautiful and intricate and wonderful to look at, but the Asmat tribe doesn't make them for art. They make them because they believe they contain the souls of the warriors from their tribe who have been killed in combat.

And until the Asmats avenge these downed warriors, basically until the tribe kills their enemies, these souls remain trapped in these Bispoles. Which means the Asmats don't really ever get rid of these poles. They don't sell them. They don't throw them away. They are just part of their culture and society.

But months ago, Michael had come and visited the Asmat tribe. He had learned about these bispoils and what they meant, and he believed he had successfully negotiated a deal where he would barter some of his own goods in order to get one of their bispoils. But even though Michael gave them all the things he had offered, they had not in return sent the bispoil. And so now Michael was coming back to hopefully be able to claim the bispoil and take it with him.

But as Michael sat in his sinking catamaran, watching the muddy shores of New Guinea get farther and farther away as he drifted farther and farther out into the Arafura Sea, the last thing on his mind was the Bispol. He needed to figure out what they were going to do.

Michael's crew consisted of three other people. There was a French anthropologist named René, and there were two teenagers who were actually asthmatic guides, and their names were Simon and Leo. And so after Michael was unable to start the engine up, all three of them took their turn yanking on the cord, but they too could not get it to start.

Finally, Simon and Leo spoke up, and they said to Michael and Renee that at this point they believed their only hope was abandoning the catamaran, jumping into the ocean, and swimming to shore, which for now was about a half mile away, but they were drifting so quickly out to sea that if they waited any longer, they might be too far away to actually make that swim.

But Rene was not a good swimmer at all, and Michael was just not ready to totally abandon ship and leave this thing out here to sink, because on board the catamaran was all this stuff he had brought along, like tobacco and fishing line and clothes and candy and all this different stuff that he knew this tribe wouldn't have, and he could use it as leverage to continue bartering to get his vispole and to get other artwork they might be offering.

And so even though Michael understood that obviously this catamaran and everything on it is going to sink into the ocean at some point, he just wasn't there mentally to jump off now and just kind of abandon all this stuff. And so a decision was made that the two ASMAT guides, the two teenagers, Simon and Leo, they on their own would jump out, swim to shore, and try to get help while Michael and Renee stayed back and waited for that help to come.

And so a few moments later, the two teenagers jumped into the water and began their long swim to shore. And as they did, Michael watched and it suddenly dawned on him just how far away he was from his own home.

It had been months since Michael had last showered, so he smelled terrible. He was totally sunburned and caked in dirt, and his hands were rough and calloused from all the rowing he was doing. But this was not really Michael's real life, because Michael was not from New Guinea or from anywhere near here. He was actually from America,

where his family was one of the most well-known, influential, and richest families ever. Like, in the history of humanity, the Rockefeller family are in, like, the top 10 of the most powerful people ever.

Michael's grandfather was the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, who at the time was literally the richest man in the world. And Michael's father, Nelson Rockefeller, was at the time the governor of New York and the future vice president of the United States.

But despite having these unbelievable resources at his disposal, Michael was not compelled to kind of be a Rockefeller. Instead, he found his calling in the wilds of New Guinea.

He had first come here seven months earlier with a team of Harvard University filmmakers who were looking to document a very remote tribe. And Michael just fell in love with the adventure of this trip, even though on this trip, while they were filming a battle between this remote tribe and another tribe, Michael got shot accidentally in the shoulder with an arrow. So despite being wounded effectively in combat,

Michael just loved being in New Guinea. In fact, Michael actually never told his family about getting shot in the shoulder with this arrow because he was worried if he told his family, the all-powerful Rockefeller family, they would respond by seeking out retribution against one of these tribes that had inadvertently harmed Michael Rockefeller.

And so Michael was just very respectful and protective of the people he came in contact with in New Guinea. And in many ways, he viewed them as more like his people than his family.

And so after the Harvard University filmmakers wrapped up their documentary and went back to America, Michael had stayed in New Guinea. And in the meantime, his father, Nelson Rockefeller, had opened up a museum back home in New York called the Museum of Primitive Art, and what it displayed was artwork from places like New Guinea.

Now, this was the early 1960s, and so many Westerners viewed natives of New Guinea, like the people of the Asmat tribe, as being very primitive and backwards. And so as a result, there was a lot of people that were drawn to this new museum in New York just for the spectacle of it, to see what these primitive backwards people were creating.

But Michael felt like he had a deeper understanding of the natives of New Guinea, and he felt like it was his responsibility to go out and find the incredible artwork all around New Guinea, including like the bispoils from the Asmat tribe, and send that artwork back to his father to be put up in this museum so that it was more than just a spectacle. Michael wanted the people of the West to appreciate and respect the natives of New Guinea the same way he did, and he believed through art he could do that.

And so Michael had teamed up with René, the French anthropologist, to go all around New Guinea to find this artwork to send back to his dad. A few hours after Simon and Leo had leapt off the sinking catamaran and began their swim to shore, Michael and René had no idea if they'd even made it to shore. They hadn't seen anybody show up to rescue them. And so as far as they knew, they had no idea how close they were to being rescued or not.

and as they looked down they saw their catamaran was sinking lower and lower in the water and so at some point michael and renee just grabbed buckets and began bailing the water out of the catamaran which was totally useless the water was coming in way too quickly but they had nothing else to do and so they're bailing the water out and then a rogue wave comes through and flips the entire catamaran over sending michael and renee into the sea

And so luckily Michael and Renee were able to swim to the surface. They swam over to the now upturned catamaran, but there was an air pocket kind of trapped underneath it. And so it was staying afloat. And

And so Michael and Renee grabbed onto the catamaran and Michael actually grabbed a gas canister that had come off the boat and he attached it to his belt like a flotation device. And so he and Renee just kind of held on to this upturned catamaran. Michael was also supported by this gas canister and they just continued to wait, hoping that Simon and Leo had made it to shore and that help would be arriving soon.

But in the back of Michael's mind, he knew that if help didn't come soon, Michael might have to do something drastic, like attempt the swim himself, which now was way farther than half a mile away. Mr. Balling Collection is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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By the next morning, when the sun came up, Michael and Renee were still in the water holding on to that catamaran, waiting for help to arrive, but no help had come. Now, Michael was a very good swimmer, but by this point, he knew they were at least five or maybe even ten miles from shore, so this would be a gargantuan swim in pretty rough waters.

But, you know, Michael, he's a Rockefeller. He had a lot of confidence and he began telling Renee that, hey, I'm going to do this swim. I know I can do it. I can swim the whole distance. Even if it's 10 miles, I can do it. You know, you're going to have to just hang tight. It's going to take a while, but I'll get us help. Renee begged Michael not to go. But Michael said, I have to do something. Otherwise, we're going to die out here.

And so all Rene could do was watch as Michael stripped off some of his clothes and attached another gas canister to his belt to give him a little bit more flotation. And then Michael shook Rene's hand. And then right around 8 a.m. on Sunday, November 19th, 1961, Michael began the swim.

About 12 hours later, so that night, while Renee is still just holding on to this catamaran, hoping help is going to come soon, suddenly, kind of without warning, the sky suddenly erupted with this incredibly bright flame. And what it was, was a plane flying overhead that had spotted Renee and the upturned catamaran. They had fired a flare into the air to be like, hey, we see you, we're going to send help. And then just a couple of hours later, a boat came around and picked Renee up.

And when Rene climbed on board, he was so relieved and he asked the captain, you know, "Hey, did Michael Rockefeller tell you I was out here? Is that why you knew I was here?" And the captain said, "No, we were told by two teenagers, two guides, Simon and Leo, that you were out here. No one's heard from Michael."

Now, you need to remember that Michael Rockefeller was a Rockefeller. And so as soon as Rene heard, "Oh my goodness, we don't know where Michael is," and he told the captain that Michael had begun this unbelievably long swim to shore to get help, it was like suddenly a bomb had gone off in the Rockefeller family, and they committed all of their money and their resources and their influence to launch the biggest manhunt basically ever to find Michael.

They dispatched ships and helicopters and planes. They got in touch with the US Navy and got them to be fully involved. I mean, they looked everywhere for weeks, but they could not find Michael.

This search for Michael would continue for years. Now, it wouldn't be as intense as the first few weeks, but there was always somebody or some entity looking for Michael around the area where he had begun that swim. But by 1964, so three years after Michael had begun the swim to shore, the Rockefeller family finally accepted that Michael had to be dead, that he had to have drowned on that five or ten mile swim to shore.

And when the family finally kind of accepted that that is what happened, that became the story in America about what happened to Michael Rockefeller. In fact, his sister even wrote a best-selling book about grieving his loss. But in New Guinea, a very different story began to spread about what happened to Michael. Rumors about his fate were whispered along trade routes and between visiting missionaries and gossiped about in tabloid and adventure magazines.

In 1969, so five years after Michael was declared dead by his family, an Adventure Magazine reporter named Milt Macklin heard from this mysterious Australian person who was a source for this magazine that they had actually run into Michael Rockefeller recently in the jungle of New Guinea, not far from where he supposedly disappeared.

And Milt would actually follow up on this tip, despite how not credible it was, and he would go to New Guinea with a film crew, and he would go to this area, and he would look everywhere for Michael, he would talk to locals. I mean, he really scoured the area, but there was no sign of Michael.

And so Milt, feeling very let down by this, he came back home and he actually wrote a best-selling book about his quest to find Michael Rockefeller. But crucially, even though he had shot all this footage, both at a distance and up close of all these tribes in the area where Michael supposedly was, he and his team never really reviewed the footage. They basically shot all this footage while they were there looking for Michael, couldn't find him and said, meh, and put the footage aside.

But 40 years later, 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 and living in the jungles of New Guinea. And before they actually went to New Guinea to go looking for Michael, 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, there is this brief shot taken from a distance where the film crew was shooting on land out towards the water, and you see this canoe come into frame. And it's full of Asmat tribe 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, again, even though the quality of the film was poor, he totally looked like Michael Rockefeller.

And so as soon as word got out about this footage, very quickly rumors began to spread all around the world about how this heir to a billionaire's fortune had decided to turn away from his family and just live amongst the Asmat tribe as one of theirs. Now again, we have no idea if that really was Michael Rockefeller. It could easily have been, you know, a missionary or some other white person that happened to be in New Guinea. But the story was incredible, and so it spread everywhere.

In 2012, so four years after this unwatched Milt Macklin footage came to light, and over 50 years since Michael Rockefeller actually went missing, a National Geographic journalist named Carl Hoffman, who had grown up totally fascinated by the mystery surrounding Michael Rockefeller, he decided that he would go to New Guinea and finally get to the bottom of what happened to Michael Rockefeller.

And after Carl and his interpreter went to New Guinea and lived with the Asmat tribe for months and gained their trust and gained their respect, they began to tell him a brand new story that he had never heard before about what happened to Michael. The real story. And they gave him a dire warning that if he ever told anyone what actually happened to Michael, that the whole village would likely be killed and maybe even he too would be killed.

But Carl didn't listen. After hearing what really happened to Michael, he left New Guinea and wrote a book about it called Savage Harvest. And from his book, here is what happened to Michael Rockefeller.

On the morning of November 19, 1961, so roughly 24 hours after Michael had jumped into the water and began this 5-10 mile swim to shore to get help, three Asmat tribe elders named Finn, Agyem, and Pep sat amongst 50 other tribe members in eight long canoes.

And they weren't going anywhere. They were just kind of resting at the mouth of this river, the same river that dumped out into the Arafura Sea, which is exactly where Michael and his crew had ran into all those rough waters and overturned, causing their whole situation. And

and so all these tribes people are just sitting there in their canoes some of them are smoking loosely wrapped cigars others are chewing on flour made from a palm plant called sago and they're all naked minus a couple of bands around their knees and their elbows and some of them had very intricate piercings in their noses and their ears but they're all just kind of sitting there it was a long day and they're enjoying some peace and quiet

But then suddenly a Jim, one of the elders, noticed something making its way into the river from the sea. It was this white thing kind of slithering towards them. And immediately a Jim called out to the others to look. There's something over there. It's a white crocodile. It's a serpent. It's something. And they all look and they're watching. And slowly this white thing is moving its way closer and closer to them.

And so not wanting to be caught off guard, the entire group got ready and began paddling over to see what this thing was. Because if it was a threat, they could deal with it. If it wasn't, you know, so be it.

And so as these eight canoes converged on this white thing, some of them had their spears up ready to attack. But when they finally saw what this creature was, they realized it was not some serpent or crocodile or something. It was a white man. And he was floating on his back and he had these weird flotation devices on, but he was not a threat. And so right away, you know, all the tribesmen, they put down their spears. They kind of laugh, you know, thinking that they were in danger for a second.

And this white man, who was Michael Rockefeller, he rolled over and he looked up and he couldn't believe what he was seeing. You know, he's just swam like 10 miles to get here. And he's seeing the tribe that he had come to see in the first place. They've come here to rescue him. And so practically crying with relief, he turned around and grabbed one of their canoes. And as soon as he did, one of the elders, Pep, looked down at Michael holding on to his boat.

And then Pep looked up at the other two elders, Finn and a Jim, and they just stared at each other, then back at Michael, then back at each other, and then they nodded in agreement. And then Pep helped Michael into the boat.

Michael immediately just laid in the middle of the boat. You know, he was so exhausted from that swim, but he was so relieved. And he just laid there while the tribe kind of got back into position. They turned their canoes around and began paddling back up the river, back inland. And as they paddled, they began this very strange chant.

All eight canoes, all 50 plus members of the tribe, all in unison began this chant. And Michael, you know, he had studied the Asmat tribe and felt like he knew a lot about their culture, but he had never heard this particular chant before. And so he was enchanted by it. And he tried to ask them, you know, what does this mean? But they just completely ignored Michael and just continued to paddle and chant.

And so Michael just laid there listening, getting carried along to safety, when all of a sudden the chanting stopped and the canoes turned and kind of made their way into this little inlet that led to a clearing right on the shore. And so Michael noticed they were slowing down and so he kind of barely got up and looked over the edge of the canoe to see if they were at their village.

But when he looked up, he saw there was no village in sight. It was just this clearing out on the shore. And right away, Michael's like, well, I hope we're going to the village soon because I have to find someone who can get in touch with the authorities who can then go and rescue Renee and hopefully find Simon and Leo as well.

And so Michael began trying to ask the men in his canoe if they would help him, but there was, of course, a massive language barrier, and neither side really understood the other. And then at some point, one of the men from the Asmat tribe just began laughing at Michael. And when he did, the majority of the rest of the tribe looked over, saw what was going on, and they too began laughing at Michael. And so Michael had no idea what was going on, and

And then before he could do anything else, the entire tribe stopped laughing. And it was like in an instant, they were back into that rhythmic chanting as they slowly began making their way out of their canoes, making their way onto shore. And so Michael began to sense that something was wrong. And instead of getting out of the canoe with the rest of the tribe, he kind of instinctively laid back down on the canoe, almost like he was trying to get away from them. And when he did that, the tribesmen who had first laughed at Michael said,

He stood right over Michael as he's doing this chant and he smiled at Michael and then he raised his spear and he drove it into Michael's side.

And the second he did that, other members of the tribe raised these horns they were carrying and began blasting into their horns. And so Michael is screaming out in pain, but he's got no strength to defend himself. And so he kind of like rolled over onto the other side on this canoe, kind of trying to protect himself. And when he did that, the guy just lifted his spear again with a big smile on his face and drove it into Michael's other side.

After the man pulled the spear out, Michael, who's in horrible pain, managed, perhaps with his adrenaline, to pull himself up and over the side of the canoe. So he kind of fell out onto the mud and he tried to stand up to get away from them, but there was nowhere he could go. And so as he's kind of fumbling in the mud, two of the tribesmen walked up behind him, grabbed him under the arms, and they begin carrying him across the clearing towards the jungle.

And as they walked, that rhythmic chanting continued, and periodically Michael would hear someone blast on their horns.

And so Michael was dragged across the shoreline into the jungle and then finally to another clearing in the jungle, not anywhere near their village. And Michael was positioned in the middle of this clearing and put on his knees. And so Michael is kind of guarding his sides with his arms. He's incredibly weak. He's on his knees. The tribe kind of formed a circle around him and they're continuing this chant. And then at some point, one of the tribesmen walked up to Michael, grabbed his head and pushed it forward, exposing the back of his neck. And

And then another tribe member walked in and again, the whole time this chanting is going on, horns are being blown, and this other tribesman comes up and he raises an axe and he brings it down on the back of Michael's neck.

It would turn out the Asmat tribe knew who Michael was. They remembered him from his visit several months earlier when he had attempted to barter for their bispoils. And they had been totally offended that this rich white man had shown up and thought he could just buy one of their sacred artifacts like it was some trinket to be put on display in a museum. And so they had held on to a deep hatred for him. That was why they didn't send their bispole to him. They weren't going to give it to him.

But when Michael had kind of magically floated into their river, and suddenly the Asmat tribe has him sitting in their canoe, the three village elders, Finn, A'Jim, and Pep, they all just kind of looked at each other and nodded in agreement that they were going to ritualistically kill Michael to avenge the deaths of many of their fallen warriors that those bispoils apparently contained the souls of.

Because many of their warriors had been killed by white men in the past, and so Michael was going to be their way to avenge their souls.

And so that chant that Michael heard them all saying, that was the chant they did when they performed this execution ritual. Except they didn't just kill Michael. After one of those tribesmen brought the axe down on the back of Michael's neck, another tribesman walked up and grabbed Michael's hair, pulled his head back, and used a knife to slash at his throat to actually remove his head. And then after his head was removed, again with all the chanting continuing in this circle the whole time,

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 that were eaten, his brain was apparently the most important. And so only Finn, a Jim and Pep, the three elders were allowed to eat the brain.

And then finally, after they had finished eating and took all the remaining meat that had not been consumed, and they put it into their pouches to eat later, Finn, one of the elders, took Michael's skull, and he would bring it back to the village, and he would cover it in banana leaves, and he would paint it, and treat it like a trophy.

A few days later, when that huge search party came through the area looking for Michael, the Asmat tribe knew they could never whisper a word about what happened to Michael, because if it got out, you know, it's very likely that Westerners would want to retaliate against them. And so for decades and decades, their secret stayed safe until Carl Hoffman of the National Geographic

heard the story, and then wrote the book about it, Savage Harvest. But despite publishing this book and lots of people reading it, there was always some question about the credibility of the story. Because remember, there's all this intrigue and mystery around Michael's story to begin with, and now we have this account coming from the Asmat tribe. And so

And so no one really knew how legitimate it was. And so to this day, the Rockefeller family and generally speaking, authorities at large still say that Michael Rockefeller drowned on his swim to shore trying to get help. And that's it.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts. Those are Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, and Run Full. Just search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts and you will find all of them. Also, there are hundreds more stories like the one you listened to today, but in video format on our YouTube channel. And our YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. Go check it out.

So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like...

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