STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[MIKA27]

A Badass Way To Kickstart A Hawaiian Weekend

This soldier is running off the back of a CH-47F Chinook helicopter during a simulated combat dive mission on the Hawaiian shoreline. Even if it’s hard work, I’d like to be him — and leave behind these screens, and keyboards and Interwebz.

[MIKA27]

This Is How NASA Tests Spacesuits Ahead Of Missions

These NASA employees may be lying down, but the experience isn’t perhaps as relaxing as it looks. This is how the space agency goes about testing spacesuits ahead of launch.

In a facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, staff don the suits — in this case NASA’s Modified Advanced Crew Escape Suits — to see how they stand up to the rigours of space. Sat in an 3.35m thermal vacuum chamber, the suits are connected to a life support system while the tower is evacuated of its air. With luck — and, err, some world-class engineering — they work OK.

They ought. These suits are destined for use on the new Orion spacecraft, and should enable crew to walk in space and protect them in the unfortunate event of pressure loss aboard the spacecraft. They will undergo a rigorous evaluation procedure before they’re okayed for use in space — and the test pictured above is in fact just the first in a series of four tests.

[MIKA27]

Rabies: Everything You Never Wanted To Know

So far as awful ways to die go, being attacked by a rabid animal then dying a slow, painful death must rank near the top. And exactly that happens to 55,000 people every year. Here’s how you (or your dog) can get rabies, what it does to your body as it kills you and what you can do to ensure neither of you gets it.

What’s Rabies?

The World Health Organisation says:

“Rabies is a neglected zoonotic disease (a disease that is transmitted from animals to humans), caused by the rabies virus of the genus Lyssavirus. With the exception of Antarctica, the disease is endemic on all continents. The highest case incidence occurs in Asia and Africa, where rabies potentially threatens over 3 billion people.

Rabies is a 100% vaccine-preventable disease. However, despite the availability of tools to manage the disease, rabies prevails to cause tens of thousands of deaths every year. The disease disproportionately affects poor, low-resource communities, particularly children with 4 out of every 10 human deaths by rabies occurring in children younger than 15 years.”

What Does It Do To You?

The first symptoms can be similar to the flu: general weakness or discomfort, fever and headache. You may also experience soreness, burning or itching around the source of infection; you know, the gaping animal wound on your arm. The WHO says that the incubation period can be as short as under a week or longer than one year, but it typically one to three months.

After that time, symptoms will progress to cerebral dysfunction as it begins to eat away at your brain. According to the CDC, this is experienced through, “…anxiety, confusion, agitation,” progressing to, “…delirium, abnormal behaviour, hallucinations, and insomnia.”

Warning: Do not watch this video if you’re easily disturbed. Here, a rabies patient demonstrates aero and hydrophobias. Yes, this is real.

The diseases expresses itself in two forms: Furious Rabies (70% of human cases) causes hyper, excited behaviour, a strong fear of water and sometimes a strong fear of flying. This will eventually result in death by cardio-respiratory arrest. Paralytic Rabies (30%) is a little less exciting and takes longer to kill you. With it, your muscles gradually paralyze, beginning at the source of the infection and spreading outwards.

The same two forms occur if your dog is infected. But it’s obviously Furious Rabies, with its extreme aggression, that most strongly characterises the disease.

Scientific American describes how rabies kills you:

“Rabies kills by compromising the brain’s ability to regulate breathing, salivation and heartbeat; ultimately, victims drown in their own spit or blood, or cannot breathe because of muscle spasms in their diaphragms. One fifth die from fatal heart arrhythmia.”

“A bat recently removed from an area along the Colorado River within Grand Canyon National Park has tested positive for rabies. All visitors to Grand Canyon, including those who are recreating in the backcountry and on the Colorado River, are reminded to be aware of their surroundings and be alert to potential interactions with bats or other wild animals.” — The National Park Service

How Do You Get It?

The virus replicates in the animal carrying it and is retained in their salivary glands. So you get it through saliva transmission to your blood or mucus membranes or by swallowing infected saliva. So maybe think twice before making it with any bats.

According to the WHO, “Human-to-human transmission by bite is theoretically possible but has never been confirmed.”

This is very, very rare, but the virus can also be spread human-to-human in aerosol form (a sneeze), through organ transplants and by eating the meat of an infected animal. Which is just one more reason why eating bush meat is a terrible idea.

Bats are, by far, the most common source of the disease in North and South America and those guys are becoming a problem in Europe and Australia too. In Asia and Africa, dogs cause most infections. Rabies can also be spread by other wild carnivores like racoons, weasels, foxes, skunks and the like.

Never approach or attempt to handle a wild animal, unless you know what you’re doing and are wearing protective equipment. The same goes for the carcasses of animals who have died through unknown causes. Just call animal control.

If a wild animal allows you to approach it, there’s is something gravely wrong with that animal, something like rabies.

How Is It Treated?

Rabies is 100 per cent preventable by vaccine, for both your dog and you. If you do contract the disease and reach the point where symptoms exhibit themselves, it’s virtually certain that you or your dog will die.

Fortunately, a potent administration of the vaccine immediately following potential exposure and before symptoms appear can stop the disease in its tracks. If you believe you may have been exposed, it’s vital to seek medical attention immediately.

It’s also recommended that you immediately and thoroughly flush and wash any animal bite with soap and water for at least 15 minutes. Iodine and anything else that may kill the virus can also help during that period.

A rabies immunoglobulin is also available and may be effective if administered soon after exposure. An immunoglobulin is a protein used by the immune system to recognise and neutralize pathogens.

Louis Pasteur discovered the principal of vaccination while studying rabies in the 1880s.

Are There Side Effects To Vaccinating Your Dog?

Just like vaccines for children, there’s a group of people out there that believe rabies vaccines for dogs may be associated with everything from autoimmune diseases, digestive problems, skin diseases to even behavioural issues. Proponents of this thinking argue that rabies is now so rare in North America — less than five reported cases in humans each year — that we no longer need to vaccinate our dogs.

Well, look where that’s gotten us with human children and measles. A disease which was once virtually eliminated is now making a return because some people stopped vaccinating for it. Sound familiar? The reason rabies is now so rare is due to our effective and ongoing vaccination program.

Wiley is vaccinated against rabies and, because I travel to places where rabies is a real issue, I will be soon too. The astronomically remote odds that either of us may experience some adverse reaction to vaccines is far outweighed by the real risk we run with rabies and the horrible, horrible consequences contracting it brings for both of us.

What Should I Do If I Think I, My Family Or My Dog Has Been Exposed?

You can be exposed to rabies without the prototypical bite from a dog who’s foaming at the mouth. The primary animal-to-human vector is bats, who could potentially bite you or a family member in your sleep, without you realising it. If you are bitten by a bat or simply wake to find one in your room or tent, move to a safe area, search for bite marks, clean them thoroughly as described above and seek medical attention.

If it’s possible to safely catch and cage or kill the animal that bit you, then do so and take it with you to the hospital or vet. In doing so, do not destroy the brain if it’s possible and safe to avoid it. They will want to test the brain matter for the disease.

Regardless, if you’re bitten by any animal, you should alert animal control. Particularly if that animal is found to carry the disease. They will want to take steps to quarantine the area and/or eliminate an animal population that’s infected with the disease.

Does Anyone Survive?

Rabies is incredibly rare in the developed world. As stated above, there’s less than five cases of it in humans in the US each year. So, instances of the disease encountering western medicine and being prioritised by it are just as rare. But, in recent years, the two have encountered it with surprisingly positive results.

Experimental new techniques involve putting patients into an induced-coma, allowing the immune system to attack the disease before it reaches the brain. As of 2012, 41 attempts with this method around the world have resulted in five survivors.

In America, beyond getting your pets vaccinated every three years, you don’t ever really need think about rabies. But this potentially effective “cure” for an otherwise fatal infection could prevent horrible deaths for tens of thousands of people in Asia and Africa.

[MIKA27]

These Incredible Aerial Views Of San Francisco Are Just Jaw-Dropping

My God, take a look at these photos. Master photographer Vincent LaForet captured San Francisco in such incredible detail and in such a fascinating perspective that it’s truly breathtaking. You can see the entire city — all 11km by 11 km — stamped on the Earth with its beautiful bridges stretched across the sea.

“The full set of Vincent’s photos of San Francisco can be seen here on Storehouse.

Vincent Laforet is a director, photographer, and a pioneer in tilt-shift, aerial photography, and in HD DSLR cameras for shooting film. He won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his images of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s conflicts after 9/11, plus three prizes at the 2010 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek, Life and many other national and international publications have commissioned his service.

Follow him on his blog, Twitter, Facebook, Storehouse and Instagram.

You can buy his book Visual Stories: Behind the Lens with Vincent Laforet here.

See the complete set of images shot above Las Vegas on Storehouse.

[MIKA27]

Tag Heuer And Intel Are To Challenge The Apple Watch

“Apple will get young people used to wearing a watch,” Tag Heuer CEO CEO Jean-Claude Biver recently told Reuters, “and later maybe they will want to buy themselves a real watch.” Could today be the day we see Tag Heuer’s “real watch” answer to the rise of the smartwatch?

Reuters is reporting that the luxury Swiss watch maker is teaming up with computing giants Intel to work on a timepiece capable of holding its own against the connected devices currently vying for a place on our wrists. Capable of tracking geolocation, altitude and distance walked, it won’t have quite the range of abilities that other smartwatches have. But Tag Heuer’s watch will have one key advantage; it will look just like it’s sweet, “proper” original black Carrera (one of the brand’s most iconic designs), pictured above.

While Tag Heuer will make the traditional watch components itself in Switzerland, all the smart internals will come courtesy of Intel, which will produce chips and apps for the timepiece in Silicon Valley.

Though the smartwatch and luxury watch may seem like chalk and cheese at the moment and mostly aimed at very different consumers, Apple’s £8000 gold Edition variant has shaken up that paradigm slightly. In the consumer tech space, Apple has the same luxury appeal that those hunting down a Rolex crave. It’s obscenely expensive smartwatch brings with it the exclusivity that the super-rich crave, so it’s understandable that Tag Heuer would want to sure up its defences — particularly after losing top staff to Apple.

The Tag Heuer/Intel smartwatch is expected to be revealed later today. We’ll keep you posted on what it offers if it does indeed appear.

[MIKA27]

The Perfection Of Jet Takeoffs From Aircraft Carriers In One Photo

Fighter jets and aircraft carriers and fighter jets taking off of aircraft carriers are some of our favourite things in the world for so many reasons. One of them is just how perfect each launch has to be. Just look at how the wheels of the jet reach the end of the aircraft carrier as the fighter jet achieves lift off.

And that’s just another day at the office for everyone involved, it’s nothing special. It’s nice to be reminded at how awesome these jets — and the people flying them — truly are. This picture is actually notable because it shows a French Navy Rafale Marine aircraft taking off from the USS Carl Vinson.

[MIKA27]

Spectacular Night Photos Of The New Puma Helicopter

These night photos of an AF Puma Mk2 helicopter being loaded onto a C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft, illuminated by runway lights at Brize Norton, the largest station of the Royal Air Force, are simply too good to handle.

The RAF’s latest Puma helicopter is being deployed for the first time on operations in support of the NATO mission providing training and assistance to Afghan forces. Its departure came just days before the Ministry Of Defence announced that the new Puma, and the RAF’s latest version of the Chinook, the Mark 6, were both ready for operational use, says the official statement released today.

[MIKA27]

INKCASE I6 E-INK DISPLAY CASE FOR IPHONE 6

Instead of advertising for Apple (they’re doing fine already) or sporting a case with some faux bling, whaddya think about turning the back of your iPhone 6 case into an e-ink display? We like it.

inkCase i6 adds a 4.3 inch E Ink display to your phone’s backside, connecting wirelessly via Bluetooth and giving you another place to peep weather updates, To Do lists, and more. The paper-like display can display notifications, custom wallpapers, and bike- and sport-tracking stats, all in direct sunlight. The always-on display requires no power from your phone, as it has a built-in battery. inkCase is made from durable dual molded polycarbonate, and it pops right on, adding 4.2mm to your iPhone 6, resulting in a total width of 11.1mm. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

ISIS Has A New Terrorism Tactic: Doxing US Soldiers

The Islamic State’s “Hacking Division” has posted personal information about more than 100 US military personnel online, and is encouraging supporters in America to use the info to kill the military members. Doxing is the latest digital weapon in ISIS’s tech-savvy arsenal.

ISIS claims that it hacked military servers and emails for the information, but the FBI and US Defense Department are still investigating, according to the New York Times. It’s possible that the Hacking Division simply scoured public records, social media, and address look-up sites to find the information and is claiming a breach occurred as a scare tactic.

However, some of the people on the hit list haven’t been publicly linked to campaigns against ISIS, theTimes explains. All that’s clear so far is that no matter how the group got ahold of the information, ISIS is now deliberately leaking personal details with the express intention to hurt and scare soldiers.

[MIKA27]

This Great Short Film Should Be Turned Into A Feature ASAP

What do you get when you mix in part, The Matrix, a bit of Inception and a fhint District 9? You’ll get Sundays, a proof-of-concept short film directed by Mischa Rozema that, hopefully, will soon be turned into a feature.

[MIKA27]

Leaked Documents Reveal Canada's Advanced Cyber Warfare Capabilities

While much attention has been paid to America’s National Security Agency over the last two years, reports now suggest that Canada’s Communications Security Establishment has been playing hardball too. A report by The Intercept claims that the agency’s “developed an arsenal of cyber weapons capable of stealing data and destroying adversaries’ infrastructure”.

In documents leaked from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden, The Intercept has found claims by Canada’s CSE that it can perform “computer network exploitation” and “computer network attack” operations. In particular, it explains that it could “disable adversary infrastructure,” “control adversary infrastructure”, or “destroy adversary infrastructure”. The Intercept suggests that those capabilities could be used to attack infrastructure such as transportation, power or banking systems — a little like the Stuxnet attack.

The documents explain that the CSE is said to have “active computer network access and exploitation on a variety of foreign intelligence targets, including CT [counter terrorism], Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Mexico.” Many of the tools it uses to carry out these operations are reportedly borrowed from the NSA.

It’s not the first news we’ve heard about the CSE aping the NSA. In January, leaked documents suggested that the Establishment monitors and stores details about downloads and uploads made via 102 different file-sharing websites. The documents explained that the Establishment finds 350 “interesting download events” each month — representing just 0.0001 per cent of the total collected data it grabs.

None of this is perhaps too surprising. But it does go to further demonstrate that the tactics employed by the NSA reach much further than just the United States.

[MIKA27]

Man Interrupts Tortoise Sex, World's Slowest Chase Scene Ensues

Yes, tortoises sometimes try to chase things, and yes, it’s every bit as hilarious as you’d imagine.

Several days ago, a National Geographic expedition to the remote island nation of Seychelles encountered something extraordinary: two giant tortoises mating. The male tortoise, none too happy about being caught in the act, proceeded to chase expedition leader Paul Rose and his cameraman with all the swiftness a tortoise can muster — which isn’t saying much, at all.

A+ for effort though — this guy was just trying to protect his lady’s privacy, after all. Now, if I were a snail, I’d be straight up terrified.

[MIKA27]

'Post Modern Skateboard' Has No Board Whatsoever

We’re well into the 21st century, so perhaps it’s not surprising that somebody finally decided to render the tried-and-true skateboard a major update. Enter the Post Modern Skateboard — at least, that’s how it’s being marketed. Thing is, this contraption has no board to speak of.

As CNET points out, the Post Modern Skateboard — basically, a $US100 pair of 10-inch, round wheels with foot platforms — seems to be more spiritually akin to a caster board, a two-wheeled, skateboard cousin consisting of two decks joined by a metal beam. But seeing the skater’s two feet moving independently in this video reminds me a lot more of roller blading or figure skating than anything else.

The “board,” however, does come with an extendable rod that can be used to connect the two skates. If you squint at this contraption with the rod in place, you can sort of see a shadow of its former self.

[MIKA27]

'Largest ever asteroid impact' found in Australia

Imaging of the rock in the Warburton Basin revealed deformation consistent with a huge impact

Scientists in Australia have discovered what they say is the largest asteroid impact area ever found.

The 400-kilometre (250-mile) wide area is buried deep in the earth's crust and consists of two separate impact scars.

The team behind the discovery, from the Australian National University (ANU), said the asteroid broke into two before it hit, with each fragment more than 10km across.

The impact is thought to have occurred at least 300 million years ago.

The surface crater has long since disappeared from central Australia's Warburton Basin but geophysical modelling below the surface found evidence of two massive impacts, said Dr Andrew Glikson, who led the ANU team.

"It would have been curtains for many life species on the planet at the time," said Dr Glikson.

But the team, which published its findings in the geology journal Tectonophysics, has not been able to connect the impact to any known extinction.

"It's a mystery - we can't find an extinction event that matches these collisions," said Dr Glikson. "I have a suspicion the impact could be older than 300 million years."

Dr Andrew Glikson examines a sample of suevite - a rock with partially melted material formed during an impact

The rocks around the impact zone are roughly 300 to 600 million years old, but a layer of ash that would have been thrown up by the impact has not been detected as sediment in rock layers from the same period.

The large meteorite believed to have killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago corresponds to a layer of sediment in rocks around the world.

"Large impacts like these may have had a far more significant role in the Earth's evolution than previously thought," Dr Glikson said.

The apparent impact zone in the Warburton Basin was discovered by accident while scientists were drilling 2km under the Earth's surface for a geothermal research project.

The dig returned traces of rock that had been turned to glass by extreme temperature and pressure, consistent with a massive impact.

[MIKA27]

'The Leviathan' Is The Best Sci-Fi Short Film You'll Watch This Year

You might be surprised to know that 300, Sin City, District 9, Deadpool and even Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - all started life as proof-of-concept short films.

They are often independently funded ventures designed to showcase the filmmakers technique skills and vision, almost like an visual CV in the hopes of getting funding for a full length feature.

In the competitive and cutthroat world of Hollywood, its vastly more impressive to have a short teaser, than a collection of illustrated storyboards if you're planning on wowing the major film studios.

Now comes 'The Leviathan' from the minds of Academy Award nominated short film director Ruairi Robinson and Fight Club and Jumper screenwriter Jim Uhls. Robinson directed a previous sci-fi short titled The Silent City, which actually starred the then up-and-coming Cillian Murphy.

After securing a film grant from the Irish Film Board/Bord Scannán na hÉireann the two of them set about creating the vision for The Leviathan, the plot of which is as follows:

By the early 22nd century mankind had colonized many worlds. Faster than light travel was made possible by harvesting exotic matter from the eggs of the largest species mankind has ever seen. Those that take part in the hunt are mostly involuntary labor.

Over the next 3 minutes 39 seconds, is a spectacular-looking sci-fi thriller than will leave you gasping for more and desperately hoping it becomes a full-length feature. It really is that good.

Monsters and science fiction hybrids have fared well at the box office in recent times. The latest installment of Godzilla netted $528M worldwide whilst Pacific Rim pocketed $407M worldwide on a production budget of just $190M.

Could The Leviathan be the next to see its name up in lights?

On this evidence, don't bet against the giant beast.

[MIKA27]

The Mysterious Vanishing Battalion of WWI

War brings with it many things. Death, destruction, chaos, loss; these are all innate features of battle. War also has the tendency to draw about itself rich folklore, mysteries, and amazing stories from the battlefield. One of the most well-known and certainly more bizarre tales of wartime mystery comes from the bloody battlefields of WWI, when an entire battalion of men is said to have marched bravely into battle to fight their enemy, only to inexplicably disappear without a trace off the face of the earth.

The setting for the incident was the battlegrounds of World War I, in particular the Gallipoli campaign, which took place on the Gallipoli Peninsula of the Ottoman Empire from 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916. The objective of the campaign was for the Allied powers of Britain and France to launch an ultimately unsuccessful naval and amphibious assault against the Turks to secure the Dardanelles, which is a strait that connects the Mediterranean with the Black Sea and served as an essential sea route for their ally, Russia. At the time, the strait was controlled by Turkey, an ally of Germany’s. The eventual plan was to push through and forcefully claim the city of Constantinople (present day Istanbul), which was the Ottoman Empire’s capital, and expel the Turks from the war.

Fighting during the Gallipoli campaign

In the midst of the bloody campaign, there came the Sandringhams, a military unit that had been created in 1908 by King Edward VII, consisting of men that had been recruited from the staff of the royal Sandringham Estate. They would later be included with the 5th Territorial Battalion the Royal Norfolk Regiment, or “The Norfolks”. The regiment was rather unique in that it was one of the first examples in the British forces of what came to be referred to as “Pal’s Battalions,” which were military units made up of men who had all been recruited from the same civilian group, for instance the same town , company, or in this case royal estate. These were close-knit groups comprised of men who knew each other well, and in many cases had even grown up together. In the case of the Sandringhams, they were about to go to war together.

The Norfolk Regiment, made up of 250 men, 16 officers, and led by Sir Horace Proctor-Beauchamp, set out for the Gallipoli Peninsula from Liverpool on July 30, 1915 aboard the SS Aquitainia and arrived at Suvla Bay in Gallipoli on 10 August 1915 amidst heavy fighting. They did not have to wait long to see battle themselves. On August 12, just two days after their arrival, the 5th Norfolks, as part of the 163rd Brigade, were ordered to launch an offensive against Turkish positions holding the Anafarta Plain in order to clear them out ahead of a planned Allied advance. From the beginning the mission was faced with setbacks. The men were in poor physical condition due to the rigors of their journey, the side effects of inoculations, a lack of sleep, and the harsh, brutally hot and arid climate of the area. Many of them were sick with dysentery, and general morale was low. In addition, the advance was to be carried out in broad daylight, with poor supplies, inadequate water, and with inaccurate maps, against seasoned Turkish fighters who knew the land well and were deeply dug in along ridges. Additionally, the objective of the mission was not made particularly clear, with some of the men thinking that they were to attack the village of Anafarta Saga rather than clear the way for the British assault. It is perhaps no surprise that the attack turned into a massacre.

The Norfolk Regiment

The exhausted, thirsty, and sick men first made an error and turned the wrong way, separating them from the larger 163rd Brigade. Realizing their mistake, they nevertheless prepared to advance against Kavak Tepe ridge without support or reinforcements. When they did, they were immediately met with a rain of machine gun fire and picked off by numerous snipers entrenched in the ridge and sitting in trees. The Norfolk Regiment bravely pressed on into this maelstrom of blood and bullets, actually managing to push the enemy back towards a forest that was ablaze from artillery fire. Beauchamp and his men continued the charge into the burning forest, and that was the last anyone would ever see of them. The battalion would never emerge from the forest, none would come back to tell the tale, and by most accounts they had simply vanished from the face of the earth. It is from this charge into the smoke and trees that the mystique and mystery of the vanished Royal Norfolk Regiment really takes off.

It was assumed at the time that the men had been captured by Turkish forces and held as prisoners of war. The British made inquiries to the Turkish government as to whether they had taken the men as prisoners, but they denied having any knowledge of the Norfolks. When the war was over, the British demanded the return of the soldiers, but again the Turks adamantly denied having them, and indeed declared that they had never even heard of them. The War Graves Commission carried out searches for war dead on the battlefields of Gallipoli in 1918, which would meet with mixed success, as 14,000 of the 36,000 Commonwealth soldiers who had died in the bloody campaign were never found, and another 13,000 were uncovered in unidentified graves. During one of these searches, a Rev Charles Pierrepoint Edwards found a Norfolks regimental cap badge, along with 180 bodies scattered about around a farmhouse surrounded by the wooded area in which the men had last been seen. 122 of the bodies were found to have shoulder badges that identified them as members of the Norfolks, and one was even identified by his shoulder flashes as Lt-Col Beuchamp himself. At the time this was seen as definitive proof as to the fate of the regiment, and it was a pretty closed case, yet the case of the “Vanished Battalion” would only get weirder in the ensuing years.

Turkish machine gunners during the fighting at Gallipoli

The case of the Vanishing Battalion remained pretty much closed until the 50th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings in April 1965, when a New Zealand WWI veteran by the name of Frederick Reichardt, along with two of his compatriots, came forward with their own alleged first-hand account of what he saw on that fateful day. The story was recounted by Reichardt during a reunion of veterans and offered a bizarre, if controversial, twist on the tale of the missing battalion.

Reichardt went on record saying that they had been sappers with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and that they had been operating in an area near a Turkish position known as Hill 60, which was not far from where the lost Norfolk Regiment had been waging war. The sapper claimed they noticed between 6 and 8 odd, grayish brown, “loaf shaped” clouds hovering over the battlefield. The weird clouds were described as being completely still even in the face of high winds at the time. Beneath these clouds was reportedly another, even larger and denser looking cloud that was estimated as being around 800 feet in length and around 200 feet high. This massive cloud was allegedly hugging the ground over a dry creek bed when the Norfolk Regiment approached, and without hesitation they proceeded to march directly into it. When the regiment had disappeared into the cloud, Reichardt claimed that it had then slowly risen upwards to join the other strange clouds, apparently taking the soldiers with it, after which they all moved off to the north in unison before disappearing from view. The story was first published in the September/October edition of the New Zealand UFO magazine Spaceview in 1965. The story would be somewhat corroborated when in 1966, another New Zealand veteran of the campaign, Gerald Wilde, told Spaceview magazine that although he had not seen the disappearance directly, he had heard many rumors among soldiers that the entire Norfolk Regiment had disappeared into a cloud that had been straddling the ground.

It was a rather bizarre story that flew in the face of the official conclusion of what had happened to the Vanished Battalion, but it was immediately jumped upon by UFO enthusiasts and became an almost legendary tale among missing persons cases, particularly those suggesting alien abduction. The story took on a life of its own, especially among alien abduction enthusiasts, and would be told again and again in various publications, each time gaining further details or having the details changed somehow. People just couldn’t seem to get enough of this sinister tale of cloud-shaped UFOs whisking away a whole regiment of men in the middle of a battlefield. The story gained such a following amongst the public that the British Ministry of Defence and the Imperial War Museum were constantly deluged with letters demanding the release of top secret files that outlined the mass alien abduction and had been covered up.

So what really happened to the Norfolks and the Sandringhams Company which had been a part of them? Did they die on that battlefield like so many others that day or were they adducted by forces beyond our understanding? Although the cloud story is intriguing and holds so many elements of mystery and suspense, unfortunately it has lent itself to a large amount of criticism of its veracity. The main problem is that it is littered with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, such as giving the wrong dates and even the wrong battalion number. Reichardt claimed that he had seen the weird incident on August 28, 1915, when in fact the attack had been carried out on August 12. He also said it was the 1/4 battalion that had disappeared, when actually the 1/4 had been a sister battalion held in reserve, while it had been the 1/5 battalion that had actually charged into battle and vanished.

The Norfolks

These errors could perhaps be chalked up to so much time having passed from the alleged incident to when Reichardt first reported it, as well as the fact that he admitted he hadn’t kept any sort of written diary at the time, but things got weirder when a secretive group of US scientists and officials referred to as MJ-12 released a report on the same incident in a paper titled 1st Annual Report, in 1998. The document is apparently an annex to another paper that describes the incident dating to 1952. The 1st Annual Report describes the incident thus:

On August 21 1915, members of the New Zealand Army Corps’ First Field Company signed sworn statements that they saw the One-Fourth Norfolk Regiment disappear in an unusually thick brown cloud which seemed to move and rose upward and vanished. There were no traces of the regiment nor their equipment. No explanation can be found in the historical records of the Imperial War Museum archives.

Interestingly, the report contains some of the same mistakes as the original testimony, as well as all new ones. Again, the battalion is erroneously referred to as the One-Fourth Norfolk Regiment, and furthermore, it states that the story was relayed in 1915 when in fact Reichardt hadn’t come forward with his tale until 1965. This glaring oversight by a panel of what are supposedly top scientists and officials, as well as the fact that the original document is said to have been written in 1952, long before Reinhardt ever came forward, has caused some to declare the MJ-12 report a hoax that was probably cobbled together from the same misinformation perpetuated through books on UFOs, without any effort to check facts.

Certainly one of the most meticulous and in-depth investigations into the legend of the Vanashing Battalion was a book called The Vanished Battalion, by historian Nigel McCrery, who managed to uncover some intriguing details of the case. One important fact that was mentioned was that the clergyman who had discovered the field of bodies in 1918 had at the time of his report to the War Office failed to mention that the corpses had all been shot in the head, execution style. This put a sinister spin on things, since it suggested a war crime rather than a field of men who had died valiantly in battle. It was not wholly implausible, as at the time the Turks were infamous for an aversion to taking prisoners of war, a fact that was further corroborated by survivors of other such massacres, who described horrific scenes of brutality committed by the Turkish soldiers. One man who had survived such an incident told of seeing Turkish soldiers ruthlessly gunning down and bayonetting helpless or wounded enemy soldiers not far from where the Norfolks had disappeared. McCrery surmised that withholding the information concerning the bullet wounds had been part of a cover-up designed to hide the fact that these soldiers, many of them from the King’s own proud Sandringhams unit, had not died with valor but rather cowering at the mercy of a sadistic enemy.

McCrery also came to the conclusion that the Allied commander in charge of the Gallipoli Campaign, Sir Ian Hamilton, had also made efforts to dress up the massacre as something more mysterious and unexplained than it truly was. The Gallipoli Campaign had turned out to be one of the Allied forces’ most humiliating defeats, and was marked by a series of botched missions, mishaps, and poor planning. McCrery speculated that, rather than risk his reputation by admitting that his poor leadership and foresight had led to the pointless slaughter of so many men, Hamilton had opted to make it seem like the battalion had disappeared under mysterious circumstances that were beyond his control. In his final dispatch to the Secretary of State for War, Hamilton said:

In the course of the fight, there happened a very mysterious thing. Against the yielding forces of the enemy Colonel Sir H. Beauchamp, a bold, self-confident officer, eagerly pressed forward, followed by the best part of the battalion. The fighting grew hotter [and] at this stage many men were wounded or grew exhausted but the Colonel, with 16 officers and 250 men kept pushing forward, driving the enemy before him, nothing more was seen or heard of any of them. They charged into the forest and were lost to sight or sound. Not one of them ever came back.

Sir Ian Hamilton

Essentially, Hamilton could have been trying to wash his hands of yet another botched operation under his command by spinning it into a freak occurrence. Intriguingly, there is a report by the Royal Commission on Gallipoli which was compiled in 1916, but not released to the public until 1965. Within the report is an excerpt on a page facing Hamilton’s final dispatch which reads:

By some freak of nature Suvla Bay and Plain were wrapped in a strange mist on the afternoon of 21 August. This was sheer bad luck as we had reckoned on the enemy’s gunners being blinded by the declining sun and upon the Turks’ trenches being shown up by the evening sun with singular clearness. Actually, we could hardly see the enemy lines this afternoon, whereas to the westward targets stood out in strong relief against the luminous light.

Interestingly, this report eerily lines up with a claim made in a 1967 book titled Flying Saucers Are Hostile, in which authors Brad Steiger and Joan Whritrenour claim that 22 more witnesses from the New Zealand military eventually came forward to corroborate Reinhardt’s story, and also they share what they refer to as part of the “official history” of the Gallipoli campaign. In the book the authors state that this “official history” describes how the Norfolks were ensconced within a strange, unseasonable fog which reflected sunlight in such a way as to produce a blinding glare in which artillery personnel had been unable to fire.

This all seems like it could coincide with the weird clouds that Reinhardt and company claimed to have seen, and it also links up with another account that McCrery describes in his book. On August 21, 1915, the Allied forces launched a massive attack involving around 3,000 men against Hill 60, the very hill mentioned in Reinhardt’s account. During this attack, Sir John Milbanke VC, the commander of a unit called the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, claimed that a strange “pearly mist” had obscured their view of the enemy during the battle. McCrery surmised that what Reinhardt had seen occurred on this day, August 21, not on August 12 as was claimed, and that he had witnessed this strange mist rather than UFOs. McCrery concluded that is quite possible that in the confusion of war, Reinhardt had seen this mist and had heard rumors of the missing battalion from August 12, and subsequently had confused the two events over the years; mixing them into one story of a battalion being swallowed by strange clouds. What Reinhardt had really seen was probably a regiment of Sherwood Rangers on August 21 fighting in this mist, with the identities and dates becoming distorted over time to become the Norfolks and their disappearance on August 12. McCrery theorized that the story was a confused mishmash of the two events and that this confusion, plus undoubtedly embellishment added over the years, had resulted in Reinhardt’s account of the Norfolk’s being abducted by bizarre flying clouds on August 12, 1915. McCrery’s book would later be adapted into a BBC-TV documentary drama about the incident titled All the King’s Men.

So what really happened here? Although the story of a whole battalion being abducted by cloud-shaped UFOs is still bandied about, it seems like the available evidence points to something a little more mundane, yet infinitely more ghastly. The Norfolk’s were likely captured and mercilessly executed, after which they had been left to rot where they lie and their fate covered up by the War Office, as well as the commander of the campaign, Sir Ian Hamilton. The rumors of the disappearing battalion spread, and 50 years later a former New Zealand sapper by the name of Reinhardt comes forward with his half-remembered mixed up story, which then propels itself into legend. While some UFO enthusiasts still like to cling to the abduction story, there seems to be very little to strongly support it. As alluring as it is to think that a whole battalion of was spirited away by alien clouds, there is the very strong likelihood that this is yet another one of many myths and legends that have sprung up from the fog of war.

Nevertheless, the image of a whole battalion charging valiantly into battle to mysteriously vanish and never be heard from again is a compelling and powerful one that certainly captures the imagination. No matter what information we have or how closed the case may seem, it seems that the story of the Vanishing Battalion is an enduring tale that’s just too good to let go, and has certainly become firmly entrenched within the pantheon of great wartime mysteries.

[MIKA27]

Cannibals, Lost lands and the Mysterious Disappearance of Michael Rockefeller

Those who live comfortable lives in our cities of soaring concrete, steel, and glass, tend to have the sense that we are somehow insulated from the rugged, wild world that lies beyond our civilization. We tend to believe that our technology, money, and sophistication somehow shields us from what lies hidden in the remote jungles of our world. Most of the time, this is no doubt true. However, once we leave our safe blanket of civilization and journey out into these lost, wild lands, we become detached from this safety line. Out in these remote places, the playing field is leveled, and we revert to a state where we are no longer sitting high and mighty in our civilized society. The rules change. In these places we are no longer the hunters, but the hunted, bound by the rules of the wild and the ways of the primitive peoples who populate it. Our arrogance and technology will not protect us here. One man who may have wanted to keep this in mind was a wealthy playboy and member of one of the most influential families in America, who journeyed to the dark, unexplored land of what is now Papua New Guinea, never to be seen again, sparking one of the most baffling and enduring mysteries of the 20th century.

Born in 1938, Michael Clark Rockefeller was the son of New York governor and later Vice President Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, and was a fourth generation member of the Rockefeller family, one of the richest, most powerful, and influential families in America at the time. Michael had long had a passionate interest in art, especially in primitive and tribal art, and in 1957 helped established the first ever museum solely dedicated to such art, the Museum of Primitive Art, in Manhattan. Rockefeller was also an adventurer at heart, and yearned to travel to faraway lands and meet exotic tribes. It was this profound interest in art and his desire to experience another world that would eventually bring Michael Rockefeller across the world to the remote and little understood, mysterious land of what was then Dutch New Guinea.

Michael C. Rockefeller, son of Nelson Rockefeller, adjusts his camera before taking pictures of Papuan men in New Guinea in 1961.

After graduating from Harvard University in 1961, the then 23 year-old Rockefeller decided to pursue his dreams of exotic adventure, and he embarked on an expedition for the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, with the aim of studying the Dani tribe of western Dutch New Guinea, as well as to immerse himself in the culture of these primitive people. Rockefeller said of the reasons behind his ambitious plans of far-flung travel and adventure:

It’s the desire to do something adventurous at a time when frontiers, in the real sense of the word, are disappearing.

To be sure, Rockefeller went on this journey with a headstrong attitude and a sense of entitlement. After all, he was a member of one of the richest families in the world, so he had a definite sense of invulnerability; that his family could bail him out of any trouble he should encounter. This sense of entitlement no doubt produced an illusion of safety even in the face of what was certainly a dangerous endeavor. Despite the inherit perils of the expedition, Rockefeller had a keen interest in these little understood, primitive people, and threw himself into the experience. During the Peabody expedition, he would help record the documentary Dead Birds, which was a chronicle of life among the Dani tribe.

Michael Rockefeller with members of the Dani tribe

After the Peabody expedition was complete, Rockefeller briefly returned to the States, after which the irresistible lure of adventure drew him back to New Guinea, this time to study the Asmat tribe of the southwest coast of New Guinea. On this excursion, he wished to once again live among the people and also collect various pieces of tribal artwork and artifacts for exhibition at his museum back in New York. This expedition would prove to be much different and indeed more dangerous than the previous expedition to study the Dani had been. Rockefeller was essentially on his own this time, and embarked on his adventure accompanied only by the anthropologist René Wassing. Their destination, the Asmat tribe, was also markedly different than the Dani tribe he had studied previously. Whereas the Dani tribe were a mostly peaceful, agricultural people, the Asmat were a tribe of fierce warriors who sported battle scars and practiced cannibalism.

This tribe also had a deeply ingrained culture of reciprocal murder and barbarism. In the Asmal culture, there was a profound sense of balance, and they believed very strongly that one death had to be balanced out by another. In order to fulfill this spiritual obligation to avenge one death with another, they were known to set out on headhunting raids, in which Asmat tribesmen hellbent on revenge for the death of one of their own would descend onto the offending tribe and proceed to mercilessly slaughter every living thing they could find, including women and children. In the aftermath of the carnage, the blood of their victims would be rubbed on special 20-foot long bisj poles and their flesh consumed in the Asmat belief that they could absorb their admirable qualities and gain supernatural powers in this way.

It was certainly a grim and brutal way of life full of a never ending cycle of reciprocal violence and constant tribal warfare, yet this potent danger was precisely part of the allure that drew Rockefeller there in the first place. The potential danger and this violent, perilous way of life were exhilarating to him. He wanted to experience life living among a tribe of real-life headhunters, and no doubt he was probably still buzzing with the false sense of security that his family name endowed him with. Rather than being afraid for his life, Rockefeller approached the whole affair with zeal and a sense of excitement, perhaps a healthy dose of complacency, and viewed the Asmat people as a curious enigma that he wished to study and understand. He once wrote during his journey:

I am having a thoroughly exhausting but most exciting time here…The Asmat is like a huge puzzle with the variations in ceremony and art style forming the pieces. My trips are enabling me to comprehend (if only in a superficial, rudimentary manner) the nature of this puzzle…

Rockefeller would go on to take hundreds of photographs of his life with the Asmat people and collect numerous artifacts, including four of the bisj poles onto which the blood of slain enemies was smeared, many of which are still on display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to this day. Throughout this whole time, Rockefeller probably never really felt like he was in in danger, partly due to his arrogant belief that money could get him out of anything, and partly because he felt safe in the knowledge that the Asmat only practiced cannibalism out of ritualistic revenge rather than any need for sustenance. Unfortunately, no amount of money could save him from what happened next.

Michel Rockefeller among the Asmat tribe

On November 17, 1961, Rockefeller was out on a shoddy, makeshift catamaran accompanied by Wassing and two local guides on a trip to collect some Asmat woodcarvings. They were traversing the mouth of a turbulent river that faced the Arafura Sea on the southwest coast of New Guinea when large waves flooded the engine and caused it to sputter out. Unable to restart the stalled engine, they drifted until the boat was overturned by more waves. The two guides told them to stay put as they swam to go get help. Over the next 24 hours, the remaining men clung to the flipped boat as it drifted out into the Arafura Sea until it was around 12 miles from shore and getting farther. With no help in sight, Rockefeller courageously strapped on a couple of gasoline tanks to his waist and told Wassing “I think I can make it,” before proceeding to jump into the water and start swimming towards shore, while the anthropologist stayed with the boat. Rockefeller was never seen again.

The next day, the help that the local guides had promised arrived to save Wassing, but Rockefeller was nowhere to be found. The disappearance of such a rich, influential figure in this mysterious, forbidding land was an immediate media sensation, and was splashed across newspapers nationwide. A massive search was launched by the Dutch government that went on for two weeks and exhaustively searched the area for any sign of Rockefeller, but they could find no trace of him. His father, Nelson Rockefeller, and his twin sister, Mary, both flew to New Guinea to help aide in the search, but they too were unable to uncover any sign of him. It was as if Michael Rockefeller had just vanished from the face of the earth.

The Dutch government officially concluded that Rockefeller had died of drowning, even though they had found no evidence to make that assumption, and another, more ominous rumor began to brew; that he had made it to shore safely but had been killed and eaten by cannibals, specifically from an Asmat village by the name of Otsjanep, which was near where the two men had been and well known for practicing cannibalism. This rumor was stoked by further claims from Dutch Catholic missionaries in the vicinity of the disappearance, who detailed the cannibalism of a white man in Otsjanep in a 1962 Associated Press article. This morbid thought naturally unsettled the Rockefeller family, but the Dutch government was quick to claim that cannibalism was an outdated practice that no longer occurred in Dutch New Guinea, even though it most certainly did. It is perhaps not surprising, as the Dutch were in the midst of trying to ready New Guinea for independence, and did not want the negative publicity that cannibal headhunting tribes roving about the jungles would invariably produce. Some people believed that Rockefeller had not been killed by cannibals, but had rather been kept prisoner by them or even abandoned civilization to live amongst them. What was the truth? No one had the slightest idea. Rockefeller was officially declared dead in 1964.

And so began a mystery that would span the subsequent decades to become one of the world’s most baffling disappearances. The case of the missing Rockefeller would provoke much speculation as wells as its fair share of conspiracy theories, and numerous investigations have tried to shed light on the case and gain some idea of what became of him.

One of the first attempts to investigate the disappearance was an expedition undertaken by a journalist for the magazine Argosy by the name of Milt Machlin in 1969. Apparently, Machlin had been approached by an Australian man called Donahue, who lured him with the cryptic statement “Suppose I told you that I saw Michael Rockefeller alive only 10 weeks ago?” With his interest piqued, Machlin proceeded to listen to Donahue’s tale of having seen Rockefeller at a place called the Trobriand Islands. It was an odd claim, as the Trobriand Islands were hundreds of miles from where Rockefeller had disappeared, yet Machlin was so intrigued that he journeyed there in an effort to find the truth. It would turn out to be a dead end, but he did manage to speak with some of the Dutch missionaries who had been there living among the Asmat at the time of Rockefeller’s mysterious disappearance and had some tantalizing things to say. Of particular interest to Machlin were the talks he had with two missionaries by the name of Father Van Kessel and Ken Dresser, who strongly implied that Rockefeller had been killed and eaten by the cannibals. In the end, Machlin concluded that the idea that Rockefeller had been killed by cannibals was certainly plausible, and released his findings and observations in his 1974 book, The Search for Michael Rockefeller.

Speculation on cannibalism was cranked up a notch in Paul Toohey’s book Rocky Goes West, in which the author claims that Rockefeller’s mother had hired a private investigator to make the journey to Papua New Guinea in order to try and uncover clues on her son’s disappearance. According to Toohey, the investigator made contact with the Asmat and traded his boat engine for three human skulls, which the tribe said were the skulls of the only white men they had ever killed. Convinced that one of the skulls must be that of Michael Rockefeller, the private investigator allegedly brought all three of them back to New York. The veracity of this story has been the subject of some debate, but the History Channel show Vanishings claimed to have uncovered evidence that Rockefeller’s mother had indeed handed over a $250,000 reward to the investigator, which had been offered for any definitive evidence as to Michael Rockefeller’s ultimate fate. What that evidence truly was remains a mystery.

Perhaps the most in-depth and extensive investigations into the matter of Rockefeller’s disappearance was that of author Carl Hoffman, who spent two and a half years retracing Rockefeller’s journey through the dark wilderness of New Guinea, speaking with Asmat tribesmen and Dutch missionaries, and conducting grueling archival research, which he chronicled in his book Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive Art. Hoffman uncovered a wide variety of never before seen documents and evidence that seemed to very strongly point to Rockefeller’s death at the hands of the cannibal Asmat people.

During his extensive investigation, Hoffman would piece together a grim picture of Rockefeller’s final hours. Hoffman was able learn of how not long before Rockefeller’s expedition and subsequent disappearance, a Dutch official named Max Lapré had set out to squash a bloody, all-out cannibal war between two Asmat villages that had spun out of control. A patrol was sent out to investigate and when they arrived at the village of Otsjanep, they were met with Asmat warrior headhunters armed with arrows and spears, who then began a ritual and dance preparing for imminent battle. The panicked Dutch patrol had opened fire upon the warriors and killed five of them before retreating.

Considering the ***-for-tat Asmat culture of ritual revenge killings in response to a killing of their own, Hoffman maintains that the Dutch had left the warriors howling for the blood of a white man in order to fulfill their spiritual duty of vengeance. It just so happened that this incident had occurred not long before Rockefeller was in exact vicinity of Otsjanep, which is claimed to have been one of the most notorious and violent of Amsat villages. It was absolutely not a common thing for the Asmat to see foreigners in their realm, so if Rockefeller had actually made it to shore, he would have stumbled into the midst of a blood crazed village of cannibals seething with a desire to kill a white man in retribution for the killing of their own at the hands of the Dutch patrol. In fact, apparently a group of Asmat from Otsjanep were said to have been on a trading in the area run at precisely the time Rockefeller’s boat had capsized, and would have been right there if he had made it to shore. Seeing a white man after the bloodshed and death they had been dealt by the Dutch patrol would have likely sent them into a bloodthirsty frenzy. It would not have been personal, but merely fulfilling the tribal obligation for a reciprocal killing. Rockefeller wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Asmat warriors

Hoffman uncovered further information when he spoke to a Dutch missionary by the name of Father Hubertus von Peij, who claimed that he had been told by an Asmat tribesman that Rockefeller had indeed been killed by them and that his skull had been “small, like a child’s,” and that it was hanging in one of the village huts. It was also claimed that Rockefeller’s bones had been passed out among the village warriors in order to be sharpened into weapons, and his flesh had been roasted and consumed with relish. Von Peij also claimed that the Dutch government was well aware of what had actually become of Rockefeller, but had orchestrated a cover-up and buried documents pertaining to the case so that no one would ever now the gruesome truth. Hoffman would say of the matter:

We’re not talking about my opinion; the documents show there was a cover up. The docs say, ‘Don’t tell Nelson Rockefeller about this. Say nothing. Mark it secret.’

There have been other investigations that have served to only deepen the mystery behind Michael Rockefeller’s mysterious disappearance. Perhaps one of the most intriguing and indeed weirdest pieces of evidence in relation to the vanishing to pop up in recent years was uncovered in 2008 by documentary filmmaker Fraser Heston, son of actor Charlton Heston, for his documentary The Search for Michael Rockefeller. During his research for the documentary, Heston was able to dig up startling, never seen before footage that seems to lend weight to yet another theory on Rockefeller’s disappearance; that he was not killed, but rather lived out his remaining days among the cannibal headhunters.

Inspired by Milt Machlin’s book of the same name, The Search for Michael Rockefeller, Heston was able to track down some curious footage that had been shot by Machlin during his expedition and somehow been forgotten and sold to a stock footage company by his widow, Margaret Machlin. Milt Machlin had hired a cinematographer and proceeded on his journey with some 10,000 feet of 16mm film, eager to document as much of his journey on film as was possible. Heston was able to track down the footage to a warehouse in England and was shocked by what he found. Among the 10 hours of unedited footage that had been taken with no sound, Heston came across an amazing piece of footage that seemed to show a white man in the background amongst the cannibals. In the 1969 clip, the shaky camerawork pans across some 17 cannibal war canoes making their way towards shore. Within one of the canoes sits a remarkably light skinned man with a full beard and partial war paint emblazoned across his face. This would be odd at the best of times, but considering that the footage was shot a mere 8 years after Rockefeller’s disappearance, it is particularly baffling.

A still from the lost footage showing what appears to be a “white tribesman.”

It was fairly obvious that the mystery man was not a full-blooded Asmat, and Heston and his crew were intrigued, nicknaming the enigmatic figure “Big Michael.” Unfortunately, the footage is very small and grainy, with no way of doing a full facial analysis of the mysterious white man in the canoe. It is impossible to tell if it is indeed Michael Rockefeller, but it puts forth the strange possibility that perhaps Rockefeller had become so enamored with this tribe he found so fascinating that he had turned his back on society to live amongst them. Heston would later say of the footage and the whole mystery in general:

When we found “Big Michael,” I said, wait a second. I’m certainly not saying it is Michael. It’s very grainy, it’s very small, and there’s really no way to do facial analysis or anything like that. But it does look, at least superficially, like him. So I thought if that’s not Michael—and it would have been eight years after he disappeared—who is it? As far-fetched as it sounds that he might have been there, eight years later, paddling a canoe, that’s kind of the uncertain world we’re dealing with here. And that’s part of the attraction of the story.

Did Rockefeller indeed make it to shore on that fateful day and, rather than be mercilessly slaughtered by cannibals, was welcomed amongst them? Is it too implausible to think that this wealthy, high profile celebrity might want to eschew the privileged society he had been brought up in and choose a simple life among the very people who had attracted him and drawn him to this far flung land?

No matter what really happened to Michael Rockefeller, there’s no denying that Papua New Guinea still has its fair share of cannibalism being practiced amongst its primitive tribes. Far from an ancient practice regulated to horror films and dark history, cannibalism is still very much alive here to this day. It is so bad that in 2013, a group of alleged cannibals threatened to disrupt parliamentary elections in one of Papua New Guineas’s provinces, sparking a mass panic in which people were afraid to leave their own houses on election day, lest they be hunted down and eaten. Cannibalism had been so prevalent that in 1971 an act allowing it as “mitigating circumstance” was passed.

There have also been tales of gruesome cannibal cults that are still operating within the country. In 2012, police in Papua New Guinea’ Madang province arrested 29 members of a suspected cannibal cult, who were then accused of massacring and devouring seven alleged witch doctors who had been active within the country’s interior. The cult members had accused the seven victims of being sorcerers of black magic who engaged in extortion in exchange for their dark services, and had carried out the killings for the dual purpose of revenge and to absorb their mystical powers through consuming their flesh or to even become impervious to bullets. The cult members apparently concocted stews out of their victims brains and penises, and even ate much of these body parts raw. Although all of the 29 guilt members of the group responsible were arrested, they did not think they had done anything wrong. To them this was a normal way of life. It is estimated that there are between 700 and 1,000 members of this particular cult scattered throughout the country.

In another gruesome cannibal cult incident in the same year, a man known as Steven “Black Jesus” Tari, the leader of another sinister cult dedicated to cannibalism, sacrificial killings, and rape, escaped from prison and returned to his wicked ways. Tori returned to his cult of an estimated 6,000 members and proceeded to kill and consume a teenage girl, after which villagers in the area decided they had had enough. A gang of vigilantes reportedly captured him, castrated and butchered him, and then threw his bloody corpse into a shallow pit.

In fact, such crimes related to sorcery, witchcraft, and vigilantism are still fairly common in certain areas of Papua New Guinea. They are so common that in 1971 Papua New Guinea enacted a Sorcery Act, which criminalizes evil sorcery, called sanguma. The death penalty was also reinstated for anyone convicted of hunting down and killing witches or sorcerers, much to the chagrin of the United Nations and human rights groups such as Amnesty International.

Papua New Guinea is clearly a place where ancient beliefs in dark magic, sorcery, and witchcraft still permeate society in some of the island’s more remote corners. The practice of ritual killings and cannibalism, while typically looked upon with disgust by modern society, still remain entrenched here as a deeply engrained way of life. It is not too hard to believe that cannibalism was indeed being practiced with great frequency during the time when Michael Rockefeller was conducting his exploration of this enigmatic land in 1961, despite the Dutch government’s firm insistence at the time that it was a relic of the past. If he had made it to shore on that faithful day, isn’t there the chance that he was indeed murdered by headhunters? Isn’t it possible that the Dutch would then launch a cover-up to gloss over the fact that a highly influential member of American society had met his fate at the hands of primitive, spear wielding cannibal warriors in the jungle?

It is a mystery that is likely to endure for some time. People seem to be drawn to such enigmas, of foreigners traveling to lost lands and disappearing without a trace, and the void created by a lack of concrete answers only serves to create more of an urgent allure. In an interview pertaining to his documentary on the mystery, Fraser Heston gave his thoughts on why the mystery of Michael Rockefeller has so gripped the imagination of so many, saying:

It seems that whenever somebody comes out with something, whether it’s Milt’s book or Hoffman’s book or our film or your film, it gets a lot of interest. People are not bored by it, and it does have that kind of almost mythical quality to it: The son of a famous, incredibly wealthy American politician disappears in the jungles of New Guinea and may have been eaten by cannibals. I mean, really, it’s almost too good a story to be true. But whether or not we definitively know what happened, he did disappear there, and at the very least, I think there’s an extremely strong chance that he made it ashore.

Headhunting warriors in Papua New Guinea

What happened to Michael Rockefeller in the jungles of Dutch New Guinea? Was he captured and killed by a primitive cannibal tribe? Did he shuck off the civilized world and his comfortable life of wealth and prestige to live out the rest of his days among them? Or did he, as the government claimed, merely drown; his body carried away by the current and into the annals of great historical mysteries? There is perhaps no way we will ever have the definitive answers we seek. The disappearance remains as impenetrable as it was back in 1961.

The dark, far flung wildernesses of the world call to us. We want to penetrate their secrets and shed light on the ways of their secluded people, who seem to live in another time. There seems to be a strong urge within humankind to delve into these lost worlds and understand both the wonders and horrors of what may lurk there, to probe at the edges of our understanding of the natural world and glimpse these isolated societies that remain inscrutably alien to us. However, what we must understand is that our modern world cannot protect us out there. Out there, we are subject to the laws of nature and the laws of whatever lost tribe we find ourselves amongst. Out there, we are at the mercy of the unknown. No matter what really happened to Michael Rockefeller, in the end he most certainly finally came to an understanding of this cold truth.

[MIKA27]

WALNUT STUDIOLO LEATHER WHISKEY CASE

Perhaps the reason “Have Whiskey, Will Travel” has never caught on as a catchphrase is because if you really care about your bottle off aged booze, you wouldn’t want to travel with it much. But now you can with Walnut Studiolo’s leather Whiskey Case.

Ensure your whiskey or wine is secure, discreet, and hidden from potentially harmful sunlight with this stylish handmade heirloom piece that fits any bottle up to 12.25″ tall (~311 mm) and 3.375″ (~85 mm) in diameter. Sustainable cedar wood ends keep your bottle safe in the case which is hand-stitched and hand-dyed using USA-sourced vegetable-tanned leather in the company’s Portland, Oregon, workshop. Just grab and go with the leather strap. It also comes with two natural leather coasters as a bonus. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

MOVIE DIRECTOR PORTRAITS BY STELLAVIE

Movie Director Portraits is a beautiful collection by German design studio Stellavie. Designed by movie buff and talented artist Julian Rentzsch, the collection features unique, multi-image portraits of famed Hollywood directors, depicted with remarkable drawing and illustration skills.

Each fine-art-print is hand-numbered (limited to 200 prints per edition), signed by the artist, and measures 16 inch by 20 inch (40cm x 50cm). Currently you can choose from Martin Scorsese, Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch, with more directors to follow.

[Jeremy Festa]

'The Leviathan' Is The Best Sci-Fi Short Film You'll Watch This Year

You might be surprised to know that 300, Sin City, District 9, Deadpool and even Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - all started life as proof-of-concept short films.

They are often independently funded ventures designed to showcase the filmmakers technique skills and vision, almost like an visual CV in the hopes of getting funding for a full length feature.

In the competitive and cutthroat world of Hollywood, its vastly more impressive to have a short teaser, than a collection of illustrated storyboards if you're planning on wowing the major film studios.

Now comes 'The Leviathan' from the minds of Academy Award nominated short film director Ruairi Robinson and Fight Club and Jumper screenwriter Jim Uhls. Robinson directed a previous sci-fi short titled The Silent City, which actually starred the then up-and-coming Cillian Murphy.

After securing a film grant from the Irish Film Board/Bord Scannán na hÉireann the two of them set about creating the vision for The Leviathan, the plot of which is as follows:

By the early 22nd century mankind had colonized many worlds. Faster than light travel was made possible by harvesting exotic matter from the eggs of the largest species mankind has ever seen. Those that take part in the hunt are mostly involuntary labor.

Over the next 3 minutes 39 seconds, is a spectacular-looking sci-fi thriller than will leave you gasping for more and desperately hoping it becomes a full-length feature. It really is that good.

Monsters and science fiction hybrids have fared well at the box office in recent times. The latest installment of Godzilla netted $528M worldwide whilst Pacific Rim pocketed $407M worldwide on a production budget of just $190M.

Could The Leviathan be the next to see its name up in lights?

On this evidence, don't bet against the giant beast.

This is just Moby **** in the future!

Sent from my iPhone

[MIKA27]

TAG HEUER MONACO V4 PHANTOM WATCH

Murdered out yet undoubtedly elegant, the Tag Heuer Monaco V4 Phantom is a love letter to the lack of color. Its 41mm case is made from Carbon Matrix Composite, as are the movement's seven bridges, both micro-blasted to give them a brushed appearance.

The entire dial is also in shades of black and dark grey, including the hands, which are finished with a titanium carbide coating and anthracite grey SuperLuminova. Only the 48 jewels show a hint of color, as not even the titanium folding clasp of the matte black alligator strap escapes the darkness.

Limited to 50 pieces.

[MIKA27]

Things Are Not Going Well At Russia's New Spaceport

“I will not allow sabotage, I’ll simply rip heads off” is never something you want your boss to say. Russia is in the process of building its first new cosmodrome — or rocket launch site — since the fall of the USSR. And it’s a mess.

For the past two decades, Russia’s used the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in current-day Kazakhstan, which dates back to the very earliest days of Russian space flight. But not only is that launch site ageing, it’s also a political bee in Russia’s bonnet.

So Russia is building a new cosmodrome thousands of kilometres east, where it will be able to operate without having to collaborate with Kazakhstan — plus perks like being closer to the ocean, which will make landings easier. The $US2.4 billion Vostochny Cosmodrome was started in 2011, and it’s supposed to be done in 2018. With the blessing of Putin and seemingly unlimited funds, what could go wrong? A lot, actually.

The project has been severely behind schedule for a number of reasons, including the incredible cold winter of eastern Siberia, material supply problems resulting from the site’s remote location, and workforce issues. Russian Space Web has a long rundown of the travails of Vostochny, including the fact that Russian students have been trucked in by the thousands to work on the construction:

In an unusual step, the Russian government organised 200-strong “winter student brigade” to provide low-skilled labour in Vostochny beginning on February 1, even though normally such groups would only be available during summer. Official press releases did not elaborate whether members of the brigade would have to skip a semester. As many as 1,200 students were promised in Vostochny during the summer of 2015, Roskosmos said.

Then there’s our old friend: wild, unchecked corruption by construction officials. Last year, the construction manager was arrested for embezzling millions of dollars from the project. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Rogozin, was brought in to clean things up — he even installed publicly-accessible cameras at the sites to catch any “slacking” (you can watch right here).

But last week, Moscow Times reported that the project was in trouble again, saying that the project faced “having its electricity supply cut over unpaid bills.” That’s when Rogozin made his decapitation threat, saying, “I will not allow sabotage, I’ll simply rip heads off,” and adding that “those who try to steal the people’s money from the spaceport will be locked up. We will build this cosmodrome.” On Friday, yet another construction lead was fired from the project.

[MIKA27]

These Huge Beer Keg Tanks Will Study Cosmic Explosions

Located 4115m above sea level on the slopes of Mexico’s Volcán Sierra Negra, a new scientific tool comprised of 300 huge tanks holding 55 million litres of water, will soon detect the highest energy photons ever observed.

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory was inaugurated a few days ago, March 20, and will begin collecting data at full capacity soon. The goal is to study explosive events like supernovae, neutron star collisions and active galactic nuclei, to learn more about the nature of high-energy radiation.

Here’s the scientific explanation:

Each of HAWC’s detectors is a huge tank containing 50,000 gallons of ultrapure water with four light sensors anchored to the floor. When gamma rays or cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere they set off a cascade of charged particles, and when these particles reach the water in HAWC’s detectors, they produce a cone-shaped flash of light known as Cherenkov radiation. The effect is much like a sonic boom produced by a supersonic jet, because the particles are travelling slightly faster than the speed of light in ultrapure water.

The light sensors record each flash of Cherenkov radiation inside the detector tanks. By comparing nanosecond differences in arrival times at each light sensor, scientists can reconstruct the angle of travel for each particle cascade. The intensity of the light indicates the primary particle’s energy, and the pattern of detector hits can distinguish between gamma rays and cosmic rays. With 300 detectors spread over nearly three football fields, HAWC is able to “see” these events in relatively high resolution.

Below is a cool timelapse video of the construction of the first 250 tanks in the HAWC array, taken between April 2013 and May 2014.

[MIKA27]

The Fukushima Cleanup Wasted Half A Billion Dollars On Bad Technology

The cleanup of Fukushima’s leaking nuclear plant has been long, expensive, and plagued with problems. Now, the AP reports an auditor has found that more than a third of the budget for clean up was wasted — totalling hundreds of millions of dollars.

The previous allegations of incompetence and straight-up lies that surround Tokyo Electric Power Co, or TEPCO, the company responsible for the cleanup, might make you wonder if any of those millions were lost to corruption. But the Associated Press says that most of it was wasted because no one really knew how to clean up the site. The company spent millions on systems and machines that theoretically might have worked. But didn’t.

The Ice Wall That Wouldn’t Freeze

Let’s start with what AP calls “the unfrozen trench,” contaminated water leaks into these trenches — tunnels, really — that run alongside the plant, creating a major hazard. TEPCO started injecting the water with coolants in an attempt to freeze it, creating an Ice-wall. It didn’t work.

TEPCO says “it has proved exceptionally difficult” to freeze the trenches completely, according to World Nuclear News. “TEPCO subsidiary Tokyo Power Technology even threw in chunks of ice, but eventually had to pour in cement to seal the trench,” says the AP. The project cost $US840,000, which is chump change compared to other items on the list.

Controversial Machinery

Then there’s Areva SA, a French company that promised its system would aid in Fukushima’s cleanup. Problem is, its process has been sharply criticised back at home by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, doctors, and environmental watchdogs.

Areva adds metals and chemicals to the radioactive waste water used to cool reactors — these “bind” to the isotopes and pull them down. This sludge is removed and buried like traditional nuclear waste, while the water is recirculated — in the case of Areva’s European plant, it’s released right back into the English Channel. In 2011, Forbes reported that higher levels of Leukemia have resulted near the plant, and the contaminated water has even reached the Arctic.

Containers of Areva-treated nuclear waste in France in 2011

Areva doesn’t seem like the likeliest company you’d want to partner with — and indeed, the $US270 million machine that was bought to treat Fukushima’s water was abandoned after just a few months.

Yetore money was wasted on the machines TEPCO bought to remove salt water from the contaminated water — the salt had been added when ocean water was used to cool the reactors just after the accident. “One of the machines functioned only five days, and the longest lasted just six weeks,” says the AP.

Too Fast, Too Flimsy

Two of the other big wastes on the list give us the best glimpse into the operation, since they show how the rapid pace and hurried process contributed to the budget overruns. The AP cites storage tanks for the water that cost $US134 million that were “assembled by unskilled workers” and “began leaking and some water seeped into the ground and then into the ocean.” Likewise, a series of underground pools for water storage “leaked within weeks.”

The audit paints a picture of a cleanup mired in problems that stemmed from untested cleanup technology — a situation made worse stemming as leaks continued to be discovered and remain unreported by Tepco, but beyond the company’s involvement, it’s an awful story — for Japan, for the people working on repairing the plant, and for the environment. Read the full AP report here.

[MIKA27]

Jeremy Clarkson Set To Be Sacked From BBC, But Top Gear Will Reportedly Go On

Following an investigation into his recent conduct, the BBC has reportedly made the decision to sack Top Gear presenter, Jeremy Clarkson, but the world’s favourite car show will apparently still be made after he’s gone.

According to The Telegraph, the BBC will announce Clarkson’s sacking today following an investigation into an alleged incident where Clarkson attacked a producer. The report says that Clarkson spent a period of 20 minutes abusing a male producer before physically assaulting him.

Top Gear isn’t set to die with Clarkson’s departure. It’s being reported that BBC Radio 2 presenter and former Top Gear guest Chris Evans is being courted for the job.

The BBC Director General, Lord Tony Hall, is expected to make the announcement later on in the day.