The Disappearance of Michael Rockefeller (Encore)
14:43 Share

The following is an Encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. In 1961, Michael Rockefeller, an heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world, disappeared on an art collecting trip off the coast of the island of New Guinea. For decades, the family just assumed that he accidentally drowned off the coast in an attempt to rescue his anthropologist colleague. However, in the decades since he disappeared, more information may have come forward about exactly what happened, and it may not have been a simple drowning.

Learn more about Michael Rockefeller and the possible grisly truth about his disappearance on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by NerdWallet. When it comes to general knowledge and history, you know I've got you covered. But who do you turn to when you need smart financial decisions? If your answer is NerdWallet, then you're absolutely right. And if it's not, let me change your mind.

The nerds at NerdWallet have spent thousands of hours researching and reviewing over 1,300 financial products. And they have the tools you need to make smarter financial decisions. Looking for a credit card? Go beyond the basic comparisons, filter for features that matter to you, and read in-depth reviews. Ready to choose a high-yield savings account? Get access to exclusive deals and compare rates, bonuses, and more. House hunting? View today's top mortgage rates for your home sweet home.

Make the Nerds your go-to resource for smart financial decisions. Head to nerdwallet.com forward slash learn more. NerdWallet, finance smarter. Disclosure, NerdWallet Compare Incorporated NMLS 1617539. This episode is sponsored by ButcherBox. We're now in the thick of football season and that means inviting friends over to watch the big games. If you're going to have people over, then you're going to have to feed them. And no matter what your game day food selection is, ButcherBox can help you out.

Butcher Box is currently offering new members a great deal that will help in your game day preparations. New members can get their choice of ground beef, chicken wings, or bacon for free in every order for the lifetime of your subscription. Want to serve burgers or sliders? Then go with the ground beef. If you love chicken wings, then you can go for that. And of course, bacon goes with everything. No matter what you select, Butcher Box only offers the highest quality meats and seafoods.

So sign up to ButcherBox today by going to butcherbox.com slash daily to receive your choice of ground beef, chicken wings, or bacon for free in every order for the lifetime of your subscription. Plus, you get $20 off your first order. Once again, that's butcherbox.com slash daily and enter code daily at checkout. Before I get into the details of what happened to Michael Rockefeller, I should probably give a bit of background as to why anyone would care.

For those of you who are younger or perhaps live outside of the United States, you might not have heard the name Rockefeller, or you may have just heard it referenced. The name Rockefeller is one that, since the late 19th century, has been associated with extreme wealth. It began with John D. Rockefeller, who founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870. At its peak, Standard Oil controlled 90% of the entire petroleum industry.

He was the wealthiest person on earth, and many people think that on a per capita basis, he may have been the richest person in human history. At his peak, his net worth was the equivalent of 3% of the entire United States gross domestic product. The wealth of the Rockefeller family didn't disappear with the death of John D. Rockefeller in 1937 at the age of 97.

His son, John D. Rockefeller Jr., was a financier who was responsible for the creation of Rockefeller Center in New York City. If you've ever seen a giant Christmas tree in New York next to an ice skating rink, that's Rockefeller Center. John D. Rockefeller Jr. had a son, Nelson Rockefeller, who went on to become the governor of the state of New York from 1959 to 1973, which at the time it was the largest U.S. state. And he later became vice president of the United States under Gerald Ford.

Nelson Rockefeller was the father of Michael Rockefeller. So I want to establish that this was the family that Michael Rockefeller was born into. The reason why this entire affair gained such public attention, and the reason why I'm doing an episode on it, is because Michael Rockefeller was a member of one of the richest families in the world, and his father was one of the most powerful politicians in America.

Michael Rockefeller was born on May 18, 1938, the youngest child of Nelson and Mary Rockefeller. And he also had a twin sister named Mary. His early life was precisely what you would think it would be for somebody named Rockefeller. He attended primary school at the prestigious Buckley School in New York City, and after that he attended the elite Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. And from there he went to, surprise, Harvard, where he graduated cum laude in history and economics.

After he graduated from Harvard in 1960, he did a very un-Rockefeller type thing. He served six months in the U.S. Army as a private. As seems to happen to many wealthy families over time, each succeeding generation becomes less and less productive and more distant from the core business. After Michael completed a stint in the Army in May 1960, he didn't go into business like his father or grandfather.

He didn't pursue a career in politics. Rather, he went on an expedition organized by Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology to western New Guinea. At the time, the western portion of New Guinea was still under the control of the Dutch, and wouldn't become a province of Indonesia until 1969. The transfer of West New Guinea from Dutch to Indonesian control is actually a really interesting story, but I'll leave that for another episode.

The expedition that Michael took part of was to study the Dani people and their system of ritualized warfare. The expedition resulted in the documentary film Dead Birds, which was released in 1963, and Michael served as the sound recorder for the film. It was during this expedition that Michael developed a fascination with the people of New Guinea, in particular, the Asmat people. During the documentary, he took a side trip with another expedition member to meet the Asmat people who were located in the southern part of western New Guinea.

After the expedition was over, he went back to New Guinea to study Asmat wood carvings and the Asmat people. His father, Nelson Rockefeller, had opened the Museum of Primitive Art in 1954, and Michael wanted to go and find items from the Asmat people in New Guinea to add to the collection.

He sent a letter while he was conducting his research in New Guinea back home that wrote, "...I'm 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." End quote.

At the time Michael Rockefeller was visiting the Osmot, it was one of the last places on Earth that was truly untouched by the modern world. There were no wheeled vehicles. There was no real technology to speak of. No metal was used in their tools, and there wasn't even paper. On November 17, 1961, Rockefeller was in a boat off the coast with a Dutch anthropologist named René Wassing and several local guides.

While they were in their boat, off the coast, approaching the village of Ochinep, a sudden storm appeared which caused large waves that capsized them about 3 miles or 4.8 kilometers from the shore. Their guides quickly decided to swim to shore to get help. Michael and Rene clung to the capsized boat and drifted further from the shore. Eventually, Michael told Rene, "I think I can make it," and began to swim towards land. At the time he began to swim, they were an estimated 14 miles or 22 kilometers from the shore.

Michael Rockefeller was never seen again. The next day, help eventually arrived, and Renee Wassing was rescued, but Michael was nowhere to be found. News of his disappearance spread quickly. The Dutch authorities in New Guinea quickly mounted a search for Michael, and Governor Rockefeller flew to New Guinea to help with the search efforts. After two weeks of searching by air and sea, no evidence of Michael Rockefeller was found, and the search was called off. Michael Rockefeller was presumed dead by drowning, which was the verdict accepted by his family.

However, when someone from such a significant family disappears without a trace, it will tend to raise eyebrows. And there were a host of theories about what might have happened. If he had drowned, then there was a good chance that his body would have eventually washed up on shore. Some thought perhaps he was attacked by sharks that infested the waters. Others thought that he might have been killed by crocodiles that inhabited the shore. Still, some claim that Rockefeller survived and then lived with the Asmat people, completely abandoning his family and Western civilization.

However, over time, rumors began circulating with missionaries who lived in the region and spoke the Azmat language. Rumors that dealt with Michael Rockefeller. Here I should make perfectly clear that everything I deal with from here on out is to some extent speculation. There is no hard forensic evidence. There is no body that can be examined. And given that the events took place over 60 years ago, most of the people who may have been involved are no longer around.

It turns out that after the search for Michael Rockefeller ended, it didn't end the disappearance case. For years after the disappearance, there were interviews conducted, reports filed, and witnesses who came forward to Dutch authorities in New Guinea. Most of the evidence was never made public. Multiple journalists who went to New Guinea over the decades to investigate the story all came back with a roughly similar tale. Michael Rockefeller had actually survived his swim and was murdered by men of the Asmat tribe.

As the event was told by witnesses who were young men when it happened, it all started several years earlier. The people of the Asmat region were very warlike and were in almost a perpetual state of war with their neighbors. In particular, the village of Ochanep fought with the nearby village of Omadisep. In 1957, people from Omadisep tricked six warriors from Ochanep into going with them to hunt dogs.

While on the way, the men from Omadisep turned on the Ochenep men, killed five of them, with one of them managing to escape. Upon hearing what had happened, the men from Ochenep organized a party and killed 113 men from the Omadisep group that had killed their five warriors. When the Dutch authorities had heard about this, they went to Ochenep to put an end to the fighting.

However, the Ochenep had no clue why the Dutch had shown up to interfere in their affairs. This was none of their business. Moreover, they had no clue what the Netherlands was or what any of the Dutch claims of authority were. They just saw the Dutch as another tribe. There was a violent confrontation between them and the Dutch, which resulted in several Ochenep being killed by gunfire, something that they had never seen before.

All they knew was that somebody from the white tribe had killed their warriors and they demanded revenge. The constant need for revenge is pretty much the reason why the area was always in a state of perpetual warfare. When Michael Rockefeller arrived, he had no idea of the recent history between the Asmat and the Dutch. He went around to various villages trading for artifacts, which most people were happy to do. However, he also tried to acquire large elaborate ceremonial poles called bish poles.

Bish poles were erected to honor ancestors who had been killed and demanded vengeance. And they were taken very seriously by the Azmat people. Rockefeller had acquired several of them and made offers for many more, which deeply angered some of the Azmat. According to what had been told by the Azmat people, who claimed to have been witnesses, Michael Rockefeller actually survived his swim. He had with him a flotation device which had kept him from drowning. When he made it to land, he was exhausted and suffering from exposure.

He was found by several tribal leaders who didn't know what he was at first. Eventually, they realized he was a member of the white tribe that had killed their warriors several years before. Moreover, he was the same guy who had just recently come to their village trying to take away their bish poles. And he was alone and helpless. Rockefeller, who had no clue what was happening and thought he was being rescued, was taken to a clearing where a large group of Azamat men were assembled and he was ritually murdered.

He was decapitated and his entire body was then dismembered by the men present, who proceeded to cook and eat him ritually. The Azmats at this time still practiced cannibalism and headhunting. Having no knowledge of the outside world, the Azmats didn't understand any distinction between Dutch and American, any more than the Dutch were able to understand what was happening between the villages of Ommadisap and Ochinap. After the murder, the Azmat began to regret what they had done and tried to keep what happened a secret. But people talked.

Missionaries heard of what had happened and passed the information on to the Dutch. Years later, young men who witnessed the event retold the story to National Geographic writer Carl Hoffman. If this story is true, and there are many details that have been corroborated by several different witnesses, including testimony that was collected immediately after Michael Rockefeller's disappearance, then the death of Michael Rockefeller wasn't a simple accidental drowning.

The Dutch tried to insert themselves into a tribal conflict in which they had no part and ended up killing several men from Ochenep. Michael Rockefeller unknowingly offended the people of Ochenep by trying to take their bish poles. And the men of Ochenep wrongly took revenge against someone who they didn't know wasn't a part of the Dutch group that had killed their villagers several years earlier.

The disappearance of Michael Rockefeller might not have been a tragic accident, but instead one of the most epic cases of cultural misunderstanding. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiefer. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day.

And also, Patreon is currently the only place where Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise is available to the top tier of supporters. If you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and members of the Completionist Club, you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.