Lost expeditions in the jungle. “They hang around my tent at night.” What the traveler wrote on Twitter before she disappeared off the coast of the Amazon. Frances Moira Crozier

The secrets of missing expeditions are one of the most popular plots of myths, urban legends, literary works and films. The very disappearance of people prepared for extreme situations is a source of much speculation. A striking example is “The Flying Dutchman,” but in modern times there are plenty of such stories.

Polar explorers and jungle explorers of Africa, South America or Asia, scientists who went in search of secrets, pioneers and groups of treasure hunters... Dangerous journeys often ended in the mysterious disappearance of such expeditions in their entirety.

Rescue measures in some cases do not lead to any results - there is no trace of expeditions to hard-to-reach or dangerous places.

In our small selection we will talk about seven mysteriously missing expeditions and some of the most likely versions of their mysterious disappearance.

La Perouse's expedition around the world

On August 1, 1785, the Comte de La Perouse set out on a risky trip around the world on the ships Boussole and Astrolabe to systematize the discoveries made by Cook and establish trade relations with native tribes.

During the first year of his journey, La Perouse rounded Cape Horn, visited Chile, Easter Island, and in July 1786 reached Alaska.

The following year, the explorer arrived on the shores of Northeast Asia and discovered the island of Kelpaert there.

Then the expedition moved to Sakhalin - finding a strait that now bears the name of the count. At the end of 1787, La Perouse was already off the coast of Samoa, where he lost 12 people in a skirmish with savages.

In the winter of 1788, the expedition transmitted the last message to their homeland through British sailors. Nobody saw them again. Only in 2005 was it possible to reliably identify the site of the shipwreck, but the fate of La Perouse is still unknown. Most of his records also perished with him.

"Terror" and "Erebus" (Franklin's expedition)

These two British ships, with 129 people on board, left Greenhithe Wharf one morning in May 1845. Under the leadership of Sir John Franklin, they set out to explore the last blank spot on the map of the Canadian Arctic and complete the discovery of the Northwest Passage.

For 170 years now, the fate of this expedition has haunted scientists and writers.

But all that was discovered during this time was only a few graves and two wintering camps.

Based on the findings, it was concluded that the ships were frozen in ice, and the crew, suffering from scurvy, pneumonia, tuberculosis and terrible cold, did not disdain cannibalism.

Walking across Australia (Leichhardt expedition)

On April 4, 1848, German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt set out with eight companions. He planned to cross the Australian mainland from east to west on foot in three years.

However, after the agreed time, none of the members of this expedition showed up. In 1852, the first team set out on the search, followed by the second, then the third, and so on for seventeen years in a row.

Until one tramp wandering around the mainland accidentally mentioned that he had lived for several months on the banks of the Muligan River with a certain Adolf Klassen.

When he found out that this was one of those whom they had been looking for for so long, he went in search of him, but died on the way.

And only after a long time it became clear that Klassen had lived in captivity among savages for almost thirty years. They killed him around 1876. The last hope of learning about the fate of Leichhardt and his expedition also died with him.

In search of Arctida (Toll's expedition)

In 1900, Baron Eduard Vasilyevich Toll set out on an expedition on the schooner Zarya to search for new islands in the Arctic. Toll also firmly believed in the existence of the so-called Sannikov Land and wanted to become its discoverer.

In July 1902, the baron, accompanied by astronomer Friedrich Seeberg and two hunters Vasily Gorokhov and Nikolai Dyakonov, left the schooner to reach the coveted Arctida on sleighs and boats.

Zarya was supposed to arrive there in two months.

However, due to poor ice conditions, the ship was damaged and was forced to leave for Tiksi. The next year, under the leadership of then-lieutenant Kolchak, a rescue expedition was assembled.

They discovered Toll's site, as well as his diaries and notes. It followed from them that the researchers decided not to wait for “Dawn” and continued on their own. No other traces of these four people were ever found.

"Hercules" (Rusanov's expedition)

“Hercules” was a small hunting vessel, on which in 1912, experienced polar explorer Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rusanov, together with members of his expedition, went to the island of Spitsbergen in order to secure Russia’s right to extract minerals there before other countries.

Everything went well. But for unknown reasons, Rusanov decided to return through the northwestern tip of Novaya Zemlya, and if the ship survived, then go east to the first island he encountered. The telegram with his intentions was the last news from Hercules.

Only in 1934, on one of the islands near the shore of Khariton Laptev, a pillar with the carved inscription “Hercules 1913” was discovered. And on the neighboring island things from Hercules were found: a nautical book, notes, pieces of clothing, etc. But the bodies of the expedition members were never found.

Main Objective "Z" (Fawcett Expedition)

In 1925, in the vast expanses of the poorly studied region of Mato Grosso, an expedition of three people disappeared: Colonel Percival Fawcett, his son Jack and their friend Reilly Reymilom. They all went in search of a certain lost city, which Fossett himself called “Z”.

Much of this expedition is shrouded in mystery. It was financed by a certain group of London entrepreneurs called the Glove.

The colonel himself, in case of loss, asked not to look for them, since all expeditions would suffer the same fate.

The latest report from the research team described them slogging through bushes, climbing mountains, and crossing rivers, and how it was all basically very boring.

Nobody heard anything more about these three people. Now there are various rumors, starting with the fact that they were all eaten by Indian cannibals, which are not uncommon here, and ending with the fact that Fawcett found the city of “Z”, met its inhabitants and did not want to go back.

Leontiev Group

In the summer of 1953, communication with the Tuvan expedition of Lev Nikolaevich Leontyev was interrupted. At the site of her last stop, searchers found a still smoldering fire, tents and a full set of equipment.

However, there were no people or horses in the camp. The only hoof prints led from the forest to the camp. All nearby expeditions set out to search. But they ended in failure. Leontyev’s group is still listed as missing, and many theories related to its disappearance are still circulating on the Internet.

For every traveler who returned to their homeland to tell their compatriots about their great discoveries, at least ten mysteriously disappeared in the jungle, deserts, glaciers and Ikea.

Semyon Shrike

Friedrich Leichhardt

Prussian naturalist Friedrich Leichhardt arrived in Australia in 1842 after lengthy (and rather haphazard) studies in Berlin, London, Paris, etc. Immediately on arrival he set out from Sydney for New South Wales to explore the flora, fauna and farming methods.

Then in 1844, Leichhardt made his first big trip to the central regions of Australia, starting in Brisbane and ending in Port Essington (if you, like us, are not very versed in the geography of Australia, let us clarify that this is about 5000 km). During the campaign, the detachment was repeatedly attacked by warlike aborigines; Leichhardt himself contracted malaria and once nearly burned to death after falling asleep by the fire (he was awakened by smoke from a burning hat on his head). But after the campaign he became a national hero and was awarded a medal by the Great Geographical Society in London.

In 1845, Leichhardt decided to cross Australia from west to east and went on a three-year journey, from which he did not return. The researcher sent his last message a year after the start of the expedition.

It is assumed that all participants in the expedition (there were seven of them: five Europeans and two Aboriginal guides) died during a storm in the Great Sandy Desert. Since the expedition was supposed to last three years, they became concerned about Leichhardt only in 1850, and set off on the search in 1852. But it was never possible to find out for certain what happened.

True, Dale Carnegie's expedition in 1896 found a tin matchbox and a saddle among the aborigines of the Great Sandy Desert, presumably belonging to Leichhardt. And in 1900, several guns were found in the desert, but not under a layer of sand, but under a layer of river silt. So, perhaps the cause of Leichhardt's death was a flood.

Gaspar and Miguel Corte Real

In 1503, the Portuguese courtier Vasco Corte Real equipped a ship to search for his brother Miguel Corte Real, who the year before had gone in search of his and Vasco's brother Gaspar. And he disappeared while trying to find a sea route through the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. King Manuel I, deciding that he had had enough of the missing Corte Real brothers, banned Vasco from the expedition. What happened to Miguel and Gaspar remained a mystery.

Vasco, Miguel and Gaspar were the sons of the Portuguese nobleman Joao Corte Real, who, by the way, may have sailed to the shores of America even before Columbus, in 1470. Gašpar decided to repeat his father's expedition and in 1500 set off on three ships to Newfoundland. The flotilla was caught in a storm and was forced to split up. Two ships returned home successfully, but the one on which Gašpar was missing. In 1502, Miguel equipped three more ships and set off in search of his brother. The ships decided to split up to cover as much territory as possible. The two ships returned home, but the one on which Miguel was sailing disappeared.

Modern researchers suggest that one or both of the Corte Real brothers passed through the Hudson Strait and were lost in the ice near Labrador.

Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi

Genoese brothers-sailors, in 1291, set off on a voyage in two galleys with the goal of circumnavigating Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar and sailing to India. Both ships were missing. But there is information that they managed to sail to Morocco, since Ugolino Sorleone’s son Vivaldi went in search of his father in 1315 and heard about him all the way to Mogadishu.

True, it is unknown whether this information can be considered true, since Sorleone reported that the travelers lost their ships due to a storm, but ended up in the Kingdom of Prester John (a mythical state that was popular among enlightened Europeans in the Middle Ages).

Everett Ruess

A solo traveler who, from the age of 16, explored the uninhabited spaces of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Yosemite National Park. He contacted his family by sending rare postcards, and made a living by selling his landscapes.

Everett supposedly disappeared in 1934 (at least that's when the family noticed it and began to worry). He was last seen in the Utah desert wandering alone with two donkeys. With the exception of Native Americans and local cowboys, Everett was virtually the first person to explore these territories.

In 2009, a burial site was discovered in the Utah desert. An elderly Navajo Indian said that this was the grave of Everett Ruess, who was killed by two Indians who wanted to take his donkeys. Everett's remains were sent for DNA testing. But later a dental examination proved that it was not Everett, but some unknown Indian.

George Bass

Naval surgeon George Bass was one of the major figures in the Australian exploration. He sailed 18 thousand kilometers, exploring the coast of the country, and made his first trips on a small boat, which he called Thumb Tom (“Thumb Boy”), slightly larger than a bathtub. After Bass was allocated a normal ship, he went to the coast of Tasmania and proved that it was not a peninsula, as was believed, but an island. As a result, the strait separating Tasmania from Australia was called Brass Strait.

In 1803, Bass sailed from Sydney on a ship to the shores of South America (presumably to sell cargo there illegally). His further fate is unknown; he was either caught in a storm and sank, or was captured and spent the rest of his life working in a silver mine in Peru.

Henry Hudson

The British navigator began his career as a cabin boy aboard a merchant ship. In 1607, the Moscow Trading Company hired him to search for the Northern Route to Asia. On the ship Howell, Hudson reached Greenland and mapped the coast. He returned back, only 1000 kilometers short of reaching the North Pole, but the next year he went to it again and failed again.

Then he hired himself into the East India Trading Company and set off for New Earth on the ship Halve Maan. However, due to the dissatisfaction of the team, Hudson had to change his original course: he crossed the Atlantic Ocean and in the process discovered the island of Manhattan (later New Amsterdam would be founded there, later renamed New York), climbed the Hudson River (named, by the way, in honor of navigator). Hudson never found the northern route, but did not give up trying.

In 1610, already under the auspices of the British East India Trading Company, he again set out in search of the Northern Route. Hudson explored the coasts of Iceland and Greenland and, having spent the winter in the ice, was going to continue his search, which was close to success. But the crew rebelled and landed Hudson himself, his seven-year-old son and seven sailors on a rowing boat without food or water.

Frances Moira Crozier

In 1845, he again set sail to the shores of the Arctic to try to find the northwest passage. The expedition included two ships: the flagship Erebus, led by John Franklin, and the Terror, led by Francis Crozier. In 1847, John Franklin died (he was 62 years old - a respectable age for those times), and Crozier led the entire expedition. However, both ships disappeared, and nothing is known about the fate of their crews. John Franklin's wife, using her connections, organized several rescue operations, but neither the ships nor the remains of the crew members were found.

By the way, Dan Simmons wrote a novel “The Terror” about Crozier’s expedition in 2007, in which he offered his version of the death of the expedition (no, this is not a spoiler!). Be sure to read it, you won't regret it.

The Lost Expedition

Captain Morris reported that, at the insistence of Colonel Fawcett's wife, he was setting off on a third expedition into the jungles of Brazil in search of his friend, Colonel Fawcett, who had disappeared there eight years ago.

“-... If we don’t return, then you will have to go looking for us!” “These were the last words of Colonel Fawcett as he shook my hand goodbye in Rio de Janeiro in 1925,” wrote Captain Morris. - ...And now, in a few weeks, I’m leaving for a third expedition to central Brazil, to places not yet explored on the Mato Grosso plateau, to find traces of my friend. Both Fawcett's wife and I are firmly convinced that Fawcett is alive and is somewhere in the dense jungles of Brazil."

In 1906–1909, Colonel Fawcett took part in the work to clarify the state borders of Bolivia, Brazil and Peru. During his stay in these countries, Fawcett became firmly convinced that the rumors about some peculiar Indian tribe and an unknown ancient city located in central Brazil had some basis. Fawcett hoped to find a clue to Atlantis by penetrating the ruins of the city. He could speak several Indian dialects and took advantage of every free minute to talk with the Indians. So he managed to collect a sufficient amount of information about this mysterious place. Some Indians spoke about him with fear, others with religious awe. He was told that this city once sank during a great flood, and then again, by the will of the gods, appeared on the surface of the earth. One Indian claimed that evil forces were guarding the ruins of the city and did not allow anyone to approach them. Another said that in the ruins of the golden city there live some white people who catch everyone who gets into the jungle and sacrifice them to their bloody and cruel god.

By the end of his work, Fawcett had formed the definite opinion that the ruins of the city were located in the center of an unexplored part of the Mato Grosso plateau and that the mysterious city preserved the remains of a culture even more ancient than the cultures of the Incas and Mayans.

In 1925, Fawcett set out in search of the “white city,” deeply convinced that on Mato Grosso, in the heart of the unexplored tropical forests, descendants of the Atlanteans could still survive. In addition to Fawcett, his son Jack and the young geographer Raleigh Rimmel took part in the expedition. The expedition was accompanied by only one Indian guide.

The Mato Grosso plateau is the least explored part of Brazil. Its space occupies an area equal to Germany, France and Belgium combined. And its jungle is so dense and dangerous that it is aptly named “The Green Devil.”

To explore this gloomy and impassable forest, river and swamp wilderness, an entire army of travelers would not be enough. Already at the border of the jungle, a person encounters danger. Every meter forward is a battle with the “green devil” and its inhabitants. Step by step you have to cut your way through dense thickets of bushes and vines. Thorns and thorns tear clothes, mosquitoes sting the body. Bats - vampires - suck the blood of aliens, weaken them and make them unable to fight further. Here you have to travel in fragile canoes along fast rivers and ford turbulent streams, which are the voluntary helpers of the “green devil”. But even worse are the inhabitants of these streams and rivers - reptiles and fish. Crocodiles with dagger-shaped sharp teeth, electric eels with deadly blows, voracious Carib fish and various other monsters. Woe to the man who falls into the water!

“My first expedition was unsuccessful,” wrote Captain Morris. “Almost at the very beginning, I was robbed by bandits, and I had to urgently return. Then I equipped a second expedition. Quite quickly I reached Fawcett's last camp before he went deeper into the jungle. And then I managed to trace his path from camp to camp. One of them consisted of a hut made on an earthen mound, and I assume that this is where Fawcett waited out the rainy season. Having searched the hut very carefully, I found nothing except a few empty cartridge cases. Then I met some Indians who told me that three whites actually lived in this hut, that one of them was sick, and that they then headed towards the small river Kutuena. At this river I was able to establish that three whites continued their journey towards the Xingu River. At the confluence of two rivers I met Indians and learned that they had also seen three whites. From here I walked for a very long time to the west, then down the San Manoel River, then to the east, and all the time I found traces of three whites - therefore, I was walking in the right direction.

And it was from there that I was forced to return, because the Indians accompanying me refused to go further. They called the area I wanted to penetrate “evil.” No force in the world could force them to go further. They had a mortal fear of what was beyond the Iriri River. And I had to make sure with a heavy heart that Fawcett, three years before me, had nevertheless penetrated this mysterious, shrouded in secret area. But I was alone, and there were three of them!

Among the Indians I met, I gradually found a revolver with the inscription “P. Fawcett”, then a bag for cartridges, then a compass, then a metal box that belonged to my friend. Some things had black stripes on them. This was a sure sign that they belonged to the Fawcett expedition. To avoid misunderstandings in case of searches, he painted over all the objects of his expedition with black stripes.

I had to go back with nothing. But in recent years I have finally become convinced that Fawcett is alive. One of the inhabitants of Paraguay, named Ratin, told me that he had heard rumors about Indians living in the upper reaches of the Madeira and Tapayos rivers, who several years ago captured a white man.

Then I met General Vasconcellas in Porto Allegro, who had been a prisoner of the Indians for fifteen years and was presumed dead. And only fifteen years later he managed to escape! A similar case was told to me by Signor Leon d'Albugeracque, a famous Brazilian planter. Albugerakwe met a man in Mato Grosso who had fled there after some crime he had committed. He was captured by the Indians, and for a long time he lived as a prisoner in their village, not even in a village, but rather in a city surrounded by a high wall made of huge marble blocks. There was only one single entrance in this marble wall, and it was so well disguised that there was no way for an outsider to enter the city. In the center of this city hidden behind the wall stood a huge temple, also built of marble. In this temple, white-skinned Indians worshiped the Sun. The inner walls of the temple were lined with copper and sparkled like gold from the reflections of the sacrificial fire. After difficult wanderings in the jungle, during which the man was almost eaten by bloodthirsty insects, he finally managed to escape.

Is Fawcett really going to face the same fate?.. But my friend has an amazing ability to get along with the Indians... I don’t even exclude the possibility that Fawcett, with his intelligence and resourcefulness, is now playing the role of a wise god in this mysterious marble city.”

Members of the Atlantis Research Society made inquiries about Colonel Fawcett and Captain Morris. It turned out that Fawcett went to South America in 1925, telling newspaper reporters before leaving that he would soon make “a discovery of enormous importance that should amaze the whole world.” Fawcett intended to go from a small village in western Brazil - Cuiaba - north to the Paranatinghi River, then go down it in shuttles to about 10 ° south latitude and from there go east to eventually reach the San Francisco River.

Three Europeans entered the green thicket of the jungle, and no one heard anything more about them. A special detachment was sent to search for the missing expedition under the command of naval officer Dyott. He made an arduous journey along the tributaries of the Amazon, but found no traces of Fawcett's expedition. Captain Morris also searched in vain for the expedition, as he reported in detail in the newspaper.

Having corresponded with Captain Morris, the Atlantologists voluntarily collected a significant amount to help his expedition. They hoped that discoveries in the Brazilian jungle could shed some light on the origins of the ancient cultures of America, and thereby on the existence of Atlantis.

At the beginning of 1934, a young French ethnographer, Louis Malepin, set out with Captain Morris on an expedition to find Colonel Fawcett.

There was no news from Captain Morris for two years. The expedition was considered lost, and the Mato Grosso plateau was still surrounded by mystery. Did the researchers penetrate to the ruins of the mysterious city, do they still live in captivity of the Indians, or did they die, unable to withstand the fight against the “green devil” of the jungle?

Another year passed, and suddenly the travel diary of Captain Morris was published in the New York American newspaper.

In front of him was a brief message on behalf of the editors that an unknown Indian had brought a package to the governor of the state of Mato Grosso, Don Jimenez de Garcia, on which the governor’s address was written in the hand of Captain Morris. The Indian said that the package, wrapped in a gutta-percha shell, lay next to a human skeleton in the jungle, where Indian hunters accidentally wandered. The human skeleton was without a head. Based on scraps of clothing, he was recognized as a European.

Having opened the package, the governor found in it the diary of Captain Morris, who had disappeared in the jungle, which the newspaper decided to publish.

Chapter 1 MISSING RUSSIA Why don’t you realize it - you have nothing! M. Bulgakov Arriving at the 5th grade, the student learns that Kievan Rus once existed. Even a child who has never heard anything about this state gets an idea about it. There are maps