Part of the great thrill of exploration is the unknown. Risk and reward must be considered on every exploratory trip. Ships might sink, disease might run rampant, and sand may be quick, but new knowledge can be gained and places in the history books secured.
For the following explorers, however, the risk caught up with them in a big way. Not only did they die, but they're also believed to have been eaten by cannibals. For some, whether or not they were actually cannibalized is up for debate. Others were eaten without a doubt.
10. German Explorer Killed On Polynesian Goat Hunt
German-born Stefan Ramin and his girlfriend Heike Dorsch were experienced travelers. They had embarked on a sailing trip around the world, which, on August 30, 2011, took them to the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. They fell in love with the place, staying there for twice as long as they'd initially planned. During that time, Stefan arranged for a local named Arihano Haiti to take him on a traditional goat hunt.
The two men left Dorsch alone for several hours. When she saw their dinghy return, only Haiti was present. He told her that there had been an accident in the forest. Ramin had been badly hurt, and they needed to rush back to him. When they got there, Haiti pointed a shotgun at Dorsch's face and told her, "You die now."
As the two wrestled, Haiti changed tacks—instead sexually assaulting Dorsch. She was then tied to a tree, where she struggled for several hours to get free.
Haiti was on his way back when Dorsch finally escaped her bonds. She saw his flashlight in the distance, deciding in that moment to sprint to the shoreline. Clambering onto a fellow traveler's boat, Dorsch knew she had survived.
When police searched the area, they found Stefan Ramin's remains in the ashes of a campfire. Haiti had killed him. However, the story sensationally grew in the international press because of the possibility of cannibalism. Many French Polynesians took offense to the direction of coverage, seeing it as a perpetuation of negative and outdated stereotypes.
9. The Blanche Bay Massacre
In 1878, Methodist reverend George Brown sent four Fijian missionaries to Papua New Guinea. Like any missionary trip, it was a delicate balance between successful conversion and causing extreme insult. On this trip, members of the Tolai tribe seem to have been unimpressed by the missionaries' sales pitch.
They ended up killing and eating all four of them at the behest of a tribal leader named Taleli. George Brown, seemingly forgetting the basic tenets of Christian philosophy, launched a retaliatory attack on the islanders. He burned down an entire village that was believed to have links with the murders and killed at least ten people. Ultimately, British colonial authorities exonerated Brown of any wrongdoing.
"The natives respect us more than they did, and as they all acknowledge the justice of our cause they bear us no ill will," said Brown. In contrast, a newspaper column at the time said, "If missionary enterprise in such an island as this leads to wars of vengeance, which may readily develop into wars of extermination, the question may be raised whether it may not be better to withdraw the mission from savages who show so little appreciation of its benefits."
In 2007, the Tolai tribe, who no longer practice cannibalism, offered a formal apology for the killings.
8. Andrei Kurochkin's Siberian Fishing Trip
In 2012, Andrei Kurockhin and three of his friends explored the Siberian taiga on a fishing trip. When their jeep and all their supplies sank into a river, things got pretty dark. The trip was supposed to last a few weeks. Instead, the men were out in the elements for around four months. Kurochkin died in that time. Another unnamed man has never been found.
