STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE ANJIKUNI VILLAGE PEOPLE
Mysterious Dissapearances – Other Dimensions – Part Two Of The Series
Many people refuse to acknowledge, we are not always in control. So what of this story? How can anyone ever explain this logically?
On a freezing winter’s night in November 1930, Canadian fur trapper, Joe Labelle was to discover, under the glare of a full moon, one of the most remarkable disappearances known to date. The bustling Eskimo village’s 2,000 inhabitants, located on the shoreline of Lake Anjikuni in Canada, had vanished without trace.
Labelle’s discovery began as he approached the village with nervous trepidation, when an unnatural silence met him. His anxiety lifted a little when he heard the crackling embers of a fire. As the flickering, amber flames came into view, he dashed towards it in the hope of finding someone attending to it. However, he was met with a pot of blackened stew still simmering and no one around.
Labelle then walked around the village peering cautiously into every hut, where he noticed food and provisions in abundant supply in each. The fish storehouse was also adequately stocked, but not a soul or a sleigh dog was to be seen. Labelle looked around the perimeter of the village and noticed there were no footprints in the snow-covered ground to give lead or clue as to the villager’s whereabouts.
Labelle, now panic-stricken, took off running non-stop to the telegraph office. A message was sent to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who turned up a few hours later.
The Mounties searched the village…what they found would have chilled any man to the bone. In the village burial ground, every single grave was unearthed and empty. This was even more unnerving as the icy ground around the graves was as hard as rock.
A massive search party was organised. During the investigation, there was another unsettling discovery; the entire pack of sleigh dogs were found buried under 12 feet of snow…all had starved to death.
If that wasn’t enough, all of a sudden a strange blue light began shimmering on the horizon. This was not the Northern Lights, it seemed artificial and pulsated until at last it faded into the darkness - leaving all who witnessed it, dumbstruck.
Every newspaper in the world reported the mass vanishing of the 2,000 Eskimos. Many thought the disappearance would lead to some sort of logical explanation, but to no avail…the Anjikuni tribe has never been seen again.
Read part one of this series – Mysterious Disappearances – Other Dimensions click on this
The Disappearance Of James Worson click on this
Back to home page click on this
By J Reynolds, (aka eyepriestess), copyright 2009 @ World Mysteries And True Ghost Tales. From documents supplied by Rebecca.
Pic by http://coast2coastam.net/?p=460
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Hi Eye,
This is the first of hearing of this story.. It is very strange that a whole village of people could go missing without a trace.. but I don’t know if they could of been abducted by aliens?..
It’s just seems too far stretched for me.. But then again.. who’s to really say??..
That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe it has happened.. In one case.. Whitley Strieber.. Wrote a book {The Greys}..about his experiences that has happened to him starting from a young child.. and is still happening to today.. and has carried on with his young son also being abducted…
They made it into a movie called..”Communion”.. I would recommend this movie very highly to all..
It really opened my eyes about the whole alien abduction theory.
Mama’s chick
Hi Mama’s chick,
the whole story seems far fetched to me, but it happened, whatever it was that took them made a clean job of it, there was nothing living, or dead if you include the graves.
I don’t think i’ve heard of the film, but i’ll keep a look out for it. Thanks for the recommendation
I have to say that I have always taken UFO abduction stories with a grain of salt. At the same time, I don’t rule out the possibility…and if there were ever a story that would make me stop and think about it, it would be this one. Very well written, by the way!
It is far fetched….but the disappearances especially of the graves look like it would have taken a lot for human beings to do. And the ground not being disturbed around it….there is definitely something strange about that light as well. Thanks for sharing this.
Hi Scary,
I must say, I take UFO abductions less seriously than some, but this story makes you wonder what else could have happened. If these people had been attacked, then where is the evidence of a battle taking place? there is none.
The animals starving to death, but the stew still cooking on the pot, so how could that be? It is all very weird.
There are news reports on the story all over the internet, and like i said in the article the story was covered worldwide. Wow, is all i can say. I told my cousin about it today, and she was saying, ‘no way,’, everyone else i tell is astounded by it. I only found out about this story a couple of weeks ago when Rebecca sent in another article about it.
Hi guys
this topic interests me so much. I’ve always been a believer of possibilites, including ufo’s of course. this story in particular, makes me wonder even more if it is ufo/alien related becaue of the bodies that were taken from the graves. who would do that? Indians/native Americans and people with any spiritual background would not remove bodies from their burial site. the dead are very much respected. I personally believe aliens took them (the dead) for research but who knows. Also the fact that the lights were eyewitnessed makes it even more bizarre.
This year, while in my car on my cell phone, waited for my daughter outside of her girlscout meeting, saw something gray in the sky. I was talking to my mother, with my seat slightly reclined and staring out into the sky. It was close to 7pm, cause thats when she gets out, and it was dark enough to have to use headlights but i could still see pretty clearly. I saw a round, gray object in the sky. there were no lights on it but it moved so slow that it caugt my attention. my eyes were fixed on it as i described to my mother what i was looking at. It appeared as if it froze in mid air for a second or two then it sped off so quickly and i lost sight of it.
Im not saying that im positive it was a ufo, but i can say i am positive it was not a plane.
Now see, why can’t I ever see anything like that?
This story has been haunting me ever since I heard about it. It’s just so creepy, everything being gone like that. If an epidemic would have killed them or something, there would be evidence left behind.
I am really enjoying this series of stories though. I love stuff that I can’t figure out! It keeps me thinking….and this is going to keep me thinking for a long time.
Me too scary, it is one of the best stories i’ve ever read because it is so obvious that there is something strange about it. 2,000 people just don’t disappear under normal circumstances. If there was an epidemic or mass murder there would have been evidence.
All the dogs dying of starvation too when there was food in the cabins, it’s all too weird.
Rebecca, I know with the graves being dug up even though the ground was like rock with the ice, you wouldn’t be able to dig the ground up unless you had something like a power drill and even that would take such a long time and with so much effort.
wow, now the writer, Whitley Schrieber’s book called “Billy” I thought was more based on the abduction but then again at the end of that story the boy was found! Sometimes in life there is no explination, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for thier dissaperance, and me too I’m not too much believing in alien abduction!
Really? so there was someone found who had been abducted? Was he from the village?
This sounds like the story of Roanoke Island, in the late 1500′s / early 1600′s a group of settlers came to Roanoake Island (off the coast of Virginia/ North Carolina) and when the next group came a year later with supplies for them they found the entire village deserted with no signs of a struggle.
I saw something on tv about that Debbie, it was quite a while ago, but i vaguely remember it. I’ll see what i can find on it and maybe write an article about it.
The story about the disappearance in the 1930′s of an Inuit village near Lake Anjikuni is not true.
An American author by the name of Frank Edwards is purported to have started this story in his book Stranger than Science. It has become a popular piece of journalism, repeatedly published and referred to in books and magazines.
There is no evidence however to support such a story. A village with such a large population would not have existed in such a remote area of the Northwest Territories (62 degrees north and 100 degrees west, about 100 km west of Eskimo Point).
Furthermore, the Mounted Police who patrolled the area recorded no untoward events of any kind and neither did local trappers or missionaries.
http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=3884
I’ll have to look into that because this story has come from news reports which i have looked at.
We’ll see who is right
I’ve looked at eskimo populations and they have only declined in the last few years after the oil decline, stated in the New York Times. The villages range from 600 -900 in population now, but they were more in the years before the 70′s. So you got that wrong!
I have also shown you that news article on the forum, which i will paste in here when i get time later, which states that the mounties were involved.
That what you wrote above is based on one persons lack of knowledge of this story.
I agree with EP that this is a real account of what happend, I have also heard of this villiage and the authour you claim wrote the story was just getting his ideas from the real disapperance of this town
One of the authors of this story, which UNR is on about has been de-bunked with other stories, because of that when the author included this true story, this was also de-bunked because he had wrote it as many others had after the news reports. I’m just going to get the news article about it as i have i need to paste it in here.
Also, here is a news report: Archived Record:
The Toronto Daily Star,
November 23, 1930
Lake Territory, Nov. 23. The Inspector for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police returned today to confirm the disappearance of an Eskimo village in the Northern Lakes region. Ten days ago, fur trapper, Joe LaBelle, contacted the RCMP to report a chilling discovery. While running a trap line, LaBelle snow-shoed out to an isolated Eskimo village on the shores of Lake Anjikuni, only to discover every inhabitant—man, woman, and child—had vanished from their huts and storehouses. “It was as if every one of them poor folk up and took off with no more than the shirts on their backs.”
Inspector Pierre Menard of the RCMP returned with his team’s findings today and confirmed the trapper’s story. The village had indeed been found abandoned under most strange circumstances. “In our search, we discovered undisturbed foodstuff, gear, and provisions but no sign of the villagers. Not a single footprint or track.” Even the Eskimos’ sled dogs were found buried under the snow, starved to death. But the most disturbing discovery of all was reported at the end: the Eskimos’ ancestral graves were found excavated and emptied.
The RCMP promises to continue the search, but for now the fate of the villagers remains a mystery.
OMG that is so wierd and spooky!
Ok first let me say I am not trying to be ignorant. The original story of Anjikuni village was written by Emmett Kelleher (he is known to make up stories.) In the original story there was 25 people missing, and they were missing for over a year when discovered.
Frank Edwards rewrote the story and changed it dramatically, he changed it to 2,000 people and campfires still burning. He added in empty graves to make it a ufo story. Frank Edwards was a ufo activist and wrote many tales about them.
Kelleher’s version was labeled as a journalistic hoax, and Frank Edwards changed it to unbelievable proportions.
The royal canadian mounted police investigated and reported there was no one who could colabarate the original story.
This is an example of how legends are created.
To read this:
http://books.google.com/books?id=fq5iP65y3JgC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=emmet+kelleher+hoax&source=bl&ots=bw39NjDBWi&sig=ZO4-jy0LLnQUrrdradmxYuLok3c&hl=en&ei=AYuRSomfC5GCNP2huZIK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
One more bit that proves it was a hoax. I went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police website and searched for it. It
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/anjikuni-eng.htm
Anjikuni
The story about the disappearance in the 1930′s of an Inuit village near Lake Anjikuni is not true. An American author by the name of Frank Edwards is purported to have started this story in his book Stranger than Science. It has become a popular piece of journalism, repeatedly published and referred to in books and magazines. There is no evidence however to support such a story. A village with such a large population would not have existed in such a remote area of the Northwest Territories (62 degrees north and 100 degrees west, about 100 km west of Eskimo Point). Furthermore, the Mounted Police who patrolled the area recorded no untoward events of any kind and neither did local trappers or missionaries.
This is a great example of how legends grow over time and people start believing its real.
Before I let in the last comment UNR, I need to check that out for myself first.
UglyNRude, this site and it’s topics are open for debate and it’s nice to see you adding your ideas to this story whether you believe it is true or not, however it seems you must suffer from a superiority complex because you seem to insist on being right all the time, that is not the aim of this site and many others.
From what I have seen this topic does have a reliable source for back up and your argument is quite strong but you seem to be intense on debunking people, let two sides of the story prevail.
Handsome Harry
Hey Harry, good to see you again.
I have to look into what UNR put, there is also a comment pending, which i need to look into as well. I’ll get chance tomorrow as i’ve been too busy today.
Thanks for you comments Harry, i saw you in the forum, so i’ll just go and look what you wrote.
I have just written to the RCMP and asked for a definate answer about this story, hopefully they will reply, and i will post it on here. We will then find out the true facts.
I have to report that there has been no report back from the RCMP, therefore I urge readers of this story to come to their own conclusion.
Thank you UNR for bringing this to my attention, although i would also suggest further investigation as one report is of very little significance in a case such as this.
I have had a reply from the mounted Police afew days ago and they say this story is not true! Thanks for bringing our attention to this UNR although it is dissapointing, i’d rather know the truth.
I’m upset that you say i took links off here when i didn’t, i don’t know why you think i would do that!
That’s terrible!!! Well, that it’s not true, not that I wish it upon anyone! Thanks ep for clearing things up!
I read an interesting science fiction novel (can’t remember the title) that was much like this story. In this story the Germans had built an underwater labratory. These people abducted the entire village of people, and used them as guinea pigs in experiments for suspended animation.
I’m sorry I can’t recall the title, but it was a very good story.
jeff
If you remember it Jeff, let us know, the Anjikuni is one of the best true/fiction stories i’ve ever heard of so far! And i must admit, like Rebecca, it was disappointing that it could be false. Although, i do have some doubts as to the source of the link given to the Mounted police and their final reply.
I find it very striking that Eyepriestess and Handsome Harry seem to be so fixated on this false story being true, that when authorities such as the RCMP, who have investigated this and have archival evidence (ie, written records that exist) of the falseness of this story, that they still persist in saying the story “could be false” and doubts the validity of the RCMP research.
It’s far easier to have a spooky story circulating on the internet than it is to have the truth. As to not receiving a reply from the RCMP, m aybe they feel that their website account was placed there to forestall receiving ongoing enquiries about it, when they have far more serious and immediate law enforcement concerns to worry about on an every day basis.
I like to give facts too and i wasn’t sure if the email i received was genuine..that’s all it was.
If this isn’t true, then that’s fine with me, i’m not that concerned. Lot’s thought this to be a true story, especially when it was published in the papers and there were so many stated it to be true. You just have to be careful with who discredits and de-bunks.
EP,you handled UNR’s debunking of this tale well. Instead of a flamefest, you did your homework, contacted the RCMP, which must be taken as the final word on the subject. Paranormal stories attract too many dogmatic believers, which obscure legitimate accounts. It also attracts opportunists like Frank Herbert. I first read Herbert’s account in “Stranger than Science”
(published 1963, I believe) over 40 years ago, as a teenager. I was fascinated by his tales, though even in the late ’60s there were serious challenges to their veracity. He had a follow-up book, “Strangest of All”. A look at my 1936 Brittanica Atlas shows no settlement at the lakeside site. The only town with 2000 population at that latitude in North America at that time would be Anchorage. Accounts of the unexplained is a legitimate persuit. We should all be careful about the veracity of such tales, and handle them with a fair balance of scepticism and interest.
Thanks JHC, i agree with you, I like to find the truth behind stories, however disappointing and so does UNR who looks into the facts in great detail. I wish people would not exagerrate paranormal events, it’s people like that who almost destroy the ones which are real.
according to one site, RCMP website, this story is a myth started by an American author and a town of this size could not have been supported in that remote area. Also the Mountie who patrolled there and the local trappers and missionaries did not hear anything about this so called village or the supposed disappearance.
it was a tale made up for a book named Stranger than Science which appears to really have been Stranger than the Truth
It’s a shame people don’t have better things to do!
wow the govt says an event never occurred and its accepted on face value things happen in all countries that are suppressed like project paperclip here or tuskeege and its no different w our northern neighbors just check out the shag harbor incident and the official response 2 versions anyways just a thought.
belekurov
My 1936 Brittanica atlas maps towns in North America that I know for a fact had dwindled down to zero inhabitants a decade before. Anjikuni Lake is shown but no town of any size is listed nearby. I do not discount other events but the RCMP has effectively debunked this tale, and they can be respected as the final word on the subject.
The first time I read this tale was in the book Our Haunted Planet by John A Keel. I never trusted Keel’s book to do anything but repeat spooky stories, as Keel made his living by doing just that. It is good to see the tale debunked by a bit of research.
I’d rather know the truth, and it is annoying that a book can get published that has so many false facts in it.
Pretty much anything can get published if you try hard enough. And now with the internet there is not even a need for the publishing house or editor. If you have a PC you can get get anything “printed” with out the need for actually printing and tall tales are becoming even taller and more common than ever.
It MUST be true I read it on the internets !!!
Jim,
When I was a child, I often heard the same statement, but the source of information was on television. I saw it on TV, IT MUST BE TRUE! cue the parents! And everyone rolled their eyes and shook their head, and maybe laughed a little.
I’m just having a little fun. However, I do read A LOT OF STORIES, gathering bits and pieces of any given story, looking for those in common with each other, sooner or later a pattern develops, and further back in history we see evidence in the various forms of art…, many paintings that included what appears to be alien spacecraft.
I recall one incident where Alexander the Great’s soldiers saw shiny disc shaped craft just above them. It may have been another army, I can no longer recall it.
I visit these sites to learn what people believe. I’m sure there are many opportunities for fraud. Study late 19th Century and the BIG wave of “Spiritualism.” Many people paid good money to be entertained by man made phenomena. We’ve all heard about Harry Houdini I’m sure. His mission was to reveal the frauds. However, he had a couple of experiences that rattled him a bit, and he quit attending these meetings. He confided with some people about a murder, and He believed He knew who it was that did the killings.
So, maybe Harry discovered some seances were real, and most were not. We could use a whole bunch of Harrys to sort out what is real, and what isn’t real. You can even find at least two events in the Bible where the prophets attempted to describe something they had no words for what they saw, so they used words common to that time period. I believe we are seeing what Jesus Christ told man when he said that in the last days, God would send a strong delusion, so strong that the very “elect” might be decieved if that were possible. The Bible also addresses “many signs and wonders in the sky.”
Just so happens that the Bible also states that Lucifer and his angels have dominion over the sky. They would like to see mankind all dead. Wow, Lucifer can really hold a grudge for a long time!!!
jeff
Regarding the missing tribe. I have no doubt it happened. It also happened to an entire colony in very early American history.
Author James Rollins wrote a sci-fi novel titled ICE HUNT (great story). Once I started I couldn’t stop reading. The ending has a little gallows humor. Don’t spoil the read by skipping to the end, you will find the ending much, much more entertaining, if not at least disturbing.
His novel reads very much like this missing village.
Boo! jeff
This is interesting, why do you have no doubt that it happened Jeff? I thought there was some kind of cover up going on here, like there nearly always is with UFO incidents.
Ice hunt sounds like a good read, I’m going to see if i can find it online…
Well, I think that this mystery will be solved only by looking at Canadian maps datig prior to 1930.
A town that size will be on the map. This tale persists mainly because of the extreme remoteness of Anjikuni Lake. To this day the region is largely trackless.
um that colony = if you are referring to Roanoke the probability is they ran out of food and had to live with the local native tribe and ended up as part of them. The same thing happened with the early Vikings and the Mandans up further north and to the west which is why there were blue eyes and red/blond hair for generations after wards. The same thing happens on the Virginia coast line the consensus is the assimilated with the friendly native tribe nearby http://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/roanoke-colony.htm/printable
Jim’s right about the “Croatoan” lost colony. Not a trace was found two years later. Everythging was gone. No local tribes had any info on the colonists.
I looked it up too JHC, i think i have the right one, here is some info:
“The image is one of the most haunting in American folklore: Eleanor Dare cradling her infant daughter as they struggle through a vast wilderness, seemingly forgotten by her father who brought them to an unfamiliar land, then left them to fend for themselves.
In the four centuries since their disappearance, Eleanor and Virginia Dare have become true American heroines, players in an epic unsolved mystery that still challenges historians and archaeologists as one of America’s oldest. In 1587, over 100 men, women and children journeyed from England to Roanoke Island on North Carolina’s coast and established the first English settlement in America. Within three years, they had vanished with scarcely a trace. England’s initial attempt at colonization of the New World was a disaster, and one of America’s most enduring legends was born.
The lie of the land of modern Roanoke Island appears much as it did at the time of the colonists’ arrival. The low, narrow island lies between the treacherous Outer Banks and the mainland. Although it is influenced by the Atlantic Ocean, it is a verdant oasis compared to the harsh winds and pounding surf of the barrier islands. Instead, Roanoke is characterized by thick marshlands and stands of live oaks teeming with wildlife–a much more hospitable site for settlement.
In 1584, explorers Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe were the first to set eyes on the island. They had been sent to the area by Sir Walter Raleigh with the mission of scouting the broad sounds and estuaries in search of an ideal location for settlement. Amadas and Barlowe wrote glowing reports of Roanoke Island, and when they returned to England a year later with two Natives, Manteo and Wanchese, all of England was abuzz with talk of the New World’s wonders.
Queen Elizabeth herself was impressed, and she granted Raleigh a patent to all the lands he could occupy. She named the new land “Virginia”, in honor of the Virgin Queen, and the next year, Raleigh sent a party of 100 soldiers, craftsmen and scholars to Roanoke Island.
Under the direction of Ralph Lane, the garrison was doomed from the beginning. They arrived too late in the season for planting, and supplies were dwindling rapidly. To make matters worse, Lane, a military captain, alienated the neighboring Roanoke Indians, and ultimately sealed his own fate by murdering their chief, Wingina over a stolen cup.
By 1586, when Sir Francis Drake stopped at Roanoke after a plundering expedition, Lane and his men had had enough. They abandoned the settlement and left behind a fort, the remains of which can still be seen at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site today. Ironically, a supply ship from England arrived at Roanoke less than a week later . Finding the island deserted, the leader left behind 15 of his men to hold the fort and returned to England for reinforcements.
Raleigh was angry with Lane but not deterred from his mission. He recruited 117 men, women and children for a more permanent settlement, and appointed John White governor of the new “Cittie of Raleigh”. Among the colonists were White’s pregnant daughter, Eleanor Dare, his son-in-law Annanias Dare, and the Indian chief Manteo, who had become an ally during his stay in England.
Raleigh had since decided that the Chesapeake Bay area was a better site for settlement, and he hired Simon Fernandes, a Portuguese pilot familiar with the area, to transport the colonists there. Fernandes, however, was by trade a privateer in the escalating war between Spain and England. By the time the caravan arrived at Roanoke Island in July, 1587, to check on the 15 men left behind a year earlier, he had grown impatient with White and anxious to resume the hunt for Spanish shipping. He ordered the colonists ashore on Roanoke Island.
The colonists soon learned that Indians had murdered the 15 men and were uneasy at the prospect of remaining on Roanoke Island. But Fernandes left them no choice. They unloaded their belonging and supplies and repaired Lane’s fort. On August 18, 1587, Eleanor Dare gave birth to a daughter she named Virginia, thus earning the distinction of being the first English child born on American soil. Ten days later, Ferndades departed for England, taking along an anxious John White, who hesitantly decided to return to England for supplies. It was the last time he would ever see his family.
Upon his arrival in England, White found himself trapped by the impending invasion of the Spanish Armada. Finally, two years after the stunning defeat of the Armada, he again departed for Roanoke Island. He arrived on August 18, 1590–his grand daughter’s third birthday–and found the Cittie of Raleigh deserted, plundered, and surrounded “with a high pallisado of great trees, with cortynes and flankers, very fort-like”. On one of the palisades, he found the single word “CROATOAN” carved into the surface, and the letters “CRO” carved into a nearby tree.
White knew the carvings were “to signifie the place, where I should find the planters seated, according to a secret token agreed upon betweene them and me at my last departure from them…for at my coming away, they were prepared to remove 50 miles into the maine”. He had also instructed the colonists that, should they be forced to leave the island under duress, they should carve a Maltese cross above their destination. White found no such sign, and he had every hope that he would locate the colony and his family at Croatoan, the home of Chief Manteo’s people south of Roanoke on present-day Hatteras Island.
Before he could make further exploration, however, a great hurricane arose, damaging his ships and forcing him back to England. Despite repeated attempts, he was never again able to raise the funding and resources to make the trip to America again. Raleigh had given up hope of settlement, and White died many years later on one of Raleigh’s estates, ignorant to the fate of his family and the colony.
The 117 pioneers of Roanoke Island had vanished into the great wilderness.
In the following years, evidence as to their fate was slow to emerge, but some intriguing accounts exist. In 1709, English explorer John Lawson visited Roanoke Island and spent some time among the Hatteras Indians, descendants of the Croatoan tribe. In A New Voyage to Carolina, he wrote “that several of their ancestors were white people and could talk in a book as we do, the truth of which is confirmed by gray eyes being found infrequently among these Indians and no others.”
In the 1880s, with the approach of the Roanoke Colony’s 300th anniversary, a North Carolina man named Hamilton MacMillan proposed a theory that holds some credence today. MacMillan lived in Robeson County in southeastern North Carolina near a settlement of Pembroke Indians, many of whom claimed that their ancestors came from “Roanoke in Virginia”.
According to MacMillan, the Pembrokes spoke pure Anglo-Saxon English and bore the last names of many of the lost colonists. Furthermore, “Roanoke in Virginia” was how Raleigh and his contemporaries referred to Roanoke Island. The Pembrokes also had European features: fair eyes, light hair, and an Anglo bone structure. MacMillan’s findings, published in 1888 pamphlet, gained a great deal of attention from the academic community and renewed interest in the lost colony.
Other less plausible theories and some outright trickery surfaced in the mid-1900s. A series of mysterious rocks first uncovered in 1937 in eastern North Carolina seemed to solve the mystery. The original stone, dubbed the Eleanor Dare Stone, was found in a swamp 60 miles west of Roanoke Island by a traveler. It was covered with strange carvings, which, when deciphered, appeared to be a message from Eleanor Dare to her father, indicating that the colony had fled Roanoke Island after Indian attack.
Over the next three years, nearly 40 similar stones were unearthed from North Carolina to Georgia, and when pieced together, related a fantastic tale of the colonists’ overland journey through the southeast, culminating in the death of Eleanor Dare in 1599. Although the academic world was skeptical, the media had a field day and were forced to eat their words in 1940 when an investigative reporter exposed the entire saga as an elaborate hoax.
In the past 40 years, scholars have discovered previously unknown records in the Spanish and British archives that may point the way toward a logical, if not provable, solution. Many historians now believe that after White’s departure from Roanoke in 1587, the colony split into two factions, and the largest segment of the colony departed for the Chesapeake Bay, their original destination. Lane had explored the Bay area in 1585, and the colonists probably had maps made by White himself.
When John Smith and the Jamestown colonists arrived in 1607, Smith took up the search for the colonists and discovered that they probably had been in the area. In his dealings with the hostile Indian chief Powhatan, he learned that the colonists had lived among the friendly Chesapeake Indians on the south side of the Bay. Threatened by the intrusion of white men into the region, Powhatan claimed to have attacked the colonists and murdered most of them. As proof of his claim, he showed Smith “a musket barrell and a brass mortar, and certain pieces of iron that had been theirs.”
By 1612, the Jamestown leaders had received numerous reports that at least some of the Roanoke colonists were living nearby. They sent out several search parties, but had no success, and soon gave up the search.
What became of the remainder of the colonists left on Roanoke Island? Scholars speculate that they were left behind to meet White upon his return from England, but soon fled to Croatoan, leaving the mysterious carvings behind as a signal to White. Spanish archives reveal that they were gone by June, 1588, when a raiding party put in at Roanoke Island only to find the settlement deserted. Scholars assume that they were then assimilated into the Croatoan tribe.
Today, the north end of Roanoke Island is regularly visited by historians and archaeologists hoping to uncover new evidence as to the fate of the colony. So far, none has been forthcoming. The post and the tree bearing the carvings have long since vanished, although many of the live oaks in the National Historic Site were seedlings during the colonists tenure. No archaeological clues as to the whereabouts of the Cittie of Raleigh have ever been uncovered, and the 500-acre park remains mostly an enigma, apropos to the events that unfolded here 400 years ago.” http://www.coastalguide.com/packet/lostcolony-croatan.shtml
Thank you for the tract, EP. Lots of good recent information. One of the truly great mysteries of disappearance, though somewhat explainable. A tale of virtual castaways remote location in a time of no communication.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, may all your wishes come true!
Same to you hun, merry Christmas to you too!