How It All Goes Down
Dead or Alive
- Fawcett has disappeared, and like Bon Jovi, he's wanted dead or alive.
- Fawcett's family members want any news they can get.
- More rumors fly about Fawcett than rumors about Beyoncé's fake pregnancy.
- Fawcett's longtime rival, Dr. Rice, consoles Nina, Fawcett's wife.
- However, Rice doesn't care enough to actually go into the jungle and find Fawcett.
- Instead, a rescue party is helmed by George Miller Dyott, a WWI pilot and explorer.
- At Bakairi Post, Dyott meets a native guide named Bernardino who says he guided Fawcett.
- Bernardino leads Dyott down a marked trail, where Dyott eventually reaches a settlement of the Nahukwa tribe.
- The tribe welcomes Dyott and his men, but Aloique, the chief of the Nahukwa, looks suspicious.
- Dyott notices a variety of British items in their village, like a medal and a trunk, and he suspects that the tribe killed Fawcett and kept his stuff.
- Dyott tells Aloique his party plans to leave, but overnight, Aloique and his men vanish.
- Other tribes show up and demand gifts from Dyott.
- Dyott runs out of stuff to give, and the tribes become hostile.
- Overnight, Dyott and his men escape down the river.
- However, years later, Brian Fawcett starts poking holes in Dyott's dramatic story.
- Brian Fawcett doesn't believe his father would have left a marked trail.
- The gear found in Aloique's house may have been a gift from Fawcett.
- Missionaries say that Aloique is friendly.
- And finally, no one ever finds anyone named Bernardino. Pro-tip: if you're going to make up a story, pick a more common name.
- In 1932, a man named Stefan Rattin visits the British Embassy in São Paulo. He says that Fawcett is being held captive.
- Uh, is this guy's middle name "Bernardino"?
- Rattin enters the jungle with a few men to rescue Fawcett.
- Rattin's never heard from again.
- Later, an English actor named Albert de Winton attempts to rescue Fawcett.
- Winton's not an explorer, but he plays one in the movies.
- The key phrase in that previous line is "not an explorer." Winton, like Rattin, never returns.
- For years, many people go on suicide missions into the jungle. "One recent estimate put the death toll from these expeditions as high as one hundred" (22.51).
- Guys, get a better hobby.
- Meanwhile, Nina, Fawcett's wife, becomes more and more obsessed over her husband's disappearance.
- Nina receives a report from missionaries who say they've discovered a native who says he is Jack Fawcett's son.
- Life magazine publishes an article about Dulipe, "the White God of the Xingu" (22.59).
- When Nina sees the pictures, she realizes the boy is an albino. Albinism is surprisingly common among jungle tribes.
- In the 1950s, Nina receives a report that the Kalapolos Indians admitted their tribe killed Fawcett.
- As proof, they have his bones.
- Nina is going to have a bone to pick with these guys.