August 17, 2018 • 53 mins
India controls numerous islands in the Indian Ocean, and they have a strange set of rules for North Sentinel Islands -- a tiny, remote place most people wouldn't visit anyway. You see, the Indian government maintains a 'zone of exclusion' surrounding the island, with no ships, helicopters or people allowed within miles of the shore. Ordinarily one might assume this is a secret military base or the site of an environmental disaster -- but the real answer is even stranger. Tune into to learn more about the mystery of North Sentinel Island.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Noel
is off on an adventure that we can't disclose yet,
but soon they called me Ben. We are joined with
our super producer, Paul Decant Paul Wilson Decade. Maybe is
that appropriate for this episode? Matt, you mean you're talking
about the soccer ball? Yes? Most importantly, you are you
(00:47):
and you are here, and that makes this stuff they
don't want you to know. Today, we are diving into
something that Matt, you and I explore during our video series. Yes,
and it's I think our fifth most popular video that
we ever made. Really, Yes, almost a million dollar views
(01:07):
at this point. All these smokes still not going to
beat that. Uh what about Satan? Yeah, Satan will always
be at the top. And I'm kind of I feel
very fortunate for both of us that not that many
people watched the instructions on How to Get Away with Murder? Yes,
less than fifty I want to say great, but that's
(01:29):
still a lot of people. That's a lot of people,
and we do. We we do tell people not to
commit murder, right, we do. At some point in that one,
we can take it down. Do you want me to
take it down? I know, you know. I I feel
like we did a good job, is the thing? Okay,
a moral notions aside. It does feel like we did
(01:52):
a good job. But yes, we did a video on
North Sentinel Island several years ago, more years than I think. Well,
you probably don't, Matt. When do we do that one?
I believe it has been a minute since I looked
at it. It's been a while. Uh So, North Sentinel
Island has a mystery to it, and if you have
(02:16):
seen our earlier video, you might have an inkling about
what we're going to dive into today. But to get
to this mystery, we have to first explore human beings.
Oh that sounds good. Yeah, that's great. Human beings are
a species that loves to talk about itself. And that's us,
(02:38):
that's you, that's you doo uh and yes, specifically you.
So human beings. Our species exist to some degree on
every continent, which is insane when you think about it.
Our tremendous ability to adapt to inhospitable environments has spread
us across the planet, and the modern age, technological breaks
(03:00):
allow us to communicate instantaneously regardless of our physical location.
I mean, just just think of all the podcasts that
have Like you and I prefer to hang out in
person in the room, but there are many very successful,
very fascinating podcast with hosts that rarely see each other
(03:20):
in person, much like stuff you missed in history class. Yeah,
that's that's actually I'm surprised I didn't think about that. Yeah,
one of our host is based in Atlanta on that show,
and the other in Boston, and they can communicate pretty
much instantaneous. Sounds like they're having a conversation in the room.
And one more thing I just want to add here
we're talking about the humans us living on all these continents,
(03:42):
we also live on islands that aren't considered a continent
all over the planet. That's true. That's true, and even
in those spaces people can communicate thanks to technology. Modernity,
it seems, is contagious. But here's the fascinating and somewhat
(04:02):
disturbing thing. As we've spread farther and farther, some groups
of humans also became isolated those geographical boundaries bedeviled us,
impassable mountains, shifting ice, dense dangerous jungles, rising seas, and
treacherous currents to your point about islands, right, all all
(04:22):
played a role in keeping some groups of human beings
hidden from the progress and the curses of global society.
And you know, we've all, like you've heard these stories,
right we even without thinking of a specific one. We've
all heard the stories wherein some intrepid explorer encounters a
tribe of people who had no knowledge of the outside world. Right.
(04:46):
I remember thinking that these were relatively I don't know,
fictionalized things growing up, like fair not I don't want
to say fairy tales, but fictional adventure stories. Yes. There,
They're depicted in film and in um books all over
the place, various fictional ones and nonfictional encounters of this sort.
(05:10):
And the I think that line gets blurred a little
bit in our in our popular culture of what what
a real encounter looks like, in what a u a
played up one looks like for the screen. Right, That's
a very important point in the modern age. It seems
like these events and encounters, whether they were truthful, whether
they were fiction, or whether they were a blend of
(05:33):
the two, usually to make someone from the West feel
more important about themselves or less like they were colonizers
or less like they were colonizers. That's true regardless. Nowadays,
it seems like most of these events are encounters are
going to be relegated to history books. In short, everyone
(05:56):
has met everyone or is aware of everyone, right, we
all get it. Everyone is at least aware enough that
there's an outside world. Like a tribe, most most tribes
of isolated people are aware that there's an outside world
with some technology in it. Right. And it is sadly
true that there are many countries that people in other
(06:19):
countries aren't very much aware of, you know, like you've seen,
especially European media gives people in the US a real
devil of a time with this. And you can see
numerous YouTube compilations of Americans being asked to point to
a country on the map on the world map and
(06:40):
getting it cartoonistally wrong. That's a little bit of a stereotype. Well,
I promised, people are I promised the editors are cherry
picking that for all our non American listeners. We certainly hope,
so we certainly hope so. And regardless of how hilarious
those videos might be. Matt, your point, I would say,
is absolutely correct. We are aware of the other We
(07:03):
are aware that it exists. There will be a you know,
the majority of people who live in China will probably
never travel to the States, and the majority of people
who live in the States will probably never travel to China.
But both are aware that the other country exists and
is a real thing. Thank you television and Internet. Thank
(07:23):
you television and to add books. Yes, uh, in a
world though, where everything is rapidly urbanizing, right, I think
it was what while you and I were first working together,
the shift occurred in the majority of human beings began
to live in cities. Yes, we've been working together for
(07:43):
a long time, and it sounds like around that's when
we we went past market. Yeah, by of the world's
population lived in an urban area. And that shift is
pretty crazy, right, pretty recent too. Yeah, it's it's definitely
(08:04):
um a condensing of humanity into these places that, for
better or for worse, do really well for various economies
and for populations, but not so great in a lot
of other ways. You know, pollution, crime, you know, a
lot of those things right right exactly, And in this
(08:26):
in this world where there are increasingly fewer isolated populations
and a larger number of densely let's say, densely combined populations,
we can understand why people would think there there are
no more uncontacted tribes. There are. Many people say that's
(08:49):
a myth because so many anthropologists of the past and
days of yore wanted to be the first outsider to
encounter some group. That probably that has happened, right, But
a a hard definition of an uncontacted tribe, as in
someone who's some group that has never seen nor, as
(09:10):
they say in Tennessee, heard tell of any other group.
The odds of that still existing are are preposterously low, right, yeah.
And I think a lot of that has to do
with something as simple as Google Maps, where you can
you can open it up and you can see every island.
Because we have the satellite imagery, we know that that
(09:31):
island exists there, but wherever it is as isolated as
it is, that island exists here in this program. So
obviously somebody's been there, right, that's the assumption at least,
or you could go there. So why why wouldn't have
someone gone there already. Right, and then there's that related point.
Maybe there are any uncontacted tribes, but maybe the human
(09:55):
experiment has grown so large that there aren't even any
really isolated tribes anymore. Yeah, right, that's the assumption. That's
a safe assumption. But the problem is that could not
be further from the truth. Today's episode concerns a particular
community that you may not have heard of on a
tiny island off the coast of India, one that is
(10:17):
lost to time again. It's called North Sentinel Island. It's
relatively tiny. It's just seventy two square kilometers that's square
miles um. And it's well that's before the two four earthquake.
Because the the landmass changed slightly, they're expanded and it's
(10:37):
a part of the Andaman Archipelago. This is a grouping
of the Endeman and Nicobar Islands. It's located at the
crux of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Now,
just we're gonna give you some degrees here so you
can find it on your globe if you've got one handy.
There between six degrees and fourteen degrees north latitude and
ninety two degrees and ninety four degrees east longitude. Now
(11:00):
that's four hundred kilometers from mainland India on one side,
that's like a hundred and seventy miles, and then a
thousand kilometers from Thailand, and that is about six hundred
and twenty one miles, so it's kind of in the
center of those. Basically, if you zoom out far enough
on Google on Google Maps, and you draw a line
(11:20):
between the center of in this case, I'm using Sri
Lanka because it's like the island at the bottom of
India there and to the center of Thailand, this will
be located pretty close to the center of that line.
Just if you're looking at Google Maps or something, and
it's in these these two sets of islands, the Andaman
and the Nicobar Islands. It's it's some of the most
(11:42):
remote spots on the entire planet. Yes, some of the
islands around this area are referred to in one of
my absolute favorite books in the world, The Atlas of
Remote Islands. I highly recommend you check it out if
you are interested in exploration and remote locations. It's a
(12:05):
great book. But enough about that book. Uh, the islands
just on their own, there are what nearly six hundred
and only nine are open to foreign tourists, very very
rural locations in in addition to being very remote. But
but they are open to tourism. Those nine, those that
(12:26):
those come into play in the rest of our story. Yeah,
they're very much open to tourism. Uh, locals be damned, honestly.
And you might say, well, who owns this guys, I'm
I'm pretty good at pointing to countries on the map.
And I've never heard of a country called the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands. No worries trick question. There is no country.
(12:51):
It is a territory of India and it is controlled
by India's generally speakings composed these two islands. And think
about it in terms of latitude. So any of the
islands located north of ten degrees latitude are known as
Andaman Islands, while islands located south of that latitude are
(13:15):
called Nicobar Islands. Enough, that's pretty easy. Nominally, these territories
and the island we're talking about today, North Sentinel Island,
belong in the South and Men Administrative District, which is
again part of this Indian territory. The nearby South Sentinel
Island is uninhabited. It occasionally receives visitors, mostly adventurous divers
(13:41):
who were like the Alberto, lets go where no one
les like Overbend. I'm sure they don't sound like that,
and I'm sure they sound exactly like well, people who
people who want to adventure. No one lives there. And
here's the thing. Though, the Government of India legally possesses
(14:03):
both North and South Centinel Island and again all of
the and amens all of the Nicobar Islands. They do
not have any installations, no government, no scheduled route of
transportation to visit the area. People can visit South Centinel
Island and often probably sneak there just to dive for
(14:25):
a day or something like going without a lifeguard basically right,
But all the ships in the nearby area and all
the plains are banned from approaching North Sentinel Island through
the use of a three mile exclusion zone. Because you see,
unlike South Centinel Island, North Sentinel Island is inhabited. But
(14:51):
by who, you might ask, Well, we'll tell you right
after a quick word from our sponsor. Here's where it
gets crazy. The answer to your question, Matt, they posed
before the break is we don't really know the residents
(15:13):
of North Centinel Island. The Centinel Ees are one of
the most mysterious populations on the planet, and there aren't
many of them. Estimates range from as few as fifty
people to maybe as many as four hundred. The last
census that the Indian government conducted that touched upon that
(15:33):
area only found fifteen people, I think three women and
twelve men. But yeah, that that's something we're gonna see
here as we get into the story of the people
that you find when you're searching for people on North
Centinel Island generally aren't the all of the people that
(15:54):
are on the island, right, because you see when they
conducted that most recent senses, the way they conducted it
was by taking a boat, by getting special permission to
go inside the inclusion the exclusion zone, and then trying
to get close enough to see if there was anyone
on the shore, and then immediately high tailing it out
post haste. And there's a reason for that. They are
(16:17):
violently opposed to outside contact of any kind. This behavior
has been universally consistent for thousands of years they've resided
on this island, This population living in much the same
manner as their ancestors from millennia, and from what we
(16:37):
can guess, the Sentinel East people practice traditional hunting and
gathering with no I mean, I think it's a leap
to say no knowledge of agriculture but no practice of it. Yeah,
there there's no evidence of agriculture that's been seen in
the few times that people have actually gotten close enough
to check it out. Um. Their diet consists of mostly fruits, plants,
(17:01):
stuff that's found on the island, coconuts, forest plants. Uh,
sometimes they will. They've been known to eat sea turtles, fish,
some small birds, and wild honey. And some researchers compare
the Sentinel Ease to the on Gay tribe, which is
another tribe that's on the Enemonese Islands, that they're indigenous
peoples to one of the other islands. And we should
just say here that the Sentinel Leads that name is
(17:23):
a name given to them. If you were ever to
speak with one and could speak with someone of you know,
the North Sentinel Island, they would not call themselves that
right exactly this This culture has several barriers to communication, yes,
and we'll get to these, but they are an excellent
(17:45):
example of the one of the closest analogs that we
have to this population, at least we being the part
of the species that doesn't live on this island, we
who are forced to guess. So, like the Sentinels, they
were a hundred gatherers living out an ancient tradition, ancient
(18:09):
set of subsistence practices right that date back, by the
way to some of the earliest human civilization practices that
we know of today. So these are doing these people
are doing some of the first things that people did.
Still well, the Sentinel Ease, we suspect yes, yes, because
(18:35):
unlike the Sentinel Ease, the young gay were somewhat assimilated
to their detriment. In nineteen o one, the population was
registered at six hundred and seventy two. After colonization, there
were fewer than a hundred left. Ultimately, like the number
kept going down in the fifties, it was only a
hundred and fifty or so, and this was due to
(18:58):
the brutal acts of the Calling Nightser's also unanticipated factors
like exposure to non native diseases, which is one of
the biggest problems right right, right, It's one of the
problems with when Europeans came to the North and South
American continents, the same things occurred for them. It wasn't
a problem, it was a right. Yeah, well, I'm saying
(19:21):
for the native populations at the time it was it
was a horrific thing. And there's something else here that
on a personal level mystifies and disturbs me. And it
does it. It disturbs me because I can't explain why
(19:41):
it's happening, and I don't understand, and I don't think
that there's any technology that people would have had to
do this on purpose. There's something deeper at play. Well, anyway,
I'm too much preface here. Here's what's happening today. The
younger is still around, but a major cause of the
decline in population is both the changes in food habits
(20:04):
brought about by contact with the outside world. But here's
the scary thing. Nowadays they're one of the least fertile
and most sterile communities on the planet. About of married
couples or sterile on Gay women rarely become pregnant before
the age of infant, and child mortality is in the
(20:24):
range of now we could explain we we could explain
infinite and child mortality due to you know, quality of
life right for the family and for the mother, for
the kid, so on. But the idea that an entire
population without you know, some clear environmental cause just starts
(20:48):
to dwindle that way. Yeah, I don't like that at all.
It's frightening. It's it's not it's not something that I
can explain. I would welcome anybody to write to us
and let us know. You know, is there some epigenetic
factor at play. Did the community decide not to have children,
(21:09):
or is there some kind of outside force that's acting
on them in some way, clinical exposure of some sort
that they're unaware of, like forced sterilization, which many governments
have done, which would yeah, which would be explicable at
least that's a mundane cause. That's less scary than some
sort of switch turning, you know what I mean. So also,
(21:36):
the on Game have been victims of sexual exploitation and alcoholism,
forced labor, all the all the terrible and expected things
that happen often to these tribes. So there may be
a lesson for us to learn with the sentinel ease
(21:58):
through the perspective of the On Gay observers have compared
the Sentinelies community to communities that existed in the Stone Age.
They make weapons, they make tools. Uh, they're pretty badass
with bows and arrows. It's like three something feet they
can get you with an arrow. Yeah, yeah, four hundred
(22:20):
I think. Uh. They do not appear to make fire,
at least again from what we can observe. And their
language is unclassified, meaning it's unintelligible even to tribal communities
from close by islands. Like they brought an on gay
person there to attempt to speak with them, but they
(22:41):
either couldn't get close enough to understand the shouting because
of all the arrows, or they simply have been the
Sentinelies simply have been isolated for so long again for
thousands of years, and their language has become its own
un intelligible thing. Yeah, that's that. That is incredible because
(23:05):
that certainly doesn't happen. That's one of the least uh
regularly occurring things to have in a language that is
so isolated. That's incredible. Now, prior to to the European encroachment,
well that's what we're going to call it. There, Um,
there were ancient traditions by the tribes people who lived
(23:28):
around North Centinel Island that the people on North Centinel
Island were cannibals, the only gay they They apparently were
aware of North Centinel Islands for some time, but the
first European report didn't actually occur until seventeen seventy one,
which isn't that long ago, just before the United States
became a thing. That's true, Matt, I didn't think of
(23:51):
it in that perspective. Yeah. This British surveyor named John
Ritchie passed the island on a ship called the Diligent. Uh.
The Diligent was a hydrographic survey vessel owned by the
East India Company. Paul, can we get a spooky sound
effect when we say East India Company? Just booze? Just
(24:12):
put put some booze in there, perfect, that's appropriate. Yeah.
So Richie made one note where he essentially said he
saw a multitude of lights. We don't know if this
means fires, but he saw it from a distance. He
(24:32):
made a short note about it. The boat continued on
and no one in the West would make any sort
of reference to this island for another hundred years. It's
just the one guy was like, oh whoa, look at that.
That's a that's not water, that's definitely an island. So
we fast forward to March eighteen sixty seven, and that's
(24:54):
when Jeremiah Humphrey, he's the officer in charge of the
and Amonese, he journeyed to North s Little Island on
the trail of some convicts who escaped from this penal
colony that was there called Port Blair. And Okay, so
he he's approaching the island, he's escorted by police and
what they're called Great and Amnese, and these are tribes
(25:16):
people from like again, kind of like what we were
discussing before, a different tribe, but I guess similar enough
to where perhaps there could be communication. He saw some
ten men on the beach, naked, long haired, with bows
and arrows, shooting fish, and apparently the Sentineli's spot of
(25:39):
the boat and they hid, and the Great and Amnees
on board were visibly frightened and warned Mphrey, the leader here,
that the islanders had a reputation for cannibalism, and Humphrey said, yep,
I'm not going there. He never actually landed, yeah, which
was surprisingly smart of him, right to listen to the
(26:01):
experts in the area. He did have a police escort
with him, so it is fascinating that he didn't. But
I guess maybe he just wasn't he wasn't confident enough
in the people there with him. Sure, I don't know.
We'll also notice that at this point, despite this reputation
I'm sure it's largely exaggerated for cannibalism, the Sentinel Ease
(26:27):
are hiding, their avoiding and evading right there, not confronting.
And then also there's a note here they're described as
long haired by m. Free But when you see footage
of the Centinel Ease people today, there are no long
haired people. There's just a little bit of footage, And
(26:48):
you're right, so interesting because it seems as though things
are changing. In that same year again, eighteen sixty seven, UH,
an Indian merchant ship called the nineveh was surrect on
the reef surrounding the shore, and their captain was a
real piece of work. So eighty six passengers survived, twenty
crew members survived. They make it. They crash on that
(27:12):
reef surrounding the island. These are also very treacherous waters
and boom celebration time. UH. They survived these what one
and six people survived. On the third day, the native population,
which had been completely in hiding, attacks the captain. His
(27:32):
strategy is to take the ship's lifeboat and run away, yeah,
to get picked up by some other ship that's coming
by the passing brig And then a Royal Navy ship
came to rescue the remaining survivors who had held the
natives off by for several days by throwing stones and
brandishing sticks. And again this is a story that gets around,
(27:57):
so nobody else goes to that island for another third
teen years. Yes, and then in January eight eight, an
armed British expedition manages a successful landing on North Sentinel Island.
They're led by the officer in charge of the Antonomese
by this time, uh twenty year old fellow by the
(28:17):
name of Maurice Vidal Portman. They went through the island
in search of local people, and they had again some
of people from the greater An Dynomese population guiding them.
So what did they find. Well, the first thing they
came upon were a network of pathways where people had
(28:38):
been traveling by foot. Um there were several freshly abandoned
villages that they that they saw again with with nobody around,
they kept surveying the island they found and it had
fertile soil, there were groves of tropical hardwoods and this
this gentleman Portman didn't see a single human being other
(28:59):
than the people that he brought to the island. So
was it a ghost island? Maybe, but I don't think so. Eventually,
after several days of searching, the party discovered just six
Sentinel Ease. It was an elderly couple and they had
four children with them. And you know, as as they
(29:19):
tended to do, I guess in the colonial path, they
abducted these six people and they took them with them. Yeah,
they took them, the parents and the children. The father
was by far the oldest of the six. They took
them back onto the vessel with them. But as soon
(29:40):
as they were leaving the island, probably because they were
exposed to new UH diseases, the family fell ill, rapidly ill.
The parents died, and so in a strange move, Portman
and co. Sent the four surviving children back home with
(30:00):
presence the likes of which the Sentinel East community had
probably never seen before. And he talked about them in
a really smug condescending way, he said. You know, he
didn't feel particularly bad about it. He was annoyed by
what he considered to be their mannerisms and idiotic expressions.
That that's his choice of wording there. And they did
(30:23):
send four unaccompanied children back to an island that, to
their observation, was uninhabited. Oh yeah, I didn't even think
about that part. Just go lord of the flies kids,
We'll see you later. Wow, here's a here's a doll
with your presence. And Portman did go on to visit
the island several more times. In August of eighteen eighty three.
(30:45):
Uh they In August of eighteen eighty three, a volcanic
explosion was mistaken for the sounds of gunshots and possibly
a distress signal, so several search parties go out. Portman's
search vessel lands on North Sentinel Island. The native people hide,
(31:08):
He doesn't see anyone, most importantly doesn't see a ship
in distress. So they just leave more gifts on the
shore and they depart. And then over the span of
eight five seven he visits a few more times, and
in his way, in a very smug, condescending way, Matt
he grows fond of the natives, and we have a
(31:29):
quote when he was explaining how is his chilly heart
had warmed to them. In many ways, they closely resemble
the average lower class English country school boy. As you see,
I've only ever seen them running away except for those
four children and the two parents that I killed with
(31:50):
my diseases. So the beginning of that quote is absolutely true.
But I think the whole thing really captures the spirit
of where is coming from. Right, Maybe a little more
self aware than he was at the time, but then
you know, there's a relative period of calm because why
would you go so far out of your way to
(32:11):
visit this place? Yeah, there's there doesn't seem to be
any interaction that happens, at least if you've read the
stories or reports of the previous interactions or lack of
so yeah, no no reason. However, in eighteen s three
escaped Indian convicts fled that Port Blair that we mentioned before.
They got on a makeshift raft and they drifted about
thirty miles to North Sentinel Island. Here's the deal. Two
(32:35):
of the fugitives drowned in the reefs that are surrounding
the island. Again, that we've mentioned before, the one guy,
the one survivor, made it to the beach, only to
be killed by the natives. By by the natives. Ostensibly
nobody probably saw this, I'm assuming, but but that's what
appeared to have happened. A British party later spotted and
(32:58):
retrieved his body, and they noticed that it was pierced
with with arrows and his throat was cut. Yep. And
after this, North Centinal Island was left alone for another
almost hundred years. But what happened after that, There's more
to the story, will continue after a word from our sponsor.
(33:25):
So meanwhile, for the rest of civilization that was not
part of the community on North Sentinel Island, a bunch
of stuff was happening, you know what I mean. Amazing inventions,
new depths of human depravity, wars, peace, beautiful moments. Some
(33:45):
of the most amazing people in history are born and forgotten.
And the people on this island have not only no
real idea about it, but they just don't want to
be forced to participate in this whole human experiment. In
nearby India, in nine the country finally gains independence from
(34:08):
British rule, and with this it gains control of the
Andamans and the Nicobar Islands, including North Sentinel Island. So
things are pretty hectic when you become a newly independent country.
And they didn't really get to the concept of North
Sentinel Island or the mysterious people living on it for
(34:30):
about twenty years and uh in nineteen sixty seven, an
Indian anthropologist named Triloth Pondit was summoned by the governor
of the Andaman Islands for a major expedition to North
Sentinel Islands. Ponda was offered the opportunity to become the
first anthropologists to land there, accompanied by armed police, naval officers,
(34:56):
too large patrol boats and inflatable rubber ding ease to
get around the reef without breaking up a ship and
getting trapped. Not so good against arrows though not so great, Yeah,
not so great against arrows. Later in life, pondits when
he's talking about why he agreed to do this. He says,
(35:17):
there was a feeling that we were trying to establish
friendly contact, which would be considered an achievement at the
government level. So on the first expedition, the Sentinel Ease
retreat into the jungle and they disappear because they know
this better than any non native ever would. There's no contact.
So the party leaves gifts of buckets, cloth, and candy
(35:40):
in the empty huts of the village. But they also
they also steal some stuff. They called it collecting, but
they stole some stuff, and they left blankets and things
that could have been tainted. As we found with the
American native populations, something as simple as a blanket can
hold a lot of pathogens, can be a actor for disease, right,
(36:01):
So what what kind of stuff did they take? They
took bows, arrows, There was a basket, and even the
painted skull of a wild boar. And they were like,
this is ours. Enjoy the things, the candy. Uh yeah,
And then they return another trip. On the nine March,
(36:23):
Ponda and his party find themselves trapped on the reef
flats between North Sentinel Island and Constant Islet. Constance Islet
was just a little bit away from the actual island itself,
and that when we talked about how the island grew
a little bit larger after the two thousand four earthquake
(36:48):
and Snami, the same way that the Grinch's heart grew
a little bit larger at the end of the film spoilers. Now,
the islet is attached to the island, but beforehand you
could get lot in between there, just to give the geography.
So they were certain that they were going to be attacked.
This is it, thought Pandit and company, So pendit or Pandit.
(37:14):
I want to be clear that we are not native speakers,
so may be mispronouncing this name. Uh. They were certain
that this was going to spell the end and that
they were going to die in the pursuit of this
great anthropological experiment. But something unexpected occurred. So at first
(37:38):
they see that the they see that two of the
natives who were just sort of observing them have realized
that they're stuck, and more people come out of they cover,
more men, more warriors, threatening to shoot at them, you know,
brandishing their arrows. Uh. And so they tried to appease
(38:01):
them by giving them fish that they had caught, but
that didn't work. More more dudes were coming at them,
getting closer and closer to shoot uh. And when they
got fish, some of them started to calm down, but
other people weren't having it, and they were still hostile there.
(38:28):
So they were still taking the fish, but then just
picking the bows back up and getting ready to kill them.
So the guys were thinking, eventually, we're gonna run out
of fish, right. But then, at this moment this is
a quote from an eyewitness account in the seventies, At
this moment, a strange thing happened. A woman paired off
with a warrior and sat on the sand and a
passionate embrace. This act was being repeated by other women,
(38:51):
each claiming a warrior for herself, a sort of community mating,
as it were. Thus did the militant group diminish. This
continued for quite some time, and in the tempo of
this frenzy dance of desire abated. The couples retired into
the shade of the jungle. However, some warriors were still
on guard. We got close to the shore and through
some more fish, which were immediately retrieved by a few youngsters.
(39:13):
It was well past noon, so we headed back to
the ship. So they managed to survive, but they had
to watch something very weird, very interesting. I wonder what
kind of because it must be a show of force
in some way. I don't know. I don't know. I mean,
we're not anthropologist, man. Maybe it's just the time of day.
(39:36):
That was the thing that happened at that time. We
could we could just think about it all day long.
I think it's more like, I think there's gonna be
power in there somewhere, right, maybe a calming effect or
something I don't know. I don't know, maybe something ritualistic.
Who knows, who knows. We would like to hear your
theories as well. Right to his conspiracy how stuff works
(39:58):
dot com. They're also unproven murders or at least missing
person cases associated with the island. Oh yeah. In that
same year of nine seventy, there was a wreck that
was spotted on a coral reef right on the southeast
coast of the island, and after people were looking at
it to see what the heck is going on here,
it was concluded that the vessel had been just sitting
(40:20):
there for about seven or eight months, and there was
no sign of the crew, no sign of the fate
of the crew. So who knows. That one's just a mystery,
and I don't think we'll ever have a just a
concrete reason for why that happened. And then of course,
the big, the big deal, right, the big tent. As
(40:41):
far as the encounters go, it's we can tell you
the story of the encounter. That actually had video footage,
which you mentioned earlier, right, Matt, Yeah, it's one of
the only existing is really it's the only existing footage
that I have scene of the Sentinel Ease. It was
(41:02):
in the spring of nineteen four when there was a
visit by this team of anthropologists and they were filming
a documentary called Man in Search of Man, and there
was a National Geographic photographer with them. They're also armed
police officers. They actually wore padded armor. Um. They they
had under these jackets and again who's to say what
(41:23):
that does against arrows. Hopefully that would have been, you know,
some kind of protection, but who knows. Um. And there
is actual footage that you can see. I believe that's
the nineteen seventy four footage ulstits from earlier. It's the
only one that I've seen, I think. Then in September nine,
(41:44):
after both confirmed and suspected deaths at the hands of
the Sentinel Ease, the Indian government added this, uh this zone.
It's a five kilometer three mile exclusion zone around the
island and it's under the provisions of the Andaman and
Nicobar Protection of Aborigine tribes regulation. Um, it's called a
N P A t R. Yes, I love a good acronym. Right.
(42:09):
We should also add, you know, nobody died in the
nineteen seventy four incident, but I got shot through the thigh.
I think, uh, the that was their reaction to giving
the gifts. So it's interesting because before this exclusion zone exists,
and before it gets extended even we see this history
(42:29):
of people trying to peacefully hide, stay away from us outsiders.
And then at some point in this occasional you know,
every every few decades, every century or so, in this
occasional badgery and from the outside world, the sentinel East
stop putting up with this. Yeah, who knows what internal
(42:51):
folklore they've they have now for the people that come
and visit them every few decades. Yeah, there are there's Okay,
so there are a couple of Indie patients that they
might have some ancient myths similar to those of the
on gay But it's just in the The only way
we know is that when that two thousand and four
(43:11):
disaster occurred, they got to high ground, so they knew two.
They knew that some sort of natural disturbance was coming,
and that may be based on an oral history about
similar events in the distant past shared with the people
would later become known as the gay So that's possible.
(43:34):
But can you imagine, and we're entirely speculating here, Matt,
can you imagine what oral histories may exist now based
on those four kids who returned, right? I mean that
sounds insane. You know. They took me, they killed my parents,
they brought me back with this these strange beings on ships.
(43:54):
We saw things that looked like this that we have
no way of really scribing to you, right, And these
deaths at the hands of the Sentinel Ease residents still occur.
In two thousand six, two men were illegally fishing from
mud crabs off the coast and North Sentinel Island, and
(44:16):
the Centinel Ease killed them. An Indian Coast Guard helicopter
tried to go retrieve the bodies, and it was warded
off by bows and arrows and ambitious explorers. An anthropologists
attempting to make first contact may have already violated the
(44:37):
prime directive in some ways. They may have accelerated the
age of the the civilization and culture on the island,
and by age. I don't mean just age in terms
of numbers, I mean the technological age. They may have
gone from the Stone Age to something else, because we
have to remember these are people. They may be living
(44:57):
differently than many other people in planet, but that doesn't
make them not human. They're still really smart because human
beings are for the most part, insanely super villain level
brilliant in comparison to other living things. And that means
that they took salvaged metal and they made weapons, they
(45:18):
made ornaments, they made jewelry. But as we as we
get to the end of today's show, we know that
the the they in today's episode is the sentinel ease people,
and the stuff they don't want you to know is
(45:38):
anything about how they live, or what their lives are like,
or what they think about you, specifically you, specifically Matt, Paul,
Noel and I as well. They want to be left alone.
And is that so bad? What should happen to the
residents of the island. We're asking you. Should they be
(45:59):
left to own as is apparently their desire, or is
it too late already? Will they need assistance as local
wildlife dies out? As oceanic biodiversity decreases, you know, when
like like, it's all well and good to say that
we should leave this community alone. But some people would argue, well,
(46:22):
what if environmental catastrophes make their way of life unsustainable?
Does the human species have a responsibility to help the
people on this island? Yeah, I think they're too. I
I see these sides and both of these arguments. Personally,
I'm more on the leave them alone side. Every everything
I have ever witnessed about this, this sort of situation
(46:46):
tells me that it's it's okay to not want to participate.
You shouldn't force people to do stuff. I think there
there is a point to be made about perhaps they
are just protecting their own and their territory rather than
really not wanting to be contacted. You know. Yeah, the
(47:07):
Indian government has never prosecuted them for any of these murders,
by the way, and they are murders, or you could
call them cultural self defense. But when we ask this question,
we also have to ask I don't want to tilt
the scales too much, but we also have to ask
ourselves what happened to the other indigenous peoples of these
(47:31):
island groups when outsiders contacted them? Well, we have one
example that's not the same in in really many respects,
but we can see the effects that civilization has had
on them. They're called the Jarwah. There were a native
tribe and native and Iman tribe, and there is a
(47:51):
They live on one island where there is a road
that goes through their reservation essentially on this island. They're
kind of in the center of the island, and then there's, uh,
there're like some tourist areas and other Indian locals who
live on the outer side at the outer rim of
the island, and there's some civilization out there. And this
road that goes right through their reservation was in use
(48:13):
for a while, but then it was decided by the
Indian government that hey, we should not use this road anymore.
We're we're interrupting the life of this tribe, this relatively
uncontacted tribe, because I think was the first time that
they were officially contacted um. But then tourism kind of
(48:33):
became the thing where this road began. They they these
companies started taking human safaris down this road where they
would get in you know, vans at large jeeps and
pay people money to take these trips. To perhaps get
a chance look at some of these tribes people just
living their lives and looking at them as though they're
(48:56):
in a zoo or something. Um, it's a pretty horror
find thought, especially just it's it feels very icky first
of all. But then the second thing is that you
are disturbing these people in their way of life. Every
time a single vehicle goes by on this road that
they make an encounter. Um, it's it's pretty crazy. You
(49:18):
can also just grab a taxi by the way and
go through there. You do have to get through a
military checkpoint and you are not allowed, at least according
to the authorities there and all the signs they put up.
You're not allowed to take any pictures, photography or video
of the Jarwi tribe, which is I guess a good thing,
But how do you police you know that many people
(49:39):
and that many vehicles going through at the time. It's
just not great. And the other thing are destination resorts
which are all around these islands, specifically those nine islands
that are inhabited um or I guess eight. But um
there are resorts and there's a tradition for local peoples
(50:00):
who live on these islands. People's of I guess Western
civilization who burn their refuse, that's what they do. They've
got you know, they're small residences and they burn their trash.
These larger resorts, though, make so much trash that there's
no way to really burn it with without creating massive issues.
So then it becomes a different massive issue where it's
(50:22):
just a giant pile of trash. And there are multiple
resorts around this these islands. So anyway, that's just the
one thing to think about. If North Centinel Island ever
becomes contacted to the point where there are buildings and
businesses being put up on the island, we can kind
of see what might happen to the tribe, right, Yeah,
(50:44):
you can also in addition to the point you've made
met you can you can also check out videos of
some of these native people being taunted to dance for
food and uh and similar things like that. So the
question is, now that we know the stuff they don't
(51:06):
want you to know on the Sentinel east side, what
is humanity to do? Is the government of India correct
to create this exclusion zone and to force all traffic
to keep this island essentially lost in time? Or should
(51:28):
something else be done? If so, what, and if so how?
We we don't have the answers. I mean, clearly, Matt,
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're
also on the side of leave them alone. Yes, but
I'm aware of the inevitability that they will I mean,
they will be engulfed by civilization at some point. Time
(51:51):
is very long and humanity expands ever so well, let
me ask you this, what if what if someone and
in the population decides to build several boats, and what
if they under their own power going to the outside world.
But then, you know what I mean, it's different because
(52:12):
that goes both ways, this human need for expansion. So
at this point we don't know the answers. No one does.
We wanted to introduce you to one of the most
secret places in the world, right one of the one
of the places where you most likely will never get
to travel and if you do get a chance, just
(52:35):
and probably you shouldn't write I'm I'm having a tough
time saying that. I know it's the right thing to do. Matt,
I know you're right, but again we want to hear
from you. Thank you so much for tuning into the show.
Friends and neighbors, fellow conspiracy realists. You can find us
on Instagram, you can find us on Twitter, you can
(52:57):
find us on Facebook, especially our commune d page. Here's
where it gets crazy, and in a lot of those
places we are conspiracy stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show. You
can also give us a call and leave a message,
and you might get on the show. You might hear
us directly answer to your voice. Hopefully that's what we'll
be doing. All you have to do is give us
a call one eight three three s T d W
(53:19):
y t K. And if none of that quite bags
your badgers, you can always go relatively old school for
the modern age and email us directly. We are conspiracy
at how stuff Works dot com.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Noel
is off on an adventure that we can't disclose yet,
but soon they called me Ben. We are joined with
our super producer, Paul Decant Paul Wilson Decade. Maybe is
that appropriate for this episode? Matt, you mean you're talking
about the soccer ball? Yes? Most importantly, you are you
(00:47):
and you are here, and that makes this stuff they
don't want you to know. Today, we are diving into
something that Matt, you and I explore during our video series. Yes,
and it's I think our fifth most popular video that
we ever made. Really, Yes, almost a million dollar views
(01:07):
at this point. All these smokes still not going to
beat that. Uh what about Satan? Yeah, Satan will always
be at the top. And I'm kind of I feel
very fortunate for both of us that not that many
people watched the instructions on How to Get Away with Murder? Yes,
less than fifty I want to say great, but that's
(01:29):
still a lot of people. That's a lot of people,
and we do. We we do tell people not to
commit murder, right, we do. At some point in that one,
we can take it down. Do you want me to
take it down? I know, you know. I I feel
like we did a good job, is the thing? Okay,
a moral notions aside. It does feel like we did
(01:52):
a good job. But yes, we did a video on
North Sentinel Island several years ago, more years than I think. Well,
you probably don't, Matt. When do we do that one?
I believe it has been a minute since I looked
at it. It's been a while. Uh So, North Sentinel
Island has a mystery to it, and if you have
(02:16):
seen our earlier video, you might have an inkling about
what we're going to dive into today. But to get
to this mystery, we have to first explore human beings.
Oh that sounds good. Yeah, that's great. Human beings are
a species that loves to talk about itself. And that's us,
(02:38):
that's you, that's you doo uh and yes, specifically you.
So human beings. Our species exist to some degree on
every continent, which is insane when you think about it.
Our tremendous ability to adapt to inhospitable environments has spread
us across the planet, and the modern age, technological breaks
(03:00):
allow us to communicate instantaneously regardless of our physical location.
I mean, just just think of all the podcasts that
have Like you and I prefer to hang out in
person in the room, but there are many very successful,
very fascinating podcast with hosts that rarely see each other
(03:20):
in person, much like stuff you missed in history class. Yeah,
that's that's actually I'm surprised I didn't think about that. Yeah,
one of our host is based in Atlanta on that show,
and the other in Boston, and they can communicate pretty
much instantaneous. Sounds like they're having a conversation in the room.
And one more thing I just want to add here
we're talking about the humans us living on all these continents,
(03:42):
we also live on islands that aren't considered a continent
all over the planet. That's true. That's true, and even
in those spaces people can communicate thanks to technology. Modernity,
it seems, is contagious. But here's the fascinating and somewhat
(04:02):
disturbing thing. As we've spread farther and farther, some groups
of humans also became isolated those geographical boundaries bedeviled us,
impassable mountains, shifting ice, dense dangerous jungles, rising seas, and
treacherous currents to your point about islands, right, all all
(04:22):
played a role in keeping some groups of human beings
hidden from the progress and the curses of global society.
And you know, we've all, like you've heard these stories,
right we even without thinking of a specific one. We've
all heard the stories wherein some intrepid explorer encounters a
tribe of people who had no knowledge of the outside world. Right.
(04:46):
I remember thinking that these were relatively I don't know,
fictionalized things growing up, like fair not I don't want
to say fairy tales, but fictional adventure stories. Yes. There,
They're depicted in film and in um books all over
the place, various fictional ones and nonfictional encounters of this sort.
(05:10):
And the I think that line gets blurred a little
bit in our in our popular culture of what what
a real encounter looks like, in what a u a
played up one looks like for the screen. Right, That's
a very important point in the modern age. It seems
like these events and encounters, whether they were truthful, whether
they were fiction, or whether they were a blend of
(05:33):
the two, usually to make someone from the West feel
more important about themselves or less like they were colonizers
or less like they were colonizers. That's true regardless. Nowadays,
it seems like most of these events are encounters are
going to be relegated to history books. In short, everyone
(05:56):
has met everyone or is aware of everyone, right, we
all get it. Everyone is at least aware enough that
there's an outside world. Like a tribe, most most tribes
of isolated people are aware that there's an outside world
with some technology in it. Right. And it is sadly
true that there are many countries that people in other
(06:19):
countries aren't very much aware of, you know, like you've seen,
especially European media gives people in the US a real
devil of a time with this. And you can see
numerous YouTube compilations of Americans being asked to point to
a country on the map on the world map and
(06:40):
getting it cartoonistally wrong. That's a little bit of a stereotype. Well,
I promised, people are I promised the editors are cherry
picking that for all our non American listeners. We certainly hope,
so we certainly hope so. And regardless of how hilarious
those videos might be. Matt, your point, I would say,
is absolutely correct. We are aware of the other We
(07:03):
are aware that it exists. There will be a you know,
the majority of people who live in China will probably
never travel to the States, and the majority of people
who live in the States will probably never travel to China.
But both are aware that the other country exists and
is a real thing. Thank you television and Internet. Thank
(07:23):
you television and to add books. Yes, uh, in a
world though, where everything is rapidly urbanizing, right, I think
it was what while you and I were first working together,
the shift occurred in the majority of human beings began
to live in cities. Yes, we've been working together for
(07:43):
a long time, and it sounds like around that's when
we we went past market. Yeah, by of the world's
population lived in an urban area. And that shift is
pretty crazy, right, pretty recent too. Yeah, it's it's definitely
(08:04):
um a condensing of humanity into these places that, for
better or for worse, do really well for various economies
and for populations, but not so great in a lot
of other ways. You know, pollution, crime, you know, a
lot of those things right right exactly, And in this
(08:26):
in this world where there are increasingly fewer isolated populations
and a larger number of densely let's say, densely combined populations,
we can understand why people would think there there are
no more uncontacted tribes. There are. Many people say that's
(08:49):
a myth because so many anthropologists of the past and
days of yore wanted to be the first outsider to
encounter some group. That probably that has happened, right, But
a a hard definition of an uncontacted tribe, as in
someone who's some group that has never seen nor, as
(09:10):
they say in Tennessee, heard tell of any other group.
The odds of that still existing are are preposterously low, right, yeah.
And I think a lot of that has to do
with something as simple as Google Maps, where you can
you can open it up and you can see every island.
Because we have the satellite imagery, we know that that
(09:31):
island exists there, but wherever it is as isolated as
it is, that island exists here in this program. So
obviously somebody's been there, right, that's the assumption at least,
or you could go there. So why why wouldn't have
someone gone there already. Right, and then there's that related point.
Maybe there are any uncontacted tribes, but maybe the human
(09:55):
experiment has grown so large that there aren't even any
really isolated tribes anymore. Yeah, right, that's the assumption. That's
a safe assumption. But the problem is that could not
be further from the truth. Today's episode concerns a particular
community that you may not have heard of on a
tiny island off the coast of India, one that is
(10:17):
lost to time again. It's called North Sentinel Island. It's
relatively tiny. It's just seventy two square kilometers that's square
miles um. And it's well that's before the two four earthquake.
Because the the landmass changed slightly, they're expanded and it's
(10:37):
a part of the Andaman Archipelago. This is a grouping
of the Endeman and Nicobar Islands. It's located at the
crux of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Now,
just we're gonna give you some degrees here so you
can find it on your globe if you've got one handy.
There between six degrees and fourteen degrees north latitude and
ninety two degrees and ninety four degrees east longitude. Now
(11:00):
that's four hundred kilometers from mainland India on one side,
that's like a hundred and seventy miles, and then a
thousand kilometers from Thailand, and that is about six hundred
and twenty one miles, so it's kind of in the
center of those. Basically, if you zoom out far enough
on Google on Google Maps, and you draw a line
(11:20):
between the center of in this case, I'm using Sri
Lanka because it's like the island at the bottom of
India there and to the center of Thailand, this will
be located pretty close to the center of that line.
Just if you're looking at Google Maps or something, and
it's in these these two sets of islands, the Andaman
and the Nicobar Islands. It's it's some of the most
(11:42):
remote spots on the entire planet. Yes, some of the
islands around this area are referred to in one of
my absolute favorite books in the world, The Atlas of
Remote Islands. I highly recommend you check it out if
you are interested in exploration and remote locations. It's a
(12:05):
great book. But enough about that book. Uh, the islands
just on their own, there are what nearly six hundred
and only nine are open to foreign tourists, very very
rural locations in in addition to being very remote. But
but they are open to tourism. Those nine, those that
(12:26):
those come into play in the rest of our story. Yeah,
they're very much open to tourism. Uh, locals be damned, honestly.
And you might say, well, who owns this guys, I'm
I'm pretty good at pointing to countries on the map.
And I've never heard of a country called the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands. No worries trick question. There is no country.
(12:51):
It is a territory of India and it is controlled
by India's generally speakings composed these two islands. And think
about it in terms of latitude. So any of the
islands located north of ten degrees latitude are known as
Andaman Islands, while islands located south of that latitude are
(13:15):
called Nicobar Islands. Enough, that's pretty easy. Nominally, these territories
and the island we're talking about today, North Sentinel Island,
belong in the South and Men Administrative District, which is
again part of this Indian territory. The nearby South Sentinel
Island is uninhabited. It occasionally receives visitors, mostly adventurous divers
(13:41):
who were like the Alberto, lets go where no one
les like Overbend. I'm sure they don't sound like that,
and I'm sure they sound exactly like well, people who
people who want to adventure. No one lives there. And
here's the thing. Though, the Government of India legally possesses
(14:03):
both North and South Centinel Island and again all of
the and amens all of the Nicobar Islands. They do
not have any installations, no government, no scheduled route of
transportation to visit the area. People can visit South Centinel
Island and often probably sneak there just to dive for
(14:25):
a day or something like going without a lifeguard basically right,
But all the ships in the nearby area and all
the plains are banned from approaching North Sentinel Island through
the use of a three mile exclusion zone. Because you see,
unlike South Centinel Island, North Sentinel Island is inhabited. But
(14:51):
by who, you might ask, Well, we'll tell you right
after a quick word from our sponsor. Here's where it
gets crazy. The answer to your question, Matt, they posed
before the break is we don't really know the residents
(15:13):
of North Centinel Island. The Centinel Ees are one of
the most mysterious populations on the planet, and there aren't
many of them. Estimates range from as few as fifty
people to maybe as many as four hundred. The last
census that the Indian government conducted that touched upon that
(15:33):
area only found fifteen people, I think three women and
twelve men. But yeah, that that's something we're gonna see
here as we get into the story of the people
that you find when you're searching for people on North
Centinel Island generally aren't the all of the people that
(15:54):
are on the island, right, because you see when they
conducted that most recent senses, the way they conducted it
was by taking a boat, by getting special permission to
go inside the inclusion the exclusion zone, and then trying
to get close enough to see if there was anyone
on the shore, and then immediately high tailing it out
post haste. And there's a reason for that. They are
(16:17):
violently opposed to outside contact of any kind. This behavior
has been universally consistent for thousands of years they've resided
on this island, This population living in much the same
manner as their ancestors from millennia, and from what we
(16:37):
can guess, the Sentinel East people practice traditional hunting and
gathering with no I mean, I think it's a leap
to say no knowledge of agriculture but no practice of it. Yeah,
there there's no evidence of agriculture that's been seen in
the few times that people have actually gotten close enough
to check it out. Um. Their diet consists of mostly fruits, plants,
(17:01):
stuff that's found on the island, coconuts, forest plants. Uh,
sometimes they will. They've been known to eat sea turtles, fish,
some small birds, and wild honey. And some researchers compare
the Sentinel Ease to the on Gay tribe, which is
another tribe that's on the Enemonese Islands, that they're indigenous
peoples to one of the other islands. And we should
just say here that the Sentinel Leads that name is
(17:23):
a name given to them. If you were ever to
speak with one and could speak with someone of you know,
the North Sentinel Island, they would not call themselves that
right exactly this This culture has several barriers to communication, yes,
and we'll get to these, but they are an excellent
(17:45):
example of the one of the closest analogs that we
have to this population, at least we being the part
of the species that doesn't live on this island, we
who are forced to guess. So, like the Sentinels, they
were a hundred gatherers living out an ancient tradition, ancient
(18:09):
set of subsistence practices right that date back, by the
way to some of the earliest human civilization practices that
we know of today. So these are doing these people
are doing some of the first things that people did.
Still well, the Sentinel Ease, we suspect yes, yes, because
(18:35):
unlike the Sentinel Ease, the young gay were somewhat assimilated
to their detriment. In nineteen o one, the population was
registered at six hundred and seventy two. After colonization, there
were fewer than a hundred left. Ultimately, like the number
kept going down in the fifties, it was only a
hundred and fifty or so, and this was due to
(18:58):
the brutal acts of the Calling Nightser's also unanticipated factors
like exposure to non native diseases, which is one of
the biggest problems right right, right, It's one of the
problems with when Europeans came to the North and South
American continents, the same things occurred for them. It wasn't
a problem, it was a right. Yeah, well, I'm saying
(19:21):
for the native populations at the time it was it
was a horrific thing. And there's something else here that
on a personal level mystifies and disturbs me. And it
does it. It disturbs me because I can't explain why
(19:41):
it's happening, and I don't understand, and I don't think
that there's any technology that people would have had to
do this on purpose. There's something deeper at play. Well, anyway,
I'm too much preface here. Here's what's happening today. The
younger is still around, but a major cause of the
decline in population is both the changes in food habits
(20:04):
brought about by contact with the outside world. But here's
the scary thing. Nowadays they're one of the least fertile
and most sterile communities on the planet. About of married
couples or sterile on Gay women rarely become pregnant before
the age of infant, and child mortality is in the
(20:24):
range of now we could explain we we could explain
infinite and child mortality due to you know, quality of
life right for the family and for the mother, for
the kid, so on. But the idea that an entire
population without you know, some clear environmental cause just starts
(20:48):
to dwindle that way. Yeah, I don't like that at all.
It's frightening. It's it's not it's not something that I
can explain. I would welcome anybody to write to us
and let us know. You know, is there some epigenetic
factor at play. Did the community decide not to have children,
(21:09):
or is there some kind of outside force that's acting
on them in some way, clinical exposure of some sort
that they're unaware of, like forced sterilization, which many governments
have done, which would yeah, which would be explicable at
least that's a mundane cause. That's less scary than some
sort of switch turning, you know what I mean. So also,
(21:36):
the on Game have been victims of sexual exploitation and alcoholism,
forced labor, all the all the terrible and expected things
that happen often to these tribes. So there may be
a lesson for us to learn with the sentinel ease
(21:58):
through the perspective of the On Gay observers have compared
the Sentinelies community to communities that existed in the Stone Age.
They make weapons, they make tools. Uh, they're pretty badass
with bows and arrows. It's like three something feet they
can get you with an arrow. Yeah, yeah, four hundred
(22:20):
I think. Uh. They do not appear to make fire,
at least again from what we can observe. And their
language is unclassified, meaning it's unintelligible even to tribal communities
from close by islands. Like they brought an on gay
person there to attempt to speak with them, but they
(22:41):
either couldn't get close enough to understand the shouting because
of all the arrows, or they simply have been the
Sentinelies simply have been isolated for so long again for
thousands of years, and their language has become its own
un intelligible thing. Yeah, that's that. That is incredible because
(23:05):
that certainly doesn't happen. That's one of the least uh
regularly occurring things to have in a language that is
so isolated. That's incredible. Now, prior to to the European encroachment,
well that's what we're going to call it. There, Um,
there were ancient traditions by the tribes people who lived
(23:28):
around North Centinel Island that the people on North Centinel
Island were cannibals, the only gay they They apparently were
aware of North Centinel Islands for some time, but the
first European report didn't actually occur until seventeen seventy one,
which isn't that long ago, just before the United States
became a thing. That's true, Matt, I didn't think of
(23:51):
it in that perspective. Yeah. This British surveyor named John
Ritchie passed the island on a ship called the Diligent. Uh.
The Diligent was a hydrographic survey vessel owned by the
East India Company. Paul, can we get a spooky sound
effect when we say East India Company? Just booze? Just
(24:12):
put put some booze in there, perfect, that's appropriate. Yeah.
So Richie made one note where he essentially said he
saw a multitude of lights. We don't know if this
means fires, but he saw it from a distance. He
(24:32):
made a short note about it. The boat continued on
and no one in the West would make any sort
of reference to this island for another hundred years. It's
just the one guy was like, oh whoa, look at that.
That's a that's not water, that's definitely an island. So
we fast forward to March eighteen sixty seven, and that's
(24:54):
when Jeremiah Humphrey, he's the officer in charge of the
and Amonese, he journeyed to North s Little Island on
the trail of some convicts who escaped from this penal
colony that was there called Port Blair. And Okay, so
he he's approaching the island, he's escorted by police and
what they're called Great and Amnese, and these are tribes
(25:16):
people from like again, kind of like what we were
discussing before, a different tribe, but I guess similar enough
to where perhaps there could be communication. He saw some
ten men on the beach, naked, long haired, with bows
and arrows, shooting fish, and apparently the Sentineli's spot of
(25:39):
the boat and they hid, and the Great and Amnees
on board were visibly frightened and warned Mphrey, the leader here,
that the islanders had a reputation for cannibalism, and Humphrey said, yep,
I'm not going there. He never actually landed, yeah, which
was surprisingly smart of him, right to listen to the
(26:01):
experts in the area. He did have a police escort
with him, so it is fascinating that he didn't. But
I guess maybe he just wasn't he wasn't confident enough
in the people there with him. Sure, I don't know.
We'll also notice that at this point, despite this reputation
I'm sure it's largely exaggerated for cannibalism, the Sentinel Ease
(26:27):
are hiding, their avoiding and evading right there, not confronting.
And then also there's a note here they're described as
long haired by m. Free But when you see footage
of the Centinel Ease people today, there are no long
haired people. There's just a little bit of footage, And
(26:48):
you're right, so interesting because it seems as though things
are changing. In that same year again, eighteen sixty seven, UH,
an Indian merchant ship called the nineveh was surrect on
the reef surrounding the shore, and their captain was a
real piece of work. So eighty six passengers survived, twenty
crew members survived. They make it. They crash on that
(27:12):
reef surrounding the island. These are also very treacherous waters
and boom celebration time. UH. They survived these what one
and six people survived. On the third day, the native population,
which had been completely in hiding, attacks the captain. His
(27:32):
strategy is to take the ship's lifeboat and run away, yeah,
to get picked up by some other ship that's coming
by the passing brig And then a Royal Navy ship
came to rescue the remaining survivors who had held the
natives off by for several days by throwing stones and
brandishing sticks. And again this is a story that gets around,
(27:57):
so nobody else goes to that island for another third
teen years. Yes, and then in January eight eight, an
armed British expedition manages a successful landing on North Sentinel Island.
They're led by the officer in charge of the Antonomese
by this time, uh twenty year old fellow by the
(28:17):
name of Maurice Vidal Portman. They went through the island
in search of local people, and they had again some
of people from the greater An Dynomese population guiding them.
So what did they find. Well, the first thing they
came upon were a network of pathways where people had
(28:38):
been traveling by foot. Um there were several freshly abandoned
villages that they that they saw again with with nobody around,
they kept surveying the island they found and it had
fertile soil, there were groves of tropical hardwoods and this
this gentleman Portman didn't see a single human being other
(28:59):
than the people that he brought to the island. So
was it a ghost island? Maybe, but I don't think so. Eventually,
after several days of searching, the party discovered just six
Sentinel Ease. It was an elderly couple and they had
four children with them. And you know, as as they
(29:19):
tended to do, I guess in the colonial path, they
abducted these six people and they took them with them. Yeah,
they took them, the parents and the children. The father
was by far the oldest of the six. They took
them back onto the vessel with them. But as soon
(29:40):
as they were leaving the island, probably because they were
exposed to new UH diseases, the family fell ill, rapidly ill.
The parents died, and so in a strange move, Portman
and co. Sent the four surviving children back home with
(30:00):
presence the likes of which the Sentinel East community had
probably never seen before. And he talked about them in
a really smug condescending way, he said. You know, he
didn't feel particularly bad about it. He was annoyed by
what he considered to be their mannerisms and idiotic expressions.
That that's his choice of wording there. And they did
(30:23):
send four unaccompanied children back to an island that, to
their observation, was uninhabited. Oh yeah, I didn't even think
about that part. Just go lord of the flies kids,
We'll see you later. Wow, here's a here's a doll
with your presence. And Portman did go on to visit
the island several more times. In August of eighteen eighty three.
(30:45):
Uh they In August of eighteen eighty three, a volcanic
explosion was mistaken for the sounds of gunshots and possibly
a distress signal, so several search parties go out. Portman's
search vessel lands on North Sentinel Island. The native people hide,
(31:08):
He doesn't see anyone, most importantly doesn't see a ship
in distress. So they just leave more gifts on the
shore and they depart. And then over the span of
eight five seven he visits a few more times, and
in his way, in a very smug, condescending way, Matt
he grows fond of the natives, and we have a
(31:29):
quote when he was explaining how is his chilly heart
had warmed to them. In many ways, they closely resemble
the average lower class English country school boy. As you see,
I've only ever seen them running away except for those
four children and the two parents that I killed with
(31:50):
my diseases. So the beginning of that quote is absolutely true.
But I think the whole thing really captures the spirit
of where is coming from. Right, Maybe a little more
self aware than he was at the time, but then
you know, there's a relative period of calm because why
would you go so far out of your way to
(32:11):
visit this place? Yeah, there's there doesn't seem to be
any interaction that happens, at least if you've read the
stories or reports of the previous interactions or lack of
so yeah, no no reason. However, in eighteen s three
escaped Indian convicts fled that Port Blair that we mentioned before.
They got on a makeshift raft and they drifted about
thirty miles to North Sentinel Island. Here's the deal. Two
(32:35):
of the fugitives drowned in the reefs that are surrounding
the island. Again, that we've mentioned before, the one guy,
the one survivor, made it to the beach, only to
be killed by the natives. By by the natives. Ostensibly
nobody probably saw this, I'm assuming, but but that's what
appeared to have happened. A British party later spotted and
(32:58):
retrieved his body, and they noticed that it was pierced
with with arrows and his throat was cut. Yep. And
after this, North Centinal Island was left alone for another
almost hundred years. But what happened after that, There's more
to the story, will continue after a word from our sponsor.
(33:25):
So meanwhile, for the rest of civilization that was not
part of the community on North Sentinel Island, a bunch
of stuff was happening, you know what I mean. Amazing inventions,
new depths of human depravity, wars, peace, beautiful moments. Some
(33:45):
of the most amazing people in history are born and forgotten.
And the people on this island have not only no
real idea about it, but they just don't want to
be forced to participate in this whole human experiment. In
nearby India, in nine the country finally gains independence from
(34:08):
British rule, and with this it gains control of the
Andamans and the Nicobar Islands, including North Sentinel Island. So
things are pretty hectic when you become a newly independent country.
And they didn't really get to the concept of North
Sentinel Island or the mysterious people living on it for
(34:30):
about twenty years and uh in nineteen sixty seven, an
Indian anthropologist named Triloth Pondit was summoned by the governor
of the Andaman Islands for a major expedition to North
Sentinel Islands. Ponda was offered the opportunity to become the
first anthropologists to land there, accompanied by armed police, naval officers,
(34:56):
too large patrol boats and inflatable rubber ding ease to
get around the reef without breaking up a ship and
getting trapped. Not so good against arrows though not so great, Yeah,
not so great against arrows. Later in life, pondits when
he's talking about why he agreed to do this. He says,
(35:17):
there was a feeling that we were trying to establish
friendly contact, which would be considered an achievement at the
government level. So on the first expedition, the Sentinel Ease
retreat into the jungle and they disappear because they know
this better than any non native ever would. There's no contact.
So the party leaves gifts of buckets, cloth, and candy
(35:40):
in the empty huts of the village. But they also
they also steal some stuff. They called it collecting, but
they stole some stuff, and they left blankets and things
that could have been tainted. As we found with the
American native populations, something as simple as a blanket can
hold a lot of pathogens, can be a actor for disease, right,
(36:01):
So what what kind of stuff did they take? They
took bows, arrows, There was a basket, and even the
painted skull of a wild boar. And they were like,
this is ours. Enjoy the things, the candy. Uh yeah,
And then they return another trip. On the nine March,
(36:23):
Ponda and his party find themselves trapped on the reef
flats between North Sentinel Island and Constant Islet. Constance Islet
was just a little bit away from the actual island itself,
and that when we talked about how the island grew
a little bit larger after the two thousand four earthquake
(36:48):
and Snami, the same way that the Grinch's heart grew
a little bit larger at the end of the film spoilers. Now,
the islet is attached to the island, but beforehand you
could get lot in between there, just to give the geography.
So they were certain that they were going to be attacked.
This is it, thought Pandit and company, So pendit or Pandit.
(37:14):
I want to be clear that we are not native speakers,
so may be mispronouncing this name. Uh. They were certain
that this was going to spell the end and that
they were going to die in the pursuit of this
great anthropological experiment. But something unexpected occurred. So at first
(37:38):
they see that the they see that two of the
natives who were just sort of observing them have realized
that they're stuck, and more people come out of they cover,
more men, more warriors, threatening to shoot at them, you know,
brandishing their arrows. Uh. And so they tried to appease
(38:01):
them by giving them fish that they had caught, but
that didn't work. More more dudes were coming at them,
getting closer and closer to shoot uh. And when they
got fish, some of them started to calm down, but
other people weren't having it, and they were still hostile there.
(38:28):
So they were still taking the fish, but then just
picking the bows back up and getting ready to kill them.
So the guys were thinking, eventually, we're gonna run out
of fish, right. But then, at this moment this is
a quote from an eyewitness account in the seventies, At
this moment, a strange thing happened. A woman paired off
with a warrior and sat on the sand and a
passionate embrace. This act was being repeated by other women,
(38:51):
each claiming a warrior for herself, a sort of community mating,
as it were. Thus did the militant group diminish. This
continued for quite some time, and in the tempo of
this frenzy dance of desire abated. The couples retired into
the shade of the jungle. However, some warriors were still
on guard. We got close to the shore and through
some more fish, which were immediately retrieved by a few youngsters.
(39:13):
It was well past noon, so we headed back to
the ship. So they managed to survive, but they had
to watch something very weird, very interesting. I wonder what
kind of because it must be a show of force
in some way. I don't know. I don't know. I mean,
we're not anthropologist, man. Maybe it's just the time of day.
(39:36):
That was the thing that happened at that time. We
could we could just think about it all day long.
I think it's more like, I think there's gonna be
power in there somewhere, right, maybe a calming effect or
something I don't know. I don't know, maybe something ritualistic.
Who knows, who knows. We would like to hear your
theories as well. Right to his conspiracy how stuff works
(39:58):
dot com. They're also unproven murders or at least missing
person cases associated with the island. Oh yeah. In that
same year of nine seventy, there was a wreck that
was spotted on a coral reef right on the southeast
coast of the island, and after people were looking at
it to see what the heck is going on here,
it was concluded that the vessel had been just sitting
(40:20):
there for about seven or eight months, and there was
no sign of the crew, no sign of the fate
of the crew. So who knows. That one's just a mystery,
and I don't think we'll ever have a just a
concrete reason for why that happened. And then of course,
the big, the big deal, right, the big tent. As
(40:41):
far as the encounters go, it's we can tell you
the story of the encounter. That actually had video footage,
which you mentioned earlier, right, Matt, Yeah, it's one of
the only existing is really it's the only existing footage
that I have scene of the Sentinel Ease. It was
(41:02):
in the spring of nineteen four when there was a
visit by this team of anthropologists and they were filming
a documentary called Man in Search of Man, and there
was a National Geographic photographer with them. They're also armed
police officers. They actually wore padded armor. Um. They they
had under these jackets and again who's to say what
(41:23):
that does against arrows. Hopefully that would have been, you know,
some kind of protection, but who knows. Um. And there
is actual footage that you can see. I believe that's
the nineteen seventy four footage ulstits from earlier. It's the
only one that I've seen, I think. Then in September nine,
(41:44):
after both confirmed and suspected deaths at the hands of
the Sentinel Ease, the Indian government added this, uh this zone.
It's a five kilometer three mile exclusion zone around the
island and it's under the provisions of the Andaman and
Nicobar Protection of Aborigine tribes regulation. Um, it's called a
N P A t R. Yes, I love a good acronym. Right.
(42:09):
We should also add, you know, nobody died in the
nineteen seventy four incident, but I got shot through the thigh.
I think, uh, the that was their reaction to giving
the gifts. So it's interesting because before this exclusion zone exists,
and before it gets extended even we see this history
(42:29):
of people trying to peacefully hide, stay away from us outsiders.
And then at some point in this occasional you know,
every every few decades, every century or so, in this
occasional badgery and from the outside world, the sentinel East
stop putting up with this. Yeah, who knows what internal
(42:51):
folklore they've they have now for the people that come
and visit them every few decades. Yeah, there are there's Okay,
so there are a couple of Indie patients that they
might have some ancient myths similar to those of the
on gay But it's just in the The only way
we know is that when that two thousand and four
(43:11):
disaster occurred, they got to high ground, so they knew two.
They knew that some sort of natural disturbance was coming,
and that may be based on an oral history about
similar events in the distant past shared with the people
would later become known as the gay So that's possible.
(43:34):
But can you imagine, and we're entirely speculating here, Matt,
can you imagine what oral histories may exist now based
on those four kids who returned, right? I mean that
sounds insane. You know. They took me, they killed my parents,
they brought me back with this these strange beings on ships.
(43:54):
We saw things that looked like this that we have
no way of really scribing to you, right, And these
deaths at the hands of the Sentinel Ease residents still occur.
In two thousand six, two men were illegally fishing from
mud crabs off the coast and North Sentinel Island, and
(44:16):
the Centinel Ease killed them. An Indian Coast Guard helicopter
tried to go retrieve the bodies, and it was warded
off by bows and arrows and ambitious explorers. An anthropologists
attempting to make first contact may have already violated the
(44:37):
prime directive in some ways. They may have accelerated the
age of the the civilization and culture on the island,
and by age. I don't mean just age in terms
of numbers, I mean the technological age. They may have
gone from the Stone Age to something else, because we
have to remember these are people. They may be living
(44:57):
differently than many other people in planet, but that doesn't
make them not human. They're still really smart because human
beings are for the most part, insanely super villain level
brilliant in comparison to other living things. And that means
that they took salvaged metal and they made weapons, they
(45:18):
made ornaments, they made jewelry. But as we as we
get to the end of today's show, we know that
the the they in today's episode is the sentinel ease people,
and the stuff they don't want you to know is
(45:38):
anything about how they live, or what their lives are like,
or what they think about you, specifically you, specifically Matt, Paul,
Noel and I as well. They want to be left alone.
And is that so bad? What should happen to the
residents of the island. We're asking you. Should they be
(45:59):
left to own as is apparently their desire, or is
it too late already? Will they need assistance as local
wildlife dies out? As oceanic biodiversity decreases, you know, when
like like, it's all well and good to say that
we should leave this community alone. But some people would argue, well,
(46:22):
what if environmental catastrophes make their way of life unsustainable?
Does the human species have a responsibility to help the
people on this island? Yeah, I think they're too. I
I see these sides and both of these arguments. Personally,
I'm more on the leave them alone side. Every everything
I have ever witnessed about this, this sort of situation
(46:46):
tells me that it's it's okay to not want to participate.
You shouldn't force people to do stuff. I think there
there is a point to be made about perhaps they
are just protecting their own and their territory rather than
really not wanting to be contacted. You know. Yeah, the
(47:07):
Indian government has never prosecuted them for any of these murders,
by the way, and they are murders, or you could
call them cultural self defense. But when we ask this question,
we also have to ask I don't want to tilt
the scales too much, but we also have to ask
ourselves what happened to the other indigenous peoples of these
(47:31):
island groups when outsiders contacted them? Well, we have one
example that's not the same in in really many respects,
but we can see the effects that civilization has had
on them. They're called the Jarwah. There were a native
tribe and native and Iman tribe, and there is a
(47:51):
They live on one island where there is a road
that goes through their reservation essentially on this island. They're
kind of in the center of the island, and then there's, uh,
there're like some tourist areas and other Indian locals who
live on the outer side at the outer rim of
the island, and there's some civilization out there. And this
road that goes right through their reservation was in use
(48:13):
for a while, but then it was decided by the
Indian government that hey, we should not use this road anymore.
We're we're interrupting the life of this tribe, this relatively
uncontacted tribe, because I think was the first time that
they were officially contacted um. But then tourism kind of
(48:33):
became the thing where this road began. They they these
companies started taking human safaris down this road where they
would get in you know, vans at large jeeps and
pay people money to take these trips. To perhaps get
a chance look at some of these tribes people just
living their lives and looking at them as though they're
(48:56):
in a zoo or something. Um, it's a pretty horror
find thought, especially just it's it feels very icky first
of all. But then the second thing is that you
are disturbing these people in their way of life. Every
time a single vehicle goes by on this road that
they make an encounter. Um, it's it's pretty crazy. You
(49:18):
can also just grab a taxi by the way and
go through there. You do have to get through a
military checkpoint and you are not allowed, at least according
to the authorities there and all the signs they put up.
You're not allowed to take any pictures, photography or video
of the Jarwi tribe, which is I guess a good thing,
But how do you police you know that many people
(49:39):
and that many vehicles going through at the time. It's
just not great. And the other thing are destination resorts
which are all around these islands, specifically those nine islands
that are inhabited um or I guess eight. But um
there are resorts and there's a tradition for local peoples
(50:00):
who live on these islands. People's of I guess Western
civilization who burn their refuse, that's what they do. They've
got you know, they're small residences and they burn their trash.
These larger resorts, though, make so much trash that there's
no way to really burn it with without creating massive issues.
So then it becomes a different massive issue where it's
(50:22):
just a giant pile of trash. And there are multiple
resorts around this these islands. So anyway, that's just the
one thing to think about. If North Centinel Island ever
becomes contacted to the point where there are buildings and
businesses being put up on the island, we can kind
of see what might happen to the tribe, right, Yeah,
(50:44):
you can also in addition to the point you've made
met you can you can also check out videos of
some of these native people being taunted to dance for
food and uh and similar things like that. So the
question is, now that we know the stuff they don't
(51:06):
want you to know on the Sentinel east side, what
is humanity to do? Is the government of India correct
to create this exclusion zone and to force all traffic
to keep this island essentially lost in time? Or should
(51:28):
something else be done? If so, what, and if so how?
We we don't have the answers. I mean, clearly, Matt,
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're
also on the side of leave them alone. Yes, but
I'm aware of the inevitability that they will I mean,
they will be engulfed by civilization at some point. Time
(51:51):
is very long and humanity expands ever so well, let
me ask you this, what if what if someone and
in the population decides to build several boats, and what
if they under their own power going to the outside world.
But then, you know what I mean, it's different because
(52:12):
that goes both ways, this human need for expansion. So
at this point we don't know the answers. No one does.
We wanted to introduce you to one of the most
secret places in the world, right one of the one
of the places where you most likely will never get
to travel and if you do get a chance, just
(52:35):
and probably you shouldn't write I'm I'm having a tough
time saying that. I know it's the right thing to do. Matt,
I know you're right, but again we want to hear
from you. Thank you so much for tuning into the show.
Friends and neighbors, fellow conspiracy realists. You can find us
on Instagram, you can find us on Twitter, you can
(52:57):
find us on Facebook, especially our commune d page. Here's
where it gets crazy, and in a lot of those
places we are conspiracy stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show. You
can also give us a call and leave a message,
and you might get on the show. You might hear
us directly answer to your voice. Hopefully that's what we'll
be doing. All you have to do is give us
a call one eight three three s T d W
(53:19):
y t K. And if none of that quite bags
your badgers, you can always go relatively old school for
the modern age and email us directly. We are conspiracy
at how stuff Works dot com.
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