Scientists, adventurers, and explorers have always come up with some pretty crazy ideas. Sometimes they were right and other times they were way out in left field. While we may expect some pretty whacked out expeditions from well over a hundred years ago, there were surprisingly plenty of strange adventures that occurred as recently as the 1900s.
Man Eating Tree
In the 1800s, amateur adventurers would travel the world and write home, telling unbelievable stories about what they saw. That was the case when a visitor to Madagascar in 1878 wrote a letter claiming that he saw a tree eat a human woman. Apparently, the tree had a cone of nectar, much like the pitcher plant, and when a human was lured in to have a sip, the tree would crush the human with its door-sized leaves and begin consuming the remains.
Roughly fifty years later, the Marshall Field Anthropological Expedition visited Madagascar to find this deadly tree. Almost sadly enough, the tree was just a myth and its existence was never confirmed. [SOURCE 1]
50 Man Mars Expedition
The first landing on the moon happened in 1969, but in 1951 top scientists were already planning a grand expedition to Mars. The scientists met in London and, with the help of Nazi rocket expert, Dr. Wernher von Braun, made plans to build a space station that would orbit Earth. They would then use a fleet of 46 rockets to deliver supplies to the station to build another ten spaceships. These spaceships with “low powered motors” and seventy men would begin to build a space station to orbit Mars. Fifty of the men would be left behind on the Mars station with enough supplies and equipment to make periodic trips to Mars. The whole thing could be accomplished in three years, according to their math. [SOURCE 2]
Search For Sea Monsters
If giant squids are real, the Sargasso Sea would be the place to find them, according to a newspaper report published in 1925. The Arcturus, a steamer ship, was leaving New York City on an expedition to find giant sea monsters, like those from out of Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”
The goal was to capture the giant squid and the ship claimed it was equipped with numerous appliances to get the job done. Any other strange creatures that were encountered would also be captured. In fact, the ship was stocked with cages of all sizes and had plans to stop at Sierra Leone and Liberia to collect birds and reptiles. [SOURCE 3]
Mammoth Hunt
The idea of hunting for the remains of mammoths, frozen in the ice and snow of Siberia, is far from strange. It actually sounds rather exciting, but the stories that inspired the start of the mammoth expedition in Russia are bizarre.
Immediately before the expedition was formed in 1908, a local village reported on the remains of a frozen mammoth. The beast’s head, leg, and chest were exposed to the air, but before scientists could reach it, local foxes fed on the ancient meat. While much of the mammoth remained intact and was rescued from the ice, scientists wanted a whole specimen.
Incidentally, a whole mammoth had been found by a chief back in 1799. At first, the chief was frightened by the large beast frozen in ice, but he eventually decided to wait out the thaw and inspected the frozen mammoth periodically. After five years the ancient animal was free of the ice. The chief and his people cut off its mighty tusks to sell. They also salvaged the meat, which they cooked and ate. All that remained were the bones, and those were gnawed on by the hungry foxes of the region. [SOURCE 4]
Looking For A Real Tarzan
In 1938, newspapers across the globe exploded with news of a real live Tarzan living in the jungles of India. It was claimed that he had a “strange control over animals” and an expedition was set up to go and find the man.
According to a hunting party, they got lost in the jungle when they heard a piercing cry. Some of the men climbed up the trees to see what the noise was and they saw a large, ape-like man who was well over six feet tall. A tiger approached the large man and the man put his arms around the tiger in an embrace.
Being idiots, the huntsmen fired shots at the tiger and scared both the tiger and the ape man away. [SOURCE 5]
China’s Apeman
Just as some people are fascinated with Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman, China has its own Ape Man that has led to numerous expeditions by the Chinese Government. They want the creature found and have offered up a reward for it, either dead or alive.
A newspaper report in The Canberra Times from 1984 stated that another expedition was heading out in search of the Ape Man. A 1981 expedition had brought back proof of the creature’s existence, and it was now time to capture the creature to finally prove that it was not just a myth.
Luckily for the Ape Man, it remained unfound. [SOURCE 6]
Tropical Canadian Valley
Stories were circulating throughout Canada that somewhere in the northern parts of British Columbia there were tropical valleys. These valleys were like any tropical land. They were warm year round and held tropical plants and animals. The valleys were supposed to be paradises hidden in the chill climate. As impossible as the stories sounded, in 1931 an expedition was being put together to explore the valleys in search of these beautiful, warm paradises.
While nothing more was reported about the exploration, we can all pretty much guess that the expedition was, sadly enough, unsuccessful. [SOURCE 7]
Live Dinosaurs
It has been the dream of many scientists and adventurers to prove that somewhere, in some distant, wild land, large dinosaurs still exist. So, it is not surprising that in 1920 it was announced that Captain Stevens of the British Army, was leaving on an expedition to Africa to find living dinosaurs. Many believed that if the dinosaurs still existed, they would be in the heart of Africa because it was mostly unexplored at that time.
While it would be easy for us to laugh off a search for dinosaurs from nearly a hundred years ago, there was another dinosaur hunt expedition reported in 1980. This time, two scientists were planning to head to the Congo after reports of a dinosaur sighting. [SOURCES 8, 9]
Lassetter’s Lost Reef
In the mid 1920s, Harold Lassetter began to tell a strange tale to anyone who would listen. Roughly twenty years earlier, he had discovered a gold reef in central Australia. He showed the reef’s general location on a map to co-workers and neighbors, and he made plans to head out and find it again.
The expedition was ready to find the reef in 1930, but the men never made it. There were arguments within the camp and some of the men claimed that Lassetter was nothing more than a charlatan. When all was said and done, Lassetter was left alone in the desert to find his lost reef. His remains were found inside a desert cave in 1931. He had never made it to his destination.
A newspaper report from 1937 showed that another expedition, the Cutlack air expedition, went out in search of the lost reef of gold. They returned several weeks later and the accompanying geologist, Dr. G. Harris, said, “The lost reef was a fable and it would be best to forget it forever.” [SOURCES 10, 11]
Crocker Land
The members of the Crocker Land expedition were safe, it was reported in 1917. The expedition, led by Professor MacMillan, had left for the North Pole in 1913 and were in search of Crocker Land, but they had no luck in finding it. It turned out that Crocker Land was really a load of crock.
As the story goes, explorer Robert Peary claimed he spotted the land, a new continent, in 1906 and named it after the man who was sponsoring his expedition. Other explorers went off to find this new land, “the last continent,” and, of course, none were successful. It is believed that the sighting of Crocker Land was merely an illusion and the story grew to greater proportions among explorers who were itching to find a new land to claim. [SOURCES 12, 13]
