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Thread: Explorer Benedict Allen missing in Papua New Guinea

  1. #1
    Administrator Olivia's Avatar
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    Explorer Benedict Allen missing in Papua New Guinea

    https://www.facebook.com/BenedictAll...rer/?ref=br_rs

    A British explorer has vanished on a quest to reach a lost tribe of headhunters.
    Benedict Allen was dropped by helicopter into the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea three weeks ago and has not been heard of since.
    His wife Lenka is frantic with worry because he is supposed to have started his journey home by Sunday.
    The 57-year-old father of three, who has explored the Gobi desert and the Amazon in a lifetime of adventuring ? once eating his own dog to survive, has no phone or GPS device.
    He was on a mission to reach the Yaifo ? a tribe thought to be one of the last on Earth to have no contact with outsiders.
    They live in the crocodile-infested jungles of East Sepik, a province lacking proper roads or navigable rivers.
    Mr Allen, who has made six TV series for the BBC, was expected back in the capital Port Moresby on Sunday for a flight to Hong Kong to give a speech at its branch of the Royal Geographical Society.
    ?His wife Lenka has not heard from him,? said his agent Joanna Sarsby. ?She is very worried. He would never miss something like the Hong Kong talk unless something had happened.
    ?He is a highly experienced explorer, very clever and resourceful and adept at surviving in the most hostile places on Earth, and he would never give up. He may not be a young man any more but he is very fit.
    ?He was trying to reach the Yaifo people, a very remote and reclusive tribe ? possibly headhunters, quite a scary bunch. Goodness knows what has happened.
    ?I just imagine he might have been taken ill or is lying injured somewhere, perhaps with a broken leg, and maybe being helped by locals. He never takes a phone with him ? he believes in living like the locals. For him not to come back is really odd.?
    Mr Allen and his Czech-born wife married in 2007 and have a house in Bristol with their children Natalya, ten, Freddie, seven, and Beatrice, two. Before meeting his wife he briefly dated Mick Jagger?s ex-wife, model Jerry Hall.
    His adventures include the first documented journey the length of the Namib Desert and being the only person known to have crossed the full width of the 1,000-mile Gobi Desert with camels alone.


    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz4yRmtXi3R

  2. #2
    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    This sounds so much like some crazy movie. Why would you seek out Headhunters? Doesn't their name kind of give you an indication that you might not be welcome and that things might end up going bad?
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    That is too pretty to be shoved up an ass.
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    You can take those Fleets and shove them up your ass



  3. #3
    Moderator puzzld's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Babe 73 View Post
    This sounds so much like some crazy movie. Why would you seek out Headhunters? Doesn't their name kind of give you an indication that you might not be welcome and that things might end up going bad?
    Yeah. Darwin award from the Steve Irwin division. I admire people who take risks to help others, you know, the guys who run into burning buildings, head into the back country to help flood victims or people with ebola. But this is just dumb.
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    lol at Nestle being some vicious smiter, she's the nicest person on this site besides probably puzzld. Or at least the last person to resort to smiting.
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    Why on earth would I smite you when I can ban you?

  4. #4
    Moderator Bewitchingstorm's Avatar
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    His last tweet told people to not look for him:

    Marching off to Heathrow. I may be some time (don't try to rescue me, please - where I'm going in PNG you won't ever find me you know...)
    https://twitter.com/benedictallen?re...-a8056666.html
    Last edited by Bewitchingstorm; 11-15-2017 at 07:14 AM. Reason: Added content from tweet

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    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bewitchingstorm View Post
    His last tweet told people to not look for him:



    https://twitter.com/benedictallen?re...-a8056666.html
    Well, seems like he wasn't wrong.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    That is too pretty to be shoved up an ass.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    You can take those Fleets and shove them up your ass



  6. #6
    Administrator Olivia's Avatar
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    The wife of British explorer Benedict Allen has said their three children are "seriously worried" about their father.

    Mr Allen has not been heard from since he was dropped by helicopter into the remote jungle of Papua New Guinea three weeks ago.

    He had been trying to reach the Yaifo, a reclusive tribe that he had met on a similar trip about three decades ago.

    His wife Lenka Allen told the Daily Mail their children - 10-year-old Natalya, Freddie, seven, and two-year-old Beatrice - regularly ask when their father is coming home.

    Mrs Allen told the newspaper: "The little one, Beatrice, is always saying 'Daddy' and she's trying to telephone him on my mobile, looking at his photo on the screen.

    "They all sense the tension in the flat and they are worried deep down.

    "The two other ones, they are saying: 'When is daddy coming so we can go shopping, just me and you, and Daddy can babysit', that sort of thing. But of course now they know he's in danger, they are seriously worried."

    She added that "everything possible" is going through her head, fearing he had been bitten by a snake, got lost or contracted an illness - but added: "He does know a lot about the jungle."

    Mr Allen, 57, has no phone or GPS service but was expected back in Papua New Guinea's capital Port Moresby on Sunday for a flight to Hong Kong, where he was due to give a speech to the Royal Geographic Society.

    His most recent Twitter post on 11 October read: "Marching off to Heathrow. I may be some time (don't try to rescue me, please - where I'm going in PNG you won't ever find me you know...)"

    On Wednesday, his sister, Katy Pestille, told Sky News that it was the second time he had gone missing.

    She recalled: "When he was younger he went from the mouth of the Amazon to the mouth of the Orinoco, through all this uncharted terrain. He was the first person to do that. It's a long, long way and he was absent for six months and missing for three, so we've been through all this before.

    "Not knowing where he was for three months was really, really awful. This was when he was about 22. Our parents were alive then and it was agony at the time.

    "We are just sitting and waiting and just hoping that he'll just walk out of a bush, which is what happened last time."

    https://news.sky.com/story/missing-e...rried-11128301

  7. #7
    Administrator Olivia's Avatar
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    Ok scrap that, he’s alive

    http://dailym.ai/2ARv5gO

    I hope nobody pays for this crap, except for him

  8. #8
    Administrator Olivia's Avatar
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    Publicity stunt

  9. #9
    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Olivia View Post
    Publicity stunt
    I agree. It's a little too puffed up and convenient.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    That is too pretty to be shoved up an ass.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    You can take those Fleets and shove them up your ass



  10. #10
    Moderator Bewitchingstorm's Avatar
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    What a douche.

  11. #11
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    This is weird? Maybe the guy started to lose it or something, but by all accounts he's experienced in working as a journo in remote places, so it's strange he wouldn't take the usual precautions & advise authorities on where/when he was intending to travel?

    - unless his real intention all along was to cross the border into West Papua & report on the atrocities taking place there? The area he was supposed to be going to is kind of in the direction of the border.

    *If* he intended to head for the border, I guess it could also explain him not taking appropriate communication equipment with him? - they don't let international journalists into West Papua, if he'd been caught over there by Indonesian security forces & they realised he'd worked for the BBC in the past, he could've found himself in a really bad situation, especially with no-one even knowing where he was - he made it pretty easy for them to disappear him without an international incident.


    He doesn't seem to do political reporting though , so I guess we just won't know WTF was going on unless local people come forward with sightings during his "missing" period.



    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-1...ration/9163516

    PHOTO: British explorer Benedict Allen has been found safe in PNG's Enga province. (AP: Andy Butterton)
    An experienced Kokoda track tour operator says a British explorer who got lost in Papua New Guinea should have had more appropriate communications equipment with him, adding that his story does not add up.

    Fifty-seven-year-old Benedict Allen had gone to a remote part of the northern Enga province to meet up with the Yaifo tribe, who he described as having little or no contact with the outside world.

    When he failed to turn up for a scheduled flight out of the country three weeks ago his family raised the alarm, and media around the world ran items about him, with some using words like "cannibal" and "headhunter".

    He was located late on Tuesday near Porgera.


    Kokoda track tour operator Charlie Lynn said things "just didn't add up" in the story of Allen's disappearance.

    "I thought 'Here we go again, we've got another British explorer or reality star wannabe going to Papua New Guinea to try and generate a sensational story, using the thing of remote jungles and crocodile infestation and cannibals and getting lost and then later on getting found'," Mr Lynn said.

    "He's supposedly an experienced explorer, he's been there before, but to go into a remote area of Papua New Guinea without a GPS; and apparently he didn't make any plans for his own evacuation if he needed it, and he didn't let anybody know where he was going.

    "He broke all the rules of survival ? I just can't fathom that."


    Mr Lynn said the story fuelled negative perceptions of the country in the international media.

    "I've got to say, Papua New Guinea don't help themselves a lot but they're the victims in these scams, if you like, where people come in and they make out they're backward jungle cannibals living in remote tribal areas and so forth," he said.

    "It's just grist to the mill for a sensationalist newspaper report and it certainly gets international attention.

    "I think it has a hugely negative impact on the perception of safety that people have for Papua New Guinea."

    Mr Lynn said he had never had an incident in 26 years of going to Papua New Guinea.

    "But there are rules that you don't break when you go up there, otherwise you're going to get into trouble," he said.


    PHOTO: A family in Enga Province, PNG. (Supplied: Care Australia)

    Who Is Benedict Allen?

    Allen has filmed a number of his adventures for the BBC and written books on exploration.

    He has also done presenting work for the History Channel and Channel 5 in the UK.

    On his website, Mr Allen described himself as an "adventurer" or just as a "cat who's used up six of his nine lives".

    He ventures include journeying the length of Namibi Desert and crossing the full width of the Gobi.

    In 2010, Mr Allen became a trustee and member of council of the Royal Geographical Society.

  12. #12
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    & just in case, if anyone thinks it sounds like crazy conspiracy shit to suggest Indonesia might go to extreme lengths to stop journalists reporting on the atrocities it commits while it brutally occupies small, impoverished countries, read up on the executed Australian journalists now known as the Balibo Five

    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2...-five-40-years

    Also the U.S & U.K journos who (after being beaten during the killings) risked their lives to smuggle footage of the Dili/Santa Cruz massacre out of Indonesian-occupied Timor-Leste

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/worl...este-1.3286091
    Last edited by blighted star; 11-17-2017 at 10:47 PM.

  13. #13
    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    This only solidifies with me that this was all a publicity stunt.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    That is too pretty to be shoved up an ass.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    You can take those Fleets and shove them up your ass



  14. #14
    Senior Member pinkhair4me's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by puzzld View Post
    Yeah. Darwin award from the Steve Irwin division. I admire people who take risks to help others, you know, the guys who run into burning buildings, head into the back country to help flood victims or people with ebola. But this is just dumb.

    AND he ate his own dog!!!

    Why would you even PUT yourself OR your dog in a situation where eating him is even an option?! Leave the poor dog at home, you asshole! GOD this pisses me off !!!' Can't really feel sorry for him now.
    [quote author=thanatos link=topic=5272.msg211093#msg211093 date=1172939327]<br />Thank you! Good Karma for you! I&#39;m sick of everyone using &quot;bi-polar&quot; as an excuse for violent behavior. Pet peeve here. :2angry:<br />[/quote][quote author=Olivia link=topic=5272.msg

  15. #15
    Senior Member pinkhair4me's Avatar
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    Well look who decided to show up.

    Next time, I hope they never find his body.
    [quote author=thanatos link=topic=5272.msg211093#msg211093 date=1172939327]<br />Thank you! Good Karma for you! I&#39;m sick of everyone using &quot;bi-polar&quot; as an excuse for violent behavior. Pet peeve here. :2angry:<br />[/quote][quote author=Olivia link=topic=5272.msg

  16. #16
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    I couldn't decide if he was attempting genuine investigative political journalism on West Papua, or whether he's just an absolute wanker who thinks he's 2017's answer to those pompous old colonial explorer/anthropologists who'd swan into Indigenous communities, take advantage of their hospitality (& use up scarce food/resources) while they recorded patronising, ignorant interpretations of their host's culture/lifestyle etc

    You know the kind I mean





    A lot of them used exaggeration & misrepresentation as an advertising tactic - which is how they maximised public interest before the inevitable appeals for donors to fund another urgent expedition into the "deepest, darkest jungles" to find a "lost" tribe


    I guess I was hoping he did this for commendable reasons vs him just being an exploitative, colonialist prick.


    But at this point all he's missing is the pith helmet & waxed moustache.

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