Scientist Finds A Decades-Old Puzzle Deep In The Rainforest

Renowned explorer Julian Bayliss always dreamed of grand adventures: the kind that would allow him to travel the world and see sights never before seen by humans. Often he would scroll through Google Maps, daydreaming about the possibilities. And one afternoon he noticed something that stopped him cold.

Looking at the top of the distant Mount Lico in Mozambique, he spotted something truly odd and remarkable: an entire rain forest. And what's more, he was pretty sure that no one had ever been there before!

Even more intriguing, the sides of the cliff were steep and seemingly impenetrable. If Bayliss was right, this was his chance to go where no man had gone before. What he didn’t yet know was that there was a very good reason for that. 

Bayliss got straight to work assembling a team of superstars. The 28-person expedition included scientists, doctors, rock climbers, and even a chef. What they all had in common? They were the best in the world at what they did.

To get to the base of the mountain, the researchers first traveled through villages, negotiating with locals and navigating rough terrain. Without the benefit of roads, they abandoned their vehicles and continued, completely unaware of the horrors in the darkness ahead.

After finally reaching the base, they found that the mountain was so tall they couldn’t even see the top. Standing at over 400 feet, Mount Lico is taller than two Leaning Towers of Pisa combined. One misplaced step could be fatal.

For Jules Lines, the most accomplished free-soloist rock climber in the world, the trip to the top took just eleven minutes. For the less experienced, the journey took two hours. The climb tested them, but the psychological terrors were still lying in rest.

Upon reaching the peak, the team was filled with awe: thousands of butterflies swarmed around them, beating their multicolored wings in unison.The 84-year-old butterfly expert, Collin Congdon, was overjoyed. On its surface, Lico appeared to be a beautiful place filled with life.

Soon, the crew’s discoveries began to shift from wonderous to disturbing. Poisonous caterpillars crawled into tents and shoes. There were rats the size of cats, with long tails and pointed teeth. And then there were the spiders. Thousands of spiders everywhere they turned.

One day, botanist Johnathan Timberlake felt a sharp sting and looked down to see his leg covered in pooling blood. A blade of grass had cut him. Without advanced medical care, and hours away from any hospital, Timberlake tried to quiet his growing worries. 

The next day, his leg his whole body burned. He was weak and feverish, but needed medical care at the base camp. The team strapped him into the harness and began the arduous process of bringing him down, not sure if they would see their friend again.

By the time Timberlake had made it down the 400-foot cliff and through the jungle, he had a fever and was hallucinating. The doctor, fearing the worst, cleaned his wound and treated him with antibiotics. All there was left to do was wait.

Miraculously, Timberlake made a full recovery, though he decided to spend the rest of the expedition at the base camp. What he didn’t know was that he may have been one of the lucky ones. On top of the mountain, the trouble was just starting...

They hadn’t anticipated the strange and horrifying creatures they came to encounter on the mountain, and a lack of birds made the forest eerily silent. The only audible sound was their own footsteps, trudging through the darkened jungle.

Then came the discovery that completely changed everything they thought they knew about Mount Lico. Walking along a stream beneath the thick brush of trees overhead, one of the team members shouted out in exclamation. He had found something truly inexplicable.

Nestled along the water's edge were three handmade pots on this supposedly unexplored mountaintop. Bayliss felt a cold chill go down his spine. As a scientist, he was usually ready for the unexpected, but he could feel something sinister lurking beneath the surface.

The team got to work on solving the mystery. Some of them guessed the pots had been used for religious ceremonies that beckoned the rain during a dry year. The explorers asked locals if they'd ever heard of anyone attempting to climb Lico before.

To their surprise, the elderly natives did have some clues. They spoke fearfully of a tribe of murderous little people who used to live up on Lico. When the villagers approached the mountain base, tribe members would throw snakes on them.

They also recalled an incident in which Portuguese soldiers attempted to climb up, only to fall violently to their deaths when tribe members cut their ropes. However, some locals had even more macabre theories about what happened on that mysterious mountain all those years ago.

The elders told a story of German colonizers who forced a group of locals to flee to the mountaintop. Once they were up there, the Germans did something that amounted to a death sentence.

The colonizers cut the rope the villagers used to climb up. They were left stranded with little food and no way to return to their homes. They were cursed to wait out the rest of their lives starving, huddled in a cold dark forest.

Bayliss and his team shuddered. They had gone to the mountain to experience beauty and take in the wonder that nature had to offer. Little did they know, this supposedly untouched oasis was actually tainted by a tale of horror and human aggression. But it's not the only time humans have tested their limits when it comes to surviving in the untamed wilderness. Halfway across the world, a tragic accident in the Amazon left one young girl stranded alone in a malicious jungle, proving nature is as savage as beautiful.

In 1971, German citizen and respected South American bird researcher Maria Koepcke planned a holiday vacation with her 17-year old daughter, Juliane. Leaving from Peru, their itinerary was simple — but it turned completely deadly.

Maria (left) planned to meet up with her husband (right) for Christmas, so she booked tickets on the Peruvian airline Lineas Aéreas Nacionales S.A., or LANSA. A time before Yelp and Google reviews, the ornithologist didn't know the airline's reputation.

See, during the '60s and '70s, LANSA was the fastest way to travel from one Peruvian city to another; however, despite offering frequent flights, the airline was plagued with fatal mishaps.

In 1966, for instance, LANSA Flight 501 careened into a mountain, killing all on board. A few years later, LANSA Flight 502 crashed. Of the 100 passengers, only one survived, and the crash took the lives of two more people on the ground.

Yet, even with its history, LANSA was still the go-to airline. In December 1971, Flight 508 took off from the capital city of Lima. With a small crew and less than 100 passengers — including Maria and Juliane — the takeoff went as planned.

But any hopes of a safe trip were dashed just 40 minutes into the flight, when the small plane flew into a thunderstorm. Suddenly, a bright light lit up the aircraft — lightning had struck the fuel tank!

The right wing of the plane broke away as passengers let out screams. Christmas gifts and luggage were sent flying into the storm as the pilot lost the last bit of control. The plane nosedived. Juliane and Maria held each other tight.

In an interview with BBC's Outlook, Juliane vividly remembered the crash. Her mother said, "That is the end, it's all over." Then, tragically, her daughter was ripped from her side as Juliane's seat was pulled from the carriage. She flew into the storm before plummeting to the earth. Everything went black.

When Juliane awoke, she found herself still strapped to her seat — and completely alone. She was alive...somehow. It seemed the dense jungle had broken her fall, enough to allow her to survive. She took stock of her injuries.

Her collarbone was broken, and there were deep wounds along her legs and arms. Even worse, with her glasses lost in the crash, the near-sighted Juliane had to navigate with bad vision. Her first instinct was to locate her mother.

Juliane called out, but the only sounds she could hear were that of the jungle. She had to think of a new plan. If she could find help, then maybe they could locate her mother and any other survivors.

Wearing only a short, sleeveless dress and sandals, Juliane tried to shake away any fears. After all, she had spent over a year with her family at a research center in the Amazon. She wasn't a stranger to the Peruvian jungles, so she pulled from her knowledge.

Because her sight was limited, Juliane used her sandal to strike the ground before her in an effort to scare away any dangerous creatures. Half-blind, she stumbled into the crash site, where she searched for any food or water. The only thing she could find were some candies.

So, she kept moving. After finding a creek, Juliane stayed in the waters and followed it downstream, a safer approach than staying on land. During the day, the sun burned her. At night, she froze. But she had a strong will to survive.

On the fourth day, Juliane recognized the sounds of a king vulture. She knew from her parents' research that from the predator bird, a large mass of dead flesh was nearby. Juliane was horrified when she saw what the birds had noticed.

The crash site. Passengers were still strapped to their seat, but unlike Juliane, the fall had rammed them into the ground, headfirst. Juliane got close enough to see that her mother was not among them. She continued on, her injuries getting worse.

Maggots were all over her wounds, causing infection, and, on the 10th day, as she wandered into a river, Juliane questioned her sanity. Up ahead, she saw something that truly didn't make sense.

There was a motor boat in the near distance, docked along the riverbank. A mirage, she thought. Who would live out in the dense Peruvian jungle? As she neared the boat, however, she realized it was very real. Her stomach turned. Did she want to meet the owner?

Desperate and nearing death, Juliane investigated. After finding a small path, she found a hut with a gasoline can nearby. She remembered her father had used gasoline on the wound of a family pet once, which gave her an idea.

The pain was sharp as Juliane sucked gasoline out of the can and tried to clean her wounds as best as she could. Exhausted, she passed out right there in the hut, unaware she was crashing an occupied home.

The next morning, local boatmen discovered her in the hut, bloody, covered in maggots, and smelling like gasoline. They were frightened, believing her to be a water spirit from their folk tales.

Weak, Juliane talked to the boatmen in the little Spanish she knew. Thankfully, they understood. The men did their best to treat her wounds, and, after a seven-hour boat ride, brought Juliane to a hospital. When she finally saw her father, they hugged in silence.

After a rescue party found Maria Koepcke's body, Juliane learned her mother had indeed survived the plane crash but for only a few days. Juliane is still haunted by what her mother's final days must have been like. No one fared well in the Amazon.

Juliane kicked her own experience around in her head. Was there something she could've done differently to save her mother? The teenager managed to escape with her life and proved she had the gut instincts to survive the impossible. Even more impressive, she revisited the site of her near-death experience years later.

Seeing the same Peruvian jungle again, this time, through adult eyes, was surreal to Juliane. Film director Werner Herzog documented her harrowing story in the documentary Wings of Hope. Fans couldn't believe that Juliane managed to survive the jungle let alone the 10,000-foot fall. Yet that very same year, another girl survived a plane crash... only she fell 33,000 feet.