The Lost City of Z: 4 versions of where Percy Fawcett went

Ever since the Europeans first arrived in the New World, stories about the legendary golden city in the jungle, which was sometimes called Eldorado, never ceased to go. The Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana was the first to travel the Rio Negro in search of this legendary city. And in 1925, at the age of 58, explorer Percy Fawcett, his son Jack and their friend, went to the jungle of Brazil to find the mysterious lost city, which Percy Forsett called the "city Z". He and his team will disappear without a trace, and the history of their journey will be one of the biggest mysteries to this day.

More than a dozen expeditions subsequently went to find out the fate of the lost expedition. For some, the “Fawcett Search” has become an obsession, even a kind of profession.

Percy fawcett

Fawcett's expedition was expected back until 1927, but when she was unable to return, rumors began to spread. Colonel crazy? Was he captured by cannibals? Or perhaps he decided to stay among the tribe of Indians who now considered him their leader?

So, 4 versions of what happened from the rescue expeditions.

Colonel Fawcett was killed by the Indians

In the first year after the disappearance of the colonel, a rescue group was organized, led by commander George Miller Dyott. Dyott called his group "Suicide Club" and he attracted a huge number of volunteers looking for adventure. Dyott took Fawcett's trail in a Bakairi village and proceeded through the desert of Central Brazil to the Amazon forest, but was eventually driven back by hostile Indians and forced to retreat due to lack of supplies. From what he saw in the Kalapalo tribe in the Upper Shingu Basin, and finding around the Indian's neck a copper tablet with the name of the company that supplied the weapons to Fawcett, he decided that the colonel and others were most likely killed. These findings were detailed in Dyott’s book, Hunting for a Man in the Jungle - A History of the Search for Three Researchers Lost in the Brazilian Jungle (1930).

What for?

Someone claims that his son Jack violated some kind of tribal taboo, because of which he and the whole expedition were later killed. Or they could have been killed for their rifles by apostate soldiers roaming the woods as a result of the recent revolution in the area. The Indians gave very conflicting information. But no evidence was found.

Was captured by the Indians

Criticism of Forsett's youngest son, Brian

Colonel Fawcett (second left) with expedition members

In his book, Brian generally quite sharply assesses the expedition of his father. He criticizes him for historical unprofessionalism: he claims that he has no idea "how much was based on research, how much on personal knowledge and how much on the clairvoyants of clairvoyants."

The most sensational version

In 2002, a Czech theater director named Misha Williams told the press that the Fawcett family had given him exclusive access to their archives. What he discovered was a revelation. It seems that Brian Fawcett, in conspiracy with the rest of the Fawcett family, deliberately hid his father’s footprints in Fawcett’s Intelligence by including the false coordinates of Fawcett’s last known position. The reason for this, Williams claimed, was that the family always knew that Fawcett never intended to return, but instead hoped to create a utopian commune deep in the jungle, part of what he called his "Great Scheme." This new society, according to Fawcett's family documents, will be based on the theosophical principles of Blavatsky, which the colonel studied. Williams argued that the Fawcett family’s reluctance to divulge the truth was caused by the fact that the world was simply not ready for such sensational news.