In our modern age of satellite imagery and aircraft, it is incredibly easy to explore and map out new locations. In the past, though, the job fell to small expeditions of well-equipped people. Relying on nothing but their log, some rations, and a handful of mapping tools, these groups would often spend months, if not years, traversing new frontiers and recording what they found. These voyages were extremely perilous, and many ended in disaster.

A few, though, suffered an even stranger fate: They disappeared from the face of the Earth entirely. Some have since been discovered—often centuries later—but others remain missing. The mysterious disappearance of Percy Fawcett, for example, has led as many as 100 other explorers to their deaths and still hasn’t been solved.^[1] Here are ten expeditions that mysteriously disappeared.

10 Madoc

Several centuries before Columbus sailed to the Americas, a Welsh prince named Madoc departed Wales with ten ships and a dream of discovering a new land. Madoc was the son of King Owain Gwynedd, who had 18 other sons, some of them bastards. Madoc was one of the bastards. When King Owain died in 1169, a civil war broke out between the brothers over who should be the next king. Madoc, a peaceful man, assembled a party of other peace-lovers and set out to find new lands. According to the legend, he returned in 1171 with stories of his adventures and attracted more people to go with him on a second expedition, from which he never returned.^[2]

The story, which was first recorded in a Welsh manuscript in the 1500s, is shadowy on the details, but some people believe Madoc and his men landed in the vicinity of what is now Mobile, Alabama. In particular, stone forts along the Alabama River have drawn attention since they were built before Columbus’s arrival, but some Cherokee tribes say they were built by “White People.”

Some speculate that Madoc and his followers joined with and were assimilated by the Mandan Native Americans. Several rumors surround this myth, such as the alleged similarity between the Mandan language and Welsh. Governor John Sevier of Tennessee wrote a report in 1799 detailing the discovery of six skeletons encased in brass armor bearing the Welsh coat of arms, which may have been a hoax. If they were real, they would be the most solid evidence we have for the potential fate of Madoc’s expedition, which otherwise remains a mystery.

9 Vivaldi Expedition

It’s now a well-known fact that Columbus wasn’t searching for America when he left Spain; he was expecting to find Asia. And two centuries earlier, in 1291, that was also the goal of the Vivaldi expedition. Departing from Genoa, the two brothers, Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi, and their followers hoped to reach India by navigating around the southern tip of Africa. They outfitted their expedition with enough food for ten years of travel, so they clearly expected to be gone for a long time. They passed through the Strait of Gibraltar in mid-1291 and were never seen again.^[3]

There were several attempts to discover the fate of the expedition, the first led by Lancelotto Malocello in 1312. He voyaged as far as the Canary Islands, where he built a fort and remained for over two decades without seeing any trace of the lost brothers. Sometime in the early 1300s, Ugolino’s son, Sorleone, went in search of his missing father and uncle. According to some sources, he may have made it as far as Mogadishu, but he, too, found no trace of them.

Another mention of the expedition appears in 1455, when the explorer Antoniotto Uso Di Mare said he’d met a descendant of a survivor who’d traveled with the brothers. According to him, the brothers had made it as far as Senegal, where they were captured and held captive for the rest of their lives.

8 Abubakari Expedition

The expedition of Abu Bakr II (also known as Mansa Qu), ruler of the Mali Empire, is surrounded by controversy. The best evidence we have for it comes from the Arab historian Shihab al-Umari, who met with Mansa Musa, Abu Bakr’s heir, in Cairo in the early 1300s.^[4]

According to Mansa Musa, his father refused to believe that there was no end to the ocean and outfitted an expedition of 200 ships full of sailors, food, and gold to find its edge. Only one ship returned. According to the ship’s captain, they saw a roaring waterfall in the middle of the ocean which seemed to be the edge. His ship was at the back of the fleet. The rest of the ships were sucked in, and he only escaped by rowing backward. The king refused to believe him and outfitted 3,000 ships to try again, this time traveling with them. He made Mansa Musa regent in his stead but never returned.

Several historians have suggested that Abu Bakr’s expedition reached the Americas, supported by a legend among the native Taino people of Hispaniola of black people who arrived before Columbus with weapons made of an alloy containing gold. Others have dismissed the claims, however, saying that no archaeological evidence of any such connection has ever been found. One thing is certain: Abu Bakr never returned to reclaim his kingdom.

7 Cabot’s Final Expedition

John Cabot is famous today for being the first European to discover North America since the Vikings. Cabot’s history-making voyage most likely landed in Bonavista, Newfoundland, in June 1497. In a manner which loosely resembles the Moon landing, the crew left the ship only briefly to plant the Papal banner and claim the land for England before returning to their ship and spending the next few days exploring the coast from the water. When they returned to England, Cabot was hailed as a hero and received £10 as a reward—the value of about two years’ wages for the average laborer—and a pension of £20 a year.^[5]

Despite his fame, the fate of John Cabot remains unknown to this day. We know from contemporary sources that Cabot outfitted a second expedition to the New World, this one made up of five ships. They left Bristol in May 1498 with a cargo mostly comprised of items to trade. The last mention of Cabot and his men came from the Spanish envoy in London two months later, who reported that the fleet was caught in a storm and that one ship had to stop in Ireland. The rest of the fleet went on.

He may have never returned, since no further records of John Cabot survive—not even to say that he was missing. Some speculate that he returned to England and lived there for some years afterward. Research into his final fate is ongoing, but the latter theory is at least supported by the fact that one of the men who was supposed to accompany him on his final voyage, Lancelot Thirkell, was living in London in 1501.

6 Franklin’s Lost Expedition

In 1845, the British explorer Sir John Franklin set off with a small team to navigate the last unmapped part of the Northwest Passage. Traveling on the HMS Erebus and the aptly named HMS Terror, they departed England in May. Their fates weren’t known until 2014.^[6]

The loss resulted in a flurry of activity in Britain from both the public and the government. The Admiralty organized three search teams in 1848, one by land and two by sea, but they were unsuccessful. Repeated attempts to find them would continue until the final search team was launched with public backing in 1857. (By this time, the government had declared the whole team deceased.) Through conversations with the local Inuits, some of whom had items which had belonged to the crew, they learned that the ships had become trapped in the ice. Franklin himself died in 1847. The remainder of the crew left the ships and, after wintering at King William Island, began a desperate hike back toward civilization on the Canadian mainland, a trek which resulted in the deaths of all involved. According to analysis of some of the bones, it seems the crew resorted to cannibalism.

The truth wasn’t known for sure, though, until Canadian researchers rediscovered the HMS Terror in 2014. The ship was in almost pristine condition—so great, in fact, that it would probably still float if the water was drained from it. The find suggests the ship was abandoned in an orderly manner. The crew most likely relocated to the HMS Erebus, where they made a futile attempt to sail out of the icy water before eventually being trapped again. After that, they were forced to continue on foot.

5 Eudoxus Of Cyzicus

The ancient world was more connected than we often realize. Even before the rise of the Roman Empire, the ancient Greeks were trading with India. While sailors from either country couldn’t make it the whole way, they often met in trade ports along the coast of Yemen, where the Greeks would trade for aromatics and other luxuries to bring back home.

In 118 BC, an Indian sailor was shipwrecked in the Red Sea and brought to the court of Ptolemy, the Greek ruler of Egypt. With the sailor’s help, a Greek explorer, Eudoxus of Cyzicus, made the first recorded voyage to sail directly from Egypt to India.^[7] He made the voyage again in 116 BC, this time navigating without Indian help. This was important in the history of trade across the Indian Ocean: Within a few decades, the sea trade between Greece and Rome and ancient India had increased markedly.

During this second voyage, he was blown off course and ended up sailing along the African coast. While there, he encountered a shipwreck which he concluded, based off native stories and the ship’s design, must have come from Spain. He thought it must have journeyed around the southern tip of Africa. Ever the adventurer, he decided to attempt the same journey. After he’d made his way overland to Spain, his first attempt failed after he ran into difficulties along the Morrocan coast and was forced to return. He tried again shortly after and never returned. It was the first recorded attempt to circumnavigate Africa, a feat that wouldn’t be attempted again for over 1,000 years.

4 Peter Tessem And Paul Knutsen

In 1919, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was venturing along the northern coast of Russia as part of an expedition when one of his crewmen, Peter Tessem, began suffering chronic headaches. As a result, he was left on Cape Chelyuskin with another explorer, Paul Knutsen, who’d traveled the area before.^[8] Roald was confident that they would make it to the nearby town of Dikson, which was just over a month’s journey away. Paul Knutsen knew the locations of supply caches that had been left in the area, so the two should have been in no danger.

By 1920, however, the two men still hadn’t arrived in Dikson. The Norwegian government organized a search party shortly after but found nothing. The Soviets launched their own search in 1921, which found a Norwegian sled and a letter written by the men stating they were in good health but otherwise found nothing.

By sheer chance, a Soviet research team found the scientific equipment and data that the men had been entrusted with in 1922. Some time later, they found the body of one of the men. While they couldn’t identify it, it was wearing a gold watch engraved with Tessem’s name. The body was found within sight of Dikson. They reburied it further up the slope. Today, the site is marked by a granite monument engraved with Tessem’s name.

3 The Corte-Real Brothers

Gaspar Corte-Real was part of a family of Portuguese explorers: His father had discovered what was most likely North America in 1473, and by the time Gaspar was old enough to sail, he joined his brothers and became an adventurer.

In 1500, the Portuguese king, Manuel, sent Gaspar on an expedition to find the Northwest Passage to Asia. North America was largely unknown territory at the time, and when Gaspar encountered Greenland, he mistook it for Asia.^[9] Without landing, he turned back and gathered a larger crew for the journey. This time, he brought with him two other ships and his older brother, Miguel. They made their way toward Greenland but, hampered by ice on the water, were forced to turn south, where they most likely landed in Newfoundland. They took 57 natives captive, planning to sell them as slaves. Gaspar sent Miguel back with two of the ships to take their captives back to Portugal, carrying on south alone. He never returned.

A year later, Miguel headed back to Newfoundland to find his brother, but he, too, disappeared. Because of their success, however, the Portuguese government became heavily interested in North America and funded several other expeditions to the seas around Newfoundland before they were eventually driven out by French and English settlers.

2 George Bass

George Bass was a surgeon and navigator who played an important role in the mapping of Australia’s coast. Traveling aboard the HMS Reliance between 1795 and 1798, he studied and made records of the plants and animals in Australia, confirmed the presence of coal in Sydney, and identified the strait between New South Wales and Tasmania, which was later named after him. His many achievements led to him being elected as a member of the Linnean Society of London in 1799, the oldest natural history society in the world.^[10]

Despite his scientific achievements, Bass eventually turned his hand to commercial shipping. In 1803, he was planning for an expedition to cross from Australia to South America. In his last surviving letters, he referred to a venture which he couldn’t name: It’s likely he was planning to engage in smuggling, since Britain and Spain (and Spanish South America by extension) were not on the best of terms at the time. He departed Australia in February 1803 and was never seen again. Speculation that he was captured by the Spanish authorities has been debunked because his name doesn’t appear in Spanish or Peruvian records, and when Spain released all its British prisoners some years later, he wasn’t among them. His fate is still unknown.

1 USS Sea Gull

In August 1839, the US Navy purchased a former New York pilot boat and renamed it the Sea Gull.^[11] Alongside the newly bought Flying Fish, it was to serve as part of the US Exploring Expedition’s mission to chart the Antarctic and Pacific. The plan suffered a severe setback, however, when they reached the southern tip of South America: Cape Horn. Faced with strong winds, choppy water, and snow, the expedition waited there for months before moving on in April 1840. The Flying Fish and Sea Gull were left behind to wait for the supply ship. Once they had the supplies, they would catch up to the rest of the fleet.

But the winds were still dangerously high. On the night of April 28, the winds were particularly dangerous, and the Flying Fish and her crew made their way back to port, where they waited out the storm that followed. They last saw the Sea Gull at midnight, but it never followed them back to port. It was never seen again. The USS Sea Gull remains on the US Naval Institute’s list of “Missing and Presumed Lost” vessels to this day.

History tends to look very kindly on those with an adventurous spirit. Whatever their mishaps and shortcomings might have been, they get remembered as courageous explorers who braved the unknown, and their perilous journeys become almost as famous as they do. Think of Edmund Hillary conquering Everest or Robert Scott’s trips to Antarctica. Of course, not every explorer achieves this level of fame. Some of them are almost forgotten, though they put themselves at considerable risk to help us better understand the strange world around us.

10Joseph Thomson’s African Trek

During the “Scramble for Africa” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most European powers were aggressively trying to colonize as much of Africa as possible through force or diplomacy (typically force). During such a time, expeditions like those of Scottish geologist Joseph Thomson tend to stand out. He became renowned for not killing a single native or losing any of his men to violence during his exploration of Africa. His motto was “He who goes slowly goes safely; he who goes safely goes far.”

This is quite remarkable, considering that Thomson led six separate expeditions through uncharted African territory, covering over 24,000 kilometers (15,000 mi). He mapped out most of Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco for the Royal Geographical Society and researched many prominent landmarks such as Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Tanganyika. Thomson’s Falls in Kenya is named after him, as is the Thomson’s gazelle.

His expedition to Lake Victoria in 1883 was his most memorable journey. It was also his most perilous, as Thomson had to make sure to avoid the hostile Maasai people as well as competing German traders. At one point, Thomson was captured by the Maasai but was spared an execution when he convinced them that he was a witch doctor by using effervescent salts.

9Pedro Cabral’s Trip To India

Initially, it looked as if Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral had a straightforward mission—follow the route to India established by Vasco da Gama and come back with spices. However, his journey turned out to be more eventful than anticipated. On the way there, Cabral got into a few fights, lost a few ships, won a few ships, and also became the first European to discover Brazil.

Everything started on March 9, 1500 when Cabral left Lisbon with 13 ships. He was quickly carried by winds farther west than intended. On April 22, he spotted land, which he incorrectly concluded was an island and named the Island of the True Cross. We mostly know it by its modern name—Brazil. Obviously, Cabral immediately claimed the land in the name of Portugal, but he still managed to maintain peaceful relations with the native people. Cabral’s first real mishap came when his fleet was passing through the Cape of Good Hope and a storm sank four of his ships along with all the men onboard.

In September, Cabral reached India and established a trading post in Calicut. However, tensions with the local Muslim traders led to a bloody battle in which Muslims attacked and killed most of the people inside the trading post. In retaliation, Cabral bombarded the city and captured 10 vessels before leaving for friendlier pastures. In the end, four of his ships made it back filled with spices, and his mission was deemed successful.

8Benjamin Leigh Smith’s Arctic Adventures

The Arctic and Antarctic expeditions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries have made legends out of many daring explorers such as Ernest Shackleton and Roald Amundsen. But, as usually happens in these cases, some explorers simply got left out of the history books. That was the case with Benjamin Leigh Smith, a British explorer who undertook five expeditions to the Arctic from 1871–1882.

Most of his trips were to Svalbard and Franz Josef Land, two archipelagos in the Arctic Ocean comprising approximately 200 islands total. On one of the expeditions in 1881, Smith’s ship was locked by ice, and he was forced along with his crew to take refuge on nearby Northbrook Island. They’d be stuck there for 10 months. During that time, the crew survived by hunting walruses and using whatever provisions were salvaged. Eventually, they built boats using tablecloths as sails and made it out to sea, where they were finally rescued. Smith didn’t lose a single man.

To be fair, a lot of Benjamin Leigh Smith’s anonymity was self-imposed. He typically avoided public appearances and never published a memoir detailing his Arctic exploits. Today, there are only a couple of glaciers and a nearby island named after him to remind us of Smith’s accomplishments.

7Carsten Borchgrevink’s Southern Cross Expedition

When talking about Antarctic exploration, the first (and typically only) Norwegian explorer that comes to mind is Roald Amundsen. He was the first person to ever reach the South Pole, and the race between his group and Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed expedition became the stuff of legend. However, another Nordic explorer deserves a mention—Carsten Borchgrevink. His expedition predated Amundsen’s by over 10 years. Although he never reached the South Pole (a feat considered almost impossible at the time), Borchgrevink did set the new record for going the farthest south.

The expedition was known as the Southern Cross, and it took place from 1898–1900. Financed by English publishing magnate George Newnes, Borchgrevink took a ship and left London for Cape Adare. That is where the shore party of 10 people made camp (also the place that would be used as a home base 10 years later by Scott). It was never Borchgrevink’s main objective to reach the South Pole. Although he certainly considered it a possibility, the expedition’s goals were scientific in nature. Half of the shore party members were scientists who studied meteorology, cartography, and geology. Nobody apart from Borchgrevink was an experienced Antarctic explorer, so trying to reach the South Pole would have been borderline suicidal.

Despite Borchgrevink eventually getting overshadowed by Amundsen’s accomplishments, he still has his legacy. Amundsen’s “Framheim” base was destroyed long ago, while Borchgrevink’s base at Cape Adare is still standing and is now considered a historic site.

6David Douglas’s Trip Through The Rockies

David Douglas, a renowned Scottish botanist, undertook several trips through North America in the 19th century, discovering many new plants along the way. He also brought back hundreds of plant species and successfully introduced them to Britain, particularly the Douglas fir, which is named after him. Douglas’s second expedition in 1824 through the Rocky Mountains turned out to be his most productive, although it wasn’t without its mishaps.

There are two things worth noting about Douglas at this stage. He wasn’t a geologist, and the man was almost as blind as a bat. Regardless, he left his party while traversing the Rockies through the Athabasca Pass and climbed the mountain. Douglas did manage to reach the peak and saw another mountain roughly the same height a little to the south. He called them Mount Hooker and Mount Brown after two other famous botanists. This was fine, but Douglas also reported that these were the highest mountains in North America.

According to him, both mountains were 5,000 meters (16,000 ft) above sea level, and everyone believed him. It wasn’t long until maps were showing these giant peaks in the Rockies, and mountaineers were racing to see who would climb them first. Unfortunately, they seemed to be having a bit of trouble finding them because the giant peaks didn’t exist. The mountains mentioned by Douglas were only 2,750 meters (9,000 ft) and 3,000 meters (10,000 ft) respectively. It wasn’t until 70 years later that someone reread his journals and discovered the mistake.

5John Ainsworth Horrocks’s Outback Adventure

John Ainsworth Horrocks, a 19th-century English farmer and explorer, was among the first Europeans to explore the Australian outback. However, his achievements were overshadowed by the tragic yet unique way in which he met his demise during one of these trips.

His first exploratory expedition came in 1840, although this time he was simply looking for good land for his farm. He set off from Adelaide and explored the areas near the Hutt River, also founding Penwortham village in the meantime. He established a large farm in Clare Valley and went back to Britain in 1842 before returning two years later.

Bored with the life of a farmer, Horrocks returned to exploration and uncovered more of the outback. Several landmarks such as Horrocks Pass and Mount Horrocks still share his name. In 1846, he undertook another trek, looking to explore the region near Lake Torrens for more agricultural land. Horrocks had five other people with him, as well as an entire menagerie of animals, including a camel.

It wouldn’t be long before camels became essential for Australian exploration, but back then, Horrocks was one of the pioneers to introduce the animal into this environment. Unfortunately for him, that particular camel was often hostile toward the rest of the group. Horrocks himself got the worst of it—the camel shook him while he was reloading his gun. This caused Horrocks to shoot himself in the face. He was taken home, where he later died of gangrene.

4Charles Waterton’s Exploration Of Guyana

Charles Waterton was a 19th-century English aristocrat. Just like any good aristocrat, he was a bit loony. He was a passionate naturalist, and his trips exploring the wildlife of Guyana became the stuff of legend, especially after Waterton published his wildly successful book, Wanderings in South America.

Waterton’s approach to interacting with wild animals was hands-on enough to make Steve Irwin blush. In one single trip, Waterton obtained hundreds of examples of insects, birds, and reptiles, which he promptly dissected and stuffed. In fact, he perfected his own taxidermy method using a special concoction of chemicals that let Waterton manipulate the animals into lifelike poses.

Waterton obtained most small species from local tribes. The big ones, however, were a bit harder than that. In fact, his book details his efforts to obtain a wild caiman. His native helpers offered to shoot the giant reptile or kill it with curare darts, but Waterton wanted a pristine specimen, so he ended up tackling the caiman with his bare hands. A similar story involved capturing a giant snake.

When Waterton got back home to England, he undertook several conservation projects. During the 1820s, he opened the world’s first nature reserve on his estate, Walton Hall. In 2013, his collection of specimens went to the Wakefield Museum, with Sir David Attenborough there to express his admiration for the 19th-century naturalist. The giant caiman was among the exhibits.

3Richard Burton’s Journey To Mecca

Sir Richard Burton attained worldwide fame for his African trek alongside John Speke to find the source of the Nile. Burton was considered a jack-of-all-trades, skilled in cartography, geography, linguistics, and writing. He could reportedly speak up to 25 different languages (40 if you’re counting dialects).

Before his trip to Africa, Burton became one of the first Europeans (and, more notably, one of the first non-Muslims) to successfully make a Hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca. He took a massive risk, as Mecca was a forbidden city, off-limits to non-Muslims. Burton disguised himself as a Muslim pilgrim, but any mistake could have given him away and likely cost him his life.

Just looking the part would not have been enough. Burton had to be familiar with Muslim traditions if he was to pass as one of them. Fortunately for him, Burton was already fluent in Arabic and pretty knowledgeable of Islamic customs after being stationed as a soldier in India. According to legend, Burton even had himself circumcised to better fit in. In July 1853, Burton was granted a leave of absence from the British Army and left for Mecca from Egypt.

Even as a Muslim, his journey was dangerous, as Burton’s caravan traveled a road frequently attacked by bandits. Despite the perils, Burton returned successfully a few months later and published a book on his trip to Mecca. It became a sensation in Europe and turned him into a folk hero.

2The Bornu Mission

In 1821, English explorer Dixon Denham received the mission of exploring western Africa and establishing a trade route with the Kingdom of Bornu (modern-day Nigeria). He was accompanied by Scottish explorers Lt. Hugh Clapperton and Dr. Walter Oudney. The men set off from Tripoli and would have to cross the Sahara desert to reach their objective. Previous European attempts to do so had all proven unsuccessful.

Right off the bat, problems arose between the Englishman and the two Scots. They had neglected to choose their leader beforehand. The Scots thought Clapperton should be in charge since he was the most experienced, while Denham thought he himself should to be in charge because he felt like it. This created a lot of tension between Denham and Clapperton. Denham even tried to sabotage Clapperton’s leadership by sending back reports of him having homosexual affairs with his Arab servants.

Clapperton wrote about the dangers of traveling the Sahara. He mentioned that the central plateau was littered with skeletons. Despite their issues, the men reached Kuka, the capital of the Bornu Empire, becoming the first Europeans to successful traverse the Sahara. From there, they went their separate ways—Denham explored the region around Lake Chad, and the Scotsmen went to visit nearby states. Oudney died of illness, and Clapperton proceeded to travel alone. Upon returning to Kuka, he met up with Denham. In 1825, the two men returned to Tripoli and then to England, refusing to speak to each other during the whole 133-day trip.

1Sebastian Snow’s Amazonian Adventure

Sebastian Snow started his exotic exploits in the 1950s. Ccompared to everyone else on this list, his adventures are quite recent. However, his eccentricities and royalist attitude were very reminiscent of Victorian explorers from the good ol’ days. Whenever trying to communicate with foreigners, his strategy was to “just speak the Queen’s English loud enough, and everybody understands.”

When he was 22, Snow signed up for an expedition looking to discover the source of the Amazon River. His group aimed to verify the notion put forward by a couple of French explorers that Ninococha, a glacial lake, was the water source for the Maranon River, the largest tributary of the Amazon. Snow and his companion John Brown set off in April 1951 and confirmed the theory.

This was the point where the mission should have ended. However, Snow wanted to become the first person to raft down the entire length of the Amazon. This was completely spur-of-the-moment. Snow was unprepared and barely had any supplies. He managed to survive by stumbling from one friendly village to another, where he could find supplies and food.

Snow had to deal with dangerous rapids, violent bouts of malaria and dysentery, and all the lethal animals the Amazon could throw at him. At one point, he was even approached by a pirate canoe, but he just started yelling Spanish-like gibberish at them, randomly shouting the word pistola until they went away. Despite all the perils, Sebastian Snow completed his journey in July 1952.

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Exploration has always been part of our history, whether across land, sea, or space. Amazing things have been found throughout the ages, but sometimes, those findings weren’t actually real. These “discoveries” may have been based on truth, but they became more exaggerated with each retelling. The pressure to discover the newest thing and gain fame could have caused explorers to tweak their stories a little. Here are ten of their tallest tales:

10 The City Of Gold

Some of the earliest explorers of the Americas came from Spain. Hernan Cortes, one of the first Spanish explorers, found the Aztec capital, killed the natives, and stole their gold and silver. His discovery led to rumors of a huge, lost city, completely made of gold, somewhere on the continent. After hearing these stories, the Spanish king sent more explorers to the New World to find it.^[1]

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca learned about the seven cities of Cibola, which were supposed to contain fabulous riches, from some natives. Spanish governors sent several people to find these cities, but all they found were small villages. Spain lost interest when they couldn’t find gold, but stories like El Dorado and the Lost City of Z have endured for decades. However, archaeologists recently discovered that El Dorado wasn’t a city. Rather, it referred to an ancient ritual in which a new leader covered himself in gold dust and made gold offerings before taking the throne.

9 The Giants Of South America

Ferdinand Magellan, known as the first man to sail around the world, supposedly met a tribe of giants in present-day Argentina. Some very tall people have lived through history, but Magellan’s crew described the giants to be over 3 meters (10 ft) tall. Other explorers, like Sir Francis Drake and Commodore Byron, also claimed to have interacted with the giant natives.

Because the Bible describes a time when giants lived on the Earth, especially in the story of David and Goliath, many early historians argued that giants were real. People were more religious in those days, so it makes sense that early explorers would look for giants. Commodore Byron’s account in the 18th century is the last report of the giant Patagonians, so the story seems unlikely to be true. It is possible, though, that these explorers met a tribe of very tall people and exaggerated their actual height.^[2]

8 The Fountain Of Youth

Aging is difficult for all of us, so it’s not surprising that tales of a magical fountain that grants youth have existed for so long. The earliest story of magical water comes from Herodotus, a Greek historian, who believed that the Macrobians had such a fountain. Alexander the Great also believed that he had found a river with healing water.

Possibly the most famous and misleading account of the search for the Fountain of Youth is that of Juan Ponce de Leon. He had heard from the natives that a Caribbean island called Bimini had a magical spring that could restore youth. Ponce de Leon did set sail with a crew to the island of Bimini, but he was probably more interested in finding gold, since none of his journals mentioned the fountain.^[3] When he didn’t find gold or magical water, he sailed northward and found Florida. Today, Bimini has a tourist attraction called the Fountain of Youth, but it’s really just a small spring with mineral water.

7 Mermaids

Christopher Columbus is known for “discovering” the New World, but some of his other finds are questionable. In 1492, he claimed he had seen mermaids in the water. John Smith of the Virginia Company also claimed to have seen mermaids, and both men said that the creatures were not as pretty as the paintings. Even if these men really saw something with a tail splashing around, it was most likely a manatee.^[4]

The earliest account of a mer-person is the Babylonian god Oannes, who was believed to be half-man and half-fish. Similar gods in Greek and Roman mythologies, as well as the Greek stories of Sirens, caused people to believe in mermaids. Even the Scottish and Welsh believed stories of women coming from the sea to marry men. Medieval texts listed mermaids alongside real sea creatures. With such strong belief in mer-people in those days, it makes sense that seagoing explorers would look for them.

6 The Cat-Dog Of Bolivia

When we think of mythical animals, our minds jump to Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, but not many of us have heard of the Bolivian “Mitla.” This animal was documented by Percy Fawcett, an adventurer and explorer known best for mapping the Amazon rain forest. Many of the creatures Fawcett described were real, like the anaconda, but the Mitla is still considered a myth.

Several people claim to have seen the Mitla, but there are no photos of the animal. It is described as a dog with cat-like features.^[5] Some say the creature is small and could be a relation to short-eared dogs. Others say the animal is large and more catlike. The confusing descriptions of the animal from various people make it clear that it probably doesn’t exist, but it hasn’t been proven fake yet.

5 The Fake Bling Of Cartier

Jacques Cartier was a Frenchman who was asked by King Francis I to find a way through Canada to Asia. After Cartier returned from Canada, the king was so happy with the report that in 1540, he sent the explorer with settlers to colonize the New World. This expedition didn’t go nearly as well.

Even with Iroquois guides, Cartier upset the natives. Between the angry tribes and the freezing winter blocking his way west, Cartier had to turn back. He managed to find what he thought were gold and diamonds in Quebec, so he hightailed it back to France, stranding the colonists in Newfoundland. After the king discovered that the “gold” and “diamonds” were worthless and that the colonists had abandoned the colony, Cartier wasn’t asked to go on any more trips.^[6]

4 The Demon Tree Of Madagascar

Two explorers, Chase Salmon Osborn and Captain V. de la Motte Hurst, mounted expeditions to Madagascar in the early 20th century with the hope of finding a tree that was known to eat people. The men had probably read about it the myraid magazines and newspapers that reprinted the story from the original in the New York World. The natives of Madagascar encouraged the explorers, telling them that the trees really did exist.

Sadly, these men were on a wild goose chase. The story was written by Edmund Spencer, a reporter at the New York World. Spencer cleverly wrote the story to look like an interview with an explorer who had watched the tree eat a young girl, but the explorer and the tree did not exist. The story was written for entertainment, but many people took it seriously, even to the point of traveling to Madagascar to search for the tree.^[7]

3 Ancient Egyptians . . . In Arizona?

In 1909, the Phoenix Gazette ran stories about G.E. Kinkaid, an explorer who journeyed into the Grand Canyon and found a large underground settlement with Egyptian or Asian artifacts. The story led people to wonder if settlers from the Middle East or Asia could have come to Arizona thousands of years ago. The articles stated that he found mummies, glyphs, statues, and weapons that looked nothing like the other artifacts in the Grand Canyon.

What gives us pause, however, is the fact that the two stories in the Gazette were the only times the Egyptian settlement was ever mentioned. Nowadays, the area where Kinkaid supposedly found the settlement is owned by the US government, so nobody can search there. However, John Wesley Powell and his team explored the Grand Canyon thoroughly before Kinkaid and did not describe any Asian or Egyptian relics in their findings.^[8] For these reasons, it’s difficult to know whether Kinkaid made the discovery of a lifetime or told the world’s biggest lie.

2 Crocker Land

The quest to reach the North Pole sparked some interesting discoveries, but none of them could match Robert Peary’s claim to have found an entire continent. In 1906, several months after failing to reach the North Pole, he said he had found a large landmass near Ellesmere Island. Peary called it “Crocker Land” after George Crocker, the man who funded Peary’s travels.

Several people believed his story because Peary was one of the only people who had explored the Arctic. Also, ocean current patterns of the time indicated that a large landmass could be there. However, once people could fly over the area, Crocker Land was found to be a crock. The currents separate at the Beaufort Gyre, a sort of whirlpool in the ocean in the same place as the fake continent. Some people theorize that Peary may have seen a mirage, but the landmass was most likely made up because Peary had failed to get to the North Pole.^[9]

1 Pyramids In Antarctica

A group of unnamed people recently claimed to have discovered pyramids in Antarctica, complete with three pictures as proof. After these pictures were mostly proven wrong, Vincente Fuentes of Spain brought the story back with new images of the pyramids from Google Earth, showing them from a different angle. Most scientists believe, however, that the pyramids are either plowed banks of snow, ice packs, or plain old mountains.^[10]

According to Eric Rignot, an Earth science professor, the pyramids are most likely mountains. Believers argue that a pyramid-shaped mountain is impossible, but Rignot explains that the pyramid shape can be achieved through a process known as freeze-thaw erosion. The pyramids are also part of a mountain range. Besides, freezing temperatures and no farmland make it highly unlikely that any civilization could have survived in Antarctica.

Brittiany West is a writer, adventurer, and self-published author. Check out her writings on Amazon.com.