Mysterious image 'showing fate' of man who disappeared after contacting cannibalistic tribe has been debunked

A single image previously believed to explain Michael Rockefeller's disappearance has been debunked by an expert.

Author Carl Hoffman has spent years researching the mysterious case of the 23-year-old son of former US vice-president Nelson Rockefeller.

Rockefeller had a passion for collecting Asmat tribal art and decided to go on an expedition in southwestern New Guinea - now a part of the Indonesian province of Papua - in 1961.

In September of that year, the Harvard graduate returned to the area to work with Dutch anthropologist René Wassing and two Asmat teenagers.

On 18 November, however, their boat capsized when crossing the Betsj River. While the teenagers swam for help, Wassing - who couldn’t swim - and Rockefeller remained on the boat as it was swept out to sea.

It was suggested that Rockefeller decided to swim towards visible land, but was possibly just too far out.

When Wassing was left clinging to debris, the last thing he allegedly told him was: “I think I can make it.” Wassing was rescued the next day and Rockefeller vanished without trace despite countless manhunts.

In 1964, a judge officially declared Rockefeller dead, 'having drowned while on exploration off the coast of Dutch New Guinea'.

Expert explains why this imagine doesn't explain what happened to Michael Rockefeller

Now, one conspiracy theory is that Rockefeller actually managed to swim back to shore and ended up living with the Asmat people.

A still from footage captured in 1969 by photographer Malcolm Kirk of an Asmat group seems to include a white canoeist, who some think could be Rockefeller.

Kirk told the Daily Mail: "The resemblance to Michael Rockefeller, an accomplished canoeist who wore a beard, is obvious."

Kirk, however, recalls 'coming across a reference to an albino male when I glanced through my journal a few weeks ago', while Hoffman thinks it's very unlikely the man in the picture is Rockefeller.

Writing in his 2014 book Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, And Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest, Hoffman claims Rockefeller was killed and consumed by the Asmat people as a form of ritual headhunting.

"The Asmat did not kill Michael Rockefeller because they felt murderous. And they didn't kill him because they were hungry, and they needed a bite to eat," Hoffman told LADbible.

The author pointed out that in the years prior to Rockefeller's disappearance, Max Lapré, Dutch government controller in Southern Asmat, was involved in an incident which led to the deaths of five people within the Otsjanep village.

Hoffman explained that the deaths left an 'unbalance' in the village, and Asmat cosmology dictated that they had to get even otherwise their village would be haunted by 'spirits'.

"They killed him for these complex historical and cultural reasons," he explained, adding that Rockefeller's death happened when he swam back to shore in 1961.

"[In Asmat cosmology] the world needs needed to be balanced and righted, and that balance came from the killing of Michael Rockefeller, yeah, it wasn't some blood thirsty thing for them," Hoffman explained. "It was just making the world whole, and that was going to reclaim their culture and their power."

He continued: "I mean, these were people who had been living separate from the world on their own for, you know, 1000s of years, and they had a whole three-dimensional complex civilisation, so much so that, you know, that's why Michael was there to collect their spectacular art, which today stands in the greatest museums of the world.

"This was a culture in which, you know, some in which head hunting was incredibly important, and cannibalism itself was just an is sort of an outgrowth of head hunting. And those things took place in a very sacred, ritualised context."

Interview conducted by Brenna Cooper.