The real-life Ind hunt for Ama
It all began with tales of lost cities and hidden gold, ancient gods and the promise of adventure. But for Megan Hine and her team, an Amazon rainforest expedition took a sinister turn when they came face-toface with a suspected serial killer.
“My role was to investigate whether these cities were actually there,” says British survival specialist Megan, 37.
“That initial excitement of going off and finding lost cities was awesome.
“But then it took a twist into it becoming a murder mystery and suddenly the reality kicked in that we were not making an entertainment show, this was now an investigation into what happened to these people.”
The fantastical tale starts in the late 1960s, when a man dressed in a loin cloth with a feather in his hair emerged from the jungle with tales of lost cities, ancient gods and hidden gold.
He said he was Tatunca Nara, chief of the Ugha Mongulala tribe, and claimed to know of two cities, Akakor and Akahim, lost to the modern world but waiting to be discovered by explorers who could be rich beyond their wildest dreams if they were successful.
His exploits became public knowledge thanks to German journalist Karl Brugger who documented them in a book, The Chronicle of Akakor, in 1976.
The tale even inspired the 2008 Hollywood blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Intrigued by the mystery, a trio of adventurers hired Tatunca Nara in the 1980s to take them to the lost cities but after heading into the jungle with him, they never returned.
As Tatunca Nara’s story was put under the spotlight, lost civilisations were replaced with secret identities, murder, intrigue and accusations of a government cover-up.
So Megan and her team, including Irish investigative journalist Paul Connolly and former FBI agent Bobby Chacon, set out to discover if Akakor and Akahim exist
– and find out exactly what happened to the explorers who went into the jungle with Tatunca Nara but never came back.
But their expedition, filmed for a new Sky History series called Curse of the Lost Amazon Gold, became a murder mystery that unearthed grisly discoveries about explorers who went in search of the same cities and were never seen again.
“I wanted to be Indiana Jones when I was a kid,” admits Megan, who has often worked with fellow TV survivalist Bear Grylls. “I love those films. These explorers had obviously read the book and been captivated by it, and their imaginations had run riot. They put trust in this guy but then they didn’t return. It brings it home just how dangerous these environments can be.”
Between 1980 and 1987, American John Reed, Herbert Wanner from Switzerland and Swede Christine Heuser set off on separate adventures then disappeared.
In another sinister twist, journalist
Brugger was executed on the streets of Rio de Janeiro just days before he was due to start an investigation into the tribal elder who German police believe was behind the killing.
With the help of guides, Megan and the Sky History team trekked into the heart of the Amazon to speak to locals and were shocked to make a
There are still two unaccounted for. It would just be incredible to help the families MEGAN HINE ON DRAMATIC SEARCH FOR THE MISSING EXPLORERS
grisly discovery about the mysterious tribesman. “There were three explorers who we know have gone missing,” explains Megan.
“The remains of Herbert were later found and he had been shot in the back of the head.
“The other two have never been found but we have spoken to a witness who claimed they know Tatunca Nara killed John Reed. But it was never investigated by the police.
“So we weren’t just looking at philosophies any more, we were looking for human remains as well in these areas where we knew this guy had frequented with clients.
“We actually believe there were other people who went missing as well, under the same circumstances.”
The suspicions surrounding Tatunca Nara gained more traction when, in 1990, a German writer named Rüdiger Nehberg investigated the story and claimed Nara was, in fact, a German expat named Hansi Hauck.
He said Hauck had swapped his homeland for the Amazon and fell off the map until his story was picked up by Brugger. Amazingly, Tatunca Nara is still alive and Megan’s team tracked him down in a town in Brazil.
Now in his early 80s, Megan says the team were shocked when they finally came face-to-face with Nara as he fiercely denied having anything to
do with the disappearance of the three explorers.
She says: “He’s in his 80s and the locals are terrified of him.
“To them he’s like the bogeyman stalking the jungle.”
Megan’s team uncovered an internal police document setting out his status as an informant for the state.
“It came to light that this guy was being protected by the government and that all of this stuff was being swept under the carpet,” she explains.
“It’s a very mineral-rich area. There is a lot of stuff that goes on under the radar that the general public aren’t aware of – and the government don’t want that information getting out.”
Having obtained witness testimony to the murder of John Reed and with even more potential victims to look into, Megan says that the team have unanswered questions they are determined to investigate as part of a second TV series.
“There are still two people unaccounted for who have never been found. It would just be incredible to be able to help the families, put their minds to rest and bring their loved ones home,” she says.
And does she think there’s any truth to the tales of hidden gold and ancient gods, or that the lost cities of Akakor and Akahim actually exist?
“We definitely found something out there. We found evidence of some ancient civilisation, some structures, but whether it’s actually the cities that Tatunca Nara describes, it’s hard to tell,” says Megan.
“The biggest thing for me is wanting to go back out there and actually gain access to the structures that we discovered in the jungle and really figure out at what point in history that was from once and for all.”
Curse of the Lost Amazon Gold, Monday, Sky History, at 9pm.