Scientist Accidentally Finds A Decades-Old Puzzle Hidden In The Rainforest

Conservationist Julian Bayliss always dreamed of grand adventures. An explorer, he yearned to travel the world and see sights never before witnessed. 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, not just his leg, but 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 they kept forward with their search. In a region as long-settled as Africa, any given cave can reveal a groundbreaking discovery.