Fawcett, Colonel Percy Harrison(1867-1925?)

British Army officer Percy Harrison Fawcett, who disappeared in the jungles of South America in 1925, set off a psychic search that lasted over a quarter of a century. Born in 1867, Fawcett had joined the army as a young man and rose among the ranks. He mastered cartography and after World War I(1914-18) decided to leave the army and focus his remaining years on some of his youthful passions. He had earlier carried out some of the pioneering surveys of the Amazon delta. He had a keen interest in Spiritualism and the occult, and inspired by the discovery of Machi Picchu in the Peruvian Andes, he had become fascinated with the idea of hidden civilizations in the vast Amazonian lands. Fawcett had discovered a mid-eighteenth-century manuscript whose author claimed to have found a vast city in the upper Amazon, and in 1920 he initially tried, unsuccessfully, to find it. He returned in 1925 for what was to be a two-year expedition. On May 29, 1925, he was at a camp he had used on the previous trip. His presence at the camp would be the last confirmed data on him. An expedition that attempted to find him in 1928 concluded that he had probably been killed by hostile natives.

His wife refused to give up on him. A psychic search for Fawcett began in 1930 when a medium in California claimed to be in contact with some Native Americans in New Mexico, who in turn claimed to be in contact with some Amazonians with whom Fawcett was residing. Mrs. Fawcett subsequently announced that she was in direct telepathic contact with her husband. In spite of a variety of reported sightings of him by various people in Brazil, he did not reappear and in 1932 his wife said that she had lost her telepathic contact. Not to be discouraged, Estelle Roberts, a prominent Spiritualist medium, claimed to have received several messages from Fawcett. A medium from New Zealand was the next to emerge. She claimed to have been in contact for the past two years, that Fawcett had found the lost city, but had unfortunately perished trying to get back to civilization.

Through the World War II years (1939-45), reports concerning Fawcett, none confirmed, continued. In 1951 the medium Nell Montague reported that she saw Fawcett being killed by natives after being questioned by Ralph Paget, a friend of the Fawcett family. Finally, in 1955, the notable medium Geraldine Cummins got into the act when she published her book, The Fate of Colonel Fawcett. The book is an interesting collection of metaphysical teachings from Fawcett, now believed to be in the spirit world, and an account of Fawcett's death. Fawcett's widow did not accept the book, and Cummins admitted it was not among her best productions.

Fawcett's ultimate fate is still unknown and is likely to re-main so unless some identifiable remains are found by accident as the Amazon continues to be explored.

Sources:

Chambers, Paul. Paranormal People. London: Blandford, 1998. Cummins, Geraldine. The Fate of Colonel Fawcett. London: Aquarius Press, 1955.