North Sentinel Island

North Sentinel Island

On North Sentinel Island, a small island in the Andaman chain in the Bay of Bengal, natives have long been opposed to the influences of the modern world. In fact, the Sentinelese people who live on the island?refuse communication with any outsiders and are willing to get violent to protect their isolation. Following the 2004 tsunami, when the Indian Coast Guard flew a reconnaissance mission over the island, men reportedly emerged from the forests to shoot arrows at the helicopter, which did not land.?

The Sentinelese have lived on the island for some 60,000 years, and with the protection of the Indian government?— which prohibits visitors of any kind — it has successfully resisted anthropologists, authorities, and tourists.?Who Are The?Sentinelese? According to a 2011 census effort, and based on anthropologists' estimates of?how many?people the island could support, there are probably somewhere between 80 and 150 people on North Sentinel Island, although it could be as?many?as 500. So, why do they reject the outside world??

There are reported sightings from cruise ships and aircraft of mysterious lights that appear and disappear?from the island, and sometimes columns of eerie light emanate down from space and up from the volcanic peak. A myth from surrounding Islands holds that for thousands of years, something?otherworldly has been a "resident" on the island... No human that has ever gone to the island has ever returned to their tribe. On September?28, three world-renowned geneticists are going to make a calculated and possibly deadly attempt to find out what is at the secretive core of this bizarre tribe, risking life and limb... what will they find, or what will find them?