Envaitenet: The Island Of No Return

The legend of the Kenyan island of Envaitenet is one of those cases which utterly intrigues, but which is frustratingly lacking in detail. The small island sits on Rudolf Lake (named after a crown prince of Austria), and in the language of a local tribe Envaitenet means “No-Return”. It has long been considered to be a cursed place. According to local residents, the island "absorbs" people and because of this, for many years, no one wants to live on this mysterious island or even visit it for the fear of a possibility of repeating the fate of those who disappeared forever for unknown reasons in its vicinity. These are not fictitious legends, but quite confirmed facts.

The story goes that the inhabitants of Envaitenet frequently came to the mainland to trade goods, but then one day, inexplicably they stopped. Concerned, two local men decided to travel to the island to find out what had happened. When they got there they found the place completely abandoned. All they found were burnt-out huts, and decaying fish. The two men were quite understandably rather freaked out by all this, and returned to the mainland vowing that they would never go back there.

 In 1935, scientific work was carried out in this area by an English expedition led by Viviana Fush. Two scientists (Martin Sheflis and Bill Dyson) went to the island of Envaitenet. They signaled a successful landing with a flashlight. Over the course of several days, they also periodically made themselves felt by light signals. Suddenly the signals stopped. A few days later, rescuers arrived on the island. Surprisingly, they did not find any traces of scientists. 

Fush ordered a plane to be sent to inspect the island. But this did not yield any results either. Then the British gathered about 200 residents in order to comb the island completely. The natives did not want to land on the damned island. They had to promise a big reward if they found at least some traces of scientists (You can trust Kenyans to do anything to get the reward, mind you, 50% of the search party members were Kikuyus 😂😂). Well the search yielded no results unfortunately!

Questions that linger in our minds...

1. Where did all the people who disappeared go to?
2. Could this place be a portal from which people travel into a parallel universe?
3. What if these people will reappear one day, will they be older, younger or the same age they were when they disappeared?
4. Why have scientists not solved the puzzle up to date?
5. Do you think you can put Envaitenet in your bucket list?