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YouTuber who became first person to land on North Sentinel Island alone and return alive reveals bizarre reason for going
North Sentinel Island may be small, but it's deadly to outsiders.
Home to the Sentinelese people, considered to be the most isolated community of humans in the world, past visitors to North Sentinel Island have faced very painful and very fatal consequences for trying to make contact with them.
Visits to North Sentinel Island, which lays off the cost of Bengal Bay in India, are strictly prohibited by Indian law to protect the indigenous tribes there from harmful diseases... but also to protect people from the Sentinelese tribe, who are known to be extremely violent and territorial to outsiders.
But one thrill-seeking YouTuber, known as the Neo Orientalist, went much farther than most and lived to tell the tale. But exactly why was he so determined to visit North Sentinel Island, and what happened to him?
Why did the YouTuber Neo Orientalist travel to North Sentinel Island?
Neo Orientalist is a self-proclaimed thrill seeker whose real name is Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov.
Despite Indian laws banning any travelers from coming within 5km of North Sentinel Island, Polyakov ignored these restrictions, setting up his own rubber dinghy and rowing over to the island in an attempt to make contact with the Sentinelese tribe.
His reason for doing so? He wanted to make a "peace offering" to them - in the form of a coconut and a can of Diet Coke.
Polyakov managed to reach the island and survived a brief five-minute interaction with the indigenous people there - and he recorded the entire thing for his YouTube channel.
What happened to the YouTuber who landed on North Sentinel Island?
Despite being one of the rare people to make it to North Sentinel Island and live to tell the tale, Polyakov's actions had far-reaching consequences due to the many laws he'd broken in trying to get there.
The YouTuber was arrested last year after the stunt and charged with entering a prohibited tribal reserve area. In April of this year, he had his bail rejected by a court in Port Blair. If found guilty of the charge, he could face up to five years in prison.
Due to the incredible isolation of the Sentinelese people, even something as simple as a can of Diet Coke could introduce a deadly contamination into the biosphere of the island, which has been left untouched by the modern world.
But the island is kept isolated for the protection of outsiders too. In the past, the Sentinelese people have been known to be horrifically aggressive to anyone who enters their land.
In 2018, an American missionary called John Allen Chau attempted to make contact with the tribe there several times and was eventually killed by them. His body has never been found.
In 2006, two Indian fishermen found themselves drifting too close to North Sentinel Island and were also killed by the tribe.