The 3 most questionable survival stories of all time

It’s actually much harder to fake a survival story than you might think, because if you simply hide for a month and turn up claiming you were trapped down a canyon somewhere, you wouldn’t be believed unless a number of factors were present. The area you claimed to have been in would be checked and so would your wounds, not to mention your physical condition would be considerably weaker than it was the last time you were seen. Sometimes a survival story will appear that seems to be real but contains a number of inconsistencies that make it questionable, to say the least, and there are no stranger survival stories than the three below.

Lisa Theris

(Lisa Theris in hospital shortly after being rescued)

In August 2017, a driver from Florida was heading along a road when she saw a naked woman walk out of the tree line. Upon stopping, she saw the woman, who was 25 years old Lisa Theris was covered in scratches and seemed to be close to death, so she gave her some clothes and called the emergency services.

Lisa Theris had been missing for almost four weeks and the authorities believed that she would be dead by now, but somehow here she was. Theris had lost 40 lbs in weight and was covered in the typical wounds associated with dehydration and exposure, so it certainly looked like her story of being alone in the woods for 4 weeks could be possible, then she tried to explain how it happened.

The problem with her story is that none of it makes sense and is full of inconsistencies, and her claim that she has memory loss from the initial stranding doesn’t help. It seems she got in with the wrong crowd and ended up hanging out with the sketchy people, most notably two men called Manley David and Randall Oswald who she was with on the night of her disappearance. These two men were planning to rob a hunting lodge and were later caught and tried for their crimes, both admitted they were with Lisa on the night she was last seen, and both men claimed the other had killed her.

They both seemed sure of her death but neither had any explanation as to how it happened, and in one version of Lisa’s own account, she claimed to have no memory of the night in question and simply woke up naked in the woods. She was also wanted by the police on minor charges and emerged from the woods only two days after the charges were dropped. She also claims to have survived by eating wild mushrooms and berries, but the berries she says she ate are rare in that area and wouldn’t keep someone alive for a month. She also had no training in recognizing wild mushrooms and was just lucky enough not to have eaten any poisoned ones, however, she did lose 40 lbs in weight and had signs of severe exposure and dehydration.

How could she have survived in the woods on nothing but berries and mushrooms for a month without getting sick, and how did she go missing in the first place? Also, the reappearance just two days after charges were dropped is suspicious, as is the fact that she wouldn’t have had to walk more than a few miles until she found some kind of road, but claims in her month of walking through the woods she didn’t see a single footpath, road or building.

Ricky McGee

(Ricky McGee)

Out of the 3 most questionable survival stories of all time, this one raises the most questions because McGee changed his story several times. Mcgee is an Australian who in 2006 went missing in the desert for 71 days. He was driving along the Buntine highway between the Northern Territory and Western Australia when his car broke down, and after a series of events found himself stranded in the middle of the desert. He eventually managed to find an isolated cattle ranch and was seen by a worker there who called the emergency services who quickly arrived and took McGee to hospital. He had lost over 100 lbs of the original 230 lbs he was before his ordeal and was also covered in sunburn and exposure wounds.

From his appearance and physical condition it can be believed that he spent over two months in the desert, but how he got there in the first place is the question. He claims to have survived by eating various reptiles and insects he found, and his disappearance was in the middle of the wet season, so streams and pools would have been present making it possible to survive, but getting into that situation in the first place would be something you’d think people would remember.

His official story is that he broke down at some point along the journey and was approached by someone who helped fix his car, and he gave them a ride. He claims he was drugged somehow along the journey and the next thing he knew, he woke up in the middle of the desert with wild dogs sniffing around him. The problem is that this story is different from one he previously gave which was that he didn’t break down, and simply picked up a random hitch-hiker along the way who then drugged him, but during his explanation to the police he said there was one person in a version of his story, but then later changed it to two people.

His physical condition backs up the amount of time he was missing in the desert as he lost around half his total body weight and was suffering from very bad exposure wounds, but the question is how did he get there in the first place? There wouldn’t be any traces of a drug left in his system after such a long time, but his car that was apparently stolen has never been found, and it was only a cheap run-around and would cost more to ship overseas than it would to buy a new one.

118 days on a barrier reef

(The crew of the Rose-Noelle)

In 1989 a small sailing yacht called the Rose-Noelle was travelling around the coast of New Zealand when a violent gale caused huge waves to flip the boat over. On board were three New Zealand nationals and one American, all four of which survived for a total of 118 days before being spotted and taken to the mainland. The story goes that the ship turned over but stayed afloat due to trapped air, and the four men managed to climb onto the hull and escape the water.

After a few days, the ship ran into a reef and became stuck, keeping them in place for over three months before they would be seen and rescued. After being taken to hospital, each crew member was found to have lost around 40 lbs in weight but was otherwise in excellent condition.

There are two main reasons that people question the legitimacy of the story, and that is the crew’s condition and the location of the boat. Apparently, the wave hit them while they were sailing around the east of the island, and after the ship turned over they lost all form of control and would have been taken wherever the current was flowing. In this case, they should have been caught up in a current that took them east towards South America, but somehow managed to end up 140 miles west before getting stuck.

The other questionable part of their story is that they only lost 40 lbs each and none of them had salt water or exposure wounds, and all four did not appear to be suffering from dehydration. There would be a good amount of food that could be found on a large reef, especially if they had fishing gear, but being able to consistently find enough to keep four men alive for almost four months and have them lose only 40 lbs each seems odd. Drinking water would have been a huge struggle as the chances of being able to collect enough rainwater for four people to the point that none of them were dehydrated seems very unlikely indeed.

The crew of the ship and the investigating officer all claim that the story is real, and they were simply flipped over and got stuck on a reef. The wreck of the ship was located during the investigation and it had plant growth that suggested it had been capsized for a long period of time, combined with the complete lack of motivation seems to back up their story as real, but there are still the doubters who don’t think it would be possible for the ship to float in the direction it did, and even if that was the case the crew wouldn’t be able to have survived for so long in such good condition.