Itanagar, Nov. 26: As Anoko Mega and his mates clasped the leafy branch that stood in their way and tried to set it aside, little did the intrepid adventurers know that beyond the foliage lay the treasure they were looking for.
When they removed the branch, right in front of them was the wreckage of an American plane of World War II vintage with the unmistakable blue-and-white insignia of the Allied Forces gleaming in the fading light of day. Village elders had long spoken of “alien wreckage” scattered across the Mishmi Hills, but Anoko and his team were the first to find remnants of any of the aircraft that are said to have been shot down in that area during the war.
“I could not believe my eyes and neither could my friends. We finally achieved what we had set out to do,” Anoko, 27, told The Telegraph a week after his gruelling two-day trek through dense jungles and mountain trails of the Lower Dibang Valley district of Arunachal Pradesh.
The wreckage was discovered at Dopowa Desali in the Mishmi Hills, 2,600 metres above sea level and 700-odd km from the state capital, Itanagar.
Anoko and his team — Laya Mena, Suresh Pulu, Lokhi Mega and Komini Meto — are members of a group that calls itself Dibang Adventure Trail. They decided to trek to the Mishmi Hills after hearing elderly villagers talk about “some alien wreckage”.
Arunachal Pradesh was a base for the allied forces in the war against Japanese troops and the codes inscribed on the body of the plane Anoko’s team discovered read “US Army (B24L)-C-109-11, Project No. 94243-R and Air Force Serial No 4449628”.
“We have contacted the US embassy in Delhi and it will be despatching a team of experts to the site very soon,” Anoko said from Roing, the headquarters of Dibang Valley district.
An official of the state government’s research department said the plane may have crashed during a sortie “through the famous Hump route” to maintain supplies to the Chinese army.
The expedition team found burnt aluminium plates, steel and iron rods and a flare gun in the wreckage. The trekkers also dug out a human mandible from the wreckage.
“All the small retrievable items are in our custody. We will hand them to the experts as soon as they arrive,” Komini said.
