The mystery of a missing millionaire may have been solved after footage emerged apparently showing a naked white man hunting alongside members of a cannibal tribe.

Michael Rockefeller – a member of the famously wealthy Rockefeller family – went missing on a trip to Papua New Guinea in 1961.

On November 17, the small boat carrying Rockefeller and Dutch anthropologist René Wassing to the island got into trouble.

READ MORE: Virgin Media price cut on movies and sport bundle as customers get £150 off bill

Rockefeller told Wassing: “I think I can make it” and started swimming the three miles to shore.

He was never seen again and is widely believed to have been killed by the tribe.

But recently resurfaced film footage captured near the spot where Rockefeller disappeared may change that.

Podcaster Mr Ballen told how Rockefeller was spotted in the jungles of New Guinea long after he was presumed dead.

“A reporter named Milt Macklin heard from this mysterious Australian person who had actually run into Michael Rockefeller recently in the jungle of New Guinea not far from where he supposedly disappeared,” he said.

Macklin failed to find the missing man, but shot a great deal of film showing the Asmat and their home.

“But 40 years later,” Mr Ballen says, “another documentary film crew decided they were going to go to New Guinea and look for Michael because there were still all these rumours floating around that Michael was alive.

“They uncovered this unwatched footage from Milt Macklin and they watched all of it and they discovered something unbelievable amongst the hours and hours of footage”.

It was a momentary glimpse of a white man among the islanders manning a war canoe.

“You see this canoe come into frame and it’s full of Asmat tribal warriors. This is a war party and they’re making their way presumably into battle with some other tribe.

“But amongst these big strong men is one man who totally stands out because he doesn’t look like the other Asmat Warriors.

“He is a naked bearded white man who – even though the quality of the film was poor – totally looked like Michael Rockefeller.”

The idea that Rockefeller went native among the Asmat is not the only explanation for his disappearance.

Lorne and Lawrence Blair, in their documentary series Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey, met a man who claimed to have eaten the multi-millionaire New Yorker.

Explorer Tobias Schneebaum heard a similar story from a group of Asmat villagers which he wrote about in his 200 book Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale.

Carl Hoffman, a journalist from National Geographic, found further confirmation of that story and published a grisly report of Rockefeller’s death.

Three Asmat tribal elders named Pip, Ajim and Fin found Rockefeller floating, exhausted, close to shore.

After a short discussion – apparently about a bridge the Asmat held against some Dutch explorers – Pip decided to kill Rockefeller in revenge.

The laughing tribesman speared him in the ribs. The three dragged a still alive, but mortally wounded Rockefeller back to their village. There they hacked his head off.

“Members of the tribe came up and began cutting Michael’s body absolutely to pieces, separating his organs and his flesh and his bones into different piles and then very quickly they got a fire going and cooked and ate Michael and of all the parts of his body,” Mr Ballen said.

“His brain was apparently the most important part and and so only Fin, Ajim and Pip were allowed to eat the brain and then finally, after they had finished eating and took all the remaining meat that had not been consumed and they put it into their pouches to eat later”.

To get more stories from Daily Star delivered straight to your inbox sign up to one of our free newsletters here.