Written by Staff Writer
Bryan MacGuire recorded his friends sailing and snowboarding until they’d exhausted their credit cards.
But one night, the friends got lost in the woods and ultimately took their own lives — each turning the spotlight on YouTube. MacGuire came across their footage the day before his 23rd birthday — lost in a remote, shark-infested part of Indonesia and unable to reach a road.
In the hours that followed, the cameraman discovered that after 21 years, his friends still had something to say — and had enough resolve to go out at sunset in their vintage Jaguar.
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But then the car — with just one tire and an outboard motor — disappeared.
That’s what MacGuire found when he made his way to a small bay in the island province of Papua. Boulders and debris littered the wreckage as he searched for clues about his lost friends.
Then one day, “I just had this feeling in my gut that it was moving around out there, and I just saw this thing,” he told CNN.
Photos show the car sitting in the water, its back door open. MacGuire is able to activate the engine from the beach. Soon, there’s no doubt that what MacGuire is seeing is his friends. In the video, he says it was “like having a pair of moleskin wings.”
Two days after he first discovered their camcorder, the car washed up again, missing parts — and its passenger. Now, it’s macGuire and his friends’ chance to share what happened that day.
“Maybe if you put it out there on the internet,” he says, “the least we can do is the very least we can do is make sure we save the earth for future generations.”
A mental trauma specialist came to the site after the discovery to make sure no one was still alive, MacGuire said. Another came one day later.
The next morning, MacGuire found the car with one of his friends.