A couple of weeks ago, we ran an article about the “cargo cults” that live on the Pacific Island of Tanna. The cargo cults are semi-religious tribal groups whose members believe that if they perform rituals in honor of their idols—namely imaginary American WWII soldier John Frum and real-life racist monarch Prince Philip—a bounty of “cargo” (guns and stuff) will rain down on them from the sky. Oh yeah, they also believe that when this happens, everyone else in the world will die, leaving them behind as its sole proprietors.

And to be honest, all that sounded relatively harmless, if a little insane. But away from the relatively cuddly cargo cults of Tanna, events took a sinister turn in Papua New Guinea recently, where rumors began to circulate that members of a similar cult had murdered and eaten seven people.

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