“Contact! Nate Saint's Amazing Bucket Drop”
Nate Saint devised a means to make peaceful contact with a dangerous and primitive people. The 'bucket drop" was his signature spiraling maneuver that left a canvas bucket suspended motionless on the end of a long line, while he flew overhead. After years marked by bloodshed, he was able to extend repeated gestures of friendship from a safe distance, lowering gifts into the Auca village. Over the next three months, 13 gift drops opened the way for Nate and four friends to meet the Auca face to face on a sandbar in the Curaray River. Although there was a brief friendly encounter, "Operation Auca" closed with a massacre on Sunday, January 8, 1956 that left all five missionaries dead. What looked like a tragic ending was only the beginning of events no one ever could have imagined.