The two websites, "The Great Unknown, The Great Explorers" and the "The Great Web of Percy Harrison Fawcett" were created in the beginning of the year 1999 for the purpose of starting a very serious research regarding the destiny of the legendary lost-in-time British explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, who was mysteriously disappeared in the Brazilian wilds of Mato Grosso in 1925, while he was looking for his great objective. 

Actually, the original thought of the site's creation came to my mind late in 1998 when I read a Greek translation of the pocket-size book "ΕΞΕΡΕΥΝΗΣΕΙΣ" (Explorations) of the Greek Publishing Company ΩΡΟΡΑ (Orora), which was given to me as a present by a good friend and colleague named Michel Tsegas from the engineering division of Olympic Airways Technical Operations Department at Athens West Airport. 

The general idea for this research was inspired to me after my personal seven years of experience into the search of South American lost cities and civilizations, which I personally organized by myself and fully participated in such a way in order to find new clues and evidence in some particular and extremely very interesting cases. Besides, I address myself to you with intention to give you a description of myself and information about the plans I made from the very beginning in order to proceed and reach this final stage of the site’s construction.

Emmanouil Lalaios, Owner and Creator of "The Great Unknown, The Great Explorers" and "The Great Web of Percy Harrison Fawcett"

Photo taken on June 1979 in Pisac's main square, in front of the small church.

Pisac is an Inca's village near Cuzco on the banks of Urubamba River.

Peru

It was 1976 when I first decided to get involved with archaeology inclined more to the cases of lost civilizations, ancient cities and mysteries of the world. Since then, and for the next seven years (1977-1983), I became an adventurer and took many trips around the globe visiting remote places, taking pictures, making movies and writing stories about lost civilizations and ancient cities. So far, I have covered almost every part of the world that includes places like that.

Left and middle photos show boat transportation through the Amazon. The photos were taken in a boat sailing up the Amazon towards the area that had to be filmed. Right photo shows myself loaded with camera equipments in a jungle trail towards a lake where crocodiles used to live in the Napo River. Photos taken on May 1980 during one of my visits to the Amazon rainforest.

In 1978 and 1979 I also risked my life while attempting twice to take photos of giant Crocodiles in the Peruvian Amazon region of Napo River near Iquitos, a very interesting river town located northeast of the Peruvian capital Lima along the Amazon River. Some of the places I have visited during the period mentioned above were:

Left to right: September 1980 in American Samoa's Pago Pago Int'l Airport. A colleague and my assistant John Alevizos and myself in Peru with Cuzco in the background in May 1979. Posing with Easter Island's biggest statue of Moai from Ahu Kote Riku measuring in height 9.8 meters and weighting 80 tons.  At the top of the Corcovado hill in Rio de Janeiro in May 1979.

The Pacific Ocean with visits to the Polynesian Islands of American Samoa (Pago Pago) and Western Samoa (Apia), Tonga (Nuku'alofa), Fiji (Suva & Nandi), Tahiti (Papeete), Easter Island (Hanga Roa), Hawaii and New Zealand.

Left: This is the area where the statues were made.  It is the Rano Raraku volcano, one of the two volcanoes on Rapa Nui as Easter Island is called in the Polynesian language. Right: September 1981 in Solomon Islands examining the wrecks of fighters those took part in an air combat against the Japanese during the World War II in Guadalcanal (Southwest Pacific Ocean).

Melanesian Islands Solomon Islands (Honiara), New Caledonian (Noumea), Vanuatu which was then named New Hebrides (Port Vila), Papua New Guinea (Port Moresby) and part of the Micronesian Islands (Guam).

Left photo taken near Tiahuanaco (Tiwanaku) ruins in Bolivia on September 1982. Both Alpaca and llama are proud to take the photo with their owner and myself.  The Bolivian woman and her child are dressed in traditional uniforms. Middle photo taken on Machu Picchu ruins with an alpaca. Photo taken on September 1981 during my visit to the Mysterious Easter Island in the South Pacific and shows myself with the Moais, the huge statues found in abundance there and  their transportation around the island still remains a mystery.

In South America, the Darkest Continent, which is considered by me as my second-home country, I was lucky to extend my exploration plans besides the Inca countries of Peru and Bolivia to Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, and Chile. 

In Asia, I also had the chance to visit Japan many times. Besides my visits to Sarawak of East Malaysia in Borneo where in 1983 I made a film with a story covered the famous Niah caves (home of the stone-age people) and the State of Sarawak, I had also visited Singapore, Sri Lanka/Ceylon (Colombo), Thailand (Bangkok), Philippines (Manila), Hong Kong (New Territories), India (Bombay, Delhi) and Nepal (Katmandu) where another story took place to cover the Bengal tiger in the Royal Chitwan National Park (Borders of India-Nepal).

June 1984. Sarawak State, East Malaysia.  On the left: myself and Abeng son of the Chief of a Dayak village, are ready to go hunting wild monkeys in the jungle. Abeng was a very good man and guide having a great knowledge with the tropical jungle animals and life. Unfortunately, he died in 1996 from Hepatitis. In the middle, we are on the trail crossing a bamboo bridge and looking for animals to hunt. On the right: Abeng at a young age in his village while posing with a cow.

The rest of the world was Australia with another story about the aboriginals, the Ayers Rock and the Mount Olgas in Alice Springs territory in the red center of the continent as well as repeated visits to the United States of America.

During the period of 1977 to 1983 my visits to Japan (Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Nara, etc) and Hawaii (Honolulu) (USA) were twice or three times a year. My trips to the United States also included a visit to New York and repeated stopovers to Los Angeles, which was a good connecting point between South America and Asia-Pacific. So far, I have completed more than 3.500 hours of flight experience with almost any airline in the world. 

In 1981 and 1982, I successfully finished my studies in the field of the Travel Industry Business with IATA/UFTAA/FIATA and I was entitled as an International Travel Consultant.. During the period 1984 and 1995 my travel activities were paused due to serious family affairs. In 1996, I took my decision to continue my explorations again and I made three new stories. Then, I came into contact with the National Geographic Television and the Discovery Channel in order to discuss about my three stories to be filmed in the Peruvian and Bolivian territories of the Amazon Rainforest. "The Inca's Hidden Kingdom","The Unexpected Madre de Dios" and the "Amahuacas, the Last Uncivilized" were the titles of the stories to be filmed in Peru and Bolivia. Another story was going to take place in the Pacific with the title "The Salvation Island", the case of the Bounty mutiny on Pitcairn. Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that my stories were theoretically approved by the National Geographic experts and later on by the Discovery Channel as well, the filming and the expeditions to the areas concerned were postponed and later cancelled due to financial disagreements with the above organizations.

In 1998 I got involved with the case of disappearance of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, a legend in exploration of the Amazon. That’s exactly what made me take the decision to proceed in the search of this explorer, to gather more information and finally to enrich my websites with clues, details, and a possible explanation for his fate.

On the left, the photo shows the entrance to the Kalasasaya temple of Tiahuanaku Ruins in Bolivia and on the right, the photo shows the most spectacular waterfalls on earth, the Iguassú Falls located at the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay which is also known as the triangle of South America. Both of them were taken on September 1982.