Declassified files and a former criminal’s testimony point to a deadly island event run by one of South Korea’s most feared syndicates.
The Forgotten Island: A Survivor’s Story the Authorities Couldn’t Prove
When Squid Game premiered in 2021, it was presented as fiction—a sharp social commentary wrapped in exaggerated violence. But in the months after its release, a much older story began to resurface. One that, according to scattered accounts and long-buried police files, bore a far darker resemblance to reality.
The alleged event took place in the mid-1980s on a remote island off the southern coast of South Korea. Unlike the children’s games in the television drama, the contests described in these rumors were stripped of whimsy—brutal endurance and skill trials where most participants wouldn’t survive.
Brutal Sports, Fatal Stakes
The activities were said to include:
- Platform sprint — A run across a series of unstable scaffolds between cliff edges, with sections removed after each round.
- Human chess — Competitors forced to act as pieces on a giant board inside a vast, windowless concrete hall; when “captured,” they were executed on the spot by syndicate enforcers in full view of the remaining players.
- Storm climb — A cliffside ascent during a violent storm, with slick handholds and crashing waves that left no room for mistakes.
The survivor also described seeing a boxing ring in a sheltered inland area—roped off, with rough spectator seating in a circle. He said he never competed there and did not know what took place inside, but suspected other bouts or events were held away from the main challenges.
The Official Investigation
Declassified fragments of National Police Agency documents confirm that in 1988, a naval patrol stumbled upon an uninhabited island south of Jeju showing signs of recent occupation: dismantled wooden structures, scorch marks consistent with large bonfires, and multiple empty supply crates.
The patrol report also noted several burned-out frameworks whose purpose could not be determined, along with the partially collapsed shell of a large concrete building. Inside, the floor bore faint geometric markings beneath layers of soot and debris. With no photographs taken and no clear measurements recorded, the markings were filed as “unidentified.”
The official conclusion was brief:
“Evidence suggests organized habitation within the past month. All major equipment removed. No human remains found.”
Publicly, the site was described as a “decommissioned military training facility.” No arrests were made.
The Survivor Who Spoke Up
According to police archives from the early 1990s, the case was unexpectedly revived when a former figure in the criminal underworld walked into a station with a statement that startled investigators.
He claimed that in the mid-1980s—maybe 1986—he had been one of three contestants left in a deadly series of events on the island. The final challenge, he said, was a cliffside climbing course in the middle of a violent storm.
With rain blinding him and waves smashing the rocks below, he spotted a rope that hadn’t been secured properly. He descended toward the sea and swam into open water until a passing fishing boat spotted him.
When he looked back, the other two contestants were still on the wall. Neither was seen again—on the island, or in the syndicate’s criminal circles.
The man lived quietly for several years after his escape, still loosely connected to the underworld but increasingly disillusioned. In the early 1990s, he severed his ties and went to the police.
His description of the island included the massive concrete hall with a painted chessboard on the floor where the “human chess” matches were staged, the inland boxing ring, and several other structures—some of which matched the burned remains noted in the 1988 naval patrol report. Investigators realized the hall could explain the “geometric markings” mentioned in the file, though his memory of the hall’s size differed from what little the patrol recorded.
Unsettling Clues
Although evidence remains circumstantial, several details stand out:
- 1988 naval report noting the partially collapsed concrete hall with faint geometric floor markings, dismantled structures, and unidentified burned frameworks.
- 1992 police statement from the survivor describing the same hall, the boxing ring, and the cliffside climb—though he remembered the cliff as taller than the patrol’s estimate.
- Shipping records from 1985 showing an unregistered cargo vessel departing Busan without a declared destination—believed by some investigators to have delivered materials used in the island’s setup.
Individually, these findings prove little. Together, they suggest an organized event designed to kill—and to disappear without a trace.
One Time Only—or the Start of Something?
The lack of physical evidence has led many to dismiss the “Forgotten Island” as an embellished underworld myth. Yet the scale of the alleged preparations, and the resources of one of South Korea’s most powerful crime syndicates, hint that it could have happened again—at new, undisclosed locations.
Officially, the case remains closed. Unofficially, it lingers. Some retired investigators quietly admit they believe the island was only one chapter in a longer-running tradition of lethal spectacles for the wealthy and well-connected.
And if that’s true, the real question is not what happened in the 1980s.
It’s whether it ever stopped.
