 Despite his explanations , the missionaries Thiele and Keyser , whose own autobiography appeared in 1929 , and the widely respected Mayr , who by this time had become the leader of the Whitney South Seas Expeditions , continued to challenge the bulk of Detzner 's scientific " discoveries " . Detzner 's position became increasingly untenable . In 1932 , he admitted that he had mixed fact and fiction in his book , explaining that he had never intended it to be taken as science , but rather at its face @-@ value , as the story of his adventurous years in the jungles of New Guinea . The following year , Detzner resigned from the prestigious Geographical Society of Berlin . 
