 Another notable religious attack was perpetrated by Tung 's men in 1963 . A hugely oversized carp was found swimming in a small pond near the central city of Đà Nẵng . Local Buddhists began to believe that the fish was a reincarnation of one of Gautama Buddha 's disciples . As more people made pilgrimages to the pond , so disquiet grew among the district chief and his subordinates , who answered to Ngô Đình Cẩn , another younger brother of Diệm . The officials mined the pond , but the fish survived . They raked the pond with machine gun fire , but the carp again escaped death . To deal with the tenacious fish , they called in Tung 's special forces . Tung 's men grenaded the pond , finally killing the carp . The killing backfired , because it generated more publicity – many newspapers across the world ran stories about the miraculous fish . Army of the Republic of Vietnam ( ARVN ) helicopters began landing at the site , with paratroopers filling their bottles with water that they believed to be magical . 
