Couldn't be from the Chinese fellow- a few years is far to short for such thourough cultural integration. Same goes for the post above. Would have to be an earlier group of explorers: perhaps some that never made it home to report?
"perhaps some that never made it home to report?" Think about it. A lot of people never made a report back home. One thing that every explorer who ever did report back home could report the same thing, "We Found People."