Tahiti is the largest island in French Polynesia, an area that includes one hundred and eighteen islands spread over 1,545,000 square miles. Included in French Polynesia are five archipelagos: Society Islands, Austral Islands, Tuamotu Islands, Gambier Islands and Marquesas. The island itself is approximately 402-square miles. It was formed by the eruption of two volcanoes in close proximity to each other. As a result, it is known as a volcanic "high" island. The island is divided into two geographic areas called Tahiti Nui (Big Tahiti) and Tahiti Iti (Little Tahiti). Tahiti was the first destination to be explored by the OCE team as a whole. The previous expedition to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) only included Trespass, Rune and Meridian.

After spending a month among the deserted hills of Rapa Nui, Tahiti was a welcomed change to the trio as Rune noted in her journal:

“[Tahiti] is, I think, closer to what most people imagine when they think of island lifestyle. There are towering volcanic peaks covered with thick green forests and amazing waterfalls that fill warm lagoons with mist and rainbows. The island is girdled by a coral reef so the ocean life is a scuba driver’s dream come true. And for the sunbather, welcome to miles of white sand beaches and water so blue and sparkling it seems almost unreal...”

It wasn't long, however, before the lures of Tahiti had some of the younger OCE members forgetting that their mission on the island was to explore the local mysteries and paranormal sites. The team rented a house on the outskirts of Papeete, Tahiti’s capital (and largest) city, only to see Trespass and Anvil quickly turn it into their own bachelor pad. Both young men had read that Tahitian society was particularly open-minded about sexual matters and had created some expectations about their activities on the island that were not shared by the other members. Equally contentious was the perception that Polaris, the de facto leader of OCE, was not showing any effort in resolving the dispute. Tensions came to a head when someone left a dirty sock in the refrigerator.

“Oh god, the dreaded sock incident!” laughed Polaris. “I had almost forgotten about that. At the time, we assumed the Trespass had done it to cheese off Meridian. It turned out later that Ash was the culprit but the damage had been done. It's hard to believe that something so trivial as that caused so much disruption, but tempers were already flaring and the sock was the final straw, I guess.”

The dispute quickly disintegrated into a one-on-one conflict between Meridian and Trespass which would continue for months to come.

“Nothing got done at that point,” remembered Anvil. “Trespass and Meridian weren't even talking to each other, and everyone started dividing up into factions. Trespass was ready to move out of the bungalow on the second day and go his own way.”

While the adults feuded over the ownership of the sock, the kids were enjoying the beach and making new friends including a local French-Polynesian boy whose name they originally thought was “Tad Hicky.” He was in fact called “Tahiki,” but his heavy island accent confused both Ash and Coyote.

A tall, handsome teenager, Tahiki did not look like most Tahitians. He described himself as "ehu," which translated to "fair skinned and light haired," traits that are sometimes considered seraphic among the locals. Anthropologists have yet to explain the occasional appearance of such individuals throughout the South Pacific, but they have appeared as far east as Rapa Nui and as far west a New Guinea. In most cases, their European appearance does not appear to be the result of cross-breeding with wayward sailors in generations past.

Although pleasant and soft-spoken, the teenager became a source of concern when he began to tell the younger boys about his home life with his grandmother. In particular, he told them tales about his grandmother being a cannibalistic witch who would abduct sunbathers off the beach and devour them in their nearby bungalow.

Despite these amazing tales, Tahiki invited Ash, Coyote and Polaris to go swimming in the cove near the old woman's house. Although they enjoyed this outing, none of them were allowed to meet the woman or approach the house itself. Afterwards, Ash began to have dreams about Tahiki's grandmother as Polaris recorded in his journal of June 5, 2005:

“This morning, my son produced his first intuitive rendering of our Tahitian trip. It was a highly detailed portrait of an old crone with long stringy hair and a mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth. Ash said that it was a picture of Tahiki’s grandmother, whom he saw in a dream. He said that she had much longer teeth than normal people and that she sharpened them to points so they would tear through flesh when she ate people. Ash said that in his dream the old woman ran down to the beach and snatched up a local boy who was surfing there. She dragged him, kicking and screaming, up to the house and drowned him in the bathtub. Then she ate him.”

The adult OCE members dismissed the veracity of Tahiki's stories but worried about what they said about the young man's mental state.

“I thought he was probably either a hustler or a psycho,” said Meridian. “I was worried because Ash and Coyote were taking his stories to heart. Particularly Coyote.”

On June 8th, 2005, both boys decided to covertly return to Tahiki's cove and see his elusive grandmother for themselves. According to both, when they returned to the cove, they found Tahiki's house in disrepair as though it had been abandoned decades earlier. They documented the crumbling structure with a pilfered digital camera, even photographing an old bathtub they felt was used by the old witch to kill her human prey. Rune compared their photos to those Polaris had taken of the area just days earlier, concluding that they were the same place despite their dramatically different conditions. Intrigued, the entire OCE team decided to make the long walk to the cove together. This time, they couldn't find the area or the house at all.

Polaris recorded their confusion:

“[Rune], Meridian and I have been racking our brains trying to figure out how we got so lost in an area that is relatively small. The original path we took to Tahiki’s house was not complex, as it basically followed the shoreline to the southeast then cut through a small outcrop of jungle and entered the lagoon. I am completely confident that we followed the shoreline part correctly. It’s the part where you have to cut through the jungle that has all of us stymied. Ash and Coyote were certain that we entered the forest at the correct location, but I could not remember so clearly from my one visit to the lagoon... [We] have compiled four theories to explain how we were unable to relocate the house:

1. The simplest and most likely scenario is that we cut through the forest at the wrong point and either overshot, undershot or bypassed the house altogether.

2. Ash and Coyote went to the wrong place during their second visit, so we were looking for the wrong site and did not recognize the correct area because [they] were distracted. This seems more unlikely. The lagoon was gorgeous and hard to forget or mistake. I know I didn’t see it and mistake it for something else.

3. We remembered the route Tahiki took us on incorrectly. The true route perhaps did not go by the shoreline at all, although where else would you expect to find a lagoon? I consider this theory even more unlikely thannumber 2.

4. The house, like Tahiki, simply vanished. In order to accept this theory you would have accept a variety of other inherently paranormal factors. You would have to assume that Tahiki truly was the unusual Tahitian "ehu" specimen he claimed to be and you would have to accept that his grandma was some kind of monster in human form. You would have to give more weight to the intuitive feelings and drawings reported by both my sons when in Tahiki’s company, including the menacing feeling all of us had when at the lagoon the first time. Finally, you would have to assume that the house, Tahiki and his grandmother all vanished for some predetermined reason, perhaps to protect Ash and Coyote from their own bothersome curiosity that led them into the lair of a suspected mad woman. Needless to say, this is the theory both of the boys subscribe to.”

Whatever the case, Tahiki was never seen again by any of the OCE members. They left the island, still scratching their heads about the boy's fate, on June 13th.

“The Tahiti experiment was a disaster,” Meridian said later. “I know that sounds brutal, but there's no way you can sugar coat it. None of us knew each other that well, and other than Polaris and his kids, no one had lived with the others. It was horrible and we were at each other's throats for months afterward.”

“I don't think we examined one mystery while there,” said Rune. “Half of us thought we were on vacation and the other half didn't know what we were doing. It was a very poor and rather embarrassing beginning to our great experiment.”

"The conclusion to our Tahiti visit was really very unsatisfying," agreed Polaris. "If only because we were all legitimately worried about Tahiki's welfare. If his stories were made up, then it's possible that he was a very unbalanced individual. If they were true, even in the most remote way, then Tahiki was living with someone who may have been a serial killer... or at least extremely dangerous."

Attempts to locate Tahiki since the team left Tahiti have all proven unsuccessful.