Disneyland secret society ties together backstories of most popular rides
You might not have heard of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers, but nods to it are hidden throughout the park if you know where to look.
A secret society of explorers and adventurers created by Walt Disney Imagineering ties together the backstories of Disneyland’s most popular rides and connects attractions at Disney theme parks around the world with an underlying mythology.
Knowing winks and nods to the Society of Explorers and Adventurers are hidden in plain sight throughout Disneyland like an Imagineering Easter Egg hunt — if you know where to look and what to look for.
S.E.A. members are associated with the elaborate backstories created by Imagineering for the Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain, Adventureland Treehouse, Tropical Hideaway and Bengal Barbecue at Disneyland as well as Mystic Manor at Hong Kong Disneyland and Tower of Terror at Tokyo Disney Seas.
More tangential connections to the fictional organization created by Imagineering are interwoven into the Disneyland backstories of the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Club 33 and Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar.
Key members of the Disney secret society include Dr. Albert Falls (Jungle Cruise), Barnabas T. Bullion (Big Thunder Mountain Railroad), Lord Henry Mystic (Mystic Manor) and Jock Lindsey (Jock Lindsey’s Hangar Bar at Walt Disney World).
The Disney Illuminati is memorialized on a back wall of Disneyland’s Tropical Hideaway eatery with a dozen rowing paddles — each with a plaque to one of the S.E.A. members.
The recently refreshed Adventureland Treehouse inspired by Walt Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson is the latest Disneyland attraction to employ an extensive S.E.A. backstory.
Despite the attraction’s name, the new residents of the Adventureland Treehouse are not the marooned Robinsons, but rather a nameless yet creative family of five. The family’s daughter loves the stars and has a great spot to watch the night sky from her treetop room.
The daughter’s observatory brims with a telescope fashioned out of old barrels, ancient astronomical instruments and celestial charts. The self-taught astronomer dreams of one day becoming a S.E.A. member and is already in communication with the secret society.
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The daughter’s room is filled with Society of Explorers and Adventurers books that include a “Guide for Prospective Members,” “Who’s Who Compendium of Membership” and the “Official By-Laws.”
A leather book with two belt-buckle straps labeled “Official Member Fan Club” next to a “Membership Application Kit” in a wooden box both feature the distinctive S.E.A. insignia. A banner with the S.E.A. logo hangs on the outside of her astronomy room.
A 1938 letter from S.E.A. member Aya Kouame-Beauciel to the daughter rests on a writing stand in the treetop room.
“I’ll be sending the high-powered lenses you requested to Dr. Kon Chunosuke’s field office at the JNC headquarters,” reads the letter. “He confirmed that Alberta would be happy to hold onto them for you until you can pick them up.”
The Kouame-Beauciel letter references microscope lenses shipped to the Jungle Navigation Co. that sit in the Jungle Cruise queue in a wooden box stamped “Hightower Industries” and “Fragile.”
Keep searching through the Jungle Cruise queue and you’ll find a painting of S.E.A. members from 1897 that makes a sly reference to the Mystic Manor, according to MiceChat.
The letter also references S.E.A. member Kon Chunosuke — one of the members of the trapped safari chased up a tree by a rhino on the Jungle Cruise.
The Alberta mentioned in the letter is the Jungle Navigation Company president and granddaughter of S.E.A. member Albert Falls — of “Backside of Water” fame.
The fictional history of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers stretches back hundreds of years — but the birth of the Imagineering storytelling device started with the Adventurers Club in 1989.
The Adventurers Club was part of the Pleasure Island nightclub district in the Disney Springs outdoor shopping mall at Walt Disney World resort in Florida. The Imagineering masterpiece was filled with audio-animatronics on the walls, secret rooms, potion-like drinks and live performances by S.E.A. characters, according to SFGate.
Although the Adventurers Club closed in 2008, the S.E.A. characters and backstories created just for the restaurant endured and expanded, starting with the debut of Mystic Manor in 2013 at Hong Kong Disneyland. The adjacent Explorer’s Club restaurant is filled with elements from Disney World’s defunct Adventurers Club.