Just days before his untimely death due to “natural causes,” UFO enthusiast Maxwell Bates-Spiers sent a haunting message to his mother that continues to stir unease. Bates-Spiers, who hailed from Canterbury, England, had traveled to Poland to speak at an environmental conference in July 2016. His journey took a tragic turn when he died at a friend’s house in Warsaw after vomiting a mysterious “dark fluid”.
The eeriness of the situation was compounded by a spine-chilling text he sent to his mother shortly before he passed away. The text’s foreboding content has left many unsettled.
At the time of his death, the 39-year-old was staying at the house of Monika Duval. During an inquest held in the UK, Duval reported to Coroner Christopher Sutton-Mattocks that Bates-Spiers had ingested approximately 10 tablets of a Turkish variant of Xanax, a powerful tranquilizer commonly used for treating anxiety and panic disorders. Duval disclosed that he had purchased the medication over-the-counter during a trip to Cyprus, where prescriptions are not necessary for such drugs.
However, his condition rapidly deteriorated as he soon vomited up a dark fluid and ceased breathing. When paramedics arrived at Duval’s home, they immediately called the police, and two officers responded to the scene.
Following a three-day inquest, Coroner Sutton-Mattocks criticized the initial police investigation into Bates-Spiers’ death as “wholly incompetent.” It was revealed during the inquest that the Polish police had abandoned their probe following an initial assessment by a doctor claiming Bates-Spiers had died from natural causes.
Yet, later findings by a coroner indicated that drug intoxication and pneumonia were the actual causes of death. The initial investigators faced significant criticism for their lack of diligence, especially given the concerns voiced by Bates-Spiers’ mother, Vanessa Bates, who speculated that her son might have been murdered.
During the inquest, she shared the unsettling text her son sent, which read, “If anything happens to me, look into it, investigate.” She added that he had expressed fears about being murdered.
Coroner Sutton-Mattocks pointed out, “Max was a conspiracy theorist, and a well-known one at that. If there was anything that was bound to excite the interest of other conspiracy theorists, it was the wholly incompetent initial investigation into his death.”
The ruling determined that the pneumonia and drugs had “caused aspiration of gastric contents,” and a post-mortem examination revealed lethal levels of the opioid oxycodone in his system, bringing a tragic end to the life of a man enveloped in mystery and speculation.