Mystery of Antarctica

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Why do expeditions to the South Magnetic Pole often end tragically, and the participants sometimes found themselves on the verge of insanity?

English polar explorer Robert Scott sought to be the first to reach the South Pole, but he was unlucky; he was outstripped by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Scott discovered at the cherished point a pennant left by his rival just a week before him. The Englishman decided to return back without repeating Amundsen's route - he went through the area of the magnetic pole and died …

Half a century later, the Soviet expedition, which founded the Mirny station in Antarctica, sent a group of six explorers deep into the continent to reach the South Magnetic Pole. Only two returned. According to the official version, the cause of the tragedy was a severe storm, severe frosts and engine failure of the all-terrain vehicle.

The next group of researchers to go to the South Magnetic Pole was the American one. It was in 1962. The Americans took into account the sad experience of their Soviet colleagues - they took the most advanced equipment, 17 people took part in the expedition on three all-terrain vehicles, constant radio communication was maintained with them.

No one died on this expedition. But people returned in one all-terrain vehicle. They were all on the verge of insanity. The researchers were immediately evacuated to their homeland, but very little is known about what happened on the campaign.

After the Americans, Soviet researchers went to the South Magnetic Pole. One of the participants in this campaign, Yuri Efremovich Korshunov, until recently lived in St. Petersburg. One reporter managed to get him to talk about what happened on that long campaign. The reporter recorded the story of the polar explorer, but was unable to publish it. Korshunov, meanwhile, had died.

And recently, the story of Yuri Efremovich, replete with incredible details, appeared in the American press. We give it translated from English.

“It was a polar day,” said Korshunov, “and the weather was beautiful almost all the time we traveled. The thermometer showed only minus thirty degrees Celsius, there was no wind - this is a rarity for Antarctica. We covered the route in three weeks, without losing a minute to repair the car. The first trouble occurred when we set up the main camp at the point that, according to all our measurements, corresponded to the South Magnetic Pole. Everyone was exhausted, so they went to bed early, but could not sleep. Feeling a vague uneasiness, I got up, left the tent and three hundred meters from our all-terrain vehicle I saw … a luminous ball! It bounced like a soccer ball, only its dimensions were a hundred times larger. I screamed and everyone ran outside. The ball stopped bouncing and slowly rolled towards us, changing shape on the way and turning into some kind of sausage. The color also changed - it became darker, and in the front part of the "sausage" a terrible muzzle began to appear without eyes, but with a hole like a mouth. The snow under the "sausage" hissed as if it were red-hot. The mouth moved, and it seemed to me that the "sausage" was saying something.

The expedition photographer Sasha Gorodetsky went ahead with his camera, although the head of the group, Andrei Skobelev, shouted to him to stand still! But Sasha continued to walk, clicking the shutter. And this thing … It instantly changed shape again - it stretched out in a narrow ribbon, and a glowing halo appeared around Sasha, as if around the head of a saint. I remember how he screamed and dropped the apparatus …

At that moment, two shots rang out - Skobelev and our doctor Roma Kustov, who was standing to my right, were shooting … It seemed to me that they were shooting not with explosive bullets, but with bombs - that was the sound. The glowing ribbon swelled, sparks and some kind of short lightning splashed in all directions, and Sasha was engulfed in a kind of fire.

I rushed to Sasha. He lay prone and … was dead! The back of the head, palms and, as it turned out, the whole back seemed to be charred, the polar special suit turned into rags.

We tried to communicate by radio with our station "Mirny", but nothing came of it, something unimaginable was happening on the air - a continuous whistle and growl. Never have I had to face such a wild magnetic storm! It lasted all three days that we spent at the Pole.

The camera was melted as if from a direct lightning strike. Snow and ice - where the tape “crawled” - evaporated, forming a track half a meter deep and two meters wide.

We buried Sasha at the Pole.

Two days later, Kustov and Borisov died, then Andrei Skobelev. Everything repeated … First, one ball appeared - right on Sasha's hill, and a minute later - two more. They arose, as if thickened out of the air, at an altitude of about a hundred meters, slowly descended, hung above the ground and began to move along some complex trajectories, approaching us. Andrey Skobelev filmed, and I measured the electromagnetic and spectral characteristics - the devices were set in advance about a hundred meters from the car. Kustov and Borisov stood at the ready by the carbines. They started shooting as soon as it seemed to them that the balls were stretched out, turning into "sausage".

When we recovered from the shock, the balloons were gone, the air was filled with the smell of ozone - as if after a severe thunderstorm. And Kustov and Borisov were lying in the snow. We immediately rushed to them, we thought there was still something we could do to help. Then they drew attention to Skobelev, he stood with his palms to his eyes, the camera lay on the ice about five meters away, he was alive, but he did not remember anything and saw nothing. He … it is even now scary to remember … a baby. I went, excuse me, for myself. I didn't want to chew - I just drank, splashing liquid around. Probably, he needed to be fed from a nipple, but, you understand, we did not have a nipple, we could not even bury Kustov and Borisov - we had no strength. I wanted one thing - to get away as soon as possible. And Skobelev kept whimpering and drooling … On the way back he died. In Mirny, doctors diagnosed him with heart failure and traces of frostbite, but not very severe - at least not fatal. In the end, we decided to tell the truth - what happened was too pressing, To my surprise, they believed us. But there was no convincing evidence. There was no way to poison the new expedition to the Pole - neither the research program nor the lack of the necessary equipment allowed. As I understand it, the same thing that happened to us happened to the Americans in 1962. Now do you understand why no one else aspires to go there? Someday, maybe, they will go there again. But I don’t think this will happen soon - too reliable protection is required. Such an undertaking is worth millions of dollars. Even the Americans are unlikely to be that rich - they are now, as you know, shutting down their Antarctic stations. The main interest today is the so-called ozone hole. If it were not for the need for constant control over her, there would hardly be people there at all.