The event, which took place in February 2012, is compared in importance to the first manned flight into space. After 30 years of drilling, Russian explorers of Antarctica pierced almost 4 km of ice and reached the surface of the subglacial Lake Vostok. Scientists hope that in the lake, which for millions of years was completely isolated from the earth's atmosphere, it will be possible to catch the clues to many secrets of the icy continent.
One of them was once told to the world by the Soviet polar explorer Yuri Korshunov, who miraculously survived in Antarctica during the notorious expedition to the South Magnetic Pole in the late 50s of the last century. Of the six polar explorers who started to the pole from Mirny station, only two were able to return back. According to the official version, the cause of the tragedy was a severe storm, severe frosts and engine failure of the all-terrain vehicle.
Antarctic station Mirny, 2006
In 1962, a group of American researchers went from Midway station to the South Magnetic Pole. The Americans took into account the sad experience of their Soviet colleagues, so they took the most advanced equipment. The expedition was attended by 17 people on three all-terrain vehicles, with them constant radio communication was maintained.
No one died on this expedition, but people returned in the same car, on the verge of insanity. Everyone was immediately evacuated to their homeland, but very little is known about what happened during the campaign: several newspaper articles, more sensational than informative, and two articles in scientific journals. Since then, there have been no expeditions to the South Magnetic Pole.
Antarctic station Mirny, 1956
One of the participants in the Soviet campaign to the South Magnetic Pole, Yuri Efremovich Korshunov, later spoke about what actually happened to the expedition. Here is his story, published in one of the American newspapers:
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It was a polar day and the weather was perfect for almost the entire time of our journey. The thermometer showed only minus 30 ° С, 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. In general, everything was going too well.
The first trouble occurred when we set up the main camp at the point that, in all our measurements, corresponded to the South Magnetic Pole. Everyone was exhausted, so they went to bed early, but could not sleep. Feeling vague anxiety, I got up, went out of the tent and, three hundred meters away from our all-terrain vehicle, I saw a glowing 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 front 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 hot. The mouth moved, and by God, 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 not to dare approach the "sausage", or even better, to stand still. But Sasha continued walking, clicking the bolt. 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 firing. It seemed to me that they were shooting not with explosive bullets, but with bombs - that was the sound. The glowing ribbon swelled up, sparks and some kind of short lightning splashed in all directions, and Sasha was engulfed in the kind of fire of Saint Elmo. 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. Where the tape "crawled", the snow and ice 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 Andrey Skobelev. It all happened again. We worked outside, the mood was depressed, the snowy hill on Sasha's grave was still in front of our eyes.
First, one ball appeared - right on Sasha's hill, and a minute later - two more. This time we saw everything: the balls appeared as if they had thickened out of the air, at an altitude of about a hundred meters, and only then they slowly descended, hung over 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 had been set up a hundred meters from the car in advance. Kustov and Borisov stood at the ready with their carbines. They started firing 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 we could still do something to help. Then they paid 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's scary to remember even now, was like a baby. I didn’t want to chew, but only 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 strong, at least not fatal. In the end, we decided to tell the truth, because 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 in 1962 with the Americans.
One of the hypotheses claiming to explain what happened to people in Antarctica was put forward in 1966 by the American physicist Roy D. Christopher. In his opinion, some semblances of electrical "living beings" - plasma clots live in the Earth's radiation belt. The natural shape for such "creatures" is a ball. Plasmosaurs (the term was also coined by R. Christopher) live within the radiation belt, mainly at an altitude of 400-800 kilometers. That is why their study is extremely difficult, because the orbital stations fly much lower. Plasmosaurs can approach the Earth's surface only in the vicinity of the magnetic poles.
Polar stratospheric clouds in Antarctica / Photo: Kelly Speelman, National Science Foundation
According to Korshunov, a peculiar form of life in the earth's radiation belts could have originated much earlier than organic life on the planet's surface. This is quite a sufficient period for the development of the most sophisticated forms of "living" beings. They are too sparse to be seen. Approaching the surface of the Earth, plasmosaurs find themselves in a very dense environment. And they themselves become so dense that they become visible.