Why did expeditions to the South Pole die under mysterious circumstances?
The event that took place in February of this year is compared in importance to the first manned flight into space. After 20 years of work, Russian explorers of Antarctica broke through an almost 4-kilometer ice layer and reached the surface of the sub-ice Lake Vostok. Scientists hope that in the lake, which has not been in contact with the surrounding earthly world for millions of years, 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 Pole in the late 50s of the last century. Of the six polar explorers who started to the pole from the Mirny station, only two were able to return back.
According to the official version, people died due to a severe storm and frost. However, Yuri Efremovich later spoke about what actually happened to the expedition. Here is his story.
Killer Balls
“It was a polar day, and the weather was beautiful 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
trouble began when we set up camp at the point that, in all our measurements, corresponded to the South Magnetic Pole. Everyone was exhausted, so went to bed early, but could not sleep. Feeling vaguely uneasy, I got up and left the tent.
Metpax, three hundred from our all-terrain vehicle, I saw some kind of 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 red-hot. The mouth moved, and by God, it seemed to me that the "sausage" was saying something …
… Expedition photographer Sasha Gorodetsky went ahead with his camera, although the head of the group, Andrey Skobelev, shouted not to dare approach the "sausage", or even better, 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 - Andrei 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, sparks and some kind of short lightning splashed in all directions …
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 - continuous whistling and growling. 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 Andrey Skobelev. Everything repeated …
We worked outside, the mood was depressed … 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, 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, thought we could still help with something. Then they paid attention to Skobelev - he was standing with his palms to his eyes, the camera was lying on the ice about five meters away, he was alive, but he remembered nothing and saw nothing.
He … It's scary to remember even now … he was like a baby. I went, sorry, 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. Skobelev was whining and drooling all the time … On the way back he died …
Returning home, we decided to tell the truth - what happened was too pressing. To my surprise, they believed us. There was no conclusive evidence, though. But they did not send a 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 … This story of the polar explorer Yuri Korshunov was published in one of the American newspapers.
What was it?
The next group of researchers to go to the South Magnetic Pole was the American one - from the Midway station. 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 only in one surviving car, on the verge of insanity. All were immediately evacuated to their homeland. Very little is known about what happened so far: several newspaper articles and two articles in scientific journals. All events were immediately classified.
After returning to their homeland, almost half of the participants in the campaign ended up in psychiatric clinics. Therefore, it can be assumed that the matter was not without the intrigues of mysterious "monsters". There is an assumption that the participants of the very first expedition to the South Pole also met killer balls on their way.
As you know, the first was the American explorer Robert Falcon Scott in 1912. On the way to the pole, the expedition lost only one person. Having set the flag, the travelers set off on their way back and … died. According to the official version, Scott and his comrades died because they lost their way, were left without food and froze. However, there are suspicions that, in addition to natural storms and bad weather, the polar explorers encountered some inexplicable anomalies several times, as a result of which they perished one after another.
… The phenomenon observed by the polar explorers has not yet been explained. In 1966, researchers gave the killer balls the name Plasmosaurus. American physicist Roy Christopher expressed the opinion that these Antarctic monsters are some kind of electrified living creatures, plasma clots.
According to his version, plasmosaurs live at an altitude of 400 - 800 kilometers from the Earth's surface. They are there in a rarefied state and remain invisible. However, in the region of the South Pole (at the North Pole, this was not observed) plasmosaurs can approach the Earth. Getting into a dense environment, they themselves become so dense that they can be seen.
Plasmosaurs, according to the American researcher, can cause hallucinations in people and shock them with electrical discharges. Christopher classified them as living beings that originated in nature even before organic life forms appeared on Earth. Of course, this is just a version.
Perhaps, over time, this mysterious phenomenon will cease to be a secret behind seven seals. Who knows, maybe thanks to the latest successes of Russian researchers in Antarctica, the mystery of plasmosaurs will also be solved.