Did China cover-up the truth about who first made it to the top of Everest? Book suggests body of British climber Andrew Irvine was removed from world's highest peak
When the body of George Mallory was found clad in hobnail boots just 2,000 feet from the summit of Everest, historians raised the tantalising possibility that he may have been the first man to reach the top of the world's tallest mountain - 29 years before the first confirmed ascent. But two crucial mysteries still remain unsolved after the 1999 discovery: what had happened to the body of his climbing partner Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine (left), and where was the Vest Pocket Kodak (VPK) camera they were said to be carrying that might contain crucial photographs proving the men had reached the top of Everest in their 1924 expedition? As a result, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay (inset) continue to be credited with being the first climbers to reach the top of the Himalayan mountain - which straddles Nepal and China - in their 1953 expedition. If Mallory and Irvine did reach the top of Everest, they would also have been the first to successfully do it on the deadly North Face, nearly 40 years before Chinese climbers accomplished the feat in 1960. However, author Mark Synnott, who was part of a 2019 expedition led by New Zealander Jamie McGuinness to try to solve the mystery reveals in a new book that the Chinese may have found Irvine's body and the camera, before burying the evidence. Also pictured: Mallory and Irvine with the rest of their 1924 team (top right); the last image of the pair before they disappeared (bottom right).
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Yes indeed it would be a great feat of accomplishment to take the mystery machine back to 1924 and settle this "Mallory/Irvine vs Hillary/Tenzing question that my old history teacher [Mr. Hutchinson] used to get so excited about back at school lol. ... The thing is that there has been theory after theory about just how the accepted history of these achievements could be twisted into 'something more'! ... And this latest claim [or accusation] could well turn out to be true! ... but then there's two things that go against this 'claim' from the start in my personal opinion. ... And the first one being the absolutely shameless media bias depending on which region of the Earth's surface you happen to be in that seems to have exponentially increased in the last twenty years or so! [maybe it's always been like this, idk... i've only noticed it since i've been surfing the web?] . ie... A Chinese newspaper expose' could quite easily come out tomorrow with an entirely plausible case backed up by a combination of fact and factoid-theory that could convince many people that it was an old Chinese explorer that discovered the source of the Nile. [or whatever springs to your mind] ... the thing is that in today's climate it is much easier for a Western Article to portray a bunch of Chinese climbers/sportsmen of being "the type of character to employ underhanded tactics to claim glory!" ... and vice versa.
The truth is that without the Mystery Machine being fired up... we'll never know the truth of this story at all! ... but I have to say that the second reason for me doubting the veracity of this 'claim' is that I already had the stead fast notion that Mallory and Irvine never quite made it to the summit. ... and that comes from reading a 'Yeti book' by Graham Hoyland ... a real life explorer that famously took photographs of Yeti footprints and gathered loads of Yeti related witness statements, which I enjoyed so much that it lead me to reading more fascinating articles by him on his all kinds of Climbing adventures [he was the the 13th British man to climb Everest himself] by all manner of adventurers from his own uncle who was a contemporary of Mallory's , and was actually the man whom lent the famous camera to Mallory that the article is putting so much critical importance to... and one of them was this one ...
Did George Mallory Reach The Summit of Everest First? | Graham Hoyland ... in which he convinced me that the Chinese glory-stealing-story must be wishful fantasy because Mallory and Irvine never quite made it to the top of Everest.
Canister found in hunt for long-lost Nazi treasure
Treasure hunters have found a metal canister that could contain hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stolen valuables.
During World War II, the Nazis plundered all manner of treasures from across Europe and much of it has yet to be recovered. One particular hoard, which was stolen on the orders of Heinrich Himmler, had been hidden somewhere in Poland with the intention of being used to later set up a Fourth Reich.
The treasure is thought to contain around $250,000 worth of valuables including the 'Gold of Breslau' which was plundered from a police headquarters near Wroclaw in Poland.
Now a group of treasure hunters believes that it may have located these long-lost riches underneath an abandoned conservatory at an 18th-Century palace in the Polish village of Minkowskie.
Using ground penetrating radar, the team has identified what appears to be a 5ft metal canister buried 10ft beneath the ground at the very place where the treasure was rumored to be based on recovered Nazi documents.
According to Roman Furmaniak from the Silesian Bridge Foundation, the scans have revealed 'anomalies' at the site.
"The first drill we made showed unnatural contortions on one side," he said. "We made a second probe and received the same result on the other side. A third probe struck an object. The shapes and colours show anomalies, in other words human interference in the ground. Metal has a different density to earth, and this is shown as a darker colour in the images."
If the team actually does succeed in unearthing the rumored treasure, it will certainly be one for the history books.
Source: Mail Online
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Yep i've been fantasising what i'd do with this pot of gold if i'd somehow chanced upon it since I came across the story last night buddy.
... Would I do the honourable thing and track down the families of the original owners of this treasure? ... or would I just keep schtum and live the dream? ... ? hard one that!
... anyway i'm not sure about the claim that $200,000,000. is nearly enough to start the 4th reich as the article stated? ...but would be enough to cause a bit of grief for some poor buggers, so either way I think that the world would be better off if that gold came home with me instead of those mad-bastards! lol
Another mystery solved?...
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Solved - Gulf War syndrome mystery: US Government-funded scientists blame SARIN released into air when Iraq's chemical weapons cache was bombed
The bombing of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapon arsenal could be to blame for tens of thousands of British and US soldiers being struck down with the mysterious Gulf War syndrome, scientists say. Puzzled researchers have spent decades searching for the root cause of the illness, which has left veterans battling fatigue, memory problems and chronic pain.
Now, a US Government-funded study claims to offer the 'most definitive' proof that the destruction of Iraq's cache of chemical weapons is responsible. January 1991's explosions, centered around cities Muthanna and Fallujah, released sarin — a lethal nerve-agent — into the air.
The man-made gas — used in the Tokyo subway terror attack — usually kills but the doses inhaled by Western armed forces was diluted.
Dr Robert Haley, who has been investigating the syndrome for nearly three decades, said the quantities were still enough to make people ill, however. He said: 'There are still more than 100,000 Gulf War veterans who are not getting help for this illness.
'Our hope is that these findings will accelerate the search for better treatment.'
Around 33,000 soldiers in the UK and 250,000 in the US, have complained of a collection of unexplained and chronic symptoms, which also include fever, night sweats and memory and concentration problems.
Hundreds of thousands of US troops, along with soldiers from a coalition of 35 countries entered were sent to Kuwait in August 1990 after the country annexed by Iraq.
Western nations feared Iraqi president Saddam Hussein would march his troops further south and take control of Saudi Arabia and its oil supplies. The allied nations began air strikes in January 1991 after Iraq missed a United Nations deadline to withdraw from Kuwait.
But Iraqi troops eventually withdrew from one month later following air attacks on military and other targets in Iraq and Kuwait. Soldiers reported suffering from the array of symptoms on returning from the conflict and cases had been logged in the UK, Denmark, Canada and Australia in the years after the war.
Original theories over the cause of the illness centred around debris from depleted uranium munitions, but evidence has since built up to suggest sarin is to blame.
Dr Haley and colleagues examined 1,016 American soldiers who served during the conflict. Half the participants had Gulf War syndrome symptoms — which can also include difficulty finding words, diarrhoea and sexual dysfunction. The others did not.
They had blood and DNA samples taken and were quizzed about whether they had heard chemical nerve gas alarms during their deployment. Soldiers' samples were tested for a gene called PON1, which break down chemicals in the body.
One variant — called PON1Q — generates an enzyme that breaks down sarin. Another variant — called PON1R — helps the body break down other chemicals but is not efficient at destroying sarin. Everyone carries two copies of PON1, giving them either a QQ, RR or QR genotype.
The findings, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, show Gulf War veterans with the QQ genotype who heard nerve agent alarms – a proxy for chemical exposure – were 3.75-times more likely to have the syndrome than those who had not heard the alarm.
For those who had a QR genotype, hearing the alarms raised their chance of having Gulf War syndrome by 4.43 times. And for those with two copies of the R gene — which is inefficient at breaking down sarin — the chance of the condition increased by 8.91 times.
The researchers said the gene data provides a 'high degree' of confidence that sarin causes the condition. Dr Haley said: 'Your risk is going up step by step depending on your genotype, because those genes are mediating how well your body inactivates sarin.
The weather satellite image above shows a large debris cloud, which was confirmed to contain sarin, pictured rising from the site and spreading over US ground troops, where it set off thousands of nerve gas alarms.
Dr Hayley noted the finding 'doesn't rule out' that other chemical exposures could be responsible for some ill soldiers. But he said the team's extensive genetic analysis did not appear to identify any other contributing chemicals.
Sarin, which can be a colourless liquid or gas, was first developed as a pesticide by Nazi Germany. It was banned from production in 1997 but has since been used in chemical warfare, including in Syria and during a terror attack in Japan.
The research was funded by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.
The US military has confirmed sarin was detected in Iraq during the Gulf War, which lasted for six months. Satellite images show an Iraqi chemical weapons storage site was bombed by the US and some of the 35 coalition nations who participated in the conflict.
A large debris cloud, which was confirmed to contain sarin, was pictured rising from the site and spreading over ground troops, where it set off thousands of nerve gas alarms.
Earlier studies found a link between Gulf War veterans who self-reported that they were exposed to sarin and symptoms of the syndrome. But critics said this was down to recall bias.
Dr Hayley said: 'What makes this new study a game-changer is that it links Gulf War syndrome with a very strong gene-environment interaction that cannot be explained away by errors in recalling the environmental exposure or other biases in the data.'
Since the war, researchers have studied a list of possible causes of the illness, ranging from stress, vaccination and burning oil wells to exposure to pesticides, nerve gas, anti-nerve gas medication and depleted uranium.
Some of the studies identified links with the illness but none of these causes were widely accepted.
Dr Haley said: 'As far back as 1995, when we first defined Gulf War illness, the evidence was pointing toward nerve agent exposure, but it has taken many years to build an irrefutable case.'
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All I can say about this one is that "isn't it a cruel but ironic twist of fate that this thing seems to be self induced rather than being the result of an Iraqi assault" ... there was , in my personal opinion no real justification for that bloody assault that the US lead destruction of a pretty backward Country. albeit an imperfectly lead Country... nevertheless as in all of these weirdly calculated "special operations" it is the civilian population ie... the aged, the women , the children and the men that the invaders are claiming to liberate that take the brunt of the death and destruction! btw... are these veterans that are suffering the gulf war syndrome demanding the heads of those intelligence services and politicians that lied about those "oh! so deadly WMD's that was so necessary to justify this mighty destruction that has been calculated by some to have cost four million lives? rant! rant! rant! rant! all wars are shit!!
Cheers Buddy.