Antarctica - Why did ALL the Researchers get sick at the same time?

Simple. It never happened.

A member of the maintenance crew needed to be evacuated. This required sending in an aircraft during winter when normally there are no flights in and out. A number of other people took this opportunity to leave at the same time for various reason (3 of them having minor illnesses)

So far as I can determine, not one single researcher left.



Well, if the cook or the mechanic leaves, it's useful to replace them.



One of the maintenance crew had heart problems, 3 others had undefined minor illnesses. A few others who may have been homesick took advantage of an unexpected opportunity to leave early. Sometimes seeing your wife and kids again overcomes the desire for money Only Hoaxland would reinterpret that as all the researchers being sicker than dogs

Oh,and what has any evacuation from McMurdo got to do with Vostok anyway? bit like saying some folk fell ill in Paris so it must be connected with something that happened in Moscow ....

OK I admit I have not yet had a chance to read through/watch all the links but I would just like to say as someone who has actually been to Antarctica on one of the Oz research expeditions back in '91. The so called Rigorous Quarantine procedures really aren't that rigorous. The ship I went down on was full of crew from all over the place and certainly had not been through any major medical checks, I never had any major medical checks and I am pretty sure most of the rest of the expedition didn't either.
You see all through the summer the bases receive supply shipments with short term visiters on board (such as myself, I spent a total of 4 days at Casey station). These short term visiters do not go through as many tests and training procedure as those that stay throughout the incredibly long winter. These short term visiters can be made up of anyone from scientists, engineers, military(me) or even the odd film crew or two (we had Andrew Denton from Oz Tv and his film crew with us).
So I guess my point here is..It is not that difficult for a bug to make it's way there..and it is never that difficult to spin a sensational story about a place that few people know anything about.

Not that that won't stop me reading up on all the links and trying to see what the real story is. I recall some of the Glacial scientists with us were going out to do some research on the "Dome" but I had my own work to do and didn't really pay any attention to this.

My incredibly important work by the way was to install two DGPS positioning systems near the base so the scientist types could track continental drift in the region..and yes it was one of the most amazing experiences in my entire life..next to meeting my wife and then my duaghter..

Cheers

CTH

Thks for confirming what I suspected might well be the case.

Although quarantine, however vigorous, presumable don't prevent heart attacks or frostbite or homesickness.




Perhaps something to do with the EPICA project (before someone starts thinking that 'dome' is a reference to a manmade structure ) ?

reply to post by TheDuckster

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I googleed: Antarctic Researchers sick
This happenedin 01', 7years ago.

This guy is dreaming
The only mineral/vitamin deficient down there is research on vitamin D .
Could find nothing about salt.


Source



[edit on 16/4/08 by Zelong]

There is a theory that black ops were trying to move the magnetic poles by nuclear means, deep underground in Antartica.

In other words creating a man made pole shift. Playing God.

I believe they will not be successful at this but probably will still try to destroy the pristine environment. When firms quote things like "We stopped drilling as it was environmentally unsound", I tend to sit up and take notice. At no time in the hostory of mankind have any big businesses been thwarted by any altruistic agenda. Neither theirs or anyone elses.
The drilling at Vostok sounds suspicious.

These threads are interesting:

www.dailygalaxy.com...

www.dailygalaxy.com...

Man that was an anti-climax after listing to that full interview. For he first 5 minutes I was riveted then it went downhill from there. At least Art provided some balance to Hoagland's outlandish ideas.

Seeing as this was 6 years ago and various studies, like those kindly linked above, have been done on the micro organisms in the ice I don't think alien artifacts were found nor the andromeda strain.

Let's face it folks, if researchers found something previously unknown, and dangerous, down there that infected an entire crew of people, or were experimenting with deadly biologicals and screwed up, those people would never again leave the continent.

No government would be stupid enough to allow such contamination to spread (unless you believe the "population reduction" theory, but biologicals would be unreliable and difficult to control in such a scenario--you'd be just as likely to kill the elites as you would the third-world poor, vaccines or no) and would certainly not risk an airplane, aircrew, medical team, etc. to bring the infected people back.

They'd be left to rot and eventually freeze, that base quietly destroyed or simply abandoned (easy to do, just throw a blurb on the news about some major mechanical failure cut with stock footage of a C-130 being loaded to placate the uncaring populace; left unattended it would be buried soon with few traces of its ever having existed) and a new base built to replace it.

Few, if any would even ask about the researchers there, unless they follow this sort of thing; even their deaths could be easily covered up with the previously-mentioned mechanical failure explanation (power failed, no heat, no way to cook food, supplies ran out, etc.).

Either way, if they ran across something dangerous, they'd be "sacrificed".

No, no, no. You gave A POSSIBLE ANSWER to the question. The only ones who know why they did something are those that did the something. And sometimes even then they don't know why.

The magnetic shield around the Earth is caused by the solid inner core moving ahead of the rest of Earth by 2/3 of a second. I think they would have to drill through about 600 miles of molten mantle, just to get to the liquid metal outer core, never mind affect the solid metal core.
The magnetic poles flip all the time. In fact, we are due one very soon.
There is a branch of science called magnetology. They study magnetism, believe it or not. The geologic record and the polarity of magnetism within cooled basalt has enabled them to work out both continental drift and the wandering magnetic poles, and how often and over what time scales we have had flips of the poles. Magnetology was also paramount in confirming the seafloor spreading hypothesis, which in turn proved subduction of ocean plates and continental margins, which in turn secured the tectonic plate theory. So it's a pretty important branch, and one that is studied by a lot of people.

The drilling at lake Vostok was halted 200 yards short of penetration. For anyone interested, there is BBC documentary made by Horizon that was there with the team while they were drilling. They were googling over the core samples they had, and explaining why they didn't want to drill inside, as it is a pristine ecosystem, and may resemble environments on Europa, so of great value for research. Also, the heat in the lake is from rising heat from the mantle being trapped, and also compression from the weight of the glacier on top.

"Scientists have been baffled by the discovery of Lake Vostok which although four kilometres below Antarctic ice, is not frozen. Can scientists find out why without contaminating the water?"

www.bbc.co.uk...

catalogue.bbc.co.uk...


[edit on 16-4-2008 by cruzion]

reply to post by TheDuckster

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Hey ducky

My work has quite a few weather staff down there at the Mawson, Casey and Davis bases. Nobody has been moved from there at all

So I am a bit confused as to whether or not this source is accurate....unless all but the Australian bases were evacuated?

Antarctica - Why did ALL the Researchers get sick at the same time?.....

What if the researchers had ridiculed or annoyed one particular member of the team........a particular member who thought it would be funny to fill the T pot with Yellow Snow!
Big T pot...about a dozen cups. Revenge can be sweet (two lumps please.......................sssssssssp!, better make that six"!)

reply to post by OzWeatherman

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As far as i understand it all happened in 2001. Still it sounds weird. I wonder why till now no drilling started. I read that in 2005 Russians were supposed to restart drilling till 100 plus meters of the lake. Wonder why it is silent. A few bugs without eyes in a cave brought great deal of attention, and a whole lake of new life forms is not interesting?

JUST MY 2 CENTS... THE MORE INTERESTING THING IS A LACK OF FOLLOW UP INFORMATION REGARDING THE PROJECT... on the note of the sickness well im sure sub zero temperatures arnt too good on an immune system. resulting in minor sickens and possibly making more serious conditions worse... if it where a much larger number to throw off the chance of coincidence.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge

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This from a news story last year:



www.independent.co.uk...

ie - they were hoping to finally break through some time in 2008. But there's still a lot of controversy on whether they should, whether they can be 100% sure there'll be no contamination of the lake waters (note: the fear is that we contaminate the lake, not the other way around )

reply to post by Shere Khaan

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I have to say I totally agree..... I listened with an opened mind.
It just went from fair to fairly ordinary.

As Ozweatherman said, when did they pull the Aussies?
And after all there are just a few of us there

It just sounds to me like the story getting in the way of the facts.

Edit to say : Sorry Ducky... not flaming... JMO

[edit on 17/4/2008 by mungodave]

I don't usually post, but I thought I might as well here.

I was actually reading up on this earlier, and not hearing about this lakes unusual effects, I did however read up on scientists taking investigation in to what they believe to be a crater from an asteroid larger than the one that allegedly killed the dinosaurs.

Wilkes Land crater Wiki

Now the Crater is centered at 70° S 120° E with a believed depression of 240-250km in diameter, and a depth of almost a km, which is pretty damn massive.

The Vostok Lake, is located around 77° S 105° E. Considering the size of Antarctica, and the number of lakes underneath the continent, I felt obliged to bring this coincidence to the pros and real talkers to see if they know of anything else.

Perhaps (with my armchair knowledge on the subject), these scientists are checking magnetic anomalies similar to those at the Chicxulub Crater

Maybe more?

One thing they don't tell you on those articles in the effect that electro-magnetic radiation has on the human body, and both the poll's get MASS amounts.

the electro-magnetic fields interfere with the natural impusles in the brain, disrupting connections to the area of the body which is controlled by that center of the brain.

one of the few things keeping our atmosphere around (other than gravity) is the earths own electro-magnetic field, without it the solar winds would rip the atmosphere away.
life on earth has adapted to work within the fields of earth, but if there was a large "solar storm" and the solar winds were running extremely strong, who's to say whats going to happen with the elecro-magnetic activity in the poll's where earth is effected most by the solar winds.

radiation sickness of sorts tht would make sence because it would effect most people no matter how physically fit they where or not.

Another dynamite OP Duckster. I read about two years back a whole station going down with the 'ick'. Members were quarantined to quarters who were afflicted, meals brought to them. Supposing they could actually eat them. I have all the webcams bookmarked from the antarctica stations. I saw at McMurdo about a dozen members huddled up looking at two or three aerial objects over some small mountains a ways out. I wish those cams were streaming and HD. They have pumped millions into their southerly research facilities and now a permanent runway to accomodate a c137. Now and again odd tales surface. Lake Vostock is a huge enigma. As is reports of tropical plants found flash frozen in the ice.