Murder in Antarctica (Maybe ????)

Rodney David Marks dies in unusual circumstances in Antarctica. 8 Years later New Zealand police are still being prevented from interviewing the 49 people that were possible witnesses to his death.

Why is the National Science foundation and Raytheon preventing what should be a simple investigation of Death by misadventure....

Suicide has been ruled out in the case. While the Police don't believe he drank the methanol himself?

feel there is something here not quite right....


Astrophysicist’s South Pole Death Remains a Mystery After Eight Years

New twist in case of Antarctica poisoning death








I feel this quote is the most interesting.





As to why the New Zealand Police are investigating read this

Wiki - Dr Rodney Marks

Jurisdiction issues in the Antarctic are complicated;[12] most American operations within Antarctica—including the South Pole base—are within the Ross Dependency territory claimed by New Zealand, from where supplies are dispatched. Without accepting New Zealand’s territorial claim, Americans have not questioned application of New Zealand law to their citizens operating in the Antarctic from Operation Deep Freeze's Christchurch base, while in accordance with the Antarctic treaty, New Zealand has not questioned the use of U.S. Marshals in relation to crimes involving only Americans in the Ross Dependency.[13]

[edit on 4-4-2009 by greenfruit]

[edit on 4-4-2009 by greenfruit]

They must have been Australian police......

Jokes aside, typical seppo's. We care so little for the "Ossies", why would we care for New Zealanders?

It's times like these I feel the need to stand by my mates across the Tasman and cry foul.

maybe it was like the Motion Picture "The Thing".
Parasitic alien

Perhaps he was planning on telling the world about the approaching "Planet X" ,and someone decided to keep him quiet?

He was working at an observatory at the south pole,perhaps he became aware of it's existence(or not)!

reply to post by greenfruit


Murder? No.

Attempts to downplay drug and alcohol abuse at the Amundsen-Scott? Yep.

I'm wondering if you even read your source material properly?

From your sources:

In May 2000, Australian astrophysicist Dr Rodney David Marks died from acute methanol poisoning whilst stationed at the US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

The Herald on Sunday was last week granted access to the documents, which reveal heavy drinking and drug use at the American-run Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

Now how did he ingest methanol though? Pretty hard to poison someone without their knowing.

Another interesting snippet from your sources:

It was also suggested that Marks may have consumed the methanol deliberately, to get a “recreational high,” even though there was a plentiful supply of genuine liquor and beer at the facility. Dr Marks was a social young man who “always said was that the solution to any problem is to go down to the pub and have a few drinks,” according to one of his friends, Andrew Walsh. Even though he may have enjoyed a few drinks and could be considered to be a binge drinker, it is strange to think he would willingly consume the dangerous substance for fun.

So he has a history of binge drinking, could it be that he was so inebriated that he didn't realise what he drank?


Also it seems that it doesn't take much methanol to poison a person either:

Ingestion of only 10ml can cause blindness and 30ml can be fatal.

So one mouthful of the stuff can be fatal.

Some more reading here:

www.antizol.com...


So like I said, no murder but a definite attempt to cover up what seems to be a prevalent drug and alcohol problem at the base.

Which still doesn't excuse the lack of cooperation with the police.

I mean, when DoS steps in and has a chat with MFAT, that goes WELL in the Meddling Zone.

Like I said a simple case of "Death by Misadventure". So why prevent the police from interviewing everyone. Like refusing to give names and addresses.

Why all the Cloak and Dagger for 8 years. For just Drug and alcohol abuse death.

Wormald was trying to get copies of the foundation's inquiries into Marks' death, and contact details for the 49 other people who spent winter at the South Pole that year. Letters reveal no foundation inquiries were provided to Wormald and the agency would not provide contact details for witnesses - only forwarding a questionnaire after approving the questions.

reply to post by greenfruit


Most of the people who work down there are scientists, scientists representing colleges and universities.

There is an image to keep.

Get a bad image, the Uni loses it's grant or whatever.

Sad but true.

So how does that explain DoS stepping in?

reply to post by DeltaNine


I got no idea on that one

Hmmm, I don't know about that. I've been pretty drunk before and never, ever mistook what I was drinking. I've got lots of chemicals and poisons in the house. Never once came even remotely close to drinking one, even when blasted drunk. Sorry, I don't buy the accidental poisoning theory.

heres a long shot ,

is there proof of a bottle or container in wich the methanol substance was in ?

if not,

he probobly ate and drank him self to death via aspartame poisoning

i could very well imagen if you had all the time in the world and a clear night sky for months youd not wanna leave the telescope,

I could very well asume he´d been there drinking light sodas and munchin´ energy bars for who know how many days , and with the aspartame converting in to methanol id guess thats where the poision came from.

why spoil a good whiskey with antifreeze if you got beer.

Originally posted by zerbot565

he probobly ate and drank him self to death via aspartame poisoning

Found this on a website about Methanol and Aspartame.

Source

The actual measured amount of aspartame in one liter of diet soda is approximately 600 mg. [Ref. 1].

If a 60 kg (132 lbs) woman ingested one liter of diet soda, she would be ingesting 10 mg/kg of aspartame:

600 mg aspartame / 60 kg body weight = 10 mg/kg Aspartame breaks down into 10.9% methanol by weight [Ref. 2].

So that the amount of methanol obtained from 600 mg of aspartame is:

600 mg aspartame * 10.9% = 65.4 mg of methanol