The ghost of Everest
Record-holding Sherpa Pemba Dorje has become renowned in the climbing world for two reasons. First is his claimed record-speed ascent of Everest (eight hours, ten minutes) on May 21, 2004. Second are the events of three days later, May 24. While approaching the summit from the South Col, Dorje came across a group of deceased climbers whose bodies were frozen in the snow. Suddenly, he claims, he was surrounded by something of the supernatural variety.
In his own words:When I paused at a mound of rocks I saw some spirits in the form of black shadows coming towards me, stretching their hands and begging for something to eat. I think those were the spirits of the many mountaineers killed during and after their ascent of Mount Everest.
The bodies of many of those who died are still on the mountain and one climber who died from an accidental fall is still hanging from a rope.
Many Sherpas believe the ghosts of Everest will not be appeased or leave the mountain until the bodies of the deceased are given a proper burial. With so many corpses stuck in the “Death Zone” above 8,000 meters (26,200 ft) and more joining them each year, it’s unlikely that the mountain will be a ghost-free zone anytime soon.
Who was that?
In September 1975, British mountaineers Dougal Haston and Doug Scott were forced to spend a night in the Death Zone after reaching Everest’s summit late in the day. They dug a snow hole and huddled in for the night, unsure if they would survive until morning.
They soon ran out of oxygen. With no food and their butane heater nearing depletion, their situation was truly dire. Then, the inexplicable happened. Both climbers reported feeling another presence in the snow cave with them, one which not only shared its vital body heat but also offered advice and suggestions to help the climbers stay warm and alive. Other Everest climbers, such as Peter Hillary, Lincoln Hall, and Reinhold Messner, to name a few, have reported a similar presence having come to their aid on the mountain in their time of need.
Those aliens again…
In 1933, while on his first attempt at Everest’s summit, English climber Frank Smythe was alone at 8,565 meters (28,100 ft) on Everest’s North Ridge when he witnessed:
. . . two curious objects floating in the sky . . .
They strongly resembled kite balloons in shape, but one possessed what appeared to be squat, under-developed wings, and the other a protuberance suggestive of a beak. They hovered motionless but seemed slowly to pulsate, a pulsation incidentally much slower than my own hearts-beats . . .
Before this, Smythe claimed to have been visited by some unidentifiable force during his ascent and felt a strong presence beside him as he moved up the slopes. He even took a slice of Kendal mint cake from his pocket to share with this companion, having believed the invisible and immaterial entity to be entirely real. Spooky!
The unknown bodies
On May 22, 2017, reports reached Everest Base Camp of four corpses found in a tent at Camp Four (7,950 meters [26,082 ft] ). The ill-fated climbers were presumed to have died from altitude sickness and were discovered by a team sent up the mountain to retrieve the body of a Slovakian climber who had perished on his ascent three days earlier. When it later transpired that none of the climbing agencies on the mountain were missing any climbers—or at least had none that were unaccounted for—confusion arose as to who the four climbers might have been.
As news sources worldwide reported the tragedy, the Nepalese tourism ministry spoke out and revealed that they thought the bodies to be those of climbers from one of the previous year’s expeditions, only for matters to be further complicated when it was discovered that none of these had reported any unaccounted-for climbers, either. The case remains open and just another of the manifold mysteries to have befallen Earth’s highest and most mysterious mountain