Hey Thoughty2 here.
Nestled high up in the peaks of the Himalayan mountain range, in Northern India, just on
the border of Tibet, lies a mysterious lake called Roopkund.
Few have traveled to this remote body of water, 5,000 metres above sea level.
But a deadly surprise awaits those who do embark upon the long trek to visit this terrible
tarn.
Bones, lots and lots of bones.
Most of the year the lake is frozen over but for one effervescent month each year the ice
melts, revealing the perilous scene at the bottom of the murky water, for the lakebed
is littered with hundreds of skeletal human remains.
Human bones can also be found scattered around the lake’s perimeter in alarming quantities.
It has been estimated that there are skeletons in and around Roopkund lake, of over 300 people.
The skeletons were first discovered in the 19th century and they remained a morbid curiosity
for hundreds of years.
But very few knew of their existence until they were rediscovered during World War II,
in 1942.
An investigation began, to discover where the 300 people who perished at this remote
mountain lake came from, and how they died.
The first and most obvious suspicion was that they were the bodies of Japanese soldiers
who were trying to sneak their way through India, earlier on during the war, sneaky Japanese.
And they died due to exposure to cold weather.
But after further inspection it was deduced that the skeletons were far too old to be
from the war.
Disturbingly these skeletons weren’t just bones, due to the dry and extremely cold air
they had been preserved for an astonishingly long time.
Upon the skeletons investigators found bits of flesh, nails and hair.
And like a scene from Lost, they also found ancient wooden artifacts, leather shoes, iron
spearheads, wooden staves and jewelry and an omnipotent man called Jacob, okay maybe
not that last bit.
So surely these remains can’t be more than a few decades old, otherwise the flesh would
have decayed long ago.
Now this is where things get weird, okay things are already pretty weird, but this next discovery
will blow your mind.
Samples of the skeletons and surrounding artifacts were taken to Oxford University where they
conducted radiocarbon dating to uncover their age.
The remains dated back to 850 AD.
And they still had bits of flesh attached!
How come I have to chuck out food that starts to look dodgy if it’s been in my freezer
for a couple of months, yet mother nature can preserve parts of human bodies for almost
1,200 years?
No evidence of a settlement has ever been found near the bodies, so it’s assumed all
300 people were travelling at the time of their demise.
So the obvious question is, what killed them all?
Starvation, gangrene, a landslide, were they attacked by marauders?
Was it aliens perhaps?
But before you’re so quick to blame aliens, because I know you’re just dying to, perhaps
local legend can shed some light onto this.
According to the legends, the once king of Kannauj was traveling with his pregnant wife
on a pilgrimage, as part of the Nanda Devi Raj Jat, which is a large pilgrimage that
takes place in these parts of India, every 12 years.
Being wealthy, the king and his wife were traveling with around 300 servants, among
them were his personal dance troupe.
Because if you were traveling on a long pilgrimage across the Himalayas you would obviously take
a dance troupe, in case you get bored or something, and if you get stranded then you can always
eat them.
However, the legend also tells of a freak hailstorm around that time, when enormous
balls of ice pelted down from the sky, one hit from such a mighty hailstone could quite
easily cause death.
It could certainly wipe out a group of 300 pilgrims high up in the mountains, especially
when you consider that the lake is in a large open expanse with little to no shelter nearby.
In 2013 researchers examined the bodies in more detail and discovered that every person
was killed by blows with a blunt object, to the head, neck and shoulder region.
The large, circular holes in the skeleton’s skulls seems to suggest that the sudden and
violent hailstorm legend could have been responsible for the mysterious 9th century human remains.
However, this theory is the best we have so far, but the mystery has certainly not been
proven and there are many people who say the hailstorm idea is completely wrong.
The bodies all had damage to their heads and shoulders but absolutely no damage below the
shoulders.
Hailstones aren’t that selective, surely if 300 people were killed by large balls of
ice, they would have sustained injuries all over their bodies, some people would get knocked
over and pelted with hail on their torso and legs.
And what about their arms?
People most certainly would have put their arms above their heads in an attempt to protect
themselves.
Yet no skeletons were found with injuries to their arms.
Hmm, suspicious.
So then, until we come up with another, more plausible solution to explain this most mysterious
conundrum, it will remain a mystery.
I know, it was aliens, yep, definitely aliens.
Thanks for watching.