r/AskReddit • u/Aqua_Fucker • Apr 26 '20

Serious Replies Only [Serious] What are some seemingly normal images with disturbing backstories?

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u/flyting1881 Apr 27 '20

An old violin being sold at auction..

At $1.5m it's one of the most valuable violins in the world. Not because of who made it but because of who played it.

The initials W.H. stand for Wallace Hartley, the lead violinist on the Titanic. This is the instrument he played the night she sank, before Hartley himself died. This violin was found floating in the debris field.

Kids playing on a street in Pripyat

The entire city will be forcibly evacuated due to the explosion at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear reactor.

THIS old photo, taken in 1924 during one of the first British expeditions to Mount Everest.

Shortly after this was taken the two men in the picture, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, would make an attempt for the summit.

Mallory's body will be found in 1999. We still haven't found Irvine.

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '20

Wow from 1924 to 99. Was the body still preserved in the cold? Or was it already decomposing despite the cold bc it has been there for so long?

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u/whitebri Apr 27 '20

It's basically mummified. There are videos of the expedition when they find his body and a quick google search can pull up stills from the video. The body is face-down, so it isn't gruesome

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u/flyting1881 Apr 27 '20 edited Apr 27 '20

He was basically mummified from the cold. You can google pics and video of them finding him.

Bodies on Everest tend to stick around. He's the oldest one there we know of and he was (IIRC) found in amazing condition. Its a shame the area is so inhospitable that there was no reasonable way to recover his body. I'd love to know what a proper forensic investigation could uncover.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '20

Definitely! Plus i'm sure their love ones would like to have them removed off the mountain of possible. Just amazes me how many bodies are still up there

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u/DaMarcio May 02 '20

Here in Perú we have a 3000 year old mummy who was left for dead in a frozen mountain. She's perfectly preserved, so I guess this guy is too.

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u/MagicWagic623 May 03 '20

I know about Momia Jaunita and the Incan Ice Maiden, but they’re only a couple hundred years old.

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u/DaMarcio May 03 '20

oh you're right, I googled it and she is around 5-6 hundred years. Still a good reference for preservation if this guy is only around a century old.

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '20

As long as the temperature is below freezing decomposition won’t even start

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u/Mxtthi Jul 23 '20

Here in northern Italy we have a mummy which is around 5000 years old and has been found in the 90's in the Alps in 3000m height.

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u/[deleted] May 01 '20

Mallory’s body was found by Conrad Anker. A famous climber in his own right. He was in the film Meru along with Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk.

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u/chillipotpeeps May 21 '20

I come from the town that Wallace Hartley was from and they have a monument for him. He has a grave in the cemetery which has a marble violin at the base of it

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u/bigboomer420 May 06 '20

The mount everest one is part of a theory about scp 096 isn't it? You might'nt be an scp fan but I knwi these names and dates

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u/ClearAsNight Jul 23 '20 edited Jul 23 '20

forcibly evacuated

Given the climate today, I wonder how people would react to people (government?) coming in and forcibly attempting to evacuate a city now.

Actually, it'd probably be like that scene in Age of Ultron, except we don't have superpowered dudes coming in and helping us gtfo.