Top 10 Creepiest Mount Everest Mysteries

In 1932, military man Maurice Wilson discovered a love for prayer and fasting, after he was cured of an illness. Two years, later, wanting to prove his convictions to the world, Wilson decided to climb Everest...despite a significant lack of mountaineering experience. He thought that by scaling Everest when prior professionals had failed, he would demonstrate the power of faith to do anything. He actually made it to almost 23,000 feet before his progress was hampered by a 40-foot ice wall. The accompanying Sherpas told him to give up, but Wilson refused to listen. He admitted in his diary “This will be a last effort” and pushed on. He died of exhaustion just a few days later in his tent.

Everest is kind of terrifying. Not only because it’s so dangerous, but because it’s littered with hundreds of frozen corpses. Taking a body down is expensive and dangerous, so most are simply left on the mountain as frozen mummies. One of the most famous bodies is Sleeping Beauty. Real name Francys Arsentiev, this Hawaiian woman was the first female to scale Everest without the use of supplemental oxygen. However, she became exhausted from oxygen deprivation and collapsed on the descent. She twice encountered fellow climbers, and while both teams attempted a rescue, they were ultimately forced to leave her behind to save themselves. Arsentiev froze to death, and her purple-jacketed corpse became known as Sleeping Beauty.

In 1993, astronaut and Northwestern University professor Karl Gordon Henize scaled Everest to test a device called the Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counter, or TEPC for short. This counter measured the effects of radiation on the human body. Henize planned to use the counter at three different altitudes - 17,000, 19,000, and 21,000 feet. He scaled the mountain with a research group called High Adventure BVI, but began to suffer significant breathing problems at 22,000 feet. The team attempted to save him with oxygen, but they failed. Henize died in his sleep from high altitude pulmonary edema and was buried on the mountain.

In 2001, Marco Siffredi did the impossible - he rode down Everest on a snowboard. His adventure began at the summit, and he rode down to Advanced Base Camp at North Col. He then rode down the Norton Couloir for two hours. Wanting an even bigger accomplishment to his name, Siffredi decided to descend the more challenging Hornbein Couloir the following year. If successful, he would become the first person in the world to do so. The Sherpas urged Siffredi not to go, as he was exhausted from the climb and the weather had changed. He went anyway and was never seen again. The Sherpas reported seeing no snowboard tracks, and Siffredi’s body has never been found.

Did the Russians attempt to scale Everest in 1952? It’s...possible? It’s said that a team of Russian climbers led by one Dr. Pavel Datschnolian set off in October of 1952 to scale the mountain, but that their expedition was a disaster, resulting in six deaths. This trip has been documented in some supposedly reputable sources, including the Manchester Guardian, the Tribune de Genève, the Alpine Journal, and Walt Unsworth’s book “Everest: The Mountaineering History.” However, Russia has consistently denied that the expedition took place, and there has been no physical evidence to support the story. Did some wires get crossed in the reporting? Was this some super secret mission? No one seems to know.

The 1924 British Everest expedition is often debated. This expedition saw George Mallory and Sandy Irvine attempting to become the first people to summit Everest. They disappeared while climbing the mountain and weren’t seen for another 75 years. It wasn’t until 1999 that Mallory’s body was finally discovered by a research expedition, completely frozen and mummified. It was found with a significant rope-jerk injury around the waist, a broken leg, and a wound in his forehead. Irvine has never been found, and whether or not they were successful in their ascent remains unknown.

As previously mentioned, Everest plays host to many frozen bodies. But is it also the home of their ghosts? If Sherpa Pemba Dorje is to be believed, then yes. Dorje claims to have ascended Everest in just eight hours - a record that was confirmed by the tourism ministry of Nepal but rejected by the Guinness Book of World Records. While climbing the mountain, Dorje claims to have seen numerous ghostly shadow figures approaching him with their arms outstretched, a gesture said to be indicative of their starvation in life. In fact, many Sherpas are said to believe in the mountain’s ghosts. However, it’s also possible that the ghosts are mere hallucinations caused by the high altitude.

In 2017, the world was hit with conflicting reports regarding some supposed deaths on Everest. Sherpas had found the bodies of four climbers in a tent on the mountain. They reported this news to The Associated Press and Reuters, and the report was published in numerous mainstream outlets. However, none of the expeditions climbing Everest at the time had reported anyone missing. Nepal’s tourism department also cast doubt on the report, saying that dozens of climbers would have also seen the tent and bodies, yet no one had reported seeing anything. Was this another instance of Everest ghosts? Were the Sherpas mistaken? Once again, no one seems to know.

Does the Yeti reside on Mount Everest? Well, there HAVE been numerous personal and eyewitness accounts. In Charles Howard-Bury’s book “Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921,” he reports seeing large footprints in the snow. His Sherpa guides said they belonged to the “Wild Man of the Snows”. Perhaps the most thrilling supporting evidence are photographs from mountaineer Eric Shipton. They show large footprints in the snow and sparked widespread national interest in the Yeti. Even to this day, the photos remain fiercely debated, with some declaring them the best existing evidence of the Yeti.

Frank Smythe was an experienced English mountaineer. In 1931 he set a summit record by successfully scaling India’s Kamet. He later embarked on three Everest expeditions throughout the ‘30s. The first rattled Smythe to his core. In his book “Camp Six: The 1933 Everest Expedition,” Smythe reports feeling a presence beside him as he scaled the mountain. Believing this presence to be real, he took a mint cake from his belongings and attempted to share it. He also reported seeing “two curious objects floating in the sky” that “resembled kite balloons”. They supposedly hovered and seemed to pulsate. These could be hallucinations stemming from oxygen deprivation. Or they could be ghosts. Or aliens!