Prepare to be chilled to the bone as we explore extraordinary cases of humans found frozen in ice. From ancient mummies to tragic expedition victims, these stories will send shivers down your spine and reveal the incredible preservation power of extreme cold.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00This shouldn't happen. Free men should not die in the first winter of an Arctic expedition.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at times when human remains were uncovered from ice.
00:10Otzi froze at 11,000 feet, nearly 4,000 meters, on a desolate icy ridge.
00:19A Swiss Couple
00:20In 1942, Marcelin and Francine Zumoulin went to feed their cattle one morning in the Bernese
00:26Alps in Switzerland. That was the last time their children heard from their parents. Without them,
00:31the siblings were split up and raised by different families, losing contact over the years.
00:36In 2017, a technician for a ski lift company was examining equipment on the Saint-Florent
00:41glacier in the Alps when they found strange black rocks. However, on closer inspection,
00:47it turned out to be items like backpacks and glass bottles, and two bodies within the ice.
00:52DNA analysis soon confirmed it was the missing Zumoulin couple.
00:56Seemingly, they had fallen into a crevasse and sadly lost their lives.
01:00The surviving children held a funeral for their parents.
01:03Zug Zug the Caveman
01:05Imagine walking around Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis, enjoying the fresh air. But then,
01:10you suddenly stop as you come across an unusual sight. A caveman entombed in a block of ice.
01:16Well, that was what happened in 2021. But fear not, there is an explanation for it.
01:21After being commissioned by ad agency Hunt Adkins the year before to create Zug Zug the
01:26Caveman for an event, artist Zach Schumach and his collective put the artwork in the park,
01:30encouraging people to not use their phones and explore the outdoors.
01:40Schumach also stated that Zara, the mother huntress, was out there,
01:43and this cave woman was later found.
01:45The name Zug Zug is seemingly a nod to the 1981 film Caveman, which used the phrase for
01:51intimate relations.
02:00Sacrificed Incan Children
02:02In 1999, three mummies were found at the icy summit of Yuyayaco,
02:07a stratovolcano located in the Atacama Desert. These mummies are known as the
02:11Children of Yuyayaco, and they could be the best preserved mummies in the entire world.
02:22Chronicles record that a special group were chosen each year to serve the sun god.
02:28One is the body of a teenage girl, and the other two are children believed
02:31to be around six and seven years old.
02:34Some could be of a fairly young age. They could be six to eight years, some maybe ten years.
02:39Their beauty was one of the reasons for selecting them,
02:43and in some cases even their parents might have offered them.
02:46It's assumed that they're the victims of a human sacrifice meant to ensure a rich harvest,
02:50and that they were killed around the year 1500.
02:53They were heavily drugged with alcohol and coca,
02:55placed five feet underground while asleep, and left to die.
02:59A combination of the freezing temperatures and extremely dry air
03:01have helped preserve their bodies for centuries.
03:13Sadly, we're not talking about an ancient mummy for this one.
03:16In 2017, a hiker discovered a dead body in a crevasse on New Zealand's Fox Glacier
03:21and contacted police.
03:23While some believed the corpse was decades old, the fact that it was found in a crevasse led
03:27glaciologist Andrew McIntosh to assume that it was no more than five years old.
03:31His guess was correct.
03:33Further study found that the corpse was that of Cynthia Charlton,
03:36a British woman who died in a helicopter accident in November 2015.
03:40She was one of the crash's seven victims, which also included her husband.
03:47Now here's a creepy story for you.
03:48A climber on the slopes of Mexico's Pico de Orizaba slipped
03:52and came face to face with a mummified head and arm protruding from the snow.
04:07That's how episodes of CSI start.
04:10The authorities were called in, and two more frozen mummies were eventually discovered.
04:17An 81-year-old named Luis Espinoza declared he knew the mummies,
04:27as he was part of a tragic expedition that claimed three lives back in 1959.
04:32He recognized one of the men from his shirt and ring, which was emblazoned with his initials.
04:37It's certainly nice for Luis to finally get some peace,
04:39but just imagine being the guy who found a mummified head sticking out of the snow.
04:43A Preserved Mummy Head
04:45In 2017, archaeologists found mummies buried in the Zeleniy Yar burial site
04:50near the Russian town of Selikart.
04:52They found two mummies, one an adult woman and the other a baby.
04:56These mummies are estimated to be 900 years old,
04:59and are said to be part of an unknown medieval culture.
05:02The interesting thing was that the female mummy is the only female in the burial ground,
05:06leading some to assume that she was an elite member of society.
05:09It's also interesting and creepy because only her head has been preserved.
05:13On the head, you can still see her hair and eyelashes,
05:16and her face has a green tint due to the copper she was buried in.
05:20Three Members of the Franklin Expedition
05:23Many are familiar with the ill-fated Franklin Expedition
05:25from Dan Simmons' novel The Terror and its television adaptation.
05:35Three members of the expedition,
05:37John Torrington, William Brane, and John Hartnell,
05:40passed away shortly after departure and before the ships became stuck in the pack ice.
05:44They were buried on Beachy Island, Nunavut in 1846 and exhumed in 1984.
06:00What anthropologists found were remarkably preserved corpses,
06:04albeit incredibly disturbing ones.
06:06Their faces are contorted, their eyes frozen open, and their skin horribly frostbitten.
06:12Now imagine opening the coffins and seeing that.
06:15Ötzi the Iceman
06:16Ötzi is perhaps the most famous natural mummy in the world.
06:20Found in 1991 on the border of Austria and Italy,
06:23Ötzi is the naturally mummified corpse of a man who died around 3300 BC.
06:36The mummy was actually found by German tourists.
06:41They were hiking along a mountain path in the Ötztal Alps
06:43when they found the upper half of the mummy sticking out of the ice.
07:00It's currently believed that the man bled to death after being struck by an arrow.
07:04His skinny, discolored, and leathery-looking body
07:07is now on display at Italy's South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.
07:26Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel
07:28and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
07:32You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
07:35If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
07:42World War I Soldiers
07:53During World War I,
07:55Allies battled the Austro-Hungarian Empire along the snowy mountains of the Alps.
07:59Thousands upon thousands of soldiers were killed by avalanches and the frigid temperatures,
08:03which sometimes dipped to minus 22 Fahrenheit.
08:06Beginning in the early 2010s, the mountain ice began to melt
08:10and started depositing long-lost frozen artifacts around the area.
08:13These included weapons, still-legible love letters, and dozens of mummified corpses.
08:19It's a horrifying symbol of one of the most frightening periods of modern history.
08:23Have you ever found anything out of the ordinary frozen in ice?
08:26Let us know in the comments below.
08:28Check out these other clips from WatchMojo,
08:30and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.