Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Lads and gentlemen, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. I'm Ben Boland, I am Noel Brown,
Speaker 1: and Noel I have to tell you we're exploring a
Speaker 1: very strange, dark story about one of my favorite places,
Speaker 1: one of my like bucket list places to travel. Somewhat uncharted, yes,
Speaker 1: slightly charted. It is the continent with the smallest population
Speaker 1: out of all of the continents and the entire area
Speaker 1: there are a little bit over one thousand people. And
Speaker 1: that continent would be that continent is Europe. Who bait
Speaker 1: and switch? I didn't study for that one. It's uh
Speaker 1: we we all know you can probably guess just from
Speaker 1: hearing that population statistic. It's Antarctica. What lies hidden beneath
Speaker 1: the Antarctic ice? I love it when you do the
Speaker 1: vo movie voice you know what it is? What is it?
Speaker 1: Apparently madness, chaos and murder, most foulum. I mean, Antarctica
Speaker 1: is basically like a Cathulu esque love craft Ian hellscape
Speaker 1: by many accounts, Yeah, it is not made for people,
Speaker 1: and yet somehow people hang out there. And out of
Speaker 1: all the continents in the world, out of all the
Speaker 1: places on the planet where humans can exist for a
Speaker 1: sustained amount of time. This is an exception. And in
Speaker 1: many ways, the laws governing Antarctica, or we were talking
Speaker 1: about this off air, they're like the laws governing the Moon.
Speaker 1: It's all for the good of science, for doing science.
Speaker 1: So no one can no one country can own a
Speaker 1: piece of Antarctica, as you know, like an extension of
Speaker 1: their own sovereign territory. This place is for research. It's
Speaker 1: for environmental protection or conservation. It's not the place where
Speaker 1: humanity is going to build, you know, a stadium or
Speaker 1: a strip mall or another large city. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: seven countries. We've got Argentina, Australia, Britain, Chile, France, New
Speaker 1: Zealand and Norway. They all have sort of misshapen territorial
Speaker 1: claims on this I see hellscape. Uh, I'm probably editorializing
Speaker 1: a little bit there. I'm sure some people think it's nice. Um,
Speaker 1: and the US and Russia actually have sovereignty over our
Speaker 1: their own research stations for doing the science. But none
Speaker 1: of these are officially recognized in the Antarctic Treaty, which
Speaker 1: is a thing, and some of them actually even overlap
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah. Yeah, and this and these scientists and
Speaker 1: these stations work together because there's literally no one else there.
Speaker 1: And when when we say sovereignty, it's interesting because it's
Speaker 1: similar to the way that a an embassy would be
Speaker 1: sovereign soil, right, regardless of which country or which area
Speaker 1: the world is located in. So there's severenity within these
Speaker 1: research stations and under the constraints of the Antarctic Treaty.
Speaker 1: Let's get a little bit true crime. You want to
Speaker 1: go kind of true? Okay, alright, alright, just this is
Speaker 1: my elevator pitch. Let me know I'm listening. If this
Speaker 1: doesn't work, all right me two thousand. Fellow named Rodney Marks,
Speaker 1: smart guy, astrophysicist. He is spending the winter at the
Speaker 1: South Pole, wintering in the South pol like you do, yes,
Speaker 1: as you do, very popular amongst astrophysicists. He had been
Speaker 1: vomiting blood and hyperventilating, and he had not been feeling
Speaker 1: well before this, But twenty four hours of vomiting, hyperventilating
Speaker 1: and he dies from it. Are you sure you're not
Speaker 1: describing the plot of the thing. It's very it feels
Speaker 1: very close at this point. We don't believe there were extraterrestrials,
Speaker 1: did a parasitic wolf burst forth from his remains and
Speaker 1: devour faces? No, I know that didn't happen. I'm well,
Speaker 1: we were we weren't there, And it's nicely to place.
Speaker 1: It's pretty difficult, depending on the season, to know exactly
Speaker 1: what's happening, right, Uh, And it can also be even
Speaker 1: more difficult to transport people in and out of the place,
Speaker 1: especially during winter. So when Rodney Marks unfortunately passes away,
Speaker 1: they had to store his body for months until actually
Speaker 1: late October. And then in New Zealand, the nearest you know,
Speaker 1: quote unquote civilized neighbor of Antarctica, they conducted an autopsy
Speaker 1: there and this single mysterious death knell it touched off
Speaker 1: an international incident because, as it turns out, after the autopsy,
Speaker 1: the case was ruled a homicide. And because of everything
Speaker 1: we said at the top of the show, all of
Speaker 1: these overlapping interests and territorial jurisdic jurisdictions, I guess you
Speaker 1: could say, where would you try a case like this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it gets complicated. See, this astrophysicist was working on
Speaker 1: a US base but was an Australian national. And now
Speaker 1: the autopsy is occurring in New Zealand. We're three countries deep,
Speaker 1: not even counting Antarctica. So if this is a homicide,
Speaker 1: where is the case tried? You know? The nineteen six
Speaker 1: one Antarctic Treaty says, as as we have pointed out earlier,
Speaker 1: that this continent belongs to no nation. It's not what.
Speaker 1: While there might be severenity over research bases, no country
Speaker 1: can say this whole part of this, this whole eastern coast,
Speaker 1: or whatever is ours, or this whole shebang is ours.
Speaker 1: This means that, uh, there's not a clear case of
Speaker 1: who would be the law around those parts. Yeah, let
Speaker 1: me read you a little exerpt from the I guess
Speaker 1: abstract from the text of the treaty itself. The Antarctic Treaty,
Speaker 1: the earliest of the post World War two arms limitation agreements,
Speaker 1: has significance both in itself and as a precedent. It
Speaker 1: demilitarized the Antarctic continent and provided for its cooperative exploration
Speaker 1: and future use. It has been cited as an example
Speaker 1: of nations exercising foresight and working in concert to prevent
Speaker 1: conflict before it develops, based on the premise that to
Speaker 1: exclude armaments is easier than to eliminate or control them
Speaker 1: once they have been introduced. The treaty served as a
Speaker 1: model in its approach and even its specific provisions for
Speaker 1: later non armament treaties, the treaties that excluded nuclear weapons
Speaker 1: from outer space, from Latin America, and from the sea bed.
Speaker 1: So this is obviously like a very specific case, and
Speaker 1: there are certain things that are not allowed, like nuclear weapons,
Speaker 1: any kind of detonation or testing of nuclear materials, or
Speaker 1: to use it as a dumping ground for any kind
Speaker 1: of nuclear waste or anything like that. But there are
Speaker 1: exception ends. Military personnel are allowed to be employed in
Speaker 1: these research facilities, of which there are numerous ones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's surprising. So when we think of Antarctica, most of
Speaker 1: us will think of this vast, frozen, love crafty and
Speaker 1: waste land with non Euclidean geometry in these hidden cities,
Speaker 1: minus the ancient aliens stuff. It really, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a desert. And we can only really rank civilization by
Speaker 1: the amount of research stations. There's seventy five, and of those,
Speaker 1: seventy forty operate around the year, around the clindrical clock. However,
Speaker 1: there is a three month window when people can fly
Speaker 1: in and out for most of these places. And let's
Speaker 1: talk about crime. Speaking in fantastic segues, right, Uh. Can
Speaker 1: I give you some great hits of some of these
Speaker 1: research stations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, h Just one that I
Speaker 1: just have to mention. So we have a one that's
Speaker 1: run by France and Italy called Concordia. Um, there's one
Speaker 1: by Italy alone called Mario's. A Kelly, New Zealand's is
Speaker 1: called the Scott Base, and my personal favorite is Norway's,
Speaker 1: which is simply called troll troll Station. Troll station. I'm
Speaker 1: in maybe they maybe there are trolls in Antarctica, and
Speaker 1: the idea is if we name it this, it'll be
Speaker 1: right under their noses. No one will know, no question.
Speaker 1: Troll stations research, which would of course be polar trolls clearly, clearly.
Speaker 1: But the crime the crime. So in the US, where
Speaker 1: we're recording this show, and where Noel and I have
Speaker 1: lived for quite some time, if you commit a crime,
Speaker 1: a lot of the later investigation and prosecution of that
Speaker 1: crime hinges upon your location when you commit the crime.
Speaker 1: So you're either tried by state or a federal court,
Speaker 1: and that also depends on the type of crime, right,
Speaker 1: so like a parking ticket for instance, or a let's say,
Speaker 1: let's say something a little more serious, um a theft
Speaker 1: for instance, versus a planned homicide. American courts have jurisdiction
Speaker 1: for some crimes that happened outside of the United States,
Speaker 1: like on a ship or something like that that the
Speaker 1: flying on American flag, a military vessel, or in this case,
Speaker 1: a American operated research facility. And as we as we
Speaker 1: have sort of painted here just just in the very
Speaker 1: beginning of this investigation, Antarctica is the opposite of straightforward
Speaker 1: and cut and dry. This is very complicated. There are
Speaker 1: experts on the governance of Antarctica, one of them being
Speaker 1: Dr Alan Hemmings. He spent two winters at the South
Speaker 1: Pole with the British Antarctic Survey and wordins Dr Hemmings.
Speaker 1: There are no clear legal jurisdictions in Antarctica because there
Speaker 1: are as we said earlier, there are no recognized territories.
Speaker 1: They're just all these research stations. And of the seven
Speaker 1: countries that we named that make these territorial claims, none
Speaker 1: of them are recognized by the treaty from nine and
Speaker 1: Asnell said, some of them overlap. The general rule for
Speaker 1: people in the US is that a crime committed by
Speaker 1: U S national US citizen at a US owned research
Speaker 1: facility would be prosecuted in the U. S. Court. That
Speaker 1: makes sense, right, our citizens, our area, right, our facilities,
Speaker 1: therefore our rules, our legal system, and the same goes
Speaker 1: for the other countries that are operating this. That that
Speaker 1: checks out right so far, that seems on the up
Speaker 1: and up totally. But then Hemmings goes on to say,
Speaker 1: I'll just read this quote. Um, if the dead person
Speaker 1: and the alleged murderer are from different states or countries
Speaker 1: and don't recognize each other's claims, which most do not,
Speaker 1: particularly if the critical events occur away from anybody's station. Uh,
Speaker 1: like you know, wandering snow blind in the frozen tundra
Speaker 1: of Antarctica. Uh, and you know, maybe murdering somebody with
Speaker 1: a claw hammer and the snow or something in that effect.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, I just you know, you can have um,
Speaker 1: you know, in a camp site, is what he says.
Speaker 1: That's his example. It's way better than mine. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: it won't necessarily be clear who has jurisdiction, right, and
Speaker 1: this becomes the crux of the complication. As far as
Speaker 1: dr hemming snows, there's never been a criminal prosecution for
Speaker 1: murder committed in Antarctica. And I'm gonna go on record
Speaker 1: here on our show and say that I think there
Speaker 1: were probably murders that occurred in Antarctica over the span
Speaker 1: of human history. We know that there is violence and
Speaker 1: vice in this continent, and we just brought up a
Speaker 1: real life example that claw hammer thing happened. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: the claw hammer thing actually happened, not not in the
Speaker 1: way that I uh speculated earlier, but um in n
Speaker 1: six there was an incident at an Australian facility where
Speaker 1: a cook in the galley attacked one of his fellow
Speaker 1: workers with the back end of a claw hammer and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, no one was killed, and ultimately resulted in
Speaker 1: both both guys getting stitches and they actually ended up
Speaker 1: having to call in the FBI, which set kind of
Speaker 1: an unusual precedent here, because, like we were saying earlier,
Speaker 1: typically they can deal with this stuff in house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: routine offenses, right are usually usually what happens is the
Speaker 1: person gets fired the contract, their their contract is not renewed,
Speaker 1: or their grand and if there are a scientists, you know,
Speaker 1: and without that contract or without that grant, you can't
Speaker 1: go to Antarctica. You know that that would be that
Speaker 1: would be a bummer if that was like your thing,
Speaker 1: you know, that's how you define yourself. Was I am?
Speaker 1: I am an Antarctic galley cook? And this visitors can
Speaker 1: also be banned. Yeah, in this ap article there's this
Speaker 1: fantastic line. It is just tossed off very casually, and
Speaker 1: I adore it. Uh. It says visitors who taught the
Speaker 1: penguins and seals, remove rock samples or break other strict
Speaker 1: environmental laws are normally handled by the station's chief scientist,
Speaker 1: who is a deputized US marshal a k A. The
Speaker 1: most interesting person to talk to. Write their chief scientists
Speaker 1: n Antarctica, they're also US marshal. They're like, they're like
Speaker 1: the law, you know what I mean, They're the law
Speaker 1: around these parts. To me, that's that's fascinating because we
Speaker 1: usually think of those two roles as being separate. They're
Speaker 1: very much separate in our country. I just picture them
Speaker 1: all as being like Kurt Russell or Tommy Lee Jones
Speaker 1: esque figures. And that's not the only Antarctic horror story
Speaker 1: or crime story. They're they're actually they're numerous ones. There's
Speaker 1: the Russian chess game where in someone I guess the
Speaker 1: chess game went south no pun intended, and someone attacked
Speaker 1: someone else with an X yeah, apparently killed them in fact,
Speaker 1: but that happened on a Soviet facility, so it stands
Speaker 1: the reason that it was dealt with, you know, internally
Speaker 1: and through the Soviet government. And then there's another story
Speaker 1: of a scientist who, driven mad by isolation, burned down
Speaker 1: their own station. I can't help but think all of
Speaker 1: this stuff is just wonderful fodder for um stories like
Speaker 1: John Carpenter's film The Thing, where a team of Antarctic
Speaker 1: researchers are essentially driven mad with paranoia and you know,
Speaker 1: with the help of an invasive alien body snatcher chest
Speaker 1: Burster kind of situation. And there's even episode of The
Speaker 1: X Files that follows a similar path with an outbreak
Speaker 1: of a plague like disease on a research facility and
Speaker 1: the accompanying paranoia that that follows. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: all pretty rife with potential for great storytelling, for sure,
Speaker 1: and it's something that I think can be universally recognized
Speaker 1: on some level by any human being. The psychological claustrophobia involved.
Speaker 1: Right you're in a you're in a confined space with
Speaker 1: interaction with the same people, whether or not you want it,
Speaker 1: and that leads to problems. Right now when we're when
Speaker 1: we're describing this, you know, we're just we're just barely
Speaker 1: scratching the surface of the history of Antarctica. But the
Speaker 1: reason we are describing this is not just because it's
Speaker 1: a oh, gali g that's interesting legal problem. It's because
Speaker 1: it will become increasingly important as time goes on. For
Speaker 1: you see, friends and neighbors, Antarctica has a secret there's
Speaker 1: oil beneath the ice. And I did that like we're
Speaker 1: gonna introduce something like there's gonna be a bum bum
Speaker 1: kind of signal. We can we've already used that sound
Speaker 1: effect that we can just we can just reuse that. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll lean on our superproducer, give us a cool sound
Speaker 1: queue here, perfect, Okay. So it turns out that Antarctica
Speaker 1: has rich oil reserves and they are a rife for
Speaker 1: future exploration, which means that it is it is pretty
Speaker 1: much certain that in the near to mid future, more
Speaker 1: and more organizations, whether they are countries or whether they
Speaker 1: are private companies working with the country, are going to
Speaker 1: attempt to tap those oil reserves, which means that more
Speaker 1: and more people are going to be living on this continent,
Speaker 1: and they're going to be people from all around the world. Australians,
Speaker 1: people from the United States, people from China, people from
Speaker 1: like name a country, yeah, sure, yes, community filled some
Speaker 1: time by naming more countries. Sure I can. I can
Speaker 1: name some countries with you. Let's see. There's also wait,
Speaker 1: we're not really We're not really, OK. That would be
Speaker 1: very cheap. So right now we are as a species
Speaker 1: that's sort of a wild West stage in the legal
Speaker 1: story of Antarctica. In two thousand and three, professor named W.
Speaker 1: Michael said, we've got to figure something out. We need
Speaker 1: to have the countries, the nations that are active in
Speaker 1: Antarctica establish a unified criminal code. Let's all get on
Speaker 1: the same page. Right. Currently, according to signs, one cannot
Speaker 1: easily determine whether an action is a criminal act because
Speaker 1: of the various countries involved and multiple basis for jurisdiction.
Speaker 1: This is an intolerable situation for criminal defendant and violates
Speaker 1: any reasonable concept of due process, which is an interesting
Speaker 1: way to look at it because not all crimes are
Speaker 1: prosecuted the same way or carry the same consequences from
Speaker 1: one country to the next. That story we did on
Speaker 1: our other podcast Stuff they don't want you to know
Speaker 1: about the zone of death in Yellowstone Park. There's this
Speaker 1: like small area of this uh sort of like a triangle,
Speaker 1: I guess um where there's no legal jurisdiction or it's
Speaker 1: like difficult to determine where to pull jurors from for
Speaker 1: a case a crime that was committed there. And a
Speaker 1: researcher by the name of Cult kind of pointed this
Speaker 1: out and wrote a paper about it, about how you
Speaker 1: know how to commit the perfect crime in uh in
Speaker 1: Yellowstone After. In his defense, he only published his paper
Speaker 1: after he had contacted numerous authorities and said, hey, can
Speaker 1: we fix this because I don't wanna you know, I
Speaker 1: we have actually had correspondence with the good doctor Cult,
Speaker 1: and we we assure you he's a good guy. He
Speaker 1: doesn't want people to commit crimes. Now. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: a tutorial, like a like a how to guide. It
Speaker 1: was just literally pointing to a problem which is very
Speaker 1: similar to what we're seeing with uh, with Antarctica, where
Speaker 1: we need some kind of consensus, some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: multi nation you know panel. I guess that can address
Speaker 1: crimes committed on the continent rather than limiting them specifically
Speaker 1: to the research bases proper. Because, like I said, what
Speaker 1: happens if you just you know, go off the reservation
Speaker 1: and wander, you know, in a fit of madness and
Speaker 1: you know, commit some sort of horrible crime. What happens
Speaker 1: then if you're just like out in the wild, right,
Speaker 1: What if there are what if there's a situation where
Speaker 1: there are multiple assailants or multiple homicides. And now we're
Speaker 1: looking at a case where we could quite easily look
Speaker 1: at a case where, god forbid, there was a series
Speaker 1: of murders, right, and multiple murderers and multiple murder victims,
Speaker 1: and they're all from different countries. How how do you
Speaker 1: even begin to unpack that? How do you begin to
Speaker 1: uh organized that that bowl of spaghetti, that bowl of
Speaker 1: cold spaghetti. Because I'm doing weather references, because we're talking
Speaker 1: about Antarctico. Well, I think we should wrap up with,
Speaker 1: you know, the ultimate determination of what happened with our
Speaker 1: astro physicist friend Rodney marks it was determined that he
Speaker 1: most likely drank a bad batch of liquor, because that's
Speaker 1: another thing. You know, when you're board and you're kind
Speaker 1: of marooned, uh and like siloed up in these these
Speaker 1: close quarters, there's there's gonna be some drinking going on,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe folks are brewing their own homebrew,
Speaker 1: and I know that, you know, when you make like
Speaker 1: white lightning or you know, any kind of you know,
Speaker 1: home brewed liquor, there is the potential for poisoning yourself
Speaker 1: if you don't do it right. And his autopsy showed
Speaker 1: that he had lethal traces of methanol, which is you know,
Speaker 1: points to that that very thing. Yeah, it's a tragedy
Speaker 1: anyway you look at it. And every everything we've touched
Speaker 1: upon in this episode is making me think of all
Speaker 1: the other strange stuff we can explore about Antarctica, including
Speaker 1: the Nazi proposal to create the territory of New Schwabia,
Speaker 1: which is a story for another day. You know what
Speaker 1: I want to know? No, let us know if you've
Speaker 1: been to Antarctica. We're automatically envious. We want to hear
Speaker 1: of your adventures. I don't think I want to go
Speaker 1: you don't want to go, I don't think i'll go,
Speaker 1: and I'll I will face time. I don't want to
Speaker 1: get snow murder madness. I will face time me while
Speaker 1: I am in the grips of snow murder madness. Uh,
Speaker 1: dangerously psychotic. Right, I'll try and talk you down, dude,
Speaker 1: but I can't. I can't guarantee I'll be successful. I
Speaker 1: kind of just based on our friendship, I kind of
Speaker 1: feel like you might end up accidentally enabling me. Well,
Speaker 1: then just don't just you just call somebody else. What's
Speaker 1: all right? All right? You can call me and you
Speaker 1: can contact us directly. You might be thinking, Ben Noel,
Speaker 1: I have been to Antarctic guy. I have a story
Speaker 1: about the history of it that is not just fascinating,
Speaker 1: it's also wait for it, ridiculous. We would love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can write to us directly. We
Speaker 1: are ridiculous at how stuff works dot com and you
Speaker 1: know we're on all the usual social media channels, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and never Pinterest though never,
Speaker 1: never Pinterest. I'm not I'm not anti Pinterest. I just
Speaker 1: don't I don't understand it, right, Yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 1: like a vision board. It's like a vision board, and
Speaker 1: you and I already have one of those. It's up
Speaker 1: on the wall here in the podcast. It's great. We
Speaker 1: should we should send some pictures out. So we are off.
Speaker 1: I'm going to plan my descent into antarctic madness and Noel,
Speaker 1: thank you in advance for say in my life. But
Speaker 1: we will be back very soon with more ridiculous sister,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to everybody. Goodbye bye m