When the ice melts, the horror begins. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the creepiest, most fascinating, and bizarre things that have been found under or in ice.
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00:00 "I talked to a little kid a little bit ago and he found out that it wasn't an actual
00:03 real caveman and he was like, 'Wait, what?
00:06 It's not real?'"
00:07 Welcome to WatchMojo and today we're counting down our picks for the creepiest, most fascinating
00:12 and bizarre things that have been found under or in ice.
00:17 30.
00:30 Frozen Waves Picture a 50-foot wave that could cause a
00:34 sweep of destruction across all in its path.
00:37 Yet stopping it was the freezing temperatures that turned it into ice.
00:41 Seemingly, this was what scientist Tony Travouillon captured near the Dumont-D'Urville station
00:46 in Antarctica.
00:47 However, this mammoth ripple isn't actually a wave.
00:50 Instead, the structure was created from compressed ice forcing out air.
00:55 This phenomenon absorbs red light but transmits blue light, giving it a stunning color.
01:00 The closest we've gotten to flash-frozen waves was in 2015 with Jonathan Nimmerfroh's
01:05 photographs in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
01:08 The water was filled with ice, slowing the wave's movement significantly.
01:12 Nimmerfroh nicknamed the event "slurpy waves," which is fitting.
01:17 29.
01:18 See-Through Fish In 2015, the Willans Ice Stream Subglacial
01:23 Access Research drilling team was at the grounding zone near the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
01:28 The plan was to see the effect of climate change on ice lower down.
01:31 After drilling around 2,500 feet, a device with a camera was inserted that made a strange
01:36 discovery.
01:37 A bunch of translucent fish were in an area so tough to live in that scientists once believed
01:42 it couldn't sustain life.
01:44 Speculated to be part of the suborder Notothenioids, you can see the innards of the fish, which
01:50 is a little disturbing.
01:52 In 2021, under the Antarctic ice-covered Weddell Sea, scientists found a 60-million colony
01:58 of ice fish, the Neopagyptopsis jona, which have translucent skulls and transparent blood.
02:04 28.
02:14 Millions of Grasshoppers According to science fiction films, when living
02:17 beings are flash-frozen and then the ice melts, the creatures within could lay siege to the
02:22 world.
02:23 While if that could happen, Montana would have an issue.
02:27 Within the Beartooth Mountains is the Grasshopper Glacier that's filled with tens of millions
02:31 of the creatures.
02:32 It's believed the insects may have been there for thousands of years.
02:37 Research has found that some of the contained bugs belong to extinct species, like the Rocky
02:41 Mountain Locust.
02:43 How all these grasshoppers got frozen remains a mystery.
02:46 However, it's speculated a massive storm engulfed the traveling swarm.
02:51 Climate change is melting the ice, releasing the deceased bugs from their entrapment.
02:56 27.
02:57 A Swiss Couple In 1942, Marcelin and Francine Zumoulin went
03:01 to feed their cattle one morning in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland.
03:05 That was the last time their children heard from their parents.
03:08 Without them, the siblings were split up and raised by different families, losing contact
03:13 over the years.
03:14 In 2017, a technician for a ski lift company was examining equipment on the Saint-Florand
03:19 Glacier in the Alps when they found strange black rocks.
03:22 However, on closer inspection, it turned out to be items like backpacks and glass bottles,
03:28 and two bodies within the ice.
03:29 DNA analysis soon confirmed it was the missing Zumoulin couple.
03:34 Seemingly, they had fallen into a crevasse and sadly lost their lives.
03:38 The surviving children held a funeral for their parents.
03:41 26.
03:42 Mount Erebus Hidden within the icy tundra of Antarctica
03:46 is Mount Erebus, the highest active volcano on the continent.
03:50 And should it erupt viciously, several scientific stations in the area and the people within
03:55 would be at risk.
03:56 Hidden by the ice surrounding it since at least 1972, it's had a continuing lake of
04:01 lava in its core.
04:02 The volcano contains several caves and tunnels, where little lives except bacteria and fungi.
04:08 Erebus is regularly releasing its contents, including gas that some scientists believe
04:13 is depleting the ozone layer in the region.
04:16 In 1979, the volcano was also the site of a plane disaster.
04:20 A miscommunication of coordinates caused Air New Zealand Flight 901 to fly into Erebus,
04:26 costing 257 people their lives.
04:29 25.
04:30 Lots of Fish Lizards Third time is a disturbing charm for researchers
04:35 who visited Chile's Tindal Glacier in the Torres del Paine National Park.
04:39 In 2014, the team examined rocks exposed by the melting glacier ice.
04:44 There, they found a graveyard filled with various species of 46 near-complete remains
04:50 of Ichthyosauria, also known as fish lizards in ancient Greek.
04:54 Believed to be from around 150 million to 100 million years ago, it's speculated a sudden
05:00 mudslide swallowed the school of marine reptiles as they traversed the waters.
05:04 On top of the skeletons, some soft tissues were preserved, which showed that some of
05:09 the creatures were pregnant, giving scientists valuable information on how the extinct Ichthyosauria
05:14 lived.
05:15 24.
05:16 The Endurance A ship underwater always has a touch of dread
05:29 about it.
05:30 In 1915, Ernest Shackleton was leading an expedition to the Antarctic with the vessel
05:34 The Endurance.
05:35 However, ice on the ocean's surface badly damaged the boat.
05:39 While attempts were made to free it, the crew abandoned The Endurance.
05:43 Soon after, the structure was wrecked as pack ice crushed it, causing it to sink to the
05:47 Weddell Sea's depths.
05:48 While everyone on the voyage survived the experience and returned home, The Endurance
05:52 was believed lost, but that changed in 2022.
05:57 Researchers of the Endurance 22 team used technology to locate the vessel 10,000 feet
06:01 below.
06:02 Impressively, the ship wasn't too degraded due to the lack of wood-eating critters in
06:07 the ocean.
06:08 23.
06:09 Zug Zug the Caveman Imagine walking around Theodore Worth Park
06:13 in Minneapolis, enjoying the fresh air.
06:15 But then, you suddenly stop as you come across an unusual sight - a caveman entombed in a
06:21 block of ice.
06:22 Well, that was what happened in 2021.
06:25 But fear not, there is an explanation for it.
06:27 After being commissioned by ad agency Hunt Adkins the year before to create Zug Zug the
06:31 Caveman for an event, artist Zach Schumach and his collective put the artwork in the
06:35 park, encouraging people to not use their phones and explore the outdoors.
06:46 Schumach also stated that Zara, the mother huntress, was out there, and this cavewoman
06:50 was later found.
06:51 The name Zug Zug is seemingly a nod to the 1981 film Caveman, which used the phrase for
06:57 intimate relations.
07:01 22.
07:06 Horse Remains from the Iron Age A horse skeleton might not be on your "frozen
07:12 in ice" bingo card, but that's exactly what archaeologists in Norway unearthed from
07:16 a glacial mountaintop in 2013.
07:19 Discovering this kind of animal at such a high altitude might seem supernatural, though
07:23 experts explained that it likely provided aid to Iron Age hunters.
07:27 Its finders hypothesized that the steeds may have carried reindeer remains, of all things,
07:31 along with basic supplies.
07:40 Norwegian teams have also found centuries-old horseshoes and patches of preserved manure,
07:45 which would undoubtedly be unpleasant to step in.
07:47 The bones' surprisingly unsullied condition and strange location made them a curious remnant
07:52 of an intriguing past.
08:02 And as to how the creature may have lost its life, that's the subject for a great historical
08:07 novel.
08:08 21.
08:09 Anthrax-Infected Reindeer With climate change melting the permafrost,
08:15 in 2016, a pathogen that had been contained by ice for years was suddenly released and
08:21 caused havoc in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug of Russia.
08:24 A heat wave in the area thawed a 75-year-old reindeer carcass.
08:28 Unfortunately, the body was infected with deadly anthrax.
08:32 When it was eaten by wildlife, the bacteria spread rapidly and the area was put under
08:37 quarantine.
08:38 Within two months, over 2,500 reindeer perished, a massive loss to the herding nomadic families
08:43 in the area.
08:44 Authorities also announced a culling of 100,000 reindeer to reduce the risk of infection.
08:49 The anthrax also spread to humans, causing around 100 to need hospitalization.
08:54 Sadly, there was one human fatality.
08:58 20.
08:59 Life Forms In A Subglacial Lake Life really does seem to find a way.
09:03 Lake Vostok is a massive subglacial lake found in Antarctica.
09:07 Located beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the lake has been sealed away under 13,100
09:12 feet of ice for millions of years.
09:14 Russian scientists say they've drilled through more than 12,000 feet of Antarctic ice to
09:19 reach a submerged lake, one that has been sealed off for 20 million years.
09:25 They tout the accomplishment as being on par with the 1960s race to the moon.
09:29 That means no sunlight, unimaginably freezing temperatures, and immense physical pressure
09:34 from the surface.
09:35 Yet studies of ice cores have concluded that the lake could be home to exotic microbes.
09:40 NASA's chief scientist says the knowledge gained could transform the way we think about
09:44 life.
09:45 In fact, one team found evidence of over 3,500 species.
09:49 It's theorized that this little society lives on its own recycled carbon.
09:52 However, the results are debated, with other scientists believing that the samples were
09:57 contaminated.
10:00 19.
10:03 A Martian Meteorite On December 27, 1984, a team from the Antarctic
10:14 Search for Meteorites found a small fragment of Martian rock buried in the ice.
10:18 Now known as Allen Hill's 84001, the meteorite weighs just over four pounds and is estimated
10:24 to have formed from molten rock over four billion years ago.
10:28 Said meteorite made national headlines in 1996
10:44 when scientists claimed to have found fossils of microscopic bacteria within the rock, which
10:48 seemingly confirmed that there had once been life on Mars.
10:51 However, this claim was enormously controversial within the wider scientific community and
10:56 was ultimately rejected due to a lack of substantial evidence.
11:10 Believe it or not, a four-billion-year-old rock from Mars is still pretty creepy on its
11:15 own.
11:16 18.
11:17 An Entire Mountain Range Located in East Antarctica is the subglacial
11:22 Gemburtsev Mountain Range.
11:24 Discovered by Soviet geophysicist Grigory Gemburtsev, they're said to be the same size
11:28 as the Alps.
11:29 They tower roughly 9,000 feet high and run for about 750 miles.
11:41 The only thing is, you can't actually see the mountains themselves, as they're buried
11:45 under 2,000 feet of ice.
11:47 We don't know about you, but we find the concept of an entire mountain range buried
11:50 under 2,000 feet of ice weirdly disturbing.
11:54 The Earth really is a fascinating place, isn't it?
11:57 17.
11:59 Preserved Incan Children In 1999, three mummies were found at the icy
12:03 summit of Yuya Yako, a stratovolcano located in the Atacama Desert.
12:08 These mummies are known as the Children of Yuya Yako, and they could be the best-preserved
12:13 mummies in the entire world.
12:27 One is the body of a teenage girl, and the other two are children believed to be around
12:30 six and seven years old.
12:44 It's assumed that they're the victims of a human sacrifice meant to ensure a rich harvest,
12:49 and that they were killed around the year 1500.
12:51 They were heavily drugged with alcohol and coca, placed five feet underground while asleep,
12:56 and left to die.
12:57 A combination of the freezing temperatures and extremely dry air have helped preserve
13:00 their bodies for centuries.
13:08 16.
13:10 Yuka the Mammoth Now, just imagine coming across the mummified
13:14 corpse of a freakin' woolly mammoth.
13:16 Well, that's exactly what happened to the local people of Yukagir, a village near the
13:20 Loptiv Sea of Siberia.
13:33 Found in 2010, the mammoth died approximately 39,000 years ago.
13:37 Even at somewhere between six and eight years old, it weighed roughly five tons.
13:42 It's now on display in Moscow, and it is quite creepy, to say the least.
13:46 You can clearly make out its face, and stringy strands of light brown hair still cling to
13:51 its body.
13:52 It's considered to be the best-preserved mammoth in the world, and we can certainly
13:56 see why.
13:57 15.
13:58 A Body Sadly, we're not talking about an ancient
14:02 mummy for this one.
14:03 In 2017, a hiker discovered a dead body in a crevasse on New Zealand's Fox Glacier,
14:08 and contacted police.
14:10 While some believed the corpse was decades old, the fact that it was found in a crevasse
14:14 led glaciologist Andrew McIntosh to assume that it was no more than five years old.
14:18 His guess was correct.
14:20 Further study found that the corpse was that of Cynthia Charlton, a British woman who died
14:24 in a helicopter accident in November 2015.
14:27 She was one of the crevasse's seven victims, which also included her husband.
14:32 14.
14:33 Mexican Climbers Now, here's a creepy story for you.
14:37 A climber on the slopes of Mexico's Pico de Orizaba slipped and came face-to-face with
14:42 a mummified head and arm protruding from the snow.
14:45 An expedition to recover a mummified body buried in the snow on Mexico's tallest mountain
14:49 is planned for early Thursday.
14:51 The mummified body was found by a group of hikers on March 1 on the north side of Pico
14:55 de Orizaba.
14:56 That's how episodes of CSI start.
14:58 The authorities were called in, and two more frozen mummies were eventually discovered.
15:02 The body's skull and the hand were discovered when one of the mountaineers approaching the
15:05 summit fell about 100 feet before jamming an axe into the snow.
15:12 An 81-year-old named Luis Espinoza declared he knew the mummies, as he was part of a tragic
15:17 expedition that claimed three lives back in 1959.
15:20 He recognized one of the men from his shirt and ring, which was emblazoned with his initials.
15:25 It's certainly nice for Luis to finally get some peace, but just imagine being the guy
15:28 who found a mummified head sticking out of the snow.
15:32 13.
15:33 The remains of Andrea's Arctic expedition
15:36 In the late 19th century, Swedish balloonist S.A.
15:39 Andrea set out to reach the North Pole via hot air balloon.
15:42 Many experts claimed that this was a terrible idea, but Andrea's optimism and nationalistic
15:47 pride caused him to ignore their warnings.
15:50 He and two companions set off in July 1897 and were never heard from again.
16:09 It wasn't until 1930 that the remains were found by an expedition studying the nearby
16:13 glaciers.
16:14 Included in the find was preserved photographic film, allowing us to see the tragedy firsthand,
16:20 including photos of the crashed balloon.
16:22 The balloon had crashed just two days after liftoff, and the men had trekked back south.
16:26 They died approximately three months later.
16:32 12.
16:35 A preserved mummy head
16:41 In 2017, archaeologists found mummies buried in the Zeleniyar burial site near the Russian
16:47 town of Selikart.
16:55 They found two mummies, one an adult woman and the other a baby.
16:59 These mummies are estimated to be 900 years old, and are said to be part of an unknown
17:03 medieval culture.
17:05 The interesting thing was that the female mummy is the only female in the burial ground,
17:09 leading some to assume that she was an elite member of society.
17:12 It's also interesting and creepy because only her head has been preserved.
17:16 On the head, you can still see her hair and eyelashes, and her face has a green tint due
17:21 to the copper she was buried in.
17:22 11.
17:24 Three members of the Franklin Expedition
17:26 Many are familiar with the ill-fated Franklin Expedition from Dan Simmons' novel The Terror
17:31 and its television adaptation.
17:39 Three members of the expedition, John Torrington, William Brain, and John Hartnell, passed away
17:44 shortly after departure and before the ships became stuck in the pack ice.
17:48 They were buried on Beachy Island, Nunavut in 1846 and exhumed in 1984.
18:04 What anthropologists found were remarkably preserved corpses, albeit incredibly disturbing
18:10 ones.
18:11 Their faces are contorted, their eyes frozen open, and their skin horribly frostbitten.
18:16 Now imagine opening the coffins and seeing that.
18:19 10.
18:20 Ice Caves and Frozen Waves
18:23 We don't know if this is spectacular or oddly terrifying.
18:26 Iceland's Vatna Glacier is Europe's second largest ice cap, covering roughly 8% of the
18:31 country.
18:32 It's quite a famous glacier and has been seen in many pieces of pop culture throughout
18:48 the years, including Game of Thrones and the James Bond film A View to a Kill.
18:53 Beneath the glacier are massive ice caves, with ceilings and walls that look like giant
18:57 waves frozen in time.
18:58 They are actually created by geothermal springs.
19:01 It's surreal, it's gorgeous, but it's also kind of unsettling.
19:05 Talk about feeling claustrophobic.
19:07 9.
19:08 Ötzi the Iceman
19:09 Ötzi is perhaps the most famous natural mummy in the world.
19:22 Found in 1991 on the border of Austria and Italy, Ötzi is the naturally mummified corpse
19:27 of a man who died around 3300 BC.
19:39 The mummy was actually found by German tourists.
19:42 They were hiking along a mountain path in the Ötztal Alps when they found the upper
19:46 half of the mummy sticking out of the ice.
19:58 It's currently believed that the man bled to death after being struck by an arrow.
20:06 His skinny, discolored and leathery-looking body is now on display at Italy's South Tirol
20:23 Museum.
20:43 The internet was abuzz in 2016 when a mysterious pyramid-like structure was photographed in
20:48 Antarctica.
20:49 Some people speculated that humans once inhabited Antarctica and built pyramids like the Egyptians,
20:54 and conspiracy theorists went straight to aliens.
21:07 It was creepy and it was intriguing, even if we knew the explanation was going to be
21:11 boring.
21:12 And it was.
21:13 Turns out that the "pyramid" was just the peak of a buried mountain sticking out of
21:16 the snow.
21:17 As the University of California's Eric Rignot hilariously and succinctly put it,
21:21 "This is just a mountain that looks like a pyramid."
21:24 Still kinda cool, we guess, just not as cool as in ancient Antarctic society.
21:38 It turns out that many dinosaur bones have been found in the frozen tundra of the Antarctic.
21:42 The first were discovered in 1986 by Argentinian geologists Eduardo Olivero and Roberto Scaso,
21:48 who unearthed remains of an ankylosaur now known as the Antarctopelta oliveroi.
21:53 These bones were found on James Ross Island, as were bones of a Trinosaura.
21:57 Other dinosaurs found in Antarctica include those of a Glacialisaurus and the massive
22:01 carnivore Cryolophosaurus.
22:02 But it's not like these dinosaurs were roaming an icy landscape.
22:06 Rather than just small shards of bone eroded out of the rock, they started finding large,
22:12 intact skeletons.
22:13 Antarctica as we know it only formed about 25 million years ago, long after the dinosaurs
22:18 had gone extinct.
22:20 Before that, it was part of a supercontinent called Gondwana and was actually quite tropical.
22:28 6.
22:29 Ancient Bacteria
22:31 Scientists digging in the Arctic permafrost of Alaska made a startling discovery in 2005.
22:36 They found ancient bacteria that had been completely frozen in the ice for roughly 32,000
22:40 years.
22:41 And although it may look harmless enough, this ice could be hiding a deadly secret - cryogenically
22:47 preserved bacteria and viruses that could be hundreds of thousands of years old.
22:53 To make matters even creepier, this bacteria came back to life after being thawed, with
22:57 astrobiologist Richard Hoover claiming, quote, "they immediately started swimming when the
23:02 ice melted."
23:03 According to NASA, this made the bacteria, quote, "the first fully described, validated
23:08 species ever found alive in ancient ice."
23:11 The extremophiles are now known as Carnobacterium Pleistocenium, and they are absolutely terrifying.
23:17 They came back to life after 30,000 years!
23:23 5.
23:27 Mysterious Holes
23:31 In 2016 and 2017, people around the world were creeped out when massive holes appeared
23:36 in the Antarctic ice.
23:37 These holes were found in the Weddell Sea, and one covered an area of 31,000 square miles,
23:43 making it roughly the size of Maine.
23:50 Now that is one big hole.
23:52 Experts deduced that this was a polynya, which is a fancy term for a hole of open water in
23:56 the middle of sea ice.
23:57 And while scientists knew what the hole was, they didn't know how it got there, as polynyas
24:02 are typically found near the coast.
24:12 Now known as the Weddell Polynya, it hadn't been seen since 1976.
24:17 It was likely caused by an intense winter cyclone.
24:20 4.
24:21 Bloody-Looking Water
24:23 If this list proves anything, it's that Antarctica is the place of nightmares.
24:37 Where else can you find what looks like blood pouring out of the side of a glacier?
24:41 The area is fittingly named Blood Falls, and it flows from Taylor Glacier onto the surface
24:45 of Lake Bonney.
24:46 The falls were discovered in 1911 by Australian geologist Griffith Taylor, hence Taylor Glacier.
24:52 After presumably freaking out, Taylor attributed the blood to red algae.
25:06 It was a good guess, but the blood is actually just salt water tainted with large amounts
25:10 of iron oxide.
25:11 Yep, Blood Falls is essentially just rusty water pouring from a glacier.
25:15 Still horrifying though.
25:17 3.
25:18 Viruses
25:19 One major fear of global warming is that it could release unknown pathogens into the air,
25:24 some of which may have the capacity to seriously hinder and endanger humanity.
25:28 In 2015, researchers from China and the United States traveled to the Gulia Ice Cap in Tibet
25:44 and drilled a 164-foot hole into the ice to study samples.
25:48 What they found was positively nightmarish.
25:51 No less than 33 viruses, 28 of which had never been seen by human eyes.
26:03 According to environmental virologist Chantal Abergel, "We are very far from sampling
26:08 the entire diversity of viruses on Earth."
26:11 That's positively unsettling considering that 28 were found in a Tibetan glacier alone.
26:18 2.
26:22 World War I Soldiers
26:33 During World War I, Allies battled the Austro-Hungarian Empire along the snowy mountains of the Alps.
26:39 Tens upon thousands of soldiers were killed by avalanches and the frigid temperatures,
26:43 which sometimes dipped to -22 Fahrenheit.
26:46 Beginning in the early 2010s, the mountain ice began to melt and started depositing long-lost
26:51 frozen artifacts around the area.
26:53 These included weapons, still-legible love letters, and dozens of mummified corpses.
26:58 It's a horrifying symbol of one of the most frightening periods of modern history.
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27:17 1.
27:19 The Remains of a Military Transport Aircraft
27:22 In November of 1952, a military transport aircraft carrying 52 people crashed into Alaska's
27:29 Chugach Mountains.
27:30 Rescue crews were sent to look for the aircraft, and its tail was found sticking out of the
27:34 snow on Mount Gannett at an elevation of 8,000 feet.
27:52 The crash had caused an avalanche and buried the wreckage, and rescue efforts couldn't
27:56 dig through the thick snow.
27:58 Rescue was abandoned, and the wreckage was lost for the next 60 years.
28:02 It wasn't until June 2012 that it was rediscovered by the Alaska Army National Guard.
28:07 While on a training mission, they discovered the plane's survival raft on Colony Glacier,
28:11 roughly 14 miles from the crash site.
28:14 This led to an investigation that uncovered the nearby wreckage.
28:17 If you had to live on an island in the Arctic or on the Antarctic continent for a year,
28:22 which would you pick and why?
28:23 Let us know below.
28:41 [music]