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registry Malta and Ecuador. In

1:33

1942, a park ranger working

1:35

for the government of India was out

1:37

hiking high up in the Himalayan mountains,

1:40

up near the border with Tibet. He

1:42

was tracking rare animals supposedly, and he

1:44

might have been actually looking

1:47

for unauthorized incursions into India, because

1:49

this was during World War II,

1:52

and India was really worried

1:54

about invasion, as

1:57

everyone was. And

2:00

he came across this beautiful

2:03

glacial lake, like a jewel in

2:06

the mountains, way high up

2:08

at 16,000 feet. And

2:11

he went down to investigate and

2:14

made this terrifying

2:17

discovery. And

2:23

he was absolutely astonished to find that there

2:25

were human remains everywhere,

2:28

bones and skulls and

2:30

also flesh preserved. I

2:32

mean, this was at 16,000 feet, way,

2:35

way above the tree line, a

2:37

week from any kind of human habitation.

2:41

And here were hundreds, literally hundreds

2:43

of dead people. And

2:46

of course, he was really freaked out by

2:48

this and immediately reported it to the Indian

2:50

government. And the Indian government was

2:52

freaked out because this was during World War II

2:55

and immediately assumed it were the remains

2:58

of an invasion of Japanese

3:00

from the north. We've been caught

3:02

in bad weather and died because these

3:04

bodies, a lot of them were fairly well

3:06

preserved. So

3:09

the Indian government sent soldiers up

3:11

to investigate this mysterious lake.

3:15

They were turned back by bad weather a number

3:17

of times, but they finally made it

3:19

to the lake's edge. And

3:21

they quickly realized these were not Japanese soldiers,

3:23

that these bodies were very old. And

3:27

the only reason they were well preserved was

3:29

because of the cold and the altitude. An

3:32

effort in the mystery of Nubrind Lake began.

3:44

I'm Dylan Thuras, and this is

3:46

Atlas Obscura, a celebration of

3:48

the world's strange, incredible and

3:50

wondrous places. And today,

3:52

author Doug Preston brings us back into

3:54

the world of his latest book, The

3:56

Lost Tomb. It's a

3:58

collection of strange, mysteries,

4:00

weird science, and unidentified skeletons.

4:03

Sometimes all of the above.

4:06

Like in this story today. This

4:09

time we're headed up into the

4:11

Himalayas to Rupkhand. It's this

4:14

remote lake that is also

4:16

this collection of hundreds and hundreds of

4:18

human skeletons. They have

4:20

puzzled scientists and researchers for

4:22

years. Who were these people?

4:25

How did they die? And

4:27

how did they get here? Last

4:39

time, you know, we were

4:41

talking on the show. We

4:43

were talking about Dyatlov Pass and

4:45

this other kind of mystery of

4:47

these skiers who disappeared in the

4:49

Ural Mountains. And a

4:52

lot of your stories involve

4:54

skeletons. Skeletons make appearances in

4:56

many of the chapters

4:58

of The Lost Tomb. What

5:01

is it about skeletons that got

5:03

you? Why are they such a theme through

5:05

some of these stories? Well,

5:07

it may date back to morbid interest

5:11

in it when I was a child. But actually, it's

5:14

physical anthropology or

5:16

biological anthropology is a subject

5:18

that fascinates me. You

5:20

have a skeleton of a human being and

5:23

now with our tremendously

5:26

advanced technologies, we

5:28

can look at that skeleton. We

5:30

can tell where the

5:32

person was born, what

5:35

food they ate, and

5:37

how they might have died, what diseases

5:40

they had. Were they murdered

5:43

or did they die a natural death? Were

5:46

they cannibalized? These

5:48

are all questions that now skeletons

5:50

can tell us. And

5:53

these tools can help unravel mysteries. Sometimes

5:56

they can also just create more

5:58

and more mysteries. anthropologists

8:00

and others look into this, they

8:03

came across a fascinating story.

8:08

I was gonna say a myth, but it's not a

8:10

myth. This is real. Many,

8:13

many centuries ago, some

8:15

relatives of Nanda Devi, now this is

8:17

sort of a Hindu story, visited

8:21

her in her mountain kingdom, and

8:24

were very disrespectful to her. So

8:27

Nanda Devi in anger cursed

8:29

them and caused

8:31

their milk to turn sour and

8:33

maggots to infest their rice. And

8:36

so to try to appease

8:38

the goddess, this king came

8:41

back to her and said, we would like to

8:43

do a pilgrimage to you, to

8:46

honor you so that you'll

8:48

lift the curse on our kingdom. And

8:50

she said, fine. So

8:53

this king organized this great pilgrimage

8:55

to her through these mountains. But

9:00

he didn't do it in the right way. He

9:02

brought along a bunch of courtesans

9:05

and musicians so to entertain him during

9:07

the pilgrimage. And this

9:10

displeased Nanda Devi. And

9:12

so at a certain point on

9:14

the pilgrimage when they were traversing the

9:16

path of death above Rupkine

9:19

Lake, she attacked

9:21

them in a fury with a tremendous

9:24

storm of hail and

9:26

wind and ice and snow

9:29

and killed them all and

9:31

threw their bodies into Rupkine Lake as

9:34

a warning to those who

9:36

took the pilgrimage thought to indulge

9:38

themselves in earthly pleasures during

9:40

the pilgrimage. So that

9:42

was the myth. Well, it

9:45

turns out that is with many stories

9:47

like this that there's a huge kernel

9:49

of truth to this. In

9:52

2004, National Geographic did a documentary

9:54

on a team of anthropologists and

9:57

archeologists investigating the site. The

10:00

group included William Sachs, the guy who almost

10:02

died on his first trip to Rupkund. It

10:06

also included an Indian bioanthropologist

10:08

named Veena Mushrif Tripathi. She

10:11

will come back into the story a little later. So

10:15

they're looking at these skeletons, and they're

10:17

looking for telltale signs. First, what

10:20

killed them? They find some interesting sort

10:22

of evidence of what might

10:24

have been the cause of death. Yes,

10:27

fascinating evidence. They

10:29

carbon dated the flesh,

10:33

and they found that these were

10:35

very old remains, probably dating from

10:38

around 900 AD. Now, this

10:40

was when carbon dating was not quite as accurate

10:43

then as it is today. But

10:45

the most important thing they found was

10:47

on the skulls of

10:49

a number of the victims that they brought back, they

10:52

found right on the top of the skulls, round

10:56

fractures all about the same size,

10:59

right on top of the skulls, that

11:01

were severe enough that it would have caused

11:03

death. Now, these

11:05

were fractures that were not likely

11:08

to have been caused by a weapon, because when

11:10

you hit someone with a weapon, you're

11:12

hitting them on the side of the head, or the

11:15

back of the head. But you don't hit them directly

11:18

on the top of the head, usually.

11:20

That's weird. So

11:23

their conclusion was that

11:26

these people were caught

11:28

in a massive hailstorm,

11:32

and that they were killed by

11:34

giant hailstones. These

11:37

people who were on the

11:39

path of death, probably Pilgrim, Samantha

11:41

Davy, were caught in

11:43

a giant hailstorm. There's no shelter, there are

11:45

no trees, there are no rocks they can

11:47

hide under, and they were literally pummeled to

11:50

death by giant hailstones. And

11:52

there it is. There's the origin

11:54

of the myth. Right. You might think,

11:56

okay, what a crazy story. End of

11:58

story. Mystery solved. With

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16:00

is not in teeth. Now,

16:02

everyone thinks, oh, it's in the teeth. That's

16:04

a very good place. But it

16:06

turns out that the cochlea of the

16:08

inner ear is even better. It's like

16:10

a little treasure chest, it's the hardest

16:12

bone in the body. It's a little

16:14

tiny, you know, sort of completely enclosed

16:16

area of the inner ear, which

16:19

has DNA. He gets,

16:22

you know, these skulls from

16:24

Roman burials, from England, from,

16:26

you know, India, from Africa,

16:29

wherever they come from, they

16:31

work out the cochlea, they

16:33

bring it into this lab, and

16:36

this lab is extreme, it has to be as

16:38

clean lab as you can find. Any

16:42

contamination, even one molecule of

16:45

human DNA from one of

16:47

the researchers can poison the

16:49

entire lab. So

16:52

to go into this laboratory, you have

16:54

to dress up in this clean room

16:56

suit. Everything has to be dressed up.

16:59

You have to go through an airlock. It's

17:01

absolutely crazy. And when they're

17:04

not in the lab, they turn

17:06

on these ferocious ultraviolet lights

17:09

that literally bathe the lab

17:11

in this extremely dangerous ultraviolet

17:13

radiation, which breaks up any

17:16

human DNA or any DNA that might

17:18

be lying around on a surface. So

17:20

you go into these labs, you're dressed up

17:22

like the Michelin man. So

17:27

I put on this suit, and I went into

17:29

the lab, and here's this woman under a hood

17:32

with a little cochlea that looks like a

17:34

tiny nub in a bone, and

17:37

she's drilling it out to get the DNA.

17:40

And it's the cochlea of a Roman soldier from

17:43

around zero

17:45

AD. Using all these

17:47

dental tools. Nearing, nearing, nearing, nearing, nearing

17:50

it up. Very cool. Okay, so they

17:52

do this. They do this same thing with

17:55

these skeletons from

17:57

Roopkin. What happened when they looked

17:59

into? now.

30:00

Well, not true. You know, there's still

30:02

beautiful mistoos out there. Douglas

30:11

Preston's latest nonfiction collection is

30:14

called The Lost Tomb. It is just

30:16

an amazing book full of

30:18

strange, mysterious skeletons, unexplained deaths.

30:21

At some point, he may

30:23

have solved and slash gotten

30:25

involved in the mystery of

30:27

a very famous Italian serial

30:30

killer. Anyway, go buy

30:32

The Lost Tomb. It's really, really

30:34

good. Our

31:03

podcast is a co-production of Atlas

31:05

Obscura and Stitcher Studios. This

31:08

episode was produced by Amanda

31:10

McGowan, Julia Russo. The production

31:12

team includes Doug Baldinger, Chris

31:15

Naka, Camille Stanley, Manolo Morales,

31:17

Baudelaire, Gabby Gladney, Johanna Mayer.

31:19

Our technical director is Casey

31:22

Holford. This episode was mixed

31:24

by Luce Fleming. If

31:26

you want to learn more, be sure

31:28

to visit atlasobscura.com. There's a link in

31:30

our episode description. And our theme

31:32

in end credit music is by Sam Tyndall.

31:35

I'm Dylan Thurris, wishing you all the wonder

31:37

in the world. I will

31:39

see you next time. I

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