''The Thing''? Russians drilling Lake Vostok are not reporting in

[Ichingcarpenter]

A group of Russian scientists plumbing the frozen Antarctic in search of a lake buried in ice for tens of millions of years have failed to respond to increasingly anxious U.S. colleagues -- and as the days creep by, the fate of the team remains unknown.

"No word from the ice for 5 days," Dr. John Priscu professor of Ecology at Montana State University, told FoxNews.com via email.

The team from Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) have been drilling for weeks in an effort to reach isolated Lake Vostok, a vast, dark body of water hidden 13,000 ft. below the ice sheet's surface. The lake hasn't been exposed to air in more than 20 million years.

Priscu said there was no way to get in touch with the team -- and the already cold weather is set to plunge, as Antarctica's summer season ends and winter sets in.
"Temps are dropping below -40 Celsius [-40 degrees Fahrenheit] and they have only a week or so left before they have to winterize the station," he said. "I can only imagine what things must be like at Vostok Station this week."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/02/russian-scientists-lost-in-frozen-land-lost/#ixzz1lJmfeeRo


A good documentary on this lake from the BBC:

Now they are missing like some sci/fi movie.

[Ecumenist]

1. This is creepy....

REALLY creepy...I would really be worried if I were the American Antartic team

[Baclava]

2. mums the word

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. More like John Carpenter's remake of the thing

A 20 million year old virus or organism is released after they reach the lake.
and kills ......

Anyway . the weather could be the problem for now.

[Baclava]

4. weather: clear, -36F, visibility 12mi

http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/89606.html

"Vostok magnetic anomaly"

http://www.exohuman.com/wordpress/2011/02/whats-under-lake-vostok/

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. The anomaly was mentioned in the BBC documentary and the weather

is really nothing special or harsh today. .. Thanks for the links
so

[cyberpj]

6. LOL! Really, really OL!!

That guy connects everything in history and the world to aliens.

DUzy award! From me, anyway!

[Javaman]

7. Their last transmission...

"my god, it's full of vodka!"

[AlecBGreen]

9. +1

[A Simple Game]

10. Now that was good for a laugh. n/t

[Phoonzang]

8. Shoggoths. nt

[LongTomH]

25. Great Cthulhu

"In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

[eyewall]

11. This story has been fascinating and enigmatic for a decade.

The "20 MILLION YEAR OLD VIRUS" theme came from the scientists' own statements back when the Americans were first brought into the effort.

[Swede]

12. Music to listen to while reading this.

[tclambert]

14. It says "Music composed by Ennio Morricone" the guy who did "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

AH-ah-AH-ah-AH. Wa-wa-waah.

[jakeXT]

26. He has lots of good music

[Ichingcarpenter]

19. Really cool creepy music thanks..... everyone should play this reading this thread..LOL

Normally Carpenter did his own music for his films.

But this guy is one of best in the business.

More on films he did the music for:


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001553/

[MarkCharles]

13. Wonderful video, great challenge!

I look forward to hearing some more results about their current condition.

[onlyadream]

15. This doesn't make sense

I watched the full video, and they can't drill all the way thru, or they will contaminate the lake water. NASA is now involved in making a probe, which will melt the ice as it goes down toward the lake, which is still some years off. So what were the Russia still doing there?

[MarkCharles]

21. The video clearly stated, the Russians have had a base there for years.

The Russians did the drilling down to this level and had stopped.

The video you watched was produced a while ago, aired first in 2010 in the UK.

[onlyadream]

22. That's my point

The Russians did all they can do. Now NASA is developing the probe... Or maybe they have completed it since I don't know when the video was made, although I did watch the credits for a clue, but there was no year that I could see. They stated that a probe was five years off and this was aired in 2010, so who is drilling and why?

[eyewall]

16. 6 days now

[link:http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/03/missing-scientists-mystery-deepens-in-frozen-antarctica/?intcmp=trending|

[eyewall]

17. oops - Fox Flub?

Maybe it's just another Fox News Faux Pas - USNews says scientists safe.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/02/03/fox-flub-russian-vostok-lake-scientists-safe

[Ichingcarpenter]

18. Its the only news so far that says they are safe

I await at least another one to confirm. I did a google search this morning.

Priscu hasn't heard from them either he just says they are too busy..... we shall see.

[eyewall]

20. So it's a rumor that they're not missing.

Not very reassuring.

[allan01]

24. re:'The Thing''? Russians drilling Lake Vostok are not reporting in

Crash site of the galactica

[jakeXT]

27. It's like shaking and opening a giant coke bottle

GREENE: Well, what are the risks? I understand that a lot of gases might be built up in that lake. And I guess another question is if there's going to be some sort of explosion or a geyser once they get in there?

PRISCU: That's a good point. The lake is pressurized and the pressure in that lake should be about what we see in a Coke bottle. And you know what happens in the Coke bottle. If you shake it up and uncork the top, the Coke will come shooting out through the top. You know, you can see you can have quite a mess. So it's really important that when the lake water comes up the borehole, it doesn't come up too far, or else it will start degassing, and it could then geyser out through the surface.

http://m.npr.org/story/146393720?url=/2012/02/04/146393720/20-million-years-later-russians-work-to-drill-into-lake

[Ichingcarpenter]

28. We know where they are! Had to find it on russian news

ST. PETERSBURG, February 6 (RIA Novosti) – After decades of drilling , Russian scientists have finally managed to pierce through Antarctica’s ice sheet to reveal the secrets of a unique sub-glacial lake, Vostok, that has been sealed there for the past 20 million years, a scientific source said on Monday.

“Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the sub-glacial lake,” the source said.
Explorers hope Lake Vostok, which is the largest of Antarctica's buried network of icebound lakes and also one of the largest lakes in the world, could reveal new forms of life and show how life evolved before the ice age.

Russian Scientists Drill to Sub-Glacial Antarctic Lake
15:53 06/02/2012




The discovery of the hidden lakes of Antarctica in the 1990s sparked much enthusiasm among scientists all over the world. Some think the ice cap above and at the edges have created a hydrostatic seal with the surface that has prevented lake water from escaping or anything else from getting inside.

Lake Vostok could also offer a glimpse of what conditions exist for life in similar extreme conditions on Mars and Jupiter’s moon, Europa, according to RedOrbit scientific news portal.
Explorers from the United States and Britain are following the trail of their Russia’s colleagues with their own missions to probe other hidden Arctic lakes, which are among the last of the world’s hidden and unexplored areas.



http://en.ria.ru/science/20120206/171176587.html

[Kablooie]

29. I wonder if James Arness was buried up there?

James Arness of "Gunsmoke" fame played the creature in the original movie "The Thing"

[MarkCharles]

30. Latest update in new thread ... here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12282097