When Dennis Bell’s colleague began pulling him out of an icy hole, the rope around Bell’s belt snapped, and his second fall proved fatal.
In 1959, 25-year-old meteorologist Dennis Bell disappeared into a glacial crevasse in the Antarctic before the eyes of his horrified colleague. 66 years later, a Polish team has finally discovered his remains in the wake of a receding glacier.
Personnel from the Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station on Antarctica’s King George Island first found and recovered some of the remains on the Ecology Glacier in January, according to a statement by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The following month, a team including an archaeologist, geomorphologist, anthropologist, and glaciologist returned to the site to conduct a more thorough archaeological survey. Denise Syndercombe Court, a forensic geneticist at King’s College London, conducted DNA tests of the human remains, which matched with samples from Bell’s brother and sister.
“When my sister Valerie and I were notified that our brother Dennis had been found after 66 years we were shocked and amazed,” David Bell said in the statement.
