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Aconcagua Expedition?

Spookdaddy

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Does anyone else remember this story?

The survivors of an abortive ascent of Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest mountain in the Americas, were found in a state of shock, gibbering about a strange city on the mountain and being attacked by its residents. Many members of the expedition were missing.

Sorry to be vague. I’m sure I’ve read about this in the past in a couple of books or partworks. From what I can remember the story was always short on details - I can't help wondering if I've imagined it.

Have I made it up?
 
Prospect said:
Although the highest peak in S America, Aconcagua is actually a relatively easy hill to climb and thousands reach the summit each year...

Hence whatever key-words I try googling with Aconcagua all I get is expedition information. Some friends of mine have "done" Aconcagua and, apparently, found it disappointingly easy (masochists!).

I'm sure I've not imagined this story. The jist of it was that something peculiar had happened to this particular group and that their ramblings, although not necessarily taken seriously, were seen as an indication of some sort of weird experience.

I've a feeling the expedition in question was 1950's or earlier so I assume the mountain wouldn't have been as popular or accesible as it may be now.

Of course they could just have been suffering from chronic altitude sickness.
 
Back in the 50s there certainly wouldn't have been many expeditions to climb Aconcagua.

Don't think altitude sickness could explain their story because, so far as I'm aware, it doesn't cause groups of people to suffer the same 'hallucinations'. Mass hysteria perhaps?

Is it possible the story originated on another mountain but got 'moved' to Aconcagua in the process of translation?
 
Murder on Aconcagua

I wonder if anyone could shed some a more explanatory light on the solution, if any, to the mystery of two murdered mountaineers on Mount Aconcagua in Argentina in 1973.

I have ‘googled’ but find nothing more, and often less, than the ‘facts’ I have gleaned from an account in ‘Marvels and Mysteries of the Unexplained’ by Nigel Blundell and Allan Hall published 1988.

I've never heard of this mystery before and it seemed as though it should have an explanation. Anyway...

... a Brief Summary of the Facts.
• 8 Climbers set out to climb Mount Aconcagua in January 1973.
• The team consisted of Janet Johnson (teacher), John Cooper (engineer), Carnie Defoe (lawyer), William Zeller (police officer), Arnold McMillen (farmer), William Eubank (geologist), James Petroske (psychologist) and John Shelton (doctor).
• The hired a local guide Miguel Angel Alfonso
• At 5000 meters up the mountain Defoe and Shelton dropped out, suffering from frostbite from the severe winds.
• At 5700 meters Eubank drop out. The rest of the party decide to carry on.
• At 6350 Petroske showed signs of mountain sickness, he was In such a bad way that Alfonso (the guide) reluctantly decided to accompany him to the base camp.
• Alfonso and Petroske were then trapped at base camp for three days by the atrocious weather.
• On the third day Alfonso spotted figures in the distance and left the cabin intending to help them but was forced back by the weather.
• On the fourth day Alfonso managed to reach the figures and was surprised to find only Zeller and McMillen both suffering from frostbite. Both men were disorientated and incoherent but managed to explain that ‘Cooper is sitting near the paved road, near the trees’ and ‘Janet has been taken away by the women who came on mules’.
• Later that year an Argentinian climbing expedition found the body of John Cooper with ice-pick wounds to his stomach but had died from skull fractures caused by repeated blows to the head.
• Two years later the perfectly preserved body of Janet Johnson was found. She had been beaten to death.
• The police couldn’t establish any motive, Johnson and Cooper had no money and very little equipment. Suspects were few and far between, mountain bandits had never been heard of at that altitude.

Any thoughts?...Bueller?...Anybody?
 
This February 1976 newspaper article:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=XX0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6910,2292721&hl=en

... describes the situation after Johnson's body was located but before it was retrieved.

If you go to search.wikileaks.org and enter "Janet Johnson" you can see some (but not all ...) the cables sent from the US embassy in Buenos Aires describing the progress of the search, the retrieval, and the family's wishes for the remains.
 
This February 1976 newspaper article:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=XX0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6910,2292721&hl=en

... describes the situation after Johnson's body was located but before it was retrieved.

If you go to search.wikileaks.org and enter "Janet Johnson" you can see some (but not all ...) the cables sent from the US embassy in Buenos Aires describing the progress of the search, the retrieval, and the family's wishes for the remains.

Remarkably, after 50 years, Janet Johnson's camera - along other personal items - was discovered. This was back in 2020, but the story has been hitting the news the last few days - I presume because it's taken this long to rescue the images:

Newly Developed Photos Shed Light on 50-Year-Old Suspicious Deaths of Two Mountain Climbers
The deaths of Janet Johnson and John Cooper have long been shrouded in mystery.

A newly discovered camera promises to shed light on the 50-year-old mystery surrounding the deaths of two climbers on Argentina’s Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. Two porters discovered Janet Johnson’s Nikomat 35-millimeter camera in February of 2020, The New York Times reported in an extensive profile. The Nikomat was still situated in Johnson’s leather holding bag, embossed with her home address in Colorado.

Johnson’s camera is now at the center of the decades-old investigation into her death, and that of her comrade, NASA engineer John Cooper. Johnson and Cooper were found deceased on the mountain after a 1973 expedition went terribly wrong. Their deaths were ruled accidental, but questions have lingered considering the violent nature of the episode...
Source.

There's a much fuller story - including the recovered photographs - at The New York Times - Ghosts on the Glacier. You might need to register to read it, but I have done so and not had to pay anything for the privilege of reading this particular article - however, the number of visits may be limited, so best to register and read immediately. It's very much worth reading.

For what it's worth, I rediscovered the original story that inspired this thread over two decades ago. Many of the 'facts' in that story were clearly inaccurate - but, equally clearly, it was definitely this incident that inspired said story.

Edit: When I started this thread, way back in 2002 (Jesus!!), the Dyatlov Pass incident was very little known outside a few niche interest groups. It strikes me now, that there are some not dissimilar elements involved in the two cases - or at least the potential for them.
 
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There's a much fuller story - including the recovered photographs - at The New York Times - Ghosts on the Glacier. You might need to register to read it, but I have done so and not had to pay anything for the privilege of reading this particular article - however, the number of visits may be limited, so best to register and read immediately. It's very much worth reading.

For what it's worth, I rediscovered the original story that inspired this thread over two decades ago. Many of the 'facts' in that story were clearly inaccurate - but, equally clearly, it was definitely this incident that inspired said story.
That was very interesting, thank you for posting it. It is sad that the truth will never be known. I agree it sounds not too dissimilar to the Dyatlov Pass incident.

I have a few thoughts - A fall is ruled out as causing some of the injuries as the slope the bodies were found on was shallow but maybe they did have a fall after all? Ms Johnson is wearing a red coat when her body was discovered but was photographed previously wearing a blue one. One of the photos was quite shortly before she died. Did she change coats after ripping the blue one in the fall? Was the blue one found in her pack and examined? Both survivors said they were hallucinating. Things may not have happened in the order they remembered them and their stories do diverge in points too.

One of the men lower down, Shelton noted four climbers, then three, then two through his binoculars. So the story of Cooper descending first, then Johnson being left behind on the subsequent descent by the others checks out. The bodies were found fairly close together. If they had been murdered by the two survivors, then how come they were murdered in more or less the same place but at two different times? It doesn't really make sense.

The man who performed the autopsy said that the wound in Cooper's body could not have been caused by an ice axe as they leave a square wound and not a round one. However most of the climbers here were inexperienced and Cooper was a farmer*. Perhaps he made his own or had one made for him? Johnston is photographed carrying an unusual looking triple pointed axe so maybe unique axes were a thing back then?

Edit - My apologies, Cooper was a NASA engineer, it was McMillen that was the farmer. He might still have made his own though.
Edit 2- I think what looks like a third point on the axe might just be a strap. Ignore that one then.
 
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