Stephen Davis
Appearances
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
Their plan was just to have him sent back to Australia with no investigation, no follow-up. No, why did this man die suddenly at the South Pole? And it would have remained a mystery for all times, except a New Zealand coroner based in Christchurch, who was actually an Antarctic buff, heard about this and said, well, hold on a second. I'm going to intervene here.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
And a New Zealand police detective was assigned to do an investigation. Here's the interesting thing. When the New Zealand coroner and the New Zealand police officer intervened, the US authorities complained vociferously. You know, South Pole is our territory. Why are you doing? What's your jurisdiction?
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
They complained and tried to put pressure on the New Zealand government to stop the entire thing. This is the man's employer. This is the National Science Foundation. Why would they be preventing a proper investigation into the death of one of their scientists at the South Pole? Absolutely extraordinary.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
It's appalling that the National Science Foundation and the US government allowed this to happen.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
When the toxicology was done in Christchurch, shockingly, it was discovered he had died of methanol poisoning.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
NASA, when it wants to observe how people might react on a long mission to Mars, looks at what happens at the South Pole.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
It's well known that there was a psychological condition of winter over that people really suffer. It's that people have been in conflict, in battle, have a thousand yard steer, which means you're trying to engage with them and they're just looking off like this. And people get that into Antarctica or they become obsessed with things or they become morose or isolated. They also can drink heavily.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
Getting toasty is the favorite saying down there. Getting toasty is where you've kind of gone to another place and maybe you actually need help. You actually need counseling, but there's no counseling available because you're stuck there.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
So a lot of people get toasty and numbers of people come out of the experience of wintering over having to get counseling when they return to the west of the world.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
We spoke to one of the doctors who had been down there. He was a highly competent doctor, but he only discovered on the plane down there, they said, oh, and by the way, you also have to do dentistry, which he'd never done in his life.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
Infamously, in the late 50s, at one of the Russian bases, this was a story I thought was an Antarctic myth and apocryphal, but actually turned out to be true. Two Russians were playing chess and also drinking heavily. One left and came back and accused the other of moving something while he was gone, and so he killed him. It was a murder. Then covered up by the Russian authorities,
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
who then, for a long time, I don't know whether they still do, banned the playing of chess in Antarctica. In another infamous incident, again involving Russians and drinking, two Russians were at a two-person base in the middle of nowhere. One liked to read books, and they weren't getting on these two guys.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
And the other man, as his compatriot was getting to the end of the book, would tell him how it ended, give the plot away, again and again. Anyway, the other guy had had enough, so he attacked the other man with an axe.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
There are only three potential ways that Marx died. At his own hand, accidental poisoning or deliberate poisoning. Now, having spent a long time and many interviews and many years thinking about it, I think he was deliberately poisoned.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
I know for a fact that there was a conversation in the canteen about a day after it happened where people who knew Rodney were speculating that something quite untoward had happened. Because generally speaking, healthy people in their 30s don't suddenly die.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
I personally think it was another excuse, really. The rest of the key evidence, sadly, it's gone. I mean, whatever he drank, touched, ate, whatever was at his workstation and at his sleeping station was deliberately sanitized rather than seal off. the area where he worked, somebody, one of his fellow scientists, went in and disposed of everything. You know, potential evidence in a crime.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
He had been sent a bottle on his shelf with a strange prawn motif. Nobody really knew what was in it, some kind of spirit or liqueur, but this other man threw it away.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
By the way, since the podcast came out, I've had people from all over the world contact me to say, we think this is the bottle, including some people from South America who said this is a liqueur we have in Peru and it has a prawn motif on the side. But the point is that the area was sanitized.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
He didn't know what was wrong with him. He kept saying to the doctor, I feel terribly ill, find out what's wrong with me. Methanol, by the way... would be the last thing you would swallow if you wanted to kill yourself because it would be a horrendous way to die. It burns you inside, makes you blind. I found the fact that somebody quickly floated a suicide rumor very suspicious.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
Often the first version of the story is the one that's believed.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
Ironically enough, your listeners might not understand that if you poison yourself with methanol and you find out, ethanol is the solution.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
One of the things that you absolutely ought to do in making this diagnosis is run a blood test. That's, you know, Medical 101. There was a machine there called the ECTCHEM machine for blood testing, but it wasn't working. It needed batteries and maintenance and had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Because it wasn't working, the blood test was never done and a proper diagnosis was never made.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
And I've been informed by other experts who I've subsequently talked to that a blood test would clearly have shown what was wrong with him. Interestingly enough, I have spent years trying to find the doctor who seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. And there were several things about his treatment which you might have questioned.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
If anybody out there knows where Dr. Robert Thompson, formerly of the South Pole, is, please contact me and let me know.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
I think there were two things at play here. First off, there was the odd territorial issue of Antarctica. Under the Antarctic Treaty, nobody can make territorial claims. You can have a base there, but it's not really yours. It's just a base that countries zealously guard their rights. for what might happen in the future.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
So the Americans would genuinely cross that little old New Zealand was asking questions about something that had happened at their base at the South Pole. And that seems to be the tenor of their complaints to the New Zealand government. The other important point is that the National Science Foundation is publicly funded and the scientists who rely on grants
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
The people that pay for these things, the image that they want you to get of Antarctica is this wonderful, pure, pristine environment and there's wonderful, pure, pristine science going on. Not murders, rapes, axe attacks, heavy drinking, parties, sexual shenanigans.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
Now, whether he was deliberately poisoned just to make a meal or as a prank or to kill him, we may never know. I got several other people who were there, some on the record in the podcast and some off the record, to clearly state there was a case for investigating a deliberate attempt to poison or kill him.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
You owe the family of Rodney Marks a proper investigation. It is not too late to get to the bottom of what really happened to him. And you should do it.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
One of the things in the Antarctic Treaty is if you built a base there, you're supposed to allow your base to be inspected so people can check what you're up to. But in fact, the Chinese are refusing to let their bases be inspected. In the last few years, they've announced the building of a very large base, their 5th Antarctic base, and yes, they've refused to allow it to be inspected.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
And the Russians have a base in a place called Vostok, which is literally the hardest place to get to in Antarctica, the coldest place in the world, Vostok. And nobody's been there for a long time to inspect that either. It's not a place where you can just pop over to your neighbors to see them. And so it leads to a lot of mystery and speculation.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
I have been to spectacular, scenic places all over the world, and there's nothing like Antarctica. You know, you look outside and the sun is there at 3 o'clock in the morning, tracking slowly across the horizon because it's light the whole time in the summer. And the next thing you realize after you get over the physical part of it is how awe-inspiringly beautiful it is.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
I remember talking to the guide about the beauty and the dangers of the place, and he said something which really stuck with me. He said, this is the most beautiful place that's also trying to kill you.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
I suspect that after my investigation, the chances of the U.S. authorities letting me go to the South Pole are pretty minimal, to be honest.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
When people think of the Antarctica and they think of ice and they probably think of snow and things that melt. It's not like that. It's solid ice rock and it's an incredibly dry climate. You can't just go and find water. You can't just chip into the ice. I am one of those people who thought of it that way.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
His supervisor in Boston, the wonderfully named Tony Stark, who I interviewed, said Rodney was doing well. His science was doing well. He had all the sort of incarnations of a man who was having a successful career and doing what he loved.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
Winter over at the South Pole is when all the summer people have gone and a small group stay behind. Rather than being light all the time, when I was down there it is dark 24-7. Exceptionally cold, very difficult to move around. You are effectively trapped.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
He was in a band down there with his then girlfriend. So they celebrated the millennium at the South Pole and his band played a concert. And, you know, they had, as it were, a few drinks and an amazing celebration.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
Over a 36-hour period, he made three trips to the doctor's surgery. He was at one stage, vomiting blood. He had severe headaches. During one visit he wore sunglasses because he was complaining about his eyesight and the pain behind his eyes. During the night he was sleepless, he felt scared, his breathing became uncontrollably fast, his joints were painful.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
At one stage the doctor injected him with a sedative. which calmed him down and he returned to his own bed. On another visit, he became hyperventilating and the doctor found him to be combative. I think he was desperate to know what was happening to him. He was given an antipsychotic injection to calm him down.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
But all of this, I think, was a doctor guessing and guessing wrong at what happened to him.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
What I think was equally or even more shocking is what happened immediately after that. So you can imagine in New York, somebody at a lab dies suddenly for no apparent reason and very quickly. What would happen then? The police would be involved. People would be interviewed. Tests would be done because you want to find out how he died.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
It was a fascinating story. But in the course of investigating it, a source said to me, it's very easy to cover things up. in a place like this, because access is controlled by authorities and it's a long way away from anywhere. And you know what, Stephen, you should look at the death of this scientist last year.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
And that was the start of my investigation, an investigation which has carried on now for 23 years.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
We have a man dying suddenly, and we don't know why. The organization responsible for him just wants to wrap it under the carpet. And they have no grounds for complaining that there are lots of suspicions because they acted in an incredibly suspicious way right from the start. You know, it's appalling.
Conspiracy Theories
Murder in Antarctica?
They had a dead man and months to go before he could be taken anywhere. So his body was held effectively in a freezer and finally they decided to make a coffin for him and have a ceremony and bury him in the ice. and then at the end of the winter, dig them up again and ship them back to Christchurch.