An author proposed a vest pocket camera that was lost on Mt. Everest 30 years before the first official ascent, was discovered by Chinese authorities, and they hid it.
In a book by an author and a climber, Mark Synnot, he suggested the Vest Pocket Camera was found by the Chinese Expedition team and they hid it. He also claimed that the lost camera may have had pictures of mountaineers, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, on top of Mt. Everest, exactly 30 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa made the first summit.
In June 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine were on a mission to become the first people to scale Mt. Everest. They left for the expedition on the 8th of June but were never seen again.
Some theories mention the pair was last seen about 800 ft. from the summit. On May 1st, 1999, an expedition team that had set out in search of the remains of climbers found Mallory’s body just below the summit.
The last image of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine was in June 1924, before they disappeared. Photo: AP.
Although Mallory’s body was discovered, the remains of Irvine and a Vest Pocket Kodak (VPK) are still unknown. Thus, whether they reached the summit before they died has been a debate among the mountaineering community for years.
Various books, theories, and translated documents have been written on them, and their stories have been a part of continuing research. If George Mallory and Andrew Irvine had scaled Mt. Everest and later died while descending, they would not only be the first people to summit Mt. Everest but would also be the first ones to reach the summit via the deadly North Face.
The record for the first ones to summit Mt. Everest goes to Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa. They made it to the summit 29 years after Mallory’s attempt from the south side with a trek to the Everest Base Camp.
And, the record for the first climber to scale the tallest mountain on the planet via the north face goes to a Chinese team from Tibet on May 25, 1960. The mountaineers Nawang Gombu (Tibetan) and Chu Yin-Hau and Wang Fu-zhou claimed the honor.
Andrew Irvine, George Mallory, Edward Norton, Noel Odell, John MacDonald. Front row- Edward Shebbeare, Geoffrey Bruce, Howard Somervell, Bentley Beetham. 1924 16,500 ft Everest. Photo: Flashbak
A book that prepared the shocking news
According to a report from Salon, in 2019, author and climber Mark Synnott visited the place where Mallory’s dead body was discovered, hoping to find the other remains of VPK and the body of Irvine. But then, he couldn’t find anything despite using advanced drones.
Later, Synnott’s new book, The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest, mentions the rumors he heard after he attempted to find the missing VPK with a solo climb to the GPS coordinates.
“I kept hearing rumors that explained why I didn’t find Irvine: The Chinese had found his body and the camera long ago—and then buried the story,” he mentioned.
“An official with the Chinese Tibet Mountaineering Association told a Nepali friend of mine in the fall of 2019 that the rumors were true.” The camera was kept under lock and key, with other Mallory and Irvine artifacts, in a museum in China.”
He has accused China of hiding the truth about Irvine and Mallory. In doing so, they would get credit for the first successful climb from the north ridge. But, things haven’t concluded here.
“We now have multiple sources all essentially saying the same thing: the Chinese found Irvine, removed the body, and are jealously guarding this information against the rest of the world—all to protect the claim that the 1960 Chinese team was the first to reach the summit,” he writes.
After he published the book,
As soon as the book was published, the writer claimed he started receiving fresh news about the lost VPK and Irvine.
One such claim is that Wayne Wilcox, a former United States Marine Officer, told Synnott about how the Chinese covered it. He said a high-ranking official in the British Embassy had been told that “the Chinese found the remains of a foreign climber at 8,200 meters during their 1975 expedition to the North Face of Mount Everest” and also recovered the lost Kodak VPK and brought it back with them to Beijing.
“They screwed up the development of the film and ruined it,” Wilcox says. “Rather than admit they made a mistake, they erased all evidence that they had found the camera or the body.” He added.
Again, after a month, Synnot mentioned he could meet the British diplomat who said the Chinese expedition had found the body of Irvine and the VPK. Then they tried to develop the film but could not recover the images. The diplomat also mentioned that he was told by a climber, Pan Duo, who is the first woman climber to summit Mount Everest via the North Face.
Mallory and Irvine were last seen by their teammate Noel Odel just 800 feet below the top of the world. Then what happened after is still unknown and is a mystery in mountaineering.
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