Case file · Anomaly hotspot
The Jeannette crushed, and the drift that proved the ice moves
The USS Jeannette, sent in 1879 to find the Open Polar Sea and reach the pole, was crushed by ice north of Siberia on 12 June 1881; her commander George De Long and many of the crew died trying to reach the Lena delta.
1881 CE · 77.25, 155.00 · status: official
The account
In 1884 relics from the ship were found on an ice floe off south-west Greenland. That drift inspired Fridtjof Nansen to freeze the Fram into the ice on purpose in 1893.
The researched reading
A polar disaster that taught science how Arctic ice moves. Nothing about it is mysterious.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Undetermined | 55% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 40% | Pack-ice pressure crushed the ship. The relics that reached Greenland three years later showed the transpolar drift that Nansen then used with the Fram. Both are now standard oceanography. |
| Something known, misidentified | 1% | The “Open Polar Sea” theory behind the voyage was a scientific error, not a sighting. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 1% | Not relevant. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 1% | Some doubted at the time that the relics were genuine, but the drift has been confirmed many times since. |
| Secret human technology | 1% | Not relevant. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 1% | Nothing unexplained. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 0% | Not needed. |
Official position: A naval court of inquiry examined the loss; the drift of the relics was accepted as evidence of trans-Arctic ice movement.