The frozen bodies of a Swiss couple who went missing 75 years ago in the Alps have been found on a melting glacier. Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin had gone to milk their cows in an alpine meadow on August 15, 1942, but were never seen again. Their bodies were recently discovered on a glacier near Les Diablerets ski resort. They were perfectly preserved, wearing clothes from the Second World War and carrying intact identity papers and other belongings. It is thought the couple may have fallen into a crevasse and remained frozen in ice until the glacier receded (News, July 19).
Across the Alps glaciers are melting and revealing their grisly past. The well-preserved remains of 80 soldiers from the First World War have been found in recent years in glaciers near the village of Peio in the Italian Alps, where battles raged between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian armies. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are thought to have died during what was called the White War. Many of the troops perished as a result of the intense cold or in avalanches, and it was known as the “white death”.
The receding alpine glaciers have disgorged unexpected objects. In 2013 a French climber on the glacier of Mont Blanc in the French Alps discovered a cache of dozens of emeralds, rubies and sapphires, thrown from the wreckage of an Air India flight that crashed on the mountain in 1966.
The oldest and possibly most famous body found preserved in a glacier was Ötzi, the mummified prehistoric man discovered near the border between Austria and Italy in 1991.
The body dated back 5,300 years and was so well preserved that it revealed 61 tattoos on the skin. Analysis of the corpse revealed his diet, health and illnesses. Red blood cells were found intact, the world’s oldest known human blood cells. A recent investigation revealed that Ötzi was likely murdered, shot by an arrow in what appears to have been an ambush.