THE SUNDAY DISPATCH

London, England

26 November 1944

(page 3)

EVEREST MYSTERY

—A THEORY

A possible explanation of a 23-year-old mystery of Mount Everest—recalled in last week’s Sunday Dispatch—is advanced by Mr. Aleister Crowley, an experienced Himalayan climber.

In 1921, Mr. George Leigh-Mallory and Mr. A C. Irvine tried to reach the summit of Everest—and vanished without trace.

Mr. Crowley, who, in 1905, led an expedition to Kinchinjunga, writes:

“Mallory and Irwin were last seen on an easy snow-slope where ‘nobody could possibly come to grief.’ The mountain ‘lighted its pipe,’ and when the cloud thinned out, the slope was bare.

“The easy slope (or, worse, the level) is the one mountain feature which always terrified me—and still does in day dreams! There is nothing to hang on to. I have seen a tent, held by a weight of over 200lb., and well sunk in snow, torn from its moorings by a sudden gust. This was at just over 19,000ft.

“I think that such a wind swept my brave friends into the air.”