The Lake Where 100s of People Died…Twice: Skeleton Lake's DNA Secret - Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World

Indiziert: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Jimmy Akens's Mysterious World is brought to you by the Star Quest Production Network and is made possible by our many generous patrons. If you'd like to support the podcast, please visit givemsterious.fm.

[00:00:13]You're listening to episode 418 of Jimmy Akens Mysterious World, where we look at mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason. In this episode, we're talking about the mystery of Skeleton Lake. I'm Dom Bettonelli and joining me today is Jimmy Aken. Hey Jimmy.

[00:00:33]>> Howdy doc.

[00:00:34]>> Folks, be sure to stay around for the end of the episode. We'll have your feedback on our recent episode number 407, the Library of Alexandria, and more patron questions. But first, imagine trekking to a glacial lake more than 3 mi above sea level, a lake the size of a swimming pool at the foot of some of the tallest peaks on Earth. And when the ice thaws each summer, the water is littered with hundreds of human skeletons. Some of them still have scraps of flesh and hair preserved by the cold. Nobody lives anywhere near this place. It's a multi-day hike through thin air just to get there. So, how did all these people end up dead in the water of a remote alpine lake? Local legend says an angry goddess hurled iron hard hailstones out of the sky at a king who had offended her. But when British authorities stumbled across the bones in the 1940s, they were convinced they'd found something else entirely. And in 2019, a team of scientists sequenced DNA from the skeletons, and they made a discovery that blew the whole case wide open. So, who are the people in Skeleton Lake? How did they die? And why did some of them come from the other side of the world?

[00:01:49]That's what we'll be talking about in this episode of Jimmy Akens Mysterious World. So, Jimmy, what are we doing in today's episode? Well, today we're going to be looking at an archaeological mystery, specifically at one of the strangest archaeological sites in the world. It's a high alitude glacial lake and it's full of old human skeletons.

[00:02:09]So, I should warn listeners that we will be talking about bones and human remains and how these people likely died, but there's no violence involved. There's no crime scene and nothing gory. This is really a historical and scientific puzzle.

[00:02:26]>> Okay. And so, where is the lake and what is it called?

[00:02:30]>> It's a lake in the Himalayan mountains that bridge countries like Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. And this specific lake is in the part of the Himalayas that's in India. It it's in northern India near the borders with Tibet and Nepal. The lake itself is called Rupkund which means something like beautiful pool in Hindi and that's a little ironic given what's inside the beautiful pool. Uh locally it's often just called mystery lake but internationally people tend to call it skeleton lake. And how remote is it?

[00:03:06]It's very remote. The lake sits at an elevation of about 16,500 ft or more than 5,000 mters or a little more than 3 miles above sea level. For comparison, that's higher than any peak in the continental United States. It's not as high as Mount McKinley up in Alaska, but it is higher than anything in the lower 48. It's higher than Mount Whitney in California. It's almost half a mile higher than Pikes Peak in Colorado. And if you were in an airplane at that al altitude, the cabin would need to be pressurized.

[00:03:42]The lake sits in a depression near two enormous Himalayan peaks. One on one side is Mount Trishell, which is over 23,000 ft tall or 7,000 m. On the other side is Nandanda Gunti which is about almost 21,000 feet tall, more than 6,300 meters. And both of those are higher than Alaska's Mount McKinley since the Himalayas are the tallest mountain range in the world. But the lake itself is tiny. It's only about 130 ft or 40 m long, which is a little smaller than an Olympic swimming pool. It's only about six feet or 2 meters deep at its deepest part. So, it's not a big lake by any means. Um, it's really a little glacial pool or what's known as a glacial tarn, which is what you get when a glacier carves out a little bowl and then snow melt and rain fill it up. The lake is frozen solid for between 9 and 11 months out of every 12 months. It's buried under snow and ice most of the time and it only partially thaws during a short window between June and September.

[00:04:56]That's when you can actually see the water and when you can see the skeletons. There are no roads. There's no settlement anywhere near it. The closest village is called Juan. Uh and even from there, it's a multi-day hike uphill through forests, meadows, and alpine terrain. And I should mention that in geography, alpine just means high up in the mountains, not the European Alps specifically. Well, Skeleton Lake is definitely an alpine terrain. You have to gain over 10,000 ft of elevation just to get there um from, you know, nearby settlements like Juan.

[00:05:35]So, you can't just drop in. You have to earn the visit. Is the area culturally significant? Yeah, the whole region is sacred Hindus. It's dedicated to a goddess named Nandanda Devi who is one of the most important goddesses in the Himalayas and who's particularly important in this region. Her name Nandevi means something like blissgiving goddess and she is considered to be a form of the goddess uh Parvvada Parvati who is the consort of the god Shiva the destroyer. But in Hinduism, gods and goddesses have both good and bad aspects. So just because Nandevi is a form of a goddess who's married to Shiva doesn't mean she's all bad. Um there is also a giant mountain nearby that's named after her, the Nandanda Devi Mountain, which is over 25,600 ft tall. And it was the highest mountain in the British Empire. In fact, until 1808, it was considered the highest mountain in the world, though it was later determined that's not the case.

[00:06:45]Uh, the whole area is protected as a natural reserve called the Nandevi Biosphere Reserve, which includes the Nandevi National Park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. So, Skeleton Lake is both pristine and in a natural area and considered a holy site. How does the fact that the area is considered holy affect the way it's treated by the locals?

[00:07:11]>> One way is that there's a traditional Hindu pilgrimage called the Nandanda Devi Raj Jat. Raj Jat means royal pilgrimage. So it's the blissgiving goddess royal pilgrimage and it's one of the longest and most challenging uh religious pilgrimages in India. It's 170 mi or 280 kilometer walk through the through the high Himalayas and the locals only do it once every 12 years.

[00:07:36]So, it's considered a very special thing to do. If you miss it, you got to wait 12 years for it to come around again.

[00:07:42]The last time they did it was in 2014.

[00:07:45]So, the next one was scheduled to happen this fall in August and September of 2026, but it got delayed until next year. So, it'll be happening in 2027.

[00:07:56]During the pilgrimage, a huge number of people, literally tens of thousands of devotees walk the route through the Himalayas. And as they do that, they carry an image of the goddess on a pelangquin. A pelangquin being a kind of transportation. It's basically a box on poles and ordinary people carry it using the poles while a high status person rides inside. Well, goddesses are high status, so Nandade Devi gets a ride inside. Sometimes the pilgrims also walk with a forhorned ram that is supposed to lead the goddess back to her mountain home. The route passes very close to Skeleton Lake and then it continues on to a sacred site called Hamkund or the Lake of Fire which is higher up on the shoulder of Mount Trishell. Although given how cold it is there, I don't know that the lake feels very fiery. Um, so this is an ancient route that pilgrims have been walking for centuries and that's something we're going to come back to. Then let's talk about how the skeletons at Rukkund were first discovered. How did that happen?

[00:09:06]>> Well, the local villagers have, you know, always known the bones were there.

[00:09:10]They'd known that for centuries. And there are folk songs about them. And of course, the pilgrims who walk past them every 12 years would see them. But before the 1940s, modern reports are somewhat confused and shouldn't be relied upon. There's a claim that says in 1898, a British uh investigator noted the existence of this remote lake during surveys in the Himalayas. And there's a report that around 1905, the British mountaineer and physician Tom G. Long staff was on a climbing expedition on Mount Trishell and he heard about a lake of bones nearby, but he didn't stop to investigate. There's also a report from 1925 that during the Nandanda Devi Raj Jot pilgrimage, the pilgrims noted human remains on the northeastern bank of the lake. So, the outside world had some awareness of the site. But where things really snap into focus is the 1940s. The first person to really document the lake was named Hari uh Kishan Madwal. Uh he was a forest ranger in what became the Nandanda Devi National Park. And in 1942 in the middle of World War II, he was on patrol in the area. The water in the lake was not frozen at this point and it was at a low level. So when he came to the lake, he saw human bones scattered around the shore and visible through the shallow water. Except it wasn't just a few human bones. It was an enormous number of them. Ranger Madwall had stumbled onto several hundred human skeletons. That must have been quite a shock.

[00:10:54]>> Oh, definitely. But he reported it to his superiors and they sent people to investigate. And then what did the early investigations reveal? Well, the first thing they noticed was just how many bones there are? Early estimates put it at somewhere between 300 and 800 individual people whose skeletons were there. And to this day, that's still the range we work with. We don't have an exact count because the skeletons are scattered. You know, some are on the shore, some are partially buried in ice, and some are submerged in the lake itself. And many of them are broken up.

[00:11:30]So, you can't always tell where one skeleton ends and another begins. And this is so remote that no one's ever dug them all out and cataloged them all. Uh what's really remarkable is how well preserved some of them are because the air up there is so cold and dry. Some of the skeletons still have preserved flesh, hair, and fingernails, which is a little creepy.

[00:11:55]And so Skeleton Lake has been a mystery that's fascinated people ever since. You know, who were the people whose bones had been found? How did they die? And why did so many of them die and end up in just this one lake?

[00:12:09]>> People must have developed theories about that. You said that the locals in this remote part of India had known about the bones for a long time before they were discovered in modern times.

[00:12:18]How did they explain the bones?

[00:12:20]Basically, they have a really vivid local legend. It's been told in folk songs and oral tradition for centuries.

[00:12:27]In fact, parts of this legend are still sung during the Nandanda Devi Raj Jot pilgrimage today. The story uh goes that a long time ago there was a king of Manauj. Uh Manauj is a city in northern India that was the capital of a major medieval kingdom. Uh the king's name was Raja Jazdaval. Uh and he decided to go on a pilgrimage in honor of Nandevi. So he set out with his pregnant wife, Queen Ronnie Bala, along with all his courters, uh, servants, soldiers, animals, and in some versions of the story, an entourage of dancing girls or even a whole dance troop. Basically, it was a big royal procession. It was lavish, it was loud, and it was the kind of pilgrimage where the king wanted to make a big show of his piety towards the goddess. Not a humble show. and thus display what a big important man he was as one of her devotees.

[00:13:30]>> That doesn't sound like a very pious pilgrimage.

[00:13:33]>> No, and that's kind of the point of the story because the goddess was supposed to be furious about this. Uh Nand Devi is a Himalayan goddess. She's associated with silence, simplicity, and the wild high country. and she requires pilgrimage to come to her in the right spirit, quietly, humbly, and respectfully. But Jaz Daval's procession was anything but that. It was loud, it was showy, it was irreverent. The dancing girls were singing and entertaining the king in sacred places.

[00:14:07]And according to legend, the procession desecrated Nandanda Devi's holy ground.

[00:14:12]And the goddess was enraged. So what did she do? Basically, she got a local deity named Latu or Latu Defta to help her. Uh Latu is a figure in the local religion.

[00:14:25]He's the guardian deity of the R of the region. But since he's only a local deity, it's a little hard to get images of him, or I'd show one in the video version of the podcast. Latu does have a temple in the village of Juan. So, we'll show a picture of that. Uh the temple is a pretty humble affair and it's at about 8,000 ft elevation. Uh pilgrims on the Rajot route stop there and make offerings to him before going any higher. So Nandanda Devi and Latu got together according to the legend. They summoned a massive thunderstorm with thunder, lightning, and avalanches and critically huge hailstones. The folk songs described them as iron balls raining from the sky. And the entire royal party was killed. Everyone, the king, the queen, the servants, the dancing girls, and the animals. All of them died at the shore of Skeleton Lake.

[00:15:25]Their bodies were scattered across the rocks and into the water. And that's why today, according to the legend, there are hundreds of skeletons there. When the bones were rediscovered in the 1940s, I imagine that the British authorities who were then in control of India weren't very impressed with this legend. What did they think? Well, when Ranger Madwall discovered the bones in 1942, it was wartime. Uh, Japan had just attacked Pearl Harbor a few months earlier, and there were real concerns that Japan might try to invade India, which was at this time part of the British Empire. So when Ranger Mwell reported this enormous group of skeletons up in the mountains, the immediate theory was that he had found the remains of a Japanese invasion force that had tried to sneak into India via the Himalayas and gotten wiped out by the elements, sparing uh northern India from being invaded by the Japanese and possibly sparing India from even broader Japanese invasion. you know, when Tokyo failed to hear back from this expeditionary force. Since that time, other theories have been proposed, but we'll discuss those when we get to the recent perspective.

[00:16:38]>> And what's the situation at Skeleton Lake today? If listeners want, can they just go there?

[00:16:44]>> Not easily. It's a protected area. It's within the Nandevi Biosphere Reserve and near Nandevi National Park, and the lake is considered sacred. Hikers used to visit it a lot. In fact, for a while, the lake was one of the most popular wilderness treks in India. At its peak around 2017 and 2018, about 6,000 trekers a year were going up there. But that turned out to be a problem because the hikers were bringing trash, plastic waste, and of course, there was all the foot traffic. Um, the hikers were damaging the fragile alpine meadows. And sadly, some of the hikers were even taking bones from the skeletons as souvenirs.

[00:17:30]Uh, ick.

[00:17:32]>> Yeah, indeed. Ick. Well, in 2018, the high court of the state of Utreon stepped in. Uh, they didn't ban going to the lake, but they did ban camping overnight in the fields around it to protect the ecosystem. Um, well, the place is so remote that there aren't any hotels or motel there. It's not like there's a Motel 6 within hiking distance. This is one of the places in the world where Tombbo won't leave the light on for you. So, because of where Skeleton Lake is and how long it takes to get there, the camping ban effectively closed the hike. You can't realistically do the hike without camping along the way and the root track remains closed or heavily restricted.

[00:18:19]There's also another problem because reportedly the lake is slowly shrinking.

[00:18:24]It's losing about 0.1% to 0.5% of its size every year. Although that's such a precise measurement, I'm a little skeptical of it. Um, and there's concern that landslides and sediments are also going to bury the skeletons and damage them. Meanwhile, scientists continue to study samples already collected. So, Skeleton Lake is a little bit frozen in time right now while we sort out what to do with it. But we can still try to solve the mysteries connected with it.

[00:18:58]And before we do that, we'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons who make this show possible, including Donald J.

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[00:20:39]So, Jimmy, what theories are there about Skeleton Lake? Well, there's a lot of theories, and that's partially because the mystery has been around for so long.

[00:20:48]Different theories have been, you know, fashionable at different times, but basically, there are six theories we'll want to look at. First, there's the traditional legend about the goddess Nande Devi taking out her wrath on the king and his sacriiggious pilgrimage.

[00:21:04]Second, that the skeletons are the remains of a lost Japanese invasion force from World War II. Third, that the skeletons are the remains of some other army that maybe got in a battle. Fourth, that the skeletons are the remains of people who died in a plague or epidemic.

[00:21:22]Fifth, that the skeletons are the remains of pilgrims who were killed in a single catastrophe around the 9th century. And sixth, well, there's another theory that we'll come to later.

[00:21:34]>> Then let's walk through these one by one. In the reason perspective, what do you make of the original theory? The idea that it was Nanda Devy's wrath.

[00:21:44]Well, to anticipate the faith perspective for a moment, we don't have direct evidence of supernatural causation. We can't demonstrate that a goddess like Nandevi exists. And we definitely can't demonstrate that a goddess sent a hailtorm to punish a specific king. But setting that aside, there are also natural reasons to doubt the local legend. Specifically, there's also no independent historical record of a king named Jazdal of Kanage going on a pilgrimage and dying in a hail stom. Can is a real city and we know a lot about uh medieval Can.

[00:22:25]It was the seat of several dynasties including the powerful uh Pratihara Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries. But we don't have a historical chronicle that says someone named King Jaz Daval went to Nandadevi and got killed. So he might be a legendary figure or he might be a figure whose name got attached to a vague folk memory or he might be a composite of several different kings. So the divine wrath theory, at least as it's traditionally told, doesn't fit the data we have.

[00:23:03]Then what about the theory that the British came up with during World War II? What's the case for saying that the skeletons are Japanese soldiers? Well, Ranger Madwall uh discovered the skeletons in 1942, and 1942 is in the middle of World War II. Uh, Japan had just attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, although it had also been involved in the overall conflict before that. Japan had been expanding aggressively across East Asia and the Pacific. uh they had invaded British Burma which borders India and British military authorities in India were genuinely worried that Japan might try to attack India directly. There was even a Japanesebacked force called the Indian National Army that was planning invasions from the east. So when Madwall reported hundreds of skeletons in the mountains, uh people's first instinct was to assume that it was the result of a military expedition in the current war. Uh maybe a Japanese force that had tried to sneak over the Himalayas and then gotten wiped out by the cold and altitude. So you can see why this was their first theory.

[00:24:15]>> And how well does this theory actually hold up in light of what was later learned?

[00:24:19]>> Not well. Uh the theory collapsed almost as soon as investigators got a good look at the bones. Uh first of all, the bones were weathered. Uh they had been exposed to the elements for way longer than just a few months. If you put a skeleton out in the open Himalayas in 1941 and looked at it in 1942, it's it wouldn't look anywhere near as degraded as these bones were. Uh, second, the there were no artifacts found with the skeletons that constituted Japanese military gear.

[00:24:53]There were no rifles, no uniforms, no helmets, no cantens, nothing that looked even slightly like World War II military equipment. Instead, they found iron spearheads, at least one of those, and leather slippers and bangles and rings that were items from a clearly different historical period. And third, when they eventually did carbon dating, it confirmed that the bones were much older, centuries older than World War II. So the Japanese soldier theory was, you know, always a guess based on the time period of the discovery and not based on anything about the bones themselves. And it was ruled out really quickly.

[00:25:35]Okay, then let's move on to the next theory. What about the idea that these are the victims of some kind of battle or military disaster?

[00:25:43]>> Well, once people realized that the bones were really old, the next theory was that they're the remains of some other army, an ancient one. Uh maybe a military expedition that also tried to cross the Himalayas. Then they had gotten into a battle. Um which would explain why they all died at this one spot. Or maybe they had just gotten caught by the weather and that's what killed them. There's some plausibility to this. The Himalayas have been crossed by armies in history. Uh there have been medieval campaigns and smaller expeditions that have ventured into mountain territory up here. So you could imagine some army trying to cross the high passes to reach a new front and getting wiped out by cold altitude and weather. How well does this theory hold up in light of what we know now?

[00:26:32]>> Not particularly well. Uh the composition of the group doesn't match what you'd expect. The remains of an army is going to be almost all adult men. You might find a few women like camp followers, including women who care for the soldiers needs and provide um other services for them. But the skeletons in the lake don't skew male in the way they would if they were an army.

[00:27:00]there's just too many female skeletons in the lake as well as male skeletons.

[00:27:05]Uh second, a battle or even just a military march would leave very would leave a very distinctive signature in the bones. Uh you'd expect if there had been a battle to see cut marks from swords or knives. You'd expect to see arrow wounds. You might even see embedded weapons. And you'd expect to see broken bones from blunt weapons, as well as finding military gear, you know, swords, shields, armor, helmets, that kind of stuff. But none of that stuff's been found. The bones don't have cut marks. There are no arrow wounds and the only weapons found at the site was a single iron spearhead which could easily have been used for hunting rather than battle or as something for warding off animals on a mountain trek or even just one lone bodyguard. It's not evidence of an army. Third, uh there's the issue of the weapons themselves. If you had a battle or even if you had an army wiped out by a storm, you'd expect them to have weapons with them where they fell and you'd find those weapons with the bones. You know, armies don't travel without their weapons. But at Skeleton Lake, there's essentially no military equipment. So, a battle or military expedition that got caught in bad weather or in a battle doesn't reflect the evidence either.

[00:28:30]Then what about the theory that these people died in an epidemic?

[00:28:34]>> That's a theory that's come up at different points. The idea would be that a large group of travelers, maybe pilgrims, uh, caught some kind of disease and died together at the lake.

[00:28:45]But if this were due to a disease, why would they all die at the lake? Even if a lot of them started getting sick in a short period of time, wouldn't their bodies be scattered over a larger region as some people fled to get away and avoid being infected? That is a plausible scenario. But there are some ways it could happen that this many people would die in one place. And for example, uh some pathogens strike so quickly and so harshly that people may have been disabled and unable to get away. You know, if they're all rolling around in pain, that kind of interferes with your ability to flee. Uh they also might have camped at the lake for the night. Everything was fine, but then they all drank from the lake. And it so happened that at the time the lake contained a pathogen that struck them all down the same night. It's also possible that there were other people in the area and the people who died at the lake had been confined there to keep them from infecting others. Kind of like a leper colony. There's even a folk variant of this theory that says uh the people committed mass unaliving by Jeepen into the lake to escape the disease. So there are scenarios that would explain why a large number of sick people died at the lake. So what evidence would support this proposal?

[00:30:05]>> Well, there are a few points that could fit. Uh large groups of people die at this one location. Epidemics do sometimes kill groups of travelers. And in the preodern world, religious pilgrims were especially vulnerable because they were living in close quarters. They were exposed to the elements and they were sharing their food and their water. The 1918 flu pandemic killed a lot of pilgrims for example. And we know that in medieval India, plague and chalera and smallox all had major outbreaks. Further, pilgrims might be disincined to abandon other members of their party once the sickness broke out. you know, pilgrims specifically, you know, like family members they were traveling with. You just don't want to just ditch them or religious officials who felt they had a duty to care for the sick. So, the scenario isn't ridiculous.

[00:30:57]>> And what's the case against it?

[00:30:59]>> Well, the case against it is pretty strong. Uh first the bones in Skeleton Lake have been examined with modern metagenomic techniques which is where you look at the genetic material from everything that might have been on or in the bones including any pathogens like bacteria. And they did not find evidence of bacterial disease in the bones. The study that did this cautions that it's not definitive but we don't have evidence that these people died from an epidemic. Uh second, these skeletons are generally in pretty good health. They don't show the kinds of lesions or bone damage that you see from chronic serious illness and they don't have the skeletal scars or things of things like tuberculosis or syphilis. Um there are also some other reasons the disease theory theory doesn't fit that I'll get to. So while disease is a reasonable sounding guess, it ultimately doesn't hold up under examination.

[00:32:02]>> Then let's talk about the next theory.

[00:32:04]This is a theory that many people know about that these were all pilgrims killed in a single catastrophic hail storm in the 9th century. How did that theory come about? It came out of the early radiocarbon dating work done in the 20th century combined with the 2003 2004 National Geographic investigation that was done in the 1950s between 1956 and 1958. The anthropological survey of India went up there and they sent multiple teams despite the snowstorms and mapped where the bones were. They collected more than 60 skulls and long bones and tissue samples and they started doing some of the earliest radiocarbon dating. Though radiocarbon dating was still a fairly new science at that point. Then decades later in 2003 and 2004, National Geographic sponsored a big expedition to the site, which is how a lot of people first heard about Skeleton Lake in the West. They used helicopters to get scientists in there to study the bones and their dating suggested that the bones were from the Middle Ages. Then the National Geographic investigators did a really detailed forensic um study of the bones.

[00:33:20]They found that some of the skulls had unhealed compression fractures. And that's one of the reasons the disease theory doesn't work. Disease doesn't fracture your skull. Uh these particular fractures were short, deep and on the top of the head and only the top, not the sides or the back or on other bones, which was really unusual. So they started asking, well, what kind of force could do that? And they concluded it had to be something round and hard coming down from above at high speed hitting people who were out in the open. Big hailstones were an obvious candidate.

[00:34:07]The size of the hailstones would have to be uh between 3 and 9 in across or 7 to 23 cm across. So about the size of a baseball or a cricket ball for our British listeners up to something the size of a cantaloupe. Uh hailstones of that size falling at terminal velocity could absolutely kill people. So that led to the theory that this was a party of people who had been caught in hailtorm. Has that kind of hail storm actually happened in the Himalayas?

[00:34:41]Unfortunately yes. In 1888, there was a famous hail stom in the Indian city of Maradabad that killed about 246 people.

[00:34:50]It had hailstones the size of oranges or cricket balls. It uh killed adult humans, livestock, anything caught out in the open. And Himalayan weather is even more extreme. So hailstones of the required size are absolutely plausible for the region. This is starting to sound very Wrath of Nandanda Devi like.

[00:35:14]Could there be some truth to the local legend after all?

[00:35:17]>> Quite possibly yes. The hail stom theory says, well, here's a group of pilgrims that were going on the once every 12-year Nandanda Devi Raj Jot pilgrimage and they got caught out in the open at Skeleton Lake with no trees for shelter and a freak hail stom with grapefruitsized hailstones comes in and kills them. It was a tragic but natural event and for a while this was the theory, the most popular one, which is why many listeners may have heard of it.

[00:35:49]Um, this version of the story has been told in multiple documentaries and news articles. Are there reasons to doubt it?

[00:35:57]Well, as originally formulated, yes. Uh, the problem isn't with the hail stom.

[00:36:02]The hail stom part is actually pretty strong. Uh the round compression fractures really do look like hailstone impacts and the radiocarbon dates do include bodies from around the 9th century in the middle ages. So all that supports the idea of a group of pilgrims around AD 800 getting caught in a hailtorm and dying. And that may be the basis of the local wrath of Nandanda Devi legend. But there's a key piece of evidence that we haven't covered yet.

[00:36:34]And that shows that this can't be the whole explanation.

[00:36:41]Okay. Then let's look at the sixth theory that you mentioned earlier.

[00:36:45]What's this one? And what's the key piece of evidence that we haven't mentioned?

[00:36:49]>> The key piece of evidence emerged from a 2019 DNA study that showed that people at Skeleton Lake are not all from one event. They're from multiple events across about a thousand years. So, the picture of a single pilgrim group all getting wiped out at once can't be right. Uh, for the 2019 study, the scientists managed to extract DNA from 38 different skeletons at Skeleton Lake.

[00:37:21]Now, we don't know how many skeletons there are in the lake. Uh, you know, like I said, current estimates are between 300 and 800. So the 38 skeletons they got DNA from would represent something between 5% and 13% of them.

[00:37:38]But that is a significant sample. It won't tell us everything about the people who died in the lake, but it will tell us a good bit. Uh the scientists then sequenced the genomewide ancient DNA and this was published in the journal Nature Communications in August of 2019.

[00:37:55]And the results dramatically changed the picture of what happened at the lake.

[00:37:59]Because instead of finding that all the skeletons belong to a single group that had died together, they found that the bones represented three distinct genetic groups from at least two different time periods separated by about a thousand years. Um the largest group was 23 of the 38 people or 60% of them. and they did have South Asian ancestry, basically Indian ancestry. Um, there was also additional evidence for this because besides the DNA evidence, the scientists also did a ra radioisotope analysis of the bones and it showed that these people ate a diet that was high in the grain millet which is common in Indian diets. Uh, these people had died around 8800 and that matched the classic hailstone theory. However, that's still a bit of an oversimplification. There was a cluster of people who had died around 8800. But there were also skeletons from other nearby centuries between the 600s and the 900s. Then there was the second group that they identified. Uh this group was 14 of the 38 people or 37% of them and their ancestry was completely different. They weren't from India or even Asia. Uh instead, their ancestors came from the Mediterranean. Basically, people from modern-day Greece and Cree. Uh this was also suggested by the radioisotope analysis, which showed that these people had very little millet in their diet, and that's typical of people from the Mediterranean, where wheat and barley are used instead. This second group also hadn't died anywhere near 8800.

[00:39:49]It had died around AD 1800, 8,000 years later. Now, wait. People with Greek ancestry died at a remote glacial lake in the Himalayas in 1800.

[00:40:03]>> Yeah, that's what the DNA uh tells us.

[00:40:06]There's also a representative of a third group at the lake. One member of the 38 people or 3% of the sample was an individual with Southeast Asian ancestry. Uh this person's DNA most closely matches uh modern Malay and Vietnamese people. He was about 82% Malay and 18% Vietnamese. And this person also died around AD 1800.

[00:40:35]So the picture that the DNA paints is completely different from what we thought. It wasn't one big disaster.

[00:40:42]It's multiple disasters over a thousand years of history. We might also discover other periods when disasters happened.

[00:40:51]If we sequenced the DNA from the other hundreds of skeletons at the lake and carbonated them, there might be evidence of other people groups and disasters in other periods in there. But we know that there was at least one disaster, really several disasters in the centuries around AD 800 that killed a bunch of Indians and at least one disaster around 1800 that killed a group of people from the Mediterranean and one person from Southeast Asia. And so that represents the modern scientific consensus. Then let's walk through this proposal in more detail. What does the modern multi-event theory say happened at Skeleton Lake?

[00:41:37]>> It says that the skeletons are the remains of at least two and probably more separate incidents over a period of about a millennium. The first event or really series of events was around AD 800. Um, it involved people of South Asian ancestry who were probably pilgrims or travelers and possibly were making the Nandevi pilgrimage, but they were caught out in the open near the lake and they they died from some kind of natural disaster, possibly a catastrophic hail storm given the skull fractures that we see on some of them.

[00:42:12]The radioarbon date suggests that these bodies were actually deposited over an extended period of time, not all at once. So there may have been multiple hail stom or weather events in the 7th through 10th centuries that killed smaller groups of pilgrims. Then about a thousand years later around 1800 there was another event uh that one killed a group of about 14 people at least 14 people with eastern Mediterranean ancestry plus possibly in the same event another person with Southeast Asian ancestry. their bodies seem to have been deposited together in a short space of time. Um, this event probably also involved environmental exposure of some kind, but the 1800's group doesn't show the same distinctive skull fractures.

[00:43:04]So, we can't say that it was hailstones that killed them. It could have been a storm or hypothermia or even a fall from a high elevation since Skeleton Lake is is near some very high mountains. If these people died centuries apart in multiple different incidents, then why do so many bones end up at the same lake?

[00:43:26]>> Well, that's one of the most interesting questions and it probably tells us something about the geography and the culture of the place. Um, the site is on or near an ancient pilgrimage route. The Nandanda Devi Rajot route today passes within yards of the lake. Um, Skeleton Lake is a natural resting place because it's near the top of the route and in bad weather it can be a very dangerous place to be. There's no shelter. You're above the tree line. You're completely exposed. So, if you have groups passing through over the centuries and maybe resting at the lake and getting a drink of water, sooner or later some of them are going to get killed. And when they die, their bodies end up in the lake.

[00:44:10]especially if they're at a high elevation and they fall and then their bodies could roll into the lake. Um, and then the water freezes and preserves them and because the little glacial basin just naturally collects bones and rocks and anything else that falls into it.

[00:44:28]>> Does the theory have any weaknesses?

[00:44:31]>> There are a few things about it that still need to be worked out. The biggest one is what exactly were the Greek ancestry people doing in the Himalayas in 1800 and that's still an open question. There are some hypotheses. One is that they were pilgrims of some kind.

[00:44:49]Not necessarily Hindu pilgrims but pilgrims of some kind. And that's not impossible. Armenian merchants and some other Mediterranean communities lived in India for centuries. And there are records of Mediterranean Christians, Jews, and Muslims traveling across India. And you know, not everybody has to be part of the Nandi Devi pilgrimage.

[00:45:10]They might just be trapesing through the area to get from one place to another.

[00:45:16]Thus, another hypothesis is that they were a group of traders or adventurers that got lost or joined a local pilgrimage at the wrong moment. the one person of Southeast Asian ancestry just adds to the puzzle, but the DNA isn't so clear where this person was really from.

[00:45:37]So, it's not yet clear why this person may have been there. So, we have an answer to the big question. There are multiple groups of travelers who died in separate events, but we have new sub mysteries to solve, which is sort of a perfect outcome for this show. We solve one mystery and it opens up new ones that remain to be solved.

[00:46:01]>> So the theory that best explains Skeleton Lake is the multi-event theory.

[00:46:05]>> That's where the evidence points right now. This is the strongest explanation we have. The earliest layer is likely pilgrims hit by catastrophic hail storms consistent with the 9th century dating.

[00:46:18]The later layer involves unrelated groups from around the eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia who died in some kind of disaster or disasters around 1800. And the site itself because of its geography just naturally accumulates the dead of every era. And the catastrophic hailtorm event in the 800s gave rise to the local legend.

[00:46:42]>> Basically, the core descriptive content of the legend is remarkably accurate.

[00:46:47]The legend says that a group of travelers died at Skeleton Lake. They were pilgrims of some kind. They included women. They died from hailstones falling from the sky around 9 or maybe 10 centuries ago. And you know, not in a normal accident, but in a catastrophic natural event. And if you look at what modern science says, well, those details are correct. A group of travelers did die at Skeleton Lake. They were likely pilgrims. Um the group included both men and women, the physical evidence on the skulls pointing to death from large hailstones and dates pointing to the 7th to the 10th century.

[00:47:28]So the oral tradition that was passed down through the generations of local villagers really did preserve an accurate memory of what happened at the lake at some point. And that's not a small thing. And that's remarkable. an oral tradition that preserved a real ancient event for over a thousand years.

[00:47:46]>> Yes, we've covered similar traditions that have been passed down for thousands of years in previous episodes uh often connected with astronomy and there's a term for this phenomenon in religion and folklore. It's sometimes called ethnoistorical memory or mythic memory. And it's the recognition that some myths, especially local ones attached to a specific place, encode genuine memories of real events, even when those events happened many generations ago. And there are other examples. For example, several Native American legends along the coast of the Pacific Northwest talk about ancestors being swept away by an enormous wave. Uh geologists have identified a massive 9.0 0 earthquake and tsunami from the Cascadia subduction zone in around AD700, which is exactly what the legends describe. There are Australian Aboriginal traditions about the ocean rising up and covering the land that apparently preserve memories of a sea level rise after the last ice age more than 7,000 years ago. So, it's possible for a myth to preserve real history and sk the skeleton lake legend is apparently another example of that.

[00:49:07]>> What can we say about Skeleton Lake from the faith perspective? Is there anything to say here?

[00:49:12]>> Well, there's more than you might expect. Uh, of course, from a Christian perspective, we don't believe in Nandanda Devi as an actual goddess in the, you know, the way Hindus do. Uh the catechism is clear that there is only one god and that the various gods and goddesses of the nations are purely mythical or they're demons. Um or in some cases they reflect some partial awareness of spiritual realities that people have interpreted through the lens of their own culture. But there isn't a literal goddess hurling hailstones at kings in this situation.

[00:49:48]What do you make of the idea that a demon could be behind leading all these people to their deaths at Skeleton Lake?

[00:49:54]>> I'm not close to the idea, but as always, I want to see evidence. Uh, in order to propose a demonic explanation for something, you need evidence that something predatural is happening, something that goes beyond what nature itself would do. And I haven't seen any evidence that anything predatural is happening in this case. As a result, I can't credit the idea that a demon was responsible here any more than I can credit the idea that a demon is responsible for any other unfortunate series of events like hail storms or falls from mountain passes. Just cuz someone gets caught in a hail stom or falls off a mountain pass, that doesn't mean a demon did it. Um, also it's worth pointing out something that a lot of people here in America are not aware of, which is that most Indians are actually monotheists. Uh, people here tend to have the idea that Hindus are polytheists who believe in a bunch of literally different gods. But that's not the case. According to a survey done by Pew Research in 2019 and 2020, only 7% of Hindus hold that there are literally multiple gods. 29% of Hindus flatly say there is there is only one God. While 61% say that there is only one God who has many manifestations.

[00:51:25]So if you put those two together, well 29% plus 61% is 90%. So fully 90% of Hindus hold that there is only one God.

[00:51:37]So even though Nandanda Devi is pictured as a goddess, the vast majority of Indians would understand that she's actually just a manifestation of the one underlying god. What does Catholic teaching have to say about Hinduism?

[00:51:53]This is something that's dealt with in the second Vatican council document Nostra Itatate which states from ancient times down to the present there is found among various peoples a certain perception of that hidden power which hovers over the course of things and over the events of human history. At times some indeed have come to the recognition of a supreme being or even of a father. This perception and recognition penetrates their lives with a profound religious sense. Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means of more refined concepts and a more developed language. Thus, in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through aesthetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust.

[00:52:54]So the council notes that Hinduism is the product of an advanced culture and that it has a remarkable diversity of forms. The council goes on to say, >> "Likewise, other religions found everywhere tried to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing ways comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rights. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings, which though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims and ever must proclaim Christ, the way, the truth, and the life, in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to himself.

[00:53:50]The church therefore exhorts her sons that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life they recognize, preserve and promote the good things spiritual and moral as well as the socioultural values found among these men. So Christians can acknowledge what's true and good in other religions even if they also contain erroneous ideas that Christians must reject. How would you apply that to this case? Are there genuine spiritual principles here that we can recognize even if they're in a non-Christian context? One thing that we can do is respect the sincerity of the pilgrims who walk the Nandi Devi Raj Jat today.

[00:54:40]They are seeking God according to their own beliefs and they're engaging in acts of devotion and aestheticism and sacrifice. You know, walking 175 miles through some of the highest and most difficult terrain on earth, that's not a casual thing. There's also a spiritual lesson in the Wrath of Nandadei legend.

[00:55:00]Uh the legend says that the king and his party were killed because of irreverence at a sacred place. They went to a holy site with dancers and entertainment and a kind of proud worldly spirit instead of with reverence and humility and they paid for it. That general theme that holy places require reverence and that God may punish irreverence is a theme that occurs in the Bible. There's a famous incident for example in uh 2 Samuel 6 where the Israelites are transporting the ark of the covenant in a way they're not supposed to. And yes, we will have a future episode on the Ark of the Covenant. Um, they put it in this case on an ox card instead of having the Levites carry it on poles. You know, you'll remember that palangquin uh idea.

[00:55:49]Well, they did were supposed to do something similarly something similar with the ark. It had hooks on it, you know, rings. You put poles through the rings and the Levites are supposed to carry it. But in this case, they're not doing that. They just put it on an ox cart. And when the oxen stumble, a man named Oza reaches out to study the ark, and he gets struck dead. That's essentially a lesson about the need to treat sacred things reverently. The ark is a holy object that represents the presence of God. And you're supposed to move it by having the Levites reverently escort it where it needs to go, not just plop it down on an ox cart like it's a common load of goods. So if you do that there may be a fatal accident or your face may melt off or something like that. Um there's uh there are also other examples in first and 2 kings and chronicles where kings who misuse the temple and its sacred items are punished. So the basic idea that you should approach sacred things with reverence and that there can be real consequences for treating sacred things as if they were ordinary is a biblical theme. the skeleton lake legend by attaching this theme to a specific king and a specific event is expressing a moral that we can therefore recognize in our own religion.

[00:57:10]>> We can also recognize the idea of pilgrimage which is also part of the skeleton lakeend.

[00:57:15]>> Yes, Christianity has its own long history of pilgrimage to Jerusalem to Rome to Santiago de Compastella to Lords Fatima Guadalupe and hundreds of other Marian shrines. The impulse to travel to a holy place to make a difficult journey as an act of devotion is deeply human and it's deeply Christian too.

[00:57:36]>> Is there any lesson for us about death and natural disaster?

[00:57:40]>> The skeleton lakeend is at the end of the day a story about ordinary people dying in a natural disaster. Uh some of them were probably pilgrims who were hoping for divine blessing and instead they were killed by a freak storm, an accident. Jesus actually addresses a similar situation or a situation that has some similarities to this in Luke 13 where he says those 18 on whom the tower in Silowim fell and killed them. Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Jesus's point is that when disasters take people's lives, it's not because the people were especially bad.

[00:58:26]It's because we live in a fallen world where death is possible and we're sinners. And the lesson is that we need to be prepared for our own death. You know, not to just judge or look down on others who died. Um the people at Skeleton Lake were not being punished by a goddess. And we shouldn't assume that they were being punished by God either.

[00:58:46]They were humans who were caught in a natural event. And as we discussed in episode 208 on time travel prayer, it's never too late to pray for anyone. So may they rest in peace. And may their bones remind us, as bones have always reminded people of faith, of our own mortality. As they say in Latin, momento mori or remember that you will die. And so live wisely now.

[00:59:14]>> So Jimmy, what's your bottom line here?

[00:59:16]What really happened at Skeleton Lake is a puzzle that's taken almost a century to come into focus. The initial guess after the modern discovery of the bones that they were Japanese invaders from World War II was wrong. Um the idea that they were battlefield casualties or victims of an epidemic doesn't fit the evidence either. And the classic theory that uh pil the pilgrims were wiped out in a freak hail storm is partially correct. But as the 2019 DNA study showed, it's not the whole story. The best explanation we have right now is the multi-event theory that Skeleton Lake has collected um the bones of the dead from multiple disasters over more than a thousand years. At least one of those events was a catastrophic hail storm around the 9th century. Um, the local legend of the goddess's wrath is literally incorrect about the supernatural cause being there, but it's surprisingly accurate about some of the details about what happened. Skeleton Lake also raises interesting sub mysteries like why were there Greeks in the Himalayas around 1800? Um, this remains a puzzle that scientists are still working on and we may learn more about this as the science progresses.

[01:00:37]>> And what further resources can we offer to folks on this mystery?

[01:00:41]>> We'll have uh links to both Wikipedia and Graedia about RPund or Skeleton Lake. We'll also have article an article from Nature Communications.

[01:00:52]Um, we'll have a link to the BBC, also National Geographic, the Max Planka Institute, uh, the New Yorker, and also Pew Research on Indian beliefs about gods, and the Vatican 2 document about, uh, other religions known as Nostra Itat.

[01:01:22]Now we turn to our mysterious feedback brought to us by our feedback coordinator Rob Leonardi. And as I mentioned, this is from our episode number 407, the Library of Alexandria.

[01:01:32]And more patron questions. Our first question comes from our feedback comes from one Eek on Discord, who writes to the question about whether soulmates exist. Jimmy says probably not only very rarely on the contrary in Tobit 6 17 to18 Raphael says so don't be afraid she has been assigned to you before the world came into being at least Tobaya had something like a soulmate in a way I kind of agree with Jimmy that soulmates are not what the world is supposed to think about when talking about soulmates however taking God's providence in consideration there can exist something like soulmates I would agree with the middle ground position. We can make a soulmate like relationship with several people and if we're able to meet them and make one of them our spouse, then we're basically good. Well, I certainly agree. It's basically good. If you are able to find someone that you have a natural affinity with that pdures for a long time and you feel like this person could be described as a soulmate, all that is really good. At the same time, um I I don't think that most people are limited to there's one person out there for me. Um which is the classic idea of a soulmate. Also, even if that's what were the the case with Tobet um or Tobaya in the book of Tobet, um you'd have one example of a soulmate and that doesn't mean everybody's got one out there. Um any survey that has n equals one is not a very powerful survey. So I would say that uh the common experience of mankind, there are lots of people we're compatible with and we may not find one person we're going to be rapturously in love with and attracted to for decades with no interruption.

[01:03:36]That's not a very common experience. I would say common wisdom is still true on this.

[01:03:42]The next feedback comes from Vliteral on Spotify who writes, "Terrible take on the identity of the beloved disciple at the crucifixion. It was the Apostle John of the 12. Jimmy's view here is not the general consensus amongst Christians."

[01:03:57]Yeah. Well, um, most Christians have never studied the matter. They have only repeated what they've been taught. And people who just repeat things they've been taught without studying the matter does not generate a strong argument from consensus. Uh so I would say there's more to say about this matter. If someone thinks that the beloved disciple was the apostle John, I don't have a problem with that. But I think there's a case that other folks should consider.

[01:04:28]And there are various church fathers who diverge from the common modern opinion, but that's something I can talk about in a future episode.

[01:04:41]Uh, then Tradite on YouTube writes, "The so-called generational demons ideas pushed almost entirely by Catholic celebrity exorcist Father Ripager. The idea that demons can be passed down or inherited is ridiculous and completely renders the sacraments of the church completely useless. So no matter that you were baptized, confirmed, go to confession, receive holy communion daily, go to mass daily, live a devout and holy life, nope, doesn't matter because your great great great Italian Freemason grandfather made a satanic pact and now the whole family is cursed.

[01:05:15]Ridiculous. He also pushes the misinformation that Harry Potter is evil and that the spells, which are just fake Latin gibberish, are real and people have actually used them. Not true. At this point, the Harry Potter books and movies are the most Christian themed and wholesome things you can expose your kids to these days. Well, uh, what I can tell you is we will be talking about the idea of so-called generational spirits and healing your family tree and things like that in future episodes.

[01:05:44]>> All right, and that's our feedback.

[01:05:45]Thank you everyone for your feedback.

[01:05:47]And now it's time to hear from you. What are your theories about Skeleton Lake and how hundreds of human skeletons from multiple centuries and multiple continents ended up at the site? You can let us know by visiting sqpn.com or the Jimmy Akens MysteriousWorld Facebook page, sending us an email to feedback.fm, FM, sending a tweet to my_world, visiting the Starquest Discord community at sqpn.com/isord, or by calling our mysterious feedback line at 619738-4515.

[01:06:24]That's 619738-4515.

[01:06:28]And I want to say a special word of thanks to Oasis Studio 7 for the video and animation work in this episode.

[01:06:34]Check it out at my YouTube channel, YouTube.com/jimmy.

[01:06:38]While you're there, do all the fun YouTube things. Like, comment, share the podcast. Um, hype it, and also subscribe. And when you do subscribe, be sure and go to skeleton lake and get the skeleton of the bell button and hug it really tight so that it always notifies you whenever I have a new video.

[01:07:01]So, Jimmy, what's our next episode going to be about?

[01:07:04]>> Next Friday is a fifth Friday, so we'll be doing our usual fifth Friday questions and looking at subjects like are aliens demons, uh, reproductive ethics and imaginative fiction, urically evil, did uh, does Jesus genetically resemble God? Is the coalistic tree of life a valid way of conceiving God?

[01:07:28]Would philosophy exist without the fall?

[01:07:30]Could zombies get married? Who do I, Jimmy, consider a healer? Uh, does the Pope still have the power to crown uh a Holy Roman Emperor? How would I convince a medieval king that I'm a time traveler and not a witch? Easy. I don't float in water. Um, is there uh ancient EV is there evidence that ancient humans had advanced technology? And just how much water can a priest bless at one time?

[01:07:59]>> All right, folks. Be sure to check out the MysteriousWorld bookstore at mysteriousworldstore.com for links to all the books and videos that Jimmy mentions in the show. And be sure to get your very own MysteriousWorld t-shirt, mug, and more in our merchandise shop at sqpn.com/merch.

[01:08:16]You'll find links to Jimmy's resources from our discussion in our show notes at mysterious.fm/418.

[01:08:23]And remember to help us continue to produce the podcast, please visit givesterious.fm.

[01:08:32]Jimmy Akens's Mysterious World is also brought to you in part by Rosary Army, featuring award-winning Catholic podcasts, Rosary Resources, videos, and the School of Mary online community, prayer, and learning platform. Learn how to make them, pray them, and give them away while growing in your faith at rosary army.com and schoolofmarry.com.

[01:08:55]And by Michael Regal's book, The Lord is a Warrior. If you enjoy exploring the intersection of faith and history, you will be interested in The Lord is a Warrior: True accounts of divine intervention in war by Michael Regal.

[01:09:09]Through dramatized retellings of biblical and historical battles alongside reflections drawn from Catholic tradition, it blends storytelling with spiritual themes like divine providence, trust in God, and the role of prayer in times of crisis. If you've ever wondered what happened at Leanto, what really drove the crusaders at Las Navas Dlosa, or why the Japanese Catholic community responded to the bomb the way they did, this is the book for you. available now on Amazon in ebook and paperback.

[01:09:43]Until next time, Jimmy Aken, thank you for exploring with us our mysterious world.

[01:09:47]>> Thanks, Doc.

[01:09:48]>> And once again, I'm Dom Bettonelli.

[01:09:51]Thank you for listening to Jimmy Akin's mysterious world on Star Quest.

[01:10:00]Heat.

[01:10:06]Heat.