Corpse Mountain

The text and illustration below are from a 1926 newspaper. So, I imagine the corpse mountain would be significantly higher if it included all the dead of the past 100 years.

And, of course, Mt. Everest has now been scaled many times.

If all the bodies of the dead of 250,000 years were piled up in the form of a pyramid, it would reach to a height of 19½ miles and would have a base of 6½ miles square, eclipsing nearly four times the world's highest mountain, Mt. Everest, which has never been scaled by man.

Hamilton Evening Journal - July 31, 1926

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Wed Dec 11, 2019
Category: Death

Comments

On a divergent note: one of my favorite memes states: "Every corpse on Mt. Everest was once a highly motivated individual." The last I heard, there were going to be special operations to remove them all, but I haven't heard whether they were successful. In my not-so-humble opinion, it's the height of egotism to not care that people might die trying to recover your corpse after you were doing something essentially pointless without bothering to follow sensible safety precautions.

Posted by Phideaux on 12/11/19 at 07:54 AM

This is typical factoid journalism. There is no account for the compression of the organic materials. Imagine the goo at the bottom of the pile that would ooze out. It gives new meaning to the phrase "squashed flat as a pancake."

Posted by KDP on 12/11/19 at 09:21 AM

KDP -- it's definitely factoid journalism. But I liked the illustration of the mountain of dead bodies.

Posted by Alex on 12/11/19 at 09:45 AM

I'm still thinking of that goo, Alex.

Posted by KDP on 12/11/19 at 01:55 PM

Worst Patagonia ad ever!

Posted by Brian on 12/11/19 at 09:02 PM

It´s 2026 already?

Posted by F.U.D. in Stockholm on 12/12/19 at 01:27 AM

When helping a friend build a home neck traction device, I needed the weight of a head. So I asked the Internet. One fellow replied: "Is that for fresh or dried?"

Posted by Virtual in Carnate on 12/12/19 at 09:51 AM

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