Rodney Marks
Unresolved: A True Crime & Mystery Podcast
Unresolved Productions
4.5 • 190 Ratings
🗓️ 3 November 2019
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rodney Marks was a 32-year-old astrophysicist, who worked at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. There, he had been working on a project to help map the stars, and not only did he take great pride and enjoyment in his work, but he also enjoyed the isolated culture down at the South Pole - where he would live for months at a time.
On May 11th, 2000, Rodney began to complain of illness. Over the next 36 hours, his symptoms would progress to the point of no return, and the following evening, he would pass away due to total heart failure. Because the South Pole was so isolated, an autopsy could not be performed until months later. But when his remains were examined by a coroner later that year, the results were shocking...
Episode researched, written, hosted, and produced by Micheal Whelan
Original music created by Micheal Whelan through Amper Music
Theme music created and composed by Ailsa Traves
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 1909, Norwegian explorer Ruhal Amansen discovered that two Americans, Frederick Cook and Robert |
| 0:14.3 | Peary, were claiming to have reached the North Pole. |
| 0:18.2 | Amansen had already spent decades traversing unexplored lands, including the Northwest |
| 0:23.3 | Passage, which he and his crew were the first to have successfully traversed. |
| 0:28.8 | But he viewed the North Pole as one of his ultimate goals. |
| 0:32.3 | He had long desired being the first person to get there, and him being thwarted in such |
| 0:37.3 | a fashion was a crushing defeat to the expedition he had already planned and received funding |
| 0:43.2 | for. |
| 0:44.2 | Like I said, Amansen would learn of this news in 1909, and knew that fame and glory no longer |
| 0:50.2 | awaited him at the North Pole. |
| 0:52.5 | But on the other side of the planet, a much more dangerous and exotic locale. |
| 0:57.6 | There was another similar destination which no human being had ever claimed to lay their |
| 1:02.2 | eyes upon. |
| 1:03.4 | So Ruhal Amansen set out to reach the South Pole before anyone else, diverting his ship |
| 1:09.4 | at the last minute, not even letting his crew or his financiers know of the change in |
| 1:14.7 | plans. |
| 1:15.7 | He figured that the glory of being the first man to walk upon the southern pole of the |
| 1:20.4 | planet would help him in his quest to ask forgiveness, not permission. |
| 1:25.2 | Meanwhile, Robert F. Scott, an explorer that had set off on a grand Antarctic expedition |
| 1:31.2 | in the early 1900s, had returned to his native England just a few years earlier. |
| 1:37.4 | He had attempted on multiple occasions to lead a land expedition to the South Pole, |
| 1:42.5 | but had been thwarted because of the weather conditions. |
... |
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