Russian Time Capsule Buried in North Pole Turns up 2500 Miles Away in Ireland

Doug Williams
Sophie Curran and Conor McClory
Sophie Curran and Conor McClory

Irish surfers Sophie Curran and Conor McClory were at the Bloody Foreland beach in Gweedore observing what the wave conditions were like when they found a metal cylinder.

When they opened it, they found it was a time capsule released by Russian explorers onboard the ice cutter 50 Years of Victory while it was in the area of the Arctic Circle.

Originally, the two were afraid it was a bomb but then saw a date engraved in Russian which led them to believe it may have been someone’s cremains.  A Russian speaking friend told them it was a time capsule after translating the writing.

Russian engravings and they initially wondered if it could have been a bomb or a person’s ashes
Russian engravings and they initially wondered if it could have been a bomb or a person’s ashes

Bbc.com tells us that the time capsule was from 2018 which was kind of disappointing as most time capsules are from twenty to fifty years old or even older when they are found.

Nevertheless, the friends opened it and found letters, wine corks, beer coasters, food menus, badges and photographs from the expedition.

Two of the letters were in English but the letters written in Russian were sent to Simon Donohue Nosek, an undergraduate linguistic student in Chicago, according to thesun.ie.  One thing led to another and it was discovered that a Russian Instagram blogger named Seveta had written one of the letters.

Sophie Curran and Conor McClory – found a Russian time capsule that was meant to be buried in ice for 50 years after it washed up on a beach in Donegal
Sophie Curran and Conor McClory – found a Russian time capsule that was meant to be buried in ice for 50 years after it washed up on a beach in Donegal

When she was contacted by the Irish friends, she was amazed that the capsule had been found so quickly as it had just been placed into the ice two years ago which shows how fast the Arctic ice is melting.  The cylinder had traveled about two thousand three hundred miles from the North Pole to the northwestern point of Ireland.

Sophie, Conor and Seveta have struck up a friendship because of conversations regarding the cylinder. They have discovered that she is also a surfer and they are all planning to meet and surf together when Covid-19 is gone.

Inside the capsule, pictures of the crew from the Russian ship that buried the capsule and the ship, letters from the crew, menus, itineraries and a military badge were found
Inside the capsule, pictures of the crew from the Russian ship that buried the capsule and the ship, letters from the crew, menus, itineraries and a military badge were found

Time capsules have always been a fun and interesting way to “talk to the future.”  In 1876 New York magazine publisher Anna Deihm assembled a Century Safe at the U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia filled with items from the 19th century.

Photographs of the current President, Ulysses S. Grant, and other Washington D.C. big wigs taken by Mathew Brady, the premier photographer during the Civil War, were included as well as a gold pen and inkstand, a book on the evils of drinking alcohol and hundreds of signatures from across America  were placed into the iron safe before it was sealed in 1879 and placed under the east portico of the U.S. Capitol Building.

History.com says the box was recovered in July of 1976 and the opening ceremony included U.S. President Gerald Ford.

The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company buried a cylinder inside the Immortal Well during the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows.

The time capsule was buried fifty feet deep with another capsule buried nearby in 1965.  The two cylinders contain metals, textiles, newsreels on microfilm, seeds, a bikini, a Beatles record, a Mickey Mouse cup and a pack of cigarettes.

Also included was a letter from German physicist, Albert Einstein, who remarked, “People living in different countries kill each other at irregular time intervals, so that also for this reason anyone who thinks about the future must live in fear and terror.”  The time capsules are scheduled to be opened in the year 6939 AD providing humans do not destroy the planet before then.

During the 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka Japan, electronics company Panasonic donated a large wok shaped capsule that is scheduled to be opened in five thousand years.  It was filled with inert argon gas to maintain the condition of the contents of over two thousand objects which were decided by the public.

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They included a kimono, seeds, films, a Slinky, microorganisms and the damaged fingernail of a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.  The survival of these relics depends on the human race which, sadly, cannot comprehend the environmental damage done by “progress” until it is too late.

fmssolution

fmssolution is one of the authors writing for Outdoor Revival