Photo of the Mysterious Abandoned Lifeboat & its Backstory

This photo was taken on April 2nd, 1964, in an island in the South Atlantic Ocean. On the right, you can see a lifeboat that is halfway sunk in the water, and a single pair of wooden oars on it. If you're wondering what makes this photo strange, well, it was in Bouvet Island, one of the most remote islands in the world. It is mostly covered in ice, and it is in the middle of nowhere. The nearest land is Antarctica, which is nearly 1,000 miles away, so it was quite odd that a small boat turns up in this uninhabited land. Not only that, the lifeboat didn't have any indications where it came from, and there were no markings to pinpoint its origin. In 1964, Lieutenant Alan Crawford, a British-born explorer, led a team of scientists to explore Bouvet Island. He was sent to do research in the island, specifically collecting data on weather and climate conditions. Their objective was to gain enough information on the island so they can plan out on building and setting up a weather station. Getting there was no easy task because of the landscape of the island. There weren't any safe way to dock a ship, the edges were covered mostly in ice cliffs. Also combine this with the strong water current, it would be dangerous to travel by sea. So with no other choice, they must fly there via a helicopter. Of course, this is quite risky as well, since there is a chance that they could come across an unexpected storm. Crawford and his crew were stationed in South Africa, and waited for a couple of days for the weather to settle down. The plan was to get there, collect enough data, and leave as soon as possible, preferably only staying there for less than an hour. Finally, on April 2nd, 1964, they departed from South Africa, and successfully landed on the northwest corner of the island. Being near the Antarctica region, it shared the extreme range of cold temperature. The team only had a few minutes to conduct their research and leave the area, so they could avoid any potential danger and the possibility of being stranded. They immediately went about their task, and collected samples of rock, as well as performed other meteorological experiments. Meanwhile, as Lieutenant Crawford looked around the area, he came across a lagoon, and there, he discovered the abandoned lifeboat floating on the water. He also scanned the nearby area, in hopes of finding other clues as to why there was a lifeboat in the remote island. Just a couple of feet away, he found a copper tank and a wooden barrel, which mostly used as a water container. Apart from that, no other equipment was found. What even made this situation really odd, was that there was no sign that any human activities had taken place. No evidence of any base camp that would suggest that someone must have been stranded and lived there. No tents, no clothing, nothing. Crawford alerted the rest of his team about his findings, but they were more focused on their work, finishing it as quickly as they could. None of them took a great interest on the abandoned lifeboat, and concluded that it most likely drifted into the lagoon. Since they were only scheduled there for under an hour, Crawford's investigation was quite brief, and the whole team had to leave soon. He couldn't make a thorough search to find more clues, and in the end, before leaving the island, he took this photo, and it is the only picture of this mysterious lifeboat. So what are the plausible explanations for this abandoned lifeboat? Well, let's first take a quick history of Bouvet Island. It was first discovered in 1739 by Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier, hence the name. Through the years, there were multiple expeditions that investigated the island, mostly from British and Norwegian explorers. But the last crew that visited Bouvet Island before Crawford's was in 1955, by a South African expedition who circled around the island. According to them, they didn't find any lifeboat when they visited. Therefore, it was assumed that the lifeboat appeared there between 1955 to 1964. The initial explanation, just like Crawford's team stated, was that the lifeboat most likely came from a shipwreck, and was washed up on the island due to the strong water current. This could be a possibility, since the boat had some damaged parts, and there was no sign of human activities. Even if there were humans stranded in the island with limited supplies, they would at least use the boat as a shelter. They could flip it upside down, and build a small little tent to keep themselves warm from the cold weather. A great example of this in 1966 of the famous survival story of the Endurance. The crew here was stranded in the Elephant Island, which was also near Antarctica. While they waited for rescue, they used the lifeboat much like a roof, and looked for whatever materials they could find a place under to support it. This was a common survival tactic used by sailors. So at least if Crawford found the boat in that same situation, or found clues that it had been set up like that, then yes, people most likely had been stranded on the remote island. While this is a logical answer for this mystery, there is some conflicting information to refute this theory. If it's true that the lifeboat came from a shipwreck, and drifted unmanned to the island, then why were the wooden oars placed neatly on the boat? It wasn't attached to anything to keep it in place while it was drifting along the ocean current. Also speaking of the strong current, it is very unlikely that the copper tank as well as the empty barrel would drift on the same area as the lifeboat. Even if you say that these were on the boat while it sailed through the ocean, it still had to endure the possible storms that it came across, which would split the equipment and the boat apart and take different paths. Another theory would be the opposite. A group of people came from a shipwreck and sailed through the island where they got stranded. They then moved away from the lagoon, leaving the lifeboat behind, and set up their camp in another area of the island. Keep in mind, Crawford was not able to thoroughly investigate the island, since his team was only there for less than an hour. So we are not sure if the survivors had a proper survival kit with them to dispose of the boat, since they could have used it as a little shelter. But as far as to what happened to the survivors, the probable outcome was that they passed away from freezing. They most likely didn't get rescued because no ship sailed on a route near the Bouvet Island, so it's almost impossible that a rescue ship came to pick them up. On top of that, with temperatures dropping into the negative figures, no person would survive in this for prolonged periods of time. The third theory some people proposed is that the lifeboat may have been buried under the vast ice many decades ago, probably as early as the 15th century, during the Age of Exploration, the period of sharp increase in sea exploration. They suggested that since there were no markings on the lifeboat, it may have come from a very old expedition group who got stranded on the island and didn't survive. The lifeboat was then swallowed by ice and stayed hidden throughout the years. The center of the island was a small volcano, and it was reported that in 1958, a year in between the two expeditions, a volcanic eruption occurred which caused some ice to melt to a certain level. This incident may be the reason the strange lifeboat took show on the lagoon. However, though, while it sounds reasonable, in a real-life situation, it was not realistic. If a small wooden lifeboat were to get buried under ice, it would most likely get crushed by it and turned into tiny pieces. It wouldn't be in its original state even if it was unearthed from the ice. So this reason alone suggested that this didn't happen. The last theory, the simplest and most straightforward one, was that it simply came from a whaler ship passing by, and the crew members decided to take a look at the island using their lifeboat. Once they realized the lifeboat was damaged and was no use, they merely abandoned it on the island. Even with such a mysterious case, Crawford's findings didn't get any attention in the newspaper. His discoveries were not that interesting in the public's eye. In 1966, two years after his expedition, another South African group surveyed the remote island and reported no sign of a lifeboat on the lagoon. After this event, all traces of evidence were vanished, and as a result, without any leads to continue on, the case was buried in history. That is, until a historian and researcher found a credible solution to this mysterious case. In an old Russian book dated to 1960 called The Transaction of the Oceanographical Institute, the text on page 129 reads, The scientific reconnaissance vessel Slava 9 began its regular 13th cruise with the Slava Antarctic whaling fleet on 22 October 1958. On 27 November, she got to Bouvet Island. A group of sailors landed, couldn't leave the island in time because of the worsening weather, and stayed on it about three days. The people were withdrawn only by helicopter on 29 November. Based on this alone, even with little context, it explained the backstory of the mysterious abandoned lifeboat. But what happened to the lifeboat itself? Why it had gone missing in 1966, nobody knows, really. But the only explanation would be that most likely drifted into the sea and is now sleeping on the ocean floor.