The earliest news from Andrée was received on July 15, four days after his departure from Danes Island. He had released one of his messenger pigeons with a note rolled inside of its leg canister. The bird had alighted on the rigging of the Norwegian sealing vessel Alken. Undoubtedly Alken’s captain didn’t know what to make of the strange bird, so he shot it. Later in the day, Alken rendezvoused with another ship, and the skippers exchanged stories. The Norwegian captain was quickly informed about Andrée’s balloon flight and the Belgian pigeons carried aboard. Alken swung about and miraculously discovered the dead bird still floating on the surface. The message inside the leg cylinder was addressed to a Swedish newspaper: ‘From Andrée’s Polar Expedition to Aftonbladet, Stockholm/13th July 12.30 midday, Lat. 82 2′ Long. 15 5′ E. good speed to E. 10 south. All well on board. This is the third pigeon post. Andrée.’

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The next message from Andrée was discovered on May 14, 1899, on the coast of Iceland. Andrée had equipped Ornen with 12 buoys made of layers of cork and banded with copper wire. The message in the buoy’s core was dated July 11, 1897, and revealed the balloon’s location. A second message was recovered on August 27, 1900, long after all hopes of finding the expedition party alive had been extinguished. This message was also dated July 11 and had been tossed into the water after four carrier pigeons had been released. ‘We are now arrived over the ice, which is much broken in all directions,’ read the note’s ending. ‘Weather splendid. Spirits excellent. Andrée, Strindberg, Fraenkel.’ Four other buoys, without messages, were discovered in northern waters between 1899 and 1912. Though a rescue party scoured the Arctic seas for the aeronauts, nothing was found. Crank sightings from throughout Scandinavia, Siberia and Alaska persisted well into the turn of the century.

In 1930, unseasonably warm weather shifted calving icebergs in the Arctic Ocean, allowing seal and walrus hunters to ply their trade in waters normally inaccessible. On August 5, the Norwegian steamer Bratvaag anchored near the inhospitable shores of White Island on the far northeastern tip of Spitsbergen. Harpooners Olaf Salen and Carl Tusvik had gone ashore to skin walrus, when they suddenly kicked a rusted tin can. After examining the relic, they hastily searched their immediate area. Protruding from a snowbank was the darkened prow of a small boat with a boathook sticking out. Precisely painted letters on the wood were still legible: ‘Andrée’s Polar Expedition of 1897.’ The great mystery had finally been solved.

Aboard Bratvaag was a small party of scientists, headed by geologist Gunnar Horn, were conducting a variety of polar experiments. Horn immediately took charge of the search. Andrée’s snow sledges and canvas boat were uncovered, as was a quantity of stores including a perfectly operable Primus stove ready to be ignited. Diaries, logbooks and canisters of exposed film were carefully removed from the boat.

As the Norwegians continued their investigation, they discovered the remains of Nils Strindberg wedged into a cleft in the rocks. A short distance away, under the collapsed and frayed tent made from the skin of Ornen, lay the skeletons of Andrée and Fraenkel wrapped in a sleeping bag.

Andrée’s own diaries, packed in straw and swaddled in oilcloth, revealed the aeronauts’ tragic ending. When Ornen’s undercarriage had brushed the waters of Virgo Bay during their departure on July 11, 1897, the expedition’s success had immediately been placed in jeopardy. The loss of weight from the three drag ropes and the 450 pounds of jettisoned ballast had caused the balloon to soar far higher than Andrée had intended. He mentioned he heard gas escaping, perhaps from a safety valve. They drifted through a polar fog, a coating of ice layering the balloon’s envelope, pushing it ever earthward. Andrée noted in his dairy, ‘A means must be provided for heating the gas in the balloon, to prevent the formation of ice.’

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