It’s not only the friendships and bonds that the social media helps forge for an individual. It’s even leading to breakthrough discoveries, believe it or not. About 64 years ago, a noted French skier Henri La Masne had gone missing.
Henri La Masne was not only a noted figure in the realm of the sport of skiing in just his native France. Rather, he was almost a celebrated hero all over the world.
There was a lot of concern when it was reported that part of a sporting activity high up in the Alps, Henri La Masne had reportedly gone missing. The year was 1954 and it would forever be noted with the tragic disappearance of Henri La Masne, the noted French skier.
Here’s what exactly had happened. A trending bit of report published on the revered American media outlet CNN shared the following:
French skier Henri La Masne is thought to have died near the Italian-Swiss border in the Aosta Valley in March 1954. His remains were found in the Aosta valley near the Italian-Swiss border. This rather surprising turn of events has plunged the sports world on the internet into a bit of a pleasant surprise and if it could be said- then in for a shocker as well.
It was none other than the Italian Police who helped identify the remains of the noted French skier and informed the media soon as the sudden discovery was made in Europe. And here’s the most surprising bit of news that perhaps may leave everyone in a bit of a shock.
High up in the Swiss mountains, around 10,000 feet above the land-level, several types of skiing equipment were found. And not just that, but amongst the things discovered was also a human skull- believe it or not.
After he was lost in the Alps, arguably because of a snow blizzard or something of that sort, there was absolutely no sign of the late Henri Le Masne, despite several search committees established at finding his missing trail.
But while his mortal remains, in fact, among them, the human skull have been recovered, it can be said with great certainty that the man would’ve died many decades ago.
According to the latest developments- as of now, the Italian police has released images of the ski equipment found up in the mountains alongside the remains of Henri le Masne. According to the forensic research, it was established that the remains found up in the Alps were of a man about 5 feet and 4 and a half inches in height, i.e., approximately 1.65 meters tall.
The said man was thought to be a 30-year-old and is believed to have died early spring upon entering the area where his remains have only just been discovered. In fact, the remains were first found by the Italian police back in 2005 but there was an apparent failure to help identify who the person was.
That is precisely when the Italian Police decided to take the help of social media, wherein, upon uploading the pictures of the remains of the skier who’s just been identified, they’d encourage normal citizens to help solve the missing person’s ‘mystery.’ That said, it’s not at all surprising that the identification process took its own sweet course of time. Initially, here’s what troubled and perplexed the Italian Police.
Somehow, despite their best efforts, they remained unable to put a name to the body and hypothesized the skier may not have been Italian, meaning no one in the country was likely to identify him.
In fact, it’s rather interesting how the late French skier was identified. According to the news reports from Italy, a Frenchman listening to the broadcast was finally able to connect the missing dots about her missing ‘uncle’ and the remnants of the discovery made up in the Alps.
In the aforementioned report gathered by CNN, the following information was released in connection to the missing remains of the former French skier:
Emma Nasem responded to the original police Facebook post, saying her uncle Henri Le Masne was lost in the Alps during a violent storm in 1954. A later DNA test using saliva collected from Nasem’s 95-year-old father confirmed the remains were those of Le Masne, the Police is known to have said.