There's nothing like a good publicist to rewrite history the way one would like it to be rather than the was it was. Unfortunately, neither Robert Peary or Frederick Cook appeared to have reached the North Pole, unlike their claims in 1909.
But then Alexander Graham Bell didn't invent the telephone first and Mauchly and Eckert did not invent the digital computer first either. History is full of exaggerated claims and stolen ideas.
In September 1909, Dr. Frederick A. Cook and Robert E. Peary each returned from the Arctic with a tale of having reached the North Pole. Neither provided any solid proof or corroborating testimony; both told vague stories with large gaps. They couldn’t even convincingly explain how they had plotted their routes across the polar ice.
Among polar experts today, the consensus is that Peary got much closer than Cook, but not to the pole. Some suggest Peary gave up the day he took that solitary observation because he realized how far off course he had gone; some suspect he had earlier avoided taking longitude observations so as not to leave a paper trail of his route.
Mr. Bryce is the author of “Cook & Peary” (1997), an 1,100-page book subtitled, “The Polar Controversy, Resolved,” but Mr. Bryce knows it’s not resolved in all minds. Although some of the loyalists have lost faith (The Times ran a formal correction in 1988, citing Peary’s “unreliable” records and his “incredible” speeds), both explorers still have their supporters at the Frederick A. Cook Society, the National Geographic Society and elsewhere.
Mr. Rawlins who is the editor of Dio, a science history journal, says he cannot think of any modern scientific fraud that has been so profitable and popular and endured a century.
TA Clash of Polar Frauds and Those Who Believe
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