Viewers have made a chilling observation about some Chernobyl camera footage after a man was walking nearby Elephant's Foot.
The footage was taken by a daring physics technician who bravely volunteered to work at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant's Reactor 4 three years after the disaster on 26 April 1986.
In 1989, Alexander Kupny went and filmed inside of the reactor multiple times, risking the high chance of radiation poisoning.
Despite the dangers, Kupny managed to avoid acute radiation syndrome (ARS) from careful planning and limited exposure times.
Advert
His videos and pictures have been shared throughout YouTube and Reddit over the years, sharing invaluable insight into the aftermath of the disaster.
What remained after the explosion, which started in Reactor No.4, was a chaotic ruin of twisted metal, shattered concrete, and lethal radiation.
Weeks after the explosion in October 1986, strange molten formations started appearing in the lower maintenance areas and basements.
One of these was the so-called Elephant's Foot, which is a mass of highly radioactive material formed during the 1986 explosion of Reactor Number Four.
It consists of corium, a mix of nuclear fuel, melted concrete, and metal.
And as you might have guessed, the Elephant's Foot got its name from its appearance with it resembling an actual elephant’s foot.
When it was first formed all those years ago, the nuclear waste was so radioactive that just being near it for just minutes would cause lethal radiation exposure.
It emitted around 10,000 roentgens per hour at its peak, enough to kill a person in minutes.
Alexander Kupny, one of the few allowed near the site, managed to picture this deadly artefact.
His images were apparently taken with remote-controlled cameras while shielding behind thick concrete walls.
Having watching the video on YouTube, viewers noticed that the screen quality kept changing, and that was because 'the radiation' was messing with the camera.
"The white specks on screen is not the camera quality, but in fact the radiation messing with the film/camera itself," one person commented.
"These folks sacrificed their own health and potentially their own life to record footage of this disaster. Mad respect," a second added.
"This footage is incredible. The specks of radiation effecting the film is a good indicator of how dangerous the reactor was and still is. Any longer than 40 minutes in this area and they would be dead," penned a third.
This was first noticed three days after the explosion when Soviet filmmaker Vladimir Shevchenko was granted permission to fly over the 30-square-kilometre site called the Exclusion Zone.
Shevchenko’s 35mm footage was heavily white-marked, carrying static interference and noise.
He eventually realised that what he had captured on film was the image and sound of radioactivity.
It is estimated that between 4,000 and 60,000 people have died or will eventually die due to the radiation poising from Chernobyl.
Anish Vij