[aruanan]

I'm thinking that the most realistic theory so far presented is that they drilled through to the under the ice lake and the water pressure sent a tower of water up that covered the scientists and froze them like human Popsicles.

The first thought I had was of some out-gassing episode, such as what happened at a couple of lakes in Africa. If a lake is isolated from the atmosphere that long, there could be a huge amount of CO2 dissolved in the water from subterranean sources. Remove the pressure and pop goes the CO2 and everyone is asphyxiated and then frozen like human Popsicles.

[PJ-Comix]

Isn’t there some orbiting satellite that can bring us photos of the Lake Vostok area? Perhaps we can see if there was flooding and subsequent freezing there.