In the summer of 1897, Sweden held its breath. Engineer Salomon August Andrée, photographer Nils Strindberg, and student Knut Frænkel had lifted off from Svalbard in a hydrogen balloon named _Örnen_ [The Eagle] bound for the North Pole. After that, there was nothing but silence – no signals, no news, no wreckage. Just an emptiness that stretched across three decades of rumour, theory, and quiet…