in 2013 smythe's son published a biography of his father in which he describes a set of copies of letters his father sent while on the 1936 expedition. one was to teddy norton saying that when scanning the north face of everest through binoculars from base camp he had seen something looking like a body. mallory or irvine's ice axe had been found by the 1933 expedition and what he had seen was in a gully just below where the ice axe had been found. smythe's letter said "it's not to be written about as the press would make an unpleasant sensation." a 1999 expedition found mallory's body at this place and photographs of his remains made newspaper front pages internationally.