It’s the coldest and most desolate location on the planet with recorded temperatures reaching 80 degrees below zero. Eternally frozen and shrouded in ice, Antarctica contains enormous mountain ranges that separate vast tracts of blinding white landscape that routinely experience blizzards of hurricane force. Nearly twice the size of Australia, the white continent still holds countless mysteries waiting to be explored.
As a young man I was
first inspired by the beauty of the landscape and the immortal accounts of men
like Ernest Shakelton who led the famous Endurance expedition during the heroic
age of Antarctic exploration. Later I
began to read about numerous UFO sightings and of theories surrounding possible
ancient civilizations whose ruins might lie deep beneath the ice or within one
of the massive cave systems. Some theorists even believe that one of these
openings may lead to another world inside our own planet. I recently stumbled
upon one of these openings while looking at satellite imagery available on
Google Earth. The opening is triangular and measures roughly 280 feet in width
and 130 vertically. The cavern is
located at exactly 66°33'11.88"S Latitude and 99°50'19.53"E Longitude near the northern
coast of the continent between the Queen Mary and Knox Coast. As I search for
further details on this particular cave my imagination runs wild. After all, rumors
of secret Nazi installations in the Antarctic have been around since the end of
World War II. And just what was Admiral Karl Dontiz referring to in 1943 when
he told Adolph Hitler that he had created “an unassailable fortress for the
Fuhrer on the other end of the world.”?
Is this where the scores of missing German submarines and other
technology were hidden after the war?
As if Nazi’s, UFOs
and giant caves were not enough to drive my obsession to visit this frozen
realm, author H.P. Lovecraft invokes
the white continent as the location for his 1931 horror novella, At the Mountains of Madness. In the story
a research team encounters an ancient colony of monstrously exotic extraterrestrials
that killed most of the expedition party including a dog.
Evidence suggests that Antarctica wasn’t always covered in ice
and could have contained civilization. Core samples extracted in 2012 indicate
the existence of tropical flora on the continent. Furthermore, one of the
earliest maps depicting Antarctica is known as as the Piri Reis map. It was drawn using maps from deeper antiquity and accurately
depicts the Northern Coastline of Antarctica with no ice! While it’s believed
that the last time Antarctica was unfrozen was during a time that predated the
oldest civilizations, we should question the accepted rate at which Antarctica
was frozen in ice. In 1990 the recovery
of several World War 2 aircraft that remained undisturbed in Greenland demonstrated
that it’s possible for 263 feet of ice to form within only half a century.
My curiosity is fueled by so many aspects of this region. Rumors
abound on the internet of secret alien bases located beneath the ice. I’m not
saying it’s all true. But a significant number of UFO cases have taken place in
Antarctica and documented by the Argentine military.
Do I have designs underway for an expedition to Antarctica
in the near future? I’d like nothing more than to announce this very thing. However, Antarctica must for now take a back
seat to other priorities like taking my family to Disney World. Such an
endeavor requires a much larger budget, the right team and a great deal more
preparation. The Siberian Taiga is a more
likely destination for the next big expedition but that shall be a topic for
future editions. Until then. Semper explorandum!
