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Chapter 20: Mystery Under the IceIn September, 1948 Time Magazine published an article about the theory of one Hugh

Auchincloss Brown, then aged 69, titled, Can the Earth Capsize? Brown, an ElectricalEngineer from Douglaston, New York, warned that the earth was like an overloaded canoe,because the accumulation of ice in the Antarctic caused it to be bottom heavy, and subject

to an imminent polar shift. TIME ran the short news item because they were impressed that theultra-conservative New York Times had recently thought enough of Brown's alarming hypothesisto elaborate on it at length (Antarctic Doomsday, An Editorial, NYT September 1, 1948).

According to the Time's article, Brown recommended atomic blasting in Antarctica to dissolvethe excess glaciality, and prevent the inevitable coming catastrophe.Brown had assailed congressmen, newspapers and magazines for years with his predictionsof an imminent doomsday, and the need to allocate $10 million to nuke Antarctica. Probably,it was when he prophesied that New York City would be under water that the New York Timestook notice. Brown believed that such polar shifts occurred around every 6,000 years becausethe ice accumulation at the poles caused the earth to topple over on its side such that previouslytorrid parts of the globe became frozen over, and the polar areas became tropical. The axis

of spin, however, remained at the customary 23.5 degree tilt, but now with new geographicpoles. This polar flip always occurred suddenly and quickly and wrought incredible devastation.He claimed that this also explained the so-called ice ages which were really just localizedphenomena in the new polar areas.In 1967, when he was 88, Brown's extensive notes and research were incorporated into hisbook Cataclysms of the Earth. In the 290-page book, Brown cited copious geological proofs ofhis theory in terms of land formations all over the world whose striations showed successiveepochs of differentiation of about 6,000 years each. Perhaps his most convincing argumentfor sudden climatic change derives from the wooly mammoths found perfectly preserved inthe frozen tundra of northern Siberia. The famed Bereskovka Mammoth was found in 1901at 66 degrees north latitude in Siberia, almost at the Arctic Circle. Half-chewed grasses were

found in his mouth and 27 pounds in his stomach, which means he died suddenly while eating.The grass was analyzed and most were found to be from a temperate climate. And he died ofsuffocation. Brown reasons that the animal perished in the super-hurricane and dust and dirtstorm caused by the rapid movement of the earth's surface against the air. The mammoth musthave then been quick frozen by sudden extreme cold to have been so preserved. Many suchpreserved animals were found in Siberia, including rhinos and antelopes, normally native to thewarmer regions.

Around 1949, Charles Hapgood, a 45-year-old professor of Anthropology and History at KeeneState College in Keene, New Hampshire, was asked by one of his students about Atlantis. Thisintrigued Hapgood and prompted a nine-year investigation into ancient geography. Hapgoodultimately developed a theory of periodic displacement of the earth's 60-mile-thick crust over

the planetary core, which resulted in polar shifts, and in 1958 he published his book on thesubject titled Earth's Shifting Crust. The foreword to the book, basically endorsing Hapgood'stheory, was written by Albert Einstein shortly before his death in 1955. Einstein said, Theconstantly increasing centrifugal momentum produced in this way will, when it has reached acertain point, produce a movement of the earth's crust over the rest of the earth's body, andthis will displace the polar regions toward the equator. Although there is no evidence of this, itappears that Hapgood was influenced by Brown. If not, then it is truly remarkable that he wouldhave come to essentially the same conclusions by a different route. Although Brown proposedan actual planetary flip while Hapgood theorized a crustal slippage, the net result is basically the

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same 'the poles get shifted to new planetary locations, while the 23.5 degree axis angle remainsthe same. Both theories place the blame for the pole shift on the build-up of Antarctic ice.

According to the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, England, the ice accumulation inAntarctica amounts to 2,000 billion tons each year.Hapgood's second book, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, published in 1966, still one year

before Brown's book appeared, reveals two sixteenth-century maps and one eighteenth-centurymap that are remarkably correct and have been pronounced genuine by experts. They confoundexplanation as to how they could have been created. Most notably, the continent of Antarcticais shown, configured correctly, in an ice-free state on all three maps. Since Antarctica wasnot discovered until 1820, that it should appear at all on these maps is astonishing. All threemapmakers acknowledged that their information came from ancient maps probably going backto about 4,000 B.C. If it is true that Antarctica was ice-free at that time, the Brown/Hapgoodthesis starts to take on believability. According to Brown, in the last epoch, prior to the greatflood, Antarctica was at the Equator, as it will be again in the next shake-up, since he claimsthat the planet basically does a 90-degree flip with each pole shift. The possibility of an ice-free Antarctica only 6,000 years ago, as depicted by the ancient maps, caused Canadian writerRand Flem-Ath to consider that it could have been Atlantis, and motivated him to explore that

possibility at length.Initially not acquainted with Hapgood's theory, he came to conclude that a temperate or tropical

Antarctica matched Plato's description of Atlantis in the Criteas and Timeaus almost perfectly.But he couldn't understand how that could have happened until he encountered Hapgood'scrustal displacement explanation, and then he became convinced he was right. Flem-Athand his wife Rose then delved deeper into Atlantis research and Hapgood's books, ultimatelyresulting in a synthesis of both concepts in the book When the Sky Fell: In Search of Atlantisin 1995, which they co-authored. Their theory was endorsed by Graham Hancock in his book,Fingerprints of the Gods, as well as by well-known, highly respected researcher-writers ColinWilson and John Anthony West. For a complete discussion of the Flem-Aths' justification of

Antarctica as Atlantis, see the article in AR issue # 7 by editor Doug Kenyon.

Many have sensed the aura of mystery surrounding this huge glacial world at the bottom ofthe planet. Now covered with a blanket of ice over two miles thick, it is only natural to wonderwhat secrets might be concealed under that frigid protective wrap. If it was indeed Atlantis, is itpossible that a remnant of that high civilization might still remain there in warmer undergroundcaverns? Apparently, the Nazis believed, or at least strongly suspected, something about

Antarctica's Atlantean past, when they mounted an elaborate and expensive expedition tothe South Pole in 1938. When it is considered that Germany was on the brink of launching aworld war that year, with all the preoccupations and military preparations necessary for suchan undertaking, it is astounding that they would find it so important to expend the resourcesnecessary to explore and lay claim to a barren wasteland halfway around the world with noapparent military significance! They hired intrepid polar explorer Richard Byrd, then a civilian, to

come to Hamburg and brief the expedition leaders.

According to the controversial UFO conspiracy tome, The Omega File, Beginning in 1938...theNazis commenced to send out numerous exploratory missions to the Queen Maud region of

Antarctica. A steady stream of expeditions were reportedly sent out from (at the time) whitesupremacist South Africa. Over 230,000 square miles of the frozen continent were mapped fromthe air, and the Germans discovered vast regions that were surprisingly free of ice, as well aswarm water lakes and cave inlets. One vast ice cave within the glaciers was reportedly foundto extend 30 miles to a large hot-water geothermal lake deep below. Various scientific teams

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were moved into the area, including hunters, trappers, collectors and zoologists, botanists,agriculturists, plant specialists, mycologists, parasitologists, marine biologists, ornithologists,and many others. The Germans dropped hundreds of swastika-adorned flags all over QueenMaud Land to establish their claim over the area. According to James Roberts, a British civilservant and WWII historian, in an article in Nexus Magazine (Volume 12, No. 5, August 2005),the Germans succeeded in building an underground base in the massive ice cave, using the

discovered inlets for access.British intelligence and other information elicited from former U-Boat captains that triggeredthe U.S.-led Operation Highjump in December, 1946. The operation force consisted of thirteenships, including the aircraft carrier Philippine Sea, and 4700 soldiers. Ironically, this missionwas in the charge of Richard Byrd, now a navy admiral with a distinguished war record. Ina press release given on November 12, 1946, Byrd said, the purposes of the operation areprimarily of a military nature, that is, to train naval personnel and to test ships, planes andequipment under frigid zone conditions. However, since it was planned by, and under thecommand of war hero Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, it is logical to believe that the real purposeof the mission was to destroy the Nazi Antarctic base. Originally scheduled to be a six-monthoperation, it was mysteriously aborted after only 8 weeks.

In 1957, the Russians built a base in central Antarctica called Vostok Station. In the 1970sthey discovered through the use of airborne radar that the base was directly over the tipof a huge subglacial lake under two miles of ice. Through a combination of orbital radarmeasurements, and surface seismologists readings, they determined that the now christenedLake Vostok was roughly the size of Lake Ontario and was about 3,000 feet deep. Accordingto Richard Hoagland in his web site, The Enterprise Mission, written in 2001, the water in LakeVostok ranges from 50 to 65 degrees F, clearly indicating a subterranean heat source. Inaddition, the whole lake is covered by a sloping air dome' several thousand feet high that hasformed from the hot water melting the overlying ice just above the lake's surface.Core samples taken by the Russians a couple years ago at their Vostok base when they

drilled down very close to the bottom of the ice sheet have revealed the presence of microbes,nutrients and various gases like methane embedded in the clear, refrozen lake water just abovethe dome.' Such items are typical signatures of biological processes. The lake, therefore, hasall the ingredients of a truly incredible scientific discovery: a completely isolated ecosystemwith current biological activity. In early 2001, says Hoagland, A team of scientists fromColumbia University, working under the auspices of the National Science Foundation begana series of unprecedented low-altitude aerial surveys over Lake Vostok, designed to chartgravitational, magnetic and thermal activity under the ice. In the course of doing so, they madea stunning find. A huge magnetic anomaly was discovered covering the entire southeast portionof the shore of the lake. One of the possible explanation for this, Hoagland theorizes, is a largeaccumulation of metallic structures. This, he says, could be the ruins of an ancient, buried city.Immediately after this finding, the Jet Propulsion Lab pulled back its Lake Vostok exploration

effort, and turned the program over to the NSA.This scenario, says Hoagland, is eerily reminiscent of the plot of the French novelSubterranean in which Antarctic scientists discover an inhabited Lost City' under the ice.

Around the same time as the anomaly discovery, news of a series of very strange andsuspicious events surfaced regarding the Vostok Station and the U.S. McMurdo Base. Threeyoung Russian scientists at Vostok died over a two-year period, one of whom had discovered aseries of geometric dunes in the center of the anomaly. The causes of their deaths were neverreported. Strangest of all, as many as twelve emergency medical evacuations were made from

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McMurdo during the 2001 antarctic winter season, all of whom were employees of RaytheonCorporation, described by Hoagland as a high-tech firm that is deeply involved in a variety ofblack-ops programs for the U.S. government all around the world.Hoagland concluded from all this that pos-sibly a top-secret U.S. drilling operation has beentaking place over Lake Vostok, and that perhaps some sort of exotic virus had escaped from

the lake area to the surface. Or more likely, he says, the hints of a viral epidemic were meantto explain the need for a very large airplane to bring something back to the mainland. Thiswould be more likely, since the extreme cold kills most bacteria and viruses. Hoagland findsa strange parallel between this story and the Arthur C. Clarke short story and film, 2001: ASpace Odyssey, wherein a monolith is found on the Moon. He says, This whole weird scenario,the discovery of a magnetic anomaly at an isolated location, the secret digging to uncover anancient artifact, the danger of shattering social consequences if the information is not properlycontained, the concoction of an epidemic as a cover story for the secret activities around theextraction of the artifact is straight out of Clarke's 2001' playbook! The only real difference is thelocation of the artifact, Antarctica, instead of the moon!

As we put all this together, many questions are raised. Is there really an ancient city, possibly

still thriving, perhaps a remnant of Atlantis, on the shores of Lake Vostok? Have we secretlyfound out about it, and maybe even been in contact with the inhabitants? Did the Nazissomehow know about the city through some paranormal revelations? Plenty of questions, butanswers, so far, remain in short supply. Source to the chapter is an article by the same name by Len Kasten from themagazine 'Atlantis Rising' Issue number 68.