The hero of these fantastic adventures is absolutely real. Richard Byrd (1888-1957) was a famous American pilot. He was considered the first pilot in the world to fly over the North and South Poles. True, historians recently found out that during the Arctic flight, navigator Bird and pilot Floyd Bennett corrected the data in the logbook and did not reach the North Pole a little.
However, his success in conquering the airspace over the South Pole is absolutely undeniable. Flying there in the late 1920s in a tiny, single-engine Fokker, without fear of wind and icing, was a feat. It is not surprising that in his homeland Bird was showered with honors and orders. The famous explorer regularly led expeditions to Antarctica. But on his fourth Antarctic expedition, the Highjump, something inexplicable began …
Richard Bird.
Flying saucers
In December 1946, an impressive column of warships, led by an aircraft carrier, reached the shores of Antarctica. In February 1947, a rocket was launched from one destroyer during firing practice. She found herself in a pile of hummocks. Suddenly, from the side of the hummocks, strange luminous disks, similar to "flying saucers", rose into the air and flew towards the ships. The military tried in vain to fight back. The discs seemed invulnerable.
After the battle, the envoys came to Byrd, who was in charge of the expedition. They were young people - blue-eyed, blond, in black uniforms. They spoke English with a German accent. They demanded that the Americans immediately withdraw all ships from Antarctica. Bird refused.
Then from somewhere from the ice caves of Antarctica, countless black-and-red disks flew to the ships, spewing out "deadly fire". They flew out from under the water and blew up planes. The ships were barely able to be protected with anti-aircraft guns.
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During the battle, about 400 Americans were killed, 20 aircraft were shot down. Byrd had no choice but to order a retreat. The expedition was interrupted. The ships returned to the United States. But everything that happened was strictly classified. And when Bird tried to tell the people the truth, the hero was hidden in an insane asylum.
Submarine SS-408 Sennet during Operation Highjump.
Hitler's Lair
One version of the legend suggests that aliens were the creators of the fire-breathing flying saucers. Aliens allegedly had a base near Antarctica long ago. They lived there, experimented on kidnapped people and ruled over human history, but were completely uninterested in the Homo sapiens discovering their whereabouts.
"Confirmation" of this story is believed to be the fact that after the "High Jump" the United States sent several more military expeditions to Antarctica. They allegedly fired at the alien bases. And the aliens in revenge launched flying saucers into the sky over the United States. Well, the fact that we do not know anything about these battles with aliens is explained, as always, by secrecy.
The second version of the plot is no less picturesque. On it in 1938-1939, the Germans during an expedition to Antarctica (such an expedition was actually carried out) managed to find giant cavities under the ice. It was warm inside them, there was clean air and plenty of fresh water. The Nazis quickly equipped there a military base with channels for submarines and began to build a gigantic ice city. Its scale was reminiscent of "Metropolis" from the famous film by Fritz Lang. The ultra-modern city - New Berlin - was supposed to be inhabited by two million Germans.
At the end of the war, German submarines began to export to New Berlin those close to the Fuehrer, scientists, military men, and doctors. One of the last flights was evacuated by Hitler himself. And the simple-minded Red Army men were slipped into someone's burnt corpses in Berlin, passing them off as the remains of the Fuhrer and Eva Braun.
Eminent German scientists have developed many new technologies under the ice. Obviously, they decided to abandon nuclear weapons - too old-fashioned - and switched to creating magical flying discs. With their help, New Berlin fought off the Americans, driving them away from the shores of Antarctica for a long time. And Hitler and Eva Braun lived happily ever after under the ice, until his death in 1971.
Richard Bird learned all this during his voyage to Antarctica in 1947, but entrusted this great secret only to his diary, fragments of which have flooded the entire Internet today.
Richard Byrd (center) at Little America IV Antarctic Station.
The other side of the earth
The beauty is that myth-making did not end there. After Byrd's death, another fragment of his diary appeared. It tells how on February 19, 1947, he flew to the North Pole.
Approaching the pole, at ten in the morning, the pilot recorded strong turbulence, and then, to his surprise, he saw not snow under the wing of the plane, but a green meadow, a stream flowing through it and mountains covered with forest. Bird began to decline. The sun was gone somewhere, but he still saw everything well. Going down to a thousand feet, Bird saw a large furry animal. Taking out his binoculars, he made sure it was a mammoth.
By half past ten, the temperature overboard rose to +23 degrees Celsius. The radio stopped working. An hour later Bird saw in the distance, among the green hills, "a large city shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow." In the air next to him were flying machines in the form of shiny disks. On them he saw an image of a swastika.
The radio on the plane came to life. A voice with a German accent suggested to Byrd to land. He was escorted to the city of crystal, where he met with the Boss. The owner explained to him that he was on the inner surface of the Earth. A race lives here that cares about people and sends flying saucers to them. The fact is that mankind, having created nuclear weapons, will certainly destroy itself in a global war. But the survivors will be helped by a race entrenched inside the Earth. It will preserve the treasures of science and culture for people and help revive civilization.
After talking with the Boss, Bird returned to the plane, took off into the air and soon was already hovering over the endless snows. Arriving home, he reported to the Pentagon about everything he learned, but the military put him in a psychiatric hospital.
Fascinating reading, to be sure. Unfortunately, the flight to the North Pole was dated February 19, 1947, and at that time Bird was exactly at the opposite South Pole. He returned to the United States only in March. A problem.
In fact
There are some real reasons for all of these heartbreaking stories. In the case of the Antarctic expedition of 1946-1947, its unexpected failure is embarrassing. A well-equipped team, a whole brigade of scientists, tons of equipment, an impressive military convoy - everything looked as if the research was designed for at least six months. However, not even three months had passed before Byrd's ships turned around and retreated to the United States.
This is easy to explain if you understand that the High Jump was, in fact, not a scientific expedition, but a naval exercise. In their course, ships, equipment, wetsuits were tested in low temperatures. Practice shooting was conducted, takeoff and landing of aircraft from an aircraft carrier were practiced. Even the name itself - "High Jump" - is characteristic of American military exercises, and not for scientific research. A duration of three months is perfectly normal for an exercise. Moreover, the expedition faced a difficult ice situation. The path was blocked by an ice field of 1000 km, and there was only one icebreaker in the group.
The military specifics also explains some of the secrecy of the materials of the expedition. Although the reports were only labeled "For official use" - that is, professionals could easily familiarize themselves with them.
Finally, 11 journalists from leading media outlets were on board. None of them wrote anything suspicious about High Jump.
Rumors surrounding Byrd's expedition were triggered by the flying saucers boom. In the late 1940s, Americans saw mysterious UFOs in the sky almost every day. Newspapers wrote about this, and this gave rise to a new wave of legends. Of course, it was very exciting to add the famous Arctic explorer Richard Byrd to the plot. And so his diary came out of nowhere.
And the author of the legend about New Berlin, erected in the ice caves of Antarctica, is well known. This is a Hungarian emigrant in Argentina, Ladislas Szabo. Based on the testimony of several German submariners captured and interrogated by the Americans, he came up with a duck about Hitler living in the ice of Antarctica. His article was spread with pleasure by the yellow press.
Already in the 1970s, long after the death of Richard Byrd, conspiracy theorists presented his statement about the true goal of the High Jump expedition - "to break the last desperate attempt to resist Adolf Hitler." But no evidence has ever been presented that these words belonged to Byrd.
Victoria Nikiforova