Antarctica is the "youngest" continent when it comes to the time of its discovery. The unknown southern land was discovered by three expeditions at once in 1820 - almost 200 years ago. At first it was a Russian expedition under the command of Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. Literally following the Russians, the British from the expedition of Edward Bransfield saw Antarctica, and in November of the same 1820 an American whaling ship under the command of Nathaniel Palmer approached the continent. The first to land on the new continent were the sailors of the whaling ship John Davis, as is commonly believed. It happened in 1821.
And in 1911, the Norwegians, led by Roald Amundsen, were the first to reach the South Pole, slightly ahead of the expedition of Robert Scott, who died on the way back. Active exploration of the southernmost continent began in the middle of the twentieth century. Various countries in Antarctica are creating permanent scientific bases, conducting meteorological, glaciological and geological research all year round. Despite the fact that some countries have voiced and continue to voice their territorial claims to Antarctica, this continent does not belong to anyone. According to the convention on Antarctica, only scientific activities are allowed on the continent; in the 80s, Antarctica was also declared a nuclear-free zone.
Currently, 50 countries with voting rights and dozens of observer countries are parties to the Antarctic Treaty. However, experts believe that sooner or later the southern continent, bound by an ice shell, will cause a fierce conflict, because it is the last resource reserve for humanity. The mere fact that 80% of all fresh water on the planet is concentrated in Antarctica, makes it a tasty morsel for so many states.
Mysteries and secrets of Antarctica
Now Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth: the average temperature in winter on this continent is from -60 to -70 degrees Celsius, and in summer - from -25 to -45. The minimum recorded temperature is a mind-boggling number of -91.2 degrees.
But once upon a time, many millions of years ago, this continent was part of the huge supercontinent of Gondwana, connecting with South America, South Africa and Australia. It was much warmer in those days than it is now, and even dinosaurs were found. In particular, in the early 90s, the so-called cryolophosaurus, which lived on the mainland, was discovered and described. Although the bones of fossil lizards have been found in Antarctica before.
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By the way, about dinosaurs … In some media you can often find information that on the ice-covered continent, a lost world is probably preserved, where animals that are considered extinct live. From time to time this place becomes the home of ancient civilizations, someone believes that Antarctica is the “same” Atlantis, supposedly sunk in ancient times, but in fact frozen as a result of an unprecedented cataclysm. And the adherents of one of the conspiracy hypotheses "placed" a secret Nazi base in Antarctica (the so-called "Base-211").
According to widespread history, the Nazis became interested in Antarctica under the influence of esoteric teachings about prehistoric civilizations and the theory of the "hollow earth". In the late 1930s, the Germans actually sent two expeditions to the shores of the icy continent. Luftwaffe aircraft, included in one of the expeditions under the command of Alfred Ritscher, conducted aerial photographs of vast Antarctic territories, and in the area of Queen Maud Land dropped several thousand pennants with a swastika. Thus, Hitler's Germany sought to declare its rights to this part of the continent, rich in uranium deposits. The potentially dependent territory was named New Swabia and was declared part of the future millennial Reich. It is likely that the Germans even began to build their own fortifications. But then science ends and the violent fantasy of conspiracy theorists begins.
Submarines from the so-called Führer's Convoy, which included 35 submarines, transported cargo for the construction of the "impregnable fortress". It is also reported that two aircraft carrier cruisers took part in the operation. On Hitler's personal instructions, they began to transfer “carriers of the Aryan gene pool” to New Swabia - scientists, elected members of the Hitler Youth and Ahnenerbe specialists. In the old periodicals, it is claimed that the submarines, in addition to the mysterious cargo, took on board some mysterious passengers, whose faces were hidden by surgical bandages. In total, at least a hundred submarines were involved in the transfer of people to Antarctica. It was also reported that in addition to the privileged Germans, prisoners of concentration camps were sent to the southern mainland, whose forces were supposed to build fortifications.
There is also a hypothesis that Hitler and Eva Braun survived and hid in Antarctica. In 1948, the Chilean magazine Zig-Zag published an article claiming that a certain Peter Baumgart, the captain of the Luftwaffe, took the Führer on board his plane and took him to Norway, on a deserted coast. There Hitler stepped on board a submarine, which headed for Antarctica.
Over time, Baza-211 has grown to the size of a city with two million inhabitants called New Berlin. According to the adherents of this fantastic theory, the German settlement in Antarctica not only existed, but continues to exist to this day, and its inhabitants are engaged in genetic engineering and even space flights.
It is also argued that the American High Jump Polar Expedition (1946-1947) was in fact a military operation to eliminate the German base. Sensationalists say that the landing on the coast of Queen Maud Land was destroyed, and the ships were bombed. One of the destroyers was even sunk, and the Nazis also destroyed nine American aircraft. Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd was forced to enter into negotiations with the Germans and accept their terms.
And in 1948, according to the supporters of the existence of "Base-211", the Americans again tried to destroy the Nazis entrenched in Antarctica and again received a fierce rebuff: unknown "discs" destroyed four aircraft and one warship. In addition, the participants in the operation witnessed some strange atmospheric phenomena, and many received mental disorders.
There is also a rather romantic hypothesis that the inhabitants of Base-211 found some representatives of a surviving ancient civilization in Antarctica. They allegedly gave the Germans secret technologies like the aforementioned "discs".
By the way, conspiracy theories are so numerous and varied that, according to one of them, the Nazis built their bases, and also conducted top-secret experiments in the Arctic. But we will tell you about this next time.
Is the gate to hell in Antarctica?
It is about this that they sometimes like to write in the esoteric press. The notorious Russian astrologer Pavel Globa, for example, talks about a legend according to which Ahriman, the progenitor of Lucifer, was overthrown from heaven, broke through the firmament and got stuck in the center of the Earth, where hell is now. In Zoroastrianism there is even a specific geographic reference, says Globa: Ahriman found himself in the southernmost point of the globe, namely in Antarctica. It is there, according to legend, that the gates of hell are sealed by mountains of ice. These very mountains prevent the demonic army from reaching the surface of the Earth. At times Ahriman shakes the planet trying to get out …
In the same legend, it is reported that people are forbidden to approach the gates of hell, so as not to become voluntary or involuntary accomplices of devilish forces. Globa refers to an ancient prophecy that says: a person's closeness to these gates will give birth to heresy in the heads of peoples, and will also lead to wars and revolutions.
Further, the astrologer puts forward the assumption that the ancient prophecy has already come true several times, and therefore Antarctica is almost the most dangerous place on Earth. Here are just a few examples. In 1774, the notorious James Cook, moving south, saw a huge number of ice islands. And two years later, the thirteen colonies of Great Britain declare their separation from the mother country, and a new state appears on the world map. I think everyone understood that this is precisely the United States of America.
Globa almost directly connects the Antarctic expeditions of the 19th century with the emergence of communist ideas, which later led to revolutions and the "red terror" in Russia. And three years after the expeditions of Amundsen and Scott, one of the worst wars in the history of mankind broke out in the world. The astrologer connects, among other things, the death of the Titanic with the influence of Antarctica, referring also to historians who perceive this event as “a symbolic beginning of the plunge into chaos of the entire European civilization”. The researcher also notes the almost complete coincidence of the date of the beginning of World War with the beginning of the Imperial Transantarctic Expedition. Here, however, Globa makes an inaccuracy, saying that the "eve of war" coincides with the expedition: generally recognized and trustworthy scientific sources claim that the First World War began on July 28,and the Imperial Expedition on August 8th.
Misfortunes haunt humanity after the First World War. As soon as the American Richard Byrd made the first flight over the South Pole in 1929, the Great Depression immediately began in the United States. Around the same time, collectivization began in Soviet Russia, and in Germany, a few years later, Adolf Hitler came to power …
What else do astrologers and journalists, eager for sensations, frighten us with?
In the mid-1990s, Russian scientists discovered the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica - Lake Vostok. It measures approximately 250 by 50 meters, the estimated area is 15 and a half thousand square kilometers, and the depth is more than 1200 meters. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that, according to scientists, it was isolated from the earth's surface for several million years. From external factors, the reservoir has protected and continues to protect a four-kilometer ice shell. That is why living organisms unknown to science can inhabit the oxygen-saturated waters of Lake Vostok.
Of course, living organisms are not necessarily surviving dinosaurs and cross-finned fish. These are also various microbes, bacteria and disease-causing viruses. It is they who, according to fans of sensations, can cause terrible epidemics. You can, of course, imagine an eerie apocalyptic picture: researchers who have drilled a four-kilometer ice shell become infected with an unknown ailment, the disease spreads to Australians, New Zealanders, South Americans … Doctors are trying to cope with a terrible virus devastating cities, but in vain … Imagine? Now think carefully: the average air temperature in Antarctica, even on the warmest days on the coast, does not exceed zero degrees Celsius, and in the interior of the mainland there are always negative values,the permanent population of Antarctica does not exceed a thousand people … Continue or enough? "Terrible epidemics" of ancient diseases, awakened by careless scientists - all this is more like a Hollywood disaster movie from the "Look and forget" series.
Erebus Volcano, located on Antarctic Ross Island, is the southernmost active volcano on the planet. The ozone hole over Antarctica, which periodically they like to scare us, is caused precisely by the activity of Erebus - from the fractures of the earth's crust, at the intersection of which the volcano is located, periodically powerful emissions of deep gases occur, which, reaching the stratosphere, destroy ozone. And the minimum thickness of the ozone layer is observed precisely over the Ross Sea, where Erebus is located. In 1979, a fire-breathing mountain caused a plane crash: a DC-10 passenger plane of the New Zealand airline Air New Zealand crashed into the slope of the volcano. Then 257 people died.
There probably won't be anything else to blame Erebus for. However, the role of another “doomsday machine” was also invented for him: in the media one can sometimes come across assertions that the Antarctic volcano is so terrible and dangerous that the Yellowstone Caldera, in comparison with it, is a kid next to a basketball player. Like, if Erebus really wakes up, then "the gates of hell will open, and hordes of demons will come to the surface of the Earth." The planet, accordingly, will come full kaput. But most interestingly, Erebus is not at all the largest volcano on Earth - this honor belongs to Mount Ojos del Salado in the Chilean Andes. Perhaps this reverence for a volcano in Antarctica originated from its name? Let us explain: the mountain was named after the ancient Greek god Erebus, who was born from Chaos.
The curse of the continent
The end of the world is prophesied to us all the time. In my memory alone, the “end of the world” was announced at least ten times - the most peak moments fell on the millennium (2000) and the ever-memorable 2012th. But even after the Earth survived, despite the "Mayan prophecy", lovers to scare honest people more than once turned to the old proven horror stories about asteroids, comets and "acid nebulae".
And amid all this, the "curse of Antarctica" looks like something really fresh and interesting. Against the background of an unstable political situation in the world, a shortage of fresh water and other resources, speculations on the topic of the Arctic and Antarctic have turned out to be more relevant than ever. It was then that the half-forgotten legends about the Nazis in the ice of the southern continent begin to be remembered, as well as new ones about the Third World War arise because of the Arctic. The funny thing is that some conspiracy theorists sometimes even confuse the Arctic and Antarctic.
Because of the supposed curse of the continent, astrologers and conspiracy theorists suggest that politicians and scientists “do not touch Antarctica” so as not to awaken “universal evil” and thereby not destroy the planet. Someone does this to create a buzz and draw attention to their person or publication. And some are quite serious in their intentions.
That is why, before succumbing to panic, we recommend that you look into serious literature and check loud statements for "lice". Believe me, sometimes just a school textbook is enough.
Sergey Savinov