It is the coldest, bleakest place on Earth, with recorded temperatures of more than 80° below zero, enshrouded in eternal ice, with immense mountain ranges enclosing vast tracts of blinding white desert, hurricane-force snow storms and darkest mysteries. With its 14 million square kilometers, Antarctica is twice the size of Australia and the fifth largest continent. Discovered by Russian explorers in 1820, its population never exceeds 5.000 people during the summer when the various countries' bases fill with military personnel, researchers and scientists. Many tales have been woven about a hidden mystery deep under the snows of Antarctica and its over three kilometer thick ice shelf. Some of them may reach far into the mythical past; others may have the most unexpected political overtones. Eight countries - Argentina, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Norway - lay territorial claims kept on hold under the 1961 Antarctic Treaty.

The facts are that we do not really know much about the "White Continent" as it is often dubbed, and only occasionally does some scientific news piece reach the media, as occurred earlier this year on February 7th, when the Russian Confederation's global news service RT - Russia Today - ran a story (http://rt.com/news/vostok-lake-drill-process-703/) reporting on the results of a 30-year drilling project undertaken by Russian engineers and geologists through 3.7 kilometers of ice, that had reached a gigantic sub-glacial, lake that had laid isolated for 20 million years. Named "Lake Vostok", its absolutely pure water may contain life forms totally different from the surface environment.

Back to the Future

On an Archetypical level, in his book "Who beckons us from the Ice", Chilean diplomat and author Miguel Serrano described his experiences during a voyage to Antarctica in 1947 as part of the Chilean Navy's annual exploration team. He described a "New Antarctica" saying that "it may be the revelation of Old Atlantis; before that and after that, there is only water..." in the Eternal Return; suggesting cataclysmic polar inversions "occurring in the Eons of Time, North becomes South and South becomes North."

As many today have come to realize, Serrano too knew that planet Earth is not just a lifeless astronomical sphere wandering through the heavens, but as "Gaia" is very much alive and we are rooted in Her. He spoke of "Those who call from the icy fields of Antarctica": a signpost, perhaps, pointing to a deep and subtle Archetypical function of Antarctica on the "map" of Mankind's psyche?

Similarly but with a taste of Gothic horror, two American novelists wrote about unnerving creatures and hidden mysteries lurking in the cold Antarctic nights and icy sheets. Edgar Allan Poe published "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" in 1838 describing an adventure to Antarctica where a stowaway on the ship Jane Guy, encounters strange ancient ruins and even stranger creatures in a "labyrinth of hills, and strange markings on the walls purported to be the Egyptian hieroglyphs for 'white' and 'Region of the South'...".

This theme sprang up again a century later when in 1936 Howard P. Lovecraft, wrote "At the Mountains of Madness" published inAstounding Stories magazine. In it, he described the tale of William Dyer, a geology professor at the elusive "Miskatonic University" of Rhode Island, USA, taking part in a scientific expedition to Antarctica who flew his airplane far beyond uncharted mountain ranges higher than the Himalayas, where he discovered unfathomably ancient ruins and labyrinths of inhuman size and shape. Their walls, covered with strange hieroglyphs led him to underground and under-ice terrors of remnants of creature forms still lurking in those dark, evil passages: "The Elder Things", as they were called ...

Lovecraft's novel is eerily prescient of "Operation Highjump", the American expedition to Antarctica that would be launched right after World War II under the command of US Navy Admiral Richard E Byrd.

Who's down there, anyway?

Today we encounter the "UFO" - unidentified flying objects - phenomenon that sprang up with force right after World War II, where Antarctica became a source of many such sightings, triggering speculation and lore as to what these "objects" are and who might be manning them. Extraterrestrials... or perhaps something closer to home?

Discreet remnants of a technologically superior ancient human or non-human terrestrial civilization living in underground cities in the hollows of the Earth, who from their lofty superiority understandably want to have nothing to do with us, surface people? A possibility...

Then there's all that talk about secret German Third Reich bases...

If we separate myth from truth, we find there are many things definitely worth investigating that may be key pieces in a jigsaw-puzzle still waiting to be put together. Let's start with the myriad UFO sightings that have been reported over the past decades and remain to date officially "unexplained". In an article called "Close Encounters in Antarctica", published in issue No. 177 (May 2011) of the Brazilian magazine "UFO", Argentine researcher Carlos Alberto Iurchuk describes a conversation he had in a Buenos Aires café with José Raúl Bortolamedi, a cook stationed in Argentina's "Almirante Guillermo Brown" Base in Antarctica in 1981 saying that "Around April or May, the cook remarked casually that around 17:00 hours he saw a plane flying in absolute silence - at least he didn't hear any sound whatsoever, being in the kitchen and all - approach the center of the bay, make an abrupt turn, and pull away."

He then adds how "Raul continued his story in an almost solemn tone of voice...: 'Its altitude was estimated as being relatively low, between 100 and 300 meters, and it turned approximately 45 degrees.' The cook was startled by the silence and abruptness with which the maneuver was executed. There was no news about any expected flights, since arrivals of commercial or scientific flights, or those of any other nature, were generally announced... But that wasn't the only unknown presence during his stay at the base. After drinking his coffee, he continued: "In the summer, while the necessary arrangements were being made for the departure of chemists and biologists at the base's dock, the presence of an object similar to a bean, executing a falling leaf maneuver, was noticed directly over the base. The time it remained visible is hard to estimate, but it was from 2 to 5 minutes."

The writer of this article also makes a special reference to the official acknowledgement by the Argentinean Navy of what he describes as "The most significant incident involving an unidentified flying object, mainly due to its consequences, that occurred on 3rd July 1965 at the Argentinean Naval Base on Decepción Island. According to the story told by Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Perissé, who was in charge of the base, they saw an object moving silently. "While it seemed solid, there was a certain lack of precision to its shape, sometimes lenticular and at others circular. Its visual aspect, of course, could have been affected by an atmospheric refraction phenomenon that could have resulted in an apparent deformation of its characteristics." What is most notable is that the Argentinean Navy acknowledged this event in two communiqués that were issued subsequently.

The total absence of sound and variations in speed are highlighted, along with the fact that "it remained suspended for one minute." While sightings of this flying object occurred at night, the meteorological conditions for the area, according to the initial communiqué could be "considered exceptional for the time of year." It should also be noted that it was seen at the Destacamento Naval Argentino Orcadas, located on Laurie Island in the South Orkneys, and "at the moment in which the object passed over that point. Two variometers (magnetic field readers) in service at the time recorded disturbances to the magnetic field, captured on the tapes of both devices," according to the second Argentinean naval communiqué. Argentina has been present in Antarctica continuously for over a century ever since it founded the White Continent's very first permanent base, the Destacamento Naval Orcadas in 1904.

Of course, all of this proves nothing really, but merely deepens the Antarctic Mysteries even further. As we put the various pieces together - or at least in close proximity of each other - we realize that a dot-joining exercise might prove fruitful, especially since today's global mass media, mass education and mass brain-washing often coaxes us into joining those dots in whatever way they want. There are, however, other possible ways of putting this picture together, if you only use your intellectual freedom to take a fresh look at the facts and dare to join those dots in other, more plausible ways.

A German Connection?

For example, much has been said of an alleged German presence, even bases, in Antarctica. It is a fact that National Socialist Germany did explore and claim a part of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, renaming it "Neuschwabenland" - New Swabia - back in 1938/1939. The expedition was led by Alfred Ritscher, a captain in the German Kriegsmarine, and amongst its official discoveries are the ice-free Schirmacher Oasis and at least two ice-free mountain ranges.

Not much is known of what took place at Neuschwabenland in the years after that initial official expedition, but it certainly sparked speculation that the SS-Schutzstaffeln and its secretive SS-Ahnenerbe Bureau that researched into ancient Germanic traditions and their counterparts in other ancient civilizations and traditions, may have run special programs in Antarctica jointly with Germany's Armed Forces and scientific community.

Thus grew the idea pointing to Third Reich underground and under-ice bases in Antarctica allegedly established in the 1940's, that developed vastly and are powerfully active even today. Should even a part of this mythical lore turn out to be true, the traumatic consequences this would have for the Western Allies and their entire officially mandatory post-World War II history and Weltanschauungwould be devastating and potentially fatal for them.

History tells us that early in May 1945, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz - commander of the Third Reich's submarine fleet, an exceptional man whom Hitler named as his successor - ordered Generals Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel to sign unconditional surrender with the Allies at Reims in France, accepting the full occupation and territorial dismemberment of Germany, thus signing the Third Reich out of History.

Now, imagine the consequences if it were to become known that key German bases outside Germany were not included in that capitulation, and that Third Reich leaders were able to whisk away most of their scientific and technological developments - perhaps their most important and top secret projects - off to some faraway place... To Antarctica, for example...

Surprisingly (or not), mysterious UFO sightings like the one described by Argentine Antarctic personnel, began turning up all over the world right after Germany's capitulation over the skies of the US, Britain, Argentina, South Africa, Chile, Brazil and other countries. Might it be that all these years the US, UK and Western Powers have been very busy denying and hiding the truth about these events - whether at Roswell, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base or Area 51?

Were Hollywood and the movie industry commissioned to generate a widespread belief in a mythical "explanation" that these UFO's are "space ships from other worlds", and then feed global public opinion with ET's "a la carte"?

In other words, that Hollywood and the whole motion-picture Sci-Fi industry has been purposely feeding us ET's, satisfying everyone's imagination, fancy and even fears? Think about it: over the past 67 years Hollywood has offered us ET's of every flavor and variety one can imagine (even some we would never imagine): green Martian aliens, peaceful ET's, warlike Klingdons, Oozing bubbly aliens, pointed-eared Spocks, drooling Aliens, superior, inferior, playful, and death-ray aliens...

Why would they do that? Perhaps in order to engineer and prepare the global collective psyche to the "great earth-shattering announcement" that may be coming any day now, when the global media will sound their "Breaking News" alarms "officially" reporting that the US, UK and allies are in contact with "technologically superior beings from other worlds, which do exist after all and we are in contact with them".

Naturally, when those "aliens" said "take me to your leader" that naturally meant they were whisked off to meet Obama, Cameron, Holande, Netanyahu and other "credible Western leaders" (predictably, they probably won't be asking to meet Vladimir Putin, Hu-Jintao or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...).

If that were to happen now, the better part of world public opinion would readily and willingly accept this to be true. Most would say, "I knew it all along!" Vast expectation - predictable and thus controllable and manageable - would be generated.

But look at the flipside of that coin and imagine what would happen if the Western Powers were forced to announce something much less far-fetched, and yet far more explainable, in the sense that yes, those elusive UFO's do exist; but no, they're not Martians and yes, they are German artifacts developed by those nasty Third Reich people and their descendents who have the technological prowess and superiority to fly over any city, any military base in the US, UK, Russia, China or whenever they so desire.

Much more surprising and vastly more difficult to explain would be the fact that, if such a German force did have vast technological superiority they nevertheless:

(a) Did not use it in 1945 to allow the Third Reich's political leadership to win World War II;
(b) Did not use it to create a post-War "Fourth Reich" as the Americans thought Argentine president Juan Perón was about to do after he became president in 1946, and
(c) Did not use it since the end of World War II in any aggressive way or for political gain against anybody.

That would completely demolish official Western "history" and explanations about the Third Reich with its Hollywoodesque satanic Hitlers and SS officers bent on war, torture, assassination and genocide. They would then be forced to tell the truth about what really did trigger World War II, why the Allies delivered Central Europe to Soviet domination, how they waged hundreds of wars since 1945 costing over 100 million deaths and still counting, what Germany's highly successful non-usurious work-based monetary system was all about, and a very long list of unexplainable (for them) etceteras...

They know that they just would not be able to cope with that, so one can read in between the lines that they prefer to "just stick to the green Martians theory and forget the other stuff..."

That fear seems to be deeply embedded in their brains, for they probably don't know what the people manning those air ships are really thinking and plan on doing, or what unpleasant surprises may be just around the corner for them.

Why, even Russia Today in the article quoted above could not help but add that in its report on Lake Vostok that "... the breakthrough has given new hope to those searching for a secret base built by the Nazis in the ice cover of the same lake. Grand Admiral Karl Dontiz told Adolf Hitler in 1943 that "Germany's submarine fleet is proud that it created an unassailable fortress for the Fuhrer on the other end of the world." It was even speculated that the remains of Hitler and his wife Eva Braun were transported to the base. Perhaps, the mission will now discover the base near the lake, though this appears somewhat unlikely."

Add to that the scores of Admiral Dönitz's submarines that sailed from German and European bases at the end of the War, most of which are unaccounted for. Four of them, in fact, landed relatively near Antarctica, in Argentina when Perón was vice-president; two of them - the U977 and U530 - reached the waters near the Atlantic resort city of Mar del Plata home to Argentina's own submarine fleet. Their unrevealed cargoes unloaded, their crews interned, and their rusted hulls later delivered to US authorities.

Operation High Jump: Task Force 68

Much of this was also fueled by Admiral Byrd's Operation High Jump Antarctic Expedition of August 1946 that was cut short after his flotilla of 13 war ships, scores of aircraft and 4700 soldiers ran into "unexpected problems".

In an interview with Lee van Atta of the International News Service aboard the Expedition's command ship USS Mount Olympus published on the March 5, 1947 edition of Chile's main newspaper "El Mercurio" we learn that "Admiral Richard E. Byrd warned that the United States should adopt measures of protection against the possibility of an invasion of the country by hostile planes coming from the polar regions. The admiral explained that he was not trying to scare anyone, but the cruel reality is that in case of a new war, the United States could be attacked by planes flying over one or both poles... Talking about the recently completed expedition, Byrd said that the most important result of his observations and discoveries is the potential effect that they have in relation to the security of the United States. The fantastic speed with which the world is shrinking - recalled the admiral - is one of the most important lessons learned during his recent Antarctic exploration. I have to warn my compatriots that the time has ended when we were able to take refuge in our isolation and rely on the certainty that the distances, the oceans, and the poles were a guarantee of safety."

Germany's ability to build deep underground installations is a proven fact as the Ohrdruf installations in Germany proved. These installations were captured by US General George Patton in April 1945. Colonel Robert Allen who accompanied him, in his book, "The History of Patton's US 3rd Army", described them as amazing: "They were literally subterranean towns. There were four in and around Ohrdruf: one near the camp, one under the Schloss, and two west of the town. Others were reported in near-by villages. None were natural caves or mines. All were man-made military installations. An interesting feature of the construction was the absence of any spoil. It had been carefully scattered in hills miles away. Over 50 feet underground, the installations consisted of two and three stories several miles in length and extending like the spokes of a wheel. The entire hull structure was of massive reinforced concrete. Purpose of the installations was to house the High Command after it was bombed out of Berlin. This places also had paneled and carpeted offices, scores of large work and store rooms, tiled bathrooms with bath tubs and showers, flush toilets, electrically equipped kitchens, decorated dining rooms and mess halls, giant refrigerators, extensive sleeping quarters, recreation rooms, separate bars for officers and enlisted personnel, a moving picture theatre, and air-conditioning and sewage systems."

Conclusion: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid...!)

Did the Germans do something similar but on a far vaster scale elsewhere? In Antarctica maybe? Is today's mass media speculation about little green men in UFO's just a smoke screen?

We've all hear about Ockham's Principal or "razor" as it is called, that tells us that, given all options the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable and that an explanation for unknown phenomena should first be attempted in terms of what is already known.

If "UFO technologies" - probably implosion-based - were in the hands of the US and UK (as micro- and nano-electronic technologies are today), then no doubt they would have used them to further their New World Order global social control agenda. But it appears that they do not have them; so how can we explain that somebody out there wields technologies and knowledge that far, far outrun what the US, UK, Israel, Russia, China and Europe can muster today?

Put yourself in their shoes: if you had to explain the unexplainable, it would probably be safer to dream up an attractive lie even based on half-truths that the gullible masses will readily believe, rather than having to cope with an unconfessable Truth. An old report on engineering World Government allegedly commissioned in 1967 under the Lyndon B Johnson Administration by then defense secretary Robert McNamara of Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations and World Bank fame called "The Report from Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of World Peace", pointed out that the US and UK can only thrive on "permanent war". To ensure continuity of what it called the global "War System", a handy, controllable "Enemy" must always be at hand "ready to attack us" in order to justify why for the Western Powers peace is never an option.

Almost half a century ago, amongst the options for such an Enemy that this Report recommended is creating a new, non-human enemy, in other words a potential threat of an extra-terrestrial civilization...

What would Ockham's Principle recommend that we think? Which is, in fact, the more plausible explanation? Aside from the mysterious connections of Antarctica with Man's Archetypical psychic "geography" pointing to very ancient psychic contents reaching back into a time before Man even walked the Earth. The "downward" voyage to Antarctica may even serve the same function as the "journey's to the center of the Earth" that cropped up in other 19th Century works such as Jules Verne's famous novel, or Bulwer-Lytton's "The Coming Race" which speaks of superior intra-terrestrial beings that wield a mysterious psychic force called "Vril", or in Richard Wagner's first "Ring of the Nibelungs" opera, "Das Rheingold", where the gods Wotan and Loge go on a dark subterranean journey to Nibelheim, the underground abode of the Nibelungs, passing through huge caves and sulfurous corridors...

Antarctica still holds many unrevealed secrets; about our own psychic past as well as damning truths about the forces shaping our present world.

--Adrian Salbuchi
Buenos Aires, June 2012

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Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV commentator in Argentina. www.asalbuchi.com.ar