Should I ever win the Lotto, one of the things on my ‘to do’ list, (apart from financing a range of assassinations and promoting civil unrest to bring a Fight Club-style Project Mayhem to attack this criminally useless overfed current government) — is item number 24: ‘Purchase, rig a yacht and head to the Antarctic’.
You may not know this but the Antarctic is only around 3 000 kilometres south of Port Elizabeth. It’s close enough to go snooping. Why? Well apart from going somewhere which hopefully will never have a Big Mac sign – it’s the site of a mystery known as Lake Vostok. Ice Station Vostokand for a simple crash course, try Vostok:
Picture a huge ice-sealed underground lake, around four kilometres beneath the ice — about 140 kilometres long and 40 or so kilometres wide (around 14 000 square kilometres). The lake itself is kilometers deep in places, and above its entire length, is a large sloping dome of ice, thousands of feet high. The water temperature is between 13 and 16 degrees — so the lake is being heated somehow. This entire lake, with whatever is in the water, has been hermetically sealed for (depending on who you speak to) between 13 000 years and 14 million years. So it’s a time capsule of gigantic proportions — and whatever’s inside it, is unknown.
Now added to this mind-blowing concept, is an unknown magnetic ‘anomaly’ — as the scientists put it — covering the Southeast ‘shore’ of this underground lake. The ‘anomaly’ is many kilometres wide. Magnetic Anomaly
Whatever is down there, also appears to have changed the shape of the ice-dunes high above it — as can be seen in satellite pictures.
Nasa got involved, as the complex task of examining the interior of the Lake was a useful training exercise for their planned mission to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa. After digging just a quarter of the way down towards the Lake, read the announcement from 1998 about the ‘exotic microbes’ found — Nasa Gets Involved And here’s the initial announcement of the programme to examine ways of penetrating the Lake, which were scheduled to have started in 1999.
And then for a BBC report from 1999, showing the positive approach at the time — Alien Antarctic Life.
Then whispers started emerging of something odd going on. In December 2000, US National Public Radio reported that someone had become ‘disoriented’ and was spreading stories of an Antarctic UFO landing — the person responsible was ‘deported’ on the next plane out. NPR Article Archive
Then came a series of ‘accidents’, and ‘medical emergencies’ — three scientists have died over the last few years in the Antarctic, including the Russian discoverer of the above-mentioned oddly shaped dunes. You may also recall the reports of the ‘medical emergencies’ which required evacuation at McMurdo Base of initially four persons, then five and finally 12. Read Medical Evacuation from Pole (if that link’s down, use the mirror.
Here’s a CNN report covering the rescue of one of the ‘ailing doctors’ — you’ll note the article refers to the rescuing of a total of eleven assorted individuals, for unspecified reasons. Medical Emergency.
Then Nasa seemed to abruptly be very reluctant to take part in the project — read this report from March 2001, and notice how Nasa is slowing down the research of Lake Vostok.
Then things got weirder, if that’s possible. Nasa abruptly stopped all mapping of the lake — and their representative at the press conference alluded to “National Security Issues” allowing the NSA (the ultra-secret and very powerful National Security Agency) to assume full control of the project, and a wall of secrecy descended — read What Is Happening At The South Pole
and Lake Vostok Mapping Stopped.
Here’s an informative article about Vostok, which features flash animation showing a theoretical explanation for part of what’s down there — at least in a geological sense: Vostok Flash.
As recently as May last year, there was a brief piece of news that three nations had agreed to share a piece of ice core taken from above the lake (which apparently has still not been penetrated).
For a forum dealing with some of the issues — read the back and forth arguments at Mysterious Lake Vostok.
And if you’re curious about how to get to the Antarctic, read Going to the Antarctic.
For more info, try A Virtual Tour of Mcmurdo and fly past Your Stay.
All of the above is factually verifiable with nary a whisper or comment from the local science writers. (Actually, come to think of it — I don’t think there are any science writers in the local media) Point being, the conspiracy theories are justifiably spreading about what was and is actually happening a few thousand kilometres south of us.
Now let’s widen the Antarctic focus a bit. Here’s a piece of online reading covering an aspect of history that has probably been deliberately hidden. Its an excerpt by a Jane’s Defense Weekly editor Nick Cook (Jane’s being the acknowledged final word in authoritative reporting on military matters).
The book deals with the search for the truth on Nazi antigravity and ‘flying saucer’ experiments — and what emerges, suggests that history needs a rewrite.
(A smoking gun to show how advanced the German technology was, that is overlooked by historians, is the case of the U-Boat that was captured with enriched uranium onboard. It’s never pointed out that therefore, the Nazi’s must have had some kind of working nuclear reactor. The book above gives evidence that — even as early as 1944 — the Nazi’s did have guided missiles, anti-aircraft laser weaponry, automatic flying vehicles, ‘stealth’ technology and more.)
In a perhaps related link — especially given the exodus towards Argentina by the Third Reich in the dying days of the war (Argentina being very convenient as a leaping off point to the South Pole) — is the large scale ‘invasion’ of the Antarctic by Admiral Byrd, in 1946/7. The US sent a large fleet of — depending on who you read — between 13 and 40 warships to the Antarctic. This was called Operation High Jump, and officially was merely to conduct ‘training exercises’.
Unofficially though, some searches on ‘operation high jump’ online will bring up a wide range of stories, ranging from crazy to merely weird. For an overview of an alternative history, that may set you to thinking — read How High Can You Jump?.
Maybe H P Lovecraft was right about monstrous secrets hidden under the ice. Go read the fascinating article called The Lake of Shadows.
Enough of ice — now let’s go to occupied Palestine for an horrific story that world media mostly ignored. Another American was killed recently by the Israeli Army — and not surprisingly — you may not have heard about it. The woman was Rachel Corrie, and she was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer. Grit your teeth and look at the photographs at Rachel Corrie
More pix are available at The Death of Rachel.
To read her last email to friends and family back home, go to this report by the Guardian newspaper – Rachel’s War. And read the eyewitness accounts. Not content with casual murder, read what the Israeli’s did at the woman’s funeral service — at Activist Service Disrupted.
Locally we’ve had quite a lot of experience with neo-Nazi troops killing whoever they want, in ‘unrest’ situations, here’s another report of IDF troops shooting witnesses. Read (if Yahoo hasn’t yanked the story-link) Man Shot While Watching Troops.
Alright, I’ll mention the current war: People forget that in recent history, a small nation poorly armed, totally outnumbered — but with a sense of outrage as motivation, managed to kick the ass of America — in Vietnam. So let’s see if history repeats itself in the coming months. For now, browse the various uncensored weblogs to get the real story — starting with Wired magazine’s Weblog To War?
Then bookmark and check in regularly at Back To Iraq.
You won’t hear this on CNN — but given that at least 40% of Gulf War 1 veterans, thanks to radiation poisoning, are on disability pensions — time will tell what happens to the current bunch of patriotic Americans who are ‘just following orders’. For information on the radiation they’re breathing in, read Depleted Uranium
Until the next time, if the cold doesn’t get me.
Ian Fraser is a playwright, author, comedian, conspiracy nut, old-time radio collector and self-confessed data-junkie. Winner of numerous Vita and Amstel Awards, he’s been an Internet addict and games-fanatic since around 1995, when the Internet began to make much more sense than theatre.