Operation Highjump

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With how tight-lipped our militaries and respective governments tend to be, historical records of military expeditions, operations, and discoveries are often trapped behind protective barriers, or otherwise their published pages have been heavily redacted with lines of black ink.

This lack of overall transparency, combined with some very real mysteries encountered by our militaries, often invites speculation as to what the true nature of these secretive missions and discoveries really is, and what was seen by those involved.

And this is the case with the well-known American military expedition to Antarctica in 1947.

On the surface, it was nothing more than routine surveys and a cold weather training exercise.

But over the last 80 years, there are some that believe that our governments are hiding something, that the naval personnel sent to Antarctica found something in the ice.

Whether it was a hidden Nazi fortress protected by advanced weaponry, or an entirely different race of highly advanced ancient beings living deep below the Earth's surface,

this is the story of Operation High Jump and the discovery of Hollow Earth.

I'm Luke Lamana, and this is Wartime Stories.

Welcome to the Antarctic.

Located at the southernmost point on the globe, Antarctica is the world's fifth-largest continent, consisting of five and a half million square miles of what can only be described as polar desert.

Despite its large size, the continent is mostly uninhabited.

Unless you're a penguin, a marine mammal, or a form of moss, few species are adapted to survive here.

Antarctica is one of the most hostile environments on Earth.

With the strongest winds on the planet, its temperatures can plunge as low as negative 128 degrees Fahrenheit.

or negative 89.2 degrees Celsius.

Despite these facts, Antarctica has long been the target of human interest.

For many explorers, researchers, and opportunists from all over the world, the Antarctic has been considered the world's final frontier of exploration.

It was seen as an untouched land, potentially flowing with natural resources.

The nation who managed to conquer it could bring on itself great prestige and economic wealth.

In the early years of the 19th century, the competing European powers of the day would launch numerous expeditions south in what became known as the heroic age of Antarctic exploration.

The turn of the 20th century would see another surge in Antarctic expeditions.

British, French, Belgian, Norwegian, Swedish, Japanese, and American flags were raised on the continent.

While none of these countries made any formal territorial claims, a number of them succeeded in maintaining a semi-permanent presence in the form of small research stations or fisheries.

The Norwegian expeditions were especially successful, with Norway Norway maintaining a fleet of whaling vessels operating out of a base on the Antarctic coast.

But between these two periods of exploration, during the late 1930s, a much more infamous character had his eyes set on the continent's resources.

Adolf Hitler

By the winter of 1938, Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy knew that the war was inevitable.

As a result, the Germans began to search for a means to self-sustain their natural resources.

Since hostilities hadn't broken out yet, Germany still relied on trade with other countries in order to feed its economy and to provide its citizens with various goods.

Many of these goods, such as butter, milk, cream, lard, and margarine, relied heavily on imports of various oils and fat.

These comestibles would certainly be cut off as soon as their invasions began.

Looking to provide their own supply, the Nazis, watching the success of the Norwegian whaling industry, organized an expedition south, hoping to capitalize on the same Antarctic fishing grounds.

The mission was considered top secret and was led by Captain Alfred Richer, a decorated naval veteran of the First World War.

He was tasked with locating a suitable spot on the frigid coastline to construct a whaling base.

The expedition would be spearheaded by a single ship, the MS Schwabenland, and contained a crew of 82 experienced scientists, officers, and enlisted men, as well as two Dornier flying boats.

Setting sail from Hamburg in December of 1938, the Schwabenland would arrive off the Antarctic coast a month later, the crew disembarking in an area dubbed Queen Maudland by previous expeditions.

They began to scout the area, making great use of their two float planes in order to survey the largely unexplored land.

It was no small task.

Through a series of flights, they would be covering an area far larger than the size of their German homeland.

Planting the Nazi flag in the snow, the Jubilant crew declared the region Neuschwabenland after their ship.

Aside from gathering some valuable scientific data, the Nazis' expedition failed in its mission.

Unable to find a suitable location to host a whaling base, the men set sail back to Germany in January of 1939.

With the outbreak of the war months later, on September 1st, 1939, Hitler abandoned the idea of maintaining a presence in the Antarctic.

Well, at least that's what official documentation says.

While the Nazis' Antarctic expedition was reportedly conducted with the express purpose of setting up fishing operations, this is just the kind of thing any covert military operation would do, create a believable cover story.

Some have speculated the mission's objectives were something much worse than keeping the German shelves stocked with butter.

According to these rumors, the Nazis never left Antarctica and had no plans to do so, not until they found what they were actually looking for, something that many today would consider a complete myth.

It should come as no surprise that the Nazis, especially Hitler himself, held some incredibly strange beliefs.

Many high-ranking Nazis had a great interest in mysticism, ancient folklore, and occult beliefs.

some of which were the foundation of their superiority complexes and their lesser view of other humans.

A core part of Nazi ideology is centered around the existence of an ancient master race, the Aryans.

The term Aryan does refer to a legitimate group of ancient Indo-European peoples, but it's a term which, like the Nazis' abuse of the swastika symbol, was misappropriated by the Nazis to change its original meaning.

In Nazi mythology, their version of the ancient Aryan people gave rise to all aspects of modern civilization, everything from sophisticated technology to fine arts.

Hitler believed that the German people were directly descended from this powerful race, and that this could be scientifically proven through anthropological study.

And that, he argued, made them superior to all others.

The Nazis were so convicted by this belief that they founded an entire organization whose only purpose was to find evidence validating it.

The organization was known as the Anenerbe, the Ancestral Heritage Society for the Study of the History of Primeval Ideas.

The German scholars assigned to it came from diverse disciplines.

Through studying ancient cultures, mystic rituals, and occult practices, they worked to construct a historical foundation that linked modern Germans to the Aryan bloodlines.

Despite engaging in what was widely seen as pseudoscience by the rest of the world's scientific communities, The Nazis dedicated large amounts of Germany's resources to Ananerbe expeditions, even during wartime.

But an ancient race of godlike humans wasn't their only focus.

Among their many beliefs, there was one known as the Hollow Earth Theory.

Championed by Nazi figureheads like Heinrich Himmler and archaeologist Rolf Hunne, the Hollow Earth Theory had first been presented hundreds of years earlier by an English astronomer, mathematician, and physicist, Edmund Halley.

In 1692, Halley proposed that the Earth might consist of a hollow shell about 800 kilometers or 500 miles thick.

Within that shell were two other layers, each divided by its own atmosphere, followed by a core at the planet's center.

These inner shells rotated at different speeds and had their own magnetic poles.

Halley suggested that this is what could be responsible for strange compass readings experienced by sailing ships.

He would further speculate that the gases released by the atmospheres contained within these inner layers manifested in the form of the aurora borealis.

In the following centuries, supporters of Halley's theory would add to the Hollow Earth narrative.

One of these was John Cleves Sims Jr., a former U.S.

Army captain and veteran of the War of 1812.

According to Sims, the space between the Earth's inner shells, possessing their own atmospheres, could possibly host life.

or entire undiscovered ecosystems, possibly even advanced civilizations.

Sims Sims would even go on to claim that this unseen world could even be accessed from the surface at two large openings, one in the North Pole and one in the south, hidden below the Antarctic ice.

Following these theories and their own desire to legitimize their beliefs, is it possible then that the Nazis, under the cover of setting up a fishing base, used their time in Antarctica to search for evidence of hollow Earth.

Or maybe it was simply the first of many covert expeditions meant to expand the Third Reich's presence on the continent, turning the mass of ice into an impenetrable fortress.

Hey, it's Luke, the host of Wartime Stories.

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On May 7th, 1945, the war in Europe came to an end with the surrender of Nazi Germany.

While thousands of German soldiers marched into Allied and Soviet captivity, certain members of the Nazi Party, now wanted men for their various war crimes, sought to escape justice.

Utilizing sophisticated escape networks known as rat lines, numerous high-ranking Nazi officials were smuggled out of Europe by the SS.

Once clear of Allied forces, the fugitives would be placed aboard U-boats or other vessels bound for safe havens in South America.

Speculation about the true scale of this operation intensified when two months after the Nazi surrender, a German U-boat designated U-530 arrived in the Argentine naval base of Mar del Plata.

The arrival of the submarine gave rise to a number of rumors, some stating that the U-boat had surrendered only after transporting a number of prominent Nazi figures, including Hitler and his wife Eva Braun and Martin Bormann, to the coast of Patagonia or the Antarctic.

About a week after the sub's arrival, Ladislaus Sabo, a Hungarian-born Jewish man then residing in Argentina, would further fan the flames of these theories.

In an article written for a local newspaper, Sabo wrote a detailed account of how Hitler and his closest affiliates escaped Germany, a claim he would later double down on in his 1947 book titled Hitler is Alive.

Sabo's article took the world by storm, and with the arrival of yet another U-boat in Margil Plata in August of 1945, this being U-977, the theories soon took on a life of their own.

With each new version of the story, the legend of the Nazi Antarctic base only grew larger.

In some renditions, the base serves as a kind of vault, housing the cremated ashes of Adolf Hitler, which had been smuggled out of Berlin just before its fall to the Soviets.

Hidden alongside these ashes are the many treasures and priceless artworks looted by the Nazis during their conquests.

Some even speculated that the Nazi regime was alive and thriving beneath the Antarctic ice, constructing a fortress from which they could rebuild the Third Reich.

While there were many who scoffed at these claims, theorists pointed to a series of quotes supposedly uttered by Carl Dunitz, the commander-in-chief of the German Navy.

According to authors Colonel Howard A.

Buechner and Captain Wilhelm Bernhardt, themselves both German veterans of World War II, Dunitz was quoted in 1943 as saying, The German submarine fleet is proud of having built for the Bura in a not the part of the World, a Shangri-La on Lent, an impregnable fortress.

For those who believe in the Antarctic base's existence, it is the final bastion of Nazi resistance.

Sheltered within the ice, the quote-unquote last battalion stood ready to fight.

armed with some of the Reich's most lethal and cutting-edge weaponry.

As they waited for the enemy, German scientists are said said to have continued their work on various prototype vehicles smuggled out of Germany, some of which, according to various rumors, were driven by anti-gravity technology far beyond that of their allied and Soviet counterparts.

But if such a massive operation even existed, it certainly wouldn't take long for Germany's enemies to notice and take action.

The Third Reich was bad enough, but a fourth?

Any possibility of the Nazis making a comeback would need to be put down immediately.

And it is here that the incredible story of Operation High Jump begins in 1946.

But rest assured, this is not where the story of Hollow Earth ends.

Quite the contrary.

It only gets deeper.

Operation High Jump is a known and documented fact.

The operation was launched on August 26, 1946, and was set to be the largest Antarctic expedition in history.

Spearheaded by the U.S.

Navy, the assembled task force was composed of 70 vessels, including icebreakers, supply ships, destroyers, submarines, and the aircraft carrier USS Philippine Sea.

Transported by the fleet were 33 aircraft, including a few helicopters, and 4,700 men ready to tackle the challenges of the Antarctic.

Over the course of the six-month expedition, the Navy hoped to accomplish a number of objectives, primarily centered around High Jump's official status as a training mission.

American personnel would spend time training in Antarctic survival and warfare, testing not only their own endurance, but also their equipment against extreme polar climate.

At the same time, the Navy hoped to determine the possibility of establishing and maintaining air bases on the continent, thereby expanding American sovereignty over the Antarctic.

Leading the expedition from the bridge of the USS Philippine Sea was Rear Admiral Richard E.

Byrd Jr.

Long before taking part in Operation High Jump, Admiral Byrd was no stranger to Antarctica and polar exploration.

In 1926, Byrd, then a young officer in the early days of naval aviation, was credited with being one of the first men to successfully fly to the North Pole in a grueling 15-hour flight.

Accomplishing this would make Byrd a national hero and earn him and his fellow pilot, Floyd Bennett, the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Two years later, Byrd's interest in polar exploration would take him south towards the Antarctic.

Leading a small group of explorers, Byrd's expedition would construct a small base, dubbed Little America, on the Ross Ice Shelf.

This was the same region that Operation High Jump would later take place.

Beginning in late August of 1946, the historical timeline for Operation High Jump states that the American task force arrived in the Antarctic in late December.

Once there, training and survey operations soon began as planned.

However, the mission, originally meant to last six months, was scrubbed much sooner, with the fleet sailing back into American waters by February the following year.

The Navy's reasons for calling the mission off were quite reasonable.

The Antarctic winter had come in early and conditions were just too dangerous to conduct any exercises.

But during an interview with International News Service journalist Lee Van Ada, Rear Admiral Byrd said a few things that struck readers as

unusual.

The interview appeared in the Wednesday, March 5th, 1947 edition of the Chilean newspaper El Mircurio.

In it, Lee recalls his discussion with Byrd.

Admiral Byrd declared today that it was imperative for the United States to initiate immediate defense measures against hostile regions.

Furthermore, Byrd stated that he didn't want to frighten anyone unduly, but that it was a bitter reality that in case of a new war, the continental United States would be attacked by flying objects, which could fly from pole to pole at incredible speeds.

Or at least, that is what some people who read the article may have translated it to say.

The original article was written in Spanish, and the line about flying objects reads as follows: El almirante explico que no quiere a ustar anadia, pero es una verdad amarga que en el caso de una nueva guera.

Los estaros uniros podriancer a tacaros por aviones, que pueden volar sobre uno o los dos polos.

Correctly translated, the term aviones is the Spanish word for aircraft, and que pueden volar sobre uno o los dos polos doesn't mean which could fly from pole to pole at incredible speeds, but rather it means that can fly over one or both poles.

With this being 1947, right after the end of World War II, with the dawn of the nuclear age and the race for nuclear weapons currently taking place, it seems obvious that Admiral Byrd was saying that a future enemy, perhaps the Communist Soviet Union, could potentially attack the U.S.

by flying over the North Pole, which had previously been considered too hazardous and difficult to fly.

But for those who took the Admiral's words in the article to refer to flying objects, they were taken as an ominous warning.

What was it about the Antarctic that made Byrd come to this conclusion?

Did the Navy find something while they were there, something that could pose a direct military threat to the United States?

According to a mysterious KGB report declassified by the Soviets in 1991, that was exactly the case.

Because Operation High Jump wasn't a simple Antarctic training exercise, that was only a cover story.

The Navy's actual intent for the mission was to locate and destroy a secret Nazi base.

A Nazi base that housed incredibly advanced aircraft.

Among the other various speculations and interpretations of the events of Operation High Jump, in 2006, a Russian documentary was aired titled Operation UFO, Nazis in Antarctica.

This documentary explores various conspiracy theories, including the idea that the expedition was not solely for scientific research, but also aimed at uncovering secret Nazi bases in Antarctica.

The documentary was based on the declassified KGB intelligence report from 1991, a report that speaks of a dramatic World War II confrontation between the American Naval Fleet and a squadron of advanced German aircraft.

The incident began when the U.S.

task force cruised through the Weddell Sea.

Men aboard the destroyer USS Brownson soon took notice of a cluster of five lights in the far distance.

They appeared to belong to some sort of unidentified aircraft, now on course to intercept the incoming ships.

Soon they were close enough to be picked up on the Brownson's radar.

The five unknown aircraft broke formation and flew over the American fleet at low altitude, displaying incredible speed and agility as they maneuvered around the tightly packed ships.

The American sailors were left dumbstruck by the craft, which they described as being saucer-shaped and aggressive in their flight patterns.

What's more, the aircraft had a distinguishable marking on their hulls.

a swastika.

Growing more and more anxious, the captain of the USS Brownson finally reached his limit, ordering his gunners to knock these mysterious planes out of the sky.

The thunder of the destroyer's guns was soon followed by the rest of the fleet, the swift aircraft then returning fire.

But rather than firing bullets or projectiles, their ships emitted beams of intense light and heat that melted and burned anything they touched.

All the American aircraft launched to counter these German saucers were swiftly knocked out of the sky, while another destroyer, the USS Maddox, was sunk.

Fires ignited by the German aircraft reached her primary magazine.

The resulting explosion tore the ship apart and reportedly killed all men on board.

While badly mauled by the air attack, the American fleet finally managed to shoot down one of the advanced German craft.

The kill was claimed by the submarine USS Sennet, whose crew managed to land a direct hit on one of the low-flying crafts with her deck gun.

The flaming saucer spun wildly out of control, slamming into the icy waters before erupting in a massive secondary explosion.

This was only a small victory.

The American force was hopelessly outgunned and sustaining heavy casualties.

With no other choice, a retreat was sounded, and what remained of the fleet limped back out to sea.

The report then concluded that since the American fleet was unable to successfully destroy the Nazis' Antarctic fortifications through conventional means, the U.S.

government resorted to a far more devastating approach.

Pulling from its ever-growing stockpile of nuclear weapons, the Americans would deliver the final blow by way of nuclear bombardment.

Three atomic weapons were said to have been dropped in Antarctica.

They made quick work of the Nazis' hidden fortifications, burying them deep beneath the ice.

Now, if anyone thought the story wasn't convoluted enough by this point, it keeps going.

Admiral, I still can't get through.

Nothing's working.

No signal, no static.

It's like the whole spectrum's just dead.

That doesn't make sense, Carter.

Keep trying.

Maybe boost the power.

Something has to get through.

But they're never going to believe this.

Green forests, the valleys,

and uh

the mammoth?

woolly mammoth, Admiral.

We both saw it through the binoculars, plain as day.

That thing's supposed to have been extinct for thousands of years.

How are we gonna explain any of this?

The boys back at baseboys back at base aren't gonna find out if we don't make radio contact.

First, let's focus on making it back in one piece.

Now, keep trying the radio.

My compass is out of whack.

Yes, sir, but I just can't get it.

Wait, Admiral, look ahead

My God Carter

Is that a city

a city way up here in the Arctic

But we're hundreds of miles

Admiral port side what in God's name starboard side too, sir There's another one a boxing us in our controls aren't responding What is this?

I can't move them.

Sir, the radio

Welcome, Admiral, to our domain.

We shall land you in exactly seven minutes.

Who are you and what have you done to our plane?

Relax, Admiral.

You are in good hands.

As a prominent explorer, Rear Admiral Byrd was known to keep a number of diaries containing notes on his various Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.

Since most of the official documents relating to Operation High Jump are still classified, curious minds have wondered if some of Byrd's own personal writings have also been hidden from the official Navy reports.

The legend of Byrd's so-called secret diary has persisted for many years, with a number of authors coming forward claiming to have caught a glimpse of its contents.

In author Tim Beckley's book, The Missing Diary of Admiral Richard E.

Byrd, a bizarre incident is detailed in which Byrd, behind the controls of a Navy scout plane over the Arctic, is flying due north.

Suddenly, he saw what appeared to be mountains and green valleys down below.

This was shocking, and Admiral Byrd journaled his reactions, saying it was unlike anything he'd ever seen.

He also noted that the sun was no longer visible.

and that the light was somehow different in this new environment.

Changing from his original course and altitude to begin inspecting the lush green hills below, he received another shock.

A large animal, which he quickly determined to be a woolly mammoth, was on the ground, alive and well.

Unable to establish radio contact with his base, the Admiral then realized he had lost control of his aircraft.

There were now two unusual aircraft flying alongside him, radiant in appearance, and marked with swastika symbols on their sides.

Terrified by the unusual unusual craft and the strange force that seemed to be holding his aircraft steady, that's when a voice crackled over his radio, speaking English in what he described as a Nordic or slight German accent.

The voice assured him that he was safe.

His plane was then escorted to a nearby city and vertically landed.

His last flight log entry in his diary was apparently made hastily as he watched several tall, blonde-haired men approaching his plane to greet him.

Byrd and his radio man were then escorted from the plane, being treated very cordially as guests.

Bird was very struck by the beauty and technological advancements of this strange crystal city and its people.

Admiral Byrd was then introduced to a key figure in their society called Master.

The man explained to Admiral Byrd where he had been taken to and why.

The city he was in was part of the domain of the Ariani, the inner world of the Earth.

Evidently, the Ariani people are well aware of the surface world, as the master called it, and also that Admiral Byrd was a well-known figure on the surface.

The master quickly got to the point of their meeting and warned Byrd about the dangers of humans and their experimentation with atomic energy.

He explained that the Ariani's interest in the surface began with the atomic bombs dropped over Japan, which prompted them to send flying machines to the surface to investigate what the humans were doing with atomic energy.

He referred to these flying machines as flugelrods.

These are apparently the UFOs and strange craft reported by people all over the world.

The master explained that all the world leaders had already been contacted and that Admiral Byrd, as a key government official, would be their chosen witness to verify that the inner world and its highly advanced race of people existed.

It seems that the Master wanted to impart a message of peace to the human race, saying that we cannot expect to survive if war and the use of nuclear weapons were to continue.

According to Tim Beckley's book, which recounts the Admiral's diary, as the Admiral was later escorted back to the Arctic surface, the departing pilot of the strange saucer-shaped escort craft said farewell, not in English, but in German.

We are leaving you now, Admiral.

Your controls are free.

Aufliedesin.

In all honesty, without ever knowing the validity of the author's sources, The missing diary of Admiral Richard E.

Byrd reads very much like an episode of the Dimension X radio series from the 1950s.

In fact, the very first episode for the Dimension X series was titled The Outer Limit and was aired on April 4th, 1950.

In the story, an experimental rocket plane vanishes during a test flight, and when it returns, the pilot is raving about having encountered an alien civilization that has been watching mankind dangerously toying with atomic weapons.

What are they saying, Steve?

What are they saying?

It's about nuclear fission.

They know about it.

They know the danger of it.

Long ago, they had wars that almost destroyed them.

But finally, they learned.

Now they've outlawed war.

Go on, Steve.

They patrol space.

When their detector picks up an atomic explosion, they send a patrol.

These aliens see mankind as a threat to the wider universe.

The aliens warn the pilot to tell all of humanity not to continue messing with atomic fission, or they will destroy the planet.

It's interesting that this episode aired only three years after Operation High Jump concluded in 1947.

The 1940s and 50s was a time in American culture when ideas about war, space travel, alien races, and nuclear destruction were a central topic in media and entertainment.

So perhaps the idea of Hollow Earth being discovered by a key military figure like Admiral Byrd in 1947 is somehow connected to this science fiction craze.

But the problem in reality is that Admiral Byrd cannot be in two places at once.

It is an indisputable fact that Admiral Byrd was involved with Operation High Jump, which concluded toward the end of February 1947.

But according to his diary entries, The supposed flight he took over the Arctic, which is at the North Pole, during which he encountered the Ariane people, is also recorded as taking place during that same month.

In the beginning of his diary, which was again not the original diary, but a book published in 1990 by an author who claimed to have read and transcribed his diary, Admiral Byrd and the accompanying photo captions clearly state that his flight north over the Arctic and his meeting with the Ariani took place in February 1947.

Remember that Byrd's harrowing first ever flight to the North Pole that won him a Medal of Honor was conducted 20 years before Operation High Jump in 1926.

Byrd apparently did make other flights over the Arctic in the 1920s.

Those are the only other recorded flights he made in that region.

Between 1947 and his death in 1957, with Byrd now being around 60 years old, Records don't seem to support the idea that he was still flying missions over the Arctic after the conclusion of Operation High Jump.

So why would his supposed diary say he was flying a scouting mission over the North Pole in February when he was supposed to be overseeing training and research and evidently fighting Nazi UFOs near the South Pole in Antarctica?

Are we to assume that while military records show him as acting OIC over a naval operation at the South Pole, Major Byrd snuck off ship in February to visit another base on the other side of the planet just to do a scouting flight and then return back to the South Pole.

Or is it possible that the story has become highly convoluted over time, with facts, times, and dates becoming misconstrued, as well as fantastic additions about hollow Earth discoveries and the Ariani people being added?

Aside from the overlapping timeframes, there are many other contradictions.

In the account of the 2006 Russian documentary based on the KGB report, the UFO/slash-flugelrod pilots are clearly hostile, attacking and destroying U.S.

ships off the coast of Antarctica.

In the other account, the one in Bird's diary, the pilots of the Flugelrod are peaceful Ariani people, opposed to war and violence, warning mankind of the dangers of atomic energy.

Do the conspiracy theorists believe that the Nazis encountered the Ariani first, obtained advanced aircraft, and then used them against the Americans?

Again, other speculations suggest that the Nazis were building their own experimental aircraft.

Secret anti-gravity projects like de Glaca are frequently cited in these rumors.

Whatever the case, the Americans taking Nazi war criminals from Germany after the end of World War II to work on their advanced rocket and space propulsion program during Operation Paperclip did nothing to quell such rumors.

Speaking of bombs, in the diary record of Admiral Byrd's meeting with the master of the Ariani, the master mentioned the bombs dropped on Japan, but not the bombs supposedly dropped on Antarctica to destroy the hidden Nazi base, which may have actually killed a group of Ariani people rather than Nazis.

You'd think the master would have said something about that when he met Admiral Byrd.

It's also interesting that the Ariani name used in Byrd's supposed diary, along with the description of the highly advanced race of people and their German dialect.

All of this just ties very closely with Hitler's pre-existing beliefs about the existence of an ancient Aryan race with their blonde hair and blue eyes and advanced technology.

It's all very confusing.

The Byrd diary entries, the KGB report, the Russian documentary, and the conspiracies surrounding the hidden bases in Antarctica.

Bizarre as they are, they all seem to be dubious at best.

Fabricated records that could have been created, not out of whole cloth, but out of an amalgamation of both documented facts and wild conspiracies.

But certainly, all of them couldn't be true, what with all the conflicting information.

Since we are on the topic of diary discrepancies, it's worth mentioning that even Admiral Byrd's 1926 flight over the North Pole is highly debated.

The evidence of his flight reaching the North Pole was recorded in his personal diary.

The debate is over whether Byrd's plane covered the distance in the time claimed, as skeptics argue that the available evidence suggests the journey was shorter than required to reach the pole fully.

Some critics have pointed out discrepancies between Byrd's handwritten diary and the official typewritten report submitted after the expedition, which suggests alterations to navigational data.

However, supporters have defended Byrd's achievements, questioning the motives behind the criticism and emphasizing the contextual challenges of polar navigation during that era.

Far from claiming to have made an extraordinary discovery of hollow Earth during any of his time spent in the northern or southern poles, we now see that even Admiral Byrd's much more practical claim of being the first pilot to reach the North Pole by aircraft likewise continues to be a topic of investigation and heated discussion long after the events took place.

Even without the addition of UFOs and a hollow Earth discovery, unless all of the official records have been altered, the possibility of a secret Nazi base being the target of Operation High Jump is also low.

The mission itself took place in the Ross Ice Shelf area of Antarctica, a location previously explored by Rear Admiral Byrd in the late 1920s.

The hidden Nazi base is often cited by theorists as being in the area of Queen Maudland, the same region the Germans landed in 1938.

These are two entirely different areas.

If the goal of High Jump was to destroy a Nazi base in Queen Maudland, then why was the American task force nowhere near this theoretical location?

Quite frankly, without the availability of highly advanced technology, a Nazi military base in Antarctica does seem very impractical.

While their U-boats did operate in the waters of the southern Atlantic, there's no evidence to suggest that a dedicated base was ever built on the Antarctic coast.

According to official Nazi documents, their one and only expedition to the Antarctic was in 1938 during their efforts to set up their own whaling industry.

A U-boat pen in such a location would have been impractical, to say the least.

The German submarines were fragile, and with the coast often extended outward by hundreds of miles of ice one to two meters thick, the simple act of a submarine surfacing, docking, and departing would have been extremely difficult.

In spite of these arguments, many theorists are quick to highlight that the High Jump expedition did sustain a number of casualties during its time in the Antarctic, including the loss of a few aircraft.

For them, these losses are proof that contact was made with a hostile force.

But by all official records, the only thing these men seem to have encountered was a very harsh climate.

On December 30th, 1946, a PBM Mariner aircraft found itself caught in a nasty blizzard, the white-out conditions disorienting the crew and resulting in a crash that claimed the lives of three men.

Then, in January 1947, another casualty occurred when Seaman Vance N.

Woodall died during a ship unloading accident on the Ross ice shelf.

He was tragically crushed between a piece of heavy roller equipment being used to pave the ice in order to build an airstrip.

With four deaths and likely dozens of other cold weather casualties, the reports say that the Navy pulled the plug on high jump early in order to avoid any further mishaps.

So what about the three nuclear bombs supposedly dropped on the hidden Nazi base?

Interestingly enough, three atomic weapons were detonated near the Antarctic, but not in 1947.

In 1958, clearly disregarding the warnings of the Ariane people, The U.S.

wanted to see the potential effects that nuclear explosions had on the atmosphere.

To accomplish this, three nukes were detonated at high altitude over the South Atlantic, about 2,000 kilometers off the coast of Antarctica.

Part of Operation Argus, the primary aim of these tests was to see if nuclear detonations at high altitudes could create radiation belts similar to the Van Allen radiation belts.

These artificial belts were expected to degrade or destroy the explosive mechanisms of incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The theory was this could help in defending against potential Soviet missile attacks.

This certainly resonates with Admiral Byrd's 1947 warning about the possibility of aircraft or very fast-flying objects heading towards the United States over the poles.

Are we starting to see that although all these events actually happened, is it possible that the desire to legitimize an incredible story about either the Nazis or Admiral Byrd finding an entrance to Hollow Earth is what led to all of these unrelated military activities near Antarctica being compiled together to construct a specific narrative.

Speaking of the Soviets, there is one more thing to point out, although it is certainly not the last contradiction.

There's the declassified KGB report, which the 2006 Russian documentary was based on.

It's hard to verify if that even exists.

If it does, it's rife with a number of glaring errors.

For example, the destroyer named as being sunk, the USS Maddox, wasn't with the high jump expedition.

At that point in time, it was in port back in the States.

Nearly 20 years later, that same ship was involved in a strange incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, which is often credited with escalating American involvement in the Vietnam War.

So unless it was sunk in 1947 near Antarctica by UFOs, was then resurrected and made its way to Southeast Asia in 1964, the 2006 Russian documentary should have checked their facts first, unless they were referring to the other Maddox destroyer, which preceded the second one.

But then, the first USS Maddox was not in service at the time of Operation High Jump.

It had already been sunk by German aircraft in 1943, although not by UFOs, and not off the coast of Antarctica, but off the coast of Italy.

Likewise, the supposed KGB report also cites another vessel that never took part in the operation, the aircraft carrier USS Casablanca.

The only carrier to serve in the expedition was the flagship USS Philippine C,

a ship which is never even mentioned in the Russian documentary.

While all indications point to Operation High Jump being nothing more than an Antarctic training exercise, where does that leave us with claims of hollow Earth exploration?

Did the Germans, with their occult fascinations, manage to locate an entire hidden world beneath Antarctica?

And did the Ariani then befriend them and give them UFOs to fight the Americans?

Or do the Ariani people truly exist and due to a case of mistaken identity, they were thought to be Nazis when encountered in the Antarctic by Operation High Jump?

Apparently, an easy enough mistake to make, what with their German accents and swastikas emblazoned on the sides of their flugel Flugelrod flying machines.

In his alleged diary, Admiral Byrd did recount that the master of the Ariani said that they had tried to make contact with humans in 1945, but their Flugelrod aircraft had been attacked by military jets.

Maybe that's what the Russian documentary was talking about, but it confused the dates, location, and everything else about the event.

Did Richard Byrd possibly discover the Ariani's subterranean world during Operation High Jump near the South Pole, instead of during a February flight over the Arctic at the North Pole.

That would at least explain the overlapping timelines, and who knows, maybe Admiral Byrd used the term Arctic and Antarctic interchangeably.

A simple mistake.

But there seems to be no evidence that Admiral Byrd flew at all during Operation High Jump, rather relegating himself to his duties as overseer.

being the mission's OIC.

Three other men are mentioned in the records as being key pilots during the operation.

There is at least one interesting discovery made by one of these three pilots, Lieutenant Commander Dave Bunker, during one of his flights over Antarctica.

And maybe this is where the idea of Holloworth being discovered was further exaggerated.

On February 1st, 1947, as Lieutenant Commander Bunker took off in his PBM float plane, He reached the Antarctic coastline and started flying west to begin photo mapping.

Suddenly, in the barren white below, there appeared a a blue and green lake situated among brown, barren hills.

A very unusual sight against the white landscape.

He then landed the plane on the lake.

Without any technical tools to examine the water, there wasn't much he could do other than to collect a sample of water in a bottle.

It turned out to be brackish, indicating that the lake was actually an open arm of the sea.

So who knows?

Maybe the Nazis really could get their U-boats far enough inland to build a secret base.

But that is the only discovery mentioned during Operation High Jump that says anything close to Admiral Byrd's supposed testimony about seeing mountains, lush greenery, and a woolly mammoth.

With no hard evidence of Byrd's diary entries about Hollow Earth actually existing, the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center commented that they, quote, receive questions about the Hollow Earth every year, and that there are no records to support these claims in their archive.

Despite the lack of hard evidence, the Hollow Earth theory continues to provoke thought and debate.

Of course, if it did exist and our governments were aware of it, what are the odds they would tell us about it?

In the scientific community, Hollow Earth is largely dismissed as pseudoscience, similar to continuing theories about the Earth being flat.

Those who have studied it will assure us that the inner Earth is not hollow, but is composed of a crust, mantle, and outer and inner cores.

Long story short, aside from the intense heat, pressure, and darkness, science would tell us there is very little room down there for entire ecosystems to exist.

let alone thriving civilizations and crystal cities.

Further disputing the theory are the images produced by modern satellite imagery and testimonies of contemporary Arctic explorers, which have likewise fallen short of validating the existence of openings to Hollow Earth at either pole.

But to be fair, imagery and personal testimonies can always be changed if someone really wanted to hide something.

While the more bizarre theories about Operation High Jump are full of holes, it's interesting to note that Hollow Earth, or something similar, makes an appearance in the oral histories of many indigenous cultures.

According to the Native American Muscogee peoples, their ancestors emerged long ago via deep caverns dug into the earth, located near the present-day Red River in the southeastern United States.

There are many other theories and testimonies about strange creatures and giants living in vast interconnecting cave systems deep beneath the surface, their cave entrances often hidden, sometimes deep in jungles and other hard-to-reach places.

Many believe that UFOs and all these other unexplained phenomena are not coming from millions of light years away in outer space or from other dimensional realms, but from this same planet, emerging out of openings that lead down into a subterranean ecosystem.

With countless other mythologies dating back thousands of years, such as the Greeks and Hindus describing journeys to dark underworlds filled with terrifying spirits and creatures, you really do have to wonder why humans have always been so possessed with the idea of there being a hollow earth.

It's only our trust in scientific data that tells us what lies below the surface.

So, until we see it with our own eyes, we never can know for certain what's really going on right beneath our feet.

Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke Lamana.

Executive produced by Mr.

Bollin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt.

Written by Jake Howard and myself.

Audio editing and sound design by me, Cole Lacascio, and Whit Lacascio.

Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stiddam.

Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan.

Mixed and mastered by Brendan Kane.

Production supervision by Jeremy Bone.

Production coordination by Avery Siegel.

Additional production support by Brooklyn Gooden.

Artwork by Jessica Cloxen Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picada.

If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info at wartimestories.com.

Thank you so much for listening to Wartime Stories.