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In the
essay Seven Days North of Tibet, various types of evidence were presented
in favor of the hypothesis that Dr. Fridtjof Nansen and the crew of the
ship Fram grazed the edge of the Northern polar opening to the hollow
portion of the Earth, during their drift across the frozen Artic ice
packs. Our current article will attempt to expand upon that theme and
establish a general perimeter around the polar opening. The same map from
Seven Days North of Tibet is presented.
We can begin our ring around the opening at the North Pole. It suffices to
say that the pole has been visited umpteen times and that no polar orifice
is apparent right at that point. It is close, though. Photographs of the
Pole show foreshortening of the horizon such that the horizon drops off
sharply, and the landscape doesn't extend as far off as it does in lower
latitudes. Also, polar anomalies, such as warming, the presence of
warm-blooded animals, and Northward migrating birds, have been documented.
What interests us about Seven Days North of Tibet and the expedition
carried out by Doctor Fridtjof Nansen, between 1893 and 1896, is the fact
that Nansen's course across the polar ice was erratic and, at a certain
point, the course itself hinted of close proximity to the opening. In
fact, if one looks at the charts provided in Nansens book Farthest North,
one will see some very exagerated zig zagging in March and April of 1894,
right around 80* North latitude and 135* East longitude. Earlier in
November of 1893 Dr. Nansen and the crew had to adjust their latitude
calculations by almost one whole degree within a ten-day period. It is
improbable that they moved so much in so little time; the current moving
the ice upon which they were perched was only moving a couple miles per
day, maybe three.
They chalked up the aberrations to navigational errors, which shows that
they were trying to be honest. But could it be so? They were not amateurs.
Their navigator was Sigurd Scott-Hansen, an academy graduate and career
officer in the Norwegian Navy. But they were all master seamen- that's why
they were chosen for the trip. They all knew the science of navigation.
What about curvature? What if the curvature of the Earth was flattening
out and this is why the Norwegians couldnt pinpoint their location.
Everyone knows that the Earth is not an exact sphere; it bulges slightly
at the equator and flattens at the poles ( it actually angles inwards ).
But hollow Earth proponents would say that there was sure a lot of
flattening going on, and that a mere tendency for the curvature to plane
would not account for the type of exagerrated movement, in terms of
latitude, that the Norwegians experienced. What could actually account for
what seemed to be so much sliding around, however, would be if the
curvature had not only flattened out, but had begun a downward decline
into the doughnut-shaped opening of the inner Earth. Such angles could
easily account for the impression of back-sliding as they crossed and
re-crossed, even staggered along, the rim of the opening.
If we imagine the face of a clock superimposed upon the opening, this
grazing would have ocurred at around five oçlock, with six oclock being
at Zemlya on the Russian side, the pole at about nine o'clock, and the
Bering Straits at two oclock.
Later, Nansen and the crew traced a course towards the pole, from March of
1894 until about the end of September of that year, between about 120*
East and 140* East. He came across no opening along the way, and his
navigational anomalies subsided a bit, which suggested that he was angling
away laterally from the steeper grade of the opening as he left behind the
Siberia/Alaska side and inched across the Artic basin towards the
Greenland side. This suggests that the opening is offset from the pole
with the beginning of the rim near the point where Nansen experienced the
greatest movement in terms of zig zag- sliding from 135* to 139* East
longitude, and around 80* North latitude. ( See the green oval on the map
)
Do the navigational anomalies prove, by themselves, the existence of a
polar opening? No, and taken piecemeal, most of the polar anomalies can be
explained in other ways. For example, the volcanic ash which is so typical
in the polar areas could be due to an uncharted land mass and not an
opening- maybe the governments of the region have reason to hide such a
land mass from the public, maybe for security reasons. But taken all
together, polar anomalies, including curvature anomalies, constitute
strong deductive evidence.
On the Alaska/Siberia side of things, a rather unfortunate event defined
another boundry to the polar opening. Lieutenant George W. De Long passed
through the Bering Straits in August of 1879, in command of the steamer
Jeanette. On September 6th, at 71* 35 North latitude, 175* 06 East
longitude, the ship became stuck in the ice. This was right next to
Wrangel Island. Two years later the ship sunk just North of the New
Siberian Islands, at 77* 15 North. She had hooked around the polar basin,
between 70* and 77* latitude, without coming upon any opening. This tells
us that the opening does not extend to the mid-seventy degrees of
latitude, at least not on the Alaska-Siberian side ( nor any other side ).
According to our analysis so far, it would have to fall higher in
latitude, closer to the Pole. ( Again, notice the green oval on the map )
We can close our ring around the polar opening by considering the dirgible
flight of Roald Amudsen in May of 1926. Amudsen passed over the pole and
then steered a course along 170* longitude West towards the Bering Straits
between Alaska and Siberia. He experienced a couple of the usual polar
anomalies the farther North he went: Warming of the air and sea
temperatures was one of them, and the presence of land birds too far away
from any land, but what is interesting to our current analysis is the fact
that when the Amudsen dirgible reached the Bering Straits it ended up over
100 miles off course on the Russian side. This suggests that the dirgible
dipped into and followed along the bowl-like depression, and that the
irregular curvature threw it off course and sent it into Siberia on a
slight tangent. All of the above evidence suggests a polar opening, on the
Siberian side of the Pole, within a ring established by the different
polar explorers.
The Amudsen dirgible flew over extended stretches of cloud cover, which
leaves open the possibility of its having been rather far down the funnel
of the opening, maybe even rather close to the neck of it, without the
occupants realising it. This means that the opening could stretch from the
area where Nansen and the crew of the Fram experienced their polar
anomalies, which was on the Siberian side, across the Polar basin to the
Canadian side, as far as 170* of longitude. This was actually
inadvertently indicated by the Russian description of the magnetic pole as
a line stretching 1,000 miles from above Zemlya and across the Arctic
towards Elizabeth Island.
All of our evidence is circumstantial so far. In order to reinforce our
argument, let us now consider actual sightings of land masses within our
ring-like framework. We shall draw upon Admiral MacMillans book Four Years
in the White North. The following testimony is not the testimony of the
admiral himself; rather, it is testimony of others which he compiled in an
appendix to his book.
Captain Richardson, in his work The Polar Regions; says: The Eskimos of
Point Barrow have a tradition, reported by Dr. Simpson, surgeon of the
Plover ( in the year 1832 ), of some of their tribe having been carried to
the North on ice broken up in a southery gale, and arriving, after many
nights at a hilly coun-try inhabited by people like themselves, speaking
the Eskimo language, and by whom they were well received. After a long
stay, one spring in which the ice remained without movement they returned
without mishap to their own country and reported their adventures. An
obscure indication of land to the north was actually perceived from the
masthead of the Plover when off Point Barrow.[ This could easily have been
a mirage of land which really existed further to the North. Such superior
mirages are common in the Artic and can be perceived over long distances,
as we shall see ]
In 1850, Captain Mc Lure, when off the Northern coast of Alaska, wrote in
his journal that judging from the character of the ice and a light, shady
tint in the sky, there must be land to the north of him.
' Marcus Taker, writing in the National Geographic Magazine, 1894, under a
title of An Undiscovered Land off the Coast of Alaska, says: It is often
told that natives wintering between Harrison and Camden Bays have seen
land to the North in the bright clear days of spring. In the winter of
1886 1887 Uxharen, an enterprising Eskimo of Ootkearie was very anxious
for me to get some captain to take him the following summer, with his
family canoe and outfit, to the North-east as far as the ship went, and
then he would try to find this mysterious land of which he had heard so
much; but no one cared to bother with this venturesome Eskimo explorer.
' The only report of land having been seen in this vicinity by civilized
man was made by Capt. John Keenan, of Troy, New York, in the Seventies (
1870s ), at that time in command of the whaling-bark Stamboul, of New
Bedford. Captain Keenan said that after taking several whales the weather
became thick, and he stood to the North under easy sail and was busily
engaged in trying out and stowing down the oil taken. When the fog cleared
off, land was distinctly seen to the North bv him and all the men of his
crew, but as he was not on a voyage of discovery, and there were no whales
in sight, he was obliged to give the order to keep away to the South in
search of them.
In June, 1904,' Dr. R. A Harris, of the United States Coast and Geodetic
survey, published in the National Geographic Magazine his reasons for
believing that there must he a large body of undiscovered land or shallow
water in the polar regions. He based his theory upon the report that
Siberian driftwood had been picked up in South Greenland, upon the
observations of drifting polar ice, upon the drift of the ship Jeannette,
and upon numerous tidal observations made along the Northern coast of
Alaska and Eastward.'
But this varied collection of testimony is just the tip of the iceberg
when compared with the testimony of men such as Doctor Frederick A Cook,
the discoverer of the North Pole, Admiral Peary and the actual testimony
of Admiral MacMillan himself. The observations of these men have been laid
out and explained very well by others, but I will try to communicate the
essence for the benefit of the reader's understanding.
These three were all active around the Northern tip of Ellesmere Island,
which is also the Northernmost tip of Canada, and which lies right next to
the tip of Greenland. The area is only about 6* from the pole. From
various points of elevation, as well as from across the ice, as much as
ten years apart, these three men observed a mountainous land mass which
they described as filling up a third of the horizon, about 120* around
them. Admiral Peary mentioned white summits ... distinctly on June 28th,
1906. Admiral Macmillan organized an expedition which traveled across the
ice 130 miles after seeing this continent from the heights of Ellesmere
Island and wrote that his observations resembled in every particular an
immense land while observing in clear weather with powerful binoculars. He
went on to describe hills, valleys and snow-capped peaks, all this in
April of 1914.
Note:
The approximate location of the sightings of a land mass is depicted on
the above map as an island, and it is labelled " Crocker Land."
It could, however, be a matter of the tip of a continent of the hollow
world fingering its way to the rim of the opening. The image is used with
permission by Dave Johnson. ( See link below. )
Which
brings us to the testimony of Dr. Frederick A Cook. Dr. Cook also observed
this land mass while traveling across the ice. He made a round trip to the
Pole and choose a much more Western route, bringing him closer to the
sighting. Dr. Cook also made entries in his log book just as the other
explorers did. Additionally, however, he took some photographs. The
significance of this is that, first of all, we have some visual evidence
to consider, and that second, we actually have a picture of a land mass
which is not exactly on the surface of the Earth, but rather, which
fingers its way up to the rim from within. It is amazing that evidence
such as this could exist. The photographic plates formed a part of the
Cook collection in the U.S. Library of Congress, but by an ironic
coincidence, they are missing. Even so, one single picture remains with us
because it is in the book by Doctor Cook. It was scanned with good
resolution by Jan Lamprecht and included in his book Hollow Planets as
Plate 31. The points to be made with reference to the picture are that it
cannot be confused with sea ice on the horizon, nor with ice islands that
typically have ice mounds atop them, ( such do exist ). It is a picture of
a land mass, confirmed by Eskimo testimony, and answers to some specific
descriptions in the doctor's log book.
The sighting seems to have been a mirage, but this is not to say that it
was false. A mirage is actually a reflection which is carried over long
distances through thermal layers of air, especially if the mirage were to
originate from a curved, funnel-like opening.
Therefore, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the visions seen by
Cook, Peary and MacMillan could have had their origin as much as a few
hundred miles away, which would put it within the area which we have
circled in our ring around the opening. A few hundred miles would put the
land mass quite on the " Wrangel Island " side of the Pole,
North of the Amudsen dirgible. Mirage behavior would also explain the
previously mentioned sightings from the Northern rim of Alaska and Canada,
that they were seen over a distance, although the land was not adjacent to
the North American continent.
Nansen also experienced a mirage, apparently of the inner sun, from the
Russian side, just up from the New Siberian Islands. There are a few hints
in his description which suggest that Nansen viewed a mirage of the inner
sun.
The North Pole attainments of both Dr. Cook and Admiral Peary reinforce
the idea that the opening is not far from the Pole, i.e., five degrees or
so and inside of our " ring." Cook and Peary both claimed to
have arrived at the North Pole. There is a controversy surrounding this
matter, but for our purposes it is enough to say that both passed at least
close to it. Now, what did they experience? On their way, they had to
penetrate ( from the Canadian side ) over a ridge of crumpled up ice which
runs in a circle around the opening. Once they crossed that ridge of ice,
they found relatively smooth ice over which they made quick progress- too
quick, in fact.
Some of Peary's speed, for example, can be attributed to the smoother ice
in the area between the pole and the suspected opening, but not all of his
speed- he claims to have covered 153 statute miles in just over two days,
as he began his return. Smooth ice might have helped his speed, but not
that much. The only way that we can account for his speed is if we take
into consideration the flattening of the curvature of the Earth in the
region of the opening. The flattening of the curvature increases the
lateral distance covered and gives a false impression of the actual
distance covered.
A lingering doubt in the mind of any thoughtful person has to do with the
lack of direct discovery and perception. There are reasons for this. Well
leave any conspiracy theories aside for the moment and will consider the
possibility of explorers passing close by the opening without perceiving
it. How could this be so?
Commercial aircraft have typically taken routes around the area in
question, but not through it. Very recently, passenger flights began
flying across the pole, a bit towards the Greenland side. At times, some
flights have been deviated to a more Westerly route.
But why don't modern aircraft fly to the edge of the opening? This is
because there is all kinds of magnetic distortion near the poles, as the
magnetic lines of force pass through the inner rim of the doughnut
opening. So as aircraft approach the opening, their instruments of
navegation typically go haywire. At this point, it is assumed that the
aircraft is basically over the pole. With the navegational instruments
haywire, how is anyone going to know exactly where they are? And why would
any pilot stick around to find out? The standard maneuver as a pilot
passes near the magnetic distortion is to execute a right-angle turn until
the navegational instruments re-orient themselves, then head back in his
original direction. As many times as the pilot experiences magnetic
distortion, he executes right-angle turns until he works his way around
the circular opening, which defines the distortion in the first place,
then procedes in his original direction. In this way, even given hundreds
of opportunities, aircraft only approach the rim without penetrating
inwards any further.
But what about Artic explorers? The Pole has been approached from various
angles, even from converging angles at the same time, the expeditions
joining up at the pole. How come no opening has been noticed?
This is because the funnel shape of the opening would give the illusion,
to a person traveling across along the bowel-like side, of having come
straight across the neck of the opening. Such a traveler would have
experienced exaggerated sledding speeds as the curvature flattened out,
and any movement would have given greater lateral progress across the top
of the world. Along the inner rim the angle of the curvature would have
tilted inwards. Thus, looking straight above, the person would seem to be
looking at that point which is straight over the middle of the doughnut
opening, but from an angle, off to the side, and without realising that
any inward angle is even involved! Thus, the person would have been
crossed, roundabout, to one side of the opening while thinking that he/she
had made progress straight across. Arriving at the other side, the person
might have remarked " Well, I didn't see any polar opening and I just
came straight across the area."
True, this traveler would not have seen any opening because the opening
does not have a right-angle drop, and the opening is too huge to notice
any dimensions. The only thing that the " traveler " would have
seen would have been the horizon, because the curvature is gradual. But a
change in the horizon would be noticed because the horizon is
foreshortened due to the fact that the curvature does become more acute as
it angles inwards. This was noted by Lt. ( later General ) Greely as well
as Admiral Peary North of Greenland and Canada, what to speak of Dr.
Fridtjofnansen on the other side of the basin.
One can only stop and wonder if it really isn't possible after all for
there to be a hollow portion to the Earth on which we live, with openings
at the polar extremes.
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