ATLAS

Official versionOMEGA-11-4-5Sheet 5 of 8 of the dossier Ice wall

Official version

What the Treaty Secretariat, the agencies and glaciologists say.

Satellite view of the whole of Antarctica: a white continent with a long peninsula curling towards the top left, on a black background.
The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA), assembled from Landsat-7 images (USGS): the whole continent seen from space, not a ring around the world. USGS · public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Summary

This sheet sets out what institutions and scientists answer to the ice-wall theory. The Antarctic Treaty has no closed zone: every area, station and installation is open at any time to inspection by observers designated by the Consultative Parties, and aerial observation is allowed over the whole continent. Going there is legal; visitors follow rules on wildlife, historic sites and non-native species, and about 74,000 people went in 2019–2020. Glaciologists add that a wall of ice ringing the planet could not exist. Antarctica is fringed by floating ice shelves, which flat-Earthers have mistaken for that wall, but according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center these shelves are extensions of land ice flowing out over the ocean, 50 to 600 m thick. Cut off from the ice that feeds it, a circular wall would thin and break up.

Images and observations point the same way. NASA's LIMA mosaic, built from nearly 1,100 Landsat-7 images, shows a continent, not a ring. At the South Pole the Sun stays up from about 20 September to 23 March, a midnight sun that fits a tilted, rotating globe. In December 2024, flat-Earth YouTubers taken to Union Glacier by pastor Will Duffy for "The Final Experiment" watched the Sun for 24 hours, and Jeran Campanella admitted that "sometimes, you are wrong in life", although not all of them gave up the flat Earth.

Verified facts

  1. Verified fact

    In December 2024, during "The Final Experiment", pastor Will Duffy took flat-Earth YouTubers to Union Glacier: they saw the Sun for 24 hours a day and Jeran Campanella admitted "sometimes, you are wrong in life", though not all of them gave up the flat Earth.

A low sun on the right lights up slabs of floating sea ice on dark water, with snowy mountains on the left under a cloudy sky.
The Sun low over Antarctic sea ice in December 2008. The photographer noted that this was as close as the Sun came to setting that day, in round-the-clock summer daylight. Jason Auch · CC BY · Wikimedia Commons

Official version

  1. Official version

    The Treaty has no closed zone: all areas, stations and installations are open at all times to inspection by observers designated by the Consultative Parties, and aerial observation may be carried out at any time over all of Antarctica.

    • The Antarctic Treaty (full text, 1959), Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty, 1 December 1959
      All areas of Antarctica, including all stations, installations and equipment within those areas, and all ships and aircraft at points of discharging or embarking cargoes or personnel in Antarctica, shall be open at all times to inspection
  2. Official version

    Going to Antarctica is not illegal: visitors must follow rules on wildlife, historic sites and non-native species, and about 74,000 people visited in 2019–2020. No wall forbids overflight; commercial routes simply do not need to cross the South Pole.

  3. Official version

    Glaciologists say an ice wall around the Earth is impossible: Antarctica is fringed by floating ice shelves that flat-Earthers have mistaken for the wall, but they must be attached to land, and a circular wall with no inflowing glacier ice would quickly thin and disintegrate.

  4. Official version

    According to NSIDC, an ice shelf is an extension of thick land ice flowing out over the ocean, 50 to 600 m thick, and the largest, as big as France, are in Antarctica; ice shelves fringe three-quarters of the Antarctic coastline.

    • Ice shelves, National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
      Ice shelves are extensions of thick land ice that flow out over a cold coastal ocean.
    • Change in Antarctic ice shelf area from 2009 to 2019, The Cryosphere (J. R. Andreasen, A. E. Hogg, H. L. Selley), 16 May 2023
      Ice shelves fringe three-quarters of the Antarctic coastline, providing buttressing support to the grounded ice
  5. Official version

    With the LIMA mosaic, NASA released the first true-colour, high-resolution satellite view of the Antarctic continent, built from nearly 1,100 Landsat-7 images; satellite imagery shows a continent, not a ring around the world.

  6. Official version

    Because of Earth's axial tilt, the Sun does not set at the South Pole from about 20 September to 23 March; this midnight sun can only occur on a tilted, rotating sphere and is hard to reconcile with a Sun circling above a disc.

  7. Official version

    A 2007 study in Polar Record tested the legend of a Nazi Antarctic base against the record and treats it as a myth; Admiral Byrd's papers at Ohio State University hold no evidence of any flight into a Hollow Earth.

    • Frozen Fridays: 'Q' is for Questionable Theories!, Ohio State University Archives, From Woody's Couch (John Hooton), 10 March 2017
      though the Papers of Admiral Byrd hold no evidence supporting that claim.
    • Hitler's Antarctic base: the myth and the reality, Polar Record, Cambridge University Press (C. Summerhayes, P. Beeching), January 2007
      Operation Highjump was designed to train the US Navy for a possible war with the Soviet Union in the Arctic, and not to attack an alleged German base in Antarctica
Rows of domed tents on the snow in front of a dark, rocky mountain, under a bright sun surrounded by a halo.
Union Glacier Camp in West Antarctica, November 2013. In December 2024 the participants of "The Final Experiment" watched the midnight sun from this camp. Christopher Michel · CC BY · Wikimedia Commons
Play on YouTube (third-party content)
NASA flyover of part of the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA), the first high-resolution, true-colour map of the continent, built in 2007 from more than 1,100 Landsat-7 images.
NASA Video