ATLAS

VariantOMEGA-11-1-2Sheet 2 of 5 of the dossier Lost Antarctic civilization

Pyramids, hollow Earth and strange signals: cities under the ice

The more recent versions: a pyramid-shaped peak, an inner world with polar openings, an anti-universe headline, and a Lovecraft novella.

Engraving of the Earth seen from space with a large circular opening at its pole.
"Symmes's hole, as it would appear to a lunarian with a telescope": an 1882 magazine illustration of the hollow Earth idea, not an observation. Unknown authorUnknown author · public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Summary

Beyond the Atlantis story, the idea of a civilization hiding in Antarctica feeds on several other images, none of them backed by a find. The most viral is a pyramid-shaped peak in the Ellsworth Mountains: it was spotted in satellite images as early as 2012, a 2024 video said to show pyramids revealed by thawing ice gathered more than 3.4 million views, and a 2022 post claimed that Marines were investigating three of them. A second source is the hollow-Earth idea, which John Cleves Symmes Jr. defended in 1818 with openings at both poles; it was disproved in the eighteenth century and had already become popular pseudoscience by the time he promoted it. A third is fiction: H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, written in 1931 and published in 1936, tells of an expedition that finds an ancient civilization older than the human race in Antarctica. Finally, the radio anomalies recorded by the NASA-funded ANITA balloon were met with headlines about an anti-universe, although the physicists involved speak of an unexplained signal. These are narratives and speculation, and the sheet labels them as such.

What the thesis says

The sources show where these claims circulate, not that they are true.

  1. Thesis

    A viral post says a pyramid-shaped peak in the Ellsworth Mountains, spotted in satellite images as early as 2012, may be the remnant of a long-lost civilization lurking beneath the ice.

  2. Thesis

    In March 2024 a video claimed that thawing ice in Antarctica is revealing pyramids and other remnants of an ancient civilization; it gathered over 3.4 million views and was clipped across TikTok, Facebook and X.

  3. Thesis

    In 1818 John Cleves Symmes Jr. suggested that the Earth is a hollow shell with openings about 2,300 km across at both poles, an idea later retold as a hidden world reached through the polar regions.

    • Hollow Earth, Wikipedia
      In 1818, John Cleves Symmes, Jr. suggested that the Earth consisted of a hollow shell about 1,300 km (810 mi) thick, with openings about 2,300 km (1,400 mi) across at both poles with 4 inner shells each open at the poles.
  4. Thesis

    After a report from the IceCube neutrino telescope, headlines teased the possibility of an anti-universe where time runs backward, to explain strange radio signals picked up above Antarctica by the ANITA balloon experiment.

Unconfirmed accounts

  1. Unofficial, unconfirmed

    A 2022 blog post shared on Facebook said that Marines are investigating three ancient pyramids discovered in Antarctica; PolitiFact found no evidence for it and noted that such claims date back to at least 2016.

Verified facts

  1. Verified fact

    H. P. Lovecraft's novella At the Mountains of Madness, written in 1931 and published in 1936, tells of a disastrous expedition to Antarctica that discovers an ancient civilization older than the human race; it is a work of fiction.

    • At the Mountains of Madness, Wikipedia
      These events include the discovery of an ancient civilization older than the human race, and realization of Earth's past told through various sculptures and murals.