Antarctica Index

All Unidentified Flying Object researchers are, of course, aware of the multitude of reports concerning sightings of ‘flying saucers’ with swastikas or iron crosses on them, ‘aliens’ speaking German, etc. Most have also heard of abductees who have been taken to underground bases with swastika emblems on the walls, or as in the case of noted abductee Alex Christopher, have seen “Reptiloids” and “Nazis” working together aboard antigravity craft or within underground bases. Barney Hill was apparently, not the only one to describe the so-called “Nazi” connection to Unidentified Flying Object abductions. However, reports such as Christopher’s and Hill’s must be taken with a rather large grain of salt... There is a far more plausible explanation than the so-called “reptiloids”.  

Another noted example is the American Reinhold Schmidt, a man whose father was born in Germany, and who tells in his book “Incident At Kearney”, that he was taken on a ‘flying saucer’ on several occasions. Schmidt states that “the crew spoke German and acted like German soldiers”. He also stated that they took him to the “Polar” region.

Now, one must admit that if a person were making up such a story, why would they claim to be taken, of all places, to the pole? Of course, one must also realize that at the time of Schmidt’s comments, the rumours of “secret Nazi bases” at the poles were already fairly common...  After returning he was allegedly subjected to persecution by the U.S. Government. In his defence, it must be noted that his description of the aerial discs, as he called them, matched pictures captured from the Germans in the final days of the Second World War.

In 1959, three large newspapers in Chile reported front-page articles about Unidentified Flying Object encounters in which the crew members appeared to be German soldiers. In the early 1960s there were reports in New York, and New Jersey, of flying saucer ‘aliens’ who spoke German, or English with a German accent. Nor, can it be neglected to mention that in one of the most spectacular legal cases of the Twentieth Century... the “atomic espionage” trials... Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spoke of “warships of space.” Since they had access to top secret information, and, at that point, no reason to lie, what was it, exactly, that they meant?

So... now we get to the point... In late 1947, only months after the famous Roswell Incident, then Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal  sent a naval task force to Antarctic including Admiral Nimitz, Admiral Krusen and Admiral Byrd, called “Operation Highjump”. It was touted to be an expedition to find “coal deposits” and other valuable resources, but... the facts indicate otherwise... In actuality they were apparently trying to locate an immense underground base constructed by the Germans, before, during and immediately after the Second World War, with the aid of Alien Entities, which were described as “Aryans”.  This base was allegedly located  in Neuschwabenland, an area of Antarctica which Germany explored, and claimed, before the outbreak of the Second World War...  In fact, Germany had done a very detailed study of Antarctic and were alleged to have built a small underground base there before the War.

At this point, one must ask why, exactly, the United States, and, in fact, her allies, suspected that German activity at the pole was continuing, after the conclusion of the Second World War... The answer, quite honestly, has nothing at all to do with Unidentified Flying Objects... That part of the story came to light from a completely different set of sources... The fact is that there was plenty of evidence, at the time, to indicate that as late as 1947, elements of the Kriegsmarine, or German Navy, were still very much active in the South Atlantic, operating either out of South America, or some base, previously unsuspected, in the Antarctic. Many stories were circulating at the time... One of which even has a German U-boat stopping an Icelandic whaler named Juliana in Antarctic waters,  in 1947 and insisting that its captain, named Hekla, sell the U-boat crew supplies from her available stores. In exchange for the supplies (which had been paid for in U.S. dollars, along with a ten dollar bonus to each member of Juliana’s crew... ) the U-boat commander told the whaler where a large school of whales were to be found. Hekla and his crew later found the whales in the exact position claimed by the U-boat commander.

The presence of such boats, all late construction Type XXI and Type  XXIII U-Boats, with the “snorkel” that allowed them to make the entire passage from Germany submerged... was no secret.

Many were thought to be operating out of Argentina, possibly under the Argentine flag, but crewed by German crew. The fact that in the dying moments of the Second World War, ten U-Boats, based in Oslofjord, Hamburg and Flensburg, were made available to transport several hundred German officers and officials to Argentina to found a new Reich is widely accepted. These officers, mostly involved in “secret” projects, and many of whom were members of the SS and Kriegsmarine, itself, sought to escape the “vengeance” of the Allies, and continue their work, abroad. The U-boats were filled with their luggage, documents and, more than likely, gold bullion, to finance their efforts. All the U-boats departed their home ports between 3 and 8 May 1945. They were to proceed to Argentina where they would be welcomed by the friendly regime of Juan Peron and his charismatic wife Eva Peron. Seven of the ten of the U-Boats, based on the German/Danish border, set off for Argentina through the Kattegat and Skagerrak. None were ever seen again... “officially”. It has been, however, documented that three of the boats did, in fact, arrive in Argentina... These were U-530, U-977 and U-1238. U-530 and U-977 surrendered to the Argentine Navy at Mar del Plata in early July and August, 1945... U-1238 was scuttled, by her crew, in the waters of San Matias Gulf, off Northern Patagonia. Seven boats are as yet unaccounted for... and... Kriegsmarine archives, recently discovered, indicate that a total of more than forty boats are completely unaccounted for... all of which were late construction, state-of-the-art craft, and could have made either Argentina or Antarctica, completely submerged... and completely unnoticed by existing “allied” technology of the time...  for the entire duration of their crossing.

The question arises, of course, why these men would make such a perilous crossing. It must surely be seen as a act of either desperation or fanaticism, or both... and such men as crewed U-Boats were neither. Nor, were the scientists and military officers who were their passengers. The fact is, it would seem that most of those who fled the ruin of Germany to the far South, were scientists and engineers, and their dedication sprang from the project on which they were working... To understand this dedication, it is necessary to go back, before the outbreak of the Second World War, to an isolated section of the Bavarian Alps, It was there, in the summer of 1938, that an Unidentified Flying Object, crewed by a distinctly human, and Aryan appearing race, made a forced landing, very similar to the one which was to occur, some ten years later, in the desert, near Roswell, New Mexico, in the United States.

While the occupants of the two craft were completely unrelated, the technology involved, seems to have been strikingly similar. Also, the outcome of the recovery effort, undertaken by Germany, just as a similar recovery effort was undertaken by the United States, had strikingly different results.

The Bavarian crash of 1938, seems to have yielded an functioning, or almost functioning and repairable (with the technology of the time) power plant, and a nearly completely destroyed, or unrepairable airframe. The Roswell crash resulted in exactly the opposite... a nearly intact airframe and a ruined power plant. Because of this, the German research, which was to follow, took a vastly different turn from that which was undertaken in the United States, some ten years later... Germany needed an airframe which was capable of supporting the “engine” (for lack of a better term), while the United States would eventually need an “engine” capable of giving maximum performance to the airframe.

This, of course, would explain the vast array of “experimental” aircraft... of extremely “unique” design... to literally pour out of the design bureaus of Messerschmidt, Focke Wulf, Fokker and a multitude of smaller firms in the period between 1939 and 1945. The most notable, of course, is the Sänger “Flying Wing” which was later copied by the United States, and is, of course, the ancestor of today’s “stealth” bomber and fighter designs... notably, the B-2 Heavy Bomber.

It is also beyond doubt that both Unidentified Flying Object recoveries are the initial impetus for the long standing and ongoing research in “anti-gravity” propulsion seen in work of current aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing and Lockheed in the United States, and PanAvia in Europe.

In any case, it was the work on “reverse engineering” the downed Bavarian Unidentified Flying Object that was the catalyst for the “exodus” to the South in the final days of the Second World War. Germany was in ruins, and the research was viewed, by those conducting it, as vital... vital enough to risk packing up all that they had and risking a perilous submerged crossing of the Atlantic.. to an isolated experimental and research base on a frozen continent... Granted, by modern standards... even by the standards of the day... U-Boats were small and cramped. They had very little cargo capacity. Still, a tiny fleet of them... ten to twelve boats... could easily transport the essential equipment, making several “runs”, and serve to supply and, later re-supply the Antarctic bastion of the research.

Speculation exists, with much to support it, that at least one of the boats in the valiant little fleet contained the biggest prize of all... at least one living survivor of the 1938 crash... an Extraterrestrial... a literal Human Being... not a “Grey”... born on a distant planet. The best evidence indicates that there were several survivors of the crash, and that they worked, and are most likely still working, with the original German scientists and engineers, or their descendants, in an effort to construct a viable “flying disc”.

These are not the “Grey Aliens” of Roswell. These beings, biologically, completely human, are described as “Aryan” in appearance, and completely human, although at least two to three generations more advanced, technologically than Earth born Human Beings. While their technology is similar to that of the Grays in general theory, it is somewhat different, apparently, in application. This would tend to indicate that Earth technology and science is, at most, only one “major breakthrough” away from parity with the extraterrestrial cultures in question, and also explain the “urgency” of the project, as viewed by the German (and undoubtedly United States, as well...) scientists and engineers involved in such research.

In any case, Operation Highjump, began... The task force of over 40 ships, included the flagship “Mount Olympus”, the aircraft carrier “Philippine Sea”, the seaplane tender “Pine Sea”, the submarine “Senate”, the destroyer “Bronson”, the ice breaker “Northwind”, and other tanker and supply ships. An armed contingent of 1400 sailors, and three dog sled teams were also on board. The expedition was filmed by the Navy and brought to Hollywood to be made into a commercial film called “The Secret Land”. It was narrated by Hollywood actor Robert Montgomery, father of “Bewitched” star, Elizabeth Montgomery, who was, himself, an officer in the Naval Reserve.

It seems incredible that so shortly after a war that had decimated most of Europe and crippled global economies, an expedition to Antarctica was undertaken with so much haste (it took advantage of the first available Antarctic summer after the war), at such cost, and with so much military hardware - unless the operation was absolutely essential to the security of the United States.

At the time of the operation, the US Navy itself was being taken apart piece by piece as the battle-tested fleet was decommissioned with its mostly civilian crew bidding farewell to the seas forever. The Navy was even reduced to further recruitment to man the few remaining ships in service.

Tensions across the globe were also mounting as Russia and America edged into a Cold War, possibly a Third World War that the US would have to fight with “tragically few ships and tragically half trained men.” This made the sending of nearly 5,000 residual Navy personnel to a remote part of the planet where so much danger lurked in the form of icebergs, blizzards and sub-zero temperatures even more of a puzzle. The operation was also launched with incredible speed, “a matter of weeks.” Perhaps it would not be uncharitable to conclude that the Americans had some unfinished business connected with the war in the polar region. Indeed this was later confirmed by other events and the operation’s leader, Admiral Richard Byrd, himself.

The official instructions issued by the then Chief of Naval Operations, Chester W. Nimitz were: to (a) train personnel and test material in the frigid zones; (b) consolidate and extend American sovereignty over the largest practical area of the Antarctic continent; (c) to determine the feasibility of establishing and maintaining bases in the Antarctic and to investigate possible base sites; (d) to develop techniques for establishing and maintaining air bases on the ice, (with particular attention to the later applicability of such techniques to Greenland) and (e) amplify existing knowledge of hydro graphic, geographic, geological, meteorological and electromagnetic conditions in the area.

Little other information was released to the media about the mission, although most journalists were suspicious of its true purpose given the huge amount of military hardware involved. The US Navy also strongly emphasized that Operation Highjump was going to be a navy show; Admiral Ramsey’s preliminary orders of 26th August 1946 stated that “the Chief of Naval Operations only will deal with other governmental agencies” and that “no diplomatic negotiations are required. No foreign observers will be accepted.” Not exactly an invitation to scrutiny, even from other arms of the government.

Some facts, however, are well known... There were three divisions of Operation High Jump: one land group with tractors, explosives, and plenty of equipment to refurbish “Little America”, and make an airstrip to land the six R-4D’s (DC-3’s), and two seaplane groups. The R4-D’s were fitted with jet-assist takeoff bottles (JATO) in order to takeoff from the short runway of the aircraft carrier “Philippine Sea”. They also were fitted with large skis for landing on the ice field prepared for them. The skis were specially fitted at three inches above the surface of the carrier deck. When landing on the ice at “Little America” the three inches of tire in contact with the snow and ice provided just enough and not too much drag for a smooth landing. 

Following its arrival at Antarctica, the force began a reconnaissance of the continent. Byrd himself was onboard the first of the planes to take off on 29 January 1947. Rocket propulsion tubes (JATO bottles) had been attached to the side of the aircraft and the carrier was manoeuvred for a 35mph run to help get the planes airborne. “From the vibration of the great carrier”, Byrd later wrote, “I knew when the captain had got the ship up to about 30 knots (35 mph... maximum, full emergency speed for such a vessel). We seemed to creep along the deck at first and it looked as if we would never make it but when our four JATO bottles went off along the sides of the plane with a terrific, deafening noise I could see the deck fall away. I knew we had made it.  

Admiral Byrd’s team of six R4-D’s were fitted with the, then, super secret “Trimetricon” spy cameras and each plane was trailing a magnetometer. The aircraft flew over as much of the continent as they could in the short three month “summer” period, mapping and recording magnetic data. They also carried magnetometers show anomalies in the Earth’s magnetism, i.e. if there is a “hollow” place under the surface ice or ground, it will show up on the meter. On the last of many “mapping” flights where all six planes went out, each on certain pre-ordained paths to film and “measure” with magnetometers, Admiral Byrd’s plane returned three hours late...

“Officially”, it was stated that he had “lost an engine” and had had to throw everything overboard except the films themselves and the results of magnetometer readings in order to maintain altitude long enough to return to Little America. If we are to believe the published and private accounts of what actually took place, this is almost certainly the time when he met with representatives of the “Aryan” Extraterrestrials, and a contingent of the German scientists working on the reverse engineering and construction of “flying discs”...

Over the next four weeks the planes spent 220 hours in the air, flying a total of 22,700 miles and taking some 70,000 aerial photographs. Then the mission that had been expected to last for between six to eight months came to an early and faltering end. The Chilean press reported that the mission had “run into trouble” and that there had been “many fatalities”. (However... the official record, states that one plane crashed killing three men; a fourth man had perished on the ice; two helicopters had gone down although their crews had been rescued and a task force commander was nearly lost.) It is an indisputable fact that the Central Group of Operation Highjump were evacuated by the Burton Island ice-breaker from the Bay of Whales on 22 February 1947; the Western Group headed home on 1st of March 1947 and the Eastern Group did likewise on 4 March, a mere eight weeks after arrival.

In the end, the task force came steaming back to the United Sates with their data, which then, immediately became classified “top secret”. Secretary of the Navy (by this time, Secretary of Defense) James Forrestal retired... and started to “talk”.... not only about Highjump, but about other things, as well... He was put in Bethesda Naval Hospital psychiatric ward where he was prevented from seeing or talking to anyone, including his wife... and...  after a short while he was thrown out the window while trying to hang himself with a bed sheet. So the story goes... It was, of course, ruled a suicide, case closed. However, some of what he knew... about Highjump... about Roswell... and other things... did manage to “leak”... How much is truth, how much is speculation is difficult to tell. However, in every “myth” there is a grain of truth...

This much is certain... As incredible as it may sound, there is considerable supporting evidence for these claims about a German base in Antarctica... On the very eve of the Second World War, the Germans themselves had invaded part of Antarctica and claimed it for the Third Reich.

In fact Hitler had authorized several expeditions to the poles shortly before WWII. Their stated objective was to either to rebuild and enlarge Germany’s whaling fleet or test out weaponry in severely hostile conditions. Yet, if true, all of this could have been achieved at the North Pole rather than at both poles and been much closer to home. For some reason, however, the Germans had long held an interest in the South Polar region of Antarctica with the first Germanic research of that area being undertaken in 1873 when Sir Eduard Dallman (1830-1896) discovered new Antarctic routes and the "Kaiser-Wilhelm-Inseln" at the western entrance of the Biskmarkstrasse along the Biscoue Islands with his ship Grönland during his expedition for the German polar Navigation Company of Hamburg. The Grönland also achieved the distinction of being the first steamer to operate in the southern ocean. 

A further expedition took place in the early years of the twentieth century in the ship the Gauss (which became embedded in the ice for 12 months), and then a further expedition took place in 1911 under the command of Wilhelm Filchner with his ship the Deutschland.
 

Between the wars, the Germans made a further voyage in 1925 with a specially designed ship for the Polar Regions, the Meteor under the command of Dr. Albert Merz.

Then, in the years directly preceding the Second World War, the Germans laid claim to parts of Antarctica in order to set up a permanent base there. Given that no country actually owned the continent and it could not exactly be conquered as no-one lived there during the winter months at least, it appeared to the Germans that the most effective way to conquer part of the continent was to physically travel there, claim it, let others know of their actions and await any disagreements.

Captain Alfred Ritscher was chosen to lead the proposed strike. He had already led expeditions to the North Pole and had proved himself in adverse and critical situations. For the mission Ritscher was given the Schwabenland; a German aircraft carrier that had been used for transatlantic mail deliveries by special flightboats, the famous 10 ton Dornier Super Wals since 1934.

These Wals were launched by catapult from the Schwabenland and had to be accelerated to 93mph before they could become airborne. At the end of each flight a crane on the ship lifted the aircraft back on board after they landed in the sea.

The ship was refitted for the expedition in the shipyards of Hamburg, and around one million Reichsmark, nearly a third of the entire expedition budget - was spent on this refit alone.

The crew was prepared for the mission by the German Society of Polar Research and as these preparations neared completion, the organization invited Admiral Byrd to address them, which he did.

The Schwabenland left the port of Hamburg on 17 December 1938 and followed a precisely planned and determined route towards the southern continent. In little over a month the ship arrived at the ice covered Antarctica, dropping anchor at 4B0 30B” W and 69B0 14B” S on January 201939..

The expedition then spent three weeks off Princess Astrid Coast and Princess Martha Coast off Queen Maud Land. During these weeks, the two Schwabenland aircraft, the Passat and Boreas, flew 15 missions across some 600,000 square kilometers of Antarctica, taking more than 11,000 pictures of the area with their specially designed Zeiss Reihenmess-Bildkameras RMK 38b.

Nearly one fifth of Antarctica was reconnoitred in this way and, for the first time, ice-free areas with lakes and signs of vegetation were discovered. This area was then declared to be under the control of the German expedition, renamed Neu-Schwabenland and hundreds of small stakes, carrying the swastika, were dumped on the snow-covered ground from the Wals to signal the new ownership. Ritscher and the Schwabenland left their newly claimed territory in the middle of February 1939 and returned to Hamburg two months later, complete with photographs and maps of the new German acquisition.

Now bear in mind that all of this took place before the recovery of the Unidentified Flying Object, in the Bavarian Alps, in 1938... There is no conceivable reason, at least on the surface, for such an intense interest in the South Polar regions... unless something else had already transpired to make such an investigation worthwhile... The true purpose of this expedition has never been satisfactorily explained; there is merely a series of puzzles, related reports and snippets of information that are no longer open to verification. What is not open to doubt however, is that in the decade preceding the Second World War, the Germans did almost nothing that did not put the entire structure of the country on a war footing.

This activity affected all aspects of German life; military, civilian, economic, social and foreign policies, engineering, industry etc. Given that the seizing of Neu-Schwabenland occurred on the very eve of the war, it can only be concluded that that the polar expedition was of major importance and significance to the goals and development of the German nation.

Nor did activity end with the outbreak of the war... In fact, it intensified... The South Atlantic, including South Polar waters became quite active...

Between 1939 and 1941, well after the outbreak of war in Europe, Captain Bernhard Rogge of the commerce raider Atlantis made an extended voyage in the South Atlantic, Indian and South Pacific Oceans, and visited the Iles Kerguelen between December 1940 to January 1941.

The Atlantis is known to have been visited by an RFZ-2 (the UFO style craft which had served as a reconnaissance aircraft since late 1940.) The ship then adopted a new disguise as Tamesis before being sunk by HMS Devonshire near Ascension Island, on 22 November 1941. (the Atlantis was also known as Hilfskreuzer 16 and was, at various times, disguised as Kasii-Maru or Abbekerk.)

Although the activities of the German ship Erlangen, under the captaincy of Alfred Grams, do not appear to be of consequence during 1939-40, the same cannot be said of the Komet which was commanded by Captain Robert Eyssen. Following her passage along the Northern Sea Route in 1940, this commerce raider operated in the Pacific and Indian oceans, including a voyage along the Antarctic coastline from Cape Adare to the Shackleton Ice Shelf in search of whaling vessels during February 1941. There she met the Pinguin and supply vessels Alstertor and Adjutant. (Komet was sunk off Cherbourg in 1942.)

The Pinguin itself under the command of Captain Ernst-Felix Kruder was a commerce raider that operated chiefly in the Indian Ocean. In January 1941 she captured a Norwegian whaling fleet (factory ships Ole Wegger and Pelagos, supply ship Solglimt and eleven whale catchers) in about 59B0 S, 02B0 30W. One of these catchers (renamed Adjutant) remained as a tender and the rest were sent to France. This ship also made anchorages at the Iles Kerguelen and may have landed a party on Marion Island. (Pinguin was sunk off the Persian Gulf by HMS Cornwall on 8 May 1941 after she had captured 136,550 tons of British and allied shipping.

The Kerguelen Archipelago – ideal for secret supply bases

3. The US literally invaded the continent of Antarctica, itself, with considerable naval resources leaving mainland America exposed and vulnerable as the world edged into the Cold War. The task force limped home as if defeated only weeks later, and the local South American press wrote of such a defeat. This coincided with a substantial increase in Unidentified Flying Object activity... generally attributed to the first major “wave” of such activity in modern times, with an inordinate amount of this activity taking place in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly in South America.

4.  Admiral Byrd spoke of objects that could fly from pole to pole at incredible speeds being based on Antarctica.

5.  Hundreds of thousands of Germans and a minimum of forty (40) U-boats were missing at the end of the war. Documentation and eyewitness accounts prove that at least a portion of these craft made it as far as South America, in some cases, several months after the end of the war in Europe.

The connection between Antarctica and the UFO phenomenon was sealed with claims made by one Albert K. Bender who stated that he “went into the fantastic and came up with an answer and I know what the saucers are.”

Bender ran an organization called the International Flying Saucer Bureau a small UFO organization based in Connecticut, USA and he also edited a publication known as the Space Review which was committed to the dissemination of news about UFOs. In truth, the organization had only a small membership and the publication circulated amongst hundreds rather than thousands, but that its members and readers valued it was in little doubt. The publication itself advocated that flying saucers were spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin.

However... in the October 1953 edition of Space Review, there were two major announcements. The first was headed Late Bulletin and stated:

A source which the IFSB considers very reliable has informed us that the investigation of the flying saucer mystery and the solution is approaching final stages. This same source to whom we had referred data, which had come into our possession, suggested that it was not the proper method and time to publish the data in 'Space Review'.

The second announcement read “Statement of Importance:

The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

The statement ended in the sentence :

We advise those engaged in saucer work to please be very cautious.

These announcements were of little significance in and of themselves. Bender’s publication was considered “fringe”, at best, even at the time... However... what gained them wider attention was the fact that immediately after publishing this October 1953 issue, Bender suspended further publication of the magazine and closed the IFSB down without any further explanation. This is completely consistent with the “prudent” approach, shown by many who have been “gently” warned to “cease operations” by the Majestic 12 Group and other agencies involved in “keeping a lid” on any real investigation into the Unidentified Flying Object phenomenon.

Bender might very well have known “what the flying saucers” were, at least a portion of them... but he later revealed in a local newspaper interview that he was keeping his knowledge a secret following a visit by three men who apparently confirmed he was right about his Unidentified Flying Object theory, but put him in sufficient fear to immediately close down his organization and cease publication of the journal.

It has been argued that the story of being visited by three strangers and being warned off was a front to close a publication that was losing money, however the fact that Bender had been “scared to death” and “actually couldn’t eat for a couple of days” was verified by his friends and associates. It is also widely known that such “stories” are often spread by the United States, and other governments to discredit those who might just have the truth, or at least a portion of it.

In 1963, a full decade after his visit from the three strangers, Bender was seemingly prepared to reveal more of his story in a largely unreadable book entitled Flying Saucers and the Three Men in Black. The book was scant on facts, however, it described extraterrestrial spacecraft that had bases in Antarctica.

This was apparently the truth Bender was terrorized into not revealing. Bender also provided images of the saucers he was aware of. He produced drawings of Unidentified Flying Objects that he was aware of... Not saucers, as were the common depictions of the time, but rather “flying wings” which showed three bubble-like protrusions on the underside, reminiscent of the German designed Haunebu II (which was allegedly only in the “design stage” at the end of the Second World War) alongside a cylindrical, cigar shaped object.

Ernst Zündel was NOT a 'Paperclip Scientist': I realized that North Americans were not interested in being educated. They want to be entertained. The book was for fun. With a picture of the Führer on the cover and flying saucers coming out of Antarctica it was a chance to get on radio and TV talk shows. For about 15 minutes of an hour program I'd talk about that esoteric stuff. Then I would start talking about all those Jewish scientists in concentration camps, working on these secret weapons. And that was my chance to talk about what I wanted to talk about.

Ernst Zündel, a German scientist turned author (known for his internet “ZGrams”) who had entered the US under Operation Paperclip (a United States Army/CIA program to bring German scientific talent into the United States in spite of any so-called  “war crimes” which they were alleged to have committed..  at the end of the war and who worked at Wright Field (later Wright Patterson AFB where the Roswell debris were eventually  housed), also made claims about the nature of the activity in Antarctica.

In the 1970s Zündel’s book UFOs: Nazi Secret Weapons? made the claim that at least some Unidentified Flying Objects were German secret Weapons which were developed during the Second World War, and that some of them had been shipped out towards the end of the war and hidden at the poles. Publication of the book coincided with a tidal wave of renewed interest in all things paranormal... coming on the heel of what was to be the last major Unidentified Flying Object “wave” of the Twentieth Century, and Zündel was a guest on to countless talk shows where he shared his views on spaceships, free energies, electromagnetism, emergent technologies and some of the positive contributions made by the Germans in these fields.
 

Zündel, who was one of the first of the “revisionist” historians of the Second World War, was actually only really interested in promoting his holocaust theory, described in his book Did Six Million Really Die? However, he found that his Unidentified Flying Object and Hollow Earth ideas proved a greater attraction to television producers. The idea seized hold of  the popular imagination and took on a life of its own. Zündel’s publishing company, Samisdat, started to make a name for itself by issuing newsletters and books on the subject. An expedition to Antarctica itself was even proposed to seek out Hitler’s UFO bases there.
 

The fact is that such claims would have died out had they not been based on at least some real events...

Now, keep in mind that South America has always been a “hotbed” of Unidentified Flying Object activity. Many of the reports coming out of the area are unverified, and unverifiable... However, many have credence. The claims that something extremely unusual was taking place around the foreboding reaches of the frozen continent took a major leap forward in the 1960s when the Argentine Navy was charged with the official investigation into strange sightings in the sky.

A 1965 official report prepared by Captain Sanchez Moreno of the Naval Air Station Comandante Espora in Bahia Blanca stated that “Between 1950 and 1965, personnel of Argentina’s Navy alone made 22 sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects that were not airplanes, satellites, weather balloons or any type of known (aerial) vehicles. These 22 cases served as precedents for intensifying that investigation of the subject by the Navy.” Following a series of sightings at Argentine and Chilean meteorological stations on Deception Island, Antarctica, in June and July 1965, Captain Engineer Omar Pagani disclosed at a press conference that “Unidentified Flying Objects do exist. Their presence in Argentine airspace is proven”. The report went on to state, however, “their nature and origin are unknown and no judgment is made about them”.

More details of these UFO sightings were given in a report in the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo in its 8^th July 1965 edition. “For the first time in history, an official communiqué has been published by a government about the flying saucers. It is a document from the Argentine Navy, based on the statements of a large number of Argentine, Chilean and British sailors stationed in the naval base in Antarctica.

The communiqué declared that the personnel of Deception Island (left) naval base saw, at nineteen hours forty minutes on 3 July, a flying object of lenticular shape, with a solid appearance and a colouring in which red and green prevailed and, for a few moments, yellow. The machine was flying in a zig-zag fashion, and in a generally western direction, but it changed course several times and changed speed, having an inclination of about forty-five degrees above the horizon. The craft also remained stationary for about twenty minutes at a height of approximately 5,000 meters, producing no sound.

The communiqué states moreover that the prevailing meteorological conditions when the phenomenon was observed can be considered excellent for the region in question and the time of year. The sky was clear and quite a lot of stars were visible. The Secretariat of the Argentine Navy also states in its communiqué that the occurrence was witnessed by scientists of the three naval bases and that the facts described by these people agree completely.”

Practically everyone in the “UFO Community” is aware that in March 1950 Commodore Augusto Vars Orrego of the Chilean Navy shot still pictures and 8mm movie footage of a very large cigar shaped flying object that hovered over and manoeuvred about in the frigid skies above the Chilean Antarctic. The photos and the report of Orrego’s sighting have, quite literally, been seen by millions over the half century since he saw, and photographed the objects. Orrego stated “during the bright Antarctic night, we saw flying saucers, one above the other, turning at tremendous speeds. We have photographs to prove what we saw .” There have, of course, been numerous other Chilean sightings.

During January 1956 another major Unidentified Flying Object “event” was witnessed by a group of Chilean scientists who had been flown by helicopter to Robertson Island in the Wendell Sea to study geology, fauna and other features. This experience was the subject of a later article entitled A Cigar-Shaped UFO over Antarctica. “At the beginning of January 1956, during a period of stormy weather, the party suddenly became aware of something which, in other circumstances, could have been very grave for them. This was that their radio had mysteriously ceased to function. This was not too worrying a disaster in so much as it was firmly settled that the helicopter would return to take them off again on January 20.”

One of the scientists, a doctor, was in the habit of getting up in the night to observe anything of meteorological interest, but another of the group, a professor, did not like to be disturbed. However on the night of 8 January 1956, the Doctor decided to wake the professor. He “pointed upwards, almost overhead. Still in a bad temper due to being disturbed, the professor looked as directed, and beheld two “metallic, cigar-shaped objects in verticular positions, perfectly still and silent, and flashing vividly the reflected rays of the sun”. Just  after 7.00am, two other members of the party, an assistant and a medical orderly joined the two men. The group watched the two craft. “At about 9.00am object No. 1 (the nearest to the zenith) suddenly assumed a horizontal posture and shot away like a flash towards the west. It had now lost its metallic brightness and had taken on the whole gamut of visible colours of the spectrum, from infrared to ultra-violet.

The report of the sighting went on to say... “Without slowing down it performed an incredible acute-angle change of direction, shot off across another section of the sky and then did another sharp turn as before. These vertiginous manoeuvres, the zig-zagging, abrupt stopping, instantaneous accelerating, went on for some time right overhead, the object always following tangential trajectories in respect to the Earth and all in the most absolute silence”.

The demonstration lasted about five minutes. Then, according to the witnesses, the object returned and took up position beside its companion in almost the same area of the sky as before. Then, it was the turn of No. 2 to show its paces and do a convoluted, zigzagging dance across the sky. Shooting off towards the east, it performed a series of ten disjointed bursts of flight, broken by abrupt changes of direction, and marked by the pronounced colour changes when accelerating or stopping. After about three minutes, object No. 2 was observed to resume its station near its companion, and return to its original solid and metallic appearance.

Due to the nature of their mission, the group had with them two Geiger-Miller counters of high sensitivity, one of the auditory and the other of the flash-type. When the two objects had finished their dance and reassumed their stations in the sky, someone discovered that the flash-type Geiger counter now showed that radioactivity around them had suddenly increased 40 times... far more than enough to kill any organism subjected long enough to it. The discovery greatly increased the anxiety felt by the four men.

Although they had no telescopic lens, they did have cameras with them, and managed to take numerous photographs of the objects, both in colour and black and white. The report does not state what became of these photographs, but it is safe to assume that they are in the possession of the Chilean Government, and there is no reason to assume that they have not been shared with that of the United States, as well as others.

Of course... no names are given in this report, but... it has the ring of truth, and is consistent with any number of similar sightings... Would that we knew their names! It is one of the exasperating facts of Unidentified Flying Object research that so many of the South American and South Atlantic sightings are attributed to “anonymous sources” or the names of the witnesses involved, have been expunged from the “official” records. So many of the witnesses being cited would be, with reference to their stated credentials, credible sources, but because of the practice of expunging names from records which might fall into “public hands” are practically impossible to trace. The absence of names... in many, if not most cases deliberately expunged from official reports... simply lends to an aura of “unbelievability”, even though it is a common practice, especially in most countries.

Yet another documented account of a UFO sighting over Antarctica is by Rubens Junqueira Villela, a meteorologist and the first Brazilian scientist to participate in an expedition to the South Polar region, and now, a veteran of eleven expeditions to Antarctica (two with the US Navy, eight with the Brazilian Antarctic Programme and another on the sailing ship Rapa Nui). While on board the US Navy icebreaker Glacier, which had set sail from New Zealand at the end of January 1961, Villela claims that he witnessed a UFO event in the skies over Antarctica which he immediately recorded in his diary, even including the emotions felt by all those involved. On 16 March 1961, after a fierce storm had forced the expedition to retreat to Admiralty Bay in the King George Isles, “a strange light suddenly crossed the sky, and everyone started to shout”.

Speculation went wild. Some thought the object to be an incoming missile. Others thought it to be a meteor. The excitement was widespread and growing. “Trying to describe the light which appeared over Almirantado Bay” he told interviewers, later, “wasn’t easy b& I wrote in my diary: Positively the colours, the configuration and contours of the object, as a bodied light, with geometric forms, did not seem to be from this world, and I did not know what could possibly reproduce it”.

The object, he went on to report, was “multi-coloured”, and had a luminous, oval-shaped body. It left, behind it,  a “long tube-like orange/red trail”. Allegedly, it split into two pieces, as if it had exploded. Then, each part shone even more intensively, with white, blue and red colours projecting V shaped rays behind it. They quickly moved away and could be seen 200 meters above the ground b& According to the witnesses, the entire display was completely silent.

The US Navy officially registered the incident as “a meteor or some other natural luminous phenomenon” according to the report submitted by the Glacier’s captain, Captain Porter. However, this is a common practice, and has been, ever since the inception of the Unidentified Flying Object cover-up, under the auspices of the Majestic 12 group. This policy of “official denial” and “logical explanation” no matter how far fetched, would seem, has been followed by all branches of the United States Government since the first days after the Roswell Incident, in July 1947. It certainly applies to any sightings or alleged sightings in and around Antarctica...

Villela, on the other hand, easily dismissed the official line. “How could they mistake a meteor with an object carrying antennae, completely symmetrical and followed by a tail without any sight of atmospheric disturbance?”

According to most “official” sources... and certainly according to world renowned sceptic and self-styled debunker, Phillip Klaus, this particular episode is a classic example of plasma, however the late meteorologist, James McDonald argued that the highly structured nature of the object and the low cloud overcast present at about 1500 feet were not compatible with Klaus’s hypothesis.

The list of sightings in the South Atlantic area is practically endless. It is, and has been, particularly since the end of the Second World War, one of the most active areas on earth with respect to Unidentified Flying Object activity. Another classic sighting took place on 16 January 1958 when the Brazilian naval vessel Almirante Salddanha was escorting a team of scientists to a weather station on Trindade Island. As the ship approached the island (or rather an outcrop of rock) an Unidentified Flying Object reportedly flew low, over the water, past the ship, circled the island, then flew off in front of dozens of witnesses.

One of the witnesses to this particular event, the expedition photographer, took a number of photographs of the object. Later, the film was handed over to the military by the Captain. Amazingly, after the initial analysis, the Brazilian government released the film stating that they were unable to account for the images.

Why did the United States Government, in late 1947, only months after the famous Roswell Incident, send a naval task force to Antarctic including Admiral Nimitz, Admiral Krusen and Admiral Byrd, called “Operation Highjump”. As we observed earlier, the operation was said to be an expedition to find “coal deposits” and other valuable resources, but... the facts indicate otherwise... In actuality, there seems to be no doubt that they were trying to locate an immense underground base constructed by the Germans, before, during and immediately after the Second World War, with the aid of Alien Entities which were described as “Aryans”.  This base, allegedly located in an area that the Germans called “Neuschwabenlandt”... an area of Antarctica which Germany explored, and claimed, before the outbreak of the Second World War...was thought to hold “flying objects which could fly from Pole to Pole in a matter of minutes”...

For years, rumours have circulated as to why German submarines... U-Boats... would operate in South American and Antarctic waters long after the end of the Second World War, in Europe. Some have said that the boats spirited away such notables as Adolf Hitler and Martin Bormannn...  both of whom can be demonstrated to have died in Berlin at the end of the war. the death... and physical remains of both men have been verified beyond doubt, the latter with very recent DNA testing. Thus neither of them escaped via U-boats to South America. The fact is, Wolfgang Eisenmenger, a forensic science professor at Munich University, conducted the DNA testing of Bormann’s remains. He seems to have done the work for the Frankfurt justice officials. He also had Bormann’s dental, medical, and fingerprint records. Bormann’s children (or a distant family member, details a bit fuzzy) provided the blood for the DNA match which was proven conclusive, i.e. that the body was of Martin Bormann. The cause of death was deemed to be self inflicted poisoning. Adolf Hitler, of course, died in his Bunker in Berlin, of poison... and a self inflicted gunshot.

Everyone has heard stories of vast amounts of gold or other valuables being “smuggled” out of Germany in the last days of the war... secreted away to South America... to support so-called “criminals” abroad. So far, none of those stories has shown any sign of merit. If they were so, then men such as Eichman would not have worked on the assembly line in a Volkswagen plant. Müller would not have run a chicken farm, and Mengele would not have been dependent upon the generosity of his wealthy family.

There is a story floating around that this said U-boat commander worked on some highly classified US National Secrets after the war, and that his boat was operating in the far South... He was reported to have been a commander of a VIIC or IXC U-boat in the Atlantic during the war, named Otto Schneider. This theory is also easy to disprove... There simply was no U-Boat commander by that name in the Kriegsmarine (German Navy).  Only two commanders with that last name saw service in the war; Herbert Schneider who died while in command of U-522, and Manfred Schneider only commander the small XXIII boat U-4706 for the last 3 months of the war, and never left his home port. This story is just that, a story.

The fact is, Unidentified Flying Object researchers are well aware of strange sightings of ‘flying saucers’ with swastikas or iron crosses displayed on them. They are also well aware of  ‘aliens’ speaking German, and have also heard of abductees who have been taken to underground bases with swastika emblems on the walls, or as in the case of one abductee...  Alex Christopher... who claims to have seen “Reptiloids” and Germans working together aboard antigravity craft or within underground bases.

Is this what America feared? Is it a secret Antarctic facility where these experiments and developments continued?  What Operation Highjump was actually looking for? Is this secret, among others, the one that cost James Forrestall his life? Did an unrecorded, three hour long meeting with a group of German scientists and engineers and “Aryan” Extraterrestrials in the frozen wastelands near the South Pole cost Admiral Byrd his life?  Is this the origin of the “warships of space”, that the Rosenberg’s mentioned in the very shadow of the electric chair?

One thing is certain... The United States did not “invade” Antarctica, at the end of a World War and the very beginning of a Cold War... using a disproportionate share of it’s diminishing fleet... for “exploration” purposes. If they were looking for something, they surely knew what it was they were looking for... and... a “scientific” expedition does not go forth prepared for WAR...

The map of Neu Schwabenland that cannot be exhibited in Germany, on penalty of imprisonment