As science and science fiction merge, we unravel the ancient mysteries of the human experience. If indeed entities exist beneath the surface of the planet, they would not live in molten rock but in spaceships. And as the tectonic plates are breaking—either by their doing, a knowing that the consciousness hologram that creates this reality is ending so they no longer have to monitor from below, or they emerge as the plates naturally break apart.

Hollow Earth Theories always propose a central sun, aliens, and mythical subterranean cities and civilizations that some believe could link science and pseudoscience if physically discovered. Glaciers at both the Arctic and Antarctic regions are melting down at an accelerated rate, which will reveal the truth behind this mystery and its metaphoric connections to other creation myths in the story of humanity's journey on planet Earth.

According to the Hollow Earth Hypothesis, planet Earth is either wholly hollow or otherwise contains a substantial interior space. The hypothesis has long been contradicted by overwhelming observational evidence, as well as by the modern understanding of planet formation; the scientific community has dismissed the notion since at least the late 18th century.

The concept of a hollow Earth still recurs in folklore and as the premise for a sub-genre of adventure fiction. It also features in some present-day pseudoscientific and conspiracy theories.

Underground civilizations link with the 'Hollow Earth Theory'. There are supposedly races that exist in subterranean cities beneath planet Earth. Very often, these dwellers of the world beneath are more technologically advanced than we on the surface. Some believe that UFOs are not from other planets, but are manufactured by strange beings in the interior of the Earth.

In ancient times, the idea of subterranean realms seemed arguable and became intertwined with concepts such as the Greek Hades, the Nordic svartalfheim, the Christian Hell, and the Jewish Sheol (with details describing inner Earth in Kabalistic literature, such as the Zohar and Hesed L'Avraham).

Edmond Halley in 1692 put forth the idea of Earth consisting of a hollow shell about 800 km (500 miles) thick, two inner concentric shells, and an innermost core, about the diameters of the planets Venus, Mars, and Mercury. Atmospheres separate these shells, and each shell has its own magnetic poles. The spheres rotate at different speeds. Halley proposed this scheme to explain anomalous compass readings. He envisaged the atmosphere inside as luminous (and possibly inhabited) and speculated that escaping gas caused the Aurora Borealis.

De Camp and Ley have claimed (in their Lands Beyond) that Leonhard Euler also proposed a hollow-Earth idea, getting rid of multiple shells and postulating an interior sun 1000 km (600 miles) across to provide light to an advanced inner-Earth civilization (but they provide no references). However, in his *Letters to a German Princess*, Euler describes a thought experiment involving a patently solid Earth.

De Camp and Ley also claim that Sir John Leslie expanded on Euler's idea, suggesting two central suns named Pluto and Proserpine (this was unrelated to the dwarf planet Pluto, which was discovered and named some time later). Leslie did propose a hollow Earth in his 1829 *Elements of Natural Philosophy* (pp. 449–453), but does not mention interior suns.

In 1818, John Cleves Symmes, Jr. suggested that the Earth consisted of a hollow shell about 1300 km (800 miles) thick, with openings about 2300 km (1400 miles) across at both poles with 4 inner shells each open at the poles. Symmes became the most famous of the early Hollow Earth proponents. He proposed making an expedition to the North Pole hole, thanks to efforts of one of his followers, James McBride, but the new President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, halted the attempt.

Jeremiah Reynolds also delivered lectures on the “Hollow Earth” and argued for an expedition. Reynolds went on an expedition to Antarctica himself but missed joining the Great U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842, even though that venture was a result of his agitation.

Though Symmes himself never wrote a book about his ideas, several authors published works discussing his ideas. McBride wrote *Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres* in 1826. It appears that Reynolds has an article that appeared as a separate booklet in 1827: *Remarks of Symmes' Theory Which Appeared in the American Quarterly Review*.

In 1868, Professor W.F. Lyons published *The Hollow Globe*, which put forth a Symmes-like Hollow Earth hypothesis, but didn't mention Symmes. Symmes's son Americus then published *The Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres* to set the record straight.

The Thule Society, which was well known by Adolf Hitler, reported much about Tibetan myths of openings into the Earth. There is even a theory that Hitler ordered a research journey for such an opening in Antarctica, based on a speech of Admiral Donitz in front of a German submarine in 1944, when he claimed, “The German submarine fleet is proud of having built an invisible fortification for the Fuhrer, anywhere in the world.” During the Nuremberg Trials, Donitz spoke of “an invisible fortification, in the midst of the eternal ice.”

• As the story goes … Hitler and his followers wanted to create a race of super soldiers, an Aryan race (like the Atlanteans) to rule the world. They came to this conclusion through the acceptance of many occult beliefs and practices, including the Hollow Earth Theory. There is a legend which says that Hitler and his chief advisers escaped the last days of the Third Reich by going through the opening at the South Pole (Antarctica) where they discovered an entrance to the Earth's interior.

• According to the Hollow Earth Research Society in Ontario, Canada, they are still there. After the war, the organization claims, the Allies discovered that more than 2,000 scientists from Germany and Italy had vanished, along with almost a million people, to the land beyond the South Pole. This story gets more complicated with Nazi-designed UFOs, Nazi collaboration with the people who live in the center of the Earth, and the possible explanation for “Aryan-looking” UFO pilots.

In 2005, Steven Currey Expeditions planned an expedition to the North Pole region to explore for a possible opening into the inner Earth. Brooks A. Agnew took over as leader on Currey's death in 2006, with the plan of taking 100 scientists and filmmakers to the supposed Arctic “opening” in 2009.

An early twentieth-century proponent of hollow Earth, William Reed, wrote *Phantom of the Poles* in 1906. He supported the idea of a hollow Earth, but without interior shells or an inner sun.

Marshall Gardner wrote *A Journey to the Earth's Interior* in 1913 and an expanded edition in 1920. He placed an interior sun in the hollow Earth. He even built a working model of the hollow Earth and patented it. Gardner made no mention of Reed but did take Symmes to task for his ideas. At the same time, Vladimir Obruchev wrote a fiction novel *Plutonia*, where the hollow Earth's interior possessed one inner (central) sun and was inhabited by prehistoric species. The interior was connected with the surface by a hole in the Arctic.

Other writers have proposed that ascended masters of esoteric wisdom inhabit subterranean caverns or a hollow Earth. Antarctica, the North Pole, Tibet, Peru, and Mount Shasta in California, USA, have all had their advocates as the locations of entrances to a subterranean realm referred to as Agartha, with some even advancing the hypothesis that UFOs have their homeland in these places.

In 1964, Raymond W. Bernard, an esotericist and leader of the Rosicrucians, published *The Hollow Earth: The Greatest Geographical Discovery in History Made by Admiral Richard E. Byrd in the Mysterious Land Beyond the Poles: The True Origin of the Flying Saucers*. Bernard tells stories about people who have entered the inner Earth and what has happened to them. It mentions a photograph published in 1960 in the *Globe and Mail* in Toronto, Canada, which shows a beautiful valley with lush hills. An aviator claimed that he had taken the picture while flying into the North Pole.

In his *Letters from Nowhere*, Bernard claims to have been in contact with great mystics in secret ashrams and with Grand Lamas in Tibet. He was, in short, another Gurdjieff. Dr. Bernard “died of pneumonia on September 10, 1965, while searching the tunnel openings to the interior of the Earth, in South America.”

Bernard seems to have accepted every legend ever associated with the hollow Earth idea, including the notions that the Eskimos originated within the Earth and an advanced civilization dwells within even now, revving up their UFOs for occasional forays into thin air. Bernard even accepts without question Shaver's claim that he learned the secret of relativity before Einstein from the Hollow Earth people.

Let's stay in the Arctic and time travel back to meet Admiral Richard E. Byrd of the United States Navy who allegedly flew to the North Pole in 1926. He wrote in his diary:

• “As we flew into a hollow interior, my crew and I were greeted by flying machines of a type we had never seen before and were not aware existed. Instruments indicated we flew 17 miles over mountains, lakes, rivers, green vegetation, and animal life resembling the mammoths of antiquity. We eventually left this mysterious land, having documented it to our satisfaction and having seen the creatures who lived there. Since then, the government has hidden this information from the public, supposedly because of its implications for science and the world.”

• Byrd made further expeditions, including an alleged one to the South Pole, where he claimed to find the land of the Aryans. It is rumored that Byrd made contact with beings from another world during these expeditions. But as time went on, evidence for Byrd's claims seems rather dubious.

• Byrd's expeditions were an important part of establishing and defending the hollow Earth theory. Bernard adds more speculative stories about Byrd and others who explored the inner Earth, claiming they saw ancient civilizations and alien technology.

There are many fictional works and movies which are inspired by the concept of a hollow Earth. In literature, the concept has been used in novels such as *Journey to the Center of the Earth* by Jules Verne (1864), Edgar Rice Burroughs' *Pellucidar* series, and more recent works like those by Raymond Bernard.

• *Journey to the Center of the Earth* by Jules Verne
• *Pellucidar* series by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Agartha
• Shambhala
• Theosophy