Case file · Folklore / legend
Patriarch Kirill among the penguins
In mid-February 2016, days after meeting Pope Francis in Havana, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow flew from Punta Arenas to Bellingshausen Station, served the liturgy in Holy Trinity Church and walked among penguins.
2016 CE · -62.20, -58.96 · status: official
The account
It was the first visit to Antarctica by a head of the Russian Orthodox Church, timed for 60 years of regular Soviet and Russian Antarctic work. Online theorists later grouped it with John Kerry's and Buzz Aldrin's trips that year as proof that 'something was found' under the ice.
The sceptical view
The visit was public, televised and linked to a Latin American tour; nothing connects it to the other 2016 trips except the year.
Connections in the atlas
- Holy Trinity Church on King George Island
- Buzz Aldrin's evacuation and the fake 'evil' tweet
- John Kerry in Antarctica on election week