Case file · High strangeness
'The Smoky God': Olaf Jansen's inner world
Willis George Emerson's 1908 book claimed to record the true story of Norwegian sailor Olaf Jansen, who sailed through a polar opening into the Earth's interior, lit by a smoky central sun and home to 12-foot giants.
1908 CE · 34.05, -118.24 · status: claim
The account
Jansen said he lived among the giants for two years and that their land was the original Garden of Eden. Later writers identified his inner world with Agartha, and the book remains a staple of hollow-earth belief.
The sceptical view
No evidence that Jansen existed; the book reads as a novel, and polar exploration and satellites show no openings.
Connections in the atlas
- Halley's hollow Earth
- 'Etidorhpa': through a Kentucky cave to the Earth's core
- Agartha, the kingdom inside the Earth
- Raymond Bernard's 'The Hollow Earth' and the Byrd myth