Case file · Secret facility (alleged)
Operation Highjump: myth and history
From December 1946 to February 1947 the US Navy sent 4,700 men, 13 ships and 33 aircraft under Admiral Byrd to Antarctica, the largest Antarctic expedition ever, to train for polar warfare and map the coast.
1946 CE · -78.50, -163.90 · status: explained
The account
A Chilean newspaper interview with Byrd in March 1947, in which he warned of future attacks 'from pole to pole', was later spun into the claim that the fleet fought a Nazi or alien base and was driven off.
The sceptical view
Records show the operation ended early because of the coming winter; it lost a seaplane and three men in a crash. Byrd's remark was about Soviet bombers over the poles.
Connections in the atlas
- 'Nukey Poo', the reactor at McMurdo
- The Bunger 'oasis'
- Neuschwabenland and the Nazi base myth
- The flat-earth 'ice wall' around the world
- Byrd's flight over the South Pole
- Byrd's 'land beyond the pole' quotes, claimed and documented
- The Antarctic Treaty and 'why is it closed?'
- Raymond Bernard's 'The Hollow Earth' and the Byrd myth