The North Pole – Russian Style

Palmer, RayPalmer, Ray: Flying Saucers magazine, March 1962
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More Evidence of Mystery Lands at the Poles - Two Hundred Years of Exploration Have Given the Russians a New Concept of the Pole and Render all Previous Geographies Obsolete - Here are Indisputable Geophysical Facts!

Many readers will remember the articles we have published giving our theories that there is something mysterious about each polar area of the Earth. We have suggested that there is much more "area" at both poles than it is possible to show on a globe map. We have pointed out Admiral Byrd's strange flights `beyond' the poles. We have mentioned the case of missing mountains and different branches of the military discounting the mapping ability of the other. We have even suggested that the Earth is hollow, and that giant 2,100 mile openings exist at the poles, and there is much evidence of the existence of these openings. We have pointed out that there is a great deal of secrecy and double-talk about the Arctic and Antarctic areas. We have even suggested that the flying saucers might come from this mystery area, or from inside the Earth.

One of the things we have been most insistent about is that no one has yet been to the North Pole, all claims to having done so being false, because the Pole is not a "point", and cannot be "reached" in the accepted sense of the word.

We have successfully challenged those military and civilian pilots who have claimed that they fly `daily' over the North Pole. In the case of the military flyer we have pointed out the maneuver which is standard, which automatically makes it impossible for him to fly `beyond' the Pole by flying straight across it. Because of navigating difficulties stemming from compasses of all kinds"

A "lost" flier (whose compass doesn't work as it should) regains his bearings by making a turn in any direction, until his compasses again resume function. In the case of commercial airlines, whose advertising boast is that they fly twice daily over the Pole, they are simply stretching the truth by 2,300 miles.

We have available, in the form of records of several hundred years, in Russian archives, a history of Arctic exploration which proves our most important point beyond further question: i.e., that the North Magnetic Pole is not a point, but (deduce the Russians) a "line" approximately 1000 miles long. Before we go further, we might suggest that we think they are wrong in this deduction, and that instead of being a line, it is actually a circle. Because of lack of space to place it on the globe, the Russians have been forced to compress their observations into a two dimensional area. They had to squeeze the circle from two sides and make a line out of it. We'd like to give you now a resume of that single point of Russian exploration, which actually covers much more than just geomagnetism.

Here is what the Russians say: Navigators in the high latitudes have always been troubled by the odd behavior of their magnetic compasses caused by apparent irregularities and asymmetries in the magnetic field of the Earth. Early magnetic maps have been drawn on this assumption, based on hopeful guesses, that the North Magnetic Pole is virtually a point. Accordingly, it was expected that the compass needle, which dips more steeply as it approaches the Magnetic Pole, would point straight down, or very nearly so, at the Magnetic Pole itself. But data from many Russian and other expeditions showed that the compass needle points straight down, or nearly so, at the Magnetic Pole itself. But data from many Russian and other expeditions showed that the compass needle points straight down for a very long distance across the Arctic Ocean, from a point northwest of the Taimyr Peninsula to another point in the Arctic Archipelago. This discovery first inspired the hypothesis that there is a second North Magnetic Pole, tentatively located at 86 degrees East longitude. More refined observation has disposed of this idea. The map of the magnetic field now shows the magnetic meridians running close together in a thick bunch of lines from the North Magnetic Pole in the Arctic Archipelago to Siberia.

The North Magnetic Pole, once thought to be virtually a point in the Arctic Archipelago, has been shown by recent investigations to extend across the polar basin to the Taimyr Penninsula in Siberia.

The 'Pole', magnetically speaking, is a very extended area that crosses the Polar Basin from one continent to the other. It is at least 1,000 miles long, and more likely can be said to exist as a rather diffused line for 1,000 miles more. (It is really not a point in the far north, but is the rim of the polar opening, since after Admiral Byrd passed it and entered the polar opening leading to the Earth's interior, he left the Arctic ice and snow behind and entered a warmer territory - Author. ) Thus when Admiral Peary (and any other Arctic explorer who used a magnetic compass) claims to have "reached" the Pole, he is making a very vague claim indeed. He can only say that he reached a point, which can be anywhere in a demonstrable 2,000 mile area (the magnetic rim of the polar opening), where his compass pointed straight down. A noteworthy achievement, but not a 'discovery of the Pole.'

Since other types of compass, such as the gyroscopic and the inertial guidance, have equally vague limitations, we make bold to say that nobody ever reached the Pole, and more, there is not a 'Pole' to reach.

Next, having found themselves stumped to account for the strange behavior of the compass in the Polar Basin, the theorists have turned to space and the upper atmosphere and even to the sun for an explanation of what is happening to their instruments. Now the Pole has become 'the interaction of the magnetic field with charged particles from the sun'.

More significant are the unfavorable references to former cartographers whose maps are now 'thick clouds congealed in the imagination of cartographers as land masses'. The Navy, as an example, feels a bit put out when the Army says their missing South Pole mountains were never there, because the Army cannot find them by their own confused reckoning based on a magnetic pole which 'isn't there at all'. We find now that new land areas are 'discovered' and old maps tossed out because the lands they show are not there any more.

This brings us to the subject of `mystery lands' of great extent in the polar areas, which cannot possibly be placed on our globe without overlapping seriously in impossible ways...Could it be here where the flying saucers originate?"

(...)

The focal point, or the actual 'pinpoint' of the magnetic pole exists on only one portion of the circumference of that circle at a time, and moves progressively around the circle in a definite `orbit' that takes some 235 years. This would make the magnetic pole travel approximately 18 miles per year.

Military and civilian flights 'over the Pole' can be made daily without producing the slightest evidence of the vast hole in the Earth, whose perimeter they circumscribe, no matter what they ASSUME in their navigational procedure, due to the original error in assumption that what they are passing over is a POINT and not a vast CIRCUMFERENCE which they touch at only one place, and then immediately deviate away from its natural curve because they are traveling in a straight line.

(...)

Exploration and research have shown that an enormous area of the Earth's surface and correspondingly 'large realms of the unknown' may be brought within the compass of human understanding in a very few years.

(...)

This is truly a stupendous sentence. Contemplate what it actually says. It says that not only exploration, but also `research' have shown that enormous regions of the Earth's surface AND correspondingly (this word is significant) large realms of the UNKNOWN may be brought within the compass of UNDERSTANDING of human beings in a very few years. In plain words, in addition to areas we can understand and investigate by exploration, there are large realms which have to be brought to human understanding by means of research.

Yes, large UNKNOWN and even BEYOND PRESENT UNDERSTANDABILITY areas do exist, and it `MAY BE' that we will discover and comprehend them in a very few years. In plain words, in addition to areas we can understand and investigate by exploration, there are large realms which have to be brought to human understanding by means of research.

In the next few sentences (of the Russians) we find that there is much 'prospect for development' in a Polar Basin which, by present concepts, is nothing but frozen ocean. What is it that is such a great prospect for development? Ice cubes for our tea? No, there must be very much more interesting possibilities, the kind of possibilities that entail large land masses of an unknown area yet to be explored and developed.

(...)

As recently as 30 years ago more than half the total area of the Polar Basin was unexplored, and 16 per cent was still terra incognita only 15 years ago. Today, disappointing as this may be to young geographers, the area of blank spots on the map of the Polar Basin has shrunk to almost nothing. At the same time, to the regret of the older explorers and the understandable pleasure of the younger ones, there are still blank spots elsewhere in the Arctic. The ocean, the air and the ionosphere still hold many mysteries.

(...)

We learn that the blank spots on the map of the Polar Basin have shrunk to almost nothing. In the next breath we find that there are still blank spots ELSEWHERE in the Arctic. Where else? The ocean, the air and the ionosphere, they say, still hold many mysteries. Particularly the ocean, in the UNKNOWN extent of which exist vast land masses so far not only beyond our ability to place on our maps, but beyond our ability to understand.

We might say all this is double talk. We might also say secrets are being kept. But we won't The fact is that neither is true. It is STRAIGHT talk, the only kind of talk we can expect from anyone who is trying to tell something, but cannot because it is, as yet, beyond his understanding. To say definitely that there are large land masses inside an area commonly called a 'point' is to be faced with a challenge to demonstrate and prove. Since this cannot be done, the speaker is left rather helpless to do more than hint vaguely at mysteries.

It is up to the opponents of the 'Mystery Land at the Pole' theory to disprove it, or prove their own - and their own has been irrevocably demolished by the scientists and explorers of the two greatest nations on earth. What we have presented is not a theory - but the cumulative result of hundreds of years of exploration, culminated by the geophysical year [1957] which established the information we have given you as the `new concept of geomagnetism in the Polar Basin.'

The mystery is at last coming to the fore, and the scoffers are at last silenced. Let us all work together to dig out the truth about this mystery that is so engrossing, and so important to mankind. What is it that exists at both Poles of the earth, which opens to us new frontiers so vast in extent and nature as to be beyond present understanding? It may well be that exploration of space is far less important than the exploration of our own mysterious planet, which has now suddenly become a 'vast realm' far larger than we ever dreamed it to be.

(...)

Only Admiral Byrd's 'mystery land' can account for these inexplicable facts and migrations

(...)

The musk-ox, contrary to expectations, migrates north in the wintertime. Repeatedly, Arctic explorers have observed bears heading north into an area where there cannot be food for them. Foxes also are found north of the 80th parallel, heading north, obviously well fed. Without exception, Arctic explorers agree that the further north one goes, the warmer it gets. Invariably a north wind brings warmer weather. Coniferous trees drift ashore from out of the north. Butterflies and bees are found in the far north, but never hundreds of miles further south; not until Canadian and Alaskan climate areas conducive to such insect life are reached.

Unknown varieties of flowers are found. Birds resembling snipe, but unlike any known species of bird, come out of the north, and return there. Hare are plentiful in an area where no vegetation ever grows, but where vegetation appears as drifting debris from the northern open water. Eskimo tribes, migrating northward, have left unmistakable traces of their migration in their temporary camps, always advancing northward. Southern Eskimos themselves speak of tribes that live in the far north. The Ross gull, common at Point Barrow, migrates in October toward the North. Only Admiral Byrd's 'mystery land' can account for these inexplicable facts and migrations.

(...)

The Scandinavian legend of a wonderful land far to the north called "Ultima Thule" (commonly confused with Greenland) is significant when studied in detail, because of its remarkable resemblance to the kind of land seen by Byrd, and its remarkable far north location. To assume that Ultima Thule is Greenland is to come face to lace with the contradiction of the Greenland Ice Cap, which fills the entire Greenland basin to the depth of 10,000 feet. Is Admiral Byrd's land of mystery, the center of the great unknown, the same as the Ultima Thule of the Scandinavian legends?

There are mysteries concerning the Antarctic also. Perhaps the greatest is the highly technical one of biology itself; for on the New Zealand and South American land masses are identical fauna and flora which could not have migrated from one to the other, but rather are believed to have come from a common motherland. That motherland is believed to be the Antarctic Continent. But on a more popular level is the case of the sailing vessel 'Gladys', captained by F. B. Hatfield in 1893. The ship was completely surrounded by icebergs at 43 degrees south and 33 degrees west. At this latitude an iceberg was observed which bore a large quantity of sand and earth, and which revealed a beaten track, a place of refuge formed in a sheltered nook, and the bodies of five dead men who lay on different parts of the iceberg. Bad weather prevented any attempts at further investigation.

An unanimous consensus of opinion among scientists is that one thing peculiar to the Antarctic is that there are no human tribes living upon it. Also investigation showed that no vessel was lost in the Antarctic at the time, so that these men could not be shipwrecked sailors. Could it be that these men who died on the berg came from `that mysterious land beyond the South Pole' discovered by the Byrd expedition? Had they ventured out of their warm, habitable land and lost their way along the ice shelf, finally to be drifted to their deaths at sea on a portion o! it, broken away to become an iceberg while they were on it?