524: DEEP DIVE: Operation Highjump: Unraveling the Antarctic Mystery
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Operation High Jump commenced in August 1946. It was the largest, most heavily armed naval task force ever sent to Antarctica. Leading the mission was Admiral Richard E. Byrd, one of the most famous naval officers in history.

The official purpose for the expedition was scientific research and military training. But that was just a cover story. Operation High Jump had other goals. One was to extend American sovereignty over Antarctica, something that the U.S. government denied many times. Another was to locate and destroy a secret Nazi base...

and capture the Nazis' new secret weapon, the flying saucer. UFOs were seen all over the area, suspected to be Nazi test flights. Admiral Byrd was sent to find out. And he did find UFOs, and a lot more than that. ♪

In December 1938, aware that he was on the brink of war, Hitler dedicated considerable resources to searching for mysterious ancient artifacts said to have incredible power. One of these expeditions launched on December 17th, 1938. The SS Schwabenland was sent on a secret mission to Antarctica.

As you would expect, the expedition included scientists and engineers. But there was another group aboard with expertise in things outside of science. Members of the Thule Society, which publicly acted like a German political group. They owned newspapers and pushed the racist Nazi agenda. But their origins were deep in the occult.

After World War I, a secret society called Vril was founded by four members at a Vienna café. One of the founders was a spiritual medium. The group focused on secret revelations that might bring new powers to Germany, powers originating from ancient peoples and distant worlds.

The group believed they had accessed a source of power called the Black Sun, an infinite beam of light, invisible to the human eye because it existed in antimatter. The Black Sun became the Vril emblem, a black circle with swastika-like jagged lines jetting out in all directions. This became the symbol used by many occult practitioners of the Third Reich.

The spiritual medium who founded the Vril Society claimed to channel information from aliens and was instructed to build a saucer-shaped interdimensional time travel machine. She passed this information on to the Thule Society, whose members had the training and experience to understand the alien instructions. The group included men like Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, and Hans Frank, who became prominent members of the Third Reich.

The Thules did more than understand the alien instructions. They followed them. They built what became known as the Vril machine, and it's rumored they gave it a test flight in 1934. For the Thules, the expedition to Antarctica was a new opportunity to connect with otherworldly powers. The Thule Society believed a highly advanced race of human-like beings existed somewhere deep inside the Earth, and the entrance to their world was at the South Pole.

The classified mission of the SS Schwabenland was to find a location for a secret underground base and make contact with the beings living in the Hollow Earth. And once contact was made, negotiate for access to their technology.

The ship reached the Antarctic coast a month later. For the next three weeks, they mapped hundreds of thousands of square miles of the continent. About 150 miles inland, aerial reconnaissance found what it described as an Arctic oasis, an area about 300 square miles was free of ice, filled with warm water and even contained plant life.

A geothermal vent beneath the oasis kept the area relatively warm. This was the ideal place for a base, especially for U-boats. This is where Nazis would establish the infamous underground facility known as Base 211.

Over the course of World War II, Base 211 became a massive complex as large as a small city. Initially, it was designed as an offensive structure where U-boats and missiles could be deployed. But as the tide of war turned against the Axis powers, it became clear that the base would be an ideal way to escape.

By the middle of 1940, submarines were bringing in vast stores of food, clothing, fuel, and every other conceivable item necessary for establishing a safe place where Hitler could find refuge. In the war's final months, huge amounts of equipment, supplies, and personnel were transported to Antarctica.

James Robert, with the UK Ministry of Defence, said that Base 211 also contained, and I quote, hangars for strange planes and excavations galore. Robert, who cites an SAS officer that participated in a secret British attack on the base, claims the power that the Nazis were utilising was volcanic activity, which gave them heat for steam and electricity.

SAS soldiers were quoted as saying the base was "overwhelmed by the number of personnel scurrying about like ants." It was clear the Nazis had been in Antarctica a long time. At the same time, thousands of Nazis escaped justice. Many of them were smuggled to South America, most hiding in Argentina. Urbz Kukurz, infamous for mass murders of Latvian Jews, escaped to Brazil. Adolf Eichmann, a key Holocaust organizer, fled to Argentina.

Aaron Kauhannon, who is involved in Finnish-German police collaborations, also went to Argentina. They were joined by Sandor Keparo, who was responsible for civilian massacres, and Josef Mengele, the angel of death of Auschwitz. Over 300 high-ranking Nazi officers fled to South America to escape justice.

But in 1946, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, Hitler's Supreme Commander of the Navy, was heard bragging about another destination. Donitz said, "The German submarine fleet is proud of having built for the Fuhrer in another part of the world a Shangri-La on land, an impregnable fortress." This is likely base 211.

After the war, Nazi sympathizer Urs Söndl claimed Hitler himself escaped aboard a ship in which they entered the earth through a hole at the South Pole. Söndl warned that from this hidden base, Nazi scientists would build a new army, one that would use revolutionary round flying vehicles in their assault. The high-ranking Nazi official most associated with building advanced vehicles and weapons had himself disappeared.

Hans Kammler was in charge of Hitler's secret weapons program. Kammler's engineers had created a prototype long-distance supply plane with a range of over 4,000 miles called the Ju 390. Only two of these were made. One of them belonged to Kammler. As of April 1945, neither Kammler nor his plane have ever been found.

Just a few months later, thousands of UFO sightings were reported all over South America. The American government feared that Kamler and his scientists had escaped to Antarctica, where they continued their work. It was suspected they were operating out of a secret military base hidden deep underground. But these were just rumors. There was only one way to find out for sure. Go to Antarctica.

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Okay, before we talk about what Admiral Byrd saw in Antarctica, it's important you understand what kind of man Richard Byrd was. He was not some pseudoscience conspiracy theorist kook. He was a legitimate badass. Here are the bullet points.

Richard Byrd reached the rank of Rear Admiral by age 41, the youngest admiral in Navy history. That by itself is impressive. But how about this? He received the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Silver Lifesaving Medal. He received 22 citations and commendations, including nine for bravery and two for extraordinary heroism.

He was and is to this day one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the Navy. His resume goes on, but you get the point. If Admiral Byrd says he wants to be the first man to fly over the North Pole, he does it. And if the United States sends a major expedition to the South Pole to conduct a top secret mission, there's no more qualified person on Earth to lead it than Admiral Richard E. Byrd. Operation High Jump commenced in August 1946.

The official purpose of the mission was to train personnel and test equipment in cold temperatures, explore Arctic geology, study the weather, and develop techniques for establishing air bases in frigid climates. But if you saw this force assembled, you wouldn't think they were just going to study the weather.

Admiral Byrd's expedition, codenamed Task Force 68, involved almost 5,000 men aboard 13 ships, including a new state-of-the-art aircraft carrier loaded with dozens of planes, bombers, and helicopters. The ships included seven from the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet and five from the Pacific.

Among those were two destroyers and at least one submarine. They were equipped for more than study. They were ready for battle. Their mission was the cover story. No personnel training or equipment testing ever took place. No practice maneuvers, no military exercises, no scientific study of any kind was ever done.

According to eyewitness testimony, declassified records, and Byrd's own journal, Operation High Jump had other purposes. One goal was to extend American sovereignty over the Antarctic continent, something that was denied many times publicly by the U.S. government. To this end, they would establish a base to compete with the German claim on the East Coast in an area called Queen Maud Land.

Byrd would map the entire continent. He'd photograph 1.5 million square miles, including 700,000 square miles never explored before. And if they came upon Base 211, the task force was well-equipped to take action.

The Armada arrived on January 15, 1947, and immediately started building a base called Little America. Crews flying Navy patrol bombers reported an inhumane landscape. Traditional navigation equipment was useless. Maps were limited. In summary, flying over Antarctica is not safe.

They were trapped in an aircraft for five hours at a time in zones where the weather changed by the minute. Helicopters flew over the ice ahead of the icebreaker ships to look for clear passages. It was dangerous work. Two helicopters were lost during the operation. To get larger supplies to the construction site, giant Douglas DC-3 transport planes were launched from the aircraft carrier Philippine Sea.

They were fitted with skis over their tires so they could land on the ice. And they were too big to return and land on the carrier, so they would be left on the ice when the operation was complete.

Originally meant to be a six to eight month mission, after just 40 days, the base was evacuated and the task force withdrew. This massive, expensive and important mission was suddenly called off six months early. So what happened? Well, this is where Admiral Byrd, a legend in his time, becomes a legend for all time.

When the Navy Task Force made port in Chile, rumors spread about strange findings and disasters that forced the mission to be cut short. Admiral Byrd himself spoke to the media, and rather than deny the stories, he expressed deep concern about the real possibilities of devastating aerial attacks on the U.S. Byrd warned that it was imperative for the United States to take immediate defensive measures against hostile forces in the Arctic and Antarctic.

The Admiral went on to say that he wasn't trying to alarm anyone... ...but the cruel reality is that, in case of a new war... ...the United States could be attacked by flying objects. They had the ability to move from pole to pole at incredible speeds.

Admiral Byrd reiterated this in a few different statements. He warned that a new enemy could attack any country, anywhere, and at any time, no matter the distance. When Admiral Byrd got back to Washington, he was immediately debriefed. Though he had just spent two weeks making statements in the press, after a lengthy interrogation, Admiral Byrd never uttered another word about Operation High Jump.

The mission was immediately classified as top secret, and any sailor who spoke about the mission would be arrested and imprisoned. The Navy then published a brief summary of the mission's achievements and admitted some sailors were killed, but they didn't say how many. Officially, all the deaths were accidents. The bodies were buried there, not brought home. During one mission, Byrd was missing for three hours in an episode of Lost Time, which was officially blamed on a radio failure.

The official reason for ending the mission early was poor weather conditions, and that was that.

However, you know how Admiral Byrd was missing for three hours and experienced lost time? Well, Byrd was meticulous at documenting everything. But when he returned to the States, his journals were confiscated and classified. But the government didn't get everything. He had a secret diary that he gave to his son right before he died. And if any of what he claims to have seen is true, well, it changes everything.

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According to Admiral Byrd's secret diary, he fuels up for a flight early in the morning. The weather is clear and mechanically the plane checks out. At 8.15, at an altitude of 2,300 feet, he checks in. Oh, 8.15 hours.

Radio check with base camp. Situation normal. At 10 after 9, he notices a color pattern in the snow. Nothing extreme, but he circles the area twice for a closer look. He makes visual contact with camp and radios in his findings. Then his instruments start to act strange. He writes that his compasses are gyrating so much that he can't use them. So he uses the sun to navigate and maintain a visual of camp.

He reports that his controls are feeling sluggish. He's concerned about the wings icing up. There's a little ice, but no indication of a problem. So he continues flying toward what he perceives as a mountain range. - Oh, 9:49 hours. 29 minutes elapsed flight time from the first sighting of the mountains. It is no illusion. They are mountains and consisting of a small range that I have never seen before.

He crosses the mountain range and descends toward what he describes as a "green valley" with a small river running through it. There should be no green valley below. Something is definitely wrong and abnormal here. We should be over ice and snow. To the port side are great forests growing on the mountain slopes. Our navigation instruments are still spinning. The gyroscope is oscillating back and forth.

He drops down a bit and circles back for a closer look. He reports the green as being moss or tight grass. The light seems different here. He can see the ground easily, but no longer sees the sun. This starts to worry him because he's using the sun to navigate, but he gets distracted by something that he didn't expect. On the green valley below, a large animal is grazing. It appears to be an elephant. No!

It looks more like a mammoth. This is incredible. Yet there it is. Decrease altitude to 1,000 feet and take binoculars to better examine the animal. It is confirmed. It is definitely a mammoth-like animal. Report this to base camp.

Admiral Byrd flies over green pastures that stretch for miles. He's so amazed by what he's seeing, it takes him almost 30 minutes to realize it's not cold anymore. The frost on his forward windscreen is gone. Same with the bits of ice that were on the wings. He removes his gloves. The window of the canopy is warm to the touch. He records an external air temperature of 74 degrees Fahrenheit.

His instruments are now back online, but his radio is out. Remember, in the official report, Admiral Byrd was out of radio contact for three hours.

He flies for another hour over what looks to be a countryside or a pasture. He sees the impossible on the horizon, a large shining city. The plane shutters. Admiral Byrd grabs the controls, but they no longer respond. He notices the plane feels light and buoyant. Then strange aircraft rapidly close in on both sides of his plane. They're disc-shaped and seem to be radiating light, and somehow they're completely silent.

Thinking this is a really good time to head back, Admiral Byrd tries the controls again. Still no luck. The plane's engine suddenly cuts out, but it somehow continues flying, controlled by some unseen force. The craft are right up alongside his plane now, close enough that Admiral Byrd can see markings. In that instant, his wonder turns to terror. The markings are swastikas.

There had been rumors the Third Reich was putting enormous resources into a new type of aircraft. Thanks to specialized rotors, this one would be able to fly in any direction, not just horizontally, but vertically and diagonally too. Had they done it? Was Bird staring at a revolutionary saucer-shaped flying ship created by the Nazis?

In 1943, German inventor Josef Epp designed a flying disc called the Omega Discus. He combined duct fan technology with two free-spinning rotors propelled by ramjets. The ramjets started at 220 rpm, and the pilot controlled the pitch of the engines and rotor. The thing could, by angling the rotors, move in any direction.

no full-scale model of Epps design was ever built, at least not that we know of. The Nazis worked on other types of flying saucers too. German inventor Rudolf Schreiber conceived the Flugkriezel or flight gyro. This flying disc was 20 meters in diameter with 21 rotor blades and the underside had three jet engines that spun the rotors like a helicopter. Once in the air, two other lower body jets kicked in to achieve level flight.

On April 17th, 1944, the SS reported to Hitler that the flying disc worked.

But the ship proved to be unstable and became infamous for hard landings. The Nazis would have to look elsewhere for their own UFO. And from witness accounts later in the war, they may have succeeded. Strange flying ships were seen in action by Axis and Allied troops. During the war, the 415th Night Fighter Squadron submitted a report that was odd. Typically, they'd report on dogfights over German-occupied territory.

But lately there'd been a new phenomenon. Strange lights were following their aircraft. And not just once, but all the time. One night in November 1944, Edward Schluter, the pilot of a British bowfighter, was flying with his crew along the Rhine north of Strasbourg. He noticed something out of the left window. There were eight to ten bright orange lights flying right alongside their fighter plane.

Radar observer Donald Myers and officer Fred Ringwald were also on board and saw the same thing. But the radar was showing nothing around. Schluter turned the plane toward the lights and they disappeared. Later, the lights appeared again, further away. Myers gave the objects a name. He stole a nonsense word used by characters in a popular cartoon of the time, Smokey Stover, and the name stuck. The lights were forever known as Foo Fighters.

And the reports kept coming in. The objects would fly alongside aircraft going 200 miles an hour. They would be orange, but sometimes green or red. They always outmaneuvered the airplanes, and they never showed up on radar. Foo fighters have never been explained. Was this the result of alien instructions given to the Thule Society made a reality? It would explain what Byrd saw. And Byrd's UFOs were only the beginning.

According to documents leaked in 1991, things back at Camp Little America took a strange turn. Two days after arriving, bright lights were seen on the horizon. The sailors thought it was another ship, but were below the Antarctic Circle in uncharted waters. The lights shot into the sky very quickly. They tried to make radar contact, but were out of range. Three hours later, five more lights appeared in the sky and began flying directly toward the ships.

Anti-aircraft guns and 20mm cannons were fired, but had no effect. A radio operator on the USS Brownson testified how strange craft suddenly appeared from the ocean. On January 17th, 1947 at 0700 hours, I and my shipmates in the pilot house port side observed for several minutes the bright lights that ascended about 45 degrees into the sky very quickly.

This is corroborated by Lieutenant John Sayerson, who said the object shot vertically out of the water at tremendous speeds. One object flew between the mass of his ship with such force that the radio antenna oscillated back and forth from the turbulence. An aircraft from the USS Kuratuk took to the sky and was immediately struck by a beam of energy and destroyed. About 10 miles away, the torpedo boat USS Maddox burst into flames and began to sink.

According to the report, this was the first attack of several that would occur over the next few weeks. February 26th would be the last engagement with the unknown craft. The Navy Task Force ordered a retreat and left the area, a full six months before their mission was supposed to end.

Although Lieutenant Sayersen couldn't identify the lights, he wondered if they were what he called German wonder weapons being operated by survivors of the recently defeated Third Reich operating out of a secret base under Antarctica. His testimony has fueled speculation that still exists. To this day, investigators are trying to determine what really happened during Operation High Jump.

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Admiral Byrd's radio, which hadn't been working for at least an hour, suddenly comes back to life. Though the signal was distorted, a voice was speaking English. Welcome, Admiral, to our domain. We shall land you in exactly seven minutes. Relax, Admiral, you are in good hands. The plane gently lands, and Admiral Byrd is met by several tall men with blonde hair.

Bird joins the strangers on a platform that levitates and rushes them toward the city at great speed. He's directed to an elevator that takes him quickly and silently deep underground. He is to have an audience with the master.

Admiral Byrd is led to another room where an older man is seated at a long table. Admiral Byrd is asked to sit down. For the next few minutes, the Master says his people are called the Ariani. They've been observing humans for a long time, but only now are they choosing to interfere. The Master says Admiral Byrd's race is too immature for atomic energy and are at risk of destroying themselves.

The Master says every time they try to make contact, their ships are fired upon and pursued by fighter planes. So instead, they chose Admiral Byrd to carry this message. Because he's famous and well-respected, the Master hopes the world will believe him.

After the meeting, the Admiral is escorted back to his plane. After flying for a few minutes, a voice comes through the radio that control of the aircraft is now his. They say, Sounds far-fetched. An underground world beneath the Earth led by an alien race.

Except this isn't the only report of the Hollow Earth and its inhabitants. Colonel Billy Faye Woodward claims he was taken by a UFO at age 12 to live six months with Hollow Earth residents. He claims not to be the biological son of his Earth father, but an adopted child along with his sister. He and his sister were separated when she was put in the hands of the secret government for observation. The sister had special abilities and the government was looking for the source.

His sister learned that the government planned to perform a research autopsy on her. Terrified, she sent out a telepathic call to Hollow Earth. Someone responded. She was picked up with what Woodward called an alien aeroship. Woodward eventually joined the service. He was stationed at Area 51 from 1979 to 1982.

The base had 15 levels below ground that were man-made, but he discovered that was just the beginning. He found levels 16 to 27 and eventually uncovered tunnels that led to underground shuttles. The tunnels were smooth and solid. The shuttles were a quarter mile long and transported people and goods. They were allegedly made from Roswell spacecraft materials and ran on electromagnetic power. They moved faster than sound.

Woodward says the creatures that operated the shuttles were 15-foot tall humanoids. They were more evolved than humans and they communicated telepathically. Some men had beards and the women had flawless skin. The shuttles would take him to entire worlds in the expansive, hollow Earth. Woodward mentions seven civilizations living in harmony and possessing extensive medical knowledge. He was told the tunnels spanned the globe.

After he left the service, Woodward joined a group flying to the North Pole in search of an entrance, but they couldn't find it. When Avril Byrd arrived at the Pentagon in March 1947, he was debriefed and interrogated for hours. He relayed the message from the master and advised the president. He was then ordered to remain silent about the operation.

And indeed, Admiral Richard E. Byrd never spoke of the mission again. The final entry in his diary is a number of years later. Admiral Byrd feels what he calls the long night coming, but doesn't want this knowledge to die with him. Just as the long night of the Arctic ends, the brilliant sunshine of truth shall come again. And those who are of darkness shall fall in its light, for I have seen that land beyond the pole, that center of the great unknown.

Admiral Richard E. Byrd, United States Navy. 24 December 1956. - Admiral Byrd passed away three months later. His son, Richard Byrd Jr., found the secret diary and made it public, as was his father's wish. And 18 months after that, the Antarctic Treaty was signed.

forbidding anyone from going to Antarctica without special permission from one of 12 signatory governments. And even with special permission, you may only go in a few small designated areas.

Antarctica is bigger than Europe, Australia and the entire United States. Yet all that land is off limits. Why? Was there a secret Nazi base? Is there a civilization living underground? The UFOs described by the sailors in 1947 behave an awful lot like UFOs we see all over the world right now. Since we can't go to their world, they could be trying to come to us, with the same warning they gave Admiral Byrd.

Maybe instead of trying to destroy these craft and each other, we might want to listen to what they have to say. Who knows? The entire fate of the world may depend on it. Imagine you're in Costa Rica, walking through warm sand on the beach. You reach the hammock next to your friend, sink into it, and sip fresh coconut water. Moments like these are more essential than ever. Make them real. Visit CostaRica.com.

Okay, talk about a story having it all. UFOs, secret Nazi bases, government cover-ups, even Hollow Earth. Now, I've done a lot of research on Hollow Earth, and I'll tell you right up front, there's a lot of this story that can be debunked. But not all of it. Let's talk about it.

Let's start with Admiral Byrd's secret diary. It's not real. First, the flight in the diary takes place in the North Pole, so we're already off to a rocky start since Antarctica is as far south as south goes. Some of the log entries are almost identical to published entries from the Admiral.

The same types of instrument failures and engine issues appear in both places. Also, whole paragraphs of what the master said to Admiral Byrd seem to be plagiarized from the 1937 film Lost Horizon, where the main character is talking to the Dalai Lama, who issues the same kind of warning. In 1964, a book about the Hollow Earth was released by Walter Siegmeister under the pen name Raymond Bernard. Admiral Byrd is mentioned quite a bit in the book.

Bernard went on to write lots of books about UFOs and Howl Earth. Later, when Bird's secret diary appeared, guess who wrote the foreword? Yep, Raymond Bernard. But the dead giveaway for me? The secret diary is full of exclamation points. Lots of them. If you read any of Bird's other logs, no matter how excited he gets, he doesn't write like he's posting on Reddit. He writes like a gentleman.

Now, what about the Nazis? Here's where it gets tricky. The Schwabenland did go to Antarctica in 1938, but its mission was to secure new ports for whaling, to supply Germany with its own whale oil for margarine. Germany wasn't at war yet, but Hitler was planning it. A lot of oil and fat-based products were imported. Hitler wanted to ensure these industries could continue and his army could be fed in case foreign supplies were cut off.

The Nazi mission did claim some land for Germany, and it's widely thought that they did look for a location for a base, and maybe even tried to build one, but no evidence of a base has been found. However, Nazi artifacts have been found in the Arctic, in the north, which could be why this story continues to circulate. But so far, nothing in the south. Now, I'm not saying there's nothing there. I'm just saying we haven't found it yet.

Meanwhile, the continent of Antarctica continues to reveal underground worlds we never knew existed. In 2022, scientists made a groundbreaking discovery more than 1,000 feet below the surface of Antarctica. They uncovered a hidden ecosystem beneath the Larsen Ice Shelf. This ice shelf, known for producing the world's largest iceberg in 2021, lies along the eastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The discovery began with satellite images. Researchers noticed an unusual groove in the ice shelf near its connection to the land. They identified it as a subsurface river. They sent down a camera. They couldn't see anything. They thought the equipment was malfunctioning. But it turned out the lens was swarmed by small crustaceans called amphipods. Finding life in such a deep icy environment was unexpected.

There's long been speculation about a vast network of subterranean rivers, lakes, and estuaries beneath Antarctica's surface. But these features have mostly been unexplored until now. Lead researcher Hugh Horgan, a glaciologist from New Zealand, described the experience as entering a previously hidden world. This discovery raises questions. Were these always rivers and lakes? Or are they tunnels gradually filled by melting ice as the Earth goes through a warming cycle?

That's possible, but we can't be sure without further investigation. But for some reason, there's not much interest in that.

The US government did lie about the real purpose of Operation High Jump. And it's true Admiral Byrd never spoke about it publicly, except for those cryptic comments in the Chilean newspaper. El Mercurio is a real paper and Admiral Byrd did give them an interview. Obviously the article was released in Spanish, but when it was translated back to English, his words were twisted to make the story sound more dramatic.

Byrd never said there are ships that can fly pole to pole at tremendous speeds. He said that the United States could be attacked by planes coming from the poles and should be ready for that. And Operation High Jump had a press contingent, about a dozen reporters giving daily reports. There really wasn't much going on, so rather than send back a three-word story, lots of ice, the reporters added their own flair.

For example, Byrd found a small lake with uniquely warm temperatures with algae growing in it. But it was reported as a land of blue and green lakes and brown hills in an otherwise limitless expanse of ice. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, millions of secret documents were released. One of those, written in 1947, described Operation High Jump.

In 2006, a Russian documentary was released based on that secret intelligence report. The Soviets did believe that Operation High Jump was a mission to find and destroy a Nazi base. And look, with all that firepower, I don't think that's a stretch. The reports of the battle with UFOs come from Soviet documents. But the facts are iffy, and they got some of the ship's names wrong. But

but they did get some right. And the US military has a history of changing a ship's name and rewriting a ship's history if it serves Navy policy. The Soviet report said that UFOs weren't trying to destroy the American ships, which they could have done easily. They just wanted the ships to turn back.

the mission was cut way short. The official reason for this is weather, but that's a lot of resources wasted because of weather. Were there really UFOs protecting something at the South Pole, or was this disinformation deliberately leaked to the Soviets by U.S. intelligence? I don't know. I've debunked as much as I can for you. Even though much of the story is false, not all of it is. It seems the only way we'll get answers is

is to go back. And if there's one thing that every government in the world agrees on, it's that whatever is down there needs to stay there. But I'll leave you with these final thoughts. Just a few months after Operation High Jump, a UFO allegedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. The location of the crash is only a few miles from the world's first nuclear explosion.

And Admiral Byrd did go missing and arrived back at camp three hours late. He was in a small, short-range airplane. He had enough fuel for only 60 minutes of flight time, but he returned three hours later. So why didn't he run out of fuel? ♪

Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. My name is AJ. This has been the Y-Files. If you had fun or learn anything, do me a favor, leave the podcast a nice review. That lets me know to keep making these things for you. And like most topics I cover on the Y-Files, today's was recommended by you. So if there's a story you'd like to learn more about, go to the Y-Files.com slash tips. And special thanks to our patrons who make the Y-Files possible. I dedicate every episode to you and I couldn't do this without your support.

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Imagine you're in Costa Rica, walking through warm sand on the beach. You reach the hammock next to your friend, sink into it, and sip fresh coconut water. Moments like these are more essential than ever. Make them real. Visit CostaRica.com.