Year after year, researchers in Antarctica discover inexplicable riddles that astound orthodox historians and archaeologists. From the rumored three pyramids that resemble the Giza pyramids to the hundreds of weird objects spotted by satellite pictures, Antarctica remains the world’s least-visited region.
That’s hardly surprising given that it is the most isolated location from any human civilization and is buried under at least three miles of ice, or about five kilometers. It’s the coldest, tallest, windiest, and driest spot on the earth, making archaeological excavation and investigation practically difficult without investing millions of dollars. It’s no surprise that we know so little about it.
Antarctica – a tropical paradise
The little we do know about it, on the other hand, it’s as perplexing as ever. According to fossil records, Antarctica was a tropical paradise millions of years ago, covered with tropical rainforests, woods, lakes, plants, and all kinds of species.
This has led many people to conclude that, at some point in the distant past, Antarctica was home to Earth’s oldest civilization, and that all of the bizarre findings made there are only reminiscences of its existence. Of course, scientists can’t excavate three miles of ice and thoroughly investigate it, but does that imply no one knows what’s beneath the ice? Apparently not!
Antarctica and the Piri Reis Map
In late 1929, a German theologian working in Istanbul, Turkey, discovered a gazelle-skin parchment with a map sketched on it. The map was made and signed in 1513 by an Ottoman admiral and cartographer named Ahmed Muhiddin Piri, afterward known as Piri Reis.
The map’s depiction of North and South America in great detail was somewhat surprising. Despite the fact that America had been discovered 21 years prior, it was not plotted with such clarity until much later. As a result, Piri Reis’ map is the earliest detailed map of the Americas still in existence. The map even included the Andes Mountains, which Francisco Pizarro discovered 14 years later.
The fact that the Piri Reis Map indicated the continent of Antarctica, and not only that but also portrayed it before it was buried in ice, astounded experts. No one could explain how this was possible, given that mainland Antarctica was found in 1820 and was already covered with ice.
Apparently, Piri Reis didn’t create the map entirely by himself. Instead, he utilized the huge library of Constantinople, which was now in Ottoman hands. There, he discovered several antique maps from ancient civilizations like as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Indians, as well as six more sources that Piri Reis did not wish to reveal. It’s unclear where these civilizations got their knowledge of Antarctica’s topography when it wasn’t covered in ice, and who the other six sources are.
Many individuals assume that these civilizations learned this from far older origins. Sources left by what may have been the Earth’s earliest civilization. A civilization that lived in Antarctica when there was no ice and the continent was warm and alive with life and vegetation.
Even if we suppose that navigators went along America’s, Africa’s, and Antarctica’s coasts to record them, the Piri Reis map should only show coastline characteristics. Nonetheless, the map depicts mountains, rivers, and deep terrain features that would be impossible to discover without extensive investigation.
It wasn’t until 2004 and 2007 that a thorough sonar radar study of Antarctica was conducted, scanning the topographical characteristics of the area beneath the ice sheet. Surprisingly, all of these things beneath the ice were portrayed on the Piri Reis map.
Many individuals believe that the map proves that an old intelligent society existed millions of years ago and portrayed Antarctica, or that alien contact provided the ancients with this information.
Whatever the case, we may never know what lurks beneath Antarctica’s three miles of ice, but perhaps we don’t need to explore beneath the ice. What if we instead look at the seafloor near the coast? What can we discover there?
The Eltanin Antenna
The USNS Eltanin, a technologically advanced oceanographic research vessel, was built by the National Science Foundation of the United States in 1962. It was the world’s first geophysical ship, and it was entrusted with investigating Antarctica and its surrounding waters.
Over the next two years, the ship brought a wealth of previously unknown data and shed much light on our understanding of the region. There were, however, a few mysteries discovered at the ocean’s depths.
On August 29, 1964, the USNS Eltanin was photographing the ocean floor west of Cape Horn at a depth of nearly 3 miles when one of the greatest mysteries of Antarctica was discovered. What they discovered astounded them. They were able to photograph a strange structure standing in the middle of nowhere along the primarily bare bottom of the sea.
The structure was 2 feet tall, symmetrical, and had nodules, spokes, and protrusions that ended in a spherical node. It looked like an antenna or some type of signal transmitter.
Scientists and researchers were stunned when the photographs were first published in the New Zealand Herald on December 5, 1964, in an article titled “Puzzle Picture From Sea Bed.”
The article read: “The American research ship Eltanin sailed into Auckland yesterday with a mysterious photo taken at 2250 fathoms 1000 miles west of Cape Horn. The photograph, which to a layman shows something like a complex radio aerial jutting out of the mud bottom, was taken on August 29 by a submarine camera.” For years, the ambiguous object was eagerly discussed and debated, giving rise to the mystery of the so-called “Eltanin Antenna.”
What is the Eltanin Antenna?
Many people thought it was an out-of-place item from an ancient civilization that previously inhabited the ice-free continent of Antarctica. They think this civilization left countless artifacts and structural remnants beneath the 3 kilometers of ice that currently covers the continent. Because the seabed near Antarctica is the only bottom that is not covered by ice, we can uncover evidence of their presence there.
Others went even farther, believing the enigmatic item was some kind of alien technology purposefully put in such a distant and lonely spot to transmit signals for extraterrestrial contact and maybe planet mapping.
In 1968, author Brad Steiger stated in an article for Saga Magazine that the Eltanin had photographed “an astonishing piece of machinery… very much like the cross between a TV antenna and a telemetry antenna”.
Is Eltanin Antenna a sea sponge?
Of course, experts were eager to deny the discovery, dismissing it as an undersea sponge. They stated that the image depicted is of the Cladorhiza concrescence, a marine sponge from the Cladorhizidae family.
This idea has a number of flaws. The so-called Eltanin antenna, for example, is extremely geometrical and has definite angels and forms, which cannot be stated of the sea sponges to which it is likened. Another issue with this concept is that the Cladorhiza concrescence lives in colonies and reproduces rapidly.
These marine species reproduce asexually, with a little portion of the sponge breaking off and reattaching to the bottom, creating almost similar organisms and ultimately a complete colony. No similar thing was discovered on the seafloor because the object stood alone.
The third issue is that the image from Eltanin was obtained at a depth of exactly 2.5 miles (4 kilometers). At that depth, no sunlight can reach the seafloor, making the presence of marine sponges or plants extremely unlikely. Dr. Thomas Hopkins, a renowned marine biologist specializing in plankton investigations, likewise dismisses the plant explanation.
In his own words: “Our science does not yet possess underwater vehicles capable of descending to such depths; therefore, no one on Earth, that we are aware of, could have placed the device off Cape Horn…”
Interestingly, we can locate an old petroglyph from 6000 BC in Utah’s Sego Canyon, which represents something quite similar to the Eltanin antenna. Is this to say that the antenna has been on Earth for over 8000 years? However, the antenna is not the only item shown in the Sego Canyon petroglyphs.
There, we can observe these odd entities that are plainly not human. They are much taller than the humans and animals around them and have quite weird and unusual heads. Are these creatures in charge of the Eltanin Antenna?
Is it possible that an alien culture is watching us and deploying various instruments to measure our planet? And if they do, what other devices are out there, studying and surveying us?