Haley
was a respected scientist at the time, and no one refuted
his theory, only added to it their
own theories. The
Swiss mathematician, Leonard Euler, proposed that instead
of planets rotating inside Earth, that there was a central
sun inside the earth. The Scottish mathematician,
Sir John Leslie, proposed that there was not one, but two
suns inside the earth, which he named Pluto and
Prosperpine.
It
would not be a European scientist spreading the word around
the world of a hollow earth, but
a wild man who was not a
scientist. On the contrary, John Cleves Symmes was
somewhat of a barbarian. He was a hero of the war of
1812, a real fighting man who spent the later years of his
life suffering from a wound he received in a gunfight with
a friend.
After
the war, Symmes established a trading post where he spent
long hours reading books about the natural sciences.
It was there that he became interested the hollow earth
theory. He sent out a letter to heads of state, the
science community, and every other place he thought
appropriate that contained these words:
"I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within;
containing a number of concentric
spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the
poles 12 or 16 degrees; I pledge my life in support of
this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow,
if the world will
support and aid me in this undertaking."
To
his great disappointment, he was ridiculed by newspapers and
scientific journals all over the world. This, however,
did not discourage him. He set out on a speaking tour and
sought to appeal to everyone, from the scientists to the
church. He claimed that there were openings at the
poles: a 4000 mile opening at the
north pole, and a 6000 mile opening at the south
pole. They let the sun in to shine indirectly on a
warm, green, fertile land. Along the way he picked
up two rich and influential followers. The first of
them was an Ohio newspaper editor, Jeremiah Reynolds, who set about on a speaking
tour of his own in support of Symmes' theories. The
other man was an Ohio man, James McBride, who is thought
to have pushed a petition to Congress for an expedition in
search of the hollow earth. McBride also wrote a
book about
the hollow earth named: "The Theory Of
Concentric Spheres."
In 1829, John Symmes died, never realizing the expedition that was to follow some nine years later in 1838. Congress approved the sum of $300,000 for the undertaking, and a crew of scientists set out for a four year voyage to Antarctica. When they returned, they brought back no news of a hollow earth, only a map of thousands of miles of antarctic coastline.
Other men followed in Symmes' footsteps. Men such as Cyrus Read Teed, who formed a whole cultic religion built around the hollow earth theory. It survived until the last of his followers died in 1982. William Reed and Marshall Gardner were two theorists who added weight to the hollow earth theory. They were intrigued by strange accounts of pole explorers, one of which was that water and air temperatures increased the farther north the explorers ventured. One explorer, Fridtjof Nansen, reported that when he was far inside the Arctic circle, it was almost too warm to sleep. Others had reported large numbers of birds and other mammals who seemed to be migrating north instead of south. In the early 1900's at the age of 95, Olaf Jansen told the writer Willis George Emerson an incredible story that he had kept hidden for years. When he first tried to tell it, he was locked in an insane asylum for 28 years. As a teenage boy in 1929, he and his father sailed far to the north in search of ivory tusks. After reaching the tiny island to hunt for tusks, they decided to head further north to explore. The two men met with a severe storm which pushed them even father to the north. They emerged from a thick fog into fair weather...and the hollow earth. There, inside the earth's interior, they met with a race of kind, good humored people, all of whom were 10 to 12 feet tall. They were shown a seaport city which was paved with gold and jewels and surrounded by great vineyards. They were then taken by monorail to a great city named Eden, where they met the ruler of this hollow earth and stayed with him in his palace for a time.
Many
others, including Hitler, made expeditions to the north and
south in search of the hollow earth. But perhaps the most famous of all arctic and
antarctic explorers was my personal hero:
Admiral Richard E Byrd, an
aviator in The United States Navy. Admiral Byrd was
the first to fly over both the north pole in 1926, and the
south pole in 1929. The south pole he had crossed
again in 1947 and 1955. Much to the dismay of hollow
earth believers, he wrote: "Surveyed nearly 10,000 miles of the country beyond the
pole, and found nothing. Although it is somewhat
disappointing to report, there was no observable
feature of any significance beyond the pole. There
was only rolling white desert from horizon to horizon."
But Byrd later wrote: "At the bottom of this
planet lies an enchanted continent in the sky.
Sinister and beautiful she lies in her frozen slumber, her
billowy white robes of snow weirdly luminous with
amethysts and emeralds of ice."
Two years after the death of Admiral Byrd in 1959, F. Amondeo Giannini said in a book entitled Worlds Beyond The Poles, that the good Admiral had in fact flown into the hollow earth 1700 miles beyond the north pole in 1947, and 2300 miles beyond the south pole in 1955. Giannini and others claimed that the truth was covered up by the government, and that Admiral Byrd was sworn to secrecy for fear of his life. There have been claims that Admiral Byrd had told of "An iceless land of lakes and trees and a monstrous animal resembling a Mammoth." before he was silenced by the government.
There
is not much information on the internet regarding "The
Hollow Earth" What you see here is the result of my
own research outside the internet. There is one cultic
religion site that expounds on the interior world. If you still have a
thirst for more knowledge, click here, to
go there. UPDATE: It's been 28 years and
that site is GONE! But I do have it archived here.
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