Seven Days North of
Tibet
By Dean Dominic De Lucia
Much energy has been spent by
adherents to the Hollow Earth Theory in order to locate the polar entrances,
specifically the northern one, to the hollow portion of the Earth. Their
research material has come from many sources- For example, modern scientific
methods of gathering information have been employed, from satellite pictures to
seismological surveys. But earlier on, Hollow Earthers looked towards legend and
folklore, as well as the results of polar exploration, as their sources of
information.
The Bhagavat Purana, for example, contains the story of the sons of Maharaj
Sagara, who were ordered by their father to search the entire globe for the
sacrificial horse which had been stolen by Indra. At one point, the Bhagavat
tells us that the sons of Sagara went off in the northeastern direction from
India and entered into the interior of the Earth, where they found the horse at
the hermitage of Kapila Rishi ( they were not nice about it to the rishi ).
Other Puranas offer a bit more detail- they tell that the Sagaras came upon a
northern ocean, which they passed over, and through which they then entered into
the bowels of the Earth.
There
are traditional Tibetan Buddhist beliefs regarding the city of Shambhala and the
kingdom of Agharta, in which the city is situated. Specifically, some
conversations held by Nicholas Roerich, a patron of culture, with various Lamas
and Tibetans as he traveled in that region with his wife in the 1920s, have been
recorded in various books, beginning with the book Shambala by Roerich himself.
( His artwork is still displayed at the Nicholas Roerich Museum at 319 West
107th Street in New York City. )
Roerich wrote: " I
remembered how during our crossing of the Karkaroum Pass, my sais, the Ladaki,
asked me: ´ Do you know why there is such a peculiar upland up here? Do you
know that in the subterranean caves here many treasures are hidden, and that in
them lives a wonderful tribe which abhors the sins of the Earth?´ And again
when we approached Khotan the hooves of our horses sounded hollow as though we
rode above caves or hollows. Our caravan people called our attention to this,
... When we saw entrances of caves, our caravaneers told us: ´ Long ago people
lived there; now they have gone inside; they have found a subterranean passage
to that subterranean kingdom.´"
Here are some most important passages of a conversation which Roerich had with a
Tibetan Lama in 1928:
Roerich: Lama, tell me of Shambala.
Lama: You Westerners know nothing about Shambala- you wish to know nothing.
Probably you ask out of curiosity; and you pronounce this sacred word in vain.
After some cajoling by Roerich, the Lama studied him and said:
Great Shambala is far beyond the ocean. How and why do you people take interest
in it? Only in some places, in the far North, can you discern the resplendent
rays of Shambala [ aurora? ]. ... The secrets of Shambala are well guarded.
Roerich: Lama, I have heard of the reality of this indescribable place. I've been
told that some high lamas have visited Shamballah. I've heard of the Buryat Lama
and how he was taken through a narrow, secret passageway. So please don't tell
me of only the heavenly Shamballah because I know that a real
one exists on Earth.... How does it happen that Shamballa on Earth is still
undiscovered by travelers? On maps you may see so many routes of expeditions. It
appears that all heights are already marked and all valleys and rivers explored.
Lama: But as yet ... people have not found all things so, let a man try to reach
Shamballa without a call! You have heard about the poisonous streams which
encircle the uplands. Perhaps you have even seen people dying from these gases
when they come near them. ... Many people try to reach Shamballa, uncalled. Some
of them disappear forever. Only a few of them reach the holy place and only if
their karma is ready.
More recently, Jan Lamprecht wrote the following on the subject matter in his
book Hollow planets: " A Tibetan Lama , who is a renowned teacher of
Vajrayana Buddhism and a Tibetan doctor, lectured in the San Jose, California
area, and made a reference to Shamballa. His title is: His Holiness Orgyen Kusum
Lingpa, so it seems that he belongs to a certain lineage and might be privy to
ancient information on the matter. While lecturing in San Jose, this Lama stated
that Agharta could be reached from India by flying northwards for seven days. I
would assume the Lamas references were to the speed at which the bird might fly.
If that is so, then the average bird flying northwards from Tibet for seven days
could easily reach the Arctic.
At a different place, and a
different time, not at all seven days North of Tibet, the deck of the ship Fram
was packed with visitors wishing a last farewell. They had to board the launch
and leave, and join the crowds waving good bye from the quays. It was June 24,
1893, in Pepperviken, Norway, and the Fram weighed anchor. Doctor Fridtjof
Nansen stood on the deck of the ship as it rounded the point on the creek where
his house stood, and spotted his newlywed wife through his spyglass. It would be
the last time for a long time, as he would spend three years in the Artic.
The Fram´s course took it across the northern coast of Russia, across the Kara
Sea, past the Taimyr Peninsula and on over to the New Siberian Islands. Nansen
and his crew then proceeded northwards until about 79* latitude, at which time
the ship was allowed to freeze onto the Artic ice packs.
Why did Nansen allow this? It was part of his plan, no less! His mission was to
explore the Northern Sea, pass near the Pole, and make an attempt on the Pole
itself should this be possible. He was to accomplish this by verifying the
existence of an ice current which runs from the Siberian side of the pole, past
the Pole itself, outwards between Greenland and Iceland, and then on out into
the Atlantic. Actually, it was already known that such a current passed between
Greenland and Iceland, but it wasn’t understood wherefrom it originated. It
was Nansen who theorized that the flow was all the way from the Siberian side of
the polar basin. He felt this way because a ship had recently sunk near the
Siberian Islands, the Jeanette, and artifacts from that ship were found a few
years later on the Western coast of Greenland. Thus instead of making a frontal
assalt on the Pole, working against nature, Nansen decided to harness the action
of nature itself and drift up to the Pole while his ship was perched on ice
floes.
A special ship was built for the purpose, with a triple hull, special supports
and extra bulkheads. The slope of its hull was more horizontal than any other
ship so that the squeezing ice would force the ship upwards by pinching it from
the bottom. They carried five years of supplies, including coal, coal oil and
kerosine. Unlike any previous Artic explorers, the crew was comfortable all the
way through the journey.
So there they were, locked into the ice by September 25th, 1893, at about 79*
North.
It is interesting, though, that the polar anomalies had started before, while on
their way up from the New Siberian Islands. Nansen reported on these anomalies
in his notes which became the basis of his book Farthest North. We shall include
the page numbers of the book in order to better facilitate any verifications
which the readers may wish to make. There is a natural story line:
Pages 97 - 98: Monday, September 18th, 1893, Bielkoff Island. Latitude 75.5
degrees North. " It was a strange feeling to be sailing away North in the
dark night to unknown lands, over an open, rolling sea, where no ship, no boat
had been before. We might have been hundreds of miles away in more southerly
waters, the air was so mild for September in this latitude. "
Tuesday, September 19th: " I have never had such a splendid sail. On to the
North, steadily North, with a good wind, as fast as steam and sail can take us,
with an open sea mile after mile, watch after watch, through these unknown
regions, always clearer and clearer of ice, one might say! ... We see nothing
but clear water as Henriksen answered from the crow´s nest when I called up to
him. When he was standing at the wheel later in the morning, and I was on the
bridge, he suddenly said: ´ They think little at home in Norway just now that
we are sailing straight for the pole in clear water. No, they don’t believe we
have gotten so far.´ ... Now we are almost at 77* North latitude. ... I have
almost to ask myself if this is not a dream."
Page 99: " We have almost reached 78* ... I seemed to me that there might
be land at no great distance, we saw such a number of remarkable number of birds
of various kinds. ... They were probably on their passage from some land in the
North. ... Again, later, we saw small flocks of snipe, indicating the possible
proximity of land."
Although Nansen did not realize it, the anomalies that he was experiencing and
would continue to experience, as well as the anomalies experienced by other
Artic explorers, would inspire further hollow Earth research and, indeed, become
part and parcel of hollow Earth lore. This is only natural, because one has to
search for an explanation for such strange experiences, i.g., for the fact that
they didn’t find ice until 79*, even though ice was to be found at much lower
latitudes all around the polar circle. In fact, until they came over as far East
as the New Siberian Islands, they had to closely hug the coast of Russia in
order to avoid the ice which impinged itself upon them. So how could it be that
they encountered open, rolling seas as they shot northwards towards the Pole?
Those familiar
with the Hollow Earth Theory would explain that the polar opening, which they
have reason to believe is located near the area where the Fram was navigating,
serves as a conduit for warmer air and ocean water which can have a dramatic
impact within the Artic. And as for the observations of bird life coming from
the North? Did the flight of these birds originate from the other side of the
pole, from the Artic wastelands of North America? How unlikely; but the close
proximity of a polar opening, leading to closer lands within the hollow earth,
would certainly provide the platform needed to explain the direction and origin
of the bird’s flight.
Page 101: Here it is
related that by September 25th the Fram was “ frozen in faster and
faster.”
Page 122: " Today, moreover,
we took solemn farewell of the Sun. Half of its disk showed at Noon for the last
time above the edge of the ice in the South, a flattened body, with a dull red
glow, but no heat."
" So I travel North, to the gloomy abode that the Sun never shines on-
There is no day "
At this time, their position was just a little above 78* 15 North, only a few
degrees from the polar opening. (They felt that they had temporarily drifted
backwards from where they had originally reached the ice) The fact that the Sun
had disappeared below the horizon, introducing the long Artic night, at that
time and from that latitude, indicates that the grade of the Earth's curvature
diminishes in the Arctic. Science certainly accepts a flattening of the
curvature, but what is not understood is
that such flattening is actually indicative of a curvature which continues to
round inwards.
On page 126 of Nansen´s book, disappointment is described as the
navigator all of the sudden determines the ship’s position to be various
degrees South of where they had calculated. Now, it is not reasonable to assume
that an error had existed all this time, which was not caught until that moment.
Their navigator was Sugurd Scott Hansen, an officer of the Norwegian Navy and an
academy graduate: Could it be that the current had the ship straddling the rim
of the funnel-like opening, North and back South, falsely indicating exaggerated
movements in terms of latitude? It seems that the curvature of the polar opening
was playing havoc with the angle of their sextant readings.
Page 123: [ Still from 78* 15 of latitude North ] Sunday, October 29th: "
Peter shot a white fox this morning close in to the ship. For some time lately,
we have been seeing fox tracks in the mornings, and one Sunday Mogstad saw the
fox itself. It is remarkable that there should be so many foxes on this drift
ice so far from land."
Almost a year and a half later, Dr. Nansen came upon further evidence, in the
way of foxes, supportive of the existence of an opening. Of course, he himself
didn't interpret the evidence as such. By his musing he shows that he really
didn't know what to think.
From April 26th, 1894:
" I was not a little surprised yesterday morning when I suddenly saw the
track of an animal in the snow. It was that of a fox, came about W. S. W. true,
and went in an easterly direction. The trail was quite fresh. What in the world
was the fox doing up here? There were also unequivocal signs that it had not
been without food. Were we in the vicinity of land? I looked around for it, but
the weather was thick all day yesterday, and we might have been near it without
seeing it. In any case, a warm-blooded mammal in the eighty-fifth parallel. We
had not gone far before we came across another fox-track; it went in about the
same direction as the other, and followed the trend of the lane which had
stopped us and by which we had been obliged to camp. It is incomprehensible what
these animals live on up here, but presumably they are able to snap up some
crustaceans in the open water ways. But why do they leave the coasts? That is
what puzzles me most. Can they have gone astray? There seems little probability
of that."
The question that Hollow Earth logic raises is this: Were they really so far
from land? Anomalies in terms of wildlife led Nansen to suspect the existence of
uncharted land among the ice all through his journey. It is noteworthy in this
regard that a huge and broad land formation was seen by polar explorers Cook,
Peary and MacMillan.
Page 123 again: On December 2, 1893, a bear was encountered by “ ice station
“ Fram. Again they were at 79*. It once again struck them as so unusual to
find mammals at this latitude, not only far from the New Siberian Islands -the
closest point of land- but with a
rolling, open ocean between their position and that nearest point of land.
The wildlife anomalies continued,
still in the middle of the Arctic wasteland:
Page 192: “ We had not expected to meet with much bird life in these desolate
regions. On May 13, 1894, a gull paid a visit ... After that date, we regularly
saw birds of different kinds in our vicinity until it became a daily occurrence.”
Just to obtain an even better
idea of how unusual the wildlife anomaly was deemed to be, we'll look at his
statement from page 154, also made from 79* North: “ But who expects to meet a
walrus on close ice in the middle of a wild sea of a thousand fathoms depth, and
that in the heart of winter? None of us ever heard of such a thing before; it is
a perfect mystery.”
And it would be a perfect mystery, unless there were a land mass nearby; maybe
coming up near to the edge of the polar opening. Such a land mass would explain
it.
Thursday, January 18th, 1894. " The wind that began yesterday had gone on blowing
from ... S.S.E., S.E., and E.S.E. [But now he anticipates a change] Let us
hope it is not bringing a Northerly wind ... It is curious that there is almost
always a rise of the thermometer with these stronger winds, today it rose to 13*
F below zero ( - 25* C ). A south wind of less velocity generally lowers the
temperature, and a moderate North wind raises it."
Again we run into the same temperature anomaly, of mild air, which had been
noted back in September. Now, however, the phenomenon of warmer winds from the
North than winds from the South, in January, is even more unusual. It is a
phenomenon which has been encountered by all Artic explorers. The explanation
for this according to the Hollow Earth understanding practically arrests one’s
attention, and it is simply that, since the polar opening was nearby, then a
North wind would be coming out of the interior of the planet, which could
account for a warmer temperature.
A totally different anomaly, one which has great implications for the Hollow
Earth understanding, and one which makes Nansen and the crew a rather special
group of Norwegians was their sighting of what seems to be the interior sun,
without their realizing it:
Page 160: Friday, February 16th, 1894. " Hurrah! A meridian observation today
shows 80* 01 North latitude ... Today another noteworthy thing happened, which
was that about midday we saw the sun, or to be more correct, an image of the sun,
for it was only a mirage. A peculiar impression was produced by the sight of
that glowing fire lit just above the outermost edge of the ice. According to the
enthusiastic descriptions given by many Arctic travelers of the first appearance
of this god of life after the long winter night, the impression ought to be one
of jubilant excitement; but it was not so in my case. We had not expected to see
it for some days yet, so that my feeling was rather one of pain, of
disappointment, that we must have drifted farther south than we thought. So it
was with pleasure I soon discovered that it could not be the sun itself. The
mirage was at first a flattened-out, glowing red streak of fire on the horizon;
later there were two streaks, the one above the other, with a dark space between;
and from the maintop I could see four, or even five, such horizontal lines
directly over one another, all of equal length, as if one could only imagine a
square, dull-red sun, with horizontal dark streaks across it."
Page 162: Monday, February 19th,
1894. “ ... Both today and yesterday we have seen
the mirage of the Sun again; today it was high above the horizon, and almost
seemed to assume a round, disk-like form.”
Initially, Dr. Nansen became rather depressed when the sun appeared low on the
horizon, as that would be an indication of yet another supposed error in
navigation and place them quite to the South. But this sun appeared " high
on the horizon ", although they were still experiencing the Arctic night.
It would still be a couple of weeks before the tip top of the Sun would make an
appearance, so any Sun appearing already so " high " above the horizon
would naturally be considered to be a mirage by them.
First of all, know that Arctic mirages involve thermal layers of air, and that
mirages are not false- they are reflections of real objects, carried over
distances, through the thermal layers of air. And secondly, if these thermal
layers are curved, then they widen the object's size like a lens. Curved thermal
layers of air would be the case near the top of an hour-glass, funnel-like
opening into the Earth. And since the sun was described by Nansen as having a
bit of a flattened shape, this has to be the case.
Actually, it probably was a mirage, but why not a mirage of the inner sun?
Assuming that the Fram had penetrated quite a bit into the inward-sloping
curvature of the funnel-like/bowel-shaped opening, the crew could have been
contemplating the interior sun itself, the " sun " sitting low on the
neck of the opening as they looked downwards into the planet without realizing
it. Their angle of view would have been from above the hour-glass neck of the
orifice, from a point on the inward-sloping side of the opening, peering down
into the opening itself, and into the hollow world.
Since a flattening of the image was reported, a mirage is the more likely
explanation, but whether the view was line-of-sight, or a reflection carried
along curved, thermal layers, is not the issue. The issue was whether or not
Nansen and the crew were viewing the sun of the inner world. In the context of
the Hollow Earth Theory it is certainly reasonable to conclude that Nansen and
the crew saw the inner world through the Artic mists- mists caused by warmer,
humid air mixing with the colder air of the exterior. This seems to be a typical
if not permanent condition in the Arctic, otherwise perception of the inner
world might be an easier matter.
The sighting of the inner sun may be the most singularly spectacular event, and
the most meaningful one, to occur during the entire trip. It certainly seems
that Nansen and the other Norwegians were practically broad-sided by a
phenomenon so stunning and shocking in scope that they did not suspect the true
nature of what they were witnessing.
The interior sun has a causative
relationship with the aurora borealis in that the aurora is caused by radiations
from within which build up and spurt out through the polar orifices. Astronomers
tells us that the aurora is directly caused by the solar winds, but Dr. Nansen’s
testimony depicts an Earth-bound source because he writes on page 106 of
Farthest North:
"and
then again it shoots a bright ray up from the
horizon." Notice that he says the aurora shoots “
up from the horizon.” He does not describe, for example, that the aurora shoots
downwards from outer space. Dr. Hayes, from his vantage point at the Northern
end of Greenland, corroborates this observation with his own, found on page 136
of his book the Open Polar Seas:
"
In the dim distance loomed up the lofty snow-clad mountains of the west roast.
Upon the sea floated a heavy bank of mist, which, slowly changing when moved by
the wind, disclosed within its dark bosom the ghostly form of an iceberg; and
a feeble auroral light fringed this sombre cloak of the waves. Angry flashes
darted from behind this mass of impenetrable blackness, and, rushing
fiercely among the constellations, seemed like fiery arrows shot up by evil
spirits of another world." He describes the streamers as “ fiery arrows
shot up.” Thus, the direct observations of Arctic explorers from the top of
the world suggest an interior source of the aurora, when understood in the light
of the Hollow Earth Theory.
Now for yet another
intriguing anomaly!
Page 182: [ From 80* 20 N ] " I take into consideration the striking warmth
of the water deep down ... This warm water can hardly come from the Artic Sea
itself ... It can hardly be anything other than the Gulf Stream which finds its
way hither."
As part of their scientific investigation they documented depth measurements
from the water, and temperature
readings at various depths. Also, temperature readings from the deck, and even
temperature readings from the crow’s nest. So it was not unusual that they
concerned themselves with the temperatures in the deep, it was a part of their
routine.
But insofar as the interpretation of those temperatures is concerned, what else
is Nansen to conclude given his restricted perspective? He was sent by the
Norwegian crown to investigate the Northern Sea; why would he suspect any
openings to the hollow portion of the Earth in the middle of the Artic ocean?
On July 18th Doctor Nansen brings our attention to other polar anomalies quite
noticed and well documented by other explorers- at this point the ship was just
above 81* North.
Page 201: Wednesday, July 18th. " Went on an excursion with Blessing in the
forenoon to collect specimens of the brown snow and ice. ... The upper surface
of the floes is nearly everywhere a dirty, brown color, or, at least, this sort
of ice preponderates, while pure white floes ... are rare. ...; but the
specimens I took today consist, for the most part, of mineral dust mingled with
diatoms and other ingredients of organic origin.”
Dr. Nansen mentions in the
footnotes that: “ larger quantities of mud, however, are also often to be
found on the ice ... but are doubtlessly more directly connected with land
."
Page 488: " Siberian driftwood, ... as well as the mud found on the ice ...
even when we were as far North as 86*."
The question always goes back to the manner in which one interprets such data.
The sediment types from the mud typically found on the ice floes seemed to
correspond to Siberian rivers, wherefrom some ice could have broken off. But the
sediment types also correspond to Alaskan sediments-
they did not correspond to European sediments. Driftwood found near
Greenland was definitely of Siberian and Alaskan origin, not European. A Hollow
Earther would conjecture that the mud types could correspond to a land mass at
the entrance to the hollow world. The problem is that we have no sediment
samples from such a place to compare with the mud from the floes, but since the
suspected entrance lies on the same side of the polar basin as Siberia and
Alaska, why wouldn’t such a place provide a more likely explanation for the
mud found on the ice floes at that very point? Such a place would be a closer
source.
Granted that sediment types from the mud found on the icebergs do not constitute
absolute evidence of a hollow Earth. But what about the pollen dust which
covered huge expanses of ice? Such pollen coverage has been documented from the
Franz Josef Islands as well as over in Northern Canada. There may have been land
masses which could have accounted for the existence of a bit of mud on the ice,
but there was certainly nothing in the way of vegetation which could have
produced pollen which blew about and settled all over the ice. Has any observer
ever noticed huge clouds of pollen dust traveling across the Northern parts of
continents and the Artic Ocean in order to deposit themselves on the ice up at
82* North? ( No! ) Again, Nansen was not the only Arctic explorer to note pollen
on the ice. Since the ice has
movement, such clouds of pollen would have to be typical and usual in order to
continally cover the ice. Would not a polar opening, through which the winds of
a continent are funneled, better account for such an observation?
Sediments and pollen dust was not the only discolorations encountered on the ice
by the Fram and its crew. Clouds of
volcanic dust were found, too, consisting of iron and carbon particles. These
huge clouds descended on the Fram and settled everywhere and enveloped
everything, causing discomfort and irritation. Nansen noted: " Let us go
home. What have we to stay for? Nothing but dust, dust, dust. " There were
no active volcanoes at this time, certainly not for thousands of miles. A polar
opening to the interior of our planet, with an associated land mass, provides a
plausible explanation.
By this time, by March of 1895, Nansen had finally decided to set out in order
to conquer the Pole over the ice by dog and sled. He and Johansen, his chosen
companion, would have to make it back to land on their own as the Fram’s
position would not be stationary on the ice- they wouldn't be able to return to
the same place and find her. Although the westward motion of the ship was good,
it didn’t seem to them at the time that the ship would go much further North.
So the two set out.
They quickly encountered unforeseen problems once they were on their own. The
layout of the ice changed as they went North. It developed ridges and troughs
which were painstaking and time consuming to pass over.
For this reason, and given their limited supplies, they were forced to turn back.
Their northernmost point had been reached on April 9, 1895, at 86* 10’ North.
Not a month later, still above 83* North, still relatively near the Pole, Nansen
confirms the anomaly of polar warming: Gardner sums it up thusly: " On May
4th, the explorer is again found commenting on the mild weather. One night he
says he could hardly sleep for the heat. In the day time he can lie in the tent
basking in the heat of the sun. ' Last night,' runs another entry, it was almost
too warm to sleep.' "
Compass anomalies:
Page 216: “ To give the course of the drift [ longitude ] is a difficult task
in these latitudes, as there is a perceptible deviation of the compass with
every degree of longitude as one passes East or West.”
In other words, Nansen's compass wouldn't tell him what the longitude was even
though he was on the opposite side of the Arctic basin from the Magnetic North
Pole! Why should the compass behave erratically from a point so far away? This is
because the magnetic lines of force enter all along the inner rim of the
doughnut-shaped opening; such that, as one passes along the rim, the compass
goes helter-skelter, Eastwards and Westwards, even though one is on the far side
of the opening from the Magnetic North Pole.
Due to polar anomalies in terms of compass ( longitude ) and curvature (
latitude ), Dr. Nansen and crew had been unable to precisely calculate their
position since the first moment that they had lodged their ship into the ice.
While trekking downwards from his point farthest North, he and Johansen were
still quite unsure of their position thanks to the currents and the drift of the
ice. They remained unsure for a long time as they headed South on the Russian
side of the Pole. As they got further down from the Pole, however, the nature of
their navigational difficulties took on a different nature. They had let their
watches run down and could not precisely determine their longitude. Their
difficulties in determining their longitude at this point were not anomalous. (
As an example, by June 14th, Nansen recorded his position to be 57* 40 of
longitude but, later on, once he got back to civilization, he felt that it had
been more like 6* further East of that. ) As he and Johansen headed South
towards Franz Josef Land, Dr. Nansen wasn’t even sure on which side of the
archipelago they would come down on!
Nansen and Johansen both made it back alive by way of the winter hut of
Frederick Jackson, a British explorer, in Franz Josef Land. The ship Fram
finally broke out of the ice on the Atlantic side on August 13th, 1896, and made
its way back to Norway.
Of course, if all this talk of longitude, latitude, curvature and magnetic dips
is a bit confusing at first, the reader might feel more comfortable simply
remembering the lama’s words. Perhaps the reader has anticipated that the
Fram's position was actually about Seven Days North of Tibet, in a Northeastern
direction, in the middle of a Northern ocean- at the threshold of
Shambala!.
Pages of Interest:
Thunderbirds!
Flying Snakes
Ossendowski on Tibet
Maricha and Other Shapeshifters
Halls of Shambala
