CONSPIRACY: Operation Highjump

In 1946, the Navy sent 4700 men to Antarctica for—what they claimed—was a training mission that would prepare them for battle in extreme temperatures. But after three months the operation was shut down, sparking rumors that the mission was a cover-up for something else entirely—like finding a hidden Nazi base or a civilization at the center of the earth.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  As someone who's always been the one trying to solve mysteries, I think a lot about what it would be like to be at the center of one. To know the answers, to swear yourself to secrecy and to have to take the truth with you to the grave. Which is why I would love being recruited for a top-secret mission. I mean, look, we all know the government keeps endless secrets from the American people. And truly, the only way to get a peek behind the curtain is to, well, operate behind the curtain. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, sort of thing. And I've covered enough cases by now to know that the best way to perform a top-secret mission is to make it seem like it's not secret at all.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Like it serves another purpose entirely. Just like Operation High Jump did after World War II. Did you know that in 1946, the US Navy sent 4,700 of its personnel to Antarctica for what they said was "military training in extreme conditions"? Sure, they had a few other things on the agenda, like establish a base, see if they could build an airfield there, gather some geological data. All-regulation-on-the-books kind of stuff. Or so they said. There were a lot of suspicious things about this operation that didn't really add up to the American people. Which is why people began to question the true nature of this mission.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  Some said it might have been to seek out hidden Nazi bases. Others said it might have been a cover-up for research on UFOs. But there are some who believe that the operation was looking for a hole. One that led to secret civilizations in the center of the Earth. I'm Ashley Flowers, and we're back for another episode of So Supernatural.

• 2:26Yvette Gentile?

  We've covered a lot of conspiracy theories on this show, but there's one thing that sets Operation High Jump apart from the rest. We know it was a real military mission. So, most of the conspiracies around this topic are less about whether High Jump happened and more about what it really was. And let me tell you, the theories are truly astonishing. I'm Yvette Gentile.

• 2:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  And I'm her sister, Rasha Peque Raro. Now, Yvette, sometimes people ask us if we personally believe in cover-ups. How do you respond to that?

• 3:07Yvette Gentile?

  Absolutely, yes, we do. 100% we believe the stories and we definitely believe that the government has a reason to cover up all kinds of different supernatural events, as y'all are gonna see in today's story.

• 3:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  That's right. Today, we're traveling back to the 1920s to meet a daredevil pilot named Richard Byrd. This is the era where pilots are really having a moment. Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart are making huge names for themselves. But Richard, well, he's also a pretty big deal, mainly because his family is rich and very well-known. But in 1929, he's not just lying for fun. 40-year-old Richard has emerged as an experienced naval pilot after many years of service. And with his commander's support, he announces that he's going to be the first

• 4:06Rasha Pecoraro?

  person to fly over the South Pole, which of course is easier said than done. Unlike the Arctic to the north, which has some indigenous groups like the Inuit, Antarctica is completely uninhabited. There's no civilization there to potentially help Richard if his plane goes down. But Richard is so dedicated to this mission that he actually gets donations and builds his own base in Antarctica for it. It even has a nickname: Little America.

• 4:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  A bunch of people come to live there, and I don't know exactly how many, but they have housing quarters, a library, a hospital, even a radio station and a photo lab. And of course, he also builds an airstrip. So on November 28th of 1929, Richard climbs into the flight deck of one of the planes at Little America. His crew consists of a copilot, a radioman, and a photographer. Together, they run through their pre-flight checklist, take off, and for the next 18 hours and 41 minutes, soar over the South Pole, and they are the first people ever in history to do it. This cements Richard's reputation as an ace pilot.

• 5:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  He, along with everyone else from Little America, returns home triumphant. And I mean literally everyone, because the place is abandoned now that the record has been set. In the next few years, Richard gets a couple of naval promotions. He also leads a few more expeditions to Antarctica. Then, in 1933, he establishes a new base in the exact same spot where Little America used to be. He calls it Little America II. And Richard's team spends this time learning about weather patterns in and around the South Pole. In 1939, he runs another research expedition from a base called, guess what?

• 6:08Rasha Pecoraro?

  Little America III, which is about seven miles away from the other base. After that, come more missions and more promotions. By 1945, around the time World War II ends, Richard is a high-ranking Navy admiral.

• 6:25Yvette Gentile?

  But now the Cold War is getting started, and Richard fears that the Soviet Union is planning an attack on the United States. And if they do send bombs our way, they might send them over the North Pole, mainly because it's a more direct route than flying all the way across the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans.

• 6:48Yvette Gentile?

  And since they wouldn't be flying over other inhabited countries, there wouldn't be much advance warning of the attack until the invaders were already in Canada. All to say, Richard thinks the US military needs to be prepared for a war that might be fought in the Arctic Circle. And he's worried that our troops won't do well in the frigid conditions up north. So, he decides we need to train our fighting forces somewhere cold and icy. And we need to find a way to do all that without getting too close to the Soviet border and provoking a response from them, which means we can't do military exercises in the Arctic Circle.

• 7:34Yvette Gentile?

  But, they've already got those bases down in Antarctica. And he thinks the conditions are similar. So, why not train our men down there?

• 7:46Rasha Pecoraro?

  Which is exactly how Operation High Jump is born in 1946. But the mission will do more than just train servicemen to adapt to the frigid temperatures. It will also test their equipment, like helicopters and airplanes, to see how they work in the bitter cold. And the military will also use this opportunity to learn everything they can about Antarctica's geography, geology, and climate.

• 8:14Yvette Gentile?

  Now, this is an absolutely massive operation. The US head of naval operations dispatches 4,700 naval servicemen to Antarctica under the command of Richard Byrd and another rear admiral. For context, that alone makes High Jump the largest Antarctic expedition ever, purely in terms of personnel. They all descended on Antarctica in December of 1946, and right away, they established their first base of operations. There, they construct housing, labs, hangars, and airstrips. And sure enough, they call it Little America IV.

• 8:59Yvette Gentile?

  Not too far from where, like Rasha said, Little America I, II, and III used to be. It's filled with sailors, soldiers, pilots, and a handful of high-ranking officers. Some of them are researchers, and others are crewing exploratory ships that are supposed to be mapping the Antarctic shoreline.

• 9:23Yvette Gentile?

  There are also 11 journalists on this mission, all of whom are enlisted with the US military. Meaning, this operation is not your norm. It is not confidential. The Navy is literally paying photographers, reporters, and even a documentary filmmaker to capture every single step of the program. Which is so weird. I mean, Highjump is supposed to test the Navy's readiness for a polar conflict. And if they're not ready, why in the world would the military want to broadcast that weakness to the entire world? So these journalists are the first sign

• 10:08Yvette Gentile?

  that this mission's maybe not exactly what it seems. But, okay, we'll unpack that more later. For now, all you need to know is that they film every step of the way. They capture footage of the enlistees operating a total of 70 different ships and 13 different aircraft, including helicopters and airplanes, which are going out to explore the rest of Antarctica to try and map the land.

• 10:38Yvette Gentile?

  But the work is hard and dangerous. The ice is so thick that the ships can't navigate through it. You've got to imagine just one wrong turn and the glaciers could rip their hulls apart. So anytime a ship sails somewhere new, they actually need helicopters to scout ahead and see if the water is even safe. But then they run into a whole nother problem. Ice tends to form on the helicopter rotors while they're in flight. Meaning, sometimes, the choppers fall from the sky without any advanced warning.

• 11:16Yvette Gentile?

  And when this happens, it's usually impossible to recover the downed aircraft. The shifting ice and snow in Antarctica has a way of literally swallowing these vessels whole. So a lot of the time when a plane or helicopter crashes, the crew has to get to a safe place and wait for rescue and basically give up any hope of recovering their craft.

• 11:43Yvette Gentile?

  Plus, the weather around the South Pole can change so suddenly without notice, it's not unusual for the skies to be clear and sunny one second and then for the wind, snow, and sleet to start the next. Meaning Operation High Jump is happening under excruciating brutal conditions. It's hard to even survive, let alone train these soldiers while gathering more information on the region.

• 12:11Rasha Pecoraro?

  Which is why the more people hear about Operation High Jump, the less it makes sense. The operation is looking like a complete waste of time, money, and resources. Some of the details just don't add up, including why journalists are documenting these failures. Which is when whispers start to happen, that maybe this operation isn't entirely what it seems. Maybe it's a cover-up for something much, much bigger.

• 12:46Rasha Pecoraro?

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• 13:31Rasha Pecoraro?

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• 14:06Rasha Pecoraro?

  Beginning in December of 1946, a massive military operation was underway in Antarctica. Richard Byrd was one of the two rear admirals in command of Operation High Jump, which involved 4,700 or so servicemen who were supposedly studying the geography and climate of Antarctica. They were also evaluating the military's readiness for a conflict in a polar region. But less than a month into the mission, on December 29th, disaster strikes. A small airplane flies out over an unexplored stretch of Antarctica. The nine men on board are trying to map the region,

• 14:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  only to get caught in a sudden ice storm. Visibility is so bad that the pilot collides with, well, something. He can't see well enough to even tell what he's hit. The good news is that he's still in the air. But with the storm, he can't see where he's going and he doesn't know how badly his vessel's been damaged. The pilot tries to level out at a higher altitude. Basically, he gets up above the ice storm where visibility is better. And that's when he realizes his entire fuel tank has been ripped open. Highly flammable gasoline is flying all over the place.

• 15:30Rasha Pecoraro?

  When he hits the throttle, the plane explodes and crashes into the snow. All but three of the crew members make it out of the wreckage. But unfortunately, rescue doesn't come quickly for these six men. I mean, after all, they're stranded in the middle of nowhere, roughly a thousand miles away from Little America Four. And with an ice storm raging around them. They must have been so scared. But fortunately, they're eventually able to contact a search plane flying over them, thanks to visual signals they write on the wrecked plane's wing. But the conditions are just too dangerous for any rescue parties to come to them.

• 16:14Rasha Pecoraro?

  Instead, pilots spend the next few days flying over the survivors, dropping food and medicine to them, but unable to land.

• 16:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  The rescuers eventually get messages to the survivors, telling them to hike 10 miles to the north where there's open water. The thought is that a seaplane can land and pick them up. It takes almost two full weeks, but they're finally rescued. The six remaining men get that much-needed medical treatment. The pilot ends up having both of his legs amputated because they were burned in the explosion and then badly frostbitten afterwards. But at least he's still alive.

• 16:57Yvette Gentile?

  As horrific as that story is, the missions continue. And sadly, there's another crash a short while later. This time around, a helicopter is carrying two men when ice forms on its rotor blades. This makes the chopper plummet out of the sky. And when it goes down, it plunges into the ice-cold ocean. The good news is that it's very close to the base when it happens, so the rescue teams see the crash and they can respond immediately. They pull the pilot and his mate out of the water before either can freeze to death. And luckily, thank God, there are no casualties. But it's still another terrifying close call.

• 17:42Yvette Gentile?

  The point is, the operation is having one horrible disaster after the other. The mission seems to be hurting more than it's helping. And it appears the government finally recognizes this. Because in February of 1947, just three months after the operation begins, the Navy announces that the program is over. Except, they're not shutting it down because of how dangerous it is. No, they say that they're stopping it because they've completed their mission. Operation High Jump is a complete success, and there's nothing more to do. So this is what they say.

• 18:26Yvette Gentile?

  They have tested the equipment and proven that the helicopters and planes work in sub-zero temperatures. They've mapped out huge stretches of Antarctica, and they feel good about how they handled their work in those conditions.

• 18:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  And remember those 11 journalists that we talked about earlier? The ones the military invited to come film the operation? Well, they make a documentary on it called "The Secret Land", which is released in theaters. It even goes on to win an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature from the year 1948. Basically, everywhere you look, there are officials praising Operation High Jump and going on and on about how important and successful the work was. To hear them talk, it sounds like the military is now totally prepared for a war on either the North or the South Pole. But anytime someone asks the actual naval servicemen who were there, you know how they feel about it?

• 19:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  The low-ranking enlistees are confused. They say they're not sure the mission really was a success.

• 19:35Rasha Pecoraro?

  I mean, they haven't learned everything there is to know about Antarctica's geography or climate, not by a long shot. And it's worth remembering that in the southern hemisphere, December, January, and February are summer months. So the Navy wasn't even there for the worst part of winter. Meaning, they didn't even test their equipment in the coldest conditions possible. In fact, a lot of the servicemen who were part of Operation High Jump say they never got clear orders. They didn't even know what they were supposed to be doing in Antarctica. So before long, gossip and rumors start flying. People wonder if there's a reason why all of the operation's goals and claims were so

• 20:20Rasha Pecoraro?

  fuzzy.

• 20:21Yvette Gentile?

  It may be because High Jump's stated mission, to test our military's readiness for polar missions and to learn more about Antarctica, is just a cover story. Perhaps, the majority of the Operation High Jump enlistees, and even the film crews, were just there for show. Take this theory that comes from a historian and an expert on Antarctic history. Her name is Diane Olsen Bellinger. She believes that Operation High Jump was more than just a recon mission. She thinks it included an additional, secret mission, which was never announced to the public.

• 21:05Yvette Gentile?

  And that the stated mission was nothing more than a distraction. In reality, she says the Navy was in Antarctica to seize new territory for the United States. After all, most of the continent is uninhabited. If the US sets up a base, has people living there, mapping it, working on it, later on, it'll be a lot easier for them to argue that this region should belong to them. And theoretically, if the US doesn't get a toehold on the continent, another country could take it for themselves instead. If World War II has taught us anything,

• 21:49Yvette Gentile?

  it's that you don't want your enemies expanding around the world. Except Diane says that the mission failed. I don't know the full details on why it didn't work out, but I do know that to this day, the United States doesn't own any land in Antarctica. And it never will, because after Operation High Jump in 1959, all of the Earth's superpowers all signed treaties saying that Antarctica will always remain neutral. Nobody's allowed to have any military presence there or claim any territories for themselves.

• 22:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, this was actually more than just a theory, because since then, the American government has freely admitted to trying to seize Antarctic land during Operation High Jump. They also said that was the real secret behind the program. The problem with that is, I still don't think this land-grab mission fully explains the scope of the operation. I mean, in theory, the US could have seized the territory with just a few people. There's no obvious reason for why they sent thousands of men to the South Pole for that. Which is why some people say there's an even bigger cover-up, one that still hasn't been made public yet.

• 23:13Rasha Pecoraro?

  Like supposedly, there's evidence in Antarctica that the Earth is flat. And, okay, okay. I know how absolutely absurd that sounds. I'm right there with you. But let's just entertain it for a sec. Okay, I mean, if we have to. We do have to. The theory says that our whole, flat world is surrounded by a wall made of ice that keeps everything in. Sort of like how the crust around a pizza holds the sauce, cheese, and toppings in place. Now believers of this Flat Earth theory say there's actually photographic evidence of this.

• 23:59Rasha Pecoraro?

  Explorers in Antarctica have gotten pictures of these massive structures made of ice. They stretch across tens of thousands of miles, and they look like, well, ice walls. They also say the US government knows about the true shape of the Earth, and they know about the ice wall, too. But they're keeping all of this information confidential, for whatever reason. It's not entirely clear why they would want to cover that up. Now you're probably wondering, what does this all have to do with Operation High Jump?

• 24:37Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, legend has it, in 1946, Admiral Richard Byrd decided that he needed to know more about the ice wall. What it looked like, how thick it was, how it worked, and what lay beyond it. So he sent a few trusted officers down to Antarctica to get a good look at the wall there, and he dispatched a few thousand others to provide a cover story. Rumor has it that a few brave souls even climbed the ice wall to see what was on the other side.

• 25:13Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, to accept this theory, you have to ignore every single photo we've taken of the Earth from a satellite, and the testimony that we have from astronauts who have actually gone to space, and the laws of physics entirely.

• 25:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  Agreed.

• 25:29Yvette Gentile?

  Which is why the Flat Earth theory is one that I just, I cannot get on board with. Though, I will say, those alleged walls made of ice are very real. They're actually a naturally occurring phenomenon called ice shelves. And if you've ever gone outside after a blizzard, which I just have to say, Rasha and I have not ever lived anywhere where there's a blizzard.

• 25:54Rasha Pecoraro?

  No, we're island girls.

• 25:56Yvette Gentile?

  So, I don't even know this, but if you live somewhere where there is a blizzard, you've probably seen big mounds of snow and ice piled up by the wind. Ice shelves are basically the same thing, but on a much larger scale. And they certainly don't surround the entire planet. That said, the Flat Earth theory is just one alleged conspiracy that's been tied to Operation High Jump. This next one has a solid historical basis. And it claims the real reason Richard sent his men there was to find a hidden Nazi base.

• 26:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  The US Navy's Operation High Jump ran for three months, from December 1946 to February 1947. When the mission was concluded, the government declared it a success. But those who worked the mission said they felt it was the complete opposite. Orders were unclear, planes crashed, men died, and they had little to show for it. Unless the mission's goal was something else entirely. Something top secret, like finding evidence of a hidden Nazi base.

• 27:21Yvette Gentile?

  Turns out Admiral Richard Byrd had a good reason to think Hitler's forces were in Antarctica. Because way back in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany was interested in building a military base there. In fact, in January of 1939, a German ship actually claimed a part of Antarctica for their nation. The problem was that the land they took already belonged to Norway. But the German ship ignored that and announced that this particular region was now Nazi territory. Right after the German ship claimed the land, it didn't stay and set up a base.

• 28:04Yvette Gentile?

  Instead, it just turned around and sailed home. Which is a weird way to behave if you want to defend the territory you just seized. Unless a couple of crew members stayed behind. Perhaps they built a secret base there to defend their new claim from the Norwegians or anyone else who might try to take it away from them.

• 28:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  But somehow, this theory gets even wilder. Let's jump ahead to mid-May of 1945, right after the end of World War II. At that time, a Hungarian writer named Ladi Slav Sabo is living in Argentina, and he sends a letter to a local newspaper. In it, Ladi Slav says he has hard evidence that Adolf Hitler is still alive, and that he simply faked his death by suicide earlier that year. As you can imagine, his article makes a huge splash. And two years later, Ladi Slav publishes a book called, simply enough, "I Know That Hitler Is Alive."

• 29:13Rasha Pecoraro?

  In the book, he explains how Hitler supposedly escaped from justice. The story goes that after he faked his death, Hitler and some other high-ranking Nazi officials hopped on a ship and sailed to Antarctica. There, they all hit out on that top-secret base that had been established in 1939. Supposedly, they stayed there for a while, long enough for American officials to get suspicious. And according to Ladi Slav, Admiral Richard Byrd eventually heard the rumors about Hitler's survival. So he sent the Navy to Antarctica to look for the German chancellor. But he presumably didn't want the American people to panic

• 29:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  if, in fact, Hitler was still alive. So Richard added a few thousand soldiers to the mission with a cover story about researching the conditions in Antarctica. Though apparently, it wasn't just America who thought that Hitler was connected to the South Pole.

• 30:15Yvette Gentile?

  All throughout World War II, German warships were spotted in that area. Sometimes, they even attacked other ships that were passing through. Now, the Germans claimed that these ships were just there to support whaling boats that operated in those waters. But the British government seemed to believe otherwise. They thought these could have been military ships, and rumor has it, they seemed to think they were coming and going from a secret base in Antarctica.

• 30:46Yvette Gentile?

  So they spent the whole conflict sending their own agents to Antarctica to look for Nazi bases. In fairness, they never found one.

• 30:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  But Antarctica is a big place, and the Germans could have just been that good at concealing themselves. As for Operation High Jump, well, according to Latislav, it was a failure. The Americans never found Hitler or a German base. But some believe that may be because Hitler allegedly fled Antarctica and assumed a new identity in Argentina in May of 1945. And this might make a little bit of sense to me because my wife Fana is from Argentina, and she said that so many Nazis fled to Argentina during that time. But I don't know if I believe Hitler was still alive.

• 31:41Rasha Pecoraro?

  The Navy didn't make it to Antarctica until 1946, and by that point, Hitler was supposedly long gone.

• 31:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  Some say that's why Operation High Jump ended so abruptly in February of 1947. Richard and his team realized they'd missed their chance to capture Hitler. So they packed up and headed back home.

• 32:03Yvette Gentile?

  The more I think about this theory, though, the more far-fetched it seems. Especially because when it comes to evidence, Latislav offers nothing. His article and his book make a huge splash in Argentina. But when people ask for documents or photos, eyewitnesses, anything, he couldn't come up with a single shred of proof that Hitler was alive and had fled to Argentina. Plus, there are some geographical issues with Latislav's claims. I mean, he says the Navy men of Operation High Jump were looking for a German base that had been established in 1939.

• 32:46Yvette Gentile?

  But if you look at the land the Germans claimed and the area that the Americans were exploring, they're nowhere near each other. It would be like if you heard that Hitler was alive in San Francisco, so you went to look for him in Chicago. Plus, Ladaslav claims Hitler fled to Argentina in May, which is in the dead of winter in the southern hemisphere. And at that time of year, Antarctica is encased in ice. The sun doesn't rise at all. And there tends to be a lot of fog and haze that makes navigation insanely difficult. It would have been almost impossible for a German ship

• 33:31Yvette Gentile?

  to pick Hitler up and take him anywhere in the South Pole. Frankly, it would have been ridiculous for anyone to even try. There's also no evidence of a German base anywhere in Antarctica. And in the past 80 years or so, Germany has declassified a lot of their records from the World War II era. And none of them say anything about wartime operations in Antarctica. Or about Hitler faking his death and fleeing there.

• 34:05Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, I did hear a story about a different group hiding out near the South Pole. And the evidence for that theory may lie in the diaries of Admiral Richard Byrd himself. In February of 1947, before the Navy pulled the plug on Operation High Jump, Richard supposedly decides to relive his glory days. He attempts another flight over the South Pole. Except while he's in the air, he starts to have a little bit of a problem. He says his plane has some kind of equipment failure. Richard can't steer his plane at all, and he's afraid he's going to crash. The aircraft starts plummeting towards the ground.

• 34:47Rasha Pecoraro?

  But then, instead of crashing into the snow and ice, Richard manages to dive right into a cave opening. Through an incredible stroke of luck, Richard is still flying, but he's not in the sky anymore. He's speeding right down toward the center of the Earth. The diary entry says that Richard finds himself inside of a massive crystal cavern. That's when he realizes that our world is hollow.

• 35:20Rasha Pecoraro?

  Except the crystals that cover the ground, the walls, and the ceiling clearly didn't form here naturally. They're in the shape of buildings, roadways, and even homes. It's a city made of crystal, which means someone actually lives down here. But Richard is in for an even bigger shock, because out of nowhere, unidentified flying objects appear, saucer-shaped craft. They pull out in front of him like they're trying to guide him somewhere. He has no idea where they want him to go, but he's too overwhelmed to resist. So he follows the saucers down to a runway, where he finally lands his plane safely.

• 36:04Rasha Pecoraro?

  A group of beings supposedly meet him on the runway. But they look like ordinary humans who happen to be blonde. Luckily, they also speak English, and they introduce themselves as the Ariani. They say they care about peace and helping human beings survive and thrive. That's when their leader approaches Richard and tells him that the people on the surface need to stop building and detonating nuclear weapons. The technology is just too deadly. Of course, Richard can't fulfill the leader's request on his own. I mean, yes, he is a Navy Admiral, but he's definitely not high-ranking enough to shut down the nuclear program.

• 36:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  Still, he promises to help however he can. Then he gets back in his plane and supposedly returns to his base where he tells everyone about the Ariani. He also writes about the mission in his diary, which is how we know about it today.

• 37:05Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, y'all know I love a good alien story. But the problem with this one is, there's not a whole lot of hard evidence to back any of this up. So let's just start with the diary entry itself. Supposedly, after he wrote it, Richard knew it was too explosive to share publicly. So instead, rumor has it, he gave the diary to his son.

• 37:34Yvette Gentile?

  Then decades later, the Sun allegedly released the whole story about the Hollow Earth and the Ariani online. But if you want to go back and read the original diary for yourself, the thing is, you won't be able to find it. There's no evidence that it physically exists. And when people ask his son about the journal, he denies ever having it or releasing it online. In fact, his answer is always the same: his father never gave him a copy of it. To be clear, Richard did keep diaries, and some of them were lost and discovered later.

• 38:16Yvette Gentile?

  But those journals were all publicly available, and none of them mentioned anything about underground communities, Blind Saucer, or the Ariani. That part of the story appears to be just an internet hoax.

• 38:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  Either that, or the government hid the entries because they're too explosive to release to the public. In fact, there are some reports that say when Richard first returned from his meeting with Ariani, he was thrilled. He discovered something incredible, and he wanted everyone to know. But then, high-ranking naval officers pulled him into a debriefing. After he explained what he'd learned, they ordered him to never mention his journey to the Hollow Earth ever again. Apparently, they were going to terminate Operation High Jump right then and there, and a cover-up would explain why the program ended so suddenly and quickly.

• 39:16Rasha Pecoraro?

  And since he was a good soldier who followed the rules, Richard let the Navy silence him. He never mentioned the trip ever again. But after that conversation, there was supposedly always tension between Richard and the other naval officers.

• 39:33Yvette Gentile?

  Yes, and that part is actually confirmed. Historians know for a fact that Richard had a huge falling out with the rest of the Navy's leadership around the time that Operation High Jump ended. Some experts say it's because he felt like the Navy wasn't doing enough to keep his men safe. Like, he blamed the military for the fact that three men died in that plane crash during the ice storm that we described earlier in the story. But maybe you're right. Maybe that's not the real reason for his frustration. It's possible he was angry about having to cover up this world-changing discovery.

• 40:16Yvette Gentile?

  Except, there's still one huge problem with this theory. Most scientists agree that it would be impossible for any kind of society to survive at the center of the planet. The Earth's core is filled with incredibly hot magma that's under immense pressure, and no living beings could actually survive down there.

• 40:43Rasha Pecoraro?

  Okay, maybe the Ariani can't live in the center of the Earth, but they could be in a big underground cave. You don't have to believe our planet is hollow to accept that there are huge and deep caverns all over the place. After all, the world's largest cave is in Vietnam, and it's nearly six miles long. The ceiling is high enough that you could comfortably fit a 40-story skyscraper in it. And explorers didn't finish mapping it or realize how big it really was until 2009, which just goes to show that even in modern times,

• 41:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  there are a lot of corners of the world that have yet to be discovered and explored. In my mind, it's not that crazy to say that there could be a massive cave under Antarctica, especially because that continent is uninhabited and still largely unexplored.

• 41:42Yvette Gentile?

  Even if the conspiracy theories about Operation High Jump are completely false, it's possible that Richard still believed in one or more of them. Meaning, maybe the servicemen of Operation High Jump really were there to explore an ice wall. Or, I don't know, find Hitler on a secret German base. Or try to reach the center of the Earth. Even if they didn't succeed at those missions, it's possible that they still tried. I mean, I'm not completely sold on it. But the point is, we may never know the true purpose of Operation High Jump. The secrets might be lost in the remote frigid plains of Antarctica forever.

• 42:28Yvette Gentile?

  Given how much secrecy has surrounded the program since the very beginning, it's really possible that the answer could involve something we didn't even cover in this episode. Something that we don't even have a whiff of yet. After all, like Ashley said at the start, the government is always keeping secrets from us. And even if we can't learn the full truth, hints and clues will always be out there. Signs and symbols are always waiting to be discovered.

• 43:12Yvette Gentile?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original, produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com. Join Yvette and me next Friday for an all-new episode.

• 43:33Yvette Gentile?

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  I've been having a hard time trying to explain what Midnight Burger is. How about I let them give it a shot?

• 43:44Speaker 04

  Your podcast is amazing.

• 43:46Speaker 05

  It's such an amazing show altogether.

• 43:48Speaker 00

  You guys have actively ruined all other audio dramas for me.

• 43:51Speaker 06

  You can't get people to understand the humaning that happens in this damn show.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  Keep doing what you're doing, because it's awesome.

• 43:57Speaker 07

  You might not think it, but you are far more important than you realize. Thank you.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  At the nexus of all things, there is a diner. Look for Midnight Burger on your favorite podcasting app, or just go to weopenat6.com.