For a century now, rumors have circulated of a mysterious underground civilization hidden in the center of the Earth, accessible only through certain obscure entrances. Intriguingly, too, many ancient creation myths – most notably the Hopi – describe humans as emerging from a series of underground worlds to live on the surface.

UFOs, which first captured the public imagination in the 1940’s, are frequently observed disappearing into the ocean or entering the ground. Could there be some basis to all of these wild tales ? Perhaps there is a thread of truth connecting the speculations.

This month at MGTR, we will explore Hollow Earth theories and how they relate to some of mankind’s earliest creation myths. Of course, Mme. G welcomes any of you who have personally witnessed any strange underwater/ground activity (UFO-related or not) to share your stories with us here. Write me at: madamegstearoom@yahoo.com.

Noted fiction authors Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs both wrote novels describing civilizations located in the center of the Earth. Less well-known authors throughout history have been serious proponents of the concept of advanced underground civilizations inside the Earth:

(1692) Edmund Halley, a British astronomer, proposed an inner core shell surrounded by two concentric shells and an outer shell 500 miles thick. Each shell had magnetic poles and rotated at different speeds, accounting for magnetic anomalies observed in the Earth’s crust. An inner luminous atmosphere escaped at the poles, causing the Aurora Borealis.

(1818) John C. Symmes, Jr. widely promoted the idea of concentric spheres inside the Earth. He described a hollow shell 800 miles thick with openings 1400 miles across at the poles, and four inner shells, also open at the poles. Symmes was organizing an expedition to the North Pole when President Andrew Jackson vetoed it.

(1869) Cyrus R. Teed, a New York herbalist, founded the Koreshan Unity cult, promoting it in speeches and pamphlets. Teed claimed he’d seen a woman in a vision who’d told him we actually live inside of a hollow Earth.

(1906) William Reed published The Phantom of the Poles, in which he claimed the poles didn’t really exist, but were openings into the Earth.

(1913) Marshall B. Gardner published A Journey to the Earth’s Interior in which he rejected the idea of inner concentric spheres, instead claiming the existence of an inner sun 600 miles in diameter within the Earth.

(1945-49) Editor Ray Palmer of Amazing Stories magazine ran a series of articles author Richard S. Shaver claimed to be fact. Touted as the "Shaver Mystery", the pulp series stated that a superior race of prehistoric beings had built caves inside the Earth, and their robotic servants "Dero" [evil] and "Tero" [good] were using their ancient machines to torment humans living on the Earth’s surface. When Shaver described horrible voices emanating from inside the Earth, thousands of readers wrote in that they, too had heard the voices !

In 1964, Raymond W. Bernard wrote The Hollow Earth in which he claimed to have read Admiral Richard Byrd’s secret diary kept during his travels to the North Pole. Supposedly Admiral Byrd entered the Earth via both the North and South Poles (on separate occasions), and witnessed UFOs, animals and a civilization of beings inside the Earth.

Recently, the Byrd Polar Research Center (BPRC) at the Ohio State University library announced the discovery of some missing excerpts from Byrd’s diaries; 121 pages detailing the North Pole flight of 05/09/26. Naturally, they did not happen to mention any reference to Hollow Earth evidence in Byrd’s excerpts.

The Art Bell radio program of 10/19/95 included a telephone interview with a mysterious "Harley Byrd" purporting to be the Admiral’s grandson. Harley Byrd claimed the North American representative for the Australian Hollow Earth Research Society. This Harley claimed to be in possession of his grandfather’s secret North Pole journal depicting Hollow Earth. To my knowledge, Admiral Byrd’s daughter was not contacted by Art Bell to substantiate the identity of this grandson. Harley, not to mention the validity of the "secret" diary entries. (If any of our readers know otherwise, please write us citing broadcast dates).

So far, the evidence supporting the Hollow Earth case is rather sketchy. Let us examine some of the world myths which would seem to describe an interior Earth society.

The story of Shangri-La, aka Shambhala (Sanskrit for ‘the place of peace, of tranquility’) – a mythical paradise hidden inside the Earth – pervades many cultures throughout the world, and is known by many names. Entrances to this underworld include the Gobi Desert, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the North/South Poles, Mammoth Cave, Rama (India), and Manuaus (Brazil), to name but a few.

In my own online search, I have found two authors citing almost identical sources of Hollow Earth myths – David Pratt and Mary Sutherland. Their common sources include: H.P. Blavatsky, David Hatcher Childress, Victoria Le Page, William Michael Matt, Bruce A. Walton, and rank Waters. Both authors list the following cultures possessing an underground world from which mankind emerged: Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan/Mongolian, Buddhist, Hindu, Indian (Bengal, Burma), Hebrew, Egyptian, Greek, African, Australian, Malaysian/New Guinea/Caroline Islands, Celtic, Scandinavian/German, Persian, Sumerian, Meso/South American (Aztec,Mexican), and Native American.

The latter include separate myths from the Cherokee, Lakota, Hopi, Navajo, Pima and Pajaritan Pueblo tribes. The Hopi creation myth lists a total of four worlds: the first inner world was destroyed by fire, the second by pole shifts, the third by flooding (Noah’s Ark ?), and the fourth is the surface world on which we now live. Troubled by overcrowding, the Hopi people are said to have tunneled their way out from the most central world within the Earth, through succeedingly outer ones, finally emerging onto the surface via the Grand Canyon.

Raymond Bernard (see "Admiral Byrd’s Secret Diary" above) also wrote Flying Saucers from the Earth’s Interior. He based his story on accounts he obtained from great Indian mystics and Grand Lamas of Tibet. The Indian Vedas (epic poems) refer to a race of supermen in possession of flying vehicles employed in a terrible war, whose depiction resembles that of a thermonuclear conflagration. Mostly interpreted as poems of the ancient past, the Vedas may in fact describe future events.

Mary Sutherland cites the Kalachkra, naming the year 2424 A.D. for a "great war" beginning in India. Humankind will ultimately be saved by the inhabitants of Shambhala, riding "boats that fly in the air" and "flying horses" – UFOs ? As the world becomes more materialistic, a series of world wars ensues as 32 "barbarian" (i.e., materialistic) kings seek world domination. When there is nothing left worth conquering, the icy mountains of Shambhala are revealed and the barbarians attack it. Rudra Cakrin leads a mighty army against the barbarians as "the possesor of the wheel". This iron wheel falls from the skies – another UFO allusion ? Once the battle is won, Shambhala shall rule the world in peace, ushering in a golden age for humanity. Disease and poverty become obliterated.

Did popular writers of the 20^th century simply embellish the myths if indigenous peoples, or did they really relate actual accounts ? Does the "secret diary" of Admiral Byrd truly exist ? Perhaps every new writer simply added to the modern mythology, capitalizing on the mystique of Hollow Earth.

It seems very interesting that our earliest creation myths from around the world all refer to an underground civilization. Does our collective unconscious remember underground roots (no pun intended) from the dawn of Man ? Pulp fiction aside, credible accounts of underground/underwater UFOs would certainly support the theory of underground bases, though not necessarily located at our planet’s core. Who knows what lies hidden in the deepest trenches of our oceans ? From Plato to Edgar Casey, depictions of the lost continents of battling Atlantis and Lemuria persist; these advanced societies are said to have fought each other in a great war, and Atlantis sank beneath the oceans. Lemuria is rumored to be buried beneath the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

We have barely begun to explore our seas and the poles, and this century may expose previously undreamt-of discoveries. Keep an open mind, dear reader !

Mme. G

en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hollow_Earth&printable=yes

(ibid.) /index.php?title=Richard_Evelyn_Byrd&printable=yes

ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/Archival/Diary.html

polarmet.mps.ohio-state.edu/Archival/Diary.html

www.crystalinks.com/hollowearth.html

www.livinginthelightms.com/shambhala-read.html

www.v-j-enterprises.com/byrdgson.html