Operation High Jump was a real 1946 U.S. Navy expedition to Antarctica, sent primarily for military training and Cold War readiness amid rising tensions with the Soviet Union. Historically, the mission is well-documented, with detailed records of its scale, personnel, and early termination due to harsh conditions and accidents. However, a controversial diary attributed to Admiral Richard E. Bird suggests he encountered a secret, advanced civilization—referred to as the "Ariani"—in the Arctic or beneath the ice, complete with flying saucers, swastika markings, and warnings about nuclear war. This narrative draws on Nazi-era interest in Antarctica, Soviet claims about Hitler's survival, and the 1947 "Shangri-La" myth. Despite its compelling elements, the diary lacks verifiable proof, has no original documentation, and contains inconsistencies—such as a flight in the Arctic during a southern expedition and a temperature reading that contradicts known atmospheric conditions. Experts consider the story largely speculative, with the core claims of alien contact or underground civilizations dismissed as fiction. Yet, the story remains popular due to its blend of historical facts, conspiracy theories, and existential themes, making it a compelling piece of fringe history with lasting cultural appeal.
In 1946, the U.S. Navy sent nearly 5,000 men and 13 ships to Antarctica. But it's kind of weird because World War II, by this point, was already over. So why send a fleet to the bottom of the world? Well, the expedition was called Operation Hijump. It was a real expedition led by the famous explorer Admiral Richard Perd. But decades after his death, a mysterious diary showed up claiming that during his expedition, he encountered something that wasn't supposed to exist. Something that would connect his name to UFOs, Nazi expeditions, and of course an advanced civilization hidden inside the Earth. But the question remains, what did Admiral Perd actually find? What is the true story behind this expedition? Well, let's dive in. This is the true story of Operation Hijump. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up, dude? And welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Agdon. And thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world from all time forever. Yes, that is what I do here in the tent every single week. I try to figure out what's going on. I look around a reality, and I go, there's some crazy stuff going on. I search the internet, and I find crazy wormholes, and I break it all down with the help of some friends, and I just explain it to you. Yeah, dude, you or girl, whoever you are, I don't really care. I just want to say thanks for tuning in, because every time you click on an episode or you comment or you like or you interact with our content, you tell the algorithm overlords that we're doing a pretty good job. Yeah, that's the bottom line. As you help the show grow, you help us, you know, continue making awesome fun content that I really like, and you help keep the lights on the tent, and you help keep the fire burning here at the campsite. Now, the show is not possible without you, but it's also not possible without the guide beside me. Is my good pal, Christos Papadopados. Christos, how are you? I'm doing okay. You're doing okay. Is that because you forgot to push record and record it for three hours? Take two. Take two. Look, it happens, dude. You know, it happens. First time ever. I will say, I've been trying to silence you for at this point almost two years, and finally you got payback and you silenced me. So in a way, this is kind of poetic. Can we only lost the best seven minutes? I thought we recorded for like two hours. Yeah, yeah. It was only seven minutes. It feels like it around me, I know. I know. You just make time stand still in the worst way. Yep. All right, let's start about Operation High Jump. This is like classic sort of conspiracy lore, okay? Now, if you don't know anything about the show, if you're just tuning in, this is the show where we basically break down every single mystery, theory, esoteric kind of understanding about reality, every type of conspiracy theory, and we try to understand really what's happening, how it came to be, who believes it, and why. Look, this show, I always say, is like the sports center for mysteries. It's like the hub for conspiracies. I don't believe all of them, but I believe all of them are interesting. I'm fascinated by every single one. You tell me like, hey, did you know that this is actually what happened? I go, oh, do tell. An Operation High Jump is no exception. Now, in order to understand Operation High Jump, and let me just also preface this by saying, I love this whole story because it includes everything. It's an actual military operation actually going to Antarctica, a place that is shrouded in mystery. Maybe there's pyramids there. Maybe there's, that's where they have the Nephilim. No one knows anything about Antarctica. We know ones have really ever been there. I don't know anyone's ever been to you. Nope. Of course not. Edson might not be real. Might just be an ice wall. Who really knows? I don't know. And on top of that, it connects an actual military operation to UFOs and Nazis and a Gartha and trying to find civilizations at the center of the world. It's got, it's got everything. So, let's try to unpack it. In order to understand Operation High Jump, you got to go even actually before the operation ever started to December 17th, 1938. There is a German Nazi ship. Again, this is Nazi Germany in '38. And they are trying to, I mean, you know, the Nazis, right? They're going through all over the world and vading everything. And that includes Antarctica. This is a German ship called the Schwabenland. And it left Hamburg for Antarctica carrying two dornier wall flying boats. And this was like a pretty major expedition. Over a few weeks, they photographed roughly like 350, nope, 350,000? Yep. That's what it is, right? That's the right choice. It's a massive number. 350,000 square kilometers of the coast. And they started dropping like these metal darts with like swastikas into the ice every like 25 kilometers. Basically, they'd be like, hey, this is Nazi ice. This is the, this is the ice that the Nazis have claimed. And so they actually went in Antarctica and they named a whole chunk of it. They called it new Schwabenland or new Swabia. And it's still on some maps under that name to this day. Now, the official stated goal of this Nazi expedition was wailing. That might sound weird to you. Like, why are the Nazis interested in whales? Is there like a whale conspiracy? Not really. The official story is that, you know, they were trying to go get whale oil. If you don't know, whale oil is extremely important to industrial supplies specifically at this time. And with the war kind of bubbling over in like all of Europe about to explode into chaos, Hitler needs his own supply. Now, I'll say there's the actual documented factual historical evidence and then there's sort of the theoretical kind of story. Now, the believers in the theory will say that this whole wailing thing is just a cover. In the theoretical version, the ship carried members of the tool society. Now, the tool society is an actual society. This was a Munich occult lodge that basically, according to some, helped sponsor the birth of the Nazi party. We did a whole episode on the tool society, which is fascinating. You should check it out. But just as like a short little refresher to kind of get everyone up to speed, the tool society believed in a race of humans called the Aryans. And they believed that the German people were descendants of these Aryans. But the true Aryans come from a lost homeland at the edge of the world called tool. And the real mission that they say was basically to go find the entrance to this Aryan world to get in touch with the actual supreme race that runs our globe. And the expedition, like the actual expedition, did find something strange, like the documented sort of evidence. A German pilot named Richard Heinrich Schirmacher spotted an ice-free area dotted with lakes in the middle of the ice. And it's an actual place that you can see. Today it's called the Schirmacher Oasis. It's this bare rock, more than like 100 lakes, kind of just in the center of one of the coldest places on Earth. Like if you see a picture of it, like we should pull up a picture on screens. Kind of surprising. You'd be like, that's Antarctica. Yeah, specifically in the right season. Like Antarctica has just kind of like lakes and exposed rock. It's not just like one flat bed of ice. Now believers say it was warmed by geothermal vents and it was basically a secret harbor for eubos, which takes us to the core of this theory. This is where they say Germany, specifically Nazi Germany, builds what they call base 211. Now according to the story, base 211 grew into this underground complex during the war. And as Germany started to lose the war, it became an escape route. And some have alleged that the most famous person to escape was none other than Adolf Hitler himself. Now, again, trying to separate what is verifiable from what is speculative, officially Hitler took his own life in a bunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945. And the Soviets reached the bunker first, and basically they kept kind of what they found as a secret. And then at the Potsdam conference that summer, Stalin told the American delegation that he believed Hitler was still alive possibly in Spain or in Argentina. Now shortly after that, eubos started showing up. In July of 1945, U530 surrendered in Argentina. And then in August, U977 arrived. Both crews were interrogated about whether they had brought Hitler to South America. This was like a real kind of intelligence operation that we're trying to figure out. And the Stalin thing is legit. Like Stalin did say, like, "Hey, I don't think we got Hitler." Chishat Petit says Stalin explicitly said after Hitler's reported death that he believed Hitler was still alive. Now again, is this the Soviets trying to like run a little game on the Americans? Like, "Hey, your boogeyman is still out there. Don't look at us. Don't try to come for it." Because again, this is like a now a monopolar world. Like America's got nukes where the big dogs post World War II. Is this Stalin trying to be like, "Hey, go deal with that. Don't look at us." Or did he know something that we don't? Right? The Soviets got to the bunker. They saw what was in there. Who knows? What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I got to tell you something. I had one of those days recently where I woke up super tired. I drank coffee and then I drank more coffee because I was tired. I trained badly because I had too much coffee. And then I couldn't sleep because I had too much coffee. And the frustrating part is I'm doing all the things. I'm lifting, I'm eating protein, I'm taking creatine, I'm trying to sleep. I'm occasionally fasting because someone on YouTube told me it was good. But sometimes I'm still walking around feeling like I'm only charged to like 60%. And that is what got me thinking so seriously about testosterone. Like, I think about testosterone a lot because it's the thing that makes me feel amazing. And that's why I've been taking Mars men. Here's what I learned. Your body can be making testosterone but a portion of it gets bound to a protein called SHBG. It's literally like the testosterone's there but you can't use it, it's in jail. 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And for a limited time, the listeners of this show, if you are a camper, you are going to get 50% off for life, plus free shipping and three free gifts when you go to men go to Mars.com that is men go to Mars.com for 50% off and three free gifts when you check out. And after you purchase, they're going to ask where you heard about them. Make sure you tell them that Mark and Christos from the campsite sent you now, let's get back to the show. Now, the youboat 977, the captain of that boat said that his crew simply refused to surrender and at one point stayed submerged for 66 days, which is extremely long for a submarine even now, but especially back in the 40s. Now he denied carrying Hitler, but to believers, a youboat that vanished all summer after the war looks exactly like a final voyage south to take the dictator to a different place. Now Hitler wasn't the only one who disappeared, Hans Comler, the SS general who ran Hitler's secret weapons program, he vanished in May of 1945 and as we actually covered in the tool episode, American intelligence files suggest that he was alive weeks after his supposed death and was possibly even taken in by American intelligence. Then of course, there's a quote by Admiral Carl Donets. This is Hitler's navy chief. And supposedly he said in 1943 that the youboat fleet had built the Führer a Shangri-La land. Now, its original source has never actually been found or verified, but remember that word Shangri-La because it comes back and will end up being important in just a second. So by 1946, the question in the theory is pretty simple. If the Nazis were down there, who was going to find them, right? If this whole theory like, okay, we got Nazis fleeing Nazi Germany, they're going, they're using maybe, you know, Antarctica's like a waypoint before going to Argentina before going to Chile, maybe, you know, other parts of South America or South Africa, maybe Antarctica's the hub. Now that takes us to our main man, the guy that this whole story is centered around and his name is Admiral Richard Bird. And to understand why the story feels so credible, you have to understand his background. So in the 1920s and 30s, Bird was basically America's like astronaut before astronauts. His brother Harry F. Bird was a US senator and former governor of Virginia, so his family was pretty well connected. And in 1926, Bird claimed to be the first person to fly over the North Pole and he was awarded the Medal of Honor for it. And then in 1929, he claimed the first flight over the South Pole. So Bird is, you know, connected to both Poles, he's a very prominent explorer and adventurer and, you know, high up in the military. And it becomes important later why all of this is being brought up. Now Admiral Bird also survived things that would have killed any other man, right? In 1934, he spent the Antarctic winter completely alone in a tiny shack buried in the ice with like a faulty like stove, basically, that was like poisoning him with carbon monoxide. It's like one of the most crazy survival stories ever. If you're interested in that kind of stuff, he wrote about it and then even published it in a 1938 book called Alone. So when the Navy wants to send one of the biggest polar expeditions in history up into that point, South, there's a small group of people they're going to pick from and he's kind of the obvious name to put in charge. So the official name of the operation was the United States Navy Antarctic Development's Program in 1946-1947. It's a pretty long name. So everyone just decided to call it Operation High Jump. Now, Bird was the officer in charge and was the public face of this whole expedition. But the task force itself was commanded by rear admiral Richard H. Cruisin. So there are two admiral's named Richard in this whole thing which will become a little bit tricky. So I'll just refer to them as Cruisin and Bird. And the size of this expedition was just ridiculous. Roughly 4,700 men and 13 ships. This is not a little like podon, okay, let's send a helicopter down and check it out. This is an aircraft carrier, the USS Philippine Sea, a command ship, the USS Mount Olympus, two icebreakers, a destroyer, tankers, a submarine, the USS Senate. So the official goal here was to train sailors and test equipment in extreme cold, basically to strengthen America's position in Antarctica and scout future base sites. And the unofficial reason here is the Soviet Union. Again, remember this is post-World War II, we're entering into Cold War time. And if America ever had to fight in the Arctic, the Navy needed to know how its ships and its men would hold up in that environment. Not only just due to the extreme temperatures and the brutality of it, but how do the men actually deal psychologically in this type of space. But believers look at that fleet and they ask why a training exercise needs that much firepower. I mean, most of these training exercises would be like one aircraft carrier, maybe you're sending destroyers and aircraft carriers and submarines and tankers and planes all down there. So in their version, the real mission, again, this is according to the theory that the real mission of this operation was to find base 211 to try to find this secret Nazi base. So the fleet headed south in December 1946 and they built a little base on the Ross Ice Shelf called Little America 4. Now about a month into the operation on January 29, 1947, six R4D transport planes took off from the deck of the Philippine Sea, that is the aircraft carrier. And these planes weren't built for carriers, so they were fitted with rocket boosters to take off and basically like skis to try to land. And once they took off, they couldn't land back on the ship. This was a one way trip. They would literally take off from the ship and they would land on the Ice Shelf. And Admiral Bird was on the first plane. And then a pilot named David Bunger spotted bear rock and open lakes tinted red, blue and green. And the press at the time called it a warm oasis. Scientists would later say that this was just like an ice-free area where like algae would color the water. But think about what that looks like to someone that is, you know, a little bit more agreeable to this theory. Like the Germans found an oasis in 1939, eight years later the Americans are finding another one. And then things start going wrong with this whole expedition. So on, and again, this part is document, you can look the stuff up. On December 30th, 1946, a flying boat called George the First flew into a white out. This is when the snow and the sky basically become the same shade of white, based on like a blizzard, and the pilot loses sight of the ground. Now in this case, the pilots slammed into the ice, exploded the plane and killed three men. The six survivors of this strategy waited 13 days for rescue. And the three who died were never brought home, they are technically still out there on the ice where they originally crashed. Another sailor was killed in an accident at Little America while unloading cargo. And then the submarine that was sent there couldn't handle the ice and had to be basically like rescued and escorted out from this, you know, Antarctic's kind of ice condition. And to top all of it off, the Navy said that winter was coming and the ships couldn't risk getting trapped. So the fleet left in late February and in early March 1947, but the mission was supposed to last for like six to eight months. So this is what believers see, okay? This is how the theory kind of kind of comes together at this point. You have this massive military force. This seems way too big for a training operation. You have a plane that gets lost because of a white out. You have men that are killed for, you know, a myriad of different reasons. You have a submarine that's getting pulled out and then the fleet is going home early. Now the Navy would explain this by saying, like, hey, this is bad weather and bad luck in brutal conditions. But some believers see what you would expect if Operation High Jump ran into something that they were not expecting. And then Admiral Bird said something that made this whole thing a lot worse. So on March 5th, 1947, a Chilean newspaper called El Mercurrio, published an interview with Admiral Bird where he said that in a future war, the US could be attacked by aircraft flying over one or both of the poles. And basically that the polar regions were now America's front doors. So historians read that as kind of just like a cold war of warning, you know, like the shortest route for a Soviet bomber to reach America is basically going straight over the North Pole. So Admiral Bird is just saying, like, hey, we got to protect the North Pole because that is a window for, you know, some type of hostile force to come into America. But people like to point out what Bird didn't say. He never named the Soviets and he'd just come back from Antarctica, not the Arctic in the North. And over the years, as the Spanish interview was translated and retold, the quote changed to sounding like Bird was warning about like flying objects that could fly from pole to pole at incredible speeds. And now all of a sudden, if you add the phrase flying objects, it sounds like you got an Admiral, like a legit military guy, coming fresh off an Antarctic expedition, warning the world about UFOs, and that's just kind of how the telephone game kind of transferred over time through translation. Now that interview caused a lot of people to look back at what Bird had actually been doing at this expedition. And there's one flight in particular that really stands out. So in mid-February 1947, near the end of this whole operation, Bird took off from Little America for in one of the R4D transports and flew over the South Pole. And the flight is well documented and you can check it out by every official account it went exactly as planned. But according to the theory, by the sort of conspiratorial version, there's a gap. According to this version, at some point during Bird's flight, he went silent and made no radio contact for roughly three hours. And then out of nowhere, he came back on the air as if nothing happened. Now, technically speaking, no flight log or Navy records shows this gap, but only appears in the retellings. But for the people who believe it, those three hours are the most important part of the whole expedition because during that time, Bird supposedly went somewhere that no one else could follow or that radio signal couldn't connect to. And the only account of where he went comes from a diary that surfaced more than 40 years later. This is a diary known as the Missing Diary of Admiral Richard E. Bird. And it started circulating in the early 1990s.
through small UFO publishers, where the original came from has never been fully established. Although some claim that Admiral Bird had passed the diary to his son before his death, but again, that claim has never been independently verified. But either way, this thing reads like a real flight log down to the timestamps. And if you're not familiar with, you know, military lingo, you might look at it and be like, "Oh, this is actually pretty, you know, it's pretty legit." It reads like a real like military document. And the diary starts on February 19th, 1947. And it says that there's clear weather, and Admiral Bird takes off from quote, "An Arctic base and heads north." Now, notice it says, "Arctic and not Antarctic." Obviously, Arctic being the North Pole, Antarctic being the South Pole. It says, "Arctic." Now, a little after 9am, his compass starts spinning out of control, so he navigates by the sun. But then he sees mountains where there shouldn't be any. And once he crosses them, the ice gives way and reveals a green valley with a river forest on the slopes, light that looks different and strange. And he can no longer see the sun. And then he looks down and realizes that things are moving under him on the ground. So he drops down to roughly like a thousand feet. He grabs his binoculars and he sees a mammoth. This is what's in this diary that starts circulating in the 90s. And that's when he realizes it's not that cold anymore. The frost on the window is gone and he takes a reading of the outside temperature and it reads 74 degrees. He tries to radio back to the base and he's like, "Guys, this is insane, but the radio stops working." In the distance, he sees a large shining city and around the same time he loses control of his plane. But then he looks out the window and he sees two glowing disc-shaped crafts closing in on him, making no sound at all. And they get close enough that bird can see the markings on the craft. And he sees swastikas. Now, hold on to that for a second because those crafts were not just up there supposedly flying next to Admiral Bird. They were fighting. Now, just to be very clear here, what I just told you is the version that surfaced in the 1990s. Believers often trace it to Soviet intelligence materials released after the USSR collapsed. And in the report, sailors see lights on the horizon that suddenly climb to the sky. And then later, more lights fly straight at the ships. But when the cruise open fire, nothing happens. There's even a story that names witnesses. A radio operator on the USS Brownson describes a craft bursting out of the ocean. A lieutenant named John Sayerson describes a shooting object going straight up out of the water in between his ship's mass. And then a plane from the USS Kurotuk is supposedly destroyed by this ton of like directed energy weapon. And then a destroyer called the USS Maddox catches fire in sinks. Now, these claims are kind of wild. And some of them actually line up with the real expedition. The Brownson and the Kurotuk were really part of Operation High Jump. And the fleet really did leave early, but some of it doesn't. So for example, USS Maddox was not in Operation High Jump. And there's no record of a Lieutenant Sayerson that has ever surfaced. And the Soviet documents have never been made public. But Believers have an answer for that too. And some version, the craft never tried to destroy the fleet. They just wanted the fleet to turn around. And if Moscow really believed High Jump was a hunt for a Nazi base, it shows how seriously the idea was being taken at the time. But anyway, according to the diary, Bird was being brought in for a landing. So when Bird's radio comes back to life, a voice speaking English with a German accent welcomes him and says that he will land in seven minutes. According to the diary, the plane lands by itself as if it's on like some type of like autopilot. And when Admiral Bird steps out, he's met by these tall blonde men carried into the city on this levitating platform and taken deep underground to meet an older man that he calls the master. Now the master says his people were called the Ariani. They've watched humanity for a long time without interfering. But now humanity has atomic weapons. And they've been watching us since all the testing that's been going on around these nukes. And specifically what happened in Japan with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He warns of a war that will wipe out civilization followed by a new dark age. And he says that the Ariani will help rebuild what is left. He also says every time they approach the surface, their crafts were fired on. So they chose a messenger that the world would believe. So then, at that point, Admiral Bird is flown back. And the last thing that he hears is a voice saying "Alph-Wider-Syhen" meaning "goodbye" or "until we meet again" in German. Now the next entry, according to this diary, is March 11th, 1947. And it says Admiral Bird was questioned for hours at the Pentagon in order to stay silent. And the final entry is on Christmas Eve, 1956. And it basically says he doesn't want the knowledge to die with him. Then Admiral Bird actually died on March 11th, 1957, exactly 10 years to the day after the alleged Pentagon meeting. Now, this is what the diary is alleging. You can look at who Bird supposedly met. He met a race maybe inside the Earth behind maybe on ice wall and their tall and their blonde and their technologically superior and there's flying disks with swastikas and they're speaking with the German accent and they're called the Ariane. It's pretty hard to miss how close that is to Aryan, right? And now it is the exact race that the tool society believed in. And then there's another connection. In the 1937 film, "The Lost Horizon," a man enters a hidden paradise and meets its leader, the High Lama, who warns that humanity is heading towards destruction and that his hidden civilization will preserve what's left. The paradise in this movie is called Shangri-La. The very same word that Donets supposedly quoted about the fears fortress in Antarctica. Now, believers connect it in a few ways. Maybe the Nazis found the entrance to where the Aryans supposedly were and Hitler's inner circle escaped inside. Maybe the Ariane were the real source of, you know, the Nazi technology and like the alleged Nazi flying saucers. Or maybe Operation Hyjum was America's attempt to try to deal with both and then it was turned back. Now, this diary is strange and it does leave a lot of questions. So on February 19th, 1947, Bird was in Antarctica, yet the diary puts him in the Arctic. Maybe it's like a typo or something like that. Another issue is that no original has ever been found amongst his papers at Ohio State University. But on February 19th, it turns out to be an especially strange date and it actually has to do with Admiral Bird's son. So as we mentioned earlier, some people claim that Bird passed this diary to his son, Richard Bird Jr., who released it after his father had passed away. But get this, Admiral Bird's son, Bird Jr. was a naval officer as well. And he went on Operation Hyjum with his father. And he was born on February 19th, 1920. So the diary's famous flight fell on his son's 27th birthday. Now, here's the timing that makes things even weirder. The son died a few years before the diary actually started circulating. So on September 1988, he left for Boston for a ceremony in Washington that was the unveiling of a stamp honoring his father's 100th birthday, but he never arrived. And then three weeks later, a custodian found his body in a vacant warehouse in Baltimore where he had apparently gotten off the train about 40 miles short of Washington. His son, Leveritt, said, "I put him on a train and my wife was supposed to meet him. What happened in between, I don't know." And some of the retellings he was actually carrying his father's secrets. Well, in others, he was about to go public with his father's diary. But in reality, his family said he sometimes became confused in his age and the medical examiner ruled that he died of malnutrition and dehydration and ultimately from natural causes. So by the time the diary surfaced in the 90s, both Admiral Bird Sr. and Admiral Bird Jr. were dead and no one was left to confirm it or deny it. Hey guys, we're going to take a break really quick because I want to tell you about GLD. Yeah, GLD sent me this chain. 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So in the mid-50s, there was Operation Deep Freeze and it built a permanent station at the South Pole with bird in charge. This was Admiral Bird's final expedition. And then in 1959, 12 nations signed the Antarctic Treaty, basically banning all military activity on the continent and setting it aside for scientific research. And the standard explanation is, once again, cold war logic. But believers ask, in the middle of the Cold War, when the superpowers agreed on almost nothing, why did all of them come together to agree on peace and an article?
places. And the Navy's official film about high jump won the Academy Award for best documentary. You can still go watch it. It's called the Secret Land. So where does that leave us? Let's try to put all this back together. Okay. Nazi Germany claimed a piece of Antarctica and found an oasis in the ice. That is generally documented. After the war, Stalin said Hitler might be alive and then you both start to surface in and around Argentina. That part is also true. And then America sent its largest polar force ever at the time south to Antarctica. That is documented. It lost men. It left early and it's leader warned about aircraft coming from over the poles. That is all technically true. And then came the battle story and a diary describing this blonde, advanced race inside the earth or outside the walls of the earth dated on the birthday of Admiral Bird's son and ending ten years to the day before Admiral Bird died. And there's one more date. That's important. July 1947, just months after Operation High Jump, something crashed near Roswell, New Mexico home to the only unit in the world capable of dropping an atomic bomb. If the master, so to speak, really was watching the atomic weapons, that's exactly where you would expect they would look. Now every piece of the story has an explanation, right? Look, the weather caused the whole operation to go back. The wailing is why the Nazis went there in the first place. The cold wars, why the Americans wanted to go and do all this training and brutal Arctic conditions. All the old books, all of it is just coincidence, right? But then there are a lot of pieces that all point back to one man flying towards the edge of a map. But Admiral Bird really did die in 1957. And a few decades later, his son also really did die under somewhat mysterious circumstances. And with them, the authenticity of this diary also died. We don't know for a fact where it came from. If it was Admiral Bird's actual diary, and if it was actually passed to his son, and if his son's death had anything to do with the secrets that his father kept. And if there is a land beyond the South Pole, it perhaps is still waiting for someone to find it. And that, my friends, is the story of Operation High Jump. It's a fascinating theory. I mean, you just want to see a movie about it, right? You're like even just doing the research on it. I'm like, man, this is just so wild. Who plays Admiral Bird? Oh, it got to be like Nick Cage. And his son? Me. I think I'd be a good Nick Cage son. I've never seen that similarity up until just now. So I'm saying you pull the hair back and also you're like, wait a second. I mean, it's just crazy, right? Now, let's go through some of the details here, okay? There was a real operation. And they really did go down there, and they really were looking for stuff. The Nazis really did have an interest in, you know, Antarctica. There's all sorts of like threads here that are really ripe for some type of discussion. There is so much mystery around Antarctica. No one really knows what's going on there. But the biggest issue is that this whole thing hinges on this diary, right? Like the diary is really like, oh, this is, that's the craziest part. Oh, the Admiral Bird went to a place and saw mammoths. And then there was a civilization that was these tall blonde areas that were giving him, you know, they were speaking German. The Nazis apparently were like cool over there. Like it's, to me, it's like, okay, if the aliens are watching humanity, let's say the Ariane are really over there. They're watching and guiding humanity. They're concerned about nukes and then Hitler pulls up and he's like, hey, can I come in? You think they would be down with Hitler? I feel like they'd be like, yo, hey, do you were just going wild trying to destroy everyone? Like, what's up? Like, are you good? But he's also a legend, not in a good sense, but he's a mythical legendary figure. Like, like a, an important historical character. Correct. Is that, are you saying like he's like an icon? Right. That people should admire. Is that what you're saying? That you admire him? Nope, nope, nope. Nope. What are you saying about Hitler? I'm saying you, if you met, um, that Mongolian leader, oh, jingles. Exactly. Jingles gone. You wouldn't be like, hey, let's go for a beer. Well, that's a good point. I guess if jingles showed up in my tent today, I'd be like, all right, we'll take him out. Keep an eye on him. Yeah, you don't want to go ahead and just genocide all the people in the steps, but you do want to hear what he's got to say. Keep him away from your wife. Yeah, that's fair. So I guess maybe the Ariane were like, hey, Hitler, you were a bad guy, but we have some questions. You had some wins that I'd like to take notes on. Christens, you're getting close, dude. You're getting very close. I got to stop talking. Yeah, you're freaking me out, dude. This new mic stand has got to give you a real supreme confidence. Can I say that's scary. I don't know. My issue is that like with these kinds of theories, like can a hard giant is another one like this, where it's like, okay, the whole story, there's all sorts of like historical threads that are giving kind of the context. And then the actual kind of thread, the actual narrative comes from this sort of unverifiable source. Like, I don't know. I've even had, I've heard some people and like read some stuff online again. This is just from like random Reddit threads, but like from actual military personnel that have gone through, like what can be found of the diary. And they're like, yeah, the markings in here are like not adequate for like a military journal. Like again, it might have been his personal diary. So he wasn't keeping it up with all the exact specific things, but they pointed out like a couple of the words that he used and like some of the language that he used, they were like, this is kind of atypical of a high ranking admiral at this time to be talking about planes or boats with this type of vernacular. So it kind of it reeks of a forgery. Yeah. I mean, I think that that much is probably like again, I don't like to operate in absolutes. So let's give it percentages. Percentage that admiral bird really did an operation to Antarctica. 99%. Really? That high. He did an operation in Antarctica. Yeah. Okay. That part is document. You don't think it's less than 99%. It's like, yeah, it's historical record. You're basically saying 100. But yeah, he went to Antarctica. Right. I'm not disputing that. Did they go there for training against the Soviets? I'm going to get it like 92%. During the time makes sense makes sense. Did he fly over the South Pole? 95% sure. Did he go to the Ariane and meet the master who told them about how they were concerned about nuclear weapons and soft flying saucers of swastik is on a battling? I'm going to put it like 2%. Steve drop off. Steve drop off. I'm going to go 2% on that. I just don't. I don't see it. What do you think of the airplane thing where the temperature drops the 78 degrees, which it wouldn't be at that height? Well, I know he dropped down, I think, because he wanted to get a closer look. He was like, Oh, I see some stuff on the ground. And then according to the theory, he drops down like a thousand feet. So he's in like the atmosphere you would be inhabiting. Oh, I think I think once you're at a thousand feet, like the temperature is not like that crazy. Gotcha. Also, it's a mountainous region of, you know, Ariane. It's nice this time of year. You go to Ariane in February. I need to put an Airbnb link up. Come visit Ariane. Not a bad idea. If I could be on the tourism board of Ariane, if there's any Arians watching this, I don't mean like blonde hair blue eye people. I mean like actual Arians from the center of the center of the earth. From agartha, I would like to be a part of like the branding and kind of like the visit agartha, visit Ariane. Like I think that'd be fun. Yeah. And show off the waterfalls, show off. I mean, the women, I'm sure are beautiful. Tall blondes, some type of supreme secret race that's been watching humanity for all of eternity. Now you're the one getting it to trouble. I don't know if that's even controversial. I think we can all agree. Some hot blondes at the center of the earth would probably be pretty interesting to go. Just say what's up to. Right. Am I off on that? Ask them their name. Just see what's going on. They come here often. The guys are hot too. They're tall, blonde, gorgeous. So you'd think they'd be with them. Maybe they're looking for some different. Okay. Maybe we're looking for like a six five jacked Greek guy, right? Christos. Not me, but yeah. A lot of people were asking about you on the show this weekend. Really? Yeah. We're on the road and a bunch of people were like, is Christos here? I was like, God no. You're crazy. I'm gonna put them on a plane. Not a road guy. This is insane. I'm gonna unleash them around all these women and men at these comedy shows. The whole thing would be a disruption. He walks out. The people are going to go crazy and I'm able to tell a joke. Not going to listen to you. So I'm saying they're going to say, for me, I'm going to go to code word, walk around the back, all the chairs turn around and now we're just watching you. That would happen. And that's why I say, Christos cannot be on the road. But yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with this theory. Now all that to say, I'm open to being corrected. If someone has a documented version of his journal or can, you know, supply some type of more fleshed out facts on the topic, I would love to know. It is one of my favorite stories because it's just an awesome movie. Oh, a guy goes to an article on a military mission, discovers like a secret Nazi base and like a whole civilization that's guiding humanity. Yeah. I want to know what's going on with that. I want to I want to see that movie. So in terms of entertainment value, I'm going to put it at 98% in terms of authenticity and veracity to three percent. What do you think? Yeah, I'd say a little less actually. You think 1%, 0.5? I am the 1%. I like to believe that the world is just a little more magical, you know? But I don't know. What do you guys think? If you know about this topic or you're more research on it than I am, please drop a comment below. I would love to know what you think. If there's anything I got wrong, I am not afraid to be incorrect. If you think that there are a secret civilization living in the center of the earth that is guiding humanity, what is it? What are they up to? What do they want from us? What are they seeing? And would they be down with Hitler if you pulled up? I really doubt it. But you guys tell me what you think. I might be off on this. Please drop a comment. I read all of them YouTube or sponsor.
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Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Operation High Jump was a 1946 U.S. Navy expedition to Antarctica involving 4,700 men and 13 ships, officially aimed at military training and Cold War preparedness.
Nazi Germany conducted a prior expedition in 1938, claiming a region called "New Swabia," and reportedly found an ice-free oasis that some believe was a secret Nazi base or hidden civilization.
A disputed diary attributed to Admiral Richard E. Bird, surfaced decades later, claims he flew over the Arctic, encountered a technologically advanced, blonde, German-speaking race called the "Ariani," and witnessed flying saucers with swastikas.
The diary describes Bird being taken underground to meet a "master" who warned of nuclear destruction and a future dark age, aligning with themes from the film *The Lost Horizon* and Soviet-era intelligence reports.
The diary’s authenticity is highly questionable—no original has been verified, and its content, including details like a 74-degree temperature reading and a 3-hour radio silence, lack military documentation.
The story includes a web of coincidences
Believers connect the expedition to a broader narrative of secret Nazi or extraterrestrial civilizations beneath the Earth, possibly linked to the myth of Shangri-La.
While the operation itself is historically documented, the core claims about alien encounters or hidden societies remain unsubstantiated and widely considered speculative.
Summary:
S. Navy expedition to Antarctica, sent primarily for military training and Cold War readiness amid rising tensions with the Soviet Union. Historically, the mission is well-documented, with detailed records of its scale, personnel, and early termination due to harsh conditions and accidents.
However, a controversial diary attributed to Admiral Richard E. Bird suggests he encountered a secret, advanced civilization—referred to as the "Ariani"—in the Arctic or beneath the ice, complete with flying saucers, swastika markings, and warnings about nuclear war. This narrative draws on Nazi-era interest in Antarctica, Soviet claims about Hitler's survival, and the 1947 "Shangri-La" myth.
Despite its compelling elements, the diary lacks verifiable proof, has no original documentation, and contains inconsistencies—such as a flight in the Arctic during a southern expedition and a temperature reading that contradicts known atmospheric conditions. Experts consider the story largely speculative, with the core claims of alien contact or underground civilizations dismissed as fiction. Yet, the story remains popular due to its blend of historical facts, conspiracy theories, and existential themes, making it a compelling piece of fringe history with lasting cultural appeal.
FAQs
Operation High Jump was a 1946–1947 U.S. Navy expedition to Antarctica involving 4,700 men and 13 ships. Its official goal was to train sailors and test equipment in extreme cold, preparing for potential Cold War Arctic confrontations.
The primary reason was Cold War strategy—assessing how American military forces would perform in Arctic and Antarctic conditions. It also served as a psychological and strategic move to strengthen U.S. presence in polar regions.
Yes, in 1938, a German expedition named the Schwabenland visited Antarctica, photographed over 350,000 square kilometers, and established a region called New Swabia. The official goal was to collect whale oil, though conspiracy theories claim it was to find a lost Aryan civilization.
The Schirmacher Oasis is an ice-free area with lakes in the middle of the Antarctic ice sheet. It was first spotted by a German pilot in 1939 and later cited by believers as evidence of a hidden Nazi base or secret Aryan settlement beneath the ice.
The diary, which surfaced in the 1990s, claims that Admiral Bird flew to the Arctic, saw a green valley with a river, encountered a technologically advanced race of tall, blonde individuals, and witnessed flying discs with swastikas that were allegedly engaged in combat.
There is no verified original of the diary among Admiral Bird’s known papers, and its content has been questioned as potentially a forgery. Critics note inconsistencies in military language and the lack of corroborating evidence from official records.
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