Antarctica

The Goal

Two very different ideas. Only one can be right. It'd be very easy to disprove the wrong one. We aim to settle this debate once and for all.

Working Theory

Two to four simultaneous plane/drone flights could unthaw hidden knowledge of the world we call home. In a nutshell, by hugging distinct lines of longitude down to the 90th parallel and coordinating arrival times, these airborne recorders will either see each other in the sky or they won't.*

If they do see each other physically, it proves once and for all that our planet is a blue marble. If they don't... well then it proves something far more fascinating. But will anyone ever allow it?

*Important note: use of beacons to verify plane location will not be sufficient since we all know how vulnerable raw data is to manipulation. Only live video (of both the view from the cockpit and of the instruments inside) verified by parties on both sides of the debate will suffice. Also, for anyone wondering, by doing it this way, there will be no need to land the planes on the ice, thereby avoiding many of the pitfalls associated with sending documentarians there.

The Basics

Until a few hundred years ago, people around the world thought there was only one pole. To them, the North Pole was the center of a disc-shaped world where the oceans were contained by an outer ring of land that would eventually come to be known as Antarctica.

Yet by the dawn of the Modern Age, the disc view of Earth had been summarily replaced by the globe model we operate under today. This ball planet explanation requires a series of scientific assumptions that can never really be proven by a layperson. Whether we're talking about the esoteric (shifting magnetic axes, oblate spheroids, galactic forces) or the mundane (extreme temperatures, required funding, unauthorized zones), regular folks simply lack the access and resources to travel to the poles (let alone space) to confirm whether what we have been taught is indeed true.

On top of that, world thought leaders have for centuries stymied any attempt at open discussion on the matter. Take this clip, for example. Neil Tyson, celebrated scientific genius, begins by paying lip service to the value of skepticism. He then lays out a comparison between Disc Earth theory and the Big Bang; saying they both sound "equally preposterous." Yet, according to Tyson, only the thing that happened off-world 13.8 billion years ago has evidence with strong enough underpinnings to back it! Meanwhile, the thing we could actually go out and prove right now thanks to readily available technology is without merit in his eyes. Please take a minute to think about how farcical this logic sounds.

As if that wasn't enough, let's not forget the history of the seventh continent. It is a place very few people have been -- and most of those who can say they've stepped foot there have been restricted to very specific locations on the coast. As far as the pole itself goes, the list of visitors is smaller by degrees of magnitude. [Probably even smaller if you research the history of polar explorers, from Cook to Peary to the Scott-Amundsen connection to Byrd exaggerating their exploits.] Wikipedia will tell you this number is in the hundreds. Even if this is true -- which most certainly could be a stretch -- it merely means that those people roughly reached the one accepted area on their map that cartographers call the South Pole. But this doesn't even factor in the concept that the geographic pole isn't the actual scientific marker; which begs the question: should we be searching for the magnetic or the geomagnetic pole? And, most important of all, it doesn't consider what this project contends: that there isn't just one South Pole. Rather, every point along the 90th parallel is, in essence, a southern pole counterpart to the Arctic center of our world.

These are the core reasons why The Antarctic Project was started. [Head over to the Supporting Evidence page for additional questions that have not been answered satisfactorily.] In time, we hope to identify people who will support the mission: either vocally, financially, or directly. Check back in the coming months to see if and when we activate the second phase of the project.

Antarctic Treaty

If time has taught us anything, it's that different tribes/armies/countries do not share well. Historically, when land and resources are up for grabs, world leaders have been willing to kill millions in order to acquire just a chance at these precious commodities.

So why has the opposite been the case in Antarctica for 50+ years? Speaking of the number fifty, how did over 50 countries agree to keep their hands off of a territory that is larger than both Australia and Europe?! [Especially when you consider the constant posturing in the Arctic Circle.]

Sure, it's not impossible that, for the first time in recorded history, the peaceniks & scientists overpowered the generals & tycoons. Still, it does make you wonder if something else - something huge - is at play. The type of thing that could only be classified as full-blown collusion to cover up one of the world's biggest secrets. Namely, that Antarctica is not some huge island at the bottom of the Earth; rather, it is an enormous strip of ice surrounding the rest of the world.

To be honest, they both seem virtually as crazy!! But are they??

Map Projections

Anybody else wonder why there are multiple versions of the world map? You would think we would have figured it out by now!

At first blush, the explanation seems reasonable. In short, people thought the Mercator projection (the one used in textbooks, classrooms, voyages, etc for generations) was great... that is until enough experts pointed out how much more accurate the relative sizes of places like Africa & Greenland supposedly are when viewing the Peters map.

It's pretty hard to argue with the logic behind it. As an experiment, draw a few lines around the wrapper of a piece of spherical candy. Then take the wrapper off and flatten it out. It's clear that 'polar' sections of the wrapper make up a smaller percentage of the total area than equivalent spots around the midpoint. In essence, the Peters projection follows this same principle. [Look at the map below, paying extra attention to the lines of latitude. Compare the heights of the 30-degree sections between the Equator and the Tropics versus the 30-degree sections between the Poles and the 60th parallels N/S.]

So, yes, overweighting the 'height' of the continents as they draw nearer to the Equator is hard to dispute. Notwithstanding, it also makes sense, when you consider the power that entrenched institutions have in society, that the Mercator map has barely seen a drop in usage. What doesn't make sense is how it took until the 1980s for experts to make a good faith effort at even considering correcting an apparently obvious mistake.

Taking it one step further, the real question is how mathematicians and cartographers alike can't produce a simple map that reduces distortion to almost zero. It's not like a sphere is an exotic shape seldom dealt with over the centuries by these highly-educated academics. Even if you give them the benefit of the doubt by saying that the planet is not a perfect sphere, but rather an oblate spheroid, and, thus, harder to depict... it's not like they don't have 50+ years of supposed imagery from space AND an armada of supercomputers that can do the dirty work for them. Even with all of these tools at their disposal, there are over 100 vastly varied theories on what the map should look like! How is this possible?!

Perhaps it's because the smartest minds in the world are operating under a flawed assumption from the start: namely, that the earth is ball-shaped. Perhaps that explains how two of the most commonly used map projections can look so drastically different. Perhaps the disc-shaped maps of yesteryear were right all along.

GPS Coordinates

Go explore what happens when you visit any GPS-search website and type the coordinates shown in the photo below of a supposed "adventurer at the South Pole." Doesn't work, right?

Now try and manually drop a pin below 85 degrees south into any online world map. Can't, huh?

Sure, it's possible that the curvature at the ends of the planet confuses computers. Or maybe the makers of these tools didn't want to waste the processing power on polar regions that almost no one will travel to. But there's also a chance that it further cements the case we are trying to make...

Polaris

As you know, there is only one fixed star in the sky: the North Star. Also known as Polaris, this heavenly body sits directly above the North Pole and never wavers. To be clear, no matter where you are on the map north of the Equator, if you look up you'll see Polaris maintaining its position in the sky while every other star appears to be in motion.

This fact that makes way more sense if you imagine Polaris as the central node, from our vantage point, of the universe rotating above the stationary disc we live on... rather than a universe that somehow allows a star from another solar system to remain anchored above the ball we call home, which happens to be rotating and revolving on a distinct trajectory thru our system (not to mention that both bodies' rates of speed would be independent of the {also-in-motion} galaxy they both inhabit).

Of course, the only remaining question is why we supposedly cannot see Polaris from the Southern Hemisphere. Is it a matter of distance and perspective or is it definitive proof of the spherical model? Tough to say for sure... which is why this site is not called The Polaris Project!