Located at our southernmost continent is Antarctica, known as the coldest place on earth, and as it turns out also the most mysterious. It's home to one of the largest lakes in the world, Lake Vostok. What makes this lake the topic of endless discussion is the fact that it's located two miles beneath the ice! But the most intriguing news coming out of Antarctica before the news blackout had to do with the discovery of an extremely powerful “magnetic anomaly” located in the northern end of the lake’s coast. At the end of Lake Vostok is what’s known as a gigantic masscon, a mass concentration of metal, very similar to the masscons they discovered on the Moon, a gigantic, circular-shaped, metallic object deep under the ice at the end of the Lake! This is likely to be the cause of odd "time vortex" sightings by media and citizens alike, the hub of many science fiction type reports.
The famous Lake Vostok is beneath two miles of ice and not only is it unfrozen, but it's water is comfortably warm, an estimated 65 degrees! The heat of the earth's crust rises up melting the lake water, and get's trapped underneath the ice cap, creating a huge, slowly melting and growing ice dome structure above the lake. This creates the possibility of a thriving ecosystem that's been untouched since the formation of Antarctic icecaps, around 30million years ago! Lake Vostok drilling station has been hard at work for decades. For the first time since starting, they've stopped. Worries of us infecting this once in a lifetime fragile environment with a virus of our own and also the very real possibility of a 30million year old virus causing us a massive epidemic, has temporarily halted the plans, only 15meters from penetration, until a safer one was approved. Even after a new system was approved, they cannot continue drilling until the harsh arctic winter passes.
Recently there have been several media reports about an anomaly discovered in Lake Vostok. Apparently, the site has been sealed off to the media and other scientists due to the “environmental concerns”. The fact that the NSA has assumed jurisdiction over an environmentally hazardous site is raising eyebrows about may be happening there. The mass concentration of metal is now one of the most sensitive things in the world now and classified and top secret. Soon after, some military observers noted that robotic devices were being shipped to the South Pole and speculation erupted about the belief by some that the US Air Force had transported their mammoth nuclear-powered tunnel boring machine, the Subterrene, on a C5-A to a secret Antarctic base.
The Subterrene, a cylindrical vessel that is said manned with a crew of four to six, is capable of subterranean travel and has undergone tests in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. Designed to bore through hard rock strata, drilling into the ice would be like a laser cutting through a marshmallow. The military's progress and intentions are obviously currently unknown.
What we do know is during the initial flight of SOAR (Support Office for Aero-physical Research), aimed at conducting magnetic resonance imaging over the area, the magnetometer recorded an increase of 1,000 nanoteslas beyond the 60,000 nanoteslas which characterized the Vostok Station. Scientists had expected to find magnetic anomalies in the range of 500 to 600 nanoteslas in areas where volcanic material could be located, but the ranges encountered were simply startling. “This anomaly is so large that it cannot be the product of a daily change in the magnetic field,” stated Michael Studinger, one of the researchers involved in the mapping endeavor. The sheer size of the anomaly is 65 by 46 square miles. Professor DeLaurier’s paper discussed the existence of a structure so vast that it defied imagination, a "quasi-cylindrical loaf of an object measuring 65 miles long by 65 miles thick at a staggering depth of 80 miles". To put this into perspective, almost the size of Los Angeles! Studies showed that the object, which straddled the earth’s mantle and crust, was the source of some sort of disturbance affecting the nearby magnetic field and “inducing a strong flow of electricity. Finally, the American and European media were pressing hard for some believable answers when 9-11 occurred and the US was suddenly under terrorist attack. Domestic and international focus immediately shifted from the Antarctic to New York City and Washington, D.C. The mysterious events in Antarctica were forgotten.
In 2002 a TV crew from California went missing in the Antarctic. Supposedly a U.S. Navy Seal who was tasked with finding the crew discovered a video made by the filmmakers that confirmed earlier reports of a huge artifact buried under the ice, a prehistoric machine that may be of alien origin. "The U.S. government said it will seek to block the airing of a video found by Navy rescuers in Antarctica that purportedly reveals that a massive archaeological dig is underway two miles beneath the ice," stated a press release that appeared briefly on the studio production's website. As once again crazy stories surrounded Lake Vostok, a research team of US and UK scientists accidentally came across a fantastic discovery. While working on a joint weather research project, the team witnessed the creation of, what looked like, a spinning vortex of time. US physicist Mariann McLein allegedly testified that she and her colleagues became aware of a "spinning gray fog" in the sky over their heads. They initially dismissed the phenomenon as merely part of a random polar storm. The spiraling vortex, however, did not disperse. Stranger still, despite gusts of wind and briskly moving clouds overhead, the weird spinning gray fog remained stationary. Deciding to explore the odd phenomenon, the group took one of its weather balloons and attached a meteorological instrument to it that calibrated temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, windspeed and a scientific chronometer to record the times of the readings. After attaching a cable to the balloon, and securing the other end to a winch, they released it. The balloon and instrument package soared upwards and were immediately sucked into the gaping maw of the swirling vortex. The balloon and instruments disappeared. After a several minutes, they decided to retrieve the balloon. Despite some difficulty with the winch they succeeded in bringing the balloon back to earth and checked the instruments. McLein stated that everyone was stunned by the readout on the chronometer. It displayed a date decades in the past: January 27, 1965. McLein claimed the experiment was repeated several times with the same result. Later, she said, the entire episode was reported to military intelligence and passed on to the White House. Presumably the strange vortex phenomenon, a highly magnetic tunnel to the past, was code named The Time Gate by military intelligence.
This phenomenon was generated in the nearby vicinity of Lake Vostok's, it is believed to have been the cause of the sub-glacial city of metal. Could this be simply a natural formation of metal from within the earth? Or is this some kind of strategically placed machine capable of creating a time tunnel in which one could pass through and return an unscathed time-traveling explorer?
Whilst all of this sounds mesmerizing enough, scientists are hoping to find more than a lake of pristine water beneath the ice sheet. The consequences of finding life in such an environment would have a profound effect upon the search for life in our own solar system. Due to the lake’s similarity to Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, any discovery of living life in Lake Vostok would suggest there’s reason to believe there may be a presence of life on Europa or Enceladus.
Although it's quite possible that these stories have been made-up or exaggerated in the heat of the mania following Lake Vostok's most mind-boggling discoveries, we have to remember it's importance. It might not be a massive alien ship, or an alien civilization, but whatever it is, it's 30million years old and not even a year away from being penetrated. Are we opening Pandora's Box? One would think that something this tantalizing and unique could never be ignored or shelved. But only time will tell. They will start drilling soon enough. Keep following here for any posted updates on the matter. The adventures continue.
