Operation Highjump: The U.S. Antarctic Expedition, 1946

After World War II, the United States launched a secret operation, Operation Highjump, which ran from August 26, 1946, to the end of February 1947, with Antarctica as its objective. The participants included 4700 officers and enlisted personnel, 6 helicopters, 6 seaplanes, 2 multi-purpose aircraft, 15 other aircraft, 13 U.S. support ships, and 1 aircraft carrier. The fleet commander was Rear Admiral Byrd.

At the time, the postwar European economy was in chaos, and as the Cold War began—perhaps a third world war the United States would have to confront—global tensions were also rising. Yet the U.S. Navy was then going through massive postwar cuts. Many ships were decommissioned, and the ships that remained also suffered large reductions in crew. Because the war was over, the U.S. Navy itself was being taken apart piece by piece, and battle-tested fleets were retired. The Navy had even been reduced to recruiting still more people just to crew the small number of warships that were left. Under those circumstances, an Antarctic expedition on this scale left the United States feeling somewhat overstretched, and yet it seemed the operation had to go ahead (perhaps taking advantage of the first Antarctic summer after the war). That is deeply puzzling—unless the operation was absolutely essential to the security of the United States. No wonder Operation Highjump has inspired endless speculation.

Yet within a few weeks every arrangement was complete, at a speed no less than that of a war.

On December 31, 1946, Byrd’s fleet entered the Ross Sea off Antarctica and began a month of aerial survey flights. After four weeks of reconnaissance, the aircraft flew a total of 220 hours, covered 22700 miles, and took 70,000 photographs.

Yet a mission originally expected to last 6-8 months ended quickly, and both the start and the end were hurried. According to Chilean media reports, the operation had in fact “run into serious trouble,” and “many people were killed.”

Official records state that one aircraft crashed, killing three servicemen on the spot; a fourth serviceman died on the ice; and the commander nearly went missing. It seems Admiral Byrd’s inner-earth diary was not groundless after all: he really was missing for three hours.

It was February 19, 1947. The expedition’s flight formation was making a routine reconnaissance flight to the north. Byrd took off with the formation to begin a high-altitude survey, but when the mission was over and it was time to return to base, Byrd did not come back. As usual, several hours after takeoff the members of the formation finished their own tasks and returned to base one after another, but this time there was still no sign of Byrd. After repeated attempts to contact Byrd failed, the fleet sent aircraft to search nearby. Three hours passed, and they had found nothing. The fleet was preparing to report to headquarters that Byrd was missing. Everyone believed the admiral had met with an accident.

Just as everyone was at a loss, the aircraft Byrd was flying appeared on the radar screen as if from nowhere, and it was only twenty-seven minutes’ flight from the base.

What happened during that time? Byrd’s diary records the little-known experience of those three hours. He described it this way: When I was flying the aircraft and reached an altitude of 800 meters, I saw a bank of mist ahead of me. After I flew out of the mist, the compass on the aircraft began to spin and shake violently. I could not tell which way I was flying. Thirty minutes later, mountains I had never seen suddenly appeared in the distance.

After I flew over these high mountains, an oasis appeared before me. There were lush green valleys, streams, and broad meadows. The hillsides were covered with dense forest. On the ground in the distance, elephants were moving. They were covered in long hair and enormous in size. They looked like mammoths, long since extinct.

Soon afterward, the aircraft I was flying seemed to lose control. Then something even stranger happened. Two disc-shaped craft appeared on either side of the plane. Quickly, English with a Nordic accent came over my aircraft’s radio: “Welcome to our world. You need not be afraid. In 7 minutes we will land you safely.”

Then the engines of the aircraft I was flying stopped. The plane seemed to be controlled by an invisible force, and before long it landed on the ground. Several tall, slender people with blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin appeared before me.

I was received warmly. They invited me aboard a vehicle floating in the air, and it raced toward a city in the distance. That city was built of crystal.

10 minutes later we reached a building and stopped before a huge door. Strange writing was on the door.

Then someone came over and said to me that our world is called “Arianni,” and that it is an inner world. We and the world on the surface had not interfered with each other, and for a long time we had lived in peace. But a few years ago you dropped atomic bombs on the surface, and that worried us deeply.

He also said that the technology of the inner world was thousands of years ahead of the surface world. They did not want to interfere with the order of the surface world, but they were even less willing to see humanity use atomic weapons again, because that would lead the Earth toward disaster.

They had sent secret envoys to visit several major powers, but the envoys were not taken seriously and were even met with hostility. So this time they wanted to speak through Richard Byrd and deliver the Arianni warning to the surface world.

After the brief meeting ended, Byrd returned the way he had come, guided by two craft. Just before he left, he heard a German “goodbye” over the radio.

After returning to the flagship, Byrd immediately reported what had happened to him to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the U.S. Department of Defense and recommended that the expedition plan be changed. The military dismissed this. They considered the so-called inner-earth people a lie Byrd had made up, pure nonsense, and they came close to removing him from his post.

Everything went on according to the original plan. Byrd’s warning was treated as a lie and ignored. The icebreakers went on methodically cutting channels across the vast white ice…..

Yet a disaster was also drawing near in silence.

On February 26, 1947, a mysterious attack came without warning. It is said that in this attack the U.S. military paid with 63 lives, while the other side was left completely unharmed.

Some who lived through the event still remember the scene vividly: “The UFOs darted among the ships at an unimaginable speed, without any sound, like ghosts floating in the sky. Their attacks were utterly silent. The fleet urgently launched two carrier aircraft to fight back, but they caught fire and crashed as soon as they took off. The enemy seemed to attack with lasers or electromagnetism. We had no chance to strike back. It was like a slaughter!”

The attack lasted twenty minutes, until the UFOs submerged into the ocean again.

After the attack, Byrd’s fleet made an emergency return. The expedition had been planned to last six months, but it was hastily cut short after two months. There is ample reason to believe that this UFO attack was the main reason senior military leaders abandoned the original plan.

After returning to the United States, Byrd was recalled to Washington by Secretary of Defense James Forrestal. At a Joint Chiefs meeting in the Department of Defense, Byrd reported everything the expedition had encountered to President Truman. The meeting lasted 6 hours. He was also investigated by the highest security authorities, and then senior officials told him he must keep the matter strictly secret and must not, at any time, reveal to anyone what he had encountered during the expedition.

With that, the episode came to an end. Only in his later years did Admiral Byrd give interviews and write a book disclosing it.

In the book, Byrd described in detail everything he had encountered in Antarctica and showed his acceptance of the hollow-Earth theory. Byrd firmly believed that another world exists inside the Earth, and that Antarctica is the gateway to that inner world.