
The Soviets Sponsored a Doomed Expedition to a Hollow Earth Kingdom (2016) - BerislavLopac
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-the-soviets-sponsored-a-doomed-expedition-to-a-hollow-earth-kingdom
======
Iv
In 1923.

That was entirely reasonable at the time for a country like USSR to fund two
persons to find out if that "telepathic revelation" on which many mediums
seemed to agree had any grounds.

1923\. Realize how much fewer we knew about the Earth, the mind, space, at the
time. Plate tectonics was a new theory, still hotly debated. The origin of
human people were not clear and several people were buying into this Aryan
theory that caucasians came from an advanced lost civilization. Hell, CIA
sponsored research into medium activities until the 70s!

If there was an advanced civilization hiding underground, it was not crazy to
think they had tech to send telepathic message, and it would have been
irresponsible to not inquire a bit about the people who claimed knowledge
about it.

~~~
ryanmercer
>Plate tectonics was a new theory, still hotly debated

This always gets me. Well into the 1950's it was still contested, DNA wasn't
discovered until the 1950's, gravitational waves weren't detected until 2015!
Even just looking at my family's first personal computer in 1995 and comparing
it to the Pixel 3 I carry as a phone and the Moto x4 ( _which was free!!!_ )
that I mostly just use for listening to YouTube videos at work and just how
much more capability/processing power/storage they have compared to that
Compaq Presario.

It's truly amazing how much we've done and discovered in the past 100~ years.

~~~
TACIXAT
As powerful as our phones are, I feel they are incredibly under-utilized.
There is this super computer in my pocket and I use it to check 3 websites and
play some games.

~~~
ryanmercer
>and I use it to check 3 websites

That is a powerful use. You're connecting to a source of data that is likely
weeks of travel by foot away, if not on another continent. If even one of them
is a social site, like HN/Reddit/Facebook, it grants you access to the
collective thoughts and works of thousands to millions of people.

"I wonder what other movies so and so was in" used to be something you'd have
to ask multiple individuals.

"I wonder how a nuclear reactor works" was something that would have required
a trip to a library and might have left you unsatisfied, now you can go on
YouTube and actually see a tour of a reactor at a university and find many
articles (some from nuclear/energy organizations on the first page of Google)
that contain descriptions that even someone plucked form a random grade school
could understand.

"How do I _change my oil_ / _hang a door_ / _learn to program_ / _knit a
scarf_ / _sew something_ / _plan for my retirement_ / _order illicit goods on
the darknet_ / _repair my item_ " now brings you more articles and videos than
you could possibly want for countless topics.

While you might do these things on a daily basis, or a monthly basis, many
people do use that nifty pocket computer that is their smartphone to find such
things.

I learn more from listening to YouTube videos and podcasts at work in a month
of work days about history than I did in all of my k-12 education. For that
matter I probably learn more just during my commute in a month than I did in
all of my k-12 education.

I can also whip that phone out and learn all sorts of things via Khan Academy,
I can fire up Duolingo and TALL Drill and practice foreign language skills. I
can chat with friends all over the world in real time via text, via image and
video video thanks to Marco Polo/Skype/ FB Messenger/FaceTime etc.

That phone is my planner, my own personal weather forecaster, my full-time
navigator, a camera and a video capture device, grants me access to all manner
of data I've stored in Drive/Evernote/Sheets/Docs, can give me basic
translation of foreign languages in real time with the camera, allows me to
manage my investments/credit cards/bank accounts and get instant notification
of transactions, grants me access to insane amounts of music, let's me get a
very good estimate of my dietary deficiencies via cronometer.

I'd call that quite a technological accomplishment. That little black
rectangle gives me the same abilities and conveniences that someone might have
required an entire staff to have even 30 years ago.

~~~
rescbr
Still, most are things that old Presario could do with a dial-up connection.
Sure, some might require a Pentium 4 and ADSL, but the smartphone isn't a
revolution. The Personal Computer and the Internet were.

------
playing_colours
There was also Sannikov Land
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sannikov_Land](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sannikov_Land)
\- a ghost island in the Arctic Ocean, claimed to be seen in 19 century by
Russian explorer Sannikov. A few expeditions to find it were organised by
baron von Toll, who eventually died there.

There were attempts to find the land in Soviet time (1930s) with no results.

Russian geologist Vladimir Obruchev wrote a pretty entertaining fiction novel
“Sannikov Land”, where he described the land populated by dinosaurs and
Onkilons, ancient Siberian humans.

~~~
konart
I know we are not here for a movies links, but here is the movie link:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYENPwgfJqE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYENPwgfJqE)
(legal)

------
NikkiA
The hollow earth theories are actually a lot more embedded in human history
than people realise, for example 'Shangri-La' is a phrase that most people
will recognise, and is an alternative name for the Kingdom/City of Shambahala
myth at the basis of this expedition. The myth also mutated into a competing
form as 'Agartha' which is said to be a large internal kingdom protected by
many mythical beasts that inhabit the caves of Tibet.

Verne's novel is _mostly_ based on the Agartha version of the myth.

~~~
yters
The Odyssey, a couple of Plato's dialogues, The Aeneid, Dante's Inferno, and
the Bible speak of a land of the dead that is within the earth. Probably based
on the older cosmology that associated the elements with moral status of
souls. Bad = earthy = go down. Good = fire = go up. In the earth is down, in
the heavens is up. Souls go somewhere when the body dies, so bad souls go down
into the earth and good souls go up into the heavens with the stars.

Also the reason for earth centered universes. Not because ancient thinkers
thought humans were so great, but because they thought humans were so bad.
Saying the earth (ball of dirt and badness) orbits the Sun (ball of fire and
goodness) made no sense in that context.

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7thaccount
I'm confused at the title. It seems like the Americans sponsored it outright
and there is evidence the Soviets sponsored it as well.

------
thraxil
The article briefly mentions Roerich as a painter, but it's worth noting that
he really was an amazing and important painter. It's worth an image search to
see some of his work. Also, there's a small museum dedicated to his work on
107th street in NYC and it's one of my favorite places.

------
partiallypro
A few high ranking Nazis were also believers in Hollow Earth theory. Though
it's complete bunk, it is much more fun to think about than the "earth is
flat" nonsense. At least this has made for good science fiction.

~~~
NikkiA
The nazi's mostly believed in the _concave_ hollow earth theory as proposed by
Cyrus Teed/Koresh and known as the religion of Koreshanity, there is some
evidence Hitler himself believed in it, sending an expedition to the island of
Rugen with the goal of setting up telescopes to look over the interior of the
earth to spy on British fleet movements around Scapa Flow.

~~~
anon_cow1111
I feel like this is one can of worms I don't want to jump into very far...
Concave means we're "on the inside" already? How did this theory deal with
basic observable things like the stars moving at night?

~~~
scarmig
You could define some kind of coordinate transformation that would switch
interior and exterior, with appropriate changes to physical laws. It would be
impossible to empirically distinguish it from the Euclidean representation
we're used to using.

The weirdest part of that would be that it'd seem like light doesn't travel in
straight lines, which is just crazy talk.

~~~
Can_Not
Light is affected by gravity, and affected by the medium it travels through,
in fact it's only straight in a vacuum.

------
jshaqaw
The building Roerich built on the Upper West Side as a center for his movement
was rumored by some conspiracy cranks as one resting place of the holy grail
until the 1970s. I love Roerich lore.

