Welcome back to the Wyrd. It never really stops but sometimes you look so deeply into the abyss it does stare back and you have to disconnect from the strangeness for your own sanity. One of my dips back into the weirdness pool has been listening to the excellent “Paranormal Patio”, the brainchild of Jason Andrews. This week they talked Hollow Earth theory and the guest brought up Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd.
I went deep into Byrd’s Antarctic Explorations when I researched the claims of Harley Byrd and his connection to Valiant Thor. Part of the mythos of there being a secret diary began with him. A conclusion backed by S. Peter Davis in the book Occam’s Nightmare.
Davis theorizes that most Hollow Earth speculation tied to Byrd comes from two things: One was a quote by Byrd in 1947 in a newspaper: “I’d like to see that land beyond the Pole. That area beyond the Pole is the Center of the Great Unknown”. While this is certainly inspiring to today’s sensibilities, it is important to actually get the whole picture of Byrd’s travels that influenced such a quote.
As you can see, there was a lot of undiscovered land on the surface to speak on, without having to bring in the subject of a portal to a Hollow Earth.
The second point, succinctly states that in the diary it points out that Byrd was exploring the North Pole at the time, when it was historically proven he was in the South Pole region assisting the US Navy establish a research base. So the diary is and always has been fake, whether it was found by his son in his belongings, on his death bed, or as his Grandson/Nephew/distant cousin Harley A Byrd stated, handed off at his funeral.
So who are behind these forgeries that have permeated the common discussion of all things Hollow Earth? It’s important to remember, Admiral Byrd wrote quite a bit about his life and explorations in several actual books, none of them included a Secret Diary, which bothers me that they are often included in his actual bibliography. Here are a few of the “Diaries” that Admiral Byrd had absolutely nothing to do with:
If you go on Amazon you will find quite few books of this vein from Global Communications of Brunswick NJ. This was primarily the brainchild of the late Timothy Green Beckley. He co-hosted a show with Tim Swartz called “Exploring the Bizarre” as well.
Under Tim Swarz biography it lists: Tim R. Swartz is an Indiana native and Emmy-Award winning television producer/videographer, and is the author of a number of popular books including The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla, America’s Strange and Supernatural History, Time Travel: Fact Not Fiction!, Men of Mystery: Nikola Tesla and Otis T. Carr, Admiral Byrd’s Secret Journey Beyond the Poles. His latest book is Gef The Talking Mongoose: The Eighth Wonder of the World
Under the late Tim Beckley, who was the founder of the UFO Investigators League (UFOIL) in the 1970s and behind the very same publishing company Inner Light Publications and Global Communications…has a self-authored biography that needs to be seen to be believed.
So how do we remove the narrative of Admiral Byrd with Hollow Earth? The answer will be complex and time consuming. The internet canibalizes itself. It chews up narratives and spits out new tellings of the same incorrect information that would have once been simple to retract. One Tiktok video reaches thousands (or millions) and someone commenting the truth is never read or outright disbelieved in favor of the more sensational story.
What is important as always is to look at the source of the information before blindly stating it as fact. We owe the Admiral at least that.
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