[laughs] Heck, man, wrap on the tin foil and get with the real world! Antarctic quiet? Hardly. Check it out:
#1 - posted 4/23/01) What is Happening at the South Pole?
#2 - posted 4/25/01) South Pole Update
From #1:
"So what's happening? Two thoughts immediately spring to mind:
"One is that some "Special Project" has, against all scientific and environmental prudence, indeed drilled through the ice into the Lake Vostok eco-system (clandestinely, of course). And, the participants have suddenly found themselves exposed to "something" for which their bodies literally have no immunity -- something not extant in the rest of Earth's biosphere for between 13,000 and several million years! After the initial reports of "four emergency extractions," the number changed to five ... and now twelve McMurdo personnel are supposedly in need of a dangerous, "emergency medical evacuation" well into the Antarctic winter season. At one level, this has all the earmarks of "something" virulently spreading among the limited winter population at the Base, something that even the fairly complete medical facilities at McMurdo can no longer cope with. Complicating the picture is the fact that the "extractees" are not research scientists or long-term support personnel, but are all employees of Raytheon Corporation -- a high-tech firm that is deeply involved in a variety of black-ops programs for the U.S. government all around the world.
This idea (that these two simultaneous "emergencies" are actually due to some kind of "black ops fiasco" in Antarctica) is reinforced by another little noticed story coming out of the Amundson-Scott Base -- that the doctor being brought in (to replace the ailing doctor) has been asked to also bring in "an emergency supply of salt." She's even been asked to "stuff her own pockets full of salt packets," ostensibly because there is "no room on the rescue aircraft itself." This is obviously a silly, thinly-veiled "cover story" ... designed to tell someone "outside" ... "something." Salt is crucial to survival in outdoor conditions in Antarctica. The air is so dry, that unless someone exposed to the outdoors there has a good supply of salt, they are likely to face the possibility of death by mineral depletion and dehydration. Obviously the Base, after years of operation, would have a pretty good handle on just how much salt is needed until the next re-supply plane arrives. So how is it that they suddenly find themselves desperately without any of it left?!
Maybe, because they suddenly had a unique situation. Maybe because a team of scientists and engineers from Raytheon spent a lot of unplanned days out on the windswept ice, frantically drilling against the clock, in an all-out effort to break through to the Lake below -- and in the process, used far more than the normal complement of salt to survive.
The other possibility for the sudden, simultaneous "evacuations" is even more extraordinary.
What if these Raytheon black ops personnel did indeed find "something" in their secret drilling under Vostok -- and needed to get it back to civilization ASAP for in-depth study. Under this scenario, the whole idea of an "outbreak" is simply a ruse to cover the need for a large airplane (a New Zealand C-130 Hercules) dramatically visiting McMurdo at a time never attempted in all its years before: the only "way out" for something very important from the Continent. How do you cover such an operation? Put all the medical hints out there, and wait for the Internet conspiracists to "figure out" that there has been some kind of outbreak at McMurdo (there has been NO official confirmation of this theory, by the way), all the while covering your real agenda -- which is to get your hands on a genuine artifact from "Zep-Tepi" before the dead of the Antarctic winter makes any such attempt this year impossible!"
Although the above two links actually purport to be true, to be reality, an Austrailian Tom Clancy-type writer recently set an adventure book down there, too, speculating about similar events. If anyone enjoys stories about special forces people battling each other (in this book, US special forces must fight against first French and then British special forces troops!), check out:
"Ice Station," by Matthew J. Reilly
Mark W.