The last thing you’d expect to find in the middle of Antarctica is a mysterious ‘entrance’ plonked in the middle of a snowy mountainside, but in 2024, would you really be that surprised?
A browse on Google Maps can unearth all kind of oddities – such as a ‘suspicious pit’ in Canada, a huge pirate ship or creepy ‘cartel members’ getting in the Halloween spirit – however, this doorway seems to one of the most baffling yet.
A quick look on Google Maps can unearth all kind of oddities (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A Reddit user posted their strange finding on a thread, explaining that they had spotted a ‘massive door’ in East Antarctica, while also sharing the coordinates 69°00’50″S 39°36’22″E so that people could take a look for themselves.
The only thing remotely close to it is the Japanese research outpost, Showa Station, but it’s hardly a hub of activity out there – so of course, it didn’t take long for the conspiracy theories to start pumping out.
One said: “Great find. Could be underground base entrance of some sort. Could be nothing. Excellent find either way.”
Another person joked: “Just a blown off Boeing door.”
A third added: “Bunker entrance? Subterranean entrance?”
The ‘mysterious doorway’ sparked a host of conspiracy theories (Google Maps)
While a fourth jibed: “That’s actually Bigfoot’s vacation home.”
Others also suggested it could be somehow linked to a so-called secret bunker belonging to Adolf Hitler which was previously ‘spotted’ in Antarctica via Google Maps.
But to be quite frank, I’m really quite flabbergasted that nobody suggested it could have been something similar to the door which Mike Wazowski and Sulley got slung through when they were banished to the Himalayas in Monsters, Inc.
Educate yourselves, people – although they’re on different continents, it still could have been a valid explanation.
But it turns out that the social media sleuths were all sadly wrong, as an expert has weighed in on the viral debate about the alleged doorway to debunk some of the speculation surrounding it.
Scientists say there is actually quite a simple explanation for what appears to be a frosty threshold turning up in the extremely remote location.
Professor Bethan Davies decided to one-up the Redditor who originally posted the ‘doorway’ by taking a more thorough look at the site via Google Earth Pro, which allowed her to analyse historic imagery of it.
Experts have now chimed in on the debate and sadly declared the ‘entrance’ has nothing to do with Mike and Sulley (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Speaking to the Daily Mail, the Professor of Glaciology at the University of Newcastle explained: “This feature is in an area of fast sea ice in East Antarctica, just offshore of the coast.
“There are a series of islands there and the water is pretty shallow. This is an iceberg that became grounded and is now stuck and melting out in situ. You can see many other icebergs in the area.”
Her theory was supported by co-director of the Grantham Institute, Professor Martin Siegert, who went on to explain how the doorway-like structure might have formed.
“This is simply ice flow around a solid subglacial obstacle, influenced also by melting and re-freezing of ice and by katabatic winds,” he said.
“The ice is quite thin here, as evidenced by other outcrops of rock nearby, so the influence of the bed on ice flow will be strong. It’s an interesting pattern, but not unusual or surprising glaciologically.”
A volcanologist at the University of Leicester, Professor John Smellie, also shared his thoughts on the strange discovery.
“It looks to me like a short rocky ridge outcrop has been exhumed due to a lowering of the ice,” he said.
“It forms the ‘top’ of the ‘doorway’. And there are two prominent parallel snow tails forming the sides of the ‘doorway’.
“The snow tails show you the orientation of the predominant wind direction. So, with a good imagination, there is a weak and totally false door-like appearance overall.”
Sadly for all the tinfoil hat wearers, Professor Smellie said he is pretty sure the supposed doorway is ‘just a natural phenomenon’ and ‘nothing to get excited about’.
What a shame, eh?
