Ethan watched as graphics taken from research published in the Nature Geoscience journal showed a trough some three miles wide that had formed a gateway deep underneath the glacier, along with another tunnel that could allow warmer sea water to penetrate the glacier base.
Captain Forrester nodded as he observed the graphics.
‘It’s is the most rapidly thinning glacier in East Antarctica,’ he said. ‘Our own surveys have shown that much, but we didn’t know anything about a warm water channel beneath it.’
‘During a voyage to the frozen region during the past southern hemisphere summer,’ Jarvis replied via the screen, ‘researchers found the waters around Totten Glacier were around a degree and a half Celsius warmer than other areas.’
‘Doesn’t sound like much,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘Would that have made much of a difference to the Nazis?’
‘It could have,’ Chandler said. ‘The warm water channels to the eastern coast could have provided one of the most important access routes into the continent: subterranean sea channels, perfect for concealing the movement of German U-boats that could have been used to supply the base.’
‘What does this have to do with Black Knight?’ Hannah asked.
Jarvis reappeared on the screen as he spoke.
‘As many people know, the Nazis and Hitler specifically were obsessed with the occult, the paranormal and pretty much anything other-worldly. The Nazi regime placed great stock in anything that supported their notion of an Aryan master race, from whom they were thus supposedly descended and destined to rule the world. You name it, they went after it: Atlantis, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail and many other artifacts both mythical and obscure. But one particular device caught the attention of investigators during the post-war period: something called Die Glocke, or The Bell.’
Jarvis spoke as the screen’s image split into two and revealed an image of a large, metallic object shaped somewhat like an acorn. Ethan could see strange symbols written around the circumference of the object’s base, almost like hieroglyphics.
‘This object was reportedly part of the Nazi’s most secretive research and development programs in progress toward the end of the war. The Germans were making truly tremendous strides in technology, pioneering jet engines, electromagnetism, superconductivity and other exotic discoveries that we’re only really coming to terms with today. There were rumors among the allies that in the rush to conquer Germany and occupy Berlin in the final days of the conflict, the governments of America, the United Kingdom and Russia were also keen to confiscate German technology for themselves, acts which created some friction between them even as the last shots of the war were being fired.’
‘You’re saying that what might be up here is something that belonged to the Nazis?’ Captain Forrester asked.
‘Again, we can’t be sure just what’s up here,’ Jarvis cautioned. ‘The truth is that if the Nazis did have an Antarctic base then they may well have attempted to regroup there in the aftermath of the German defeat, and taken much of their technology with them. It’s not often broadcast by NASA, but after the war the vast majority of former Nazi scientists were brought back to the United States. The men who had previously worked for the Nazis on rocket technology for their infamous V-Bombs ended up pioneering the race for the moon. Werner Von Braun, one of NASA’s best known scientists during the space race and the creator of the Saturn V rockets, was a German scientist who worked for the Nazis.’
Ethan peered at the schematics of Die Glocke.
‘That doesn’t look like anything we ever sent to the moon, except maybe the lunar capsule.’
‘Die Glocke was not a spacecraft,’ Doctor Chandler replied, ‘at least as far as we can make out. No evidence of it was ever recovered from Germany after the war, at least as far as official records reveal, and scientists like Von Braun never admitted any awareness of the project. However, there is a tantalizing trail of evidence supporting the notion that something was indeed created in Germany that matches Die Glocke in a number of ways. The Third Reich had an underground scientific laboratory in a facility known as Der Riese, or The Giant, near the Wenceslaus mine near the Czech border. Experiments conducted there refer to a device made out of a hard, heavy metal that was some twelve to fifteen feet high and nine feet wide, similar in shape to a large bell. The device contained two counter-rotating cylinders which were filled with a metallic substance somewhat like mercury but violet in color and code-named Xerum-525. Other leichtmetall, or light metals, like thorium and beryllium oxides are also referenced in the documents, as well as the extraordinary effects that the bell would create when activated. Supposedly, within a zone extended some two hundred meters out from the object crystals would form in animal tissue, blood would gel and separate and plants would decompose into a greasy substance. What sources we do have said that several scientists died while experimenting with the device, and that many feared even approaching it whether activated or not.’
As Jarvis spoke, the image of a concrete framework standing derelict in a thin forest appeared on the monitor, like a hollow Colosseum with arches intact.
‘This object, The Henge, in the vicinity of the Wencelaus mine, is said to have served as a test-rig for the device, which remained tethered within while tests were being performed to determine its supposed anti-gravitational properties.’
Several of the SEALS tutted and shook their heads, Ethan catching their skeptical mutterings from where he stood.
‘It’s myths and fantasies,’ Amy said, speaking for the first time. ‘None of this supposed evidence has ever been substantiated in any way, all of it merely shared by conspiracy theorists on the Internet without any effort to check sources or interview witnesses.’
‘It all sounds like conjecture to me,’ Ethan said finally. ‘And again, it doesn’t reveal anything about the Black Knight.’
‘Except that it does,’ Chandler replied, ignoring Amy as she rolled her eyes. ‘In 1936 an object is known to have plummeted out of the sky near Freiburg, in Germany’s Black Forest, and was recovered by the Nazis there for study. Whatever the object was, its discovery coincided with the sudden rise in military might and technological prowess of the Third Reich. I had our data analysis team calculate the object’s trajectory and then run it backwards to obtain orbital information, and its position would have coincided almost precisely with the current polar orbit of the Black Knight.’
Ethan’s eyes narrowed as he tried to understand what he was hearing.
‘So Black Knight deployed something? Or maybe there was more than one of them?’
‘Perhaps,’ Jarvis said. ‘After all, according to orbital data it must have been up there for several thousand years and thus may have become unstable over time. If there was more than one, that’s what the Germans may have ended up with’
‘And this supposed German crash?’ Hannah asked. ‘Are you saying that what we’re heading toward in Antarctica must be where the Nazis hid it?’
‘All we can say for sure is that elements of the Third Reich fled to Antarctica via South America in the aftermath of their defeat, and that British and American forces attempted to pursue and destroy them in expeditions that ended not just after the war but some decades later.’
‘Decades?’ Hannah echoed. ‘We were still chasing them so recently?’
‘Many of the most wanted Nazis, those who served the SS and who ran the concentration camps, fled before the end of the war and many of them disappeared in South America,’ Chandler pointed out. ‘Israel especially spent many decades hunting down former war criminals and bringing them to trial.’ He gestured to the map of the Antarctic on the screen beside him. ‘The warm water channels into the Totten Glacier prove that no matter how outlandish it may seem, the Nazis could have travelled deep into the continent’s interior and developed a staging post for their proposed domination of the world, perhaps using Antarctica for a surprise naval attack. The Nazis were extremely fond of their naval power, Germany itself being landlocked, and had very well developed expertise in building submarine pens in marine environments.’