The Myth of the North
The ancient scholars including such recognized, oft-quoted names as Plato, Aristotle and Ptolemy all realized that the earth is a globe. They also believed that the earth was divided into five zones. They believed only two of the zones were the correct distance from the sun to support human life. Counting the top, or Northern Zone as Zone 1 they believed that only the 2nd and 4th zone could support life; while the middle land, Zone 3, being too close to the sun would be far too hot to live in. The 1st and 5th zone, being too far from the sun, would be uninhabitable because of the extreme cold.

With this fact settled, the talk turned to the possibility of human life in Zone 4, which, it was decided was similar to their zone in relation to climate. The consensus was that it was a subject little time should be spent on. After all, no one would ever know because they would never be able to cross the boiling hot desert of the central zone. And there was one thing they were in total agreement of; the northern and southern zones were totally uninhabitable by any living thing. Period. The Myth of the North was born

The Myth's First Victim
Sometimes between 333 - 323 BC Pytheas , famous navigator and well-known astronomer, in command of a Greek sailing ship, cleared the Pillars of Hercules - today known as the Strait of Gibraltar - swung his bow north and headed into the unknown.

Pytheas wasn't just your everyday sea captain. As Jeannette Mirsky reported in her classic study of Arctic exploration, To the North (1934):
Three impressive facts emerge: Pytheas introduced the method for determining geographical location exactly by astronomical measurement; he noted the relationship between the moon and the tides; and he was chosen head of an elaborately equipped expedition sent out to find the remote sources of tin and amber. (Page 16).

After six long years Pytheas returned from his trip to the north. He returned to tell of a beautiful, lush green land in the far north where people lived who tended fields of crops and grains and owned large herds of healthy and fat livestock.

The 'myth of the north' was stronger than Pytheas' popularity and the wonder of his previous achievement. The report of inhabited lands in the far north destroyed his creditability, because everyone “knew” that man could not live in the immeasurable cold of the frozen zones. Pytheas was branded “the biggest liar in antiquity” and held that unwanted title for over 2000 years. Except for a few fragments, his records and writings were destroyed. As Ms Mirsky concluded;
His detractors had their way, and made of his capable and intrepid work a nonsensical hash that persisted as long as men “chewed the cud” of knowledge that had been collected in antiquity. . . . It is only in light of our present knowledge that Pytheas emerges as a great man wearing the sober habit of courage and truth. (Page 17).

Thus Pytheas was the first victim of “the myth of the north”, the belief of its inhabitability.

The Fate of America's First Democratic-Republic

In 982 AD Eric the Red spent his three years banishment from Iceland exploring new lands. This was the first step in what was to become one of the great “mysteries” of the north ---the disappearance of the Greenland Colony .

J. Kennedy Mcclean & Chelsea Fraser in their book Heroes of the Farthest North and Farthest South (1903) tell us:
After three years in exploring the western coasts of Greenland, he returned to Iceland. He made so favorable a report of the new country that in 985 or 986 he induced a large body of colonists to sail with him from Iceland in 25 ships.
(Page 2).

The newcomers to Greenland formed a government similar to the government of Iceland and in 990 had their Congress in place. This was America's first Democratic-Republic. Greenland was a Democratic-Republic from 990 to 1261 --- over 200 years longer than the United States has had the same form of government. In 1261 Greenland voluntarily ceased to be a Republic and became a province of Norway.

Vilhjalmar Stefansson, one of the 20th Century's most distinguished polar explorer/scientist described their way of life in Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic (1938).
In the early days the immigrants took up farming at the heads of the Fjords. At first they depended on fishing and some hunting. As time continued they became increasingly dependent on hunting. It wasn't long before all the game was killed off around the settlements and as Mr. Stefansson explains, The hunters had to go increasingly further north, not only because of killing off the available game, but because game is (naturally) scarce in the farming districts, more abundant on the highlands. Then, as now it (animal life) was scarcer in the south of West Greenland than further north, as a result of natural law.?

As Mr. Stefansson tells us:
At the time there were two colonies on Greenland. The southern settlement began at the southern tip, running 100 miles along the West Coast. Then came the uninhabited coast, 170 miles to about 63o 45? N. Northwest from there, at least 30 miles beyond the Arctic Circle ran the undefined stretch called the Northern Outposts. (Nordurseta.) (Page 10).

The last European ship sailed from Greenland in 1410 or in 1448 and at that time it was believed that even before this time all farms in the Western Settlement were tenantless, but considered that many if not most of the farms of the Eastern District were still occupied when this last contact with Europe took place. (Page 25).

To quote from Jennette Mirsky's excellent book, To the North! Once again:
The eleventh, the twelfth, the thirteenth centuries the colonies flourish and prosper; and then quickly, mortally, declined, so rapidly that by [the 1400?s] the colonies of Greenland, with their bishops and priests, the many people who composed the hundred and ninety townships, the fine churches and spreading homesteads, were completely gone, like rain in deep snow. Gone suddenly like a note cut short. Gone the very memory of their existence. And the sagas that sing of them came to be regarded not so much as history, but as the recitals of happy dreams of a Never-Never Land pleasant, pious lies. (Page 23).
In this case a whole nation of people that were known to exist, became nothing but mythical people, in a mythical land to the north; Once again, victims of the myth of the north.

In 1929 the top historian of medieval Greenland, Finnur Jonsson estimated that 9000 people vanished without a trace. Valjalmur Stafansson in the already quoted Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic gives the only real clue as to where they went:
The northern colonies gave up husbandry pursuits and went completely by hunting. Therefore they would naturally migrate northward. Gradually on in a planned movement as a large group. For it had been know to them for centuries that the better hunting was in that direction.?
(Page 37).

But the big question remains ? Where did the people of Greenland end up? For centuries all kinds of theories have been discussed and debated, everything from Black Plague to scurvy to rickets; from murderous pirates to Eskimo cannibals. (The latter completely ignoring the fact that the Eskimo are a peace-loving race with a deep respect for human life). All of these theories and others have proven not to be the case.

One of the most popular theories has to do with attrition. Those who argue for this theory believe that Icelandic immigrants simply inter-married with the local native population and disappeared into their culture. The problem with this theory is that not one word of their language nor a single artifact has ever been found. (Remembering that the colonists were very religious Catholics possessing all the crosses, statues, etc that that entails.) Nor, has any other proof of this happening ever been found. They and their personal belongings had simple vanished.

The thought that they might have survived does not even cross the mind of those who look for an answer to this mystery because of the Myth of the North. They can be traced to the north, but they couldn't have survived up there.

Of course if the earth is hollow, with lands inside, it is easy to speculate on their final destination. Oh, and one final thought on the subject. Could the blonde humanoids reported to be in an advisory position aboard UFOs be descendants of the “Lost Colony of Greenland?”

The Search for the Northwest Passage

For the next few hundred years, with a few exceptions, civilization moved east and west as new trade routes were linked with the older localized routes. The North was largely ignored; after all if no one could live there the possibility of profit was slim. And profit dictated exploration. After Columbus opened the secret lands of America, and later after Balboa had seen the Pacific Ocean, the traders and sea captains were more interested in finding a faster route to the riches of the Orient. The search for a Northwest Passage became an obsession. Between 1576 and Admiral Richard E. Byrd's 1926 historical flight there were at least 112 recognized northern expeditions. And with every question answered, two new ones went unanswered. This added to the growing “mysteries” of the northern polar region of our globe.

Henry Hudson, Sir John Franklin, Major-General A.W. Greeley, Parry and Peary are just a few of the better known early northern explorers.

First over the Lip

On May 31st, James Clark Ross stood at 89o 59o and watched as his magnetic compass dipped sharply while the horizontal needle was totally inactive. He was sure he had located the exact spot of the magnetic pole. According to hollow earth beliefs he was actually standing on the center of the lip of the north polar opening.

In 1893 Dr. Fridtjof Nansen equipped a ship of his own design, the Fram. As planned, he allowed his ship to be frozen in the winter ice of the Arctic Ocean and drifted with the ice across 50,000 miles of previously unexplored Arctic waters. Many of the “mysteries” cited by the founders of the Hollow Earth Theory were discovered by Nansen. He first reported of the open sea with warm winds coming from the north; the red and green pollen covering snow thousands of miles from any source; fresh driftwood found in the ice on the Arctic Ocean - an Ocean that is almost landlocked by rocky coast with no trees on any of them.

The First Airman
 
Three years later, in 1896, Augste Andree had to abandon his worldwide-publicized plans to fly a large balloon, the Eagle over the pole because of unfavorable winds. However, the following year on July 11th 1897 Andree and his hand-picked team of experts took off. As one of his companions was quoted in Heroes of the Farthest North & Farthest South (1938) by
J.Kennedy Mcclean & Chelsea Fraser:
With a fairly strong wind, we shall make 10 to 20 knots an hour, and should reach the pole in from thirty to sixty hours. Once having reached our goal, we didn't care where the wind carries us ? but, even if we were obliged to leave the balloon and proceed over the ice, we should not consider ourselves lost. We have sledges and provisions for four months, guns and ammunition; hence we are just as well equipped as other expeditions have been. (Page 184).

Andre and his crew, the first men to try and fly over the pole, flew up and out of sight and disappeared into the mysterious skies above the Arctic Ocean. Despite one of the most massive rescue missions undertaken up to that time, no sign of him, his balloon, or his crew was found. Thirty-three years later remains of his balloon were found at a spot that had been searched many times before. We'll look into this strange caes in a later report. Stay tuned!

From my research I am sure that neither Peary nor Cook could have reached the pole. However I do believe that Peary thought he had achieved his goal. As Major-General A.W. Greeley wrote on the subject in The Polar Regions in the Twentieth Century (1928):

That Peary entered regions adjacent to the pole is unquestionable by any Arctic explorer, and his claim of reaching the pole has been accepted by some geographic societies. Others, among who are his predecessors over the great Frozen Sea, view with serious doubt his accuracy. The reasons by them for adverse judgment are as follows: character of the ice, shown by Peary's photographs; condition of dogs, worn down by hard travel; unsurpassed rapidity of travel over rough sea ice for a distance which must have exceeded “with a minimum of detours” 530 miles; then with the tired dogs he far exceeded the return journey of his supporting parties with fresher teams; and his inaccuracies as to his accomplishments earlier made.
As for Dr. Frederick Cook's claim, I have no comment. The evidence speaks for itself.

The Controllers had a problem. People were getting closer and closer to the truth about the both Polar Regions. With modern equipment and air travel on the horizon it was inevitable that someone would uncover the closely guarded secret. Something had to be done. The answer lay in America, in the hands of one person. That person was Richard E. Byrd.  To be continued . . .

Sources:
The Geographical Lore at the Time of the Crusades by Kirtland Wright Ph.D. © 1925 by the American Geographical Society of New York. Reprinted (1965) by Dover Publications, Inc. 180 Varick St. NY, NY.