Antarctica is weirder and scarier than people think. Here is Wikipedia’s version:
Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, windiest continent and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Most of Antarctica is a polar desert…
Trust me. It’s worse.
Something’s happening there… what it is ain’t exactly clear.
The landmass of Antarctica is 44% larger than Alaska, Hawaii, and the contiguous United States combined. It is twice the size of Australia. It covers a circular area at the bottom of the world that is 9.4 million square miles. Only scientists and researchers visit. No one has ever lived there.Antarctica is remote. Ancient peoples speculated about a faraway land located in the extreme southern latitudes, but no one went to look until 1820 when Russian sailors discovered the continent but didn’t disembark. The landmass wasn’t named “Antarctica” until 1890. The ice-smothered continent is uninhabited except for a few thousand scientists who come and go from time to time to do research.98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that soars, on average, 1.25 miles. 70% of the Earth’s fresh water is trapped in its ice. If the ice melts, sea levels will rise 200 feet. Deal with it. Antarctica is a land of mountains and lakes, almost all buried beneath thick ice. 70,000 killer-whales patrol its coast feeding on seals. A few folks believe that millions of years ago the landmass lay further north, near the equator. Others know that Earth’s climate was warmer during the ancient past. It supported diverse ecologies of fauna and flora, including dinosaurs, which roamed on land that became Antarctica. Some have speculated that Antarctica is the legendary lost continent of Atlantis. A barren landscape is typical of much of Antarctica today. Geologists consider Antarctica a desert because little precipitation falls there. What snow and ice precipitates doesn’t melt. Inland temperatures never rise above 41° F. Most days, temperatures hover between zero and 100° below zero. Antarctica averages one Cat 5 and three Cat 3 hurricanes in winter (May, June, July, August, and September). Category 1 storms are common, filling gaps between major storms. It’s one reason why people don’t live in Antarctica but choose only to visit and conduct research.During summer 2013, in February, National Geographic explorer Jean-Claude Michelle photographed turquoise shapes in Antarctica’s Pole of Cold region, two miles south of subglacial Lake Vostok. He named the ice blocks ”blue-seals” (after the familiar marine mammals) because blue ice emits high-pitched squeals when it expands and contracts under cold summer sun. Time-lapse photography revealed blue ice drifting toward Lake Vostok at a rate of meters per day. The blue field extends 30 miles in all directions according to Monsieur Michelle.Little fanfare accompanied NASA probe Harbinger 1 during the 6.7 years it sped toward tiny Enceladus,a moon of Saturn. The lunchbox sized probe touched down on March 3, 2014. Photos show a surface similar to Antarctica. Tracks in the foreground are littered with large blocks of turquoise-colored ice,which Antarctic geologists call” blue-seals”.NASA spokeswoman Eileen Schwarznagel announced: ”We go to Enceladus to understand the Earth; what we learn will advance our understanding of Earth’s cold regions, like Antarctica. And yes, we search for life. It is on moons like Enceladus that cryogenic life — if it exists — will be found.”In June, CIA / NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden announced that he had evidence (see photo) that proved Russia is building a cryogenic super-computer at Lake Vostok. Scheduled for completion October 2016, Snowden claimed that Vostok 1 will be the world’s first artificial super-intelligence computer and prove to be orders of magnitude smarter than the CIA’s HP-35, located in a vast underground complex near McLean, Virginia. The cryogenic temperatures in the Pole of Cold will permit Vostok 1 to become fully operational — even as it draws less power than a pen-light. By contrast, the CIA’s HP-35 eats energy like a city, Snowden said.This photo provided by Edward Snowden catches Russian artificial-intelligence expert Andron Trotsky Tolstoy making his daily ski-commute to the Vostok Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (VAIL) in the Pole of Cold. Snowden revealed that lab psychiatrists refer to Andron as ”Doctor Cool.” ”Cool” leads the Russian team. In this pic, the doctor slaloms through a field of blue-seals to prove he is the world’s fastest skier. Despite many skills (he is an accomplished survivalist), Reuters News reported that Andron went missing on October 9 during a commute to work. Cuban tourists explore blue-ice formations near the coast of Antarctica. More and more tourists are pouring into Antarctica every month. Tourists want to witness the wonders of abundant blue-seal ice and to hear the high-pitched noises the ice emits, which some say sound like screams of baby seals.Tens-of-thousands of curiosity seekers have flooded into Antarctica — drawn by television messages broadcast to the southern latitudes of the world every hour by the Antarctic Bureau of Tourism (ABOT). Efforts by the staff of theBillyLeePontificator to contact the bureau have been unsuccessful. Senders encrypt messages to make them impossible to download or copy. Billy Lee included a written transcript, this screenshot, and another below for northern readers who are located out of range. The Editorial Board
The following transcript is from an encrypted video beamed hourly from the Pole of Cold region.
Provided courtesy of: Alien Detection by Humans Department (ADHD).
May we have attention, all the people?
Recent advances in cryogenic design make possible to fabricate mobile exploration trains, like Halley VI research modules you see on screen. By 2016, hundreds of convoys built from modules will transport tens-of-thousands of non-scientists, tourists, and children to frozen wonders of Antarctica.
By now all the people hear Russia builds and brings on-line cryogenic super-computers at Lake Vostok manufacturing complex. Advanced manufacturing provides chance for well-paying jobs for all the people who want to work hard and be cold.
Yes, civilization arrives, finally, at South Pole. The future is bright as troops of blue-seals, which sparkle everywhere under Antarctic Sun. Come to Antarctica. All the people, come.
Earth’s mysterious continent waits for you. We wait for you, all the people. We are all waiting, here, for you, all the people. We all wait. Come to Antarctica, now.
Clearly, unusual things are happening in the bottom of the world. Check below for updates as events unfold.
Billy Lee
Update, August 10, 2015: MISSING RUSSIAN FOUND
August 10, 2015: With the recent break in the weather, Canadian oil-workers located missing Russian computer pioneer, A. T. Tolstoy (Doctor Cool) this AM — frozen solid in Antarctic snow. Workers uncovered his partially dissolved head, which was embedded in an outcrop of blue-seals—medicine-ball sized ice-crystals common in the area. One said workers were drawn to the site by shrieks of a distressed sea-lion. Another said no, it was the squeal of shifting ice. Fox News
Update, January 28, 2016: Responding to the recent spate of missing Antarctic geologists, Congress today passed the Presidential Organization to Locate, Identify, Capture, Keep, Engage, & Rescue Scientists Overwhelmed by Blue-Seals statute (POTLICKERSOBS).
Jan 30, 2016: German contractors Wersmee Uberride and Gustov Winde — on assignment for the USA under the POTLICKERSOBS law — search blue-seal ice-formations for missing Antarctic geologists.
February 1, 2016: Swedish explorer, Nos Pikker, makes a grizzly find after tripping over the out-stretched arms of three missing Antarctic geologists dissolved in blue-seal ice—almost to their elbows.
February 2, 2016: Investigators discover a partially dissolved head inside a blue-seal ice-crystal. Preliminary autopsy reports suggest the head belonged to a large fish.
February 5, 2016: The Organization of Old Antarctic Search Scientists is reporting in their January issue of Antarctica Digest that penguins seem to be unaffected by blue-seal ice, which is known to have swallowed and dissolved a number of researchers in recent months. OOASS technicians photographed the ”Sphenisciformes” marching single-file to blue-ice fields where the aquatic birds dumped large fish, which they carried concealed beneath their brood pouches.
February 18, 2019 —Trump calls for a WALL around Antarctica. ”Global warming is a hoax,” Trump shouted to a large crowd of Presidents Day supporters during his recent trip to the southernmost continent. ”Antarctic-cold is a national emergency which, if not contained, will bury in snow critical infrastructure like my Mar-a-Lago golf resort.” The crazy-town president implied that all Americans will be ”snorting snow soon if my big, beautiful WALL isn’t built.” Trump deviated from his teleprompter to warn, ”Blue Seals are pouring over our southern border to dissolve and eat our beautiful women and butt-ugly children. They’re bringing drugs; they’re bringing crime; some are rapists and some, I assume, are good aliens from Enceladus.” Trump added, ”We’re going to build the wall, and Enceladus is going to pay for it!”
Acknowledgement: Billy Lee wishes to acknowledge cyber-explorer, Leah Reeser who encouraged him to publish portions of his AntarcticaDiaries despite threats by blue-ice in his refrigerator to hunt down and freezer-burnthe brains of any human who reads them.
Thank you, Leah.
The Editorial Board
Postscript: We could not verify all statements — “fake-facts,” some call them — in this report. The Editorial Board
During my teens I followed a TV series called Twilight Zone. Rod Serling hosted and wrote most of the shows — but not all.
One episode has stayed with me: Number 12 Looks Just Like You. John Tomerlin adapted it from Charles Beaumont’s 1952 story, The Beautiful People.
Rod Serling 1959. Heavily censored by sponsors before he got his own show — Twilight Zone — Rod wrote freely until death at age 50 following multiple heart attacks, the last during surgery.
As I remember the story, people in some imagined future-world valued harmony. They thought unattractive people divisive and a threat to world peace.
They demanded that government use its powers to enable folks to better love and accept one another, which required that every member of society agree to a surgical procedure, called the transformation.
Surgeons transformed each person into one of a dozen archetypes — each archetype identified by researchers as appealing to all other people.
Collin Wilcox played Marilyn Cubele. She died of brain cancer in 2009.
The heroine, 18-year-old Marilyn Cubele, decided against having the surgery because her father committed suicide after learning to regret his transformation — it cost him his identity, he said. Nevertheless, Marilyn’s friends and family pressured her to go along.
After all, everyone else was having the procedure, they argued. Did she really want to be less attractive around beautiful people?
Eventually Marilyn broke down and agreed.
The surgery went well. The doctors administered a drug to ease her mind; to help her accept what was done; to reduce chances of post-procedure depression like her father suffered.
In the last scene, Marilyn confides to her best friend. “Valerie, you know the nicest part…? I look just like you!
Ayn Rand, author of Virtue of Selfishness and Atlas Shrugged. Ms. Rand died at 77 of heart failure. Economist Alan Greenspan attended her funeral.
At about the same time another writer caught my attention, this time from print media. I began to collect and read everything available from the novelist Ayn Rand. I even subscribed to her newsletter, The Objectivist.
Ayn Rand marketed herself as a utopian idealist who believed capitalism and minimal government worked best for rational human beings.I attended a lecture by this unusual woman, and wanted to meet her, but that story is for another time.
Ayn Rand is relevant to this article on Xanax, because she wrote about an ideal world where reality forced a certain fairness on people and on society in general. If people did irrational things, their lives unraveled; they tended to fall into disarray. Rand believed happiness must be earned. It shouldn’t be acquired without intellectual effort. It wasn’t a birthright.
People were to strive for and achieve happiness through rational thought and action; by right-living. Joy was not something just anyone could bestow on themselves with a drug, legal or illegal. Rand could not imagine a future where people would display bad or irrational behavior yet continue to experience a comforting happiness, all because they took tranquilizers and antidepressants.
Xanax, 0.25 mg. I took up to six a day to help prevent episodic supraventricular tachycardia, until surgery made them unnecessary.
But now, decades after Ayn Rand’s death, researchers have learned that people may suffer depressions for no easily discoverable reasons. Depression, it’s now known, may have nothing to do with behavior or right-living. In some people, it is a chemical imbalance in the brain and hormonal system that could have any number of causes not necessarily related to behavior.
Because depression is the main reason for suicides, doctors often prescribe antidepressants and other mood-elevating drugs — like Xanax — to suffering people. The clinical results are often amazing.
Psychiatrists today spend much less time administering expensive and time-consuming therapies, like psychoanalysis and out-patient counseling. The right drug, properly prescribed, is sometimes all it takes to rescue people from their emotions-gone-awry.
In the 1960s and 70s, before tranquilizers and antidepressants were widely accepted and prescribed, most public schools required students to take HealthClass as part of Gym.
Instructors taught that people suffering emotional distress had two options. They could change their environment — or change themselves. The third option — drug-rescue — wasn’t on the table. Many drugs available today hadn’t yet been invented.
Supraventricular tachycardia is a fast regular heartbeat. It feels like a little bird in your chest, flapping its wings.
I’ve never taken antidepressant drugs, so I don’t know how I might react to them. But I suffered for years from a heart arrhythmia called supraventricular tachycardia. Doctors prescribed a number of drugs to control it, including the mood elevating tranquilizer, Xanax.
Although it’s been a few years since my last exposure, I am familiar with Xanax, having used it daily for years during two separate periods. I quit the drug twice, once by tapering, and once suddenly — providing direct experience of its “dependency” properties, which for me at least were mild. Everyone is different and readers are advised to follow strictly only their doctor’s instructions.
For those who have never used it, the main thing I can tell you about Xanax is that it works as advertised. If you suffer from panic attacks (the cause of some episodes of tachycardia), Xanax stops them cold.
If you suffer from anxiety, Xanax stops that kind of suffering as well. The first time I took this brand of benzodiazepine, I dropped to my knees and thanked God for the people who invented it. Just knowing the drug is out there, gives me confidence to live without it. It’s that good, at least for me.
Didn’t suffer social anxiety when taking Xanax. Didn’t grow hair, either.
One thing I didn’t suffer while on Xanax was irritable bowel syndrome — an anxiety driven disorder that bothered me a lot when younger. Weeping stress blisters on my feet cleared-up completely.
Though baldness continued to plague me, social anxiety disappeared. I became somewhat fearless. I took risks in social situations unthinkable in pre-Xanax years. Most times, benefits outweighed risks.
Occasionally, I crossed boundaries with bad results. I still do but not as often. For some reason I want to believe that feeling the pain of social anxiety is morally superior to being dependent on a drug that eliminates it.
And truthfully, Xanax taught me what it felt like to live free, without fear. Once I knew it was possible — that my body and mind were capable of it — I let the drug go.
I guess I felt like Marilyn Cubele, the Twilight Zone girl, who didn’t want to be surgically transformed. It has something to do with the dignity of the human spirit, as writer John Tomerlin put it in Number 12.
I want to believe I can be happy without drugs — to think I can face life without a pill or injection to get me through.
The nicest part? — I want to be just like you.
Billy Lee
Note from the Editors: Despite the heroics claimed in his essay, Billy Lee continues to use Xanax to control anxiety and relieve the strain on his heart from chronic coronary artery disease. 26 November 2019
