Latest / Lost Civilizations: Ancient Aliens & Forgotten History / Shambhala & Agartha – Is There a Hidden Civilization Beneath the Earth?

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Shambhala & Agartha – Is There a Hidden Civilization Beneath the Earth? · Lost Civilizations: Ancient Aliens & Forgotten History

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Imagine that you are somewhere in Central Asia.
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Far from the big cities, far from highways,
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airports, almost everything that we normally connect with
0:09
modern civilization.
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In front of you, the mountains of the
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Himalayas rise into the sky.
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Behind you are the enormous open lands of
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Mongolia and Central Asia.
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The air is thin, the nights are cold,
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and some places, the nearest village may be
0:25
several days away.
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Here, among the mountains, monasteries, deserts, ancient train
0:30
routes, people have told stories for centuries about
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a land that could not be found by
0:35
any normal map, Shambhala, a hidden kingdom, a
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place ruled by wise kings, a place where
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special knowledge has been protected and preserved, and
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a place that cannot simply be found by
0:49
putting a mark on a map and then
0:52
start walking.
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But then something strange happens to the story.
0:57
When the story reaches the West, it slowly
1:00
begins to change.
1:02
The hidden land becomes a secret kingdom, the
1:05
secret kingdom becomes an underground empire, and another
1:09
name appears, Agartha.
1:12
According to the story, another civilization exists beneath
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our feet, a civilization that may be far
1:18
older than our own.
1:20
Some versions describe enormous tunnels running beneath the
1:23
continents, others describe great cities deep inside the
1:28
earth, and some describe an entire network of
1:31
underground civilizations.
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Ancient knowledge has supposedly survived there for thousands
1:39
of years, and in some versions, the hidden
1:41
world is ruled by a mysterious figure, the
1:45
king of the world.
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The entrance to the hidden world has been
1:50
placed almost everywhere, in the Himalayas, in the
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Tibet, beneath the Gobi Desert, in the Andes
1:57
mountains, under ancient temples, at the North Pole,
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and at the South Pole.
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It could remain nothing more than a collection
2:07
of legends, but then some very real people
2:11
enters the story.
2:12
A Polish writer escaped through Mongolia, a Russian
2:16
artist leading an expedition through Central Asia, a
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German researcher in Tibet just before the Second
2:24
World War, Nazi Germany in Antarctica, and after
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the war, an American admiral leading a massive
2:31
expedition towards the South Pole.
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When these stories are placed on top of
2:36
each other, an incredible picture begins to appear,
2:40
a picture suggesting that people may have known
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about another world beneath our own for centuries.
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But there's a problem.
2:49
When we return to the original sources, we
2:51
discover that the stories do not always say
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what later generations claim to say.
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Some parts can be documented, others are uncertain,
3:00
and some parts appear much later.
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So what exactly is Shambhala?
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What is Agatha?
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Where did the story of a civilization inside
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the earth come from?
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Why do Tibet, the Nazis, UFOs, Admiral Byrd,
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and Antarctica all became part of the same
3:20
mystery?
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And is there anything left when we separate
3:23
the legends from what we can actually document?
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That is the story that we are going
3:29
into today.
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And when I say going into it this
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time, I mean it literally.
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Why are we still talking about it?
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Yeah, there is something powerful about the idea
3:42
of a hidden world.
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We humans seem to have a hard time
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accepting that the map is ever truly finished.
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When one blank space disappears, the mystery simply
3:53
moves somewhere else.
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Once unknown lands were on the other side
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of the ocean.
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Later, they were hidden behind the mountains, then
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at the poles, beneath the oceans, space, and
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beneath our own feet.
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Agartha brings almost all of these ideas together.
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It's a story about lost knowledge, about a
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civilization that may be older than our own,
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about people who may have survived disasters by
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moving underground, about ancient religions that may remember
4:27
something history has forgotten, and of course, about
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one of the biggest possibilities of all, that
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our world may be larger than we think.
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It is a story that almost is impossible
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to kill.
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Every time one version is examined and falls
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apart, another version appears.
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But if we want to understand Agatha, we
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first need to do something that is often
4:49
forgotten.
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We need to separate Agartha from Shambhala.
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Because in modern books, videos, and documentaries, the
4:56
two names are often used as if they
4:59
mean the same thing.
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Historically, it's more complicated.
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Shambhala does not come from modern UFO books.
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It does not come from the internet.
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Shambhala belongs to a real religion tradition, Kalachakra.
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The name roughly means the wheel of time.
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Kalachakra is a complex Buddhist system that has
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been developed in India around the beginning of
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the second millennium.
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Around the 11th century, the tradition reached to
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be.
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And within this tradition, we find the story
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of Shambhala.
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Shambhala is described as a special kingdom.
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It is ruled by a line of kings
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who protects the teachings of Kalachakra.
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Its capital is called Kalapa.
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But Shambhala is not simply an ordinary kingdom
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with roads, borders, farms, and soldiers.
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It also has a spiritual meaning.
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It is a place where wisdom, order, and
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spiritual growth come together.
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And there's also a prophecy.
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According to the tradition, the world will slowly
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enter a period of greater conflicts.
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People will lose their connections with the spiritual
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values.
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Materialism and disorder will grow.
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Eventually, there will be a confrontation between Shambhala
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and the forces that threatens the teachings.
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After that, a new period will begin.
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It is important to understand that Shambhala can
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be read in several different ways.
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As a physical place, as a sacred land,
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as a religion story, as a prophecy, and
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as a symbol of spiritual development within the
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human being.
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Over time, different people have understood Shambhala in
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different ways.
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Some have tried to find the kingdom on
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a map.
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Others have believed that Shambhala exists in a
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way that does not follow the normal geography.
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Others have believed that both ideas could somehow
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be true at the same time.
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So already we have a mystery.
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But notice something important.
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We have not yet talked about the hollow
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earth.
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We have not talked about enormous openings at
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the poles.
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We have not talked about UFOs.
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And we have not found an ancient Tibetan
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map showing a worldwide tunnel system called Agartha.
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That part of the story comes later.
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And much of it comes from the West.
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During the 19th century, something important happens in
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Europe.
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Interest in India, Tibet, and Central Asia grows
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rapidly.
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European scholars gain access to ancient texts, including
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writings in Sanskrit.
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Buddhist texts are translated.
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Ancient religions are studied.
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But at the same time, interest in the
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occult has also grown.
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Spiritualism, theosophy, secret societies, hidden masters, lost continents,
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Atlantis, Lemuria, and the idea that the religion
8:01
of the world may be broken, pieces of
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a much older system of knowledge.
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It is in this world when a Frenchman
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appears, Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre.
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And I should probably say right now that
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some of the names in the story are
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clearly not intended for a Danish podcast host
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in mind.
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Saint-Yves is a writer and thinker with
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a strong interest in religion, politics, and the
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occult.
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In 1986, he wrote a book called Mission
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d'Inde en Europe.
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And there we find something that begins to
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look like Agartha as we know it today.
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Saint-Yves calls the place Agarttha.
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It is not simply a small hidden valley
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somewhere behind the Himalayas.
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It's an enormous society, a center of knowledge,
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a place where libraries and secret teachings, a
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society led by a powerful spiritual authority.
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Saint-Yves also connects Agartha with his own
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ideas how a good society should be governed.
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So even here it's difficult to know where
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the secret geography ends and the political philosophy
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begins.
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But something important has happened.
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The idea has been planted.
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There is a hidden center in the world.
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It exists beyond the reach of the ordinary
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people.
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It protects ancient knowledge and civilization on the
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surface has lost contact with it.
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Then another important person enters the story, Ferdinand
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Ossendowski.
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He was a Polish writer, scientist, and adventurer.
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During the Russian Revolution and the civil war
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that followed, he escaped through Siberia and Mongolia.
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He later described his experiences in a book
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called Beasts, Men, and Gods.
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And in that book he tells us something
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that he calls Agharti.
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Ossendowski says that during his journey through Mongolia
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he heard stories about an underground kingdom, about
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enormous network beneath the earth, about people that
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has disappeared into caves, and about a mysterious
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ruler, the king of the world.
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Now the modern story of Agartha truly begins
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to take shape.
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And before we start pulling the story apart,
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we need to go somewhere else.
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We are going to take it seriously on
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its own terms.
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We are going down Agartha.
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If we want to understand the story of
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Agartha from the inside, it begins with a
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simple idea.
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Human history may be older than the history
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we normally learn.
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Civilizations may not have moved in one straight
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line from primitive hunters to modern humans.
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Earlier civilizations may have existed.
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Civilizations that reached a high level and then
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disappeared.
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But perhaps not everyone died.
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Perhaps some have survived.
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In ancient stories from many parts of the
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world we find descriptions of underground kingdoms.
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In India there are stories about Patala and
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other worlds beneath the human world.
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In Buddhist traditions there are hidden lands.
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In Tibetan stories there are places of sacred
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places that ordinary people cannot reach.
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In Greek mythology there is hells.
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In Norse mythology there is a world beneath
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our own.
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In Central America there are stories about an
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underworld.
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In almost every ancient culture caves are more
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than simple holes in the ground.
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They are passages.
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They are entrances.
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Borders between worlds.
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If we read some of these traditions more
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literally, an interesting question appears.
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What if those stories describe real places?
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Agartha becomes the answer.
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Not necessarily as one single city, but as
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a system.
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A network of underground regions connected by tunnels.
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In some versions Agartha lies deep beneath the
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Central Asia.
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In others it's a worldwide network.
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And the most extreme versions, Agartha is the
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name of an entire civilization living inside the
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earth.
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Its center is often placed beneath the Himalayas
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or Tibet.
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And from there tunnels are said to lead
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in many directions towards India, Mongolia, Siberia, the
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Middle East, the Americas, and the polar regions.
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But Agartha is not described as a primitive
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society living in caves.
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Quite the opposite.
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It is described as a civilization that has
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preserved knowledge that people from the surface has
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forgotten.
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In some versions its history goes all the
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way back to Atlantis and Lemuria.
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When earlier civilizations were destroyed by war, natural
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disasters, groups of survivors have moved underground, there
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they have continued to develop.
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While civilization on the surface was forced to
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begin again.
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And this also gives us an answer to
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an obvious question.
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Why would an advanced civilization choose to live
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underground?
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Because the surface is dangerous.
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The climate change.
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Asteroids strike the planet.
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Ice ages come and go.
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Floods can destroy enormous areas.
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War can destroy cities.
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But deep beneath the surface conditions may be
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more stable.
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If a civilization has the technology it could
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build protected settlements.
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It might use the heat from the earth.
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It could create a physical light.
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It could develop closed systems for food and
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water.
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And it might not depend on the surface
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in the same way as we do.
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It sounds extreme but supporters of the idea
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point to something interesting.
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We have already built enormous structures underground.
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Mines, bunkers, laboratories, subway systems, military facilities, and
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in some places entire underground urban areas.
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So the question becomes, if we do that
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today, what could a civilization with thousands of
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years of technology advance do?
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And in this version of the story, Agatha
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does not even require the entire earth to
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be hollow.
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It could exist inside enormous natural spaces where
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expanded and connected with artificial tunnels.
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And that is an important difference.
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Because now the theory is not about a
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planet that is empty inside.
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It is about how large unknown spaces beneath
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the Earth's crust could be possibly.
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Here the supporters point to something that is
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true.
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Humans have physically traveled only a very short
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distance into the earth.
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The deepest human-made borehole is on the
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Kola Peninsula in Russia.
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It reached a little more than 12 kilometers
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down.
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The radius of the earth is more than
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6,000 kilometers.
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So a direct physical sense, we have explored
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only a very tiny part of the planet
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beneath our feet.
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For someone who believes in Agatha, that makes
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one sense especially important.
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We don't know what is down there.
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We have not seen the most of the
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earth's interior.
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We have measured it.
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And that difference plays an important role in
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the theory.
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Then there is the water.
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In recent years, research has shown enormous amounts
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of water may exist deep inside the earth.
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Not necessarily as free liquid water.
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Much of it is locked inside minerals.
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But for Agartha's story, this still raises questions.
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If we are learning new things about conditions
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hundreds of kilometers beneath our feet, what else
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have we not discovered?
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And that brings us back to Ossendowski.
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In his story, Agartha is described as a
16:14
kingdom connected through enormous underground regions.
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He writes about people in Mongolia who knew
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the tradition, about holy men who spoke of
16:24
people beneath the earth, and about the king
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of the world.
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That figure is important because Agartha is not
16:30
only a hiding place, it is a center,
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a spiritual city of the world.
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The king is not necessarily a king sitting
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on a throne and giving order to government.
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He is more like a guardian of an
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ancient order.
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And this is where Agartha and Shambhala begin
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to merge.
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The kings of Shambhala, the king of the
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world in Agartha.
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The hidden teachings, the unreachable land, and the
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idea that the world on the surface will
16:59
one day enter a crisis where the hidden
17:01
kingdom will become important again.
17:05
Then Nicholas Roerich enters the story.
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Roerich was a Russian artist, but he also
17:12
had a deep interest in religion, history, archaeology,
17:15
and Central Asia.
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During the 1920s, he and his family led
17:19
a major expedition through Central Asia.
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The journey took them through regions of India,
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Tibet, Mongolia, China, and the Altai Mountains.
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Shambhala was not just a random word for
17:34
Roerich.
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He painted it.
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He wrote about it.
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He spoke with people about traditions.
17:40
In Roerich's world, the line between normal geography
17:44
and spiritual geography was not always clear.
17:47
A mountain could be a physical mountain and
17:50
a sacred place in the same time.
17:52
A journey could be a journey through the
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landscape, but also a spiritual journey.
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And Shambhala could be a place and something
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more.
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For the Agartha story, Roerich is interesting for
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one particular reason.
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He was not sitting home in Europe, imagine
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Tibet.
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He was actually traveling through Central Asia.
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He spoke with people.
18:14
He visited monasteries.
18:16
He collected stories.
18:18
And he took the idea of Shambhala seriously.
18:20
During the expedition, Roerich also described his strange
18:25
observations in the sky.
18:26
An object moved high above the expedition.
18:30
Later, UFO writers have pointed out that event.
18:33
Could it be some kind of craft?
18:35
And if it was, where did it come
18:37
from?
18:38
This brings another layer into the Agartha story.
18:41
If a civilization beneath the earth is far
18:44
more advanced than our own, then the strange
18:47
craft in the sky do not have to
18:50
come from another planet.
18:52
It could come from here, just not from
18:55
our civilization.
18:56
And that changed the entire UFO question.
18:59
Instead of visitors from another star system, we
19:01
get the possibility of a hidden civilization here
19:04
on earth.
19:05
Its craft could leave their bases through remote
19:09
areas like mountains, oceans, polar regions, and then
19:13
we come to Antarctica.
19:15
Antarctica is enormous.
19:17
The continent is covered with ice.
19:19
In some places, that ice is several kilometers
19:21
thick.
19:22
It is one of the most hostile environments
19:24
on the planet.
19:26
And during the first half of the 20th
19:28
century, large areas were still poorly known.
19:31
If someone wanted to hide at an entrance
19:33
to another world, it is difficult to imagine
19:36
a better place.
19:37
And it's also where the story becomes connected
19:40
to the Nazi Germany.
19:41
The Germans sent an expedition to Tibet in
19:44
1938 and 1939.
19:46
That is not a myth.
19:48
That expedition happened.
19:50
And shortly before the Second World War, Nazi
19:52
Germany also sent an expedition to Antarctica.
19:55
That happens too.
19:57
In the Agartha story, these two events become
20:00
connected.
20:02
Why were the Germans interested in Tibet?
20:06
Why were they interested in Antarctica?
20:09
Were they looking for something?
20:10
Heinrich Himmler had a strong interest in ancient
20:14
Germanic history and the idea of an ancient
20:17
iron past.
20:19
The SS had an organization called the Annenerbe.
20:22
A part of his works was trying to
20:26
find or create historical support for the Nazi
20:28
idea about a race and history.
20:31
In the alternative story, the next step is
20:33
that the Nazi knew about the legends of
20:36
Shambhala, that the search for signs of an
20:40
ancient civilization in Tibet, and perhaps they discovered
20:44
information about places beneath the earth.
20:46
From here, the story moves on to Antarctica.
20:49
In the most extreme version, the German established
20:52
a secret basis or beneath the continent.
20:55
One of these is sometimes called Space 211.
20:59
The story is often connected to an area
21:01
called New Swabia.
21:05
This was the region explored and photographed by
21:07
the German Antarctic expedition before the war.
21:11
Then the Second World War ends and Germany
21:14
was defeated.
21:16
And shortly after, something interesting happens.
21:19
The United States sent a very large military
21:21
expedition to Antarctica.
21:23
Operation High Jump, around 4,700 people, 13
21:27
ships, aircraft, helicopters, an aircraft carrier, a submarine,
21:32
and one of the most famous polar explorers
21:36
of the world, Admiral Richard Byrd.
21:39
For the Agartha story, the question is obvious.
21:43
Why?
21:45
Why such a large force?
21:48
Why so soon after the Second World War?
21:51
And why Antarctica?
21:53
The official description of Operation High Jump includes
21:56
several goals.
21:57
Training personnel, testing equipment in extreme conditions, mapping
22:01
scientific work, and studying the possibility of future
22:04
American bases and military operations in the region.
22:08
But there is an important detail.
22:11
The United States was not inexperienced in Cold
22:15
War operation.
22:16
Far from it.
22:17
During the Second World War, the Americans had
22:19
built bases and other facilities in Greenland.
22:22
Among them were Blue West 1 at Narsarsuaq
22:26
and Blue West 8 at Sondre Stromfjord.
22:29
Greenland became an important part of the route
22:31
used to move American aircraft from North America
22:35
across Greenland and Iceland towards Europe.
22:38
American personnel has spent years working with aircraft,
22:43
engines, communication, weather, supplies, and human survival in
22:46
Arctic conditions.
22:48
They knew cold.
22:49
They knew ice.
22:51
And they knew the problems involved in keeping
22:53
people and machinery working in severe winter conditions.
22:57
So it's too simple to say that the
22:59
High Jump went to Antarctica because the American
23:02
needed to learn how to work in cold
23:04
weather.
23:05
But we should be careful not to go
23:07
too far in the other direction.
23:10
Greenland is not Antarctica.
23:12
Running bases in Greenland is not the same
23:14
as sending a large naval forces into the
23:17
southern polar region.
23:19
High Jump could therefore provide experience the Americans
23:22
did not already have on the same scale.
23:26
The more interesting question is, why did the
23:28
United States want so much experience in Antarctica
23:32
on that particular moment?
23:35
The war has just ended.
23:37
The Germans had previously explored the region, and
23:40
now the United States was sending one of
23:42
the largest Antarctic expeditions in history towards the
23:46
South Pole.
23:47
Were these simple events happened to close together
23:52
in time?
23:54
Was High Jump mainly about mapping, military strategy,
23:58
future bases?
23:59
Were the Americans also interested in what Germany
24:01
has done in the region before the war,
24:03
or was there something else?
24:05
That's a fair question.
24:06
But a question is not the same as
24:08
an answer.
24:09
And in the Agartha story, the answer becomes
24:12
to Admiral Byrd.
24:14
According to a text that later became known
24:17
as Byrd's secret diary, he experienced something incredible.
24:22
During a flight over the polar region, the
24:24
landscape supposedly began to change.
24:27
The ice disappeared.
24:28
The temperature rose.
24:30
He saw green vegetation, animals, and finally, strange
24:33
flying craft.
24:35
His aircraft was guided into a hidden region.
24:38
There, according to the story, he met representatives
24:40
of civilizations far more advanced than our own.
24:45
They were worried about humanity on the surface,
24:48
especially about the new atomic weapons.
24:51
Hiroshima and Nagasaki had changed something.
24:54
Humanity now had the powers that they might
24:57
not be mature enough to control.
24:59
Byrd was given a message to take back,
25:02
but according to the story, when he returned
25:04
home, he was ordered to remain silent.
25:07
In this version, Agartha suddenly becomes connected directly
25:10
to the atomic age.
25:12
The hidden civilization has been watching us.
25:15
It has allowed us to develop, but nuclear
25:17
weapons had made us dangerous, not only for
25:21
ourselves, perhaps for the entire planet.
25:23
And then people interested in UFO points to
25:27
a strange timeline.
25:29
The atomic bombs were used in 1945.
25:32
Operation Highjump took place in 1946 and 47.
25:37
The modern UFO phenomenon exploded in 1947.
25:41
Roswell happens in 1947.
25:44
For the alternative story, these are not random
25:47
events.
25:48
They are different parts of the same pattern.
25:50
Humanity has crossed a technological line and something
25:54
or someone was watching.
25:57
That brings us back to Shambhala, because in
26:00
the old Kalachakra, a tradition describes a kingdom
26:04
that preserved its knowledge while the outside world
26:07
moved towards greater disorder.
26:10
If we read it as religion, it's a
26:12
spiritual story.
26:14
If we read it as historical, perhaps it
26:16
contains memories of real places.
26:19
But if you combine it with Agartha's story,
26:22
a third possibility appears.
26:24
A society withdrew from the rest of humanity.
26:27
It preserved its knowledge.
26:29
It continues to develop and it waits.
26:33
Then there are the tunnels.
26:35
In the Agartha's story, entrances exist in many
26:38
places, in the Himalayas, in the Gobi Desert,
26:40
in South America, at Mount Shasta in California,
26:45
near ancient temples, inside caves, and at the
26:50
boat.
26:51
So the idea is not necessarily that every
26:55
cave leads directly to Agartha.
26:58
The idea is that an ancient sacred place
27:02
might have been built around natural or artificial
27:07
entrances.
27:08
And that could give a different meaning to
27:12
the world of the caves in the world
27:14
regions.
27:15
Prophets enter mountains, monks meditate in caves, oracles
27:20
are found underground, heroes travel down into the
27:24
underworld, and they return with new knowledge.
27:27
The normal explanation is symbolic.
27:29
The cave represents darkness, death, the unknown.
27:33
And when the person returns to the surface,
27:35
that person is reborn.
27:37
But the Agartha's story turns the question around.
27:41
What if the symbolic comes later?
27:44
What if some of this story originally described
27:47
real places?
27:48
We know that enormous cave systems exist.
27:51
We know that underground rivers exist.
27:53
We know that forms of life that can
27:55
survive without direct sunlight.
27:58
We also know that human beings have built
28:01
large underground structures through the history.
28:03
So where's the limit?
28:05
How large could a hidden system be?
28:08
And if a civilization deliberately did not want
28:11
to be found, would we necessarily find it?
28:15
That is how the Agartha story works from
28:19
the inside.
28:20
It is not based on a single observation.
28:22
It's a pattern.
28:23
Shambhala, underworlds, caves, Saint-Yves, Ossendowski, Roerich, Tibet,
28:29
the Nazis, Antarctica, Bird, UFOs, and the ancient
28:34
stories about people disappearing into mountains.
28:37
Each individual piece might have another explanation.
28:41
But if they are placed together, one question
28:43
appears.
28:44
Why do we keep telling the same story,
28:48
that beneath our world is another?
28:54
Now let's jump down the rabbit hole.
28:57
Agartha is far from the only story about
28:59
the hollow earth.
29:00
In fact, this idea goes hundreds of years
29:03
back.
29:04
During the 17th century, the English scientist Edmund
29:07
Halley proposed a model in which the earth
29:09
was made of several spherical layers.
29:12
Yes, it's the same Halley that the Halley's
29:16
comet is named after.
29:17
Halley was trying to explain the earth's magnetic
29:20
field.
29:22
That is not a conspiracy theory.
29:25
It is the scientific attempt to explain observations
29:28
using the knowledge available at the time.
29:30
Later, other models appeared.
29:33
In the 19th century, an American named John
29:36
Cleaves Simms argued that the earth was hollow
29:40
and had large openings at the poles.
29:42
He even wanted an expedition to travel north
29:45
and to find the opening.
29:47
That is important, because the idea of openings
29:49
at the poles existed before Agartha became popular
29:53
in the West.
29:54
Later, the different stories became mixed together.
29:58
Hollow earth provides the geography, Agartha provides the
30:01
civilization, Shambhala provides the spiritual side, UFO culture
30:06
provides the technology, and Admiral Byrd provides the
30:10
perfect main character, because Byrd was real.
30:13
And he was not just another unknown adventurer.
30:17
He was one of the most famous polar
30:19
expedition explorers at the time.
30:22
He took part in major expeditions.
30:24
He flew in polar regions.
30:27
He received important honors.
30:29
He became a national celebrity in the United
30:32
States.
30:33
So when someone says Admiral Byrd discovers a
30:36
hidden world, it immediately sounds more convincing than
30:40
a story of an unknown person.
30:43
And Byrd really did use words that could
30:46
later sound mysterious.
30:48
He spoke about enormous areas beyond the pole
30:51
that has not yet been explored.
30:54
But we need to remember the time period.
30:57
Antarctica was still far less well mapped than
31:04
today.
31:05
Land beyond the pole do not have to
31:09
mean land inside the earth.
31:11
It could simply mean land on the other
31:13
side of the South Pole.
31:15
But the face is almost important.
31:18
It's impossible to resist.
31:20
The land beyond the pole.
31:22
You can almost hear the legend growing.
31:25
And then there was the Nazis.
31:28
This is where the rabbit hole becomes almost
31:30
endless, because Esses really was interested in the
31:34
strange idea about the past.
31:36
Himmler was interested in ancient Germanic history and
31:40
the idea of an ancient iron culture.
31:44
The Ahnenerbe carried out research designed to give
31:46
historical support to Nazi ideas.
31:49
The expedition to Tibet in 1938 and 1939
31:52
really happened.
31:54
Ernst Schäfer led it.
31:56
Animals and plants were collected.
31:58
Photographs were taken.
32:00
Geographic research was carried out.
32:02
And Bruno Beger took physical measurements of Tibetan
32:07
people as a part of the Nazi racial
32:11
research.
32:13
All of that is real.
32:15
And because of these things are real, it
32:18
becomes tempting to take it to the next
32:20
step, to imagine the secret mission behind the
32:23
documented one.
32:25
The problem is that the closer we get
32:28
to the specific claims that the Nazis were
32:30
searching for Agatha, the harder it becomes to
32:33
find documents from that time that actually say
32:35
so.
32:36
But the story has developed a life of
32:38
its own.
32:40
The Nazis, Tibet, Tule, Uyl, Shambhala, Agatha, flying
32:45
saucers, secret bases in Antarctica, and eventually all
32:48
of them become part of the same modern
32:51
history story.
32:54
And beneath these particular claims, there is also
32:56
something more interesting, because we can actually follow
33:00
the way the story develops, from religion to
33:03
Western mysticism, from mysticism to adventure stories, from
33:08
adventure stories to Hollow Earth, from Hollow Earth
33:10
to Nazi legends, and from there to the
33:12
UFOs.
33:14
That does not automatically mean that everything is
33:17
invented, but it does mean that we can
33:21
watch the story grow.
33:23
And now we reach a particular difficult part,
33:26
because if Agartha really exists, the story should
33:29
survive an examination of its best evidence.
33:36
Let's start the criticism with the Shambhala.
33:39
There is no doubt that the tradition exists.
33:42
Shambhala is a real part of the Kalachakra
33:45
tradition.
33:46
The problem begins when we take it to
33:47
the next step.
33:49
Shambhala appears in Buddhist texts.
33:51
Therefore, Shambhala must be a physical kingdom.
33:55
Then, Shambhala must be Agartha.
33:57
And then, Agartha must exist inside a Hollow
34:01
Earth.
34:02
Those ideas do not automatically follow from each
34:06
other.
34:07
They are separate claims, and they require separate
34:11
evidence.
34:15
The Kalachakra tradition is not by itself evidence
34:18
of a technological civilization inside our planet.
34:23
Then we come to Agatha, and here the
34:25
history of the sources becomes important, because the
34:29
modern Agartha story can be traced much more
34:32
clearly to European writers in the 19th century
34:35
than to an unbroken ancient Asian tradition.
34:40
Saint-Yves is central.
34:42
In his work, we find hidden Agartha with
34:45
spiritual leadership and advanced knowledge.
34:47
But his descriptions also fit remarkably well to
34:52
his own political ideas.
34:55
That should make us stop for a moment.
34:57
If a writer tells us a secret society
34:59
that happens to live inside has to live
35:03
according to exactly the kind of system that
35:07
he believes that the rest of the world
35:08
should adopt, then we have at least two
35:11
possibilities.
35:13
He really gained access to secret knowledge, or
35:16
he used the secret kingdom to give us
35:18
his own idea, ancient and mysterious authority.
35:23
Then we have Ossendowski.
35:25
His book is one of the most important
35:26
links to the Agartha story.
35:28
But there is a problem.
35:30
His Agartha has several similarities with the Agatha
35:35
described by Saint-Yves.
35:37
So there may be the question that has
35:42
been made even at the time.
35:44
Did Ossendowski already knew the story of Saint
35:47
-Yves?
35:48
Ossendowski said no, and that may be true.
35:51
But from the point of view of source
35:53
criticism, that problem remains.
35:56
If two stories are very similar, it may
35:58
be because they describe the same reality.
36:01
But it could also be because one has
36:04
influenced the other, or because both grew from
36:07
the same world of ideas.
36:09
We can simply not ignore that.
36:12
Nicholas Roerich is different.
36:15
His travels are well documented.
36:17
His interest in Shambhala is well documented.
36:20
His expeditions really happened.
36:22
But again, we need to separate the two
36:24
statements.
36:25
Roerich was interested in Shambhala and searched for
36:28
it, and Roerich found a physical underground civilization.
36:33
The first can be documented, the second cannot.
36:37
Then we come to the Nazis.
36:40
Here we have a strange problem.
36:42
The real history is already unusual enough.
36:45
There is a supported research in Tibet.
36:49
Nazi researchers carried out racial measurements.
36:53
Himmler was interested in strange ideas about the
36:56
ancient past.
36:58
We do not actually know what to invent
37:02
very much.
37:04
But the specific claim that the real purpose
37:08
of this Tibet expedition was to find Shambhala
37:10
or Agartha does not have the kind of
37:13
documentation we would expect, if that is the
37:16
expedition's main purpose.
37:18
That does not mean that we know every
37:21
thought every person was involved.
37:24
It also does not mean that every surviving
37:26
document tells a complete story.
37:28
But it does mean that we cannot present
37:31
the search for Agartha as documented history.
37:35
That comes to Operation High Jump.
37:37
And here we need to be especially careful.
37:40
The operation was real.
37:42
It was enormous.
37:43
And it happened shortly after the Second World
37:45
War.
37:46
These are facts.
37:48
The stated American goal, including mapping, scientific work,
37:51
training, testing equipment, and studying the possibility of
37:54
bases and military operations in the polar region.
37:57
But as we have already seen, the United
37:59
States had already had considerable experience in Arctic
38:02
conditions, including years of operation in Greenland.
38:06
So we cannot simply say they needed to
38:09
learn to operate in cold weather and then
38:12
close the case.
38:13
On the other hand, we can simply not
38:15
say that the official explanation is incomplete.
38:18
Therefore, they must have been hunting Nazi UFOs.
38:22
That does not follow either.
38:25
The careful answer is somewhere between we know
38:28
what the official goals were.
38:30
We know that the Antarctica represented challenges that
38:33
is different from Greenland.
38:36
We also know that the size of the
38:37
military nature of the operation makes it remarkable
38:42
to look closely to a strategic purpose.
38:46
But if we want to go further and
38:48
talk about secret Nazi bases, unknown technology, or
38:52
Agatha, then we need independent evidence.
38:57
A weakness in one of the explanations is
38:59
not automatically evidence for another.
39:02
And then we come to Byrd's secret diary.
39:04
And here the problems become more serious.
39:06
The text that circulates as Byrd's secret account
39:12
of a flight into Earth does not have
39:16
a clear and documented path back to Bert
39:18
himself.
39:19
And that is extremely important.
39:21
If a document could change our entire understanding
39:24
of the planet, we should be able to
39:26
ask some very simple questions.
39:29
Where are the original?
39:30
When did it first appear?
39:33
Who had it?
39:34
Can the handwriting be examined?
39:36
Can the paper be dated?
39:39
Is the text found in Byrd's known archives?
39:44
Bert left behind real diaries and expedition records.
39:49
We know that.
39:50
But that's not the same thing as the
39:52
later text describing a hidden civilization.
39:56
There's also problems with the timing of the
39:59
supposed secret flight.
40:00
Some versions play Byrd at the North Pool
40:04
in February 1947.
40:07
But at that time he was connected with
40:09
Operation High Jump in Antarctica.
40:11
So here we do not only have missing
40:15
evidence.
40:15
We also have problems with the timeline.
40:18
And then we come to the Earth itself.
40:21
There is the classic hollow Earth model faces
40:24
its biggest problem.
40:27
It is true that humans have drilled only
40:30
a very small distance into the Earth.
40:34
But that does not mean that drilling is
40:37
our only source of information of the Earth's
40:39
interior.
40:40
When an earthquake happens, waves travel through the
40:44
planet.
40:45
Different kinds of waves move differently through solid
40:48
and liquid material.
40:51
By measuring the waves around the world, scientists
40:54
can learn how the inside of the Earth
40:57
is structured.
40:58
That is the one of the ways that
41:01
we know that the Earth has a crust,
41:04
a mantle, a liquid outer core and a
41:07
solid inner core.
41:09
If the Earth instead had enormous empty interior
41:14
with large habitable regions and perhaps even an
41:19
inner sun, those waves would behave very differently.
41:24
The same problem appears when we look at
41:26
the Earth's mass and gravity.
41:29
So the classical version of an almost completely
41:33
hollow planet does not fit well with what
41:38
we can actually measure.
41:40
But notice the difference.
41:42
It does not mean that there are no
41:45
unknown caves.
41:46
Of course there are.
41:47
It also does not mean that we have
41:49
mapped everything beneath our feet.
41:52
We do not.
41:54
It means that there are enormous differences between
41:57
these two statements.
41:59
There are unknown spaces underground and there is
42:03
an enormous inner continent with advanced civilizations.
42:07
The first one is obviously possible.
42:09
The second one requires a completely different level
42:13
of evidence.
42:15
And then there is the water deep inside
42:17
the Earth.
42:18
That is a good example how real scientific
42:21
discovery can change as it moves through popular
42:25
media.
42:25
Yes, there are probably enormous amounts of water
42:29
deep in the Earth's mantle.
42:31
But the water is not necessarily sitting in
42:33
a giant ocean that someone can sail across.
42:36
Much of it is locked inside minerals.
42:39
It's fascinating geology, but it's not a hidden
42:42
ocean with beaches and cities.
42:46
And here we may reach the most important
42:48
lesson in the entire Agartha story.
42:52
A true fact can be used to build
42:54
a conclusion that is not true.
42:56
We can say that there is enormous amount
42:58
of water inside the Earth.
43:05
That may be correct, but the next sentence
43:07
is therefore there is a giant underground ocean.
43:12
We have already gone further than the evidence
43:15
allowed.
43:16
And then the next sentence is therefore Agatha
43:18
stands on the shore of that ocean.
43:21
Then we have made another leap and that
43:23
is exactly the leaps that we need to
43:25
notice.
43:26
So what is actually left?
43:30
Let's sort through it.
43:32
Shambhala is well documented as a religious tradition.
43:35
We know that the Kalachakra system exists, the
43:40
text exists, the tradition is still alive, and
43:43
Shambhala has an important place within it.
43:47
Whenever the story also contains the memory of
43:50
a real kingdom somewhere in Central Asia, it
43:52
is much harder to answer.
43:54
It is not impossible.
43:56
Central Asia has become many Buddhist kingdoms, trade
43:59
routes and cultures, and the later has disappeared
44:01
or changed.
44:03
But we have not found an archaeological site
44:06
where we can say with reasonable confidence this
44:09
was Shambhala.
44:10
Agartha is different.
44:12
Here we can follow the modern development more
44:15
clearly.
44:16
The version that describes an enormous underground kingdom
44:19
with ancient knowledge and spiritual ruler becomes clear
44:23
in the Western mysticism during the 19th century.
44:27
St. Eve is important.
44:29
Ossendowski brings the story to a much larger
44:32
audience.
44:33
Later it becomes mixed with the hollow earth
44:35
ideas.
44:36
Then come the Nazis, the UFOs, the Antarctica
44:39
and Admiral Byrd.
44:41
Why he stands as an interesting place between
44:43
these worlds?
44:44
His journey was real.
44:46
His interest in Shambhala was real, and the
44:50
stories he collected tell us about how powerful
44:57
the Shambhala tradition was.
45:00
But that's not the same thing as evidence
45:02
for Agartha.
45:03
The Nazi expeditions to Tibet was real, but
45:07
a secret mission to find Agartha is not
45:09
documented.
45:10
The German expedition to Antarctica was real, but
45:13
an enormous Nazi base beneath Antarctica is not
45:17
documented.
45:18
Operation Highjump was real, the size was real,
45:21
American strategic interest in the polar region was
45:24
real, but a battle against flying saucers is
45:27
not documented.
45:29
Admiral Byrd was real, his expeditions were real,
45:33
but his supposed meeting with a civilization inside
45:36
the earth is not documented.
45:38
Large underground spaces exist, but the classic hollow
45:42
earth model does not find seismology on other
45:45
measurements that tells us.
45:47
And that leaves us in a strange situation,
45:49
because almost every part of the Agartha story
45:52
contains a small piece of something real.
45:57
It is the connection between those pieces that
46:00
becomes uncertain, and perhaps that is exactly why
46:03
the story is so powerful.
46:07
There is a very simple way to end
46:09
the story of Shambhala and Agartha.
46:11
We could say Shambhala is religion, Agartha is
46:14
western mysticism, hollow earth does not fit modern
46:18
geophysics, case closed.
46:22
And from a scientific point of view, that
46:25
conclusion gets us quite far.
46:28
We do not have good evidence for an
46:30
enormous technological civilization living inside a hollow planet.
46:35
But if we stop there, we lose the
46:38
most interesting part of the story, because Shambhala
46:40
is older than the modern hollow earth story,
46:44
and the human stories about hidden worlds are
46:47
older still.
46:49
For thousands of years we have imagined that
46:50
important knowledge does not always exist at the
46:55
center of the civilization.
46:57
Sometimes it is at the edge, behind the
47:00
mountains, in the desert, on the other side
47:03
of the ocean, or beneath our feet.
47:05
Perhaps Shambhala is not about a place that
47:08
Google Maps simply has forgotten.
47:11
Perhaps the story is about the idea that
47:14
something valuable can survive outside our own civilization,
47:18
that knowledge can be lost, that societies can
47:21
disappear, and that our own time may not
47:27
be the final high point of the human
47:30
history.
47:31
We do not have to believe in hollow
47:35
earth to make this idea seriously.
47:38
And Agatha, here the evidence becomes much weaker.
47:42
The closer we get to specific stories about
47:45
giant polar openings, birds, secret diary, Nazi UFO
47:51
bases, and enormous cities inside the planet, the
47:54
harder it becomes to find solid evidence.
47:56
But the story refuses to disappear, perhaps because
48:00
it brings together some of our oldest ideas
48:04
into a single mystery.
48:06
The lost paradise, the hidden master, the forgotten
48:09
civilization, the journey to the underworld, and the
48:13
hope that someone somewhere has preserved the knowledge
48:16
that we have lost.
48:17
So does Shambhala exist as a religion, as
48:21
religious traditions, without question, as a real historical
48:26
kingdom?
48:26
There may be a historical element behind the
48:30
story, but we have not yet identified the
48:33
place with confidence.
48:35
Does Agartha exist as an enormous technological civilization
48:39
beneath the surface of the earth?
48:42
We do not have convincing evidence for that.
48:46
And the classic hollow earth model conflicts with
48:49
very strong evidence about the structure of the
48:51
planet.
48:52
But that does not mean that the journey
48:54
was a waste of time.
48:56
Because when we follow the story far back
49:00
north, we discover something almost interesting as a
49:04
hidden kingdom.
49:05
We discover how a mystery is built.
49:08
A Buddhist tradition, a French mystic, a Polish
49:12
adventurer, a Russian artist, an SS expedition, a
49:16
German journey to Antarctica, an American admiral, a
49:21
massive American operation at the South Pole, and
49:24
the unknown death of the entire planet.
49:27
Each generation adds something new, until eventually it
49:31
becomes difficult to see where one story ends
49:34
and another begins.
49:35
And that is perhaps the most important question
49:37
which Shambhala and Agartha leaves us with.
49:39
Not only what is hiding beneath our feet,
49:44
but also how much of what do we
49:47
think was one ancient secret.
49:53
It actually many different stories that people have
49:58
joined together over the centuries.
50:00
Perhaps the answer is not hidden in Agatha,
50:02
perhaps it's hidden in the sources.
50:05
And this time they did not tell us
50:08
all the way to the center of the
50:10
earth, but it did take us very far
50:12
down the rabbit hole.
50:14
Thank you for listening, and if you're still
50:16
there, please consider like and subscribe.