Journey to the Center of the Earth: Fact or Fiction?

(my favorite Sci-Fi movie of all time, “Journey to the Center of the Earth” starring James Mason).

The 1864 science fiction Novel by Jules Verne entitled “Journey to the Center of the Earth” was an amazingly fanciful notion for the mid 19th century. This tale described an explorer and his team descending into a crater in Iceland to find an under-earth world with giant prehistoric mushrooms, an ape-man, an ocean, and the lost city of Atlantis. As preposterous as it sounds, most people who watch the movie or read the book can’t help but wonder for a few moments, “what if?”

Today, there are people who do more than say “what if?” they are actually believers in the “Hollow Earth” Theory. This states that the Earth contains within it another world that exists in parallel with ours with its own evolutionary process.

It’s one thing to knock around a fantastic theory, but true believers are so enthusiastic that there is a proposed North Pole Inner Earth Expedition.

Others who follow the Hollow Earth Theory theorize that UFO sightings actually occur from Hollow Earth civilizations that send their craft through the ocean floor to inspect the Outer Earth.

There aren’t just “quacks” believing in this theory. Edmund Halley (the famous astronomer for which the Halley’s comet was named) enjoyed studying the earth’s magnetic field. He couldn’t account for how the fields changed and came up with a theory that the Earth was hollow and a second sphere was inside of it, and another one until there were four spheres inside each other. He believed there was life within and a source of luminance, as well. He also believed the aurora borealis (“Northern Lights”) were caused by gas escaping from the thin crust at the poles.

Science has come a long way in explaining the makeup of the Earth. We can rest knowing that there is neither another sun nor another planet within our own planet. There are, however, extraordinary cave systems, a majority of which have never been fully explained, new fissures where the Earth’s crust has opened during seismic activity, and extraordinarily deep crevices in the ocean’s floor. Any of these could contain life that we haven’t encountered before. The concept that a civilization could evolve there and forge metals into space ships is admittedly unrealistic.

It’s essential that we accept some constrictions of our world that are unavoidable, things like the force of gravity, the need for oxygen, the solidity of the Earth, but that doesn’t necessarily negate extraordinary theories. It’s entirely possible that, once we accept a solid earth, we can search for those other constraints that have not yet been discovered; the unseen things that may control our world without our conscious knowledge. String theorists are a fine example of researchers who understand the facts of our world and yet seek to find out what created those facts, what controls those facts, what can influence or possibly change those facts.

Just because the Hollow Earth Theory holds no scientific weight, it’s a fine example of man asking “what if?” and that is when we make our most exciting discoveries that then forever change the constraints of our physical world, such as “the world is flat” to “the world is round.” When our world was flat, we assumed we could drop off of it and so our ability to travel was limited. When the world became round, we had to explain gravity and triangulation and loads of other things that explained the now round world. That is where we are in science right now. We are in a “world is flat” place and seeking a “world is round” viewpoint so that we can make the truly amazing discoveries still be found that might include time travel, wormholes, teleportation, UFOs, and Hollow Earth.

Theoretical physicists have my complete and utter devotion and admiration. They are the rock stars of exciting discoveries.