There are two hollow earth theories. According to the first one we
live on the crust, but there is another world on the inside where
lies - some say - the realm of Agartha, the home of the King of the
World (see, for example, the fantasies of French philosopher
Reníuõsn). The second theory has it that while we think we live on
the outer crust, we actually live in the interior (on a convex
surface instead of a concave one).One of the first hollow earth
theories was proposed in 1692 by the English astronomer Edmund
Halley (discoverer of the now-famous comet), who suggested that the
Earth was composed of four spheres, each embedded in the others
like so many matryoshka dolls, illuminated by a luminous atmosphere
and perhaps inhabitable. The theory was reproposed in the early
19th century by J Cleves Symmes of Ohio, who wrote to various
scientific societies: "To all the world: I declare that the Earth
is hollow and habitable within; containing a number of solid
concentric spheres, one inside the other, and that it is open at
the poles 12 or 16 degrees." Symmes believed that at the north and
south poles there were two apertures that led to the interior of
the globe. He attempted to raise funds for an exploration of the
polar regions to locate these entrances. The Philadelphia Academy
of Natural Sciences still has a wooden model he used to explain his
theories. The idea was later championed by Jeremiah Reynolds, a
newspaper editor, who took it upon himself to promote the
expedition at the expense of the American government (a request
ultimately denied). The journey was unsuccessful, since he and his
party were thwarted by Antarctic ice. At the end of the century the
theory was revisited by cult leader Cyrus Reed Teed, who said that
what we believe is the sky is a gaseous mass that fills the
interior of the globe with areas of bright light (sun, moon and
stars would not be heavenly bodies but visual effects). It is
widely rumoured on the internet that the hollow earth theory was
taken seriously by top-ranking Nazis who believed in the occult
sciences.
In some circles of the German navy it was purportedly believed that
the hollow earth theory would make it easier to pinpoint the exact
position of British ships because, if infrared rays were used, the
curvature of the Earth would not have obscured observation. Hitler
allegedly sent an expedition to the Baltic island of R?here a Dr
Heinz Fischer trained a telescopic camera toward the sky in order
to spot the British fleet sailing on the interior of the convex
surface of the hollow earth. It is even said that some V1 missiles
went astray because their trajectory was calculated on the basis of
a hypothetical concave surface instead of a convex one.
