Antarctica was the last continent to be set foot on by humans, and it was not until the 19th century that humans began to set foot on this land. As the southernmost continent on Earth, Antarctica is almost covered in glaciers.
With an area of 14 million square kilometers, it is the coldest continent on Earth, with an average annual temperature of -57°C, and it is also one of the driest continents on Earth, with an average annual precipitation of less than 200 ml.
At the same time, Antarctica is also the place with the most storms, with 300 days out of 365 days a year with storms of magnitude 8 or higher. The maximum wind speed measured by humans so far has also been found in Antarctica, with a maximum wind speed of 82 m/s and a speed of almost 300 kilometers per hour.
In every respect, Antarctica is the worst environment on earth, and it is not suitable for human habitation and survival at all.
Although the environment of Antarctica is extremely harsh and unsuitable for human habitation at all, since humans set foot on this land, they have thought about using this land for our own use.
It's just that in the 19th century, science and technology were still relatively backward, and they could not provide the conditions for human beings to stay in Antarctica for a long time.
In the 50s of the last century, the United States and the Soviet Union fought openly and secretly against Antarctica
In the 50s of the last century, it was the Cold War period between the United States and the Soviet Union, when the two sides opened an invisible competition from various fields in order to demonstrate their national strength, from the ground to space.
At this time, the Soviet Union, because of the existence of a genius rocket expert Korolev, was always one step ahead of the United States, the first artificial satellite, and the first manned space.
At this time, the Soviet Union can be said to be in the forefront of the United States, while the United States is closely following behind, and there seems to be some gap between the two sides, but this gap is not very large.
There is competition on the ground, competition in the ocean, and now even space has become the stage for the competition between the two. If there is still a place where the two sides are not competing.
So, it's the vast Antarctic continent, but the environment is extremely harsh. This time, the former Soviet Union reacted quickly and took the lead in establishing three scientific research stations in Antarctica in 1957.
Because the United States was a little slower, when the situation was known, the Soviet scientific research station had already been built, and the United States was a little panicked at this time. Because before that, there was an international convention, that is, whoever was the first to plant the national flag on unclaimed land meant that he declared sovereignty over that land.
If such a large continent were allowed to be occupied by the Soviet Union, the consequences would be very serious, and the cost would be too much for the United States to bear. Based on this, the United States has joined forces with most countries in the world to sign an "Antarctic Convention," stating that Antarctica is the common property of mankind and that no country or individual can take Antarctica for itself.
This pact was supported by most of the countries on the planet at that time, and no one wanted to let such a continent be occupied by the Soviet Union, although the Soviet Union was somewhat reluctant, but with the support of most countries, it had to pinch its nose and admit it.
4,000 meters of seabed, 150 meters of giant antennas were found
With the signing of the Antarctic Convention, the United States is at ease. But it is also in full swing to prepare to enter Antarctica, which is not difficult to understand, because the two sides were in a struggle for hegemony at that time, and they could not let others feel that they were inferior to the Soviet Union.
After a year or two of preparation, the United States finally sent its own expedition team in 1959, which needed to be reached by icebreaker because the Antarctic was frozen all year round.
However, the icebreaker that the United States took was named "Eltanin", which not only carried a large number of materials and scientific personnel, but also carried very advanced scientific instruments at that time.
After entering the designated research site, in order to study the situation of the Antarctic seabed, a deep-sea photographic equipment was dropped from the icebreaker, and according to the records of the time, the depth of the seabed at that time was about 4,000 meters.
It was this shooting that really shocked the United States into a cold sweat, because in the bottom of the sea, there is a huge mysterious antenna, because it was found on the icebreaker Eltanin, and later this antenna was called: "Ertanin antenna"
According to U.S. estimates, the antenna is at least 150 meters long, and since Antarctica has not been set foot by humans before, even if anyone does, it is not capable of dropping such a huge antenna on the seabed of Antarctica.
At that time, there was no more than the United States and the Soviet Union, and at that time, the Americans thought that it must not have been launched by their own people, because the Eltanin was the first time that the Americans went to Antarctica for scientific research.
Then the biggest possibility is the Soviet Union, they have the ability, and the Soviets arrived on the Antarctic continent ahead of schedule, and they also have the time to launch it, if they know the itinerary of the United States, then it is completely possible to put it here in advance.
However, what did the Soviet Union do by putting such a large antenna on the South Pole at such a large expendum of energy? There was no need to monitor the scientific research ship?
Then the Americans can't help but think in other ways, the Soviet Union must have an ulterior secret when it dropped a 150-meter giant antenna to the bottom of the Antarctic seabed.
For this reason, the Americans studied for five years, just to find out the purpose and role of the Soviets in dropping the giant antenna, but the research has never had any clue.
Nor was it an antenna dropped by the USSR, who put it?
In the end, they came up with a solution, that is, to "throw stones and ask for directions", hoping to release some information appropriately, so that the Soviet Union could mess with itself, so that they could find out the loopholes of the Soviet Union, and then know the purpose of the Soviet Union's giant antenna, and also figure out what the purpose of this giant antenna was.
At that time, the Soviet Union and the United States had not yet established formal diplomatic relations, so they passed on the photos taken by the Americans to the Soviet Union through a third party to see how the Soviet side would react.
When the Soviet side got this photo, it was also confused, and it was not at all clear what the United States was giving them such a photo, and the Soviet side was not sure what the United States meant, and the communication between the two sides was not smooth at that time, for fear of being cheated by the United States. The Soviets also decided to "throw stones to ask for directions", but the stone was a bit big and shook the ground.
The Soviets directly released the photo of the "Ertanin antenna," and the whole world knew about this announcement, and now it was the turn of the Americans to be dumbfounded. What kind of operation was this? Wasn't it the Soviets who dropped it on the bottom of the Antarctic sea?
So who put this antenna, what is its purpose, and what is its purpose?
Since the photo was taken by the United States, it was up to the United States to explain all this, and in the end, in order to eliminate the impact of this incident, the United States claimed that it was a seabed creature called "Kline's sponge".
With the interpretation of this photo by the American side, not many people have paid attention to the Ertanin antenna.
But two questions are still raised:
1. At first, the U.S. side obviously didn't believe that it was a K-K-horn sponge, otherwise they wouldn't have studied it for a few years and gave the photos to the Soviet side, and the Soviets finally poked out the matter. And after the Soviet Union released the photo, the American side immediately explained that it was a K-ray sponge, which does not make logical sense.
2. Although the Kline's sponge is somewhat similar to the Ertanin antenna in shape, it can be seen from the photos that the Ertanin antenna is like metal, all of which are at right angles, while the Kline's sponge is not, and the Kline's sponge is not 150 meters long, which is unexplainable.
So who exactly put this antenna, what is its purpose, and what is its purpose? So far, there is still no answer. The last time someone talked about it was a sonar expert, on a TV show in 2003, but it didn't work out in the end.