The more I look at this stuff the less I'm surprised that claims that   
   seemed to be crazy seem to have some objective data backing them up.   
      
   As part of a "hunt the wumpus" plan to find locations around the earth   
   that seem to have weather conditions that highly correlate with   
   (proxies for) UFO activity -- aka possible "UFO bases" -- I previously   
   scanned the N and S polar regions and found some interesting areas in   
   not-all-that-surprising parts of the regions.   
      
   But a zoom call from someone a couple days back has led me to re-visit   
   the Antarctic data and look for another feature -- the alleged "hole   
   at the S Pole that leads to Inner Earth".   
      
   According to the folklore there are holes at both poles that give   
   (whatever) access to some vast underground region that essentially   
   forms a parallel Earth.   
      
   While the geophysics of vast underground caverns at depth is   
   questionable, at least we can have a look to see whether there is any   
   unusual area near the south pole that may correspond with a big hole   
   that connects with UFO activity.   
      
   So we have the data -- in this case satellites cover Antarctica quite   
   well (seemingly better than the north pole) and NOAA publishes stitched   
   daily radar maps that are used by different folks to estimate sea-ice   
   coverage and other metrics related to global weather and climate.   
      
   We can chop the data up into a grid of regions and create a time   
   series of the average radar return over time from each. We can then   
   create a series of robust predictive models that show us how well the   
   radar data predicts future UFO activity (as usual I'll use the NUFORC   
   open access data -- for this study at daily granularity).   
      
   We can then plot a "density map" of the region to show which areas   
   seem to closely predict UFO activity in the days (upto 100 in this   
   work) after the radar data was gathered.   
      
   Not so surprising some key regions in the Antarctic predict UFO   
   activity within a few% upto 3 months in the future. "For some   
   reason" the radar data -- a proxy of seaice over water and ice   
   thickness over land let's say -- tells us how many UFO's will be   
   sighted across N Am at a specific day in the future to within a few   
   percent.  Given there are some wild swings in the UFO data it's even   
   "more amazing" most of these are also predicted from the same models.   
   The relationship is so strong it's possible to predict where and when   
   certain UFO types might be visible across N Am weeks to months in the   
   future.   
      
   But today we'll look at what the maps have to say about a "hole at the pole".   
      
   I've put the rough maps up at .  The first   
   of the 3 images shows the original radar map stitched from the   
   various satellites that cross the region on a particular day.  You can   
   see around the edge of the image various black regions with   
   straight/triangular edges. These are regions the satellites   
   happened to miss on that particular day.  Whiter regions in the image   
   are those returning a stronger radar signal.  Black regions (if they   
   aren't associated with missed data) indicate very low radar returns   
   ("cross section").  High returns come from flat solids, flat ocean,   
   flat sea ice.  Low returns come from rough solids, fluffy snow,   
   angular mountain peaks and -- probably -- the odd UFO cloaking field.   
      
   We can see in the 2nd image a map of regions where radar returns   
   correlate strongly with UFO sightings upto 100 days in the future.   
   We note the scale goes up to 1. And the yellowish regions in the image   
   represent areas where apparent low levels of seaice (lower radar   
   returns) predict future UFO sightings up to 98% of the time.  We can   
   also see blue regions on the image that correspond with regions that   
   only get UFO sightings right up to 1/2 the time.   
      
   But so far no hole.   
      
   But we can re-focus and look at regions that closely   
   predict UFO sightings upto 10 days in the future -- not 100.  Maybe   
   the presence of sea ice modulates UFO travel from or over the region   
   (my mental model is "coming in and out of the ocean around there") for   
   the next season, but the (permanent) presence of a feature like a hole   
   should affect travel in the short term, even if less strongly.   
   (You "can't" travel through sea ice; but you "may" travel in or out of a   
   hole where a lot of snow may be falling).   
      
   Cast your eyes down to image 3. There is no hole at the pole --   
   located in the middle of the density plot (i.e. X,Y=8.5,8.5).  But   
   there *is* a very circular region located nearby at ~4 o'clock   
   (X,Y=10,7). Somehow returns in a region about 4 deg in diam (~450 km)   
   affect almost 1/2 of UFO sightings upto 10 days in the future. The feature   
   has a black center indicating snow and ice there do not affect UFO activity.   
   Maybe the sat radar can't detect changes in snow and ice there.   
   It might be sloped ground or the ice and snow broken. On a standard map   
   of Antarctica (90W to the left and 90E to the right)   
   there is a big valley running across the continent from the "NW" to   
   "SE" and passing through the "hole". Or the black might be a blanking field. :)   
   And around hole is an obvious ring where the presence of   
   more ice and snow predict upto ~40% of UFO activity across the US over   
   the next 10 days.   
      
   Seemingly this would be consistent with a "hole with a lid" or maybe a   
   mountain (or some might say "dome") with exits in all directions.   
      
   The location of the "hole"'s center appears to be inside the sliver of   
   the French area inside the Australian region at around 75S.   
   The nearest research station is 1000s of km away.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)