Sept. 20, 2026

Solar Superflares and Gondwana's Legacy: Unpacking Earth's Cosmic Changes

Solar Superflares and Gondwana's Legacy: Unpacking Earth's Cosmic Changes
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Season 29
SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 113 New evidence of superflares on the Sun A new study has found that a giant sunspot observed back in 1947 had the potential to trigger a massive solar super flare. How Gondwana changes life on Planet Earth A new study has rewritten the evolution of one of planet Earth’s greatest ancient land masses, the super continent of Gondwana. The incredibly shrinking planet Mercury A new study suggests that the planet Mercury may have shrunk by as much as 30 percent since its creation. The Science Report Studies warn that a third of the world’s population are exposed to second hand smoke. New figures show deradicalization programs have failed. A new study has found that 2025 was one of the driest years in the past three decades. It was in this month in 1936, that the world’s the last known Tasmanian Tiger died at the Hobart Zoo. Skeptics guide to the Nazi’s hollow Earth conspiracy. Our Guest This Week Professor Bill Collins from Curtin University Our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics 🌏 Get Our Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.bitesz.com/nordvpn . The discounts and bonuses are incredible! And it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌ If you’d like to support the podcast and gain access to bonus content by becoming a SpaceTime crew member, you can do just that through The Big Bang editions on Patreon, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Details on the Support page on our website https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/support/ For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen too. Thank you…

The Astronomy, Space, Technology & Science News Podcast.

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This is Space Time, Series 29, Episode 113, for broadcast

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on the 21st of September, 2026. Coming up on Space Time,

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new evidence of super flares on the Sun, how Gondwana

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changed life on planet Earth, and the incredibly shrinking planet Mercury.

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All that and more coming up on Space Time.

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Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Garry.

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A new study has found that a giant sunspot observed

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back in 1947 had the potential to trigger a massive

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solar superflare. Now, we all know the sun's capable of

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some massive eruptions. Solar flares and chronal mass ejections repeatedly

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hurl billions of tons of particles and radiation into space.

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This solar bombardment can be dangerous for life here on Earth.

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It can destroy technical infrastructure, damage satellites, disrupt navigation and

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communication systems, cause massive power blackouts over wide areas, and

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subject astronauts in space and even people in high-flying aircraft

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to high doses of radiation. The Sun offered its most

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impressive demonstration of its strength back in 1859. The solar

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storm which struck Earth during the Sircord Carrington event was

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so strong, the auroral lights, normally confined to higher latitudes,

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were clearly visible in the tropics. There wasn't much in

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the way of electrical circuits at the time, but there

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were telegraphs, many of which were short-circuited, and the operators

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working them electrocuted. Now, as we reported in last week's show,

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there have been hints of far bigger events through history,

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recorded through ancient tree rings. but as far as we know,

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nothing for hundreds of years. But now a new look

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at a massive sunspot recorded back in 1947 has raised

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some interesting questions. And the biggest is could this event

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have triggered a super flare, an event so violent it

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would have had more energy than trillions of hydrogen bombs?

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Now so far such powerful blasts have only ever been

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observed directly on distant stars, never on our own sun.

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But now astronomers from the Max Planck Institute and the

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University of Colorado have been exploring this observation in a

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detailed study reported in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the

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Royal Society A. The amount of energy the Sun releases

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during your average solar flare can be measured directly only

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outside the Earth's atmosphere, using high-flying balloons or spacecraft. But

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both have really only been possible from the beginning of

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the space age about 70 years ago. And in those

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3 score and 10 years there's been no super flare action.

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The study's lead author Natalie Krivova from the Planck Institute

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says there's some evidence to suggest that the Sun too

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can produce super flares. And these clues can be found

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by looking at other sun-like stars. In late 2024, Krivova

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and colleagues were able to show that super flares occur

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roughly once a century on stars that resemble our Sun

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in key characteristics, such as similar metallicity, luminosity and mass.

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So the authors analysed data collected by NASA's Solid Dynamics

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Observatory spacecraft between 2010 and 2016. They correlated the amount

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of energy released by the 300 strongest solar flares during

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this period and compared that with the size of the

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corresponding active region the flares came from on the Sun's

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visible surface. Active regions are areas on the Sun's surface

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where the magnetic field is especially strong and complex in structure.

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They're associated with sunspots, dark areas on the Sun's visible

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surface that are cooler than the rest of the surface

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and are considered the potential starting points for solar eruptions.

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Graverbus says while no superflares occur during the observation period,

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the statistical relationship found between the release of energy and

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the size of an active region should also hold true

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for more powerful events. And that's when they turn their

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attention to the largest sunspots ever seen on the Sun. Now,

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sunspots have been systematically and regularly recorded on the surface

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of the Sun over the past 400 years. And they

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offer astronomers a way to look back through the Sun's history.

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So using their new comparison chart, based on the size

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of the sunspot, the authors were able to infer the

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size of the associated active region, and thus the strength

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of a possible eruption. And that's where the massive sunspot

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of April 1947 comes in. It covered some 0.6% of

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the visible solar disk, or to put that another way,

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its diameter was about 40 times that of the Earth's. Now,

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there was no super flare at the time, but the

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study shows that a sunspot of this size could have

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triggered a super flare. Provova says it shows the Sun

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has super flare potential. She says it can produce massive

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sunspots that, in principle, can serve as the starting point

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for some of the most extreme bursts of radiation. Has

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such a super flare ever actually occurred on the Sun? Well,

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for now at least, that remains one of our local

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star's mysteries. This is Space Time. Still to come, how

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God wanted to change life on planet Earth, and the

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incredibly shrinking planet Mercury. All that and more still to

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come on Space Time. A new study has rewritten the

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evolution of one of planet Earth's greatest ancient landmasses, the

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supercontinent Gondwana. The new research, led by Bill Collins from

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Curtin University, shows Gondwana was far larger than previously recognized.

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Using geochemical isotope comparisons that allow scientists to identify the

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age and origins of rocks deep beneath the planet's surface,

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Collins and colleagues identified vast regions stretching through Asia that

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were once part of this larger, greater Gondwana. Collins says

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the new work's reshaping cites his understanding of one of

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Earth's most important ancient landmasses. He says the findings could

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also help explain the dramatic environmental changes which paved the

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way for complex life to develop on Earth. You see,

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Gondwana's formation triggered profound global changes, including shifts in climate,

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in atmospheric chemistry, and in geological processes that ultimately helped

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create the conditions for what we call the Cambrian Explosion

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of Life. And that changed everything.

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The Earth is divided up into these tectonic plates, sort

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of rigid blocks and crusts. And there's maybe just over

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half a dozen of those plates. And the reason why

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they move around the Earth, and because of them we

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have earthquakes and volcanoes, which everyone knows about. But the

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reason why they move around is because the mantle underneath

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and the plates are these They're about 30 to 100

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kilometres thick, depending on where you are. And they sit

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on a mantle which flows very, very slowly, but it

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flows nonetheless. So fake tectonics really is a response to

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convection of the mantle beneath. And so, as you would

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be aware, they float around on the surface, but the

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surface is a sphere. And so what happens through time

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is that all these continents come together at one particular time,

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but then they break apart again. and move around and

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tend to meet on the other side of the planet. So,

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plate tectonics is a response to the mantle convecting, and

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because the Earth is a sphere, the continents bang into

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each other to form a supercontinent every now and again,

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and that's probably every 500 or so million years.

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And Gondwanda was one of these supercontinents.

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Yeah, Tangier was the one that formed about 300 to

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200 million years ago. And the one that formed before

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that was Gondwana. And Gondwana formed as a supercontinent between

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about 550 and 500 million years ago.

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That's interesting because that's about the same time as the

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Cambrian explosion in life, isn't it?

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Oh, bang on. Exactly the time that the Cambrian explosion

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of life happened.

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And that saw life diversify to the multi-celled plethora of

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existence we have today.

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Yes, yes, definitely. At that time, the limited animal that

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did exist, they tended to be soft-bodied creatures, no backbone,

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and they had very limited ability to evolve because the

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conditions were very harsh leading up to the formation of Kronmata.

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But once Kronmata formed, at least in our mind, things

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became a lot easier. for life to explode, and it did.

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Now, you've been looking at just how extensive Gondwana was.

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What have you found?

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Gondwana's been known about for over 100 years. In fact,

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it goes back to about the 1880s. This guy, Edward Zeus,

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realised that fossils that could be found in India were

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found in Australia and Antarctica, South America, Africa, and it

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made him think that there was a supercontinent, and he

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called it the Great Southern Continent. So that was the

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beginning of understanding it. But over time, and maybe... towards

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the end of the last century, people started to add

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a bit to this core, this continental core. And so

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they were seeing bits of Eastern America and bits of

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Europe and bits of Southern Asia like Pakistan, Iran, and

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even Turkey as being part of it. So although there

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was the core, there were these little bits around what

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at the time was the edge that had been added.

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And when they calculated up the percentage, of landmass that

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Gondwanas seemed to be, they said it was around 64%.

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And some guy had arbitrarily said that it is 75%

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of landmass, total landmass, excluding oceans, to produce continents. And

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so people then started turning around and saying, well, maybe

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Gondwana isn't really a supercontinent. because it's not big enough.

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That was a state of play until quite recently.

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Yeah, there's one of those in every group, isn't there?

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Well, it did cause a lot of problems because the

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thing about Gondwana is there's all these isotope proxies. Now,

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isotopes of different elements are used as proxies for all

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sorts of things. And the reason why we know about

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past climate is because of carbon isotope changes and oxygen

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isotope changes. And there are other elements that have the

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same sort of capacity. Another one is strontium, which records

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seawater compositional changes. And there's even one in rock and granite.

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And all of those isotopes were showing us that Around

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550 million years ago, everything changed. And it's the biggest

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change that you're actually seeing in the isotopic record can

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be measured back to 4,000 million years. This is the

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biggest switch. So to me, there was always this paradox

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of why does Godwina have this really big switch? in

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all these proxy systems that record dynamic change in the Earth.

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Why do they all have this big switch around 550,

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500 million years ago if gone one and one for

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the supercontinent? And so that was always in the back

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of my mind as a paradox.

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There's always a problem when... You start putting arbitrary lines

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in things instead of seeing the grayness between one genre

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and another.

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I can't agree with you more. Until you hit the

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nail on the head, there's always gray areas between what

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people classify as an artificial thing and what is reality.

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There's always transition, gray areas.

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So you looked at different isotopes and ratios to work

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out exactly what was where. And from that, you were

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able to determine that Gondwanda was much bigger than some

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estimates had placed it at.

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This isotopic system that we use is called samarium neodymium.

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Samarium breaks down the form neodymium. It's a parent-daughter type

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isotope system. It's rare earth. is one that's very robust.

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It can survive temperatures of resetting that might tend to 1,000

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degrees centigrade. So it holds the information that's sending back

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to its origin.

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So it doesn't get destroyed by volcanic activity and things

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like that, which is, what, 800 degrees?

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Yeah, exactly. And so I was just going to say, like,

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underneath Every volcano is a magma, which is usually composed

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of granite, particularly on the continent. And if you looked

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at the Himalayas today, for example, there are granites in

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the Himalayas that are 20 million years old. There are

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others that are 50 million years old, others that are

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100 million years old, and so on. But they all

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extend back until 500, 550 million years ago. And that's

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what the barium, neodymium isotopic composition tells us, that they

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all come from this material, which is about the age

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of what we thought Gondwana was when it formed.

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The link between Greater Gondwana and ending Snowball Earth. Snowball

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Earth was 717 million years ago. I know that because

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I just did a story on it.

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It went for over 100 million years. It was a very,

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very long period of time that Snowball Earth existed. And

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the thing about Snowball Earth, it defines that all the

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continents were covered in ice, that it didn't matter whether

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or not they were at the poles or.

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At the equator.

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Snowball Earth actually continued for at least 100 million years,

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up to maybe 580. People argue about when it stopped,

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but certainly there was a time between 500 and... 600

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million years when we started coming out of Snowball Earth.

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And it does coincide with when Gondwana was forming. And

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most of it had formed between about 600 and 700,

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but we know that it kept forming until about 550.

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And when Gondwana was a supercontinent, as it finally came together,

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Snowball Earth did persist up to about that time when

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it changed, which was around the time that Gondwana.

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How did Gondwana change our climate?

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The critical thing was all these fragments that went to

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form Gondwana, all the big continental landmasses came together between

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600 and 500 million years ago, forming a huge mountain

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range that crisscrossed Gondwana land, a little bit like what

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the Himalayas are today. But like the Himalayas, they don't

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erupt volcanoes from them. Large mountain belts don't do that.

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So when Gondwana formed and all these big mountain belts existed,

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the mantle of the Earth had to convect. And so

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the way that it did it, it reconfigured itself to

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start producing volcanoes around the edge of Gondwana. And this

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was the first ring of fire. I'm sure you know

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about the Pacific ring of fire.

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Yeah, I've been watching Krakatoa very closely, or should I

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say Anak Krakatoa these days?

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That's right. Well, Krakatoa is just on the edge of this,

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because that's Indonesia, and it's really complicated up there geologically.

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But that's part of this ring. That ring started right

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after Gondwana formed, and it's continued today as the Ring

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of Fire. And the important point about that is, Unlike

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the mountain ranges that don't have volcanic activity, the volcanoes

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that went around the Pacific at the time released huge

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amounts of CO2 and water. The estimate today for the

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amount of water that comes out daily out of the

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Earth through volcanoes into the atmosphere is between 1 to

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4 million metric tonnes of water every day. And CO2

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is 300 to 400,000 metric tonnes every day. If that

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went on every day for 50 million years, you're going

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to change the climate from snowball earth ice house into

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a greenhouse. And that greenhouse condition that emerged in the

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Cambrian after Gondwana formed was the reason, I argue, that

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the climate changed into a habitable landmass that animals could

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evolve on. And that is what the Caribbean explosion was.

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What were the last bits to come off?

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Around Australia, it's an interesting story. The Latvia, which is

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basically an underwater continent, the eighth continent of the world,

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recognized only 20 years ago. A fragment of Australia that

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broke off around 90 million years ago and floated out

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into the Pacific Ocean to form, of course, the Tasman

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Sea in between. That split off from what was the

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edge of Gondwana. And so Zealandia, which is North and

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South Island, plus Campbell Plateau below that and a few

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other things to the north, like Lord Howe Island is another.

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New Caledonia, yeah.

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Yes, all that was actually off the edge of Gondwana.

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And so the southern part was connected to Antarctica at

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the time and the northern part to Australia. But Australia

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broke off around 43 million years ago, 45, 43 million

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years ago.

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That's Professor Bill Collins from Curtin University. And this is

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Space Time. Still to come, the incredibly shrinking planet Mercury

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and a new study has found that 2025 was one

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of the driest years in the past three decades. All

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that and more still to come on Space Time. A

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new study suggests that the planet Mercury may have shrunk

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by as much as 30% since its creation. The findings

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reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters shows how the

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nearest planet to the Sun may have lost up to

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23 kilometres of its total diameter since the planet first formed.

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Mercury's surface is riddled with craters, ridges and steep cliffs,

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evidence of a once larger planet that has shrunk over time.

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Like the other terrestrial or rocky planets in our solar system,

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Mercury was formed by a flurry of violent collisions between

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planetesimals and asteroids orbiting the Sun around 4.6 billion years ago.

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And the energy from these impacts generated huge amounts of heat,

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which the planets slowly lose over time. That includes Mercury.

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And like a balloon left out in the cold, Mercury's

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interior has shrank as it cooled. And the outermost rocky

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layers compensated for this planetary shrinkage by crumpling and cracking

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to form tectonic features like scarps and ridges. The degree

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of shrinking is important for helping scientists infer key features

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about Mercury's interior and evolution. The study's lead author, Gaku

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Nishiyama from the German Aerospace Center DLR, says more shrinking

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means Mercury could have a larger metallic core and less

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light elements like silicon mixed into the metal core or

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a higher starting temperature. Cooling should shrink a planet fairly evenly,

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making wrinkle features known as shortening structures similarly common everywhere.

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But the formation of new impact craters creates depressions and

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covers the landscape with debris, making the surface rougher and

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rendering signs of shrinkage harder to spot among the billions

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of years of geological development and evolution. So Nishiyama and

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colleagues combined previous maps of geologic evidence for contraction on

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Mercury with new maps of roughness for the entire planet's surface,

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a measure of how lumpy the landscape is. For the

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first time they were able to show that the roughest

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areas on Mercury had fewer visible wrinkles. Nishiyama says that

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suggests that impact debris on rougher areas could be covering

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up the shrinkage wrinkles, so like freshly added gravel hiding

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ruts in a road. So the authors used the contraction

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required to form shrinkage ridges and scarps in less disputed

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areas to estimate how much contraction likely occurred planet-wide, including

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that under the rough patches. They found that missing features

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in rough areas could amount to some 20-30% more shrinkage

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over Mercury's lifetime. That means a total shrinkage of up

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to 23 kilometers in the planet's diameter, rather than the

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previously estimated 4 to 16 kilometers. And Nishiyama says these

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updated figures could still be an underestimate. Existing Mercury data

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from NASA's MESSENGER mission, which ended in 2015, can only

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be reliably used to measure features larger than about 5 kilometers.

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Across.

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In November, the joint European-Japanese BepiColombo mission will arrive at Mercury,

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only the third spacecraft ever to visit the planet. And

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by April next year, it'll begin collecting much higher-resolution scans

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of the Mercuryan surface. And these should reveal scarps, ridges

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and impact craters in far more detail than ever before,

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thereby giving us an even better picture and a better

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idea of how much shrinkage Mercury's undertaken. This is Space Time.

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And time now to take a brief look at some

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of the other stories making news in science this week

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with the Science Report. Scientists have found that around a

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third of the ward's population are being exposed to second-hand smoke,

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potentially contributing to nearly 1.7 million deaths annually. The findings

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reported in The Lancet estimates that 2.71 billion people globally

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are exposed to second-hand smoke every year, including 767 million

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kids under the age of 14. The authors looked at

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the impacts of secondhand smoke across 204 countries between 1990

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and 2023, finding that women and children experienced the biggest impacts,

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with the Oceanic, Southeast Asia and Eastern Asian women being

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59% more likely to be exposed than men. Lung infections

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were the leading issue in exposed children, but heart disease

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was by far the greatest issue for people across all ages.

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New figures show that de-radicalization programs designed to counter violent extremism,

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such as far-right neo-Nazi ideology and radical Islam, have basically failed.

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The figures by the Australian Department of Home Affairs show

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that out of 292 extremists that completed the $ 75 million

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federal government program, 227 showed no change in their support

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for violent terrorist ideology. And 24 actually became more dangerous.

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In fact, only 23 out of the 292 have peed

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to have become some degree less extreme in their views.

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The findings are reflecting similar failures in similar de-radicalisation programs

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right across Europe. The news comes as Mike Burgess, the

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head of the Australian security and intelligence organisation ASIO, says

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the spy agencies fought 16 terrorist plots in Australia over

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the last nine months since the Bondi Beach massacre. Fifteen

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people were killed and 41 injured by Islamic State-inspired Muslim

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terrorists during celebrations at the iconic beach's Archer Park on

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December 14 last year. A new study has found that

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2025 was one of the driest years in the past

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three decades. The latest World Meteorological Organization report on the

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state of the world's water has revealed that rivers right

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across the globe have had one of their driest periods

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in more than 30 years, continuing a long-term drop in

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Earth's freshwater storage and an acceleration of glacial melting. However,

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parts of northeastern and eastern Australia barked the trend, with

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river flows above average. Globally, these trends have big implications

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for people and economies in the future. The report also

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found the water cycles becoming more erratic and unpredictable, swinging

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between too little or too much. And the past seven

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years has seen the fewest rivers with what's called normal

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flows since 1991. The study also highlighted groundwater shortages in

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parts of southern Australia, but found eastern Australia had above-average

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groundwater levels. The authors found that Asia and Africa are

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the regions most affected by water-related disasters. It was this

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month in 1937 that the world's last known Tasmanian tiger

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or thylacine died in the Hobart Zoo. The animal's passing

385
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marked the extinction of its species. The thylacine was Australia's

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largest marsupial predator. It basically looked like a dog, but

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with distinctive stripes and a jaw that could open up

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to 80 degrees, one of the largest gapes of any mammal.

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The thylacine fed primarily on small mammals and birds. It

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was nocturnal and shy, and was seldom seen by humans. However,

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beginning in the 19th century, farmers and politicians wrongly blamed

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the poor creatures for livestock deaths actually carried out by

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00:24:18.890 --> 00:24:21.910
wild dog packs, and spurred on by a bounty offered

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by government, hearted them relentlessly. Attempts at protecting the species

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in the wild came much too late. And despite numerous

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unconfirmed sightings in recent decades, no definitive sightings of the

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thylacine have occurred since the late 1930s. A sad chapter

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in Australia's already abysmal native wildlife record. One of humanity's

399
00:24:45.529 --> 00:24:49.349
most evil manifestations, the Nazis, are trying to make another comeback,

400
00:24:49.549 --> 00:24:53.309
this time through a viral AI-generated TikTok video depicting their

401
00:24:53.369 --> 00:24:57.029
deranged Fuhrer standing in Antarctica at the gateway of Agartha,

402
00:24:57.150 --> 00:25:00.849
the hollow earth of old pagan and ancient beliefs. Of course,

403
00:25:01.029 --> 00:25:04.269
Nazis aren't that bright, and the cold weather of Antarctica

404
00:25:04.410 --> 00:25:06.710
would not have been a good idea for the little corporal,

405
00:25:06.910 --> 00:25:10.710
whose DNA evidence shows Hitler already had an undescended testicle

406
00:25:10.869 --> 00:25:14.049
and a genetic condition linked to having an unusually small penis.

407
00:25:14.529 --> 00:25:16.549
The cold weather would have done none of that any good.

408
00:25:17.369 --> 00:25:20.650
But the absurd image does make sense to white supremacists.

409
00:25:21.410 --> 00:25:23.670
They're trying to push the myth of Agartha as being

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00:25:23.710 --> 00:25:26.880
the real home of the Third Reich's Aryan race, an

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00:25:26.920 --> 00:25:31.519
invention created by the occult mad SS. Skeptic's Tim Mendham

412
00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:35.160
says the video is full of coded, explicit far-right messages

413
00:25:35.299 --> 00:25:38.680
fused with pop-cultural references designed to suck in the gullible

414
00:25:38.920 --> 00:25:40.569
and impress the weak-minded.

415
00:25:40.740 --> 00:25:42.789
The hollow earth theory has been around a while. One

416
00:25:42.829 --> 00:25:44.690
of the more interesting ones was a fellow who first

417
00:25:44.809 --> 00:25:48.029
claimed to have flown over the North Pole, Richard Byrd

418
00:25:48.069 --> 00:25:50.690
and his pilot friend. He probably didn't. He probably lied

419
00:25:50.730 --> 00:25:52.819
about it. The story goes that he actually hadn't gone

420
00:25:52.910 --> 00:25:54.920
long enough to have actually flown over the North Pole.

421
00:25:54.940 --> 00:25:56.819
But he went. He later went and claimed he flew

422
00:25:56.880 --> 00:25:59.640
into the hole at the South Pole and saw lots

423
00:25:59.700 --> 00:26:01.779
of aircraft and things that was taken down to meet

424
00:26:01.799 --> 00:26:04.059
the creatures of the leaders down there. So I think

425
00:26:04.119 --> 00:26:06.380
Bird might have been up for the ferries. But anyway, therefore,

426
00:26:06.420 --> 00:26:08.380
Hollow Earth has been around a while. There's another guy

427
00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:10.910
who had an expedition to go and find a hole

428
00:26:10.950 --> 00:26:12.769
in the top of the Earth. And he was walking along,

429
00:26:12.809 --> 00:26:15.309
hiking along, and came to a fence and said, no trespass.

430
00:26:15.349 --> 00:26:19.650
And so he went back. He's not a very dedicated explorer. Anyway, recently,

431
00:26:19.769 --> 00:26:22.710
and thanks to sort of social media and AI generation

432
00:26:22.750 --> 00:26:24.930
of videos and that sort of stuff, there's a revised

433
00:26:25.069 --> 00:26:29.670
or revivified belief in something called Agatha, A-G-A-R-T-H-A, which is

434
00:26:29.759 --> 00:26:31.839
the country, if you like, within the earth. And that

435
00:26:32.119 --> 00:26:34.779
one of the set of people who live there are Aryans,

436
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:38.099
Nazis in particular, and that they moved down there when

437
00:26:38.119 --> 00:26:40.400
they were losing the war, Second World War, and they've

438
00:26:40.420 --> 00:26:43.329
been living there ever since. So it's become a bit

439
00:26:43.369 --> 00:26:45.539
of a cult it's a agartha thing there's a lot

440
00:26:45.559 --> 00:26:47.640
of videos out there apparently some of them use the

441
00:26:47.680 --> 00:26:49.980
song down under by men at work which is a

442
00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:51.660
bit rude i feel that people at men at work

443
00:26:51.720 --> 00:26:54.839
love the idea of that it's obviously created as ai

444
00:26:54.859 --> 00:26:57.759
videos from totally phony backgrounds they drink a thing called

445
00:26:57.799 --> 00:27:01.299
white monster energy drink which is popular with the species

446
00:27:01.359 --> 00:27:04.900
living in agartha it's A strange situation that has been

447
00:27:05.079 --> 00:27:07.630
going around. It was going around from Bird, who was

448
00:27:07.710 --> 00:27:09.829
in the 20s or something like that, who was making

449
00:27:09.849 --> 00:27:12.549
this claim. Edgar Rice Burroughs had stories set inside the

450
00:27:12.569 --> 00:27:15.869
hollow earth, and various other people have been making the idea,

451
00:27:15.930 --> 00:27:18.539
making a claim. There was old satellite photographs which showed

452
00:27:18.579 --> 00:27:20.519
a big hole where the North Pole was, which was

453
00:27:20.579 --> 00:27:23.200
actually an artifact of the series of photos put together.

454
00:27:23.400 --> 00:27:25.460
The satellite wasn't able to take a photo of the

455
00:27:25.619 --> 00:27:27.200
top of the pole, probably at the wrong angle, but

456
00:27:27.220 --> 00:27:28.609
it looked like a hole at the top. a bit

457
00:27:28.630 --> 00:27:30.230
like a death star with a hole at the top

458
00:27:30.250 --> 00:27:32.009
of it or something. And so it's been going around

459
00:27:32.029 --> 00:27:33.329
for a while, but it's had a bit of a

460
00:27:33.369 --> 00:27:36.230
revival lately. It's been hard to say whether they're actually

461
00:27:36.410 --> 00:27:38.769
neo-Nazis themselves who are making the claim, but I'm never

462
00:27:38.849 --> 00:27:41.390
quite sure exactly why you would want to claim about

463
00:27:41.410 --> 00:27:43.519
a civilization in the middle of the Earth, or at

464
00:27:43.559 --> 00:27:45.900
least under the Earth, under the ground. The hollow Earth

465
00:27:45.940 --> 00:27:47.440
never seems to be all the way down to the bottom.

466
00:27:47.500 --> 00:27:48.759
It would be a bit hot. It seems to be

467
00:27:48.779 --> 00:27:50.900
like a big cave. underneath the surface of the Earth.

468
00:27:51.019 --> 00:27:53.900
So most of it's sort of rubbish, but people hijack

469
00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:56.200
sort of silly ideas and they then start using them

470
00:27:56.259 --> 00:27:59.190
as if they're real. And they're starting to drag people in.

471
00:27:59.349 --> 00:28:01.829
They're using Roblox and that sort of stuff. Roblox used

472
00:28:01.930 --> 00:28:03.990
to be a game, but getting sort of people signed

473
00:28:04.049 --> 00:28:06.410
up to such things and they can become a funnel

474
00:28:06.450 --> 00:28:08.670
to get people to believe in sort of radical ideas

475
00:28:08.710 --> 00:28:10.819
and that sort of stuff and also get names and

476
00:28:11.119 --> 00:28:13.799
Figures and copies that are financial scams and all that

477
00:28:13.819 --> 00:28:14.299
sort of stuff.

478
00:28:14.400 --> 00:28:17.500
Yeah, that's your build-up contact lists for scamming people and

479
00:28:17.539 --> 00:28:19.819
pushing off an Aryan viewpoint.

480
00:28:19.839 --> 00:28:21.859
That's right, yeah. There's a synthesis side to it where

481
00:28:21.920 --> 00:28:23.559
a lot of people are actually using it to get

482
00:28:23.599 --> 00:28:27.519
people involved. And that's why in the skeptical world, some

483
00:28:27.559 --> 00:28:29.960
of these things just seem silly. But then actually there's

484
00:28:29.980 --> 00:28:33.160
an element of not-so-sillyness beneath them. And even the silliest things.

485
00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:36.160
People can twist that to their advantage, whether that's financial,

486
00:28:36.519 --> 00:28:39.220
power trip, whatever, to use some of the silly ideas

487
00:28:39.279 --> 00:28:41.109
and suddenly try and add some weight to them and

488
00:28:41.119 --> 00:28:43.769
drag people in. So almost in a skeptical world, there

489
00:28:43.809 --> 00:28:46.230
is no such thing as a silly idea that should

490
00:28:46.289 --> 00:28:48.170
not be sort of looked at closely to see if

491
00:28:48.190 --> 00:28:50.569
there's an element of nastiness about it. I was told

492
00:28:50.589 --> 00:28:52.630
people who follow Loch Ness are pretty harmless. I haven't

493
00:28:52.650 --> 00:28:55.589
seen any great conspiracies there. Bigfoot is starting to have

494
00:28:55.609 --> 00:28:59.920
some conspiracies associated with it of extraterrestrial parallel universes and

495
00:29:00.160 --> 00:29:02.700
time warps and things, and therefore they start to verge

496
00:29:02.759 --> 00:29:05.839
out away from their original intention. For this Legata thing,

497
00:29:06.119 --> 00:29:08.930
Hollow Earth has definitely had some pretty evil intents by

498
00:29:08.970 --> 00:29:10.079
some people involved in it.

499
00:29:10.170 --> 00:29:13.670
That's the Skeptic's Tim Mendham, and this is Space Time.

500
00:29:29.309 --> 00:29:32.559
And that's the show for now. Space Time is available

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