History Main / MysteriousAntarctica

** ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDoomThatCameToGotham'', an {{Elseworld}} mixing the Dark Knight with Creator/HPLovecraft (mainly ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'') opens with Bruce Wayne and his wards arriving in Antarctica to find out what happened to "the Cobblepot Expedition". Almost all of them died in the Mountains of Madness, Cobblepot himself joined the albino penguins, and one member of the expedition became an undead being that needs the Antarctic cold to survive (a mashup between Mr Freeze and Dr Muñoz from ''Cool Air'').

** ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In the [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths post-Crisis]] comics, particularly during the Roger Stern era, the first version of the Fortress of Solitude was in the Antarctic. (It was generally referred to only as "the Antarctic Fortress.")
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2011'': The Comicbook/New52 Franchise/WonderWoman foe known as the First Born was [[SealedEvilInACan buried in Antarctica]].

* ''ComicBook/TheWarlordDC'': There is an entrance to Skartaris, the LostWorld of the series, in Antarctica near the South Pole.
* In ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'' Ozymandias' headquarters of Karnak is located here, complete with tropical vivarium. He takes advantage of the fact that Antarctica doesn't belong to any country to shelter three North Vietnamese men, who no longer have a country after [[AlternateHistory Dr. Manhattan helped America win the Vietnam War]].

People have always wondered about what mysteries might lurk in unexplored regions. At first, people explored the land mass they lived on, voyaging up rivers, forging through dense WildWilderness and up into mountains. As Europeans explored more, they sailed to the Americas, and the mysterious unknown regions were revealed and mapped as part of colonialism. Eventually explorers traveled to Africa, Asia and Oceania.

The last continent to be explored and mapped out was the desolate, icy expanses of UsefulNotes/{{Antarctica}}, which was long suspected to exist but ultimately dismissed as myth [[NewerThanTheyThink until 1820, when it was finally, officially, sighted by humans]]. Even now, most of its surface has only been mapped by satellite. Incredible cold and lethal winds conspired to keep humans away, which made it a fertile area for stories about mysterious buried alien technology, ancient aliens, and monsters frozen in the ice. This trend continues today -- after all, who knows what may be under the ice?

As time goes on, of course, ScienceMarchesOn, and the more fantastical versions of this trope are just as [[DiscreditedTrope Discredited]], just like the way depicting civilizations on the inhospitable planets of Mars and Venus in many a 1920s and 1930s.
PlanetaryRomance fell away once we knew that both were uninhabitable.

* Implied and invoked in ''Film/{{Creepshow}}'', with the segment "The Crate". A university janitor finds a forgotten, unopened crate brought back from a 19th century expedition to Antarctica, and [[SealedEvilInACan what's inside is somehow still alive]], and very hungry. The sequence is set entirely at the university campus and the surrounding town in what appears to be New England (knowing Creator/StephenKing, [[CreatorProvincialism probably Maine]]), so we never actually ''see'' Antarctica in the film, but the story nonetheless relies on that continent's eerie connotations to build up a sense of the supernatural around the monster.

* ''Film/She1935'', although on the opposite Pole, is worth mentioning; it changes Creator/HRiderHaggard's LostWorld tale from Africa to the Arctic, at the time still mostly unknown and thus viewed like DarkestAfrica.
* ''Film/TheThing1982'' is often considered '''the''' Antarctica horror movie, an adaptation of Creator/JohnWCampbell's short story ''Literature/WhoGoesThere'' (an [[Film/TheThingFromAnotherWorld earlier film adaptation]] was set in the North Pole). And it was embraced in [[TemptingFate a weird way]]: ''The Thing'' (and sometimes [[Film/TheThing2011 its prequel]]) is regularly viewed by members of the winter crew at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station after the last flight out, usually in a double-feature with ''Film/TheShining''.
* In ''Film/TheXFilesFightTheFuture'', Scully is abducted and taken to a giant UFO hidden under the ice of Antarctica.

** Many other esoteric theories (especially those related to theosophy) postulate that Antarctica was the home of a civilization which preceded Atlantis. Many prominent Nazis wanted to find evidences of this Hyperborean[[note]]Or perhaps Antiborean, since "Hyperborean" literally means "extremely northern[[/note]] civilization.

People have always wondered about what mysteries might lurk in unexplored regions. At first, people explored the land mass they lived on, voyaging up rivers, forging through dense WildWilderness and up into mountains. As Europeans explored more, they sailed to the Americas, and the mysterious unknown regions were revealed and mapped as part of colonialism. Eventually explorers traveled to Africa, Asia and Australia.

* {{Literature/Cityverse}}: Antarctica is home to a suspiciously friendly EldritchAbomination.[[note]]You should visit us. we're lonely :(((:(( [[AssimilationPlot join us?]] :):)):)):):))[[/note]]

In RealLife, rather than pyramids and [=UFOs=], what's under the ice seems to pretty much be... more ice. The main inhabitants of Antarctica are scientists and the main economic activity is scientific research. A number of countries have research stations.

As time goes on, of course, ScienceMarchesOn, and the more fantastical versions of this trope are just as [[DiscreditedTrope Discredited]], just like the way depicting civilizations on the inhospitable planets of Mars and Venus in many a 1920s and 1930s

A particularly common variant is the EerieArcticResearchStation, which despite the name applies to both the Arctic and Antarctic. Also see TheShangriLa for supernatural or mysterious depictions of another remote, icy region. See also MonsterInTheIce, GrimUpNorth (the [[IncrediblyLamePun polar]] opposite), PolarBearsAndPenguins.

People have always wondered about what mysteries might lurk in unexplored regions. At first, people explored the land mass they lived on, forging through dense WildWilderness and up into mountains. As Europeans explored more, they sailed to the Americas, and the mysterious unknown was revealed and mapped. Eventually explorers traveled to Africa, Asia and Australia,

The last continent to be explored and mapped out was the desolate, icy UsefulNotes/{{Antarctica}}, which was long suspected to exist but ultimately dismissed as myth [[NewerThanTheyThink until 1820, when it was finally, officially, sighted by humans]]. Even now, most of its surface has only been mapped by satellite. Incredible cold and lethal winds conspired to keep humans away, which made it a fertile area for stories about mysterious buried alien technology, ancient aliens, and monsters frozen in the ice. This trend continues today -- after all, who knows what may be under the ice? In RealLife, rather than pyramids and [=UFOs=], what's under the ice seems to pretty much be... more ice.

As time goes on, of course, ScienceMarchesOn, and the more fantastical versions of this trope are just as [[DiscreditedTrope Discredited]] as the presence of civilizations on the very definitely inhospitable Mars and Venus as portrayed in many an early PlanetaryRomance.

People have always wondered about what mysteries might lurk in unexplored regions. At first, it was just the place over the hill. As we explored more, the mysterious unknown was pushed further and further back, until eventually we had the whole of Earth's surface pretty much explored.

The last continent to be explored and mapped out was UsefulNotes/{{Antarctica}}, which was long suspected to exist but ultimately dismissed as myth [[NewerThanTheyThink until 1820, when it was finally, officially, sighted by humans]]. Even now, pretty much its entire surface has only been mapped by satellite. Incredible cold and lethal winds conspired to keep humans away, which made it a fertile area for stories about mysterious buried technology, aliens, and monsters. This trend continues today -- after all, who knows what may be under the ice? In reality, what's under the ice seems to pretty much be... more ice.

*** Russian conspiracy theorist Alexander Dugin believes that the Hyperborean civilization located in Antarctica were the mortal enemies of Atlantis.

* Taken to absolutely chilling extremes in found-footage horror podcast ''Podcast/TheWhiteVault.'' A documentarian— compiling recordings, journal entries, videos, and other transmissions— spends the first two seasons of the podcast tracking the demise of a repair team sent to an Antarctic mining outpost. The team, originally there to address an equipment malfunction, soon discovers tunnels and a cave system beneath the ice leading to something ancient and inexplicable and utterly horrifying. It isn’t long after that they realize they are not alone.