History Main / MysteriousAntarctica

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* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Antarctica was the resting place of the [[OurAngelsAreDifferent angel Adam]]; disturbing him is what starts the entire series.

* In ''Manga/ACentaursLife'', Antarctica is inhabited by a species of snake people. The cold-blooded "serpentines" survive because of their advanced technological level and frequent use of geothermal power.

* ''Anime/APlaceFurtherThanTheUniverse'' involves the protagonists going on a civilian expedition to Antarctica, the "place" described in the title, which is also the title of Shirase's mother's book with the same name. Hinata even once describes it as a great place to get away from everyone.

* ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'':
** ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'': In one story, Thor finds the last survivor of a colony of Vikings who'd made it all the way to Antarctica in the eleventh century. The old man earns a VikingFuneral by helping defeat a monster that shrugged off Thor's strongest attacks.
** Antarctica holds the Savage Land, a [[LostWorld tropical jungle]] complete with [[EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs dinosaurs]], created (and sustained) by alien technology.
* ''ComicBook/TheWarlord'': There is an entrance to Skartaris, the LostWorld of the series, in Antarctica near the South Pole.

* ''ComicBook/{{Whiteout}}'': Averted, as a murder mystery outside one of the research bases proves to be plenty to keep a U.S. Marshal occupied, no fantastical weirdness necessary. It's particularly noteworthy for [[ShownTheirWork how desolate and potentially lethal]] the setting is.
* 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]].

* ''Film/TheThing1982'' is often considered '''the''' Antarctica horror movie.

%%* ''Film/TheThingFromAnotherWorld'' (1951) and ''Film/TheThing1982'' (which later received [[Film/TheThing2011 a prequel]]) are both adaptations of Creator/JohnWCampbell's short story "''Literature/WhoGoesThere''", though the first film is set at the North Pole. And it was embraced in [[TemptingFate a weird way]]: ''The Thing'' (and [[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''.%%Missing relevant context -- why is this an example?

* ''Film/{{Retrograde}}'' (2004): The action is based on a ship trapped in Antarctic sea ice. A team of genetically-altered time travellers come back to the present to try to prevent a future biological disaster. Two opposing time travellers fight it out amongst the ships' crew of polar scientists and researchers.
* ''Film/AlienHunter'' (2003): This is about Antarctic researchers, signals from outer space and a mysterious object that is found buried in the ice at a research base. If the object is opened and the creature inside awakes, it may lead to the annihilation of earth.
* ''Film/DeepFreeze'' (AKA ''Ice Crawlers'') (2003): Scientists on an Antarctic ice shelf base with questionable activities are killed off one by one by a tentacled monster.
* ''Film/{{Boa}}'' (AKA ''New Alcatraz'') (2000): Construction workers digging an inescapable prison at the South Pole come across a giant prehistoric snake [[ArtisticLicenseBiology preserved in nitrogen]].
* ''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/EncountersAtTheEndOfTheWorld'': This documentary feature talks about the history of exploration of Antarctica and how Antarctica was the last blank space on the map. Director/narrator Creator/WernerHerzog talks about how it's sad that after man made it to the South Pole, there were no more unknown spaces to explore.
* ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'': The ''Monsterverse'' version of [[ArchEnemy King Ghidorah]] was [[SealedEvilInACan found frozen solid in a state of hibernation beneath the Antarctic ice]] by Monarch. The EvilPlan of Alan Jonah and his eco-terrorists is to release him from his icy tomb, [[spoiler: which they succesfully do]].

* ''Literature/TheRimeOfTheAncientMariner'' takes place largely in Antarctic seas shrouded in fog and haunted by spirits. Worth noting that Antarctica wouldn't even be confirmed to exist until some 22 years after the story was first published, and the predominant opinion at the time was that it did not, the two James Cook expeditions of the 1770s having gone as far south as to come within 75 miles of the continent before turning back from the relentless ice.
* ''Literature/TheTakers'', a TwoFistedTales novel by Jerry Ahern, has an abandoned alien base [[RagnarokProofing with working UFO's]] under the Antarctic ice. It also contains the dead bodies of an earlier [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi expedition]] seeking {{Atlantis}} -- as it turns out, the base's defense system is also in full working order...

* ''Literature/TheLandThatTimeForgot'': The tropical LostWorld Caspak is located on a large island in the vicinity of Antartica.
* ''Literature/WhoGoesThere'': An Antarctic expedition finds a crashed alien spacecraft with the cryogenically-preserved pilot, which turns out to be malign (and a VoluntaryShapeshifting variation on TheVirus that, if it reaches civilization, could bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt).
* ''Literature/FingerprintsOfTheGods'' theorizes that Antarctica was home to a super-advanced civilization, until the poles shifted and buried them in ice. (Your library might sort this book under non-fiction, but it definitely belongs here.) In Graham Hancock's defence, it's ''only'' really in the section about Antarctica where he goofed.

* In Creator/AndreNorton's novella "People of the Crater" and its sequel "Garan of Yu-Lac", Earth was colonized by a super-advanced civilization, the remnants of which still exist in Antarctica.
* Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's ''Literature/TheNarrativeOfArthurGordonPymOfNantucket'' and, as a fan-made sequel of sorts to Poe, Creator/JulesVerne's ''An Antarctic Mystery''/''The Sphinx of the Ice Fields''
** Poe's poem "Ulalume" mentions a volcano similar to Mount Erebus in Antarctica, except that it's on more or less the opposite end of the Earth: to fit the meter, Poe had use the adjective ''boreal'' (northern), not ''austral'' (southern), when referring to the pole the volcano could be found near.
** Poe's work also inspired James [=DeMille=]'s ''A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder''.
* The report of an alien spacecraft discovered beneath Wilkes research station serves as the {{Macguffin}} for the various faction in the Creator/MatthewReilly novel ''Literature/IceStation'' to fight over.

* ''Simon Black in the Antarctic'' (1956) by Ivan Southall. The Australian AcePilot battles a lost tribe of cannibalistic Neanderthals.
* James Rollins stuck a LostWorld under volcanic Mount Erebus in ''Subterranean''. Another one at a location called [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Hell's Cape]] appears in ''The Sixth Extinction.''
* In Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/TheApocalypseTroll'', the titular Troll (an alien-created, human-derived time-traveling cyborg killing machine) first lands in Antarctica. It starts a second Falklands War en route to its more permanent hiding place in the Southern USA.
* ''Antarctica'' by sci-fi author Creator/KimStanleyRobinson. In this TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture world, secret communities in Antarctica are carrying out piracy and environmental terrorism in order to discourage mining and oil exploitation.

* "Apartness" (1964), by Creator/VernorVinge. (His first sale!) [[AfterTheEnd Centuries after a nuclear war]], an exploratory mission from the [[SpaceFillingEmpire Sudamérican Empire]] discover a mysterious tribe living in squalor on the Antarctic coast. It turns out [[spoiler:they are all that remained of two boatloads of white South Africans that fled their country when [[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra the war killed off their patrons in the northern hemisphere]] and the rebelling black majority [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge literally drove them into the sea]]]].
* Greig Beck's ''Beneath The Dark Ice'' makes Antarctica the lost homeland of the cultures of the Americas, and goes one further by sticking a LostWorld underneath that.
* In Creator/JulesVerne's ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'', the ''Nautilus'' travels under the Antarctic ice to find that it surrounds an ice free, southern ocean.
* In ''Literature/TheMagicians'', part of the students' education takes place at Brakebills South, in Antarctica, treated as a decidedly unearthly place where the bleakness of the landscape may induce SanitySlippage. It's also a handy place to stash misbehaving professors.

* ''Antarctica Online'' by Creator/VladimirVasilyev and Aleksandr Gromov kicks off with the continent mysteriously swapping places with a number of islands in the Central Pacific. Interestingly, the authors are less concerned with the cause of the "jump" than the consequences, both ecological and political (mostly, the latter).
* The ''Series/BabylonFive'' ExpandedUniverse ''Psi Corps Trilogy'' of novels: Antarctica is where [[spoiler: the Vorlons began their gene tampering on humans to produce telepaths]], the targets being adventure tourists visiting an isolated part of the continent.
* In Creator/KeithLaumer's novel ''The breaking earth'' an ancient pre-ice-age civilization is discovered to have left its city and advanced technology behind in Antarctica.
* ''Literature/HaloGhostsOfOnyx'' briefly mentions [[ScaryDogmaticAliens the Covenant]] digging in Antarctica, and there's [[{{Precursors}} only one reason]] the Covenant dig.
* In Creator/ReneBarjavel's ''Literature/TheIcePeople'' a scientific expedition in Antarctica finds the ruins of an incredibly old unknow civilisation and a vault with two {{Human Popsicle}}s (a man and a woman). After reanimating the woman and managing to find a way to communicate with her, it turns that [[spoiler: their incredibly advanced civilisation collapsed after using a too efficient weapon of mass destruction against their enemies (who disappeared, too). The weapon was so powerful that it altered the Earth inclination, explaining why a whole civilization lived in an area which is now a frozen desert.]]
* In the early science-fiction novel ''Auf zwei Planeten'' by [[Creator/KurdLasswitz Kurd Laßwitz]], it emerges that the Martians conducted several expeditions there during the 19th century. One of their spaceships crash-landed there, its sole survivor All made his way to Australia where he fathered Friedrich Ell, one of the protagonists of the novel. Somewhat embarrassingly for the author (who among other things taught geography at school), the novel also mentions an encounter [[PolarBearsAndPenguins with polar bears]] during an earlier Antarctic expedition.
* ''Literature/LookIntoMonstersEyes'', being a ConspiracyKitchenSink, includes a flashback from Antarctica. Here, remnants of [[{{Ghostapo}} the Gestapo]] led by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_von_Sebottendorf Baron von Sebottendorf]] established a facility called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Swabia New Swabia]] near the end of WWII, and were later cut from communications, missing the news about Germany's surrender. This is discovered by the Allies' intelligence services, and they declare Operation Highjump (see below in 'Real Life' section), sending some American troops and ''Creator/IanFleming'' along them (he worked as an intelligence officer at the time). They're also joined by a disguised Nikolay Gumilev, under pseudonym James Bond (yeah), working for a BenevolentConspiracy and chasing Sebottendorf. Turns out the location of the base was not random - it's one of the key nodes of portal/tunnel network that gave birth to HollowEarth theories, and has access to the postwar bunker of one of the two reptilian Precursors (the other one is in the Arctic). Sebottendorf, being the only survivor of the race, made it as a second attempt on humanity, and was trying to open it with a Tetragrammaton (it works like a password). Also they had a thermic superweapon that made a new gulf in Ross Sea after being fired accidentally, and about half a dozen backup Hitlers.

* The Creator/MichaelPalin travelogue ''Pole to Pole'' ends here, of course.

* In the ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'', there were several hints about a [[TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade Vampire]] [[EldritchAbomination Antediluvian]] sleeping under Antarctica, with best bets being Malkav on his identity. Also (possibly connected, probably not), there are a number of strange, ancient and [[ForebodingArchitecture rather disturbing]] cities that only the Black Spiral Dancers ([[EldritchAbomination Wyrm]] worshiping werewolves) know about.
* The ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'' has a [[PrestigeClass lodge]] of [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheForsaken werewolves]] dedicated to making sure that some''thing'' stays buried underneath Antarctica. At least... they ''were'' dedicated to that purpose. Then someone found [[EldritchAbomination a woman's face carved into the ice]] that started telling them how ''great'' they are for rescuing her and... well, they all went batshit and started worshiping it.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Scion}}'', Antarctica is actually Atlantis. [[spoiler: The Gods did not approve of the Atlanteans' wholesale Titan-worship and collectively destroyed it.]]
* Not much is known about the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' [[FantasyCounterpartCulture equivalent of Antarctica]], only that the map says '[[HereThereBeDragons Here There Be Daemons]]'. According the fluff there's basically a ''portal to Hell'' there, spilling out TheLegionsOfHell... ''and there's nobody doing anything about it''. Fortunately, they don't ''need'' to, as beastmen and daemons are good at slaughtering and killing but not very good at, say, building boats.

* In the ''Videogame/EverQuest'' tabletop game, the Poles (both north and south) of the moon of Luclin are given the Antarctica treatment.
* Being based heavily on 20s pulp fiction, ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' has the Frostfell, a polar continent of ice that serves the exact same purpose.

* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'', is set in the Schwarzwelt, another dimension filled with demons, accessed from Antarctica. The Schwarzwelt was originally one meter in diameter, but is slowly growing and will eventually engulf the Earth.
* ''VideoGame/TombRaiderIII''[='s=] ExcusePlot revolves around four mysterious artifacts made out of a meteor that crashed into Antarctica, the work of an ancient civilization. The game begins with Dr. Willard's research team discovering maori statues in Antarctica. Eventually we learn that Charles Darwin's voyage uncovered a cave where the meteor itself was held, and that an ancient civilization used the meteor's mysterious power to craft artifacts that caused dramatic mutations. The recovered artifacts were lost by Darwin's associates; one remained in a temple on a South Pacific island where the descendants of the Antarctic civilization ended up. During the game's final levels, after Lara has collected all of the artifacts, she heads to Antarctica. She fights her way through [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate Dr. Willard's]] camp and into a research station, following it into a mining operation overrun by [[BodyHorror mutants]] created out of Willard's employees by the meteor. Eventually, she discovers the lost city of Tinnos, a massive underground archaeological site populated by Willard's mutants and giant insects.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Penumbra}}'' series is a well done pastiche of various Mysterious Antarctica sci-fi horror stories, set in the modern day. It takes place in northern Greenland though.

* In ''VideoGame/StarControl 2'', it is mentioned that when the Ur-Quan blasted all ancient human historical sites from space, Antarctica was one location they targeted. No one knows why.
* Similar to the Operation Highjump conspiracy theory (see below), in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' a Russian special task force is assembled to take out the last vestiges of the Nazi regime in a secret polar base developing [[DeadlyGas Nova 6]] about a month after [=WW2=] officially ended. It takes place in the Arctic Circle, but its similarity to the conspiracy theory is probably not a coincidence.
* The world of ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' features the continent of Tundaria as its analogue for Antarctica. The continent is entirely featureless except for a single tower containing a fragment of an ancient, demigod-killing weapon.

* The affront to conventional morality that is the Tsalal of ''Literature/GreenAntarctica'', where due to tiny population numbers and incredibly low survivability, incest and cannibalism are commonly practiced.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' never featured Antarctica, but Creator/GregWeisman's [[WhatCouldHaveBeen long-term plans]] would have had King Arthur found New Camelot there, with its own gargoyle clan, and the "Master Matrix" (presumably somehow related to the GreyGoo entity seen in "Walkabout") making it livable.

* In medieval and early modern times, it was assumed there must be a vast mysterious southern continent--"Terra Australis Incognita", the Unknown Southern Land--in the southern hemisphere to [[RightForTheWrongReasons 'balance' the land masses of the northern hemisphere]]. The 'Counterweight Continent' idea in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' is a reference to this. Various voyages of exploration in the [[RomanticismVersusEnlightenment enlightened]] eighteenth century proved that there was no such huge continent, and thus maps took it off and left a blank space at the South Pole. ''And then'' in the [[RomanticismVersusEnlightenment romantic]] nineteenth century Antarctica was discovered, and all the old ideas of a mysterious land were revived. Though, it was "Terra Australis" which gave UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} its name, as in the very early 19th century, it was considered to be the closest continent to the concept.

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.

* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'', Heero goes on a mission here… wearing his usual tank top and bike shorts!
* In the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'', negotiations between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon took place in Antarctica, since it was the closest thing to neutral territory in the Earth Sphere. These negotiations eventually lead to the signing of the Antarctic Treaty (sort of a futuristic Geneva Convention that, among other things, outlawed the use of nuclear and biological weapons, as well as {{Colony Drop}}s).

* In ''Literature/SentouYouseiYukikaze'', the [[InscrutableAliens JAM]] invasion of Earth started on the Ross Ice Shelf when a hyperspace portal appeared and [[AlienInvasion they came out shooting.]] The world got a rude wake-up call that day when panicked scientists at the [=McMurdo=] Research Station broadcast shots of 3 JAM aircraft shooting down a cargo plane that had just taken off. For extra points, if Lynn Jackson's flashback in the anime adaptation's first episode is accurate, this happened on [[TwistedChristmas Christmas Day.]]

* Creator/MarvelComics has the Savage Land, a [[LostWorld tropical jungle]] complete with [[EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs dinosaurs]], created (and sustained) by alien technology.
* There is an entrance to Skartaris, the LostWorld of ''ComicBook/TheWarlord'' comics, in Antarctica near the South Pole.
* In the [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths post-Crisis]] ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'', 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.")
* The ComicBook/MartianManhunter also had a base there, but his was an entire buried ''Martian City''.
* Averted by ''ComicBook/{{Whiteout}}'', as a murder mystery outside one of the research bases proves to be plenty to keep a U.S. Marshal occupied, no fantastical weirdness necessary. It's particularly noteworthy for [[ShownTheirWork how desolate and potentially lethal]] the setting is.

* ComicBook/TheMightyThor found the last survivor of a colony of Vikings who'd made it all the way to Antarctica in the eleventh century. The old man earned a VikingFuneral by helping defeat a monster that shrugged off Thor's strongest attacks.
* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}: The Doom That Came To Gotham'', 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/WonderWoman2011'': The Comicbook/New52 Franchise/WonderWoman foe known as the First Born was [[SealedEvilInACan buried in Antarctica]].

* In the ''FanFic/ParisBurning'' 'verse, Antarctica is home to a suspiciously friendly EldritchAbomination.[[note]]You should visit us. we're lonely :(((:(( [[AssimilationPlot join us?]] :):)):)):):))[[/note]]
* In ''Roleplay/HatchlingQuest'', Antarctica became this after The Simurgh [[spoiler: made her second appearance there and just vanished]]. Since then, any attempt to gather information about the continent has failed. Satellites show nothing, anyone sent there are never seen again, even capes with flight and teleportation powers vanish without a trace.
** We find out why this is in [[https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/hatchling-quest-worm-metroid.22540/page-471#post-7854636 15.16]] [[spoiler: the Space Pirates had a base there where they were studying '''Metroids!!!''' They somehow escaped, the base was abandoned, and the continent was quarantined]].
* In ''FanFic/{{Vainglorious}}'' Antarctica is, unknown to modern humans, the site of several jotun colonies. This becomes relevant later in the story when the colonies sail up on glaciers to join forces with the invading jotun army.

* The alien site in ''Film/AVPAlienVsPredator'' is buried under the ice of Bouvet[[strike:øya]] Island.
* ''Film/TheThingFromAnotherWorld'' (1951) and ''Film/TheThing1982'' (which later received [[Film/TheThing2011 a prequel]]) are both adaptations of Creator/JohnWCampbell's short story "''Literature/WhoGoesThere''", though the first film is set at the North Pole.
** And it was embraced in [[TemptingFate a weird way]]: ''The Thing'' (and [[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''.

* ''Film/{{Retrograde}}'' (2004) (South Korea). The action is based on a ship trapped in Antarctic sea ice. A team of genetically-altered time travellers come back to the present to try to prevent a future biological disaster. Two opposing time travellers fight it out amongst the ships' crew of polar scientists and researchers.
* ''Film/AlienHunter'' (2003) (U.S.A./Bulgaria). This is about Antarctic researchers, signals from outer space and a mysterious object that is found buried in the ice at a research base. If the object is opened and the creature inside awakes, it may lead to the annihilation of earth.
* ''Film/DeepFreeze'' (AKA ''Ice Crawlers'') (2003). Scientists on an Antarctic ice shelf base with questionable activities are killed off one by one by a tentacled monster.
* ''Film/{{Boa}}'' (AKA ''New Alcatraz'') (2000). Construction workers digging an inescapable prison at the South Pole come across a giant prehistoric snake [[ArtisticLicenseBiology preserved in nitrogen]].
* Although on the opposite Pole, the 1935 film adaptation of ''Film/{{She|1935}}'' 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.

* In ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'', the ''Monsterverse'' version of [[ArchEnemy King Ghidorah]] was [[SealedEvilInACan found frozen solid in a state of hibernation beneath the Antarctican ice]] by Monarch. The EvilPlan of Alan Jonah and his eco-terrorists is to release him from his icy tomb, [[spoiler: which they succesfully do]].

* ''Literature/TheRimeOfTheAncientMariner'' takes place largely in Antarctica.
** Worth noting that Antarctica wouldn't even be confirmed to exist until some 22 years after the story was first published, and the predominant opinion at the time was that it did not, the two James Cook expeditions of the 1770s having gone as far south as to come within 75 miles of the continent before turning back from the relentless ice.
* ''The Takers'', a TwoFistedTales novel by Jerry Ahern, has an abandoned alien base [[RagnarokProofing with working UFO's]] under the Antarctic ice. It also contains the dead bodies of an earlier [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi expedition]] seeking {{Atlantis}} -- as it turns out, the base's defense system is also in full working order...
* In ''Anti-ice'', a SteamPunk novel by Stephen Baxter, British Antarctic explorers discover a crashed meteorite full of a [[AppliedPhlebotinum substance with properties similar to anti-matter]].
** In another book, ''Literature/{{Evolution}}'', Baxter puts forth the theory that the dinosaurs on the continent (being already adapted for long periods of darkness without much food) surivived the K-T extinction event and continued to evolve into cold-weather forms (Sabre-toothed Allosaurus? [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Awesome.]]) until the glaciers formed.
* In Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs' ''Literature/TheLandThatTimeForgot'' trilogy, the tropical LostWorld Caspak is located on a large island in the vicinity of Antartica.
* In Creator/JohnWCampbell's ''Literature/WhoGoesThere'', an Antarctic expedition finds a crashed alien spacecraft with the cryogenically-preserved pilot, which turns out to be malign (and a VoluntaryShapeshifting variation on TheVirus that, if it reaches civilization, could bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt).
* Graham Hancock's ''Fingerprints of the Gods'' theorizes that Antarctica was home to a super-advanced civilization, until the poles shifted and buried them in ice. (Your library might sort this book under non-fiction, but it definitely belongs here.)
** In his defence, it's ''only'' really in the section about Antarctica where he goofed.
* In Creator/HPLovecraft's ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'', the titular undiscovered Antarctic mountain range (which dwarfs the Himalayas) [[spoiler:is the location of the last city of the Elder Things (referred to in the novella as Old Ones, but generally known in Lovecraftian scholarship and fandom as Elder Things to prevent confusion with the [[EldritchAbomination Great Old Ones]]), a race of StarfishAliens who fought against [[EldritchAbomination Cthulhu and His spawn]], now abandoned and inhabited only by Shoggoths, the semi-sentient amorphous former servitors of the Elder Things who now mimic their former master's culture, even carving crude inscriptions after their style into the walls, and imitating the voices of the Elder Things (although only one phrase 'Tekeli-li' so we presume it is just parroting with no understanding)]].
** And features [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins giant albino penguins.]]
** And some other thing that is even worse (TakeOurWordForIt). We never really find out what it is, but simply a brief glimpse at it [[BrownNote severely shakes up the sanity]] of one of the explorers.

* John Taine (Eric Temple Bell)'s ''The Greatest Adventure'' has the ruins of a lost supercivilization that created life ... which [[GoneHorriblyWrong backfired with a vengeance]].

* ''A Colder War'', an AlternateHistory UsefulNotes/ColdWar Franchise/CthulhuMythos short story by Creator/CharlesStross, it's mentioned that the United States lost the entire 501st Airborne Division on the plateau beyond Mt Erebus ''(The plateau that had swallowed more U-2 spy planes than the Soviet Union, more surface expeditions than darkest Africa)''. There's also a gateway to another planet beneath the ice of Lake Vostok. The plot centres around [[spoiler:the Soviet Union finding ''something'' there (hinted to be a Shoggoth), and apparently gaining sufficient control over it to feel comfortable turning it loose against the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, in violation of an international treaty that even ThoseWackyNazis abided by.]] This ends [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt about as well as you'd expect.]]
* Other Franchise/CthulhuMythos short stories have also carried on the tradition of "Mountains of Madness" -- "Cold Water Survival" by Holly Phillips has a group of adventurers setting up a base on an iceberg that's split off from Antarctica; they realise that various {{Eldritch Abomination}}s frozen in the ice are slowly thawing out as the berg travels into warmer regions. "The Crevasse" by Dale Bailey & Nathan Ballingrud has a 1920's expedition realise ''[[NothingIsScarier something]]'' is hiding in a nearby crevasse, but they aren't silly enough to hang around and find out, and afterwards refuse to acknowledge that what they saw was real.
* She hears him before she gets there, but Sym in the novel ''Literature/TheWhiteDarkness'' survives in Antarctica with help from what's either a hallucination of a dead explorer in SpiritAdvisor form, or the real thing.

* Being a ConspiracyKitchenSink, ''[[Literature/LookIntoMonstersEyes Look into Monsters' Eyes]]'' includes a flashback from Antarctica. Here, remnants of [[{{Ghostapo}} the Gestapo]] led by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_von_Sebottendorf Baron von Sebottendorf]] established a facility called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Swabia New Swabia]] near the end of WWII, and were later cut from communications, missing the news about Germany's surrender. This is discovered by the Allies' intelligence services, and they declare Operation Highjump (see below in 'Real Life' section), sending some American troops and ''Creator/IanFleming'' along them (he worked as an intelligence officer at the time). They're also joined by a disguised Nikolay Gumilev, under pseudonym James Bond (yeah), working for a BenevolentConspiracy and chasing Sebottendorf. Turns out the location of the base was not random - it's one of the key nodes of portal/tunnel network that gave birth to HollowEarth theories, and has access to the postwar bunker of one of the two reptilian Precursors (the other one is in the Arctic). Sebottendorf, being the only survivor of the race, made it as a second attempt on humanity, and was trying to open it with a Tetragrammaton (it works like a password). Also they had a thermic superweapon that made a new gulf in Ross Sea after being fired accidentally, and about half a dozen backup Hitlers.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': The Antarkos Ocean[[note]]in a reverse of how it usually goes, Golarion has a landlocked north pole and an oceanic south pole[[/note]] is a mysterious and poorly explored stretch of iceberg-choked seas surrounding an enormous ice sheet. The waters teem with fish and krill, supporting large populations of primordial {{Sea Monster}}s, and the ocean's frigid waters are also home to city of stranded aquatic aliens and to marine giants who can psychically enslave other beings. In addition, there's ''something'' about the area that attracts vast numbers of incorporeal undead and [[{{Tulpa}} animate dreams]] from every corner of the globe, making the southern ocean's waters, skies and ice haunted by wraiths, ghosts and specters of every sort.[[/folder]]

->''"Antarctica is the Last Continent, so everyone likes to think there's something mysterious out there: tribes of white giants, misty craters full of unconvincing rubber dinosaurs, cities of the Great Old Ones With Unpronounceable Names…"''
-->-- '''R. Kes''', ''Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space''

-->-- ''[[http://www.tomparisdorm.com/viewstory.php?sid=4084 Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space]]''

* In ''Literature/TheMagicians'', part of the students' education takes place at Brakebills South, in Antarctica. It's also a handy place to stash misbehaving professors.

* The Comicbook/New52 ''Comicbook/WonderWoman'' foe known as the First Born was buried in Antarctica.

-->-- ''Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space''

* In René Barjavel's ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_People_%28Barjavel_novel%29 The Ice People,]]'' a scientific expedition in Antarctica finds the ruins of an incredibly old unknow civilisation and a vault with two {{Human Popsicle}}s (a man and a woman). After reanimating the woman and managing to find a way to communicate with her, it turns that [[spoiler: their incredibly advanced civilisation collapsed after using a too efficient weapon of mass destruction against their enemies (who disappeared, too). The weapon was so powerful that it altered the Earth inclination, explaining why a whole civilization lived in an area which is now a frozen desert.]]

* In ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'', the ''Monsterverse'' version of [[ArchEnemy King Ghidorah]] was [[SealedEvilInACan found frozen solid in a state of hibernation beneath the ice]] by Monarch. The EvilPlan of Alan Jonah and his eco-terrorists is to release him from his icy tomb, [[spoiler: which they succesfully do]].

* In ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'', the ''Monsterverse'' version of [[ArchEnemy King Ghidorah]] was [[SealedEvilInACan found frozen solid in a state of hibernation beneath the ice]] by Monarch. The EvilPlan of Alan Jonah and his eco-terrorists is to release him from his frozen tomb, [[spoiler: which they succesfully do]].

* In ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla King of the Monsters]]'', the ''Monsterverse'' version of [[ArchEnemy King Ghidorah]] was [[SealedEvilInACan found frozen solid in a state of hibernation beneath the ice]] by Monarch. The EvilPlan of Alan Jonah and his eco-terrorists is to release him from his frozen tomb, [[spoiler: which they succesfully do]].

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.

* In ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'' Ozymandias' headquarters of Karnak is located here, complete with tropical vivarium.

* ''Film/AlienHunter'' (2003) (U.S.A./ Bulgaria). This is about Antarctic researchers, signals from outer space and a mysterious object that is found buried in the ice at a research base. If the object is opened and the creature inside awakes, it may lead to the annihilation of earth.

* Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's ''Literature/TheNarrativeOfArthurGordonPymOfNantucket'' and, as a fan-made sequel of sorts to Poe, Creator/JulesVerne's ''An Antarctic Mystery''/ ''The Sphinx of the Ice Fields''

* ''Film/{{Boa}}'' (AKA ''New Alcatraz'') (2000). Construction workers digging an inescapable prison at the South Pole come across a giant prehistoric snake [[YouFailBiologyForever preserved in nitrogen]].

* In the ''Franchise/StargateVerse'', the Earth's original Stargate (Not the one they've been using all along, that one was brought to Earth at the time of ancient Egypt) was found in Antarctica, and Atlantis also used to be 'parked' there -- before [[{{Precursors}} the Ancients]] abandoned Earth, leaving behind an outpost with a [[LostTechnology superweapon]]. They also found a living [[HumanPopsicle Ancient Popsicle]].

* In Roleplay/HatchlingQuest, Antarctica became this after The Simurgh [[spoiler: made her second appearance there and just vanished]]. Since then, any attempt to gather information about the continent has failed. Satellites show nothing, anyone sent there are never seen again, even capes with flight and teleportation powers vanish without a trace.

* The affront to conventional morality that is the Tsalal of ''[[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=3379222#post3379222 Green Antarctica]]'', where due to tiny population numbers and incredibly low survivability, incest and cannibalism are commonly practiced.

** The antarctic atlantis, secret nazi base conspiracy theories and hollow earth entrance theories were combined by Miguel Serrano, to form an occult sect based on Hitlers resurrection.

* Flat Earth Society, built around a theory that the Earth is a flat disc with North Pole in the center, imagines Antartica as a giant ring of ice that runs along the rim of Earth and prevents the oceans from flowing out into the endless void outside.

* In ''Anime/SentouYouseiYukikaze'', the [[InscrutableAliens JAM]] invasion of Earth started on the Ross Ice Shelf when a hyperspace portal appeared and [[AlienInvasion they came out shooting.]] The world got a rude wake-up call that day when panicked scientists at the [=McMurdo=] Research Station broadcast shots of 3 JAM aircraft shooting down a cargo plane that had just taken off. For extra points, if Lynn Jackson's flashback is accurate, this happened on [[TwistedChristmas Christmas Day.]]

** We find out why this is in [[https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/hatchling-quest-worm-metroid.22540/page-471#post-7854636 15.16]] [[spoiler: the Space Pirates had a base there where they were studying '''Metroids.''' They somehow escaped, the base was abandoned, and the continent was quarantined]].

* In ''Franchise/SentouYouseiYukikaze'', the [[InscrutableAliens JAM]] invasion of Earth started on the Ross Ice Shelf when a hyperspace portal appeared and [[AlienInvasion they came out shooting.]] The world got a rude wake-up call that day when panicked scientists at the [=McMurdo=] Research Station broadcast shots of 3 JAM aircraft shooting down a cargo plane that had just taken off. For extra points, if Lynn Jackson's flashback is accurate, this happened on [[TwistedChristmas Christmas Day.]]

* In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series, Nirn's version is Atmora, the [[GrimUpNorth northernmost continent]]. In ancient times, it was home to the Atmorans, an ancient race of men with BarbarianTribe and [=proto-=]HornyVikings traits. Thousands of years prior to when the games in the main series take place, Atmora experienced what the "[[EndlessWinter Frost Fall]]", a mysterious gradual cooling of Atmora which quickly rendered it inhabitable to intelligent life. Most of the Atmorans migrated south to northern Tamriel, settling in modern day Skyrim and interbreeding with Tamriel's native Nedic humans to create the modern Nords (and possibly all races of Men save the Redguards, though sources greatly conflict and are heavily biased). Reports from the 2nd and 3rd Eras indicate that Atmora is now completely frozen over, with no sign of intelligent life.

** Many other esoteric theories (especially those related to theosophy) postulate that antarctica was the home of a civilisation which preceded atlantis. Many prominent nazis wanted to find evidences of this hyperborean civilisation.
*** Russian conspiracy theorist Alexander Dugin believes that the hyperborean civilisation located in antarctica were the mortal enemies of atlantis.

See also GrimUpNorth (the [[IncrediblyLamePun polar]] opposite), PolarBearsAndPenguins, EverythingsBetterWithPenguins (hey, penguins live in Antarctica). And HumanPopsicle, since Antarctica appears to be a good place to stumble upon ''In''human Popsicles.

* In medieval and early modern times, it was assumed there must be a vast mysterious southern continent--"Terra Australis Incognita", the Unknown Southern Land--in the southern hemisphere to 'balance' the land masses of the northern hemisphere. The 'Counterweight Continent' idea in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' is a reference to this. Various voyages of exploration in the [[RomanticismVersusEnlightenment enlightened]] eighteenth century proved that there was no such huge continent, and thus maps took it off and left a blank space at the South Pole. ''And then'' in the [[RomanticismVersusEnlightenment romantic]] nineteenth century Antarctica was discovered, and all the old ideas of a mysterious land were revived.
** Though, it was "Terra Australis" which gave UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} its name, as in the very early 19th century, it was considered to be the closest continent to the concept.