The Hollow Earth

​The Hollow Earth: The Greatest Geographical Discovery in History
by Raymond Bernard
Published in 1964
254 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 1/5


I lost IQ points while reading this book.


Every now and then, I like to keep my ideas fresh by reading something really weird and conspiratorial that I find ridiculous. I read authors like Graham Hancock and Anatoly Fomenko, both of which I found interesting and mind expanding even if I disagree. This book was not a well researched alternative view, it was the mad ravings of a crackhead.


This book was written at the height of the New Age era by Walter Siegmeister under the pseudonym Raymond Bernard in 1964. Walter Siegmeister was a founder of the new age movement, and an alternative medicine “expert” who died at the ripe old age of 62. He supported the idea of an “alternative reality” and advocated a one world communist government.


This book attempts to explain the “proven” phenomenon of flying saucers by arguing that the earth is shaped like an apple, and has two massive holes at either pole. These holes are the entrance to an underground world which is home to plants, animals, and alternate human civilizations. These underground alternate human civilizations have a lot of technology like flying saucers. He argues that this underground world would be able to resist nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States.


The book opens with an account of Admiral Byrd, who was the first man to fly over both the North Pole and the South Pole. Byrd says in his journal that, after flying over the North Pole, saw “iceless land, lakes, mountains covered with trees, and even a ‘monstrous animal.’” This could have well been Canada, and he might have seen a bear or seal.


This account (which was likely of Canada) is the only evidence in the first half of the book. From that the author extrapolates underground civilizations with flying saucers. I don’t know about the second half of the book, because I stopped reading it.


I want to stress that I am not giving this book a 1 star because I think that the content is crazy. Reading highly alternative and esoteric authors is very important. I am giving this book 1 star because it isn’t well researched and is poorly written.