Did you hear about the ‘snow pyramid’ discovered in Antarctica?

As everyone knows, Antarctica is a cold, desolate place. But was it like that all the time?

Conspiracy theorists went into a tizzy when a user recently posted Google Earth videos and pictures to suggest there was a four-sided, pyramidal structure, similar to that of the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, sitting bang in the middle of icy nowhere.

The unnamed mountain can be seen on Google Earth at 79°58’39.25”S 81°57’32.21”W. It sits in the southern part of the Ellsworth Mountains in an area called Heritage Range.

Some people are pointing to it as proof that humanity once existed in the region, when the areas currently under ice were much warmer. Scientists too believe the climate in Antarctica was much warmer before.

In 2009, pollen was discovered in the continent, and three years later, 32 species of Bacteria were found from Lake Vida. All these suggest that the climate was very different a few thousand years ago.

“Go back 100 million years and Antarctica was covered in lush rainforests similar to those that exist in New Zealand today,” Dr Vanessa Bowman, a Palynologist with the British Antartic Survey, had said earlier.

If the ice pyramids turn out to be true, it could truly change everything we’ve learned about human history so far.

Some say that the Antarctic pyramids could be a natural phenomenon known as nunatak – where mountain peaks appear up just above massive glaciers.

But even they agree that such structures may have two sides to it, but never four. So are they really pyramids? If so, who constructed them? How did they perish?

It may go on to become yet another unsolved scientific mystery!