Operation Highjump was a U.S. military expedition to the South Pole in 1946 organized by renowned Arctic explorer Admiral Richard Byrd and led by Admiral Richard Cruzen, according to the website TopSecretWriters.com. The hurriedly put together training mission included 4,700 sailors, 13 ships, and 33 aircraft along with a cohort of scientists and at the time was the first expedition to Antarctica in 100 years. It was also the largest operation of its kind to the Arctic.

The expedition — which lasted from August 1946 to February 1947 — had multiple official and benign sounding objectives such as “training personnel and testing equipment in frigid conditions.” However, it was the Cold War that reportedly motivated the deployment to a very cold part of the world.

Although this was classified information at the time, wary U.S. military planners evidently wanted to establish a defense outpost at the South Pole out of concerns that the country could be attacked by Soviet bombers flying over both poles.

Another behind the scenes motivating factor for the deployment was for the U.S. to be able to claim sovereignty over a large portion of Antarctica, however the military denied the allegation. In the post-war period, various countries had laid claim to the continent. (RELATED: Read more about military secrets at NationalSecurity.news.)

Apart from the military objectives, Operation Highjump had a scientific purpose:

Operation Highjump established the Little America base and started aerial surveys of the southernmost continent. The expedition discovered, for the first time, that Antarctica had areas that were ice free and even had pockets of water. From a scientific perspective, the expedition was a complete success.

Air&Space Magazine similarly indicated that Operation Highjump laid the foundation for further U.S. explorations of the continent through the beginning of photo mapping.

President Eisenhower subsequently abandoned any specific territorial claims at the South Pole in favor of an assertion of “undefined ‘rights’ for unfettered operations in Antarctica,” and the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, designated the continent as a scientific preserve, TopSecretWriters added.

The treaty, which has been in force ever since, has successfully governed cooperation for scientific exploration and is considered a diplomatic triumph, being in effect the first arms control treaty of the Cold War era.

Several other lurid theories abound, including that the U.S. military was in hot pursuit, as it were, of a secret Nazi base in Antarctica or that the mission was cut short because of an encounter with UFOs.

Natural News previously reported that during World War 2, the Nazis mounted three expeditions to Antarctica for unknown reasons.

Sources:

TopSecretWriters.com

Airspacemag.com

TrueDisclosure.org