As I boarded the vessel on that bitterly cold night in Cape Town, I never for a moment thought what I was getting myself into and just how my life would change.
Admiral Abrahams gave me a short and vague briefing about the USS Anchorage docking in our port. It was a Sunday evening which was very unusual as we knew exactly which vessels were coming and going from Antarctica yet we received no word about the USS Anchorage. In fact as far as we were concerned that ship did not exist. The admiral mentioned that the crew was extremely distressed, some showing signs of mental degradation, the captain was missing and only 5 crew members remained out of a number we still can’t pin point to this day.
We were all in shock at the state of the remaining crew and naturally we wanted to know what the hell happened to the Americans. As I approached Vanessa Ramirez the geologist, she was hesitant at first but seemed relieved to see other people. I asked her “what happened to you and your crew professer?”. She did not answer at first but stared at me blanky. I asked her a second time whilst she sat sipping on a hot cup of coffee wrapped in a blanket. She threw the blanket off her, grabbed my shirt and pulled me in so close we were almost nose to nose. I’ll never forget the fear in her voice when she said: “Do not go there! They are pure evil! Do not go there!”
A few soldiers had to pull Ramirez off me as she was getting quite agitated by just mentioning the word “they”. I told her to calm down everythings ok now you’re safe. That’s when she looked at me and said: “As long as they are still alive none of us are safe captain”. I was growing impatient at this point and I demanded to know what she was talking about. Ramirez with a sigh sat down and started to explain everything. These are her accounts of what happened in Antarctica:
Well captain we are and some of us ‘were’ geologists and scientists. May God rest their souls. A geothermal anomaly was detected a few hundred miles from mcmurdo station. Due to the anomaly being so far from the station it was in an area geographicaly that had never been explored on foot. The anomaly itself was an extremely high thermal heat signature coming from some kind of mound or hill. For some reason that specific area is always so damn windy it’s very hard to see. A group of about 20 highly skilled people in their fields including myself were tasked with going to Antarctica via the USS Anchorage to investigate the anomaly.
We made land in the northern regions and made plans to trek by snow mobile to the anomaly. Although it was extremely dangerous to not be near mcmurdo station or any station. The higher ups did want anyone to know what we were doing there. The journey began on Wednesday morning we gathered all of our supplies and set off. Many innocent souls did not know they will never return. As we plowed through the snowy tundra we made good progress due to the good weather. We set up camp at sundown and we were expected to reach the anomaly by mid morning tomorrow.
A colleague of mine Michael Giovanni (A catholic) mentioned to me and a few of us that he has a terrible feeling about what we’re doing. He said: “Ramirez I can sense an extremely evil presence and I don’t like it”. Mustafa Jamal an Iraqi American confirmed what Michael said: “ I agree with you Michael I’ve also got a this horrible feeling in my gut that we should not be here”. The rest of the crew laughed it off claiming “religious superstition” as most of the crew was atheist. Jamal and Giovannis warnings fell on deaf ears and we went to bed early not knowing what tomorrow holds.