Antarctica is one of the few places left on earth that remains virtually untouched by humans. There’s no native population and it’s not controlled by any particular country. It’s difficult to get to, and even if you manage to get there, you‘re limited in where you can go.
There are 16 restricted areas in Antarctica, and these restrictions are enforced by the Antarctic Treaty. This treaty includes 12 countries. I find it odd that our world’s leaders cannot agree on anything, but they can agree on this?
The Nazis, who were known for their outlandish and otherworldly beliefs, also had an interest in the supposedly barren continent. They explored the arctic region and even claimed a large plot of land there, which they named New Swabia. It was named after a place in Germany.
After WWII, Admiral E. Byrd led 4,000 military troops from the U.S., Britain and Australia in what was basically an invasion of Antarctica. This was known as Operation Highjump. It resulted in several casualties and a missing catapult ship, the USS Pine Island.
Conspiracy theorists say this was because of a battle with a fleet of UFOs. While this is obviously unconfirmed, I find it odd that right after the failed mission, Admiral Byrd declared it was imperative that we take immediate defense measures against this hostile region.

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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.