Why Aliens Would Hide in the Polar Regions of Earth

Even today, Earth’s poles remain sparsely inhabited. While people have lived in the Arctic for a long time, the Antarctic especially remains vast, relatively unexplored, and with no truly permanent residents. But could one of these places also hold the key to making first contact with an alien race?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question: why would aliens hide in the polar regions of Earth?

The North Pole, inhospitable as it may seem to those who live nearer the equator, has actually been inhabited by humans for thousands of years. There’s plenty of evidence of indigenous settlements dating back millennia throughout the Arctic Circle. It’s believed by some that ancient humans arrived in North America by crossing over from what’s now eastern Russia - traversing the Arctic to do so. That’s all despite how extremely cold it is, with hostile wildlife, freezing temperatures, and difficulty gathering resources.

But, really, humans are reasonably well equipped to live in the cold… which perhaps should mean that the Arctic Circle actually isn’t an ideal place for alien visitors hoping to hide from us. Not only would they run the risk of running into small groups of humans, but the environment - from ocean to ice shelf - is unpredictable. In deepest Siberia there is the potential to go unnoticed, but still… landing and hiding within the territory of Russia, one of Earth’s superpowers, would that be such a good idea? There IS the potential (or alternate theory) that aliens could live underwater. But, even then, the Arctic is a hard sell. The Arctic Ocean is both the smallest and shallowest in the world, as well as being a busy shipping route. So, if aliens wanted to live at the bottom of the sea, they’d be better off in literally ANY other undersea location. So, with our eyes set to the north, the question still remains; why would aliens hide in the polar regions of Earth??

Well, head down south to Antarctica, and it could be much more enticing to aliens, largely because it’s so isolated. Unlike the Arctic, Antarctica has never had an indigenous population, and is so far away from populated landmasses that we didn’t even truly know it was there until the nineteenth century. Today, it has a few science bases, but they’re all close to the shore and very few people live there. It’s also not supposed to be used for military purposes - it’s a peaceful land - while, in contrast, the Arctic Circle has been used as a nuclear testing ground in the past and there are nuclear submarines that conduct regular forays into the waters there. Trying to hide out right between the world’s biggest nuclear powers, Russia and America, Arctic Circle aliens would be forced to navigate a fraught political situation. Consider that in the past, the US government had a top secret plan to install nuclear missile launch sites in ice tunnels under the ice sheet in Greenland - an initiative called Project Iceworm, that ultimately never came to fruition - and it’s easy to see why the Arctic might be risky. Antarctica, on the other hand, is relatively risk-free.

Antarctica also isn’t flat, with many mountains and ranges, and it’s far more stable than the Arctic. Because Antarctica is rock covered by ice, rather than being a largely precarious ice sheet like much of the Arctic is, you can dig underground in Antarctica. And, while hypothesized underground aliens would still face a tough challenge to go totally undiscovered by us, given how easily we can now photograph Antarctica thanks to satellite technology, there’s a solid argument that the south still trumps the north in terms of the potential to go unnoticed. As such, it’s perhaps unsurprising that there are so many conspiracy theories to suggest that there are strange goings-on in Antarctica that the world’s governments want to hide… with an alien presence being one of the leading claims.

But why is it that they would be (and we are) so interested in the poles, anyway? Isn’t it just as plausible that aliens could go to cave systems underneath warmer parts of Earth, or could hide in the dense foliage of our many rainforests? Well, perhaps that could be true of alien civilizations on our own planet, Earth, specifically. But when we move further afield, to other planets in even just our solar system, there’s a clear strategy that fits for all… because there’s at least one massive benefit of hiding out at the poles above all other locations: water. Earth is covered in liquid water and dense vegetation, which means aliens – in small enough numbers – could potentially live anywhere and not want for water, much like humans do. However, we’ve yet to find a body in the solar system with accessible liquid water as abundant as it is here on Earth, where the blue oceans are visible even from hundreds of thousands of miles away in space. So, what works here doesn’t work almost anywhere else. And, if we turn the focus onto ourselves for a moment; if humans are ever going to survive on another planet, we would first need to find a water source… and, again, for alien worlds that means heading to the poles straight away.

We have supporting evidence garnered just from our small escapades into space, so far. The moon has, in the last decade, been shown to have water ice in craters at its poles, which bodes well for future settlements. These craters are the spots best shielded from extreme temperature fluctuations, from the relentlessness of the sun, and so they can provide some relative stability. If we’re ever going to build an outpost on the moon, then, it would most likely need to be at these poles, where we could feasibly set up ice mining operations to supply our astronauts with water. And it’s not unlikely that an alien race would employ similar tactics on Earth. Especially as our poles are, again, very sparsely populated. Of course, another option is that an alien force might set up at the lunar poles, too, at least to begin with. After all, if they only wanted to be close to Earth without being discovered, then the moon’s polar plains might be more enticing than even Antarctica is.

A similar strategy would likely be needed for Mars, as well, for humans to live there or anything else. Mars, much like the moon, also has water ice, although Mars’s ice isn’t hidden underground and is much more accessible. We can clearly see its white ice caps from Earth… and in 2018, it was announced that ESA’s Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (or MARSIS) had been able to detect liquid water. This water is deep beneath the ice caps and would require some drilling to reach, but it means that any species living on Mars could immediately have local access to water. And, again, the poles appear to be destination number one for any alien species hoping to set up on Martian territory.

Of course, for here or any other location, the idea that aliens should head to the poles first of all is largely based on an assumption that aliens - that any non-Earth creature - would be similar enough to us that they’d also need water to drink. Almost all living organisms on Earth do require water in some form, so it’s not as though the idea is without precedent. But with no sample to build off of, we have very little knowledge on what an alien species might need or value most of all. There are theories that aliens might not even be carbon-based - if and when we do meet them - so perhaps water wouldn’t be as important to them as it is to us.

Nevertheless, as a general rule, the poles remain the place to be for any well-prepared alien being. On any planet or moon, they offer the likeliest chance of water, if they need it. But they also provide relative shelter from the sun, which means reliable temperatures and stable conditions. On a populated planet, like Earth, they further offer the chance of isolation. Of not having to cross paths with those whose home planet you’ve just landed on. There’s safety to be found at the poles, then, at the extreme ends of any world, and that’s what would make them so intriguing and appealing for all cosmological travelers. When we (human beings) investigate new worlds, we often focus on the poles for many of these same reasons.

Is it, then, time to look closer to home for extraterrestrial life? Could they already be here, it’s just that we’re unaware? Are the north and south poles already hosting what would constitute one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time? There’s some argument that, yes, they could be… because that’s why aliens would hide in the polar regions of Earth.

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