False: Photographs from Captain Robert Scott's 1912 Antarctic expedition show the ruins of an ancient civilization in Antarctica.

By: Arron Williams
January 5 2023

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Context

A post made on December 30, 2022, by the Facebook page Alien Star Group shows photos depicting pyramids, statues, and ruins and states they are taken from Captain Robert Scott's 1912 Antarctic expedition. The post has gained over 65,000 views and 1,000 likes. The claim uses these photos to suggest that there was an ancient civilization in Antarctica. 

In Fact

There is no evidence of an ancient civilization in Antarctica or that the photos are authentic. Through Google keyword and reverse image searches, a credible source of the photos could not be found. Instead, the search revealed that the alleged photos crop up consistently in conspiracy videos on TikTok, YouTube and in discussion threads on sites such as Reddit. However, The Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge possesses an archive of photos taken during Scott's expedition. The archive is available online, and no photographs of pyramids or ruins are found in the collection. Instead, the photographs display things like wildlife encounters and campsites. 

A 2022 fact check by the Swiss branch of the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) states that flaws in the photos suggest they were created by artificial intelligence. They state that inconsistencies with shadows, incoherent text, and issues with people lacking faces or having incorrect body proportions indicate that they are AI-generated images. They further stated that fabricated images often have small inconsistencies that can be spotted by a trained eye. There is no evidence that these photographs are authentic or were taken in 1912 by Captain Robert Scott.

Similar claims have been made about American explorer Admiral Byrd's Antarctic expeditions in the first half of the 20th century. These claims state that Admiral Byrd discovered traces of a lost civilization in the antarctic and that photographs from his expedition prove it. A past fact check by Logically debunked these claims about Byrd's expedition and found that the images were not part of any documented official record. The claims that Antarctic expeditions revealed a hidden civilization are common among the Flat Earth, Ancient Alien, and Tartaria conspiracy theories. These theories often overlap with each other due to their focus on hidden historical knowledge and beliefs that the Antarctic holds guarded secrets. Similarly, Logically has previously debunked a similar claim linking Byrd's Antarctic exploration with the Flat Earth theory. 

There have been numerous expeditions to the Antarctic throughout history, and none have officially reported the discovery of ancient ruins or civilizations. Similarly, Scott's diary was recovered, and its contents detail the expedition, and there is no evidence that he mentioned discovering anything like what is shown in the alleged photos.

The Verdict

There is no evidence of an ancient civilization in Antarctica, and the images lack credibility. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.