I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice
without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for
opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic-with its vast fossil-hunt and
its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice-cap-and I am the more reluctant
because my warning may be in vain. Doubt of the real facts, as I must reveal them,
is inevitable; yet if I suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible there
would be nothing left. The hitherto withheld photographs, both ordinary and aerial,
will count in my favour; for they are damnably vivid and graphic. Still, they will
be doubted because of the great lengths to which clever fakery can be carried.
The ink drawings, of course, will be jeered at as obvious impostures; notwithstanding
a strangeness of technique which art experts ought to remark and puzzle over.
In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific leaders
who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought to weigh my data on
its own hideously convincing merits or in the light of certain primordial and
highly baffling myth-cycles; and on the other hand, sufficient influence to deter
the exploring world in general from any rash and overambitious programme in the
region of those mountains of madness. It is an unfortunate fact that relatively
obscure men like myself and my associates, connected only with a small university,
have little chance of making an impression where matters of a wildly bizarre or
highly controversial nature are concerned.