Some folks believe it was crafted by an ancient civilization that lived there around 10,000 years ago, during a warmer spell in Antarctica's history. Others are convinced it's the work of aliens, dropped here from outer space. I mean, who wouldn't get excited about such a mysterious formation, right?
But hold on a second. Geologists are not buying into the hype. According to them, this pyramid-shaped mountain is nothing more than a natural formation shaped by good old geological processes.
From Oddity Central:
“Pyramid shapes are not impossible — many peaks partially look like pyramids, but they only have one to two faces like that, rarely four,” Irvine geology professor Eric Rignot told LiveScience. “This is just a mountain that looks like a pyramid.”
The geologist went on to explain that pyramids are actually a common feature of glaciated areas known as a ‘pyramidal peaked mountain’, and that they are so-shaped by the convergence of glaciers on the sides of an existing landmass.
“It’s not a complicated shape, so it’s not a special coincidence either,” Dr Mitch Darcy, a geologist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, recently confirmed. “By definition, it is a nunatak, which is simply a peak of rock sticking out above a glacier or an ice sheet. This one has the shape of a pyramid, but that doesn’t make it a human construction.”
Good luck using science to debunk online conspiracy theories, though! A story involving the ‘mysterious” pyramid of the South Pole went viral recently, using the same images that originally drew attention seven years ago. Forget the fact that there are other similarly-shaped mountains out there, like Mount Búlandstindur in Iceland, and Bordoyarnes Mountain on the Faroe Islands, there’s just no competing with ‘truthers’!
Well, to be honest, you can't always count on these scientists for the absolute truth.
I mean, they're just regular folks like the rest of us, and every now and then, they do mess up their facts.
So it's understandable that people are forming their own opinions on what these pyramid shaped mountains could actually be.
