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You are here: Home / Science & Technology / It’s a small hole, but Cthulu is a resourceful guy

It’s a small hole, but Cthulu is a resourceful guy

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We are all doomed.

Quoting an unnamed source, a Russian newswire is claiming that scientists have successfully drilled into an Antarctic lake that has been sealed off from the world for some 15 million years.

The Russians, who clearly do not watch American movies, had to drill through almost two and a half miles of ice to reach Lake Vostok, which has (or might have) an ecosystem that we can only guess about. In terms of hard to get to places this ranks somewhere not that far away from bringing back photos and geologic tchotchkes from the far side of the moon.

Rumors suggest that FBI has loaned a smart but mavericky conspiracy theorist and a skeptical redhead to supervise.

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  1. 1.

    malraux

    Get your Mythos right; you have to worry about Shoggoths and Elder Things in the Antarctic Ice, not Cthulhu. His isle is in the south pacific.

  2. 2.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    And they had to promise him she would be the only woman there to get him out of sex rehab.

  3. 3.

    Tone In DC

    Rumors suggest that FBI has loaned a smart but mavericky conspiracy theorist and a skeptical redhead to supervise.

    Gotta love the “X-Files” (though the description of the mavericky guy and the redhead thing could maybe, kinda, sorta also drag in “Fringe”).

  6. 6.

    Zandar

    Dinosaurs, sentient fungus, Morlocks, water elementals, ice zombies, Lemurians, hell anything could come out of there and KILL US ALL.

    Crazy Russians. You send Delta Green/Bureau 13/The Avengers in first.

  8. 8.

    Maude

    I read that the Americans hadn’t heard from the Russians and were very worried. I haven’t read that the Russians have been in contact.
    They don’t know how fast the ice formed, so 15 millions years is a guess.

  10. 10.

    WereBear

    Face it, there few ventures that cannot be improved by adding a smart but mavericky conspiracy theorist and a skeptical redhead. Add in the “guy who’s so crazy he’s sane” and the cool/glacial blonde. (Somehow, women never get the crazy/sane. Don’t know why.)

  11. 11.

    4tehlulz

    Entertainingly, the newswire story also speculates that the work could shed light on rumours of Nazi Antarctic cloning experiments.

    Sounds legit.

  14. 14.

    BruceK

    Aw, hell, if the past is any guide, everyone there is going to end up eaten, shot full of holes, blown to smithereens, or either burned or frozen to death.

  15. 15.

    Ken

    @malraux: Yeah, but that just makes it worse. A shoggoth could crawl through that borehole.

    (Also, it’s spelled “Cthulhu”, and pronounced “Kxha-gah gurgle ack” as you swallow your tongue, since no human throat can manage the sound – according to HPL, that is.)

  16. 16.

    tamied

    They’re looking for oil is my first thought. Just what we need is a bunch of humans fooling around yet another pristine area of the earth that’s left.

  18. 18.

    Zandar

    Imprisoned ice titans, alien colonists bent on revenge, worm monsters that hunger for brains, plant creatures that grow exponentially in the presence of heat, SERIOUSLY RUSSIA YOU’RE GOING TO KILL US ALL.

  21. 21.

    dr. bloor

    Anything that crawls through that hole and sees what’s going on out here is going to crawl right back and seal the fucker up posthaste.

  24. 24.

    ricky

    It is obvious santions have not prevented Russia from being moments away from joining the Antarctic Lake Club. Putin posing topless on the ice cheet will be a propaganda blow from which we may not recover. Time to turn our heads while Israel handles this existential threat for us.

  26. 26.

    cthulhu

    Please correct the spelling of my name. As to the method of your eventual doom, let’s leave that be for now…

    Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

  27. 27.

    hidflect

    If they sold this water at $50/L I’d buy a bottle. Use the money to fund more scientific research.

  28. 28.

    jl

    Hmmm, the Russian scientists were out of communication for awhile, now, conveniently, they (we are lead to believe) are back.

    Obviously they have already been replaced by our reptilian underearth overlords, who are VERY ANGRY that one of their abodes has been disturbed by their presumptuous serfs.

    When replicants attack.

    Either that, or sentient fungus pod people.

    Or that damned lake is where the gluonified Higgs bozontron gunk produced by the CERN cycloquarkatron has been trapped. Now it will drink the earth like a cheap fast food milkshake through the hole. I give us 3 days max.

    Too bad they did not drill a hole big enough to lower a manned capsule down there, where they would find Irwin Allen in suspended animation, with a disaster script ready to pitch.

    Anyway this plays out, I predict bad bad news.

  29. 29.

    Auguste

    Lake Vostok?

    If it’s been gone for 15 million years…HOW DO THEY KNOW WHAT IT’S CALLED?

    /bah-bah-BAHHHHHHHH

  33. 33.

    Herbal Infusion Bagger

    Cthulhu for President!

    http://www.cthulhu.org/

    Why vote for the lesser of two evils?

    Q) What is your candidates stand on abortion? Will it/he/she merely outlaw human life itself and thus end the issue?
    A) The Great Cthulhu cares little for mortal affairs and mortal politics. However, as a presidential candidate, it must take a stand. Cthulhu is, therefore, pro-choice because it cares little for what you do. However, it’s in favor of keeping humans alive, so that it can taunt and toy with them before they go insane and it eats them.

  34. 34.

    jl

    @Maude: The supposed Russians. But who, or what, are they, really?

    Too bad Perry is gone, otherwise we might hear about a fell Soviet plot afoot.

    Gingrich might bite, but I suspect he will ask why the US is lagging behind the Russians for the prehistoric Antarctic lake buried und er mile of ice colony race? Will they suck up all the venture capital? Damned Obama is turning this country into an also ran in every, and I mean every, respect.

  35. 35.

    Rafer Janders

    “Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the sub-glacial lake,” the source told RIA Novosti.

    “Now our scientists can finally have their revenge on those cowards at the Institute who said our theories about a frozen Antarctic Atlantis ruled by a god-like race of frozen fish-men were an affront to all concepts of decency and morality! Now their eyes will be opened and they will finally see! The whole world will see! They called our scientists insane?! Now we’ll see who’s TRULY insane!” the source, who requested to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the project, continued.

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    I hope 1. they have a sort of blowout preventer and 2. it’s not made by the folks who installed the one at Macando.

    IIUC it’s presumed the lake water is under vast pressure they have to be very cautious about not unleashing through the borehole.

  44. 44.

    chopper

    wonderful. hey, we’ve fucked up almost every other pristine ecosystem on the planet, what’s one more?

  45. 45.

    ljdramone

    Please correct the spelling of my name. As to the method of your eventual doom, let’s leave that be for now…

    Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

    @26: “In his sunken city of R’lyeh dead Cthulhu lies dreaming?” I call shenanigans.

    The real Cthulhu would never refer to itself in the third person.

    In fact, I… strange. What’s th… Iä! Iä! I see it– coming here– hell-wind– titan blur– black wings– Yog-Sothoth save me– the three-lobed burning eye!…

  46. 46.

    Rafer Janders

    In fact, I… strange. What’s th… Iä! Iä! I see it—coming here—hell-wind—titan blur—black wings—Yog-Sothoth save me—the three-lobed burning eye!…

    If you experience any of these symptons for more than three hours, please contact your doctor. Ctulhex is not recommended for infants, pregnant women, or anyone with high blood pressure.

  48. 48.

    Ken

    Ctulhex is not recommended for infants, pregnant women, or anyone with high blood pressure.

    Fixed.

  51. 51.

    Jay C

    @Rafer Janders:

    Now our scientists can finally have their revenge on those cowards at the Institute who said our theories about a frozen Antarctic Atlantis ruled by a god-like race of frozen fish-men were an affront to all concepts of decency and morality!

    Dude, SRSLY: if they’re frozen, how much “ruling” are they going to actually be able to do?

    That said, I recall that in most of the cheap SF movies fictional treatments of the subject, it’s almost always the Russians who start thing off… just a coincidence????

  53. 53.

    Rafer Janders

    @Jay C:

    Reckless mortal — you want to unfreeze them and take your chance?

    Fools! Fools! I warned you! I warned you all!

  57. 57.

    don

    Charles Stross has already covered this in his short story “Missile Gap”.

    Also, for those who revel in Cthuhu and the Elder Gods, go read his “Atrocity Archives” (takeaway quote:”…and you thought that fractal screensaver was *good* for your computer…”).

  58. 58.

    stevestory

    Gotta love the “X-Files” (though the description of the mavericky guy and the redhead thing could maybe, kinda, sorta also drag in “Fringe”).

    Just yestidy I was catching up on Fringe Season 3 and thinking of the parallels. A redhead, an FBI agent, paranormal stuff, secret gummint agency…

    But I concluded that it was merely similar to the X-files, not a straight-up ripoff like some shows I could mention…

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