Free Area 51 by Robert Doherty Page B

their country. The name Thule was appropriated as a cover for these groups.

    Nabinger straightened. In 1933 a book had been published in Germany called Bevor Hitler Kam (Before Hitler Came). It was apparently about the connection between Hitler's National Socialist movement and the Thule movement. The interesting thing was that after publication, the author disappeared under mysterious circumstances and all copies of the book that could be found in Germany were collected and destroyed by the Nazis. The author of the book was named Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff.

    Checking, Nabinger was surprised to see that the computer had an abstract on the book. Sebottendorff had taken the ancient myth of Atlantis and the myth of Thule and reinvented them with his own sick motivations.
    According to Sebottendorff, Thule was reported to have once been the center of a great civilization, but was subsequently destroyed by a great flood. This concept was based on an earlier theory postulated by the Theosophical Society.
    Nabinger said a brief prayer for the computer that gave him the ability to cross-reference so quickly as he requested information on this latest piece of information.
    The Theosophical Society was founded in 1875 in New York City by a woman named Madame Helena Blavatsky.
    Her theory had the inhabitants of Atlantis--or Thule, as the Nazis had named it-
    -representing the Fourth Race, the only true line of man, which of course, the Nazis found very convenient to use in their Aryan-race theory. According to the abstract the inhabitants of Thule looked very much like the figures carved into stone on Easter Island.
    Nabinger ran a hand through his beard. How the hell had she made that connection?
    Nabinger started to feel like he was getting off base, but he read further. The fall of the true line of man—the Atlanteans or Thulians--had come about because they had mated with lesser beings. Voila, the master race needed purity, which also worked quite well into the master-race theory of the Nazis.
    So the Nazis had been interested in Atlantis? What did that have to do with Egypt? He sat back in the chair and closed his eyes. Unsettling thoughts floated through his brain as he reviewed what he knew and what he had just learned. Why had the Nazis destroyed the book and what had happened to Sebottendorff? There didn't appear to be any direct connection here with Kaji's story other than the word Thule inscribed on the dagger, but Nabinger was used to having to dig intellectually as well as in the dirt. Perhaps there was more here than was readily apparent.
    Nabinger opened his eyes and went back to the abstract on the book. Apparently the book had been destroyed and information about it suppressed because Hitler wanted people to think all his ideas had begun with him and were not borrowed from other sources.
    Nabinger decided to press on for a bit along the present avenue of research. A search on Atlantis brought a large number of references--over three thousand. Obviously the Germans had not been alone in their interest. Nabinger searched the titles until he found one that seemed to give an overview of the history of the fabled continent.
    Atlantis was often regarded as a myth mentioned in original source only by Plato. Most historians thought Plato had made the tale of Atlantis up to stress a point and that it was only a literary tool. For those who did think it represented an actual place, the fingers pointed to various locations. Some believe it to be the island of Thera in the Mediterranean, which was destroyed by a volcanic eruption. The crater of the volcano Santorini had been investigated by leading oceanographers, searching for clues.
    Others placed it in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The Azores were mentioned--the Lake of the Seven Cities on the island of Sao Miguel was a body of water in a volcanic crater. The main city of Atlantis was supposed to lie beneath that lake, or so the supporters of that site