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Hollow Earth

The Hollow Earth is a concept proposing that the planet Earth is entirely hollow or contains a substantial interior space. Notably suggested by Edmond Halley in the late 17th century, the notion was disproven, first tentatively by Pierre Bouguer in 1740, then definitively by Charles Hutton in his Schiehallion experiment around 1774.

This article is about the concept. For other uses, see Hollow Earth (disambiguation).

It was still occasionally defended through the mid-19th century, notably by John Cleves Symmes Jr. and J. N. Reynolds, but by this time it was part of popular pseudoscience and no longer a scientifically viable hypothesis.


The concept of a hollow Earth still recurs in folklore and as a premise for subterranean fiction, a subgenre of adventure fiction. Hollow Earth also recurs in conspiracy theories such as the underground kingdom of Agartha and the Cryptoterrestrial hypothesis and is often said to be inhabited by mythological figures or political leaders.

In popular art[edit]

In 1975, Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo used elements of the Agartha legend, along with other Eastern subterranean myths, to depict an advanced civilization in the cover art for jazz musician Miles Davis's album Agharta.[60] Tadanori said he was partly inspired by his reading of Raymond W. Bernard's 1969 book The Hollow Earth.[61]

Dyson sphere

Earth's inner core

Expanding Earth

Flat Earth

Hades

Hollow Moon

List of topics characterized as pseudoscience

Scientific skepticism

Shellworld

Travel to the Earth's center

Xibalba

List of Hollow Earth proponents

Kafton-Minkel, Walter. Subterranean Worlds. Loompanics Unlimited, 1989.

Lamprecht, Jan. Hollow Planets: A Feasibility Study of Possible Hollow Worlds Grave Distraction Publications, 2014.

Lewis, David. The Incredible Cities of Inner Earth. Science Research Publishing House, 1979.

Seaborn, Captain Adam. Symzonia; Voyage of Discovery. J. Seymour, 1820.

Standish, David. Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth's Surface. Da Capo Press, 2006.

What Curiosity in the Structure: The Hollow Earth in Science

Library of Congress References

Public Domain Review

Stories of a Hollow Earth

Skeptic Dictionary: Hollow Earth

"", Scientific American, 13 July 1878, p. 20

Is Our Globe Hollow?

Marshall Gardner