6. The Nutty Hollow Earth Theory
The Hollow Earth craze was kicked off by a charlatan named John Cleves Symmes, Jr. A veteran of the War of 1812, Symmes moved to the frontier, where he reinvented himself as a scientist and became known as the “Newton of the West”. In 1818 the Newton of the West published Symmes Circular No. 1: “I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentrick spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles 12 or 16 degrees; I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking“.
Each concentric circle supposedly contained a subterranean world, all of them heated and illuminated by a sun-like object at the center of the earth. Symmes then hit the lecture circuit, and lobbied the government for an expedition to the poles, where he claimed the openings to the hollow earth’s interior were located. Educated people laughed off the idea, but his nutty theory was taken seriously enough by many. Those who bought into it included John Quincy Adams, who lent his support to the proposed Symmes expedition. Indeed, he promised to do just that in his successful 1824 presidential campaign.