Read our exclusive DK Metcalf interview with Jonathan Jones.
DK Metcalf loves conspiracy theories, and he’s not shy about it.
The two-time Pro Bowl wide receiver, who is entering his eighth NFL season and second with the Pittsburgh Steelers, opened up on the topic in a wide-ranging interview with The Athletic’s Jonathan Jones.
“Yeah, I’m a big conspiracy theorist,” Metcalf told Jones. “Shout out to my quarterback.”
One of Metcalf’s most curious theories? He thinks that Antarctica is “another world.”
“I think there is another civilization inside of Earth,” he said.
In his story, Jones did his due diligence by interviewing Brent Christner, a lifelong Steelers fan and an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Florida, who said there is indeed a civilization living inside Antarctica — sort of. Christner said that deep under miles of ice in Antarctica there is water, and living in that water are microbes that have existed for hundreds of thousands of years. These microbes are so infinitesimal that something as small as a crab or slug would be unable to survive off it, however.
“That is one of the problems with being in Antarctica,” Christner says. “Every bit of food, every supply, every needle that you need has got to go south with you.
“The Arctic is a different sort of scenario. There are native peoples that are indigenous to there. And the Arctic is cold, but it isn’t close to being anywhere as cold as Antarctica is.”
It turns out that the Arctic plays into Metcalf’s conspiracy theory as well. Why? It’s a matter of access.
“You can go to Alaska. You could go to the North Pole,” Metcalf said. “But why not Antarctica? Why can’t you just book a trip to Antarctica?”
You can, as Jones points out, book a trip there. Antarctica tourism usually takes place between November and March, and most of it comes via ships leaving from South America and arriving around the Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost arm of the mainland. There are no commercial airports in Antarctica, however, and the airports that do exist are controlled by governments, which plays right into Metcalf’s theories.
“Why is there a secret meeting — well, it’s not secret,” Metcalf says, “but why is there a meeting between every world leader of every country in Antarctica, specifically?”
There is no verifiable evidence of such meetings taking place. Though, to be fair, off-book meetings of world leaders discussing a secret civilization would have no such records. Besides, a lack of verifiable evidence is what makes conspiracy theories so fun, right?
“There are definitely some distinguished visitors that come down to Antarctica. When they would come down, they would get the royal treatment and get thrown in helicopters and shown all the excellent sites,” Christner says. “But there’s not like a G7 that occurs down there.”
Even Christner says we know more about the surface of Mars than what’s underneath the southernmost point of our planet. Jones, perhaps thankfully, didn’t ask Metcalf about his thoughts on the Red Planet.