Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

Eric J. Hecker, a plumber who went to the Amundsen Scott South Pole Station in 2010 as a contractor for Raytheon Polar Services. This is a particularly interesting story because Hecker later became a controversial whistleblower, making extraordinary claims about what he saw and experienced at the station.

The plumber who ended up at the South Pole

In 2010, Hecker was a plumber living in New York and looking for work. According to his later accounts, he was having difficulty finding employment locally and began applying for jobs elsewhere. One application was routed through Colorado, which was the hiring location but the actual job was in Antarctica. He later described being surprised when he realized where the position was.

He accepted.

He arrived at the South Pole Station in November 2010 as an employee/contractor of Raytheon Polar Services, which provided support for the U.S. Antarctic Program. His initial position was plumber, but he also became involved with the station’s firefighting team.

And that second responsibility turned out to be significant.

Why a plumber could have unusual access

The South Pole Station is an isolated scientific facility, but it’s also essentially a tiny city.

People need:

• Water
• Sewage
• Heating
• Laboratories
• Electrical systems
• Communications
• Fire protection
• Mechanical infrastructure

A plumber therefore needs access to an enormous number of buildings and utility spaces. Hecker has said that his additional role as a lead firefighter gave him a key that could open virtually every door in the facility. That’s his account, and it’s one of the reasons his later stories are unusual: he claims that his job gave him access to areas that an ordinary visitor wouldn’t see.

The IceCube experiment

The South Pole is home to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, an enormous scientific instrument buried deep beneath the Antarctic ice. It detects neutrinos nearly massless particles that can travel through enormous amounts of matter. Hecker became interested in IceCube and other scientific equipment at the station.

He later claimed that some of what he observed didn’t fit the explanations he was being given by people at the facility. From there, he developed theories involving unusual technology, directed-energy systems, UFOs and other highly classified projects.

What is established vs. what Hecker alleges

Well established:

• Eric Hecker worked as a plumber at the South Pole.
• He arrived in Antarctica in 2010.
• He worked for Raytheon Polar Services.
• He stayed approximately a year.
• He also served in a firefighting capacity.
• The South Pole Station really does contain sophisticated scientific infrastructure, including IceCube.
• He had access to substantial portions of the station because of his job.

Hecker’s claims:

• That he witnessed activity associated with highly compartmentalized projects.
• That some of the technology being operated at the station was substantially more exotic than publicly acknowledged.
• That he observed things he believes were connected to secret military or extraterrestrial programs.
• That Antarctica contains a much larger hidden technological story than the public has been told.

One particularly strange part of his story

Hecker says that while working at the station he encountered things that made him increasingly suspicious about what was actually happening there. Eventually, after returning home, he began researching what he’d seen and connecting it to other information about Antarctica, UFOs and classified technology.

His story subsequently appeared on programs and podcasts dealing with UFOs and alleged government secrecy, including interviews with Shawn Ryan and others. Hecker’s story sits in a surprisingly similar category: a person in a mundane support job claims that the job accidentally gave him access to an environment where he encountered something extraordinary.