The Hollow Earth and the Edge of Reason

For the season finale of The House of Strange, we descend deeper into the halls of this strange old home than ever before — past the doors we’ve opened, past the shadows we’ve followed, down into the unseen foundations beneath it. This is where the oldest mysteries live. The stories that resist explanation. The ones that sit at the very edge of reason itself.

And in that hidden depth, we find one of humanity’s strangest obsessions: the belief that beneath our feet lies another world entirely.

For thousands of years, cultures around the globe imagined realms inside the Earth — underworlds of spirits, kingdoms beneath mountains, luminous cities untouched by time. But in the 17th century, the myth took a startling turn when astronomer Edmond Halley proposed a scientific model of a hollow, layered Earth. His idea opened a door that would never fully close.

From Halley, the story passed to John Cleves Symmes Jr., who insisted the poles were gateways to hidden continents within. Then to Richard Sharpe Shaver, whose haunting claims of subterranean beings blurred the line between conspiracy and psychology. And finally to the Cold War, where Operation Highjump and the legends around Admiral Byrd transformed the Hollow Earth into a symbol of secrecy, paranoia, and the human hunger for meaning in the unknown.

But the deeper we go, the more the Hollow Earth reveals itself not as a theory — but as a metaphor. A reflection of everything we bury: our fears, our memories, our grief, our unanswered questions. A story about the hidden worlds inside us as much as any hidden world below.

In this finale, we explore the myths, the science, the paranoia, and the psychology — and why humanity clings to impossible ideas when the visible world no longer feels like enough.

Because some mysteries live underground.

Some live in history.

And some… live in the quiet chambers of the human mind.