You might think Ultima Thule is a pretty cool-sounding name for the most distant object ever explored by humanity.

But you need to get yourself reeducated because it’s actually a sick Nazi reference which is grotesquely insensitive and likely to offend any human being with eyes and ears.

That’s the opinion of people who are absolutely outraged that Nasa would ever nickname a planet using a phrase used by the Nazis and which inspired the moniker of an obscure ‘Viking Rock’ band known to have skinhead and neo-Nazi fans.

Ultima Thule is the snappier title given to a space rock called (486958) 2014 MU69 – but it was once known as the birthplace of the Aryan race.




Critics say the ‘not OK’ name should have been scrapped as soon as its Nazi links were exposed.

Rock against racism… the name Ultima Thule has Nazi connotations

So far, Nasa has ignored the wailing of the offended and stuck with its decision.

‘New Horizons is an example – one of the best examples in our time – of raw exploration, and the term Ultima Thule, which is very old, many centuries old, possibly over a thousand years old, is a wonderful meme for exploration,’ Nasa’s Alan Stern said at a press conference yesterday.

‘That’s why we chose it. I would say that just because some bad guys once liked that term, we’re not going to let them hijack it.’

We can only assume Alan has not performed a Twitter search to see what people are saying about Nasa’s choices.

‘If you know a name has ties to Nazi mythology it is absolutely not acceptable to name your publicly funded research after it, anyway,’ raged journalist Maggie Koerth-Baker.

‘There’s a tie to Nazi mythology. The people at NASA knew that and picked the name anyway. There are literal Nazis marching in the streets here. This is a not okay choice for the federal government.’

The first colour image of Ultima Thule, taken from a distance of 85,000 miles (Photo: AFP/ Getty)

Science writer Shannon Stirone also wrote: ‘Ultima Thule is the place in Nazi mythology where the Aryan race was born. It is still a term used by the alt-right today. I believe that makes the term inherently bad. Nazi’s are bad.’

Other commentators were enraged that anyone would even question why they were so offended.

‘I have to step away from Twitter because I’m gonna lose my entire shit on the next person who says a little Nazi connection isn’t that big of a deal,’ said Erin Biba, who is famed for locking horns with Elon Musk’s ‘MuskBro’ fan army after he accused her of writing ‘misleading’ journalism.

One of her followers then chimed in with the following argument in her support: ‘Fuck Nazis, fuck anyone that agrees with Nazis, and fuck anyone who names objects in space after Nazis.

‘Why? Because fuck Nazis, that’s why.’

Biba then responded: ‘It’s literally as simple as that.’

Luckily, no Nazis were involved in the formation of Ultima Thule

A quick look at Wikipedia will tell you the phrase Ultima Thule was used by the Romans to refer to a northern land just outside the bounds of the known world.



But some of the crackpot occultists who inspired the Nazi party believed Ultima Thule was real and the actual birthplace of the Aryan race.

A group called the Thule Society was involved in the early stages of the Nazi party’s formation and had a membership list which included some of the murderous regime’s most famous names.

Unfortunately, expunging absolutely everything from our culture which has a connection with the Nazis is likely to be difficult.

Several major companies which still exist today were linked to the Holocaust. Nazi scientists were also involved during the birth of the US space programme.

Also, the swastika is actually based upon an ancient Hindu symbol that’s still used across India and other countries.

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