Photo’s released by NASA appear to vindicate the conspiracy theory that an ancient civilization exists beneath the Antarctica ice sheets.

The huge icy continent is thought to have once been home to the Lost City of Atlantis over 12,000 years ago, when large parts of Antartica were ice-free.

Photo’s released earlier this year from NASA appear to verify these claims, as images taken by NASA’s Operation IceBridge mission show what internet detectives claim to be a “lost underground city”.

Google Earth images also show a pyramid poking out of the ice, which some experts claim is further evidence of an ancient city.

Daily Star reports:

Professor Charles A Hapgood, a history expert from the US, first published a paper in the 1950s that said movement in the Earth’s crust meant that only 11,600 years ago large parts of Antarctica were totally ice free.

He said evidence of this was in the 500-year-old Piri Reis map – a world map drawn up by the Ottoman admiral of the same name.

A number of scholars who have examined the map claim it clearly shows the west coast of Africa, the east coast of South America and the northern coast of Antarctica – but not covered in sheet ice.

US Air Force Lt. Colonel Harold Z Ohlmeyer sent a letter in 1960 to Professor Hapgood saying his theory on the Piri Reis map was correct.

He wrote: “The geographical detail shown in the lower part of the map agrees very remarkably with the results of the seismic profile made across the top of the ice-cap by the Swedish-British Antarctic Expedition of 1949.

“This indicates the coastline had been mapped before it was covered by the ice-cap. This part of Antarctica [is] ice free.

“The ice-cap in this region is now about a mile thick.”

Conspiracists now think Hapgood was right and he discovered that much of the south pole was ice free – and also the location of The Lost City of Atlantis.

The existence of this mythical utopia was first mentioned in the writings by ancient Greek philosopher Plato in 360 BC.

The Atlantis that Plato described was founded by people who were half god and half human around 9,000 years before his own time.

If it did exist, this would be at a similar time that Professor Hapgood said shifts had occurred in the Earth’s crust.

And just a month ago further proof of an Antarctica Atlantis emerged in the form of pictures what appears to be huge pyramids jutting out of its ice.

The astounding photos showed structures that bear an uncanny resemblance to the pyramids of Giza, which were built thousands of years ago by the ancient Egyptians.

Could all of this mean one of the world’s greatest mysteries is about to be unlocked?