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American History

What Lincoln’s Pockets Held When he Died and Other Presidential Oddities

Secret Service agents bust counterfeiters in 1879. United States Secret Service

President John Quincy Adams wanted to trade with the hollow earth's people
A mole person. Atomic Surgery

3. The President Who Wanted to Find Mole People

Like other believers in the Hollow Earth, John Quincy Adams assumed that the hollow planet’s internal concentric spheres must be inhabited by humans or human-like beings: de facto mole men. JQ Adams was interested in the natural resources beneath the earth, and like Symmes, he wanted to establish trade with the hollow earth’s inhabitants. Symmes’ expedition actually made it to the US House of Representatives’ agenda and came up for a vote. The proposal was defeated, 56 to 46. It was a win for sanity, but still: about 44% of America’s Congressmen wanted to spend taxpayer money to try and contact mole people.

President Andrew Jackson thought the Earth was flat
President Andrew Jackson rejected his predecessor’s hollow earth beliefs, because he believed that the earth was flat. Physics World

JQ Adams did not give up. He tried to get Congress to reconsider and did what he could to gather support and resources for the expedition. However, he served only one term, before he lost the 1828 election to Andrew Jackson. The newly elected president promptly abandoned his predecessor’s attempts to reach the center of the hollow earth. Which was not a surprise, since Andrew Jackson thought the Hollow Earth Theory was hogwash. Instead, Jackson believed that the earth was flat.

Written by

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.

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