Russian scientists believe they’ve found the remains of a mysterious, secret Nazi base on a remote island in the Arctic Circle.

Image credits Yulia Petrova, Russian Arctic National Park / Ruptly.

A trove of more than 500 artifacts from Nazi Germany were found on an island known as Alexandra Land, TechTimes reports. They believe the site was a base known as Schatzgraber, or “Treasure Hunter”, a mysterious base known more from rumors than actual evidence. What we do know about it is that it was a weather station built somewhere around 1942 (after the invasion of Russia) on the direct orders of Adolf Hitler.

The base’s construction and subsequent abandonment was documented in 1954 in “Wettertrupp Haudegen“, a German-published book. However, no actual evidence was ever found of the installation’s existence, so it was mostly dismissed as a war-time myth. According to this book, Schatzgraber was manned starting with 1943 but was abandoned just one year later, in July 1944, after the staff ate undercooked polar bear meat contaminated with roundworm. The soldiers were evacuated by a U-boat (similar to the ones you can see one here and here), and the base abandoned after that.

Until now, we didn’t have any idea where the base was located. No one really knows what its purpose was, either. But the artifacts found on Alexandria Land island suggest this could be the Schatzgraber. The team found discarded petrol canisters, bullets, ruins of bunkers, shoes, and a batch of well-preserved paper documents.

Image credits Russian Arctic National Park / Ruptly.

The objects haven’t yet been publicly released, but the researchers say they’re dated and marked with swastikas, proving — at least — that this was a Nazi base, if not the Schatzgraber.

“Earlier [this base] was only known from written sources, but now we also have real proof,” said senior researcher at the Russian Arctic National Park, Evgeny Ermolov. The quotes have been translated from Russian.

“Now we can enter this data in the scientific revolution, and, referring to the evidence, to expand and clarify the idea of the German army operations in the Arctic region during the Second World War,” added team member Eugene Yermolov.

The team is particularly excited about the find as many people believe — based on the station’s name — that the weather station designation is just a cover-up for the base’s real purpose — that of finding ancient relics. Nazi Germany had several research institutes dedicated to finding archaeological proof to support their propaganda, that of Nordic peoples once ruling the world. This, in turn, would prove the

Right now, it’s just a hunch. We don’t know of any material to support this theory, but hopefully, the papers found at the site will offer some insight into what was happening at Schatzgraber during the war. Whatever went on, it’s bound to be a good story.