Thule

1. A Graeco-Roman name for a supposed country (or island) in the far north, perhaps Scandinavia. First mentioned by the Greek geographer and explorer Pytheas of Massalía (present-day Marseille) in the 4th century BC[?]. Pytheas claimed that Thule was six days north of Britain and that the midsummer sun never set there. In the Middle Ages, the name was sometimes used to denote Iceland.

Some Occult groups, most notably the German Thule Gesellschaft (ca. 1920) thought that it was the original source of the secret wisdom of the Aryan race.

Thule was also mentioned by Traditionalist author Julius Evola[?] in connection with Hyperborea (literally, far north) and Atlantis.

The Romans used the phrase Ultima Thule to denote a distant unknown place.

2. A town on Greenland, so named because of (1).

3. A U.S. Air Force Base, located at (2). The Thule Air Force Base is a part of the U.S. network of early warning radars, and is an important facility in the recent discussion of the National Missile Defense (NMD). The proposed update of the facility (X-band Radar) to meet the demands of the NMD is controversial within Greenland and Denmark (Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark). On January 22, 1968, a B-52 crashed seven miles south of the Thule Air Force Base. Nuclear bombs were lost and debris scattered over the area in the accident.