That is fucking odd. Why would that kind of toursit expedition even need a security presence at all?
There's so many anecdotes of weird shit going on there. Obama making that last minute trip down there, Buzz Aldrin going there, having a heart attack then posting that he saw the heart of darkness or some shit. And that workout app data leak showing all kinds of activity down there where it's supposed to be wasteland. That's just odd the top of my head too.
In the 70s or 80s there used to be a sightseeing flight over parts of Antarctica but they stopped after they violated minimum altitude reqs and flew into a fucking mountain. I would guess whatever is down there, it's a relatively recent thing.