Ancient Astronauts: Core Concepts

If one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced alien technologies have already done their boldly going exploring the galaxy thing, it stands to reason that at various times in our geological and historical past we would have received visitors from the stars. If one or more such occurrences happened in out historical past, there might be some suggestive evidence of same; and thus the concept of the ‘ancient astronaut’ would come to pass. The question is, is there such suggestive evidence?

INTRODUCTION: If there were only one line of evidence suggestive of ‘ancient astronauts’ then it could probably be easily dismissed. But when there are a half-dozen or more independent core concepts that point in the direction that at the very least ‘ancient astronauts’ is a plausible hypothesis, that’s another can of worms entirely and that’s what we have here.

IN THEORY: We can start off with arguments from theory like the Fermi Paradox which suggests that technologically advanced aliens (an extremely logical concept given the age and vastness of the cosmos) should have noted and logged the third rock out from the Sun many times over since the time it takes to explore the Milky Way Galaxy from stem to stern, even at one to ten percent the speed of light is but a tiny fraction of the age of the galaxy. Then there’s the theoretical argument that if the modern day UFO phenomena is at last in part due to extraterrestrial intelligence, then it would be such an extraordinary coincidence that our generation should just happen to be THE generation so blessed with alien visitations. Of course if aliens were here in the distant past, then that extraordinary coincidence goes down the gurgler.

IN ART: Ancient humans could draw and sculpt as accurately as modern humans; therefore otherworldly looking images need to be taken at face value barring any evidence to the contrary.

IN ARCHITECTURE: There just would appear to be several structures that when dated are incompatible with the ancient technologies required to construct them. For example, there are ‘impossible’ architectural structures like the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek (Lebanon); Pumapunku within the Tiahuanaco/Tiwanaku complex (Bolivia); Nan Modol (Micronesia); and those Olmec heads (Mexico) with the added oddity that they appear African. (Note: I do not include the Egyptian pyramids here. There are some things humans can do.)

IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Cultural anthropological anomalies abound, like a) why the sudden emergence of human culture around 50,000 years ago and settlements around 10,000 years ago in unconnected geographical regions; b) why did some bands of humans choose to live in environments (like the tundra) totally unsuitable to their home environment of equatorial Africa.

IN PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Physical anthropological anomalies also abound, like a) why did all our hominid ancestors go extinct (unless you want to count the as yet unconfirmed existence of Bigfoot, the Yeti, etc. as ancestors); b) why are humans (and their immediate ancestors) the only species to have a bipedal gait without benefit of a balancing tail; c) how can you get the ethnic or racial diversification of the human species in just 50,000 years; e) how is it that humans alone have evolved massive brain complexity, skyrocketing IQ, and the ability to have abstract thoughts and concepts; d) how is it that humans lost their natural fur only to then have to put on artificial fur (clothes). Might these all be explainable more by artificial selection (genetic engineering) than natural selection (a concept possibly reinforced today given the emphasis on genetics and breeding in UFO alien abduction cases).  

IN MYTHOLOGY: When mythologies of every society and culture share common (but unworldly) concepts then one has to sit up and take some notice that something extraordinary is going on. For example: a) animal-animal and animal-human hybrids; b) sky gods; c) dragons; d) gifts, like agriculture presented to humans from the gods; e) shape-shifters and shape-shifting; f) wars in heaven; g) an extraordinary focus of just a relatively few astronomical objects like Sirius, the Pleiades, and Orion; h) gods who left promising to return one day, much like Jesus, and much like Lono, a top god of the Hawaiian Islands who descended to Earth via a rainbow, was alas another case of mistaken identity since the natives originally mistook Captain James Cook for the return of their Lono. 

IN ABSTRACTIONS: Those rather strange concepts that humans have come up with like extremely long cycles of creation and destruction or for that matter the idea of creation itself which is anything but obvious from day-to-day observations and experience. Humans seem to have had ingrained some ideas that are rather unlikely to have developed naturally or which have or had no real relevance to their daily grind. For an example of the latter, the Mayans had this thing about tracking the cycle of the planet Venus from where it appeared in the sky until when it reappeared in the exact same spot. It must have been an overly academic exercise since it had no day-to-day relevance to say planting or harvesting crops. What was the real point of doing this? Well I gather it was an early form of ‘practical’ astrology, and important decisions (like going to war) were based on all of this. Reading tea leaves or chicken entrails, the throw of a dice, or even having their high priest/shaman smoke some magic mushrooms for inspiration/guidance  would have been far easier, so we see the extraordinary importance here of a celestial object. In an ‘ancient astronaut’ context, why Venus? Now Venus is certainly not a planet one would associate anymore as home to intelligent life (micro-organisms in the upper atmosphere could be another story). But there was that ‘satellite’ of Venus, called Neith, noted and logged numerous times by astronomers that just disappeared! Today, Venus does not have any natural satellite(s).  

IN ASTROARCHAEOLOGY (ASTROLOGY): Ancient cultures around the world engaged in astronomical observations that had no relevance to their immediate survival needs* – you don’t need a Stonehenge in order to do agriculture. Whether it is ten, eight, six, four, or even two thousand years ago, your basic priorities were food, shelter, sex, family, community and defence. The only real celestial object of any relevance to the above is the Sun – warmth, light and food (via photosynthesis, though that wouldn’t have been an obvious connection). Why the emphasis by our ancient ancestors on observational astronomy (studied today as the discipline of astroarchaeology), unless of course the sky and celestial objects therein had some extra special meaning? That’s sort of like to what we would call today astrology. 

The most obvious reason for intense sky-watching is to chart the ever changing seasons, of obvious importance to any culture dependent on agriculture and hunting. Except - you don’t really need celestial alignments to tell you when to plant your crops or go fishing. Mother Nature’s own local signals should easily clue you and give you all the signs you need, like when the trees start putting forth leaves; flowers start to appear; or when a particular migrating bird species reappears in the sky; or when you see the fish. And you certainly don’t need celestial cycles to tell you when to harvest your produce or go hunting. An apple that’s ready for eating is pretty obvious. A herd of livestock in the distance is pretty obvious too, only of course by ten thousand years ago one didn’t have to rely on the hit-or-miss appearance of game animals as domestic animal husbandry had already come to pass (there were chicken farmers and cow farmers and sheep farmers and pig farmers, etc).

Another related oddity is while everyone and their great grandma put emphasis on the solstices – the longest and shortest periods of daylight of the year – the equinoxes are far more significant. On the shortest day of the year (winter solstice) you can’t start immediate planting even though the days are now going to get longer. It might be yea, spring’s coming – eventually in three or four month’s time. On the longest day of the year (summer solstice) you can’t yet harvest though the days are now going to get shorter. It might be oh dear; winter’s now coming – eventually in three or four month’s time. Eventually is hardly a reason to pay special attention to the solstices. However, it is close to planting time at the spring equinox; close to harvest time at the autumn equinox.

Another oft given reason for sky-watching is to predict eclipses.  How many lunar eclipses do you need to predict and see before you realise they are of no terrestrial consequence (and the waxing and waning of the Moon gets a bit boring too after several cycles)? And you are petty much unlikely to see even one solar eclipse in your lifetime, even if you can predict them, so there’s hardly any need to predict them. If by chance you do just happen to be in the right spot at the right time under the right conditions, well you might in you astronomical ignorance, experience up to seven minutes of terror, but you’ll survive none the worse for wear. Eclipses are non-events within the broad context of your day-to-day living and survival.  

But you might need to chart celestial alignments or cycles to honour your ‘gods’ that are identified with such celestial objects for whatever reason. That just might be what turned ancient humans on to intently charting what are just a relatively few points of light in the sky (comets, the Sun and the Moon I can understand as being interesting in their own right, but I don’t care how many Stonehenge equivalents are constructed; they can’t be used to predict comets).

Speaking of honouring the ‘gods’ it’s one thing to come up with all manner of tall tales as to how the constellations came to be, it’s quite another thing to position your structures to mirror the pattern of those constellations. That’s elevating their importance to the realm of honouring the ‘gods’ identified with them.

In fact the entire concept of astrology (using celestial alignments to predict the future) shows some extraordinary and extensive fascination with celestial bodies that not only make no practical sense but are certainly not consistent and therefore offer up no practical results. I mean take twins – same birthday and birth-year, more likely as not, different fates. There are some 400,000 people born every day. Will they all share the same fate?

IN WTF IS GOING ON HERE: Even some of the ancients wondered how some of their own constructions came to be. The ancient Greeks attributed some of their massive walls and fortifications to the Cyclopes, calling them Cyclopean Walls. The Eastern Islanders didn’t move their massive stone statues from quarries to where they are found today – the statues walked all by themselves. Other cultures attributed the movement of massive stone blocks as having been carried on the backs of dragons. When humans don’t take cedit for allegedly human achievements, something is screwy somewhere, like human mythologies crediting the gods for giving their culture the gift of agriculture. At least the ancient Egyptians took credit for the pyramids.

*Navigating the oceans way outside of the sight of land using the positions of the Sun, Moon and stars would become important but not until way into the Current Era (CE), probably starting with the peopling of the Pacific Region with corners of Hawaii, Easter Island and New Zealand. European maritime exploration and discovery followed. But in the Before the Current Era (BCE) celestial navigation was of minor importance in those sailing-on-the-waters-but-in-sight-of-land (wherever possible) days.



An Ancient Astronaut Glossary: Part Two

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Nazca Lines (Peru): Low technology geo-glyphs constructed by humans designed to be seen by the Sky Gods.

Neith: This is the satellite of Venus, not the Egyptian goddess. What satellite of Venus? That lone satellite that numerous astronomers observed, and then observed no more was named Neith. What transpired, why Neith disappeared, nobody knows.

Nordics (Global Mythology): Ancient astronauts; an extraterrestrial race – Satan, Yahweh, Jesus, Zeus, Odin, Thor, Viracocha, Quetzalcoatl, etc. are prime examples.

Odin (Norse Mythology): Chief ancient astronaut overseeing the general geographic area of Scandinavia often depicted as a bearded Caucasian.

Olmecs (Mesoamerica): The Olmecs were the first advanced civilization to inhabit the eastern coastal area of Mexico. They appeared on the scene mysteriously; they disappeared from the scene just as mysteriously, leaving behind numerous massive multi-ton stone heads with a decided African appearance, implying cultural contact between Africa and Central America way, way before any such contact would have been possible.

Olympians (Greek Mythology): A grouping of senior ancient astronauts, who, led by Zeus oversaw/supervised the general Mediterranean region.

Otherworlds (Celtic Mythology): Literally, other worlds; extra-solar planets around stars in interstellar space.

Out of Time (Global Mythology): Those that enter a mystical realm for a few days or weeks only to emerge years even decades or centuries later. Methuselah et al. might be cases in point; the Celtic Otherworlds among the possible realms. 

Palenque (Mesoamerica): Palenque is a well known Mayan archaeological site, made even more famous due to a lid on a sarcophagus of a Mayan ruler than apparently shows the ruler as an astronaut ascending on a rocket, pictorially in very much the same way as the lone American Mercury astronauts or initial Russian cosmonauts. Unfortunately, IMHO, while appealing, it doesn’t ring true, for reasons other than the alternatives advocated by professional archaeologists. I very much doubt advanced extraterrestrials would be utilizing primitive rocket technology; the ‘astronaut’ in question is barefooted, which seems rather unlikely.

Piri Reis Map: The Turkish Admiral and cartographer Piri Reis compiled from over a dozen earlier maps in 1513 a map that not only showed to a high degree of accuracy the Atlantic Ocean and islands but also the west coasts of Europe and Africa, the east coasts of the Americas, and an ice-free Antarctica coastline. Antarctica hadn’t yet even been discovered in 1513 and if it had been it wouldn’t have been ice-free. The implication is that some maps predating 1513 had to have been compiled from aerial surveys done way before Antarctica was ice-covered and certainly way before humans had explored and mapped in exquisite detail the eastern seaboard of the Americas.  

Pyramids (Egypt; Mesoamerica): Low technology stone constructions built by humans for humans, albeit at considerable time, energy and expense.

Quetzalcoatl (Mesoamerican Mythology): A pre-Aztec (Toltec) and Aztec deity, a creator god who brought and taught many skills to the native Central Americans. Quetzalcoatl, also known as the ‘Feathered Serpent’ (among other titles) was also the inventor of the calendar and associated with the planet Venus. Like numerous other ‘gods’, Quetzalcoatl sailed away one day promising to return. Quetzalcoatl is often compared and contrasted with the Inca deity Viracocha and some suggest they were one and the same.

Satan (Biblical; Christian Mythology): Senior ancient astronaut who mutinied against Yahweh, and lost.

Seraphim (Biblical; Christian Mythology): Six-winged entities (Isaiah 6:2): an extraterrestrial race; ancient astronauts.

Shape-Shifters & Shifting (Global Mythology): Extraterrestrial race; ancient astronauts. Common examples are the Werewolf and the Vampire, but there are literally hundreds of examples from around the world.

Sirius: The star Sirius has been implicated by various human cultures as the parent stellar system from which at least one race of extraterrestrials who have visited Earth call home. Sirius can also have some other extraordinary significance with potential extraterrestrial implications in various human mythologies.

Sky Gods (Global Mythology): Ancient astronauts. Thor (Norse) and Zeus (Greek) are well-known examples, ditto Yahweh (Biblical), Nut and Horus (Egypt), plus Virococha (Inca). There are also ‘Queens of Heaven’ or Sky Goddesses, like Isis (Egypt). In fact, you name the culture and they will have a Sky God or Gods and/or Sky Goddess or Sky Goddesses in their mythologies.

Star of Bethlehem (Christian Mythology): An alien spaceship. No natural astronomical object can appear to hover over one spot since the Earth rotates. (See Matthew 2:9).

Stonehenge (England): A low technology stone construction built by humans for humans, albeit at considerable time, energy and expense, exact purpose(s) unproven.

Tassili n’Ajjer: The south-eastern Sahara Desert region of Algeria is quite famous for hundreds of works of ancient rock art, depicting of all sorts of numerous humans and animals and some weird stuff too like the massive ‘Great God Mars’, so named by its discoverer because of its otherworldliness. That’s just one of numerous examples of primitive rock frescoes, paintings and carvings from around the world that show otherworldly creatures. That prehistoric humans could draw things like humans and animals accurately is not in question. But when it comes to the strange stuff, is it imagination or reality?    

Thor (Norse Mythology): One of numerous Sky Gods with associated high-tech.

Titans (Greek Mythology): Ancient astronauts who fought a ‘war in heaven’ with the Olympians for domination, and lost.

Transport of Massive Stone Megaliths (Global Mythology): Easter Island (statues walk by themselves); massive stones caried on the backs of dragons; cyclopedian walls; Stonehenge; etc.

Tunguska, Siberia (1908): In June of 1908, something exploded midair over Tunguska, Siberia, and causing damage to regions of forest directly underneath the blast. To this very day, no definitive explanation has been proved beyond reasonable doubt. One explanation suggests that this explosion was an artificial aerial vehicle (obviously extraterrestrial) that went ka-boom, perhaps a nuclear explosion if the vessel was nuclear powered.

Unidentified Flying Objects: The modern version of extraterrestrial spaceships/atmospheric vehicles/space shuttles, although in fairness, the vast majority of UFOs are anything but.

Valhalla (Norse Mythology): A suburb or a subpart of Asgard.

Viracocha (Incan Mythology): Chief ancient astronaut and Sky God overseeing the general north-western region of South American, often depicted as a bearded Caucasian. Viracocha is often compared and contrasted with the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl and some suggest they were one and the same.

 

Wars in ‘Heaven’ (Global Mythology): Conflicts between various groups of ancient astronauts or extraterrestrials. Examples include Yahweh vs. Satan (Biblical Mythology; Christian Mythology); Sekhmet (Egypt); Giants vs. the Olympians (Greek Mythology); the Titans vs. the Olympians (Greek Mythology); Aesir vs. the Vanir (Norse Mythology); even in peaceful Polynesian Mythology we have a battle royal between Tu (god of war) and his brothers Tane, Rongo, Haumia-tiketike, and Tawhirimatea; and in the Near East (Mestpotamia) Enlil (leader of the senior gods) had to face a revolt from the junior gods who were being overworked and underpaid. Aztecs.

Wars in ‘Heaven’, Future (Global Mythology): There’s Ragnarok (Norse Mythology) and of course Armageddon (Christian Mythology). Many, not most of these apocalyptic end-of-the-world events are actually just the end of one cycle and the transition to the beginning of a new cycle.

Wheel of Ezekiel (Biblical Mythology): Alien spaceship (see Ezekiel 3; Ezekiel 10).

Yahweh (Biblical; Christian Mythology): Chief ancient astronaut and Sky God overseeing the general Middle East region featuring Israel, Palestine, the Levant, etc. depicted as a bearded Caucasian. 

Winged Deities (Global Mythology): Apart from the Biblical references to the Cherubim and the Seraphim, there are numerous other deities that come with wings like Nike. Collectively, winged deities are an extraterrestrial race; ancient astronauts.

Zeus (Greek Mythology): Chief ancient astronaut overseeing the general Mediterranean region and chief sky god of the Olympians depicted as a bearded Caucasian.

Author’s note: It’s Biblical Mythology if it is related in the Old Testament; Christian Mythology if it’s exclusive to the New Testament; and both if it’s in both.

An Ancient Astronaut Glossary: Part One

Aerial Technologies: Reports of aerial machines, flight technologies, are not unknown in the archaeological and/or historical record, albeit not that far back, rather in the era of recorded ancient history, say the last 10,000 years or so. From the ‘Star’ of Bethlehem, Elijah’s ‘flaming chariot’, to the Wheel of Ezekiel, to the ‘Sun’ and ‘Moon’ that Joshua stood still (Biblical Mythology); to Vimanas which are Hindu mythological flying machines (mythical self-moving aerial cars, a flying chariot of the gods) as related in various Sanskrit epics; to ‘airplane’ models discovered in both ancient Egypt (dated to about 200 BCE) and little gold model ‘airplanes’ from Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican and South American regions, dating from roughly 500 to 800 CE. Scaled-up replicas of these American and Egyptian ‘aircraft’ have found them to be aerodynamically flight worthy. There are also no shortages of art works from antiquity that at face value appear to show what today would be called Flying Saucers, or Daylight Discs, or just plain Unidentified Flying Objects. Finally, aerial ‘chariots’ and extremely large ‘birds’ that ferry the ‘gods’ around are more the norm than not in many mythologies. 

Agricultural-Based Settlements & Civilization: Roughly 10,000 years ago there was a relatively sudden transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agricultural-based settlements in most of the world. Humans relate or credit this change in their mythologies as a gift (of agriculture and animal husbandry) from the gods.

Alien Abductions (Modern; Global Mythology): Abductions of humans by ancient astronauts. Examples include Romulus, Ganymede, Enoch, and Elijah.

Ancient Astronauts: Extraterrestrial beings with highly advanced technologies.

Angels (Biblical; Christian Mythology): Ancient astronaut crewmembers, especially go-betweens twixt the ‘gods’ and the humans. Angels come with differing ranks, but contrary to popular images, they have no wings.

Animal-Animal Hybrids (Global Mythology): Two or more terrestrial animal species combined in a hybrid form by advanced genetic or bioengineering technology. Well known examples include the Sirrush (Near Eastern Mythology); Pegasus and the Chimera (Greek Mythology) and the Kelpie (Celtic Mythology).

Animal-Human Hybrids (Global Mythology): One or more terrestrial animal species combined in a hybrid form with part of a human being (usually face/neck or torso) by advanced genetic or bioengineering technology. Obvious examples would be the Sphinx (Egyptian Mythology; Greek Mythology), the Centaur, Satyr or Minotaur (Greek Mythology); Merfolk i.e. – Mermaids (Global Mythology).

Artificial Selection: The deliberate manipulation of genetic material via selective breeding and/or genetic engineering at the cellular level or below to produce new or enhanced traits that are considered desirable by those doing the manipulating. Artificial selection is useful in explaining numerous by anomalous human characteristics.

Asgard (Norse Mythology): Possibly an extra-solar planet; more likely the name of Odin’s spaceship.

Assur (Near Eastern Mythology): Chief ancient astronaut overseeing the general Middle East region featuring Assyria.

Baalbek: The Great Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, Lebanon, is widely known for having incorporated in the structure some of the largest quarried stone blocks ever used by any builder anywhere at anytime. How these massive stones weighing up to 1000 tons each were transported and raised into place at a height of over eight metres remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of ancient mankind and archaeology. 

Boogieman (Global Mythology): Mythologies throughout the world often have warnings, especially for children, about not wandering too far from home, and not wandering out at night, for unspeakable ‘boogiemen’ are out there to kidnap and maybe devour them, but ultimately never to see home again. Perhaps this is a thinly disguised reference to alien abductions.

Cherubim (Biblical; Christian Mythology): Two to four-winged entities: an extraterrestrial race; ancient astronauts noted for example in the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel. Some also guard the east entrance of the Garden of Eden to ensure humans don’t trespass or re-enter.

Cosmology (Global Mythology): Mythological themes that suggest that our ancient ancestors had astronomical knowledge way in advance of their time. The ‘Cosmic Egg’ that hatched or broke open mimicking the Big Bang. Mythologies of cyclic existences – birth, death, rebirth, etc. mirroring a Big Bang, Big Crunch, Big Bang, etc. cycles. The Chinese mythology regarding cosmology reads an awful lot like the expanding universe.

Crop Circles (Global; esp. England): Manufactured glyphs using agricultural crops as the ‘canvas’ that are the work of obvious intelligence, though controversy abounds whether the intelligence is 100% terrestrial or not.

Cyclopean Walls: Walls that are massive in thickness and in height, usually defensive walls, with individual stones often weighing many tons, thought to be by even the ancients constructed by the Cyclopes or other giants. Only such beings could have erected such fortifications. This is now a general collective phrase for massive defence structures raised in ancient eras.

Cyclopes (Greek Mythology): Ancient astronauts with high technology.

Dragons (Global Mythology): Alien spaceships, mistaken by our ancestors for a flying, roaring, fire-breathing animal. Primarily used as a sort of atmospheric/space shuttle as a go-between twixt the chief and senior ancient astronauts and senior humans (like emperors, etc.).

Easter Island: Easter Island is one of the most isolated Pacific Islands going, yet it was apparently colonized by two different cultures, the Short Ears and the Long Ears, the former probably arriving from Polynesia to the west, and the latter from South America to the east. It’s of course world famous for those massive stone sculptures, some as tall as a four story house and weighing 40 tons or more. There size is often deceiving as they are often just seen from the neck up – the rest of the body bulk still buried beneath the ground. These statues are arresting in that they are clearly human, yet not quite human in appearance. As to how they got from quarry A to resting site B, well the natives say the statues walked by themselves from A to B. That’s clearly impossible, but if you think of how the Saturn V Rocket or the Space Shuttle was transported from hanger to launch pad, well to ancient peoples, they might say the space vehicles ‘walked’ by themselves. Lastly, Easter Island is also famous for those representations of hybrid birdmen.

Elijah (Biblical Mythology): Elijah was abducted by a “chariot of fire, and horses of fire” and carried up to Heaven by a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11). Just like modern UFO abductees, Elijah is to be returned, someday (Malachi 4:5). For Elijah to live so long, since he hasn’t yet made reappearance, one might have to suggest an interstellar space voyage and invoke Einstein’s twin paradox.

Enlil (Near Eastern Mythology): Chief ancient astronaut overseeing the general Middle East region featuring the Mesopotamian area.

Enoch (Biblical Mythology): Enoch was also abducted, by no less than God Himself (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5). Apparently Enoch was to be given eternal life (he’d already lived to be 365 years old at the time of his abduction) without having to die first. Sounds like high-tech to me!

Fairy Folk: [See Little People].

Fermi Paradox: If extraterrestrial intelligences are out there, with advanced space-faring interstellar technologies, then the odds are approaching 100% that they should have discovered Planet Earth. “Where is everybody” asked Fermi? They should be here. They are not here – that’s the paradox. But the paradox dissolves if you can put forth a solid case for ancient astronauts and/or modern UFOs as evidence of extraterrestrial intelligences with advanced interstellar space-faring technologies.

Giant Birds (Global Mythology): Extraterrestrial vehicles, spaceships, technologically advanced airships – prime examples include Lightning Bird (Southern Africa); Thunderbird (North America); Dragons (universal); Gaurda (Hindu) vehicle for the personal transport of…

Giants (Global Mythology): An extraterrestrial race; ancient astronauts. A typical example is the Cyclopes.

Giants (Greek Mythology): Then there was the war between the Giants and the Olympians – another in a long list of examples of the ‘gods’ fighting the ‘gods’ over Earth-turf. Needless to say, Zeus and company won that fight too, albeit with a little help from others, like Hercules.

God: [See Yahweh].

Gods (Global Mythology): Ancient astronauts.

Heaven (Biblical; Christian Mythology): Possibly an extra-solar planet; more likely the name of Yahweh’s spaceship.

Homo sapiens: Modern humans, an ultimate genetically engineered species from primate stock by ancient astronauts.

Human-Animal Hybrids: [See Animal-Human Hybrids].

Hunter-Gatherers (Anthropology): The nomadic lifestyle led by all modern humans and human hominid ancestors since we came down out of the trees (roughly 6 to 8 million years ago) until roughly 10,000 years ago. 

Jesus (Christian Mythology): On balance, I’d say Jesus was a mortal human, filled with mental delusions of grandeur, a human who saw himself as some sort of chosen one. However, I’m not prepared to rule out that he might have been a senior ancient astronaut, it just depends whether you thing the Jesus part of Christian mythology is part of the mythological mountain or the factual part of the hidden molehill.

Little People (Global Mythology):  Fairies, Elves, Leprechauns, etc are just another extraterrestrial race; more ancient astronauts. In modern times, we call them the Greys.

Marduk (Near Eastern Mythology): Chief ancient astronaut overseeing the general Middle East region featuring Babylonia.

Methuselah (Biblical Mythology): Biblical character who took a trip on an interstellar spaceship and was subjected to Einstein’s time dilation/twin paradox explaining his advanced age of 969 years (Genesis 5:27). He was one of numerous Old Testament characters to make such a voyage.

Author’s note: It’s Biblical Mythology if it is related in the Old Testament; Christian Mythology if it’s exclusive to the New Testament; and both if it’s in both.

To be continued.

E.T. and the Migrating Hunter-Gatherer: Part Two

Modern humans originated in Africa some 200,000 years ago – give or take. Further on down the timeline, some band(s) of African humans eventually migrated Out-of-Africa and ultimately colonized Planet Earth. That’s the standard anthropological model. However, within that standard scenario lie a lot of anomalous issues, some of which are explored here. An attempt to resolve these anomalies is presented.

Author’s Note: The scenarios within are those of a timeframe from roughly 13,000 to 200,000 years before the present, and thus way before the era of agricultural settlements. We’re dealing with our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors here. Key dates are: African origin of modern humans, Homo sapiens, at about 200,000 years ago; an Out-of-Africa migration started roughly 70,000 years ago; our global colonization (except for Antarctica and Oceania) was completed by 13,000 years ago.

When it comes to humans, here defined as Homo something or other, not necessarily just Homo sapiens, colonizing the world from Ground Zero, that’s Africa, well several problems arise.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Problem Three: Connect the Dots

There are two main types of clues that reveal our likely migration patterns. Firstly, there are those archaeological sites and from those trained professionals one can usually deduce what hominid species was present and from various dating methods, when. The problem is that such sites are all too few and far between. So, maybe you have an Australian Aboriginal site around the Perth area (S.W. coast) dated to say 30,000 years ago. Then say you have another site around the Sydney area (S.E. Coast) dated to 20,000 years ago. So the conclusion is that some Aborigines migrated from Perth to Sydney over the 10,000 year interval. But there is no sites in-between, so you don’t really know if they migrated in a straight line between the two areas or was it all just a total zigzag. Maybe neither if there is yet an undiscovered third site, say in Darwin (mid-North Coast) from 40,000 years ago, and some Darwin Aborigines followed the west coast route to Perth taking 10,000 years and some others the east coast trek to Sydney taking a span of 20,000 years. You can just about connect the dots anyway you damn well please if it gives evidence to your pet theory.

The second line of evidence is using mitochondrial DNA found in modern humans to try and work back migration routes. For example, if mitochondrial DNA in modern Australian Aborigines has a closer mitochondrial DNA match to modern Indonesians than to modern Fijians, then one might conclude that the Aborigines migrated to Australia from Indonesia and not from Fiji. I personally don’t like this sort of genetic evidence. Firstly, DNA mutates over time. Evolution would be screwed if it didn’t. Secondly, there’s been an awful lot of comings and goings since these initial Out-of-Africa migrations commenced. Thirdly, there’s been an awful lot of breeding between the races so that by now hardly anyone is ‘pure’ anything. Still, the experts put a lot of faith in the testing, so who am I to dispute their ways and means?

So, how do you get from Point A to Point B tens of thousands of years ago when Points A and B are separated by vast ocean distances? Why do you go from Point A to Point B when Point B is relatively undesirable? How in fact do we really know that Points A and B are the be-all-and-end-all of start and finish?

Let’s say Point A is lovely Hawaii, and Point B is the vast arid desert of outback Central Australia. How do you get from A to B? You can’t walk and follow the coastline. You can’t drive or ride a horse. You could build a boat and sail but that’s a hell of a leap of courage you’ve got to master, and in any event you haven’t any idea what direction to head in or that Australia even exists. And even if you did, why would you want to leave Hawaii (Site A) for the Australian Outback; and if you did reach the Outback (Site B) why wouldn’t you turn right around and head back to Hawaii again?

Well, you could be flown non-stop from Hawaii to Central Australia. We crossed over ocean barriers because we were airlifted over them. You could be flown to Central Australia and stranded there. For the same reason, we didn’t voluntarily adopt the tundra as home – it was forced on us as an adapt do-or-die experiment. Flight would also explain the lack of relevant archaeological sites between A and B. If our ancient ancestors nomadically walked thousands of miles between Point A and Point B, you’d expect archaeological evidence to be found along the assumed connect-the-dots route. But if you fly, or are flown, then of course you wouldn’t find any in-between sites containing any relevant archaeological evidence.

Resolutions

Right about now every physical anthropologist reading this is sticking very long and very sharp pins in J.P. voodoo dolls and calling me all sorts of unprintable names. Of course our ancient ancestors didn’t have the technology at hand to fly, so of course no flying machines have been found in the prehistoric archaeological record either. My obvious suggestion here is that ancient astronauts, the ‘gods’ of old (and there’s some evidence that even 30,000-50,000 years ago our ancient ancestors had grasped the concept of the supernatural and of supernatural entities), genetically engineered all of the various Homo something or other from earlier hominids which in turn were artificially selected and bred from African primates, like the chimpanzee. We collectively, Homo something or other, were genetically engineered and given all those anomalous traits associated with Homo something or other, like a super-high IQ, bipedal gait, racial facial and individual facial uniqueness.

From their central African laboratory, Homo something or other was then dispersed over thousands of years as specific and individual experiments in colonization. We were transported here and there, left to our own devices to survive or not – sink or swim.  In most cases it was sink and extinction. But, now and again, it was survival – we floated and we swam. Ultimately nearly all of the Homo something or other went kaput, but Homo sapiens achieved a positive result. We were that robust species (us – modern humans) the end product of all of the engineering and colonization experimentation. At that stage, we were given or taught the gifts of civilization, especially agriculture roughly 10,000 years ago then left petty much alone and to our own devices, with only at-a-distance surveillance – modern UFOs – though some experimentation continues – alien abductions.

There are, IMHO, a couple of other anomalies supporting this wacky idea.

One other anomaly, if we are so crash-hot good to colonise the world (apart from Antarctica and Oceania) and cross some ocean barriers to get to some parts, hence completing the job in the Americas by 13,000 years ago, maybe even way earlier, why didn’t we colonize the Pacific Islands, Oceania east of Australia and west of South America, until really quite recently – starting only some roughly 4000 years before the present, finishing off with New Zealand (except for Antarctica), last cab off the rank way after the start of the Common Era, or A.D. to some. Australia was first populated 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, and New Zealand is just across the road and over the hill, at least compared to the distance back to our African point of origin. Depending on source, it took but 10,000 to 20,000 years to get from Africa to Australia, yet some 70,000 years to get from Africa to New Zealand. Something’s screwy somewhere, but that reinforces the idea that ocean voyages are a relatively recent ability of ours, and therefore, way back when, we didn’t sail across the oceans blue to Australia, Japan, Sri Lanka, etc. but were taken there.

Another apparent anomaly – while it takes but roughly 60,000 years to colonize the world once we’re Out-of-Africa (except Antarctica and Oceania), it took roughly 130,000 years just to get Out-of-Africa, as if something or someone was blocking our path until they were good and ready to release us into the global wild!

Now reports of aerial machines, flight technologies, are not unknown in the archaeological and/or historical record, albeit not prehistorically far back, rather in the era of recorded ancient history, say the last 10,000 years or so. From the ‘Star’ of Bethlehem, Elijah’s ‘flaming chariot’, to the Wheel of Ezekiel, to the ‘Sun’ and ‘Moon’ that Joshua stood still (Biblical  Mythology); the ‘flaming cross’ of Constantine, to Vimanas which are Hindu mythological flying machines (mythical self-moving aerial cars, a flying chariot of the gods) as related in various Sanskrit epics; to ‘airplane’ models discovered in both ancient Egypt (dated to about 200 BCE) and little gold model ‘airplanes’ from Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican and South American regions, dating from roughly 500 to 800 CE. Scaled-up replicas of these American and Egyptian ‘aircraft’ have found them to be aerodynamically flight worthy. There are also no shortages of art works from antiquity that at face value appear to show what today would be called Flying Saucers, or Daylight Discs, or just plain Unidentified Flying Objects. Finally, aerial ‘chariots’ and extremely large ‘birds’ that ferry the ‘gods’ around are more the norm than not in many mythologies. 

E.T. and the Migrating Hunter-Gatherer: Part One

Modern humans originated in Africa some 200,000 years ago – give or take. Further on down the timeline, some band(s) of African humans eventually migrated Out-of-Africa and ultimately colonized Planet Earth. That’s the standard anthropological model. However, within that standard scenario lie a lot of anomalous issues, some of which are explored here. An attempt to resolve these anomalies is presented.

Author’s Note: The scenarios within are those of a timeframe from roughly 13,000 to 200,000 years before the present, and thus way before the era of agricultural settlements. We’re dealing with our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors here. Key dates are: African origin of modern humans, Homo sapiens, at about 200,000 years ago; an Out-of-Africa migration started roughly 70,000 years ago; our global colonization (except for Antarctica and Oceania) was completed by 13,000 years ago.

When it comes to humans, here defined as Homo something or other, not necessarily just Homo sapiens, colonizing the world from Ground Zero, that’s Africa, well several problems arise.

Humans (as in Homo sapiens) originated in Africa and some ultimately did, slowly, ever so slowly, migrate Out-of-Africa (not that they actually were aware of this), eventually spreading out and colonizing the world (apart from Antarctica and Oceania east of Australia and west of South America) by at least 13,000 years ago. Exactly how is not fully understood, least of all by me. The central, but not exclusive, issue I have is with respect to our ways and means of trading in being exclusively nomadic land-lubbers for acquiring sophisticated maritime abilities as well; abilities required if our global colonization scenario is to be believed.

Problem One: Boats Required but No Show-Boats Found

When it comes to human migrations, there are certain lands that have been colonized by both Homo sapiens and Homo erectus that involved crossing reasonably vast expanses of ocean – vast at least for those cultures that existed over 60,000 years ago, when, for example, Australia was colonized by what’s today known as the Australian Aborigine. Even earlier, Homo erectus island-hopped the numerous Indonesian islands as attested to by fossil evidence. In both cases, these ancient cultures had to have acquired rather extensive boat-making, sailing and navigation skills that would allow a large enough population to cross over the ocean waters, since even during Ice Age conditions, these Indonesian islands, and Australia, were still isolated by oceans.

Sailing the oceans blue: that’s a pretty big ask for primitive humans all those tens upon tens of thousands of years ago. But, there’s another way of crossing the ocean blue – we do it all the time today. We don’t sail, we fly. Perhaps our ancient ancestors were flown to Australia and the Indonesian isles! Since aerial technology is even more outlandish than maritime technology, well, perhaps the aerial technology belonged to advanced beings – ancient aliens or ancient astronauts. One other observation in favour – there are fossil finds of this or that hominid species at A, B & C. Alas, geographical points A, B, & C are separated by thousands upon thousands of miles. No fossils are found at any points in-between A & B, or B & C. An obvious explanation, they didn’t migrate between A & B and B & C at several tens of kilometres per generation; they were flown from A to B to C, thus explaining the lack of fossils in-between - but more about that shortly.

Sooner or later in your nomadic hunter-gatherer wanderings you’re going to intersect the seashore! Rivers and streams you can wade across or swim across, maybe use a buoyant log to hold on to if need be. Lakes can be walked around. But the ocean!!! The oceans offshore must have been terrifying to our very ancient ancestors, and rightly so. The ocean is nothing if not unpredictable and dangerous: from huge waves, gales, riptides, strong currents, razor-sharp rocks and shoals, sharks, jellyfish, hypothermia, and just all sorts of unknowns lurking beneath the surface to add to your terrors. The tides must have seemed to be a purely supernatural manifestation, without natural explanation, an unexplainable action of the gods somehow saying “this is our domain, keep away”.

Would you rather be high and dry 10 miles inland or 10 miles out to sea trying to keep your head above water and not ending up as fish-food? It takes way less effort sit on the beach than to swim or sail in or on the ocean, and it’s a lot safer too!

Further, in most cases with no other land in sight, you haven’t a clue what’s on the other side of the ocean, if anything (maybe it goes on forever and forever), or how far across it is to the other side, and in any event you and your band of nomadic hunter-gatherers have more pressing needs, like finding today’s food and tonight’s shelter. The coastlines and seashores offers an abundance of food stuffs and resources: shellfish, crabs, turtles, seals, seabirds, fish, even seaweed (dried for fuel). Coastlines and seashores are good.

Are you really going to stop, make a raft and go sailing out into the pure unknown out of pure curiosity, though curiosity you probably have? No, in the daily hunt for survival you’ll probably ignore the ocean and just follow the coastline – which eventually will bring you to most places. If you come to an impassable barrier, it’s probably easier and far safer to trek inland for awhile than divert resources to swimming or rafting around the barrier with all the dangers that could entail. In any event, it’s not all that east building and sailing and navigating a seaworthy boat or raft from scratch without any handy-dandy how-to manual available. Further, you can’t drink the seawater so freshwater would have to be carried on any hypothetical voyage. Do you have leak-proof containers? If so, how much do you need to take? Who knows? In any event, you don’t have boat or raft building know-how, or navigation skills nor seamanship abilities.

There are four possible or realistic routes out of Africa. Even during the Ice Ages when sea levels were lower, three involve an ocean crossing, which, I suggest our ancient ancestors would avoid. I think it is far easier, and safer, to just follow the coastline, so I opt for the sole land route, up the west coast of the Red Sea and on up either into the Levant, or back down the east coast of the Red Sea and on into Arabia. You can follow the African coastline ‘Out of Africa’ and eventually reach China, but not Australia, or Japan, or lots of S.E. Asian islands, the Channel Islands (off Southern California), Sri Lanka, etc. Yet you find ancient human and human artefact remains in these places, so our migrating nomadic ancestors obviously did build boats or rafts and sail the ocean blue and satisfy that curiosity, but the real why is unexplained – curiosity is not motive enough to put yourself in harms way. The fly in the ointment, in any event, and alas and alack, there are no boats or rafts to be found, actual remains or pictorial representations, in the prehistoric archaeological record. Boats and rafts are all probable boats and rafts; boats and rafts are assumed but not proven by any actual evidence. It’s a sort of ’Catch-22’. Boats and rafts must be, yet we can’t find them!

It must be said that because of the Ice Ages, ancient coastlines then are now underwater and presumably relevant telltale archaeology (as in remains of boats) is therefore also underwater. Even so, the issue remains that I find it difficult to believe our ancient ancestors would have been brave enough to stick their toes in the oceans without a damn good reason, yet, there were places colonized by early man that even at the height of the Ice Ages there existed no land bridges for them to cross over, say to Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, Japan, lots of S.E. Asian islands, and presumably lots of other islands, large and small. Conclusion: That’s a big anomaly that needs a resolution.

Problem Two: Paradise Lost

Crossing the oceans blue is just the start of anomalous migration issues. If money, language barriers, cultural differences, political systems, passports and visas, etc. were of no concern and you could travel to and live anywhere you wished, where would it be? Well, probably somewhere not too hot, not too cold, not too wet, nor too dry, a place where there are abundant natural resources of food, fresh water, wood, stone, and probably some sort of ascetically pleasing scenery, etc. With the exception of the scenery, all those other geographical and climatic factors would be even more pressing for our ancient ancestors with no access to supermarkets, hardware stores, air conditioning, central heating and tap water on demand. So the question arises, given a lack of population pressure way back when, a lack of pressure not driving migration away from paradise and toward hell, why did some of our ancient ancestors adopt a nomadic lifestyle in what we’d consider extreme environments, like arid regions, the tundra, etc.? 

Unlike today’s travellers, when our very remote ancestors roamed the plains of Africa, their nomadic wanderings or migrations were not geography directed. In an era where there was no radio and TV, newspapers and magazines, GPS and the Internet, encyclopaedias and travel agents, there was no knowledge of what was over the hill, beyond the horizon. Food availability directed your travels and migrations. You exhausted one patch of turf – you moved on to the next, and the next, and the next in a sort of random drunkards walk. Logic dictates that even so you didn’t wander out of paradise or a reason facsimile thereof. But eventually, like a drop of ink diffusing through a glass of water, the rest of the world, paradise, hell and points in-between, got invaded by our African out-of-towners – an invasive pest species that was to bring total death and destruction in their wake, but that’s another story. Anyway, why we colonized extremely hostile environments when more pleasant alternatives were available needs a resolution.

To be continued...

Aliens Did Not Build the Egyptian Pyramids

Though I find much admirable and compelling about the ‘ancient astronaut’ hypothesis of Erich von Daniken and a host of other converts, I just cannot accept the idea that ‘ancient astronauts’, that is aliens or extraterrestrials if you prefer built the Egyptian pyramids however difficult it may appear for ‘primitive’ humans without benefit of the wheel or the pulley to have constructed them.

Aliens, ‘ancient astronauts’ or perhaps the ancient Egyptian ‘gods’ (really extraterrestrials) may have helped inspire the building of the Egyptian pyramids (like God inspires the building of cathedrals), but it was your basic human blood, sweat and tears that did the actual construction despite all the hardships. Here are some thoughts on why we have to pat ourselves on the back and not the backs of aliens for these impressive structures, one of which is the last one standing of the seven original ancient wonders of the world.

*One common theme in creation mythology is that the ‘gods’ created humans to serve them and do the hard yards in terms of sweat and toil. That alone is suggestive that the so-called ‘gods’ (that is, the ‘ancient astronauts’) did not sweat and toil and build the pyramids using whatever high-tech at their command; rather humans erected these massive structures as tombs (and as a stairway to the heavens in the afterlife) to honour their ‘gods’, of which the pharaoh was considered to be as one after death. So a tomb for the departed king was also a monument erected to the ‘gods’.

*Archaeological digs within sight of the Great Pyramids at Giza have uncovered ‘towns’ and cemeteries where the human labour force that planned and built the pyramids, and provided the required infrastructure (like food) lived and died and were buried, including, of course, the skeletal remains of those workers.

*Detailed medical analysis of those skeletons reveals the sorts of anatomical conditions and accidental injuries that would be commonly associated with; that which would result from the backbreaking sort of work associated with stonework; moving and positioning massive stone blocks.  

*Images or reliefs in various temples, tombs and other structures depict scenes of large groups of men hauling massive stone blocks and/or doing the sorts of things that stonemasons do.

*Graffiti has been uncovered inside numerous ancient Egyptian pyramid sites left behind by the work gangs who did the hard yards. It’s a sort of ancient equivalent of the WWII “Kilroy Was Here” sort of thing.  

*The pyramids show a natural evolution in styling from the simple mastaba to the more complex as in mastabas piled one on top of the other (the Step Pyramid), then finally to the true pyramid shape now so familiar to us in their design and structure, starting with the Red Pyramid at Dahshur. Pyramids are not all near identical clones that those at the Giza necropolis might suggest.

*Associated with that evolution, we find pyramids that ended up in an ‘oops’ condition; pyramids that suffered construction mishaps like the Pyramid of Meidum where the outer bits just sort of collapsed in a heap revealing the inner core. The Bent Pyramid was “bent” because it was realised half-way through that the original angle was too steep and the top half was constructed at a lesser angle. The pharaoh concerned was an unhappy camper about that ‘oops’ and so the Bet Pyramid was then abandoned unused. Aliens wouldn’t have made such trail-and-error mistakes.

*The pyramid shape is hardly something out-of-this-world. It’s a fundamental geometrical shape well known to the ancients.

*Looking at images of the pyramids, both external and internal, you’d be pretty hard pressed to think of these as something high-tech. If ‘ancient astronauts’ can get from there to here in high-tech spaceships, and when they arrived they then built these pyramids, then you’d expect something a bit more futuristic ‘gosh-wow’, ‘golly-gee’, with flashing lights and lots of glass, chrome-and-steel, ceramics-and-plastics, all incorporated into that sort of architectural engineering that we employ today. Pure stone might be impressive, but high-tech it’s not.

*Modern scholars and Egyptologists have shown plausible ways ancient humans could have used ‘primitive’ techniques that oriented the pyramids and levelled them with respect to the ground and constructed them to high levels of precisions of length and slope. No high-tech was required.

*What possible motive could ‘ancient astronauts’ have had to construct such things in any event? They weren’t tombs for aliens; they certainly weren’t apartments or office blocks for extraterrestrials.

*No out-of-place artefacts have been discovered in or around the pyramids that can be associated with the time of the pyramids and the pyramid builders, the sort of tools and equipment you might find in any modern hardware store. And certainly nothing that looked like it should belong among the props on the “Star Trek” film or TV set has been documented.  

*The only real out-of-place artefact I’m aware of that’s suggestive of some odd goings on is that little wooden ‘bird’ found within an ancient Egyptian tomb at Saqqara in 1898, dated to several centuries BCE, now at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo [1]. Alas, it’s labelled a “bird” because it would be silly to label it an “airplane”, yet that’s exactly what it looks like, and scaled up models fly like a plane and are aerodynamically sound. That’s hardly evidence, far less proof, aliens were in ancient Egypt and therefore must have built the pyramids, but the game is afoot and explanations are required. 

*Ancient Egyptians left behind an awful lot of images on the walls of tombs, temples, obelisks, stele, etc. of their gods, pharaohs, their everyday life at work and play, their family activities, warfare scenes, etc. Nothing leaps out as anything obviously ‘out of this world’ as in depictions of ‘The Greys’ or of flying saucers or any sort of celestial scenes like say the planet Saturn complete with rings or an accurate pictorial depiction of say our solar system. Some of their ‘gods’ do look more than just a little bit strange with their animal heads, but at least they are the heads of terrestrial animals depicted. 

*However, an interesting image or relief at the Temple of [the goddess] Hathor at Dendera, Egypt shows two ancient Egyptians, apparently priests, each holding up what appears at first, second and even third glance to be an enormous light bulb complete with cable attachments at the rear end [2], though judging by other humans in the petroglyph nothing really is to scale. However, a light bulb by itself is useless. To be effective and do its light bulb thing, a massive infrastructure is required behind it. You’d need an electric power plant, or generator, or large batteries and electric wiring. There’s no power source shown and there’s no such electric generating infrastructure uncovered in the archaeological record. This image appears to be a one-off and the objects probably aren’t what they seem to be to our modern eyes. Only those depicted in the image, and perhaps the one who carved it and the intended audience would know what it really signifies. 

*However, that image does raise an interesting question, and, IMHO, a bona-fide mystery. How were passageways in tombs (like the pyramids) and temples, sometimes kilometres in length when taking into account all the twists and turns; often tunnels (with multi side chambers) descending down to depths equivalent to a 30-story building, lighted? Experiments with reflecting mirrors using outside natural light fail after several hundred feet. There are all sorts of highly detailed inscriptions/hieroglyphs chiselled on the walls and ceilings; ditto paintings. Yet, if all was lite by burning torches, where’s all the smoke soot? Can you construct such elaborate passageways/chambers from solid rock and highly detailed paintings and carvings and inscriptions in total darkness except for candles/torches without leaving soot behind and ruining your eyesight to boot? Could you? I couldn’t. Somewhat related is a viable oxygen supply in some of those really deep tombs. There just wouldn’t have been enough to support many workers. Even archaeologists descending down today can find themselves in difficulty.

*Finally, much of what applies here applies equally to the pyramids associated with the various cultures of Mesoamerica. I see no evidence at all that humans couldn’t of constructed these structures. 

Now don’t get me wrong, there are indeed many, many unsolved (but not unsolvable) anomalies or mysteries associated with the Egyptian pyramids (like lighting) that will keep Egyptologists and archaeologists and historians busy for generations yet, but invoking ‘ancient astronauts’ doesn’t seem to be very helpful in pushing forward such solutions that research will eventually solve and pin the handiwork where it belongs, on the human being. That said, I’m more than willing to concede that aliens might be associated with one or more reasons for humans building the pyramids, but that’s a far cry from saying aliens actually built the pyramids or gave humans our modern even futuristic (by our standards) technology to accomplish same.

P.S.: Contrary to typical and stereotyped Hollywood (and similar) depictions, slaves didn’t build the pyramids either. You had a voluntary labour force (in service to the pharaoh), a well fed, housed and looked after workforce.

[1] Corliss, William R. (Compiler); “The little wooden airplane” (in) Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts; The Sourcebook Project, Glen Arm, Maryland; 1978; pages 454-455:

[2] Sanderson, Ivan T.; “Frightfully ancient electrics” (in) Investigating the Unexplained: A Compendium of Disquieting Mysteries of the Natural World; Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; 1972; pages 179-196:

Aliens: I Want To Believe: Part Two

A vast majority of people think it’s a total waste of time to search for extraterrestrial life in space – throughout the entire cosmos – not because they’re convinced ET doesn’t exist, but rather that ET has been (ancient astronauts) and is now (UFOs) not only here but up close and personal with Planet Earth and humanity. 

Continued now from yesterday’s blog…

What becomes of all those UFO eyewitness reports (sometimes backed up by physical evidence)? Well those qualified to do so, scientists, military personnel (because UFOs were once a national security issue) and others so qualified try to come up with a prosaic answer. They don’t come up with an acceptable answer in all the cases. So then there are the UFO unknowns – the actual hardcore, bona-fide unidentified flying objects. Even the most hardened of UFO sceptics acknowledges that between 5% and 10% of UFO reports turn into hardcore unidentified sightings. When translated over six plus decades, worldwide, that’s one hell of a lot of mysterious residue one has to come to terms with. Why science and scientists, presumably charged with the responsibility of exploring the unknown and figuring out how things work, choose to ignore this massive pile of hardcore unknowns is quite beyond me.  I mean if each and every UFO report that came in was quickly explained away, well everyone should and probably would be sceptical when yet another report hit the fan. But that’s not the case.

The fact, as noted above, what most sceptics readily acknowledge, is that between 5 and 10 percent of all reported UFO incidents remain unidentified after investigation by those qualified to do so. This fact apparently excites the scientific, astrobiology, and SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) communities not one jot. But, if SETI received out of all radio signals, 5% to 10% unexplained radio signals, (“WOW” signals), that of course would set the SETI community abuzz.

In a similar vein, if 5 to 10 percent of particle interactions were unexplainable by the current standard model of particle physics, that would set the physics community abuzz without question.

If the speed of light varied ever so slightly 5% to 10% of the times it were measured, the special relativity community would be agog, and extremely interested.

If 5 to 10 percent of galaxies showed a discrepancy between their red-shifts and their distances, that would set the cosmology community abuzz.  

So, why the big scientific yawn over the apparently bona fide UFO’s unidentified percentage? Perhaps it might take sociologists who study the sociology of science to pin that one down. There’s a mystery just begging for serious attention here that has the potential for massive ramifications, not just scientific ones.

Now the hardcore unknowns aren’t a ‘possible this’ or a ‘probable that’ or maybe yet some other thing(s) that acquaint yet again to something in terms of a prosaic explanation. The experts haven’t a clue what these 5% to 10% of UFOs are.

So, faced with these hardcore bona fide unknowns, the public focuses on the ETH. That’s understandable as how many other possible explanations for the hardcore can there be?

Okay, maybe it’s time travellers from our future as one alternative. But then hardcore UFO unknowns aren’t clustered around significant historical events that would be must sees – the bread-and-butter of that industry – to tourists and historians from our future.

An early UFO ETH theory was that UFOs were actual living organisms who lived in outer space but now and again would dip into our atmosphere. No biologist could actually explain how such creatures could survive, far less thrive, in the harsh conditions of outer space.

Some suggest that the hardcore represent some sort of totally new natural phenomena, except there’s no even theoretical underpinning for new natural phenomena, and after six decades, well that’s a total failure to come to terms with an easy way out of the hardcore mess. However, natural phenomena wouldn’t exhibit intelligent behaviour in any event, which the hardcore UFOs do. That’s why they often tend to be the hardcore.

Now one might argue that if nine out of ten UFO reports turn out to be prosaic, then the final tenth one will to. That point of view (POV) is seemingly logical, but really illogical. If your footie team wins nine grand finals on the trot, well that’s no reason another team won’t win the next one. Toss heads nine times in a row – the tenth toss is still 50/50, not 100% in favour of heads. Nine out of ten of anything tells you zip about the tenth occurrence.

The mention of eyewitness testimony of course brings to the fore visual images. An image (picture) is worth a thousand words as the saying goes. For visual images to really be effective, they have got to be captured in some form or other. Still photographs and motion pictures come to mind here. There are of course a fair few photographs; alas fewer motion pictures of UFOs – no bona fide examples of actual LGM (the “G” could stand for ‘Gray”) - are present and accounted for. However, films and photographs and fakery are too often associated. But even real motion pictures of ‘lights in the sky’, albeit unidentified ‘lights in the sky’ don’t have quite the same visual impact as some of those from our historical past – not film, but something more durable. It’s a lot harder to explain away images from ancient history – images often carved out of stone or carved into stone.

For example, there are the famous statues on Easter Island. Well, the representations are human, but not quite human enough. If they are a representation of ancestor worship (as is commonly cited) then either the ancestors were very strange or else the stone masons were rather poor carvers, or they were one of the first to have invented abstract art. There’s something screwy somewhere in attributing the Easter Island statues as representing a strictly human form. If not strictly human, what’s the alternative?

You have some of the ancient Egyptian ‘gods’ with jackal and falcon heads – how many humans do you see down at your local shopping mall with animal heads?

The Nazca Lines are world famous. They basically are etchings (representing various animals and other objects) made in the dry desert plains in Southern Peru that, much like crop circles, can only be really appreciated from the air. In fact they were only discovered in the 1930’s from aircraft flying overhead.   There’s no doubt humans constructed the lines, which took a lot of time, effort and energy, but to what purpose? Certainly they were not runways for flying saucers and astronomical alignments and associated explanations fail too. Since they were clearly meant to be seen from the air and since we’re talking about their construction some 400 to 650 years AD – sort of our pre-flight era – then the most logical explanation is that they were art works for the sky gods to see and appreciate. 

Tassili n’Ajjer is located in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria. It’s famous for its prehistoric art rock paintings, many of which are really, really weird. One archaeologist dubbed one such art work the ‘Great Martian God’. Humans drew the various images of – well what exactly? Many of the images certainly don’t depict anything terrestrial that’s for sure. Just plug in the term ‘Tassili’ into Google Images for examples, and decide for yourself. 

Visoki Dečani is a major Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery located in Kosovo. Within are various murals. On the "The Crucifixion" fresco, painted in 1350, objects similar to UFOs can be found. They represent two comets that look like space ships, with two men inside of them, and are often cited by those interested in ‘ancient astronauts’. The images are certainly striking. You have to decide for yourself if these images are representing really real ‘ancient astronauts’ aerial craft. 

Cylinder Seals date from about 3500 BC in Mesopotamia and surrounding regions. They tell ‘picture stories’ and were engraved on cylinders that could be rolled onto a flat surface like wet clay. The interesting bit is that not only are some images clearly mythological, showing dragons and various gods, but some images are clearly astronomical. Celestial objects abound. No less a scientist than the late Dr. Carl Sagan, is on record (in his co-authored book “Intelligent Life in the Universe”) as noting that some cylinder seals clearly show various extra-solar planetary systems, often in association with specific deities.

There are many, many ancient figurines or statues showing beings something less than what we’d call ‘human’. Of the lot, I personally found some of the most striking to be male and female clay figurines dating from the archaeological period called the Obed time or Obed horizon in Mesopotamia, roughly fourth millennium BC, with insect-like heads or at least eyes. In fact the eyes are very striking, and certainly representing nothing terrestrial – they remind me of the modern depiction of the eyes of the UFO-related greys.  

Speaking of which, there was that immense psychological subconscious reaction to the face of the ‘Grey’ on the cover of Whitley Strieber’s book “Communion”.

The Piri Reis Map is another well known case of something that really shouldn’t be, but is. Piri Reis was a Turkish admiral and cartographer who strutted his stuff in the early 1500’s. The famous map in question shows in considerable detail the coastlines of the Americas, greater detail than exploration of that era would have been possible, plus the opposite side of the Atlantic (which, okay, was pretty well known), but most impressive, parts of coastal Antarctica, a continent which hadn’t yet been discovered (though highly speculated about). However, in fairness, there are enough errors that sceptics can easily dismiss this as evidence of ‘ancient astronauts’ – close, but no cigar.

Then there’s the popular literature.  There was the immense popularity of Erich Von Daniken’s ancient astronaut books – they really rang quite a responsive chord around the world. UFO books tend to sell well too, for example, as noted above Whitley Strieber’s “Communion” and sequels; also Budd Hopkins “Missing Time” and later works. For people to shell out their hard earned bucks for books that are on the fringe of science and acceptability – well, there’s got to be some sort of responsive chord driving this. 

In conclusion, I want to believe? Indeed I do – believe that is!