Chariots of the Gods (3 page)

New knowledge about the solar system and the universe, about macrocosm and microcosm, tremendous advances in technology and medicine, in biology and geology, the beginning of space travel—these and many other things have completely altered our world picture in less than fifty years.

Today we know that it is possible to make space-suits that can withstand extremes of heat and cold. Today we know that space travel is no longer a Utopian idea. We are familiar with the miracle of colour television, just as we can measure the speed of light and calculate the consequences of the theory of relativity.

Our world picture, which is already almost frozen into immobility, begins to thaw. New working hypotheses need new criteria. For example, in the future archaeology can no longer be simply a matter of excavation. The mere collection and classification of finds is no longer adequate. Other branches of science will have to be consulted and made use of, if a reliable picture of our past is to be drawn.

So let us enter the new world of the improbable with an open mind and bursting with curiosity! Let us try to take possession of the inheritance the 'gods' have bequeathed to us.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century ancient maps which had belonged to an officer in the Turkish Navy, Admiral Piri Reis, were found in the Topkapi Palace. Two atlases preserved in the Berlin State Library which contain exact reproductions of the Mediterranean and the region round the Dead Sea also came from Piri Reis.

All these maps were handed over to the American cartographer Arlington H. Mallery for examination. Mallery confirmed the remarkable fact that all the geographical data were present, but were not drawn in the right places. He sought the help of Mr Walters, cartographer in the US Navy Hydrographic Bureau. Mallery and Walters constructed a grid and transferred the maps to a modern globe. They made a sensational discovery. The maps were absolutely accurate—and not only as regards the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. The coasts of North and South America and even the contours of the Antarctic were also precisely delineated on Piri Reis's maps. The maps not only reproduced the outlines of the continents, but also showed the topography of the interiors! Mountain ranges, mountain peaks, islands, rivers and plateaux were drawn in with extreme accuracy.

In 1957, the Geophysical Year, the maps were handed over to the Jesuit Father Lineham, who is both Director of the Weston Observatory and a cartographer in the US Navy. After scrupulous tests Father Lineham, too, could but confirm that the maps were fantastically accurate—even about regions which we have scarcely explored today. What is more the mountain ranges in the Antarctic, which already figure on Reis's maps, were not discovered until 1952. They have been covered in ice for hundreds of years and our present-day maps have been drawn with the aid of echo-sounding apparatus.

The latest studies of Professor Charles H. Hapgood and the mathematician Richard W. Strachan give us some more shattering information. Comparison with modern photographs of our globe taken from satellites showed that the originals of Piri Reis's maps must have been aerial photographs taken from a very great height. How can that be explained?

A space-ship hovers high above Cairo and points its camera straight downwards. When the film is developed the following picture would emerge: everything that was in a radius of about 5,000 miles of Cairo is reproduced correctly, because it lay directly below the lens. But the countries and continents become increasingly distorted the further we move our eyes from the centre of the picture.

Why is this?

Owing to the spherical shape of the earth, the continents away from the centre 'sink downwards'. South America, for example, appears strangely distorted lengthways, exactly as it does on the Piri Reis maps! And exactly as it does on the photographs taken from the USA lunar probes.

There are one or two questions that can be answered quickly. Unquestionably our forefathers did not draw these maps. Yet there is no doubt that the maps must have been made with the most modern technical aids—from the air.

How are we to explain that? Should we be satisfied with the legend that a god gave them to a high priest? Or should we simply take no notice of them and pooh-pooh the 'miracle', because the maps do not fit into our mental world picture? Or should we boldly stir up a wasps' nest and claim that this cartography of our globe was carried out from a high-flying aircraft or from a space-ship?

Admittedly the Turkish Admiral's maps are not originals. They are copies of copies of copies. Yet even if the maps dated only from the eighteenth century when they were found these facts are just as unexplainable. Whoever made them must have been able to fly and also to take photographs!

Not far from the sea, in the Peruvian spurs of the Andes, lies the ancient city of Nazca. The Palpa valley contains a strip of level ground some 37 miles long and one mile wide that is scattered with bits of stone resembling pieces of rusty iron. The inhabitants call this region pampa, although any vegetation is out of the question there. If you fly over this territory—the plain of Nazca—you can make out gigantic lines, laid out geometrically, some of which run parallel to each other, while others intersect or are surrounded by large trapezoidal areas.

The archaeologists say that they are Inca roads.

A preposterous idea! What use were roads that run parallel to each other to the Incas? That intersect? That are laid out in a plain and come to a sudden end?

Naturally typical Nazca pottery and ceramics are found here, too. But it is surely oversimplifying things to attribute the geometrically arranged lines to the Nazca culture for that reason alone.

No serious excavations were ever carried out in this area until 1952. There is no established chronology for all the tilings that were found. Only now have the lines and geometrical figures been measured. The results clearly confirm the hypothesis that the lines were laid out according to astronomical plans. Professor Alden Mason, a specialist in Peruvian antiquities, suspects signs of a kind of religion in the alignments and perhaps a calendar as well.

Seen from the air, the clear-cut impression that the 37-mile-long plain of Nazca made on me was that of an airfield!

What is so far-fetched about the idea?

'Research' (= knowledge) does not become possible until the thing that is to be investigated has actually been found' Once it is found, it is tirelessly polished and trimmed until it has become a stone that—miraculously enough—fits exactly into the existing mosaic. Classical archaeology does not admit that the pre-Inca peoples could have had a perfect surveying technique. And the theory that aircraft could have existed in antiquity is sheer humbug to it.

In that case, what purpose did the lines at Nazca serve? According to my way of thinking they could have been laid out on their gigantic scale by working from a model and using a system of co-ordinates or they could also have been built according to instructions from an aircraft. It is not yet possible to say with certainty whether the plain of Nazca was ever an airfield. If iron was used it will certainly not be found. For most metals corrode in a few years, but stone never corrodes. What is wrong with the idea that the lines were laid out to say to the 'gods': 'Land here! Everything has been prepared as "you" ordered'? The builders of the geometrical figures may have had no idea what they were doing. But perhaps they knew perfectly well what the 'gods' needed in order to land.

Enormous drawings that were undoubtedly meant as signals for a being floating in the air are found on mountain sides in many parts of Peru. What other purpose could they have served?

One of the most peculiar drawings is carved on the high red wall of the cliffs in the Bay of Pisco. If you arrive by sea, you can make out a figure nearly 820 ft high from a distance of over 12 miles. If you play at 'It looks like ...', your immediate reaction is that this sculptor's work looks like a gigantic trident or a colossal three-branched candlestick. And a long rope was found on the central column of this stone sign. Did it serve as a pendulum in the past?

To be honest, we must admit that we are groping in the dark when we try to explain it. It cannot be meaningfully included in existing dogmas, which does not mean to say that there may not be some trick by which scholars could conjure this phenomenon too into the great mosaic of accepted archaeological thinking.

But what can have induced the pre-Inca peoples to build the fantastic lines, the landing strips, at Nazca? What madness could have driven them to create the 820-ft-high stone signs on the red cliffs south of Lima?

These tasks would have taken decades without modern machines and appliances. Their whole activity would have been senseless if the end-product of their efforts had not been meant as signs to beings approaching them from great heights. The stimulating question still has to be answered: why did they do all this if they could have had no idea that flying beings actually existed?

The identification of finds can no longer remain a matter for archaeology alone. A council of scientists from different fields of research would certainly bring us closer to the solution of the puzzle. Exchange of opinions and dialogue would definitely produce illuminating insights. The danger of research coming to no definite conclusion lies in the fact that scientists do not take the posing of such questions seriously and ridicule them. Space travellers in the grey mists of time? An inadmissible question to academic scientists. Anyone who asks questions like that ought to see a psychiatrist.

But the questions are there, and questions, thank heavens, have the impertinent quality of hovering in the air until they are answered. And there are many inadmissible questions like that. For example, what would people say if there was a calendar which gave the equinoxes, the astronomical seasons, the positions of the moon for every hour and also the movements of the moon, even taking the rotation of the earth into account?

That is no mere hypothetical question. This calendar exists. It was found in the dry mud at Tiahuanaco. It is a disconcerting find. It yields irrefutable facts and proves— can our self-assurance admit such a proof?—that the beings who produced, devised and used the calendar had a higher culture than ours.

Another fantastic discovery made there was the Great Idol. This single block of red sandstone is over 24 ft long and weighs 20 tons. It was found in the Old Temple. Again we have a contradiction between the superb quality and precision of the hundreds of symbols all over the idol and the primitive technique used for the building housing it. Indeed it is called the Old Temple because of the primitive technique.

H. S. Bellamy and P. Allan have given a closely reasoned interpretation of the symbols in their book The Great Idol of Tiahuanaco. They conclude that the symbols record an enormous body of astronomical knowledge and are based, as a matter of fact, on a round earth.

They conclude that the record fits perfectly Hoerbiger's Theory of Satellites published in 1927 five years before the idol was discovered. This theory postulates that a satellite was captured by the earth. As it was pulled towards the earth it slowed down the speed of the earth's revolutions. It finally disintegrated and was replaced by the moon.

The symbols on the idol exactly record the astronomical phenomena which would accompany this theory at a time when the satellite was making 425 revolutions round the earth in a year of 288 days. They were forced to conclude that the idol records the state of the heavens 27,000 years ago. They write 'Generally, the idol inscriptions give the impression ... that it has been devised also as a record for future generations.'

Here indeed is an object of great antiquity which demands a better explanation than 'an ancient god'. If this interpretation of the symbols can be substantiated we must ask was the astronomical knowledge really amassed by people who still had a great deal to learn about building or did it come from extra-terrestrial sources? In either case the existence of such a sophisticated body of knowledge, demonstrated on both the idol and the calendar is staggering.

The city of Tiahuanaco teems with secrets. The city lies at a height of over 13,000 ft, besides which it is miles from anywhere. Starting from Cuzco (Peru), you reach the city and the excavation sites after several days' travel by rail and boat. The plateau looks like the landscape of an unknown planet. Manual labour is a torture for anyone who is not a native. The atmospheric pressure is about half as low as it is at sea-level and the oxygen content of the air is correspondingly small. And yet an enormous city stood on this plateau.

There are no authentic traditions about Tiahuanaco. Perhaps we should be glad that in this case acceptable answers cannot be reached by leaning on the crutch of hereditary orthodox learning. Over the ruins, which are incredibly old (how old we do not yet know), lies the mist of the past, ignorance and mystery.

Blocks of sandstone weighing 100 tons are topped with other 60-ton blocks for walls. Smooth surfaces with extremely accurate chamfers join enormous squared stones which are held together with copper clamps. In addition all the stone work is exceptionally neatly executed. Holes 8 ft long, whose purpose has not been explained so far, are found in blocks weighing 10 tons. Nor do the 16 1/2-ft-long, worn-down flagstones cut out of one piece contribute to the solution of the mystery that Tiahuanaco conceals. Stone water conduits, 6 ft long and 1 1/2 ft wide, are found scattered about on the ground like toys, obviously by a catastrophe of tremendous dimensions. These finds stagger us by their accurate workmanship. Had our forefathers at Tiahuanaco nothing better to do than spend years—without tools— fashioning water conduits of such precision that our modern concrete conduits seem the work of mere bunglers in comparison?

In a courtyard which has now been restored there is a jumble of stone heads which, on closer observation, appears to be made up of the most varied races, for some of the faces have narrow, and some swollen lips, some long and some hooked noses, some delicate and some thick ears, some soft and some angular features. Yes, and some of the heads wear strange helmets. Arc all these unfamiliar figures trying to convey a message that we cannot or will not understand, inhibited as we are by stubbornness and prejudice?