Return to the Stars: Evidence for the Impossible (12 page)

Technology pampers us. On 20 July, 1969, at 0300 hours, 56 minutes 20 seconds Central European Time, hundreds of millions of people saw the two astronauts Neil Alden Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin become the first men to set foot on the moon. This was the most magnificent achievement in space travel to date and it fascinated and astonished humanity all over the globe. But even while man was following the breathtaking flight to the moon, science was already occupied with exploratory flights to Mars and Venus, and even with a vast human migration to earth's sister planet. Just as the conquest of the moon began with unmanned satellites, Venus is now being investigated with unmanned sondes. On 18 May, 1969, Moscow reported that after a flight lasting 130 days the Venus sonde 5 had ended the journey of 156,250,000 miles with a payload of 2,260 lb. When the sonde was still 31,250 miles from Venus, the ground station radioed the last command. Then the sonde sent down a capsule full of instruments by parachute. TASS stated that the parachute drop lasted 53 minutes.

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Erich von Daniken in front of the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque (Mexico) Deep down in the interior of this pyramid is the tombstone of the god Kukulkan at the controls of his rocket.

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From time immemorial the idea of being able to float in the air has fascinated mankind as in this Stone Age cave painting in the Libyan desert.

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The figure in this rock painting from Tin Tazarift in the Tassili mountains seems to be wearing a close fitting space-suit with steering gear on his shoulders and antennae on his protective helmet.

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A monument to the space travelling gods' The most interesting thing on this stele from Santa Lucia Cotzumalhuapa (Guatemala) is the figure at the bottom right It is dressed like a modern astronaut.

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The Venus of Willendorf is the flattering name given to this limestone statuette with its faceless round head.

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Man or hybrid of man and animal? This sculpture is known to archaeologists as the Man with the Catfish Head.

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The significance of this female idol with four faces and a solar symbol, found at Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela), is unknown.

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A Sunday archaeologist on a journey of discovery through Mexico autumn 1968.

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This fresco from Sehar in the Tassili mountains shows right a figure 10 ft 8 ins high surrounded by so called men from Mars.

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Erich von Daniken measuring the cyclopean walls above Sacsayhuaman (Peru).

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This block of stone the size of a four storey house has steps made with great accuracy There is no credible explanation for it.

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Monoliths that look as if they had been precast like modern concrete Thrones for giants' Did the gods destroy their base at Sacsayhuaman when they had carried out their mission?

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The rock seems to have been cut through as if it were butter Who did it? When? How?

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The picture shows the celebrated calendar of Sacsayhuaman Has this monumental stone structure any relation to the rums on the surrounding heights?

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Erich von Daniken with an Indian on the plateau of Tiahuanaco.

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The famous water conduits of Tiahuanaco

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In this case built into a temple wall of a recent period for no apparent reason. The water conduits have modern shapes with smooth cross sections polished inside and outside surfaces and accurate edges But why place two pipes side by side?

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The angled section of a water conduit from Tiahuanaco Protective tubes for energy cables?

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What were the clamps that once held this great block of stone together made of?

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The Gate of the Sun at Tiahuanaco with its imposing frieze of figures.

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This massive block of stone has sharp-edged grooves that could not have been made with stone axes or wooden wedges.

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This statue from Tiahuanaco carved out of a single block stands in La Paz (Bolivia) today Who made such huge monuments' Are they likenesses of extraterrestrial beings?

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Fragment of a Tiahuanaco statue of a quite different kind Today it too is in La Paz (Bolivia)

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This man from Auanrhet Tassili has antenna like excrescences on a and thighs His he! has slits for eyes nose and mouth RIGHT A naked female figure.

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(Left) Cajamarquilla near Lima (Peru) Fox holes? Grain silos? There are 209 of them in a straight line. Why holes which everyone was bound to fall into?

(Right) Close up of a hole Diameter 23 ins depth 5 ft 7 ins.

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Aztec ceremonial disc of serpentine Sun god or theologically exaggerated picture of a cosmonaut?

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Milestone of King Melichkhon with sun moon and a beautifully carved round body Earth? Venus Or a space sphere?

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Rock painting from Auanrhet Tassili about 8,000 years old with strange figures. The open hatch and the two protrusions on the right of the spherical object raise problems.

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Henri Lhote called this nearly 19-foot high figure from Yabbaren, Tassili, the great martian god. He looks every inch a cosmonaut even compared with our own moon travellers!

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This rock painting was found 25 miles south of Fergana (Uzbek, USSR).

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Space travellers from a rock drawing in Val Camonica (Italy).

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Circular Mayan calendar. Where did the Mayas get their astronomic and mathematical knowledge from? Has the shape any relation to its content?

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Two Assyrian cylinder seals.

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Two creatures, half-man, half-animal, support a third winged being. A fourth figure appears in an egg-shaped object.

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The sun, moon and spherical flying objects are again depicted on the upper edge. The object, above left, reminds us of a flying machine.

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This stone ball (diameter 7 ft 1 in) stands outside a building in San Jose (Costa Rica) as a decoration.

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Gigantic landmark on the solitary bay south of Pisco (Peru) This vast phosphorescent sign nearly 820 ft high stares up at the sky.

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If you fly over the plain of Nazca it looks like an immense air field with radiating and converging landing strips Was it once a space centre for the 'gods'?

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This ape, about 260ft high is included in a geometrical system of lines drawn with an extreme accuracy that would have been inconceivable without a knowledge of surveying.

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These tracks run absolutely parallel and continue up the neighbouring mountainside They link up two plateaux where there are drawings on the ground.

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Pictures scratched on the hillsides near Nazca show figures several yards high, with radiating crowns similar to the aureoles in Christian paintings.

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Worshipping figures in a rock drawing in Peru According to Peruvian tradition the zig zag lines are an attribute of the gods.

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The Dragon Monolith in the Olmec Park of Villahermosa (Mexico)

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The gigantic figures in this picturesque group from Yabbaren Tassili are wearing space-suits Are they ear men or extraterrestrial cosmonauts in antiquity?

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The hats are hollow with a maximum height of 7 ft 2 ins and circumferences ranging up to 25 ft.

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Tablet with writing on it from Easter Island The script which is still undeciphered is not known on any other Polynesian island.

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The meaning and origin of this petroglyph are obscure In the foreground a strange figure half fish half man with a star symbol.

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The egg of the gods crumbles away on the beach of Easter Island Once a temple dedicated to the gods stood here.

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This rock painting from the Central Kimberley district of Australia represents Vondjina the mouthless mythical being of pre-history As the personification of the Milky Way Vondjira was the object of special reverence and giver precedence over other gods.

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Stone giants like these line the sandy shores of Easter Island They were topped with a round stone hat but these have been thrown down.

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An unfinished statue on the side of the Rano Raraku crater Is it credible that this enormous figure could have been cut out of the hard volcanic stone with primitive stone tools?

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The whole rock face is a jigsaw puzzle of uncompleted giant statues Today two thirds of their height is below ground.

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Typical Moais physiognomy narrow head lowbrow sunken eyes exaggeratedly large nose tightly compressed lips and long ears.

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No archaeological research is going on There is no protection of ancient monuments So the islanders use the remains of a once powerful culture to build houses and sea-walls.

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Unfinished statues on the face of the crater Rano Raraku The distance between the figures is 4 ft 7 ins The men who could execute such perfect work must have possessed ultra-modern tools.

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The distance of Venus from the earth depends on the distance of its orbit from the earth, and it varies between 26,000,000 and 160,625,000 miles. The Russian sondes do not reach Venus by the shortest route. That sounds paradoxical, but the Russian principle for the flight paths of the Venus sondes is valid for all present-day interplanetary flights. The flight path is calculated according to the minimum quantity of fuel necessary for the transport of the space-craft. If the sonde were launched on the direct course to Venus, it would have to have an initial velocity of 20 miles per second. In that case vast quantities of fuel would be used not only at launching, but also for braking the initial velocity later on. Consequently ballistic experts prefer to calculate flight paths that approximate to the movement of the earth as far as possible. The most favourable route on these premises is ten times as long as the direct route, but it allows a launching velocity of 7-175 miles per second and a far lower consumption of fuel.

What is there left that is really Utopian? Preliminary research becomes applied science at such a breathtaking speed that science-fiction writers have a hard job inventing the unimaginable.

In 1969, Professor Hans Laven, Director of the Institute of Genetics at the University of Mainz, published a report according to which millions of insects that are dangerous to men, animals and plants as disease carriers could be killed without the use of insecticides, the chemical agents with which dangerous insects and their brood are destroyed at present. As early as 1967 Laven was able to show the efficacy of his research in the Burmese town of Okpo, which was plagued by midges. Within a few months Okpo was freed of its plague.

Laven had experimented in the laboratories at Mainz for years. In the process he found out that there is a natural incompatibility between midges of different origin. Midges from North Germany showed themselves willing to mate with members of their species from Schwaben, but the midge offspring produced were not viable. If the midges from different German provinces had an antipathy for each other, then midges from different continents would surely produce offspring that were unviable. So they bred a race from California and French midges. When they were released in the town of Okpo, the males of the Mainz bastard race proved to be great lovers and competed successfully with the Burmese males, but the eggs laid by the wives they had mated with did not produce any new midges. The chromosome count of the different species of midge did not tally and genetic destruction took place. The advantage of this way of destroying midges is obvious—the risk of contaminating food and plants by spraying them with insecticides disappears.

Professor Laven is continuing his researches on the basis of the most recent genetic discoveries. He radiates male midges with about 4,000 r X-rays. This does not cause the creatures any organic damage, but the chromosome chain between the genes is damaged. The chromosome household is disturbed, the genes are changed and insects develop in an unprogrammed sequence. They are still capable of reproduction, but their offspring are reduced in every way i.e. in number, size, etc. Of some midge generations treated in this way who continue to hand down their planned disability, Laven said: 'There is no cure for semi-sterility, because it is hereditary.'

Laven is convinced that in a comparatively short time it will be possible to use his model experiment against other harmful insects; he even thinks that the plagues of rats in many parts of the world can be tackled in this way.

The tremendous possibilities of manipulating the genetic code are no visionary dream. We are dealing with scientific facts. Of course between yesterday and tomorrow lies the 'abyss' that will be crossed. Most probably we shall only rediscover something that has already happened.

One day new knowledge and techniques will create a human organism suited for interstellar flight, one that will not fall sick and will be equal to all the burdens and stresses imposed on it.

Medical science has been performing transplants of organs for more than twenty years, but unproductive and unpleasant sensation-mongering about these important scientific operations did not begin until after the first heart transplant. When pieces of skin were transplanted in the 1940's, when bones were changed in 1948 and when a kidney was transplanted in 1950, there was not a murmur. In 1954 the first transplant of a limb on to a dog was successful. In 1955 somebody else's lung was inserted into a man. In 1967 a pancreas was transplanted and in 1969 doctors risked the transplant of a liver. There were successful transplants of other organs besides these.

It was the heart transplant which first unleashed lively discussions and violent opposition in all the newspapers in the world—probably because there is an unspoken feeling that it fulfills more than the function of a simple pump. Strangely enough, man, who enjoys living and is terrified of death, has not welcomed this advance of medical science with open arms. Yet the prospect of being able to save a man's life by changing a defective organ is an important one. Many teams of surgeons know how to perform the surgical operation. As soon as the threshold of the immune reaction can be lowered without the body's own defences against infection being endangered, transplants should take place as a matter of course, just like operations for appendicitis. But that is the moment when the supply of spare organs will cause difficulties. So as to be independent of family and religious taboos when vital operations have to be performed, we shall collect human organs for future recipients in 'organ banks'. Today there are blood banks in hospitals all over the world. Why has no one made a fuss about them? For blood is still the sap of life and far more mysterious than the heart pump. Of course, blood is donated voluntarily. Why should not this ultimately be true of organs, given by men who know that they are going to die or by their relatives?

I believe that organ transplants, too, are only a transitional stage. If scientists eventually succeed in programming the DNA double helix in the nucleus with information for the construction or reconstruction of organs, the Frankenstein methods will soon be forgotten. The Russian scientist L.V. Poleschayev is already able to make a damaged scalp regenerate itself independently and he has even managed to make amputated limbs start to grow again. One day there will be gene surgery as well. Sheer fantasy? I do not think so, because I know that Doctor Teh Ping Lin of San Francisco succeeded in giving a mouse's egg an injection as early as 1966. A mouse's egg is only one tenth the size of a red corpuscle and cannot be seen at all with the naked eye!

Professor E.H. Graul, Director of the Institute for Radiobiology and the Medical Use of Isotopes at Philips University in Marburg, and the cyberneticist Dr Herbert W. Franke gave a forecast of medicine and its fringe areas in the years 1985 and 2000 in the Deutschen Arzteblatt:

Forecast for the year 1985.

• Mastery of transplanting animal and human organs, elimination of immune reactions.

• Routine use of artificially made organs and/or biological systems (artificial organs made of plastics and/or electronic components—on cyborg lines).

• Marked progress in the gerontological and geriatric field. The average expectation of life is about 85 years.

• The ageing process will be manipulated advantageously, the degeneration inherent in old age will be slowed down, both physically and psychically.

• The first positive conclusions about the production of primitive forms of artificial life.

• Biomedical electronics will influence practical medicine (for example, electronic artificial limbs, radar for the blind, limbs with servo-mechanisms and many other things).

Forecast for the year 2000.

• Deep-freezing of men for hours or days.

• Determination of a child's sex before birth.

• Possibilities of transplanting all organs.

• The correction of hereditary defects.

• Continuous genetic manipulation of animals and plants.

• Production of artificial forms of primitive life.

• Use of X-ray and gamma type Laser beams.

• General biochemical immunisation against diseases.

• General diffusion of the cyborg technique (artificial organs).

• Manipulation of organisms by electric stimulation of the brain.

• Drugs for the control of man's emotional states, chemical aids for the improvement of memory and the ability to learn.

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The centre of this rock drawing from Toro Muerto (Peru) looks like an X-ray plate of the thorax. Its meaning is unknown.

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I suggest that unknown intelligences were able to do all these things in the dim mists of time.

I suggest that the 'gods' left this knowledge behind when they visited earth.

I suggest that discoveries, which still lie ahead of us in the broad field of research, have been stored in the human memory since time immemorial and are only waiting to be summoned up again.

The experiments of David E. Bressler of the University of Los Angeles and Morton Edward Bittermans of Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania are a step along this road. They implanted additional brain cells into fish. The fish enriched with the transplanted brain substance soon proved to be much more intelligent than their untreated fellows. Cleveland Hospital (USA) is conducting a series of experiments in which monkey's brains are put into dogs.

Why did the Mayan priests tear the beating hearts out of their prisoners' breasts?

Why were cannibals convinced that they took over the strength and intelligence of their dead enemies when they ate them?

Why does a myth from remote antiquity claim the body only belongs to man temporarily, and that he must give it back to his 'master' at any time?

Ought we to suspect that the human sacrifices practised for millennia were more than esoteric religious observances? Were they distorted memories of transplants, operations, cell regenerations, that were handed down for thousands of years in a terrifyingly garbled form?