Humanity: The Cosmic Connection

There are various enigmas that cry out for resolution, like the Fermi Paradox regarding ET, “Where is everybody?” Then there are enigmas surrounding human origins, evolution and characteristics, extinctions, migrations and colonizations, and the rise to civilization. Finally, much that’s in our global mythologies is anomalous. In modern times we have UFOs and alien abductions. It’s time to wrap all this up in one neat little package, tied up with a nice little ribbon and bow. 

Let’s start off briefly with the Fermi Paradox. In essence, it suggests that if you accept that there has to be one or more extraterrestrial highly advanced technological civilizations out there in the galaxy, in interstellar space, with interstellar space travelling capabilities, then the odds are as close to 100% as anyone would care to bet, that Planet Earth has been discovered and visited. The time it takes to explore the galaxy, every nook and cranny, even without resorting to Star Trek type faster-than-light velocities, is but a tiny fraction of the age of the galaxy. The Fermi Paradox is only a paradox if one tries to argue that ET has never visited our humble planetary abode. So, let’s solve the Fermi Paradox and accept that once upon a time, ET paid Planet Earth a visit – at least one.

About eight or so million years ago, Planet Earth witnessed the arrival of a rather loose federation of extraterrestrials (ET) with a quasi social/religious/missionary goal of assisting in the development and spread of intelligent civilizations across the galaxy and the cosmos while simultaneously creating intelligent, civilized beings who will worship them as their superiors, even perhaps as gods. Since there were no such intelligent, civilized beings on Planet Earth eight million years ago, ET had to work what Mother Nature provided them.

Now eight million years ago is very recent relative to the age of Planet Earth, and extremely recent relative to the age of our galaxy and the cosmos at large. Therefore, this may not have been an ET first visit, but the one which finally yielded up a promising candidate from which they could manipulate to achieve their goal.

That most suitable candidate species to work with, or on, would have been the chimpanzee or a close ancestor to the chimp, found in Africa. And so ET set up shop and laboratory in Africa to start the long process of assisting Mother Nature in the development (creation or origin)and spread (migration) of another (soon to be engineered) intelligent civilization.

Over the next eight or so million years – no great rush; lots of time on their hands; these are an extremely long-lived ET – ET bioengineered, genetically engineered, or otherwise artificially bred and selected our initial primate stock into over twenty initial primate-to-ultimate-hominid species, each species slightly more advanced in IQ, dexterity, bipedal gait, speech, abstract reasoning ability (something other than just food, sex, danger), etc. than the one before.

For starters, individual groupings of each species in their own time and turn would be released by ET into the Africa’s wild environment to see how they coped, just like we humans will artificially breed up populations of endangered species and release them into the wild and hope for the best. Of those hominid species released into the wild, most didn’t – cope that is. Back to the drawing board and more genetics and breeding and artificial selection and on to the next advancement.

A few hominid species that did adapt reasonable to the outside backyard of Africa proper would then be transported to non-African locations and a wider variety of terrestrial environments. There were more failures, but some initial successes with out-of-Africa environments. Homo erectus just about fit the bill – just about, but it too ultimately went the way of the Dodo.

Finally, about 200,000 years ago, the latest in this twenty-plus long line of primate-to-hominid creations were created on the slab in the ET lab in Africa – Homo sapiens. They proved successful in adapting to the natural African environment. Further experiments with transporting and transplanting groups of them to various environments around the globe (except Antarctica) for the most part yielded positives in the Middle East, the Americas, Europe, Australia, Asia, etc. If ET transplanted groups of Homo sapiens to Oceania that was a failure as there are no archaeological sites that verify hominids in Oceania until only relatively recent historical (not prehistorically) times.

Once Homo sapiens became established globally, two things happened. Firstly, individual units of ET headed by a Supreme ET were assigned to oversee the various geographical regions that Homo sapiens had adapted to. For example, ET Yahweh and crew were assigned to the eastern coastline and seaboard region of the Mediterranean. Secondly, these units then assisted these nomadic bands of Homo sapiens in each region in the transition from being wandering hunter-gatherers living by their wits into becoming civilized agricultural-based settlements or rural communities that put down roots - assuming the region in question was suitable to settlements, and not all were, like Australia.   

At this point one might expect “and they all lived happy ever after”. Not so; it was not to be.

It is often said that man was created in God’s image, or in more general parlance, in the image of the gods. If that’s the case, it should come as no surprise that the gods have human traits. Translated, anything humans were (or are) skilled at doing, you can bet the family farm equally that the ‘gods’ were skilled ditto, the good, the bad and the ugly. ET was not above squabbling among themselves over ways and means, and there were power grabs and coups and mutinies afoot, like when Yahweh was nearly toppled by Satan. Collectively, our mythologies lump these ancient ‘star wars’ as Wars in ‘Heaven’.

Humans of course also didn’t live long and prosper either. Like father (the gods), like son (Homo sapiens).

There’s one other mythological anomaly that supports the idea that not only was ET highly advanced in interstellar space travel (well they got here didn’t they), but especially highly skilled in genetic and bioengineering. The genetics experiments of ET were not just confined to building a better hominid species, but creating all sorts of genetically engineered ‘monsters’. If there is one universal above nearly all other universals in the mythologies of primitive ‘man’ it’s the reality of hybrids, both animal-animal hybrids (i.e. – Pegasus in Greek Mythology) and animal-human hybrids (i.e. – the Birdmen of Easter Island). 

Whether misinterpreted by primitive humans, or deliberately misled, ET became the ‘gods’ and interactions between the two became the basis of our global mythologies, which is to a greater or lesser extent really a collection of religiously-themed mythologies since primitive ‘man’ thought ‘he’ was dealing with supernatural deities. Deities of course are there to be worshiped, probably encouraged by ET. Why might ET wish to be worshiped? ET might want to be ‘worshiped’ probably as “thanks” for bringing Homo sapiens into the world and bestowing the gifts of civilization on Homo sapiens.  Every parent expects a “thank you” from their child for special gifts bestowed. ET might have encouraged this misinterpretation as being ‘gods’; it would have been a lot less awkward that explaining astrobiology to them.

Having completed at long last their objective – one more race primed to join the Galactic Club, ET left, albeit leaving behind a token observational team – UFOs – which are still undertaking some genetic modifications with respect to Homo sapiens – alien abductions, apparently an attempt to engineer yet another hybrid – a human-alien.

Now make of this what you will, but the scenario does fit the facts as we know them about human origins, evolution, extinctions, migrations, and ultimately civilization. It also jives with our mythologies, and, IMHO, behind every mountain of mythology resides a molehill of fact.

Origins of Agriculture

We’re aware that once upon a time our ancient ancestors lived day-to-day as nomadic hunters and gatherers. Then, roughly 10,000 years ago, in various locations around the globe, we ceased our wanderings, put down roots as rural agricultural-based settlements, and became civilized. Anthropologists cannot tell us why. Mythology does tell us why – the gift of agriculture was from the gods. What to those cultures were gods, we can interpret as ‘ancient astronauts’. 

One of the bigger mysteries in modern anthropology is the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to agricultural-based settlements. This is known as the “Agricultural Revolution”. There are as many ideas and theories for the independent and relatively sudden transition from hunter-gatherer to settlements dependent of farming, as there are anthropologists who have pondered the issue. There are proposals for external factors vs. internal (social, cultural, economic) factors; global conditions vs. local conditions; climate related vs. population related; or a combination of circumstances: maybe even just the “it’s time” factor. The issue is the transition all happening at roughly the same time – about 10,000 years ago, give or take, in Europe, Mesoamerica, the Andean cultures, Egypt, the Middle East, Asia, etc. especially in the Fertile Crescent, N.E. China and Central America. Only North America (with the exception of the eastern half of what would become the United States), Australia and the far northern regions, like Siberia, retained for the most part a nomadic lifestyle.

But the really anomalous thing is that ever since our ancestors came down out of the trees and started walking upright, for all those millions of years, until roughly 10,000 years ago, we were hunter-gatherers or nomads. Then all of a sudden, wham, we settle down and raise crops and become ‘civilized’ just about universally across the social, cultural and geographical board. No one really has solid evidence to explain why.

The only idea NOT given or advanced is in fact the very one which human culture’s themselves give – in their global mythologies. Agriculture (including the domestication of various species of wildlife – cattle, sheep, goats, horses, etc.) was a gift from their gods. Human mythologies presumably written down and/or orally passed from one human generation to the next human generation, gives no credit to humans for the transition. Humans rarely pass up an opportunity to pat themselves of the back, but this is an exception to that generality. 

Humans have certain basic needs: air, water, sleep, certain temperature range and food. We’re instant experts at breathing (air) and sleeping. We don’t need to seek out, grow or harvest these. We have some control over temperature, and water supplies are usually pretty constant – rivers, springs, lakes, ponds, etc. Food is the dicey item.

The hunter-gatherer method of finding food takes less effort than agricultural tilling-the-fields settlements, so why settlements and why the shift from hunter-gatherer to agriculture is relatively short time frames in diverse parts of the world. Well, what the gods want, the gods get. And if the gods give you a gift, by the gods you’d better make use of it!

These gods (a sampling) oversaw and gave the gift of agriculture to humans thus explaining our transition from hunter-gatherers to settlements and civilization.

* Ninurta was the god of agriculture in the ancient Near East who taught all about crop production.

* Kumarbi: The Hittites had Kumarbi, the father of the gods and a grain deity.

* Osiris (Ancient Egypt): Before being bumped off and dismembered by his brother Seth (Set), and reassembled and resurrected by his sister-wife Isis, and promoted to god of the underworld, he was the god of agriculture who taught men (and women) how to raise corn and vines. That’s why ancient Egyptians depicted him with green skin. 

* Ceres was the Roman goddess of grain and agricultural fertility (from which we get the term cereal).

* Demeter was the Greek goddess and counterpart to Ceres; she was the goddess of corn, crops and fruit groves as well as fertility of the fields who taught humans agriculture.

* Triptolemus, under the direction and guidance of Demeter, brought people the gift of wheat and who spread the benefits of agriculture around the world.

* Chaac was the Mayan god of rain, hence a patron of agriculture like maize and vegetables and hence fertility.

* Xipe Totec was the Aztec god of maize and vegetation.

* Viracocha was a top Inca god who walked among humans, and, among other subjects, instructed students on agriculture. Further, Viracocha fathered two deities, Inti and Mama Quilla, who in turn had an offspring Manco Capac, the first Inca ruler, who also taught agriculture to his human subjects. The odd thing about Viracocha, the highest god in the Inca pantheon, was that he was depicted as pale, bearded with Caucasian features and with green eyes. This is quite akin to the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl (Kakalcan to the Mayan and otherwise known throughout Mesoamerica under various aliases). They both, Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl departed their respective regions to head over and across the sea with an “I’ll be back” promise. That the Aztecs mistook the Spaniard Cortes for the return of Quetzalcoatl# speaks volumes about what Quetzalcoatl looked like – white, bearded, with Caucasian features. Alas, the enigma here is that there never was any cultural contact between Mesoamerica and the Incas, so why the similarity between Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl? Some New Agers view these white bearded deities of the Americas, who mysteriously vanish, as Jesus in the flesh. That aside, the important point is that Viracocha was a travelling professor of agriculture.

* Shennong: In Chinese mythology there’s Shennong, the farmer god who invented the plough and taught people how to farm.

* Inari was in Shinto Japanese mythology a rice and fertility god.

* Bulul was a Philippines rice god who looked over seeds and the harvest.

* Nummo or Nommo (hybrid creatures) of the African Dogon culture of Mali were teachers (from the star Sirius according to some) who taught farming to mankind.

Of course what our ancient ancestors viewed as supernatural gods and goddesses, we think of them today more akin to flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials (‘ancient astronauts’) who came to Earth long ago with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal humans of that era. The ‘gods’ would have conducted their worldwide agricultural tutorials at roughly the same time, say about 10,000 years ago. Being practical, they ignored regions impractical for low-tech sustainable agriculture like vast deserts, the tundra, tropical rain forests, etc.

Now the obvious question is why would the ‘gods’ want to give us the gift of agriculture in the first place? That can probably be summed up by the Biblical phrase “be fruitful and multiply”. In a hunter-gatherer society, babies are a burden. They contribute no labour, consume resources, and divert time and energy required for their care away from the daily survival tasks at hand. Since you have to carry your newborn brat around, being a nomadic troop, it hinders your hunting-gathering, so it is best to keep your brats well spaced – every four or five years apart minimum, so one brat can start to contribute a bit to the greater good before your next one pops out into the world.

But once in a settlement scenario, with a reliable food supply, you can start dropping your little bundles of joy nearly every year. There will be the establishment of a sort of child care centre or facility where one person, unable for health or elderly reasons to work the fields can look after all the little darlings, leaving mum free to toil away in the rice paddies or whatever. Though infant mortality will take its toll in either a hunter-gatherer society or in a settlement community, the more frequently bundles are dropped, the faster the population will increase; more workers to produce new and widen fields already under cultivation; build buildings, etc. And of importance too, once you take up a settlement way of life, then you have a need to defend that territory since a lot of sweat and toil went into staking out the community’s land claim and making it productive. A rapid population increase makes defending your turf easier.

But what’s in it for the ‘gods’? Two things - first mythologies around the world are full of references that the ‘gods’ created humans to do the hard work, just like the CEO and Board of Directors of a mining company hires the great unwashed to actually do the hard work – go down into the mines with picks and shovels, etc. while the CEO and company watches from on high: more population – more workers. That’s probably the real reason Adam and Eve got booted out of Eden and directed to start the daily grind and toil of farming (Genesis 3:23). It was probably all a setup from the get-go.

Secondly, what do ‘gods’ want? Well, to be worshiped. Do you get a greater buzz out of a hundred people bowing and scraping down and building small monuments to you, or a thousand or a million doing the same and building great big monuments to your glory? No dictator ever wants to appear in public and not have anyone turn out to render a worshiping salute. 

Having achieved their objective, well it’s on to the next inhabited planet for another challenge in civilizing the great unwashed.

And so, thanks to the ‘gods’, or ‘ancient astronauts’, most of us no longer have to wander the lands in search of our daily bread!

# In all fairness, not all scholars believe there actually was a connection.

Tse Bit’a’i: The Rock with Wings

Mythologies are full of events that could be interpreted, if they happened instead within the last six plus decades, as a UFO event. The ‘Star of Bethlehem’ or ‘Wheel of Ezekiel” are cases in point from our Biblical mythology. Many of the mythological ‘gods’ or characters rode around in aerial or fiery chariots, but what about flying rocks or big birds transporting people around? A UFO chariot by any other name is still a UFO chariot.

Chariots seem to be associated with the ‘gods’ because of the popularity of Erich von Daniken’s book title (when translated into English) “Chariots of the Gods”. But there’s no actual index entry for “chariots” in that book. So, did the ‘gods’ and maybe their passengers ride in aerial chariots or equivalent? A quick scan of the mythological literature says “yes”! A partial list of the Greek ‘gods’ or demigods (or demi goddesses) who rode in (UFO) chariots (or equivalent) include Zeus, Hercules, Helios, Apollo,  Hades, Triptolemus, and Medea. From Norse mythology, we have Thor and Freyja riding along in their chariots. Aerial chariots figure prominently in Indo-Iranian mythology, and they also play an important part in Hindu and Persian mythology as well, with most of the gods of their pantheon portrayed as riding in them. In ancient times what were aerial chariots pulled by various beasties with the ‘gods’ as pilots or passengers, are, in modern times, UFOs with their extraterrestrial pilots and crew. The American Indian culture, the Navajos may not have a UFO chariot per say, but they do have a UFO “rock with wings”. 

Ship Rock (or Shiprock, also called in native Navajo ‘Tse Bit’a’i’ or the ‘Rock with Wings’ aka ‘winged rock’) is a 12 million year old standalone monolithic mountain, an eroded volcanic plume, situated in New Mexico close to the four corners area where NW New Mexico, NE Arizona, SE Utah, and SW Colorado touch. While it’s nearly 7,200 feet above sea level (peak elevation), from the ground up (standing on a high desert plain), it’s nearly 1,600 feet high. It’s situated on Native American Navajo land, situated in the bullseye of the ancient Pueblo peoples that prehistoric Native American culture are often referred to as the Anasazi. The Navajo’s have high historical and religious reverence for the mountain. It features prominently in their traditional religious and mythological culture, and as a sacred site, the natives have, since 1970, closed the mountain off to the public which used to be popular with rock climbers, etc.

The main belief of the Navajos centring around Ship Rock (and it looks a bit like an old Clipper sailing ship of yore but sailing in a sea of sand) is that it’s what’s left, the remains, of their ‘great bird of deliverance’.  According to their legends, once upon a time, a long time ago, their ancestors were facing a hostile tribe further north, and not wishing to go head-to-head with these warmongers, their high priest(s), or shaman(s), asked their Great Spirit in the sky for assistance. The Great Spirit sent down this great bird which took them southwards to what Americans today call Ship Rock. The Navajos were saved from their enemies, and they lived long and prospered – well prospered as well as any Native American tribe could be expected under the thumb of the European invaders.

Now if the Navajo were forced to flee and migrate southwards from hostile forces, you’d think their mythology would be something akin to the ancient Greek’s “Odyssey” or the quest for the Golden Fleece – a tale of a long journey, elusive goals, many dangers and hardships, and eventual success – not flying through the air without a care in the world. Or, if they didn’t have any migration south at all, then there’s no need for such a ‘winged rock’ tale, rather some other ‘how did we get to Ship Rock’ origin myth, like the Great Spirit breathing life into some of the rocks or moulding cacti or tumbleweeds into human beings – the Navajo. But if your Great Spirit is a ‘god’ that’s really an extraterrestrial; and your ‘rock with wings’ what we’d call today a UFO, or in ancient astronaut terminology a ‘flying chariot’, then the myth, as related, has some logical foundation in reality. And if you are a rather unsophisticated Native American when it comes to extraterrestrial technology, what else are you going to call a UFO but a ‘flying rock’ or a ‘rock with wings’ or a ‘winged rock’ or a ‘big bird’? The Navajos, in other legends, have associated Ship Rock with the presence of ‘Bird Monsters’ that feed on human flesh. I wonder if that could be a garbled tale of UFO abduction.

Now presumably this travelogue tale isn’t the fabrication of one person, shaman or otherwise, since there were many native Navajos who must have been alleged participants in the journey who could contradict the myth – if it was a myth of course. That fact that the Navajo consider Ship Rock a sacred site, off-limits to rock climbers and tourists, well they clearly consider this part of their mythology to be a Big Deal. In fact the mountain is a place of pilgrimage for their peoples, especially young men on quests for solitary ‘visions’ that’s part of their traditional culture.

Here Be Dragons: Why?

For something that doesn’t exist, and never has existed, dragons and dragon-lore has quite the remarkable hold throughout nearly all societies, from novels to films to video games; they also appear on coats-of-arms, on calendars, in art works, sculptures, depicted on the prows of Viking longboats, incorporated into ancient jewellery, and as toys. Dragons appear as corporate logos and as part of the names of companies, not to mention sports teams. Then too in the Chinese calendar (zodiac) there is ‘The Year of the Dragon’. Just like the mythological gods might have been really closet ET’s, well maybe dragons were ET’s pets; real flesh-and-blood creatures! Yet long after most of the extraterrestrial ‘gods’ have been totally forgotten about, dragons still rule. Maybe their ‘pets’ have truly eclipsed them!

Is there anybody from the age of four onwards on the face of the Earth who isn’t aware of the mythological creature popularly known as the dragon? The exceptions would be so relatively rare that I would have to conclude that of nearly all things make-believe, dragons are probably in the top ten recognition list. So, is that the be-all-and-end-all of things? Behind most myths, folklore or fairy tales often there is a tiny kernel of fact behind the apparent fiction. What about that kernel at the core of dragon-lore?

I note for starters that dragons are apparent from the get-go. Images of dragons are frequently found on cylinder seals from the ancient Near East, Mesopotamia and surrounding regions – the cradle of civilization. 

Now mythology-themed texts are excellent at relating various dragon tales and their associated dragon-slaying humans like Saint George, Sigurd (Siegfried), and Beowulf*; what purposes dragons served like guarding treasure and the abodes or palaces of the gods, as well as go-betweens the gods and humanity (sort of like carrier pigeons) and their having some control over the weather and the waters; and what they symbolize like evil, sin, power, military might, and pagan ways in the West and the Emperor and Empress, wisdom, immortality and other positive things like good fortune in the East. Dragons were even known do be among those beasties that pulled the aerial ‘chariots’ of the ‘gods’. 

I find it interesting that in the Chinese calendar, there are years for the rat; ox; tiger; rabbit; snake; horse; goat; monkey; rooster; dog; pig and dragon. Of all the twelve, only the dragon is considered by modern society mythical. I find it odd that the Chinese would employ eleven real beasties and one mythical one. Perhaps all dozen were real!  

However, mythology texts hardly ever explain why dragons are universally past and beloved in the present in nearly all societies in the first place. It’s one thing to just say dragons are mythological beings; it’s quite something else to explain how that is in light of such detail that surrounds dragon-lore and their universality.

Let’s look at what a typical dragon looks like. The classic dragon of Western tradition was a four-legged winged serpent with scaly skin and sharp claws (or varying number). Chinese dragons were generally horned and bearded, with a pair of long whiskers protruding from the upper lip. Dragons were very large, averaging about 80 feet (25 metres) in length. They had the ability to fly through the air as well as move on the ground. Many dragons breathed fire although others killed with their venomous breath.

Actually, the fire-breathing bit was probably an embellishment – maybe more a reflection on bad breath or water vapour visible upon exhaling. Just like most of mythology is 5% truth and 95% fisherman’s embellishment – the story gets better with each reincarnation! However, in general there’s nothing vague about what dragons looked like and what they did which is odd seeing as how they never existed. Or did they – never exist that is?

As to that explanation:

The traditional mainstream explanation for the reason for mythological dragons does not usually rely on human nature to invent out of whole cloth life forms that don’t exist, but rather on an assumption that fossil remains of dinosaurs, etc. gave rise to speculations that, in this case, the life form we call the dragon, well those fossils kick-started those dragon mythologies all over the world. As expressed in a recent book on mythological creatures:

“The ubiquity of dragon legends around the world remains striking; few legendary creatures have a wider distribution. Some scholars have linked the stories with discoveries of dinosaur bones and it may be that in early times tales of dragons served to explain the existence of long-dead creatures of huge size. Yet no single reason can ever hope to cover all the many strands of draconian lore. More likely, gigantic winged serpents fill some archetypal need in the human imagination, crossing cultures in their power to excite awe and fear.” (Tony Allen; The Mythic Bestiary: An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Most Fantastical Creatures; Duncan Baird Publishers, London; 2008: Page 169)

Oh what a load of crap! Actually, loads of crap. Firstly, no large dinosaur bones come equipped with wings, etc. Have you ever seen a fossil or replica T-Rex that had wings and could fly?  Maybe they mean pterosaurs and/or pterodactyls, although they aren’t dinosaurs but a class of flying reptiles. However, fossils of flying reptiles aren’t very common and are in fact quite fragile.

Secondly, fossils aren’t going to tell you anything about colouration, scaly vs. smooth skin, beards and whiskers, fire-breathing abilities and venomous or otherwise bad breath, etc. Those sorts of details aren’t preserved in the fossil record, though very, very, very rarely dinosaur skin impressions are found but there are just about enough examples on hand that you can count them off on the fingers of one hand. .

Thirdly, the non-avian dinosaurs and flying reptiles died out 65 millions of years before humans and dragon mythology so there can be no contemporary firsthand knowledge of those previous long-dead dinosaur life forms to draw on. And the avian dinosaurs, which did survive – we now call them birds – hardly approach the sorts of sizes and other characteristics that could remotely be related to dragons.

Lastly, 99.9% of large fossils don’t just lie on the ground fully exposed in all their glory for the entire world to see. Most bits are usually buried and mainly in a somewhat jumbled state due to the various geological, hydrological and meteorological forces acting on the bones at the time of the animal’s death and the millions of years thereafter. It takes experts to piece things back together again as two of more animal fossils might be intermixed.

Further, why would the uneducated great unwashed living back before those golden years when mythological dragons ruled the skies go to all the trouble of the backbreaking sort of work it takes to fully expose a large fossil in the first place, and thus invent the mythological dragon? I mean it wouldn’t put any food on the table!

So when all else fails, put our invention of mythological and universal dragons down to some variation of nebulous Freudian psychology mumbo-jumbo. Give me a break! No, the answer is that dragons were really real and humans actually observed them. There is a single reason after all.

Now just consider, how many extinct animals did we mythologically invent prior to the discovery of their fossils? Dinosaurs weren’t all the rage before their fossil bones were uncovered and realised for what they were. Why didn’t we mentally create them before the fact? Why didn’t we have mythological trilobites in our legends 7000 years ago? We just didn’t have dinosaurs, trilobites, mythological or otherwise, before their fossils were discovered.

Why didn’t we have in our various mythologies any one of thousands of strange, now extinct, organisms? Maybe the answer is because we are NOT prone to invent fictional beasties. If strange beasts are part and parcel of our mythology, maybe it’s because those strange beasts really existed at some point in time that coincided with human existence.

On the other hand, you might wonder why there are no profound mythologies about now extinct mammoths or sabre-toothed cats, even though they coexisted for a short time with ‘modern’ man. Why not? They were pretty big and fearsome; maybe not quite in the big leagues of dragons, but big enough. Perhaps that might be because these beasties had no connection with the ‘gods’ – they weren’t alien beasties.

Now the bigger mystery here is why the cultural difference between East and West in the popular perception of dragons, although that’s not as clear cut as some texts make it out to be. For example, China too had bad dragons – evil black dragons that were credited with inciting storms and floods – and a dragon slayer (Lu Dongbin). Japan had an evil dragon too called Yamata-no-Orochi, slain* by the often troublesome Japanese trickster god Susanowo. There’s a somewhat parallel tale in ancient Babylon and Assyria between the god Marduk and the ‘dragon’ Tiamat. That a god might slay a dragon, well, I guess if you can have wild dos and feral cats, you can have rogue dragons! Maybe only ‘gods’ are allowed, or have the ability, to slay dragons.

Exceptions to the rule aside, I suggest that the relative differences in the portrayals of dragons reflect back on the nature of their masters – the gods.

The Eastern gods appear to me to be a lot less dysfunctional and all around nicer deities than the Western gods. The Greeks and Norse people may have worshiped Zeus et al. and Odin et al. but you really wouldn’t want them to serve as role models for your kids. 

There is however another, and perhaps even more logical explanation for the differences between Western and Eastern dragons. Dragons are bad in the (Christian) west because the Christian churches decrees it so. Dragons represent the old ways, the old gods, maybe even the devil incarnate. In the non-Christian (Hindu, Buddhist, etc.) east, dragons have no such baggage or stigma attached.

The extraterrestrials ‘gods’ and their dragon pets share something in common. The dragons, much like their masters, the ‘gods’ are as close to immortal as makes no odds. I think it’s safe to say ‘immortal’ in this context isn’t really forever and ever, amen, but rather a damn long time, which, as far as primitive humans were concerned translated as, for all practical purposes, ‘immortal’.  

The bottom line in all this is that the gods are really extraterrestrials; their pets, the dragons are also aliens; part of the god’s bestiary. When the gods left the building (Planet Earth), they took their dragons with them as well as the rest of their so-called ‘mythological’ menagerie. 

*As an aside, the actual slaying of dragons is problematically against such events. If as described (see above) you’d no more go up against a dragon armed only with a sword as you would a T-Rex. You’d want at least an army tank under or at your command or an army of swordsmen at the least (and expect lots of casualties too). Then too, the gods might not permit the slaying of their pets. Of course the Christian church would encourage tall tales of dragon slaying since the dragon was pagan and may even be symbolic of Satan. b

Telling tales of slaying dragons is akin, IMHO, to a fisherman’s tall tales – the six inch fish that got away, after a few drinks at the pub, turns out to be a six foot monster fish! But if dragons were really slain, where are all the mounted and stuffed dragon head trophies that should be on display in all manner of ways and places? Lack of such stuffed trophies doesn’t prove dragons didn’t exist (there are no taxidermic head trophies of sabre-toothed cats either on display), rather that mortals didn’t dare go up against them!

Further reading:

Hargreaves, Joyce; A Little History of Dragons; Walker & Company, New York; 2009:

Shuker, Karl; Dragons: A Natural History; Evergreen, Koln, the Netherlands; 2006:

How Come Civilization? Why Creation? Part Two

Modern human beings went from a relatively simple hunter-gatherer existence over a rather long-term, in fact quite lengthy time frame, then, in a rather all-of-a-sudden time frame, we settled down and acquired what we’d all accept as living as a collective civilization or as civilized societies. Why did the transition happen and so suddenly after such a long incubation period. What makes us unique? Was it just good old Mother Nature, or was there a special guiding hand – or tentacle or claw as the case may be perhaps.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

There’s another puzzle. That puzzle involves the gods or ‘gods’ creating humans or humanity in the first place. Before I get to the puzzling bit, consider some examples:

The Near East: The creation of humanity, the first people, according to the ancient myths, were either born or formed by hand. Two deities were responsible for creating humankind. Often, the reason given for creating humankind was to provide workers so that the younger generation of gods could be relieved of the hard work. Kindly note that last sentence – humanity was created to do the hard work while, I guess, the ‘gods’ could eat, drink and make merry and enjoy the good life! That’s quite a common theme in mythology; gods create and rule; humans toil.

Greece: The Greek god Prometheus was a Titan who created people from clay.

Norse: Odin was the leader of the Norse gods and the creator of both the world and people.

Maya: The gods made people from corn. They used corn for the bodies, and corn meal for the arms and legs. The corn people were the ancestors of the Maya.

Australia: The supernatural creatures of the aboriginal Dreamtime created the empty world, followed by landscapes, lakes and rivers, plants, humans, and animals. As cultural heroes, they brought advances such as the power over fire, weapons, and hunting skills, as well as clan orders and wedding regulations to humanity.

Lastly, we all know about the Book of Genesis and the so-call creation of Adam and Eve from dust and ribs and probably from whatever else was handy.  

Now here’s the puzzle. It’s somewhat difficult to understand why humans would attribute the creation of humans (and plants and animals) to mythological gods. I mean, even to our earliest ancestors, it’s obvious that people come from people (or at least from females – the biological role of the father might not have been obvious nine months after the fact). In most cases it’s obvious that like comes from like (that’s why Siegfried, a student of nature in the Richard Wagner opera of the same name figured out he wasn’t really the son of the dwarf Mime).

So, if direct observation tells you that people create people, why not assume an infinite backwards regression (or in reverse, generation follows generation follows generation) and there was no beginning, no first creation of people. That makes logical sense. Why would humans not accept this as the natural order of things? Now of course if the ‘gods’ really did assist in the evolution of the modern human, and told humans as much, well that explains those creation tales.

But there are several other puzzles. The first is why did some cultures seemingly defy the ‘gods’ and reject settlement civilization (cities, towns, villages) and remain a nomadic hunter-gatherer society? The most obvious answer is that not all physical geographical environments are equally suitable for a sedentary existence of permanent settlements. The Australian aborigines and Australia a case in point - too dry, too hot, too wet, too constantly changing from drought to flood and back again, coupled with a lack of a suitable native agricultural crops (wheat, corn, rice) and/or native domesticated eatable animal, like sheep, pigs and cattle. There’s more to civilization than urban living. The aborigines have culture – art, music, language, and law, the ability to cook, even though they had no cities, towns or villages.

Yet another puzzle might seem unrelated, but I’ll present it anyway. All humans are one interbreeding species, yet we have one other unique feature (apart from top of the pops in IQ) – different races or breeds. Now skin colour is easily explained by resorting to environmental factors. But what evolutionary selection pressures accounts for other racial differences, which tend to be facial features? We all look pretty much the same from the neck down; at least after you separate the males from the females. That’s apart from fingerprints (or toe-prints?), but unless you’re into law enforcement we don’t tend to identify our family, friends and neighbours by examining their fingers! How do you tell people apart? - By their faces primarily. And it’s not just the broad spectrum racial facial features – it’s just as easy to distinguish an Asian from a Caucasian as it is to distinguish two separate Asians or two separate Caucasians (identical twins excepted perhaps). What is the survival value, the evolutionary selection pressure that makes nearly everyone facially unique? 

Take any other wild creature – one that humans haven’t domesticated and genetically tampered with. Say the great white shark or the common house fly or the blue-ringed octopus or cane toads. As is the case with elephants or zebras, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. You can’t tell them apart. In a police line-up, of say half a dozen German cockroaches, could you identify the one that you saw crawl across your kitchen floor? I feed and watch a lot of wild birds, but I’m damned if I can tell one sulphur-crested cockatoo from another. They all look the same! Perhaps that’s why wildlife biologists and medical researchers have to tag their wildlife or little white mice so as to be able to tell who’s who.

Even with our domesticated and artificially breeding of selected species, we usually tell them apart in the first instance via their size, behaviour pattern and most of all external colouration patterns.

So why our unique faces? Perhaps the ‘gods’ further genetically engineered us that way in order to help tell us apart.

Here’s another mystery.

Say you lived 8000 years ago at the dawn of the transition from ‘primitive’ hunter-gather to ‘sophisticated’ urban dweller (well maybe a farmer or herdsman in a small settlement). Now you have no knowledge of modern biological evolution, the origin of species, or physical geology or cosmology or astrophysics. Would you, in pondering life, the Universe and everything (in your spare time of course) come up with an ‘in the beginning’ or ‘as it is, so shall it have ever been so’? I would suggest the latter because in your world, your environment, your environmental world view, everything is cyclic – a seemingly endless repeat of events, of events, of events, of events (like a stuck record): Birth-death-birth-death; seasons come and seasons go, but always in the same order; the Sun rises-sets-rises-sets-rises-sets; ditto the stars, their patterns and movements are endlessly fixed (patterns) and cyclic (movements); you go from full Moon to quarter Moon to new Moon to quarter Moon to full-quarter-new-quarter, etc. You witness no Big Ticket newness – no acts of grand creation. You have no real reason to assume any grand scale ‘in the beginning’.

Why would you assume that the ground beneath your feet hadn’t always existed as that solid good earth? Wouldn’t such an idea seem rather alien? It would go against the grain of commonsense.

Day after day, year after year, you see the Sun rise and the Sun set. The exact same set of observations, the circumstances surrounding what the Sun does daily, has been passed down generation unto generation. Nobody has experienced anything different no matter how far back your ancestors go. Why would you not assume it has always been that way; that way forever and ever, amen? There seems no need to postulate that some natural event, or deity, created the Sun.

That’s not to suggest you wouldn’t invent deities in order to explain natural phenomena you had no understanding of, like the tides or volcanoes or earthquakes or eclipses or where does the Sun go at night and why rain, wind, thunder and lightning? It’s just there’s no need to invent creator deities, deities who did things ‘in the beginning’.

Yet ancient mythologies nearly all adopt creator deities and an ‘in the beginning’. The Universe isn’t cyclic – it had a creation (the Big Bang event). Ditto the Sun and the Moon and the stars and the Earth (land, sea and sky) and plants and animals and humans. All were created ‘in the beginning’. Why? Maybe because there were ‘people’ around 8000 years ago who did have knowledge of biological evolution, the origin of species or physical geology or cosmology or astrophysics and were able to pass on that information to the human populace who (not fully grasping the technical fine print) incorporated those revelations into their world view: what has come down to us as mythology.

In conclusion, there are anomalies with respect to the origins of humans (Homo sapiens), some of our attributes like our intelligence and facial features, as well as our relatively rapid rise from hunter-gathers on the plains of Africa to hunter-gathers on the Lunar plains. Mythology explains much of this as acts of the gods (yet why creator gods), yet we reject the existence of the gods and thus gloss over the resulting anomalies. The compromise is to give short shrift to the supernatural gods, but credibility to the ‘gods’ as flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials who stumbled across Earth while exploring and colonizing the Milky Way Galaxy many hundreds of thousands of years ago. 

How Come Civilization? Why Creation? Part One

Modern human beings went from a relatively simple hunter-gatherer existence over a rather long-term, in fact quite lengthy time frame, then, in a rather all-of-a-sudden time frame, we settled down and acquired what we’d all accept as living as a collective civilization or as civilized societies. Why did the transition happen and so suddenly after such a long incubation period. What makes us unique? Was it just good old Mother Nature, or was there a special guiding hand – or tentacle or claw as the case may be perhaps.

Modern humans (Homo sapiens) existed as an uncultured, uncivilized nomadic entity for most of humanity’s time on Earth. Then whoosh, within an incredible short period of time, apart from isolated pockets, our nomadic days were over and we settled down to a civilized and cultured existence, which continues right through to this 21^st Century. But there’s something very odd about that. Why did it take so long? Why then did the transition happen so quickly? Why do mythologies throughout the world tend to credit the gods for this transition when we all know the polytheistic gods don’t exist?

Modern humans, Homo sapiens (Latin for ‘wise man’ or ‘knowing man’) have existed as a separate species, originating in Africa, with all associated anatomical and related mental faculties in tact, for about 200,000 to 400,000 years. All modern behavioural characteristics have been evident in the fossil and archaeological records from about 50,000 years ago, like Palaeolithic cave art and the practice of burying the dead. 

Human culture or civilization blossomed not in the heart of Africa where modern humans evolved, but in the Middle East. Why not Africa? I would have thought that at first glance Africa was a more environmentally habitat than the Middle East. There was ample enough time, yet apart from ancient Egypt, Africa isn’t associated with early civilizations. Perhaps that’s just an historical mystery that’s bound to remain a mystery.

The earliest origin of what we’d call settlement civilization happened roughly 10,000 years ago, though the first real city-states didn’t come into their own, like Mesopotamia, Egypt’s Nile Valley and the Indus Valleys until about 6000 years ago. So, for most of our time on Earth, we were hunter-gatherers going wherever the flow took us. If civilization and established communities and domestication over plants and animals were such a good idea, why did it take so long for the ‘eureka’ moment to strike? If you have an hour to complete a maths exam with one question, ‘how much is 2 + 2?’, and you only figured it out after 50 minutes, then you hardly qualify as an Einstein. Well we figured out civilization 50 minutes after the one hour time limit start button was pushed, but to add to the mystery, at 49 minutes into the test, we still hadn’t a clue. It’s almost as if we received some outside help at nearly the last minute - but outside help from whom? 

According to mythologies around the world, the gods gave the gifts of culture and civilization to ancient human societies.

The Near East: There are various divine bringers of culture associated with Near East mythology. These divine gods were credited with cultural advancements, such as the development of agriculture and animal husbandry as well as the creation of sophisticated urban culture. Various myths suggested that cultural accomplishments were gifts from the gods.

The Egyptians: As a scribe of the gods, the ibis-headed god known as Thoth was viewed by the Egyptians as the inventor of all spoken and written languages.

The Greeks: The Greek goddess Demeter taught humankind agriculture. The Greek goddess Athena taught the Greeks how to cook and sew. Along with fire, the Greek god Prometheus gave people the mechanical arts, sciences, and wisdom.

China: At the centre of the world lay China, the ‘middle kingdom’ which was ruled by gods. These gods created China’s inhabitants and taught them arts and skills. The first heavenly rulers also provided their subjects with technologies essential to life. Each invention – such as cooking, writing, medicine, the wheel, the fishing net and the plow – was credited to a specific deity. The Chinese god Shennong invented the plow and taught people how to farm.

Africa: A cultural hero brings to a group of people the skills necessary for survival. Like in many cultures throughout the world, the cultural hero in African lore is a mythological figure who brings monumental change to his people, through invention and discovery. Gifts brought by these heroes were often the knowledge needed to farm, hunt, and build.

The gods are also the law givers. An obvious case in point is the monotheistic God and His Ten Commandments.

The gods gave humans all these things but we all know there are no gods (including God) so that must mean that humans came up with all these things all by themselves. But if that’s the case why doesn’t human history record this in the same way that history records Edison (for example) with lots of inventions instead of attributing human inventions, human culture, and human civilization to nonexistent gods? That makes no real sense at all.

However, while the gods might not be real, the ‘gods’ could be – ‘gods’ cleverly disguised as gods, but ultimately revealed as extraterrestrials. Extraterrestrials would just about automatically qualify as deities to primitive earthlings who had no concept of life on other planets.

Now all the extraterrestrial ‘gods’ really needed to do was just give us our first kindergarten lessons and that alone would have kick-started us on our way, eventually to land up on the Moon, hunting and gathering those rocks to take back to Earth. It’s like the child attending school. In the beginning the child is spoon-fed all knowledge, but pretty soon the ability to find things out by him (or her) self kicks in.  

The question is, what’s so special about us that we and we alone as a terrestrial species have actually reached out and touched the Moon? Homo sapiens alone as a terrestrial species have advanced intelligence, technology, and overall that nebulous concept called civilization. The evolution of technology isn’t inevitable and has a lot of just-so factors attached; ditto civilization. I’ve speculated that the latter two were kick-started by the ‘gods’, the extraterrestrials. What about our intelligence? Might our intellectual abilities ultimately prove to be another gift from the ‘gods’?

IMHO, intelligence, the ability to figure things out, has evolutionary survival value and will tend to be selected for, and thus over time, there will tend to have evolved life forms with ever higher IQ’s. Here on Earth, just about all mammals and birds, and some exceptional invertebrates (the cephalopods like squid and the octopus), have reasonable IQ’s at least when compared to bacteria, plants, insects, fish, etc. Of course just as some kinds of organisms are faster than others, or have keener senses of sight or smell or hearing, not all advanced organisms are going to end up equal in the IQ stakes. But, the fact remains, the ability to think, to figure things out, can only increase your odds of survival and leaving behind more offspring.

However, if the evolution of intelligence were the be-all-and-end-all to ensuring survival and being fruitful and multiplying, then your everyday household moggy would be catching mice through pure intellectual genius and setting down mousetraps – and the mice avoiding the cat by figuring out what the cat was planning!

No, there are many evolutionary pathways to success and survival and reproducing. In the case of the moggy, evolving faster reflexes, being able to run faster for longer durations, evolving ever more acute hearing and vision – well that’s probably going to ultimately catch more mice than pure brainpower.

So, yes, intelligence will be selected for, but that trait is in serious competition with other traits in terms of ensuring that you live long and prosper. Just like there are many roles or occupations humans play and work at in society, not all roles or occupations are equal in ensuring success and longevity, yet maximizing whatever abilities you have at least give you the maximum odds that whatever role or occupation you have will ensure you have the maximum chance of living long and living in prosperity. 

However, we’re not just slightly ahead in the IQ stakes, but proverbial light-years ahead. We’d be hard-pressed to imagine any other terrestrial species remotely accomplishing through sheer brain-power alone something akin to the most primitive of our cave art or even picking up and chucking rocks at an enemy.

In the time since the arrival of the ‘modern’ human, Homo sapiens, all our other primate relations, the great apes and monkeys, etc. haven’t moved one centimetre  closer to reaching the Moon, or for that matter, any of the other hundreds of thousands of ‘advanced’ or complex life forms currently inhabiting Planet Earth.

If Homo sapiens vanished off the face of the Earth today, what odds would you give that our closest evolutionary cousins, the chimps and/or baboons and/or gorillas and/or any of the old or new world monkeys would be the next terrestrial species to land on the Moon, however far into the future you’d care to speculate?

So we have puzzlement over why, of all the creatures on Earth, do Homo sapiens have not only the highest IQ, but relative to the next in line – well it’s not even a close contest. It’s sort of like pitting the professional baseball major league New York Yankees against a little league baseball team. Both play baseball, but the relative skills are again light-years apart.

Might I suggest that the ‘gods’, from the get-go, deliberately assisted by bioengineering or genetically engineering our advanced IQ levels? Our intelligence was indeed yet another gift from the ‘gods’.  It should come as no surprise that when it comes to creation myths, the gods created humans. I’d just replace the word ‘created’ with the phrase ‘assisted Mother Nature’s natural selection process by their artificial selection of various traits in selected primates’. The end product of the ‘gods’ bioengineering was humanity with all its glorious top of the pops intellect.

To be continued…

Stoned, For All Eternity: Part Three

A great deal has been written about and made much of in alternative archaeology books about how and why our technologically primitive ancestors were able to carve out, transport and erect massive multi-ton stone blocks into megalithic monuments of well, monumental size. The implication is that since there is no doubting the existence of these structures, our ancestors must of in fact possessed an advanced technology or had assistance from those who did (i.e. – ‘ancient astronauts’). That runs contrary to the standard model of scholarly archaeology. But the questions remain. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Appendix: A few notable megalithic monuments.

1) Some unfinished in-situ megaliths.

*Baalbek (Lebanon) has two unfinished stones weighing in at 1000 to 1250 tons apiece.

*There’s an unfinished Egyptian obelisk at Assuan that’s all up comes to roughly 1100 tons.

2) Some finished and transported megaliths.

Europe

*Stonehenge: some stones are up to 40 tons.

*The Avebury stone circle, England, has as its largest stone one over 40 tons.

*The famous fortress of Mycenae, Greece has stones close to 100 tons in weight.

*The Parthenon in Athens, Greece has some of its largest stones weighing in at 10 tons.

Pacific Region

*Those Easter Island (Rapa Nui to the locals) Moai can weigh up to 70, even one up to 86 tons.

Ancient Egypt

*The Colossi of Memnon are two Egyptian statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III coming in at 700 tons each.

*Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great) was not shy about erecting statues to honour himself. One of his numerous dozens of monumental statues commissioned to image self (at Luxor) – 100 tons worth of stone. But that’s featherweight class.

*Ramesses II was only just getting warmed up. There’s a statue at Thebes, Egypt, part of the Ramessum, the mortuary temple of the pharaoh in question, of 1000 tons. Now that’s heavyweight status.

*Egyptian obelisks weren’t miniscule. There’s one at 227 tons (Luxor); one at 328 tons (Karnak).

*Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt is well known as overkill when it comes to constructing a tomb. Though the average weight of each stone block is ‘only’ 2.5 tons, the largest slabs comprising the burial chamber, come in at 80 tons.

*Apart from the Great Pyramid, other Egyptian pyramids, in fact most, if not all other, Egyptian pyramids have some monolithic blocks of over 20 tons, including monolithic roof slabs, plugs and burial vaults, some of which weigh in at over 100 tons.

South and Central America

*Those well known but mysterious Olmec heads in Mesoamerica aren’t trivial works when carved down to some 50 tons all up.

*The Inca city of Machu Picchu, Peru has large stones part and parcel of its construction weighing in from 20 to 50 tons apeice.

*There’s a very famous Aztec calendar stone at Tenochtitlan, Mexico that weighs considerably more than the wall calendar you hang up at home. Weight, 24 tons.

*Palenque, Mexico is a famous Mayan site, especially thanks to Erich Von Daniken. The largest stones on site weigh 12 to 15 tons.

Further suggested readings

Childress, David Hatcher; Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients; Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton, Illinois; 2000:

De Camp, L. Sprague; The Ancient Engineers; Ballantine Books, New York; 1974:

De Camp, L. Sprague & De Camp; Catherine C; Citadels of Mystery; Fontana/Collins, London; 1972:

Hancock, Graham; Fingerprints of the Gods: A Quest for the Beginning and the End; Mandarin, London; 1996:

Hancock, Graham & Faiia, Santha; Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the Lost Civilization; Penguin Books, London; 1999:

National Geographic Society; Mysteries of Mankind: Earth’s Unexplained Landmarks; National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.; 1992:

National Geographic Society; Mysteries of the Ancient World; National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.; 1979:

Parry, Dick; Engineering the Ancient World; Sutton Publishing, U.K.; 2005:

Von Daniken, Erich; Chariots of the Gods?; Souvenir Press, London; 1969:

Von Daniken, Erich; Gods from Outer Space; Souvenir Press, London; 1970:

Further viewings:

NOVA; Secrets of Lost Empires; PBS/WGBH, Boston; 2006:

NOVA; Secrets of Lost Empires II; PBS/WGBH, Boston; 2008:

There’s also been dozens of books/videos written/produced specifically about the archaeological mysteries of Stonehenge, ancient Egyptian monuments including the pyramids, Easter Island, the ruins of Mesoamerica and South America, etc. Consult your local library.

Stoned, For All Eternity: Part Two

A great deal has been written about and made much of in alternative archaeology books about how and why our technologically primitive ancestors were able to carve out, transport and erect massive multi-ton stone blocks into megalithic monuments of well, monumental size. The implication is that since there is no doubting the existence of these structures, our ancestors must of in fact possessed an advanced technology or had assistance from those who did (i.e. – ‘ancient astronauts’). That runs contrary to the standard model of scholarly archaeology. But the questions remain. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Here are some alt-archaeological theories.

One theory sometimes seen in alt-archaeological tomes is that these massive blocks didn’t start out as massive blocks, just like a brick doesn’t start out as a brick, but rather they were poured into place, in a mould, like concrete or cement. Sorry, but modern petrologists’ could easily detect such. Often in fact the quarry from where the stone originated can be precisely identified, though that often raises the question then of transport, since the distances twixt quarry site and construction site can be hundreds of miles. That’s an issue that applies to Stonehenge as well as some of the stonework for the Giza pyramids. 

If you really want to go far-out, star-scout, let’s try antigravity! Anti-gravity is only available in one form, dark energy. Dark energy is that mysterious antigravity force that’s causing the expanding Universe to keep on expanding at ever faster and faster rates, in defiance of gravity which should slow the expansion rate down. Alas, dark energy, which while dominant over the scale of the entire Universe, is trivial locally relative to Earth’s intense gravity field.

Alt-archaeology texts are full of references to sound energy that levitates (negates gravity) and thus massive blocks of stone can be floated around and put into place even with just the oomph of an infant, just by making the appropriate sound at the appropriate level.. Sound of course can be focused. We all know and appreciate the science of acoustics in theatres. Sound can shatter objects, well at least relatively fragile objects like wine glasses when subjected to the professional projections of the trained human voice (or equivalent). However, if you crunch the numbers, the energy required to negate gravity is way outside the realm of which sound energy can muster. Considering the cacophony of sounds the human race produces daily, you’d think that all the relevant elements would come together somewhere, sometime and ‘just so’ as to produce levitation in something, levitation observed and photographed for the record. Alas, not so. 

Jigsaw Puzzles

In some constructions, it’s not just a matter of manipulating massive but irregular stone blocks but fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle, results that are immediately apparent at sites around the world, like those from the Incan Empire. Precision carving in stone using only other stone or copper tools is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not simple; it’s extremely exhausting and time consuming work. Double that when all your blocks aren’t a standard square block size and shape.

What Do Our Ancestors Say?

Pity that although the ancients left all manner of images behind of their daily lives and culture, I find it amazing that despite all of those multi-thousands of images from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Americas, etc. not one shows an actual half-finished or partly constructed monument, like a pyramid, or a temple like the Parthenon that’s under construction, or whatever. That’s highly anomalous IMHO, though there are images of ancient Egyptians transporting massive stone blocks.

However, even some of those ancient cultures were puzzled as to how their even more ancient ancestors achieved these megalithic ‘missions impossible’.

There’s something very odd when the natural descendents of ‘primitive’ natives resort to tales akin to sci-fi or science-fantasy to account for how their ancestors constructed, transported and erected massive stone monoliths.

Easter Islanders say that their Moai statues walked by themselves from quarry to their final resting (actually standing) place. Who am I to argue with first hand or on-the-spot observations, except Thor Heyerdahl’s “Aku-Aku” team accomplished the same with less elegant but with pure grunt power. Walking stone statues are just a bit too far into the “Twilight Zone” for comfort. Actually for some reason Easter Islanders at some point downed their stone tools and abandoned their statue constructions for reasons not entirely clear other than priorities altered. The abandoned unfinished statues can still be seen today, lying in place, now long neglected.

Also in the Pacific region, Nan Modal is an ancient city of about 0.75 square kilometres off the coast of the island of Pohnpei in what’s today termed Micronesia. The city is comprised of artificial islands criss-crossed by canals, and thus often referred to as the Venice of the Pacific. Those ‘islands’ however are built up of massive megalithic stone walls up to 25 feet high. How so? Well the stones were carried on site on the backs of dragons apparently. To be honest, that makes as much sense as anything else.

I noted above that allegedly sound could levitate massive stone blocks. That theory or observation is found in both South America and ancient Egypt – massive stones are somehow lifted and transported by sound. I still think that’s highly suspect and I think scientists would need an actual modern-day demonstration. I know I would.

Tentative Conclusions

As I noted above, it’s not the caving or the transport that’s the real issue, nor going from the horizontal to the vertical that’s a real problem, rather the issue is lifting massive stones straight up that I especially puzzle over.

The puzzlement relates to our own use of stones in building projects. We could I guess, if we wanted to, build our buildings out of mega-ton blocks of stone. But we don’t. Your house, if it contains building stones at all, are stones that are probably akin to weights of just several pounds, maybe dozens of pounds; hardly tons.

So do we have a major mystery here? Well yes, especially when compared to modern society as noted immediately above. In our modern high-tech age, when we do use stone as a construction material, it’s in manageable bits and pieces. We don’t build our homes or office buildings or ballparks or monuments out of multi-ton to multi-hundred ton stone blocks as the ancients did. But when duty called, like when Abu Simbel had to be relocated to a higher elevation when the Aswan High Dam was constructed giving rise to Lake Nasser and the flooding of the historical site, even using modern technology it was still a major and massive effort. 

A Possible Solution

Perhaps we can kill two anomalous birds with one hypothetical stone.

Universal One: As we note, from the Americas (Mesoamerica and South America at least); throughout Europe and the Near and Middle East, Egypt and other parts of Africa, even unto Asia and the Pacific region, there are ancient megalithic constructions using stone blocks in the multi mega-ton range. How did the ancients carve, transport, raise and position such massive stone blocks?

Universal Two: Also around the world, there’s a universal theme of giants, from the Cyclopes in Greco-Roman cultures, to Biblical giants to – well you name the culture and I’ll guarantee they will have giants as a core element in their mythologies. For samplers, here’s just a partial list of giants. Well there’s Angrboda (Norse), Argos (Greek), Balor (Irish), Biloko (Zaire), Bungisngis (Philippines), the Cyclopes (Greek), Geryon (Greek), the Gigantes (Greek), Goliath (Biblical), Grendel (Anglo-Saxon), the Hecatonchires (Greek), Hrungnir (Norse), Humbaba (Mesopotamia), the Nephilim (Biblical), Skrymir (Norse), Suttung (Norse), Talos (Greek), the Titans (Greek), and Ymir (Norse). Further, you have all manner of giant trolls and ogres (Scandinavian), various giant apemen like the Yeti and Bigfoot/Sasquatch and numerous others, as well as the Giants of Cornwall (led by Gogmagog).

Well, what’s ‘mission: impossible’ for a young child, is possible for an adult; what’s ‘mission: impossible’ for adult humans might be possible for a giant(s). A giant twice as large as a typical human will have eight times the muscle power, since muscles are 3-D, doubling in length, width and height; and thusly 2 x 2 x 2 = 8.

What Do Our Ancestors Say Revisited?

Ancient Greeks often attributed various massive stone constructions to the Cyclopes, as an example. Such massive structures are termed the Cyclopean walls since the Cyclopes and only the Cyclopes could have built these structures. Perseus had them responsible for building the walls of Mycenae, including the Lion Gate; Proitos attributed them building the walls of Tiryns. The medieval Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus cited the Roman ruins as evidence that giants must once have walked the Earth. And who built the Giant’s Causeway on the Northern Irish Coast?

Is this too far out? I’m open to other suggestions, but at least it doesn’t require high-tech alien assistance, unless of course those worldwide mythological giants, like the Cyclopes, were aliens!

To be continued…