Fingerprints of Graham Hancock: Giza Plateau no older than 2,580 B.C.

1. Hancock claims that the Great Pyramid was built using anti-gravity technology linked to Atlantis and the Ark of the Covenant. [19] Just one problem is: Atlantis never existed, because the story told by the Egyptians to the Greeks about this lost continent is a total impossibility. [20] There's no evidence that the Ark has ever existed either. [21] How the stones were moved is addressed further down.
   
   
2. Hancock claims that human civilization is cyclical, with Ancient Egypt and Babylon being remnants of older, lost and possibly more achieved civilizations. [22] Partly to counter this argument, ISGP has created detailed timelines of world history, as this is the only way for people to quickly get a grasp of history and understand that these days there are no mysterious gaps in Early Modern Human (EMH) history where these lost societies could potentially be found.
   
   
3. Hancock still promotes the Earth's Crust Displacement/Pole Shift Theory [23], developed by Manuel Velikovsky in 1950 and promoted further by Dr. Charles Hapgood in 1958. The thing is, in the early to mid-1950s scientists were still absolutely puzzled by emerging evidence of continental drift: continents continually drifting apart. A variety of theories were introduced, among them Earth's Crust Displacement. However, in 1958 the now thoroughly verified (and rival) plate tectonics theory was introduced and scientists have never looked back since. We also know that never in the last billion years or so has there been a rapid and catastrophic pole shift. There have only been various degrees of polar wander, always taking place over millions of years. [24] The only reason Hancock and other alternative authors continue to promote Earth's Crust Displacement Theory is that only such an allegedly catastrophic event of shifting poles and land masses could possibly explain the disappearance of an entire advanced civilization. And let's certainly not forget here that this same Hapgood was as fringe an individual as they come. More on him later on.
   
   
4. Hancock claims that knowledge of astronomy is evidence of a lost civilization. It's not. Astronomy is older than the first great civilizations, as evidenced by the German Goseck Circle of 4,900 B.C. and Nabta Playa in Egypt in 4,500 B.C. Keeping an eye on the sun and the stars was important for primitive people in order to know when to sow, when the floods could be expected, when to harvest, or when and where certain herds of animals could be found. In addition, the pole stars have always been important for navigational purposes, with the Ancient Egyptians using it to align the pyramids to true north.
   
   
5. Hancock ignores the trial-and-error phase in pyramid building. He has been aware of it since his 1995 book Fingerprints of the Gods, but spins the facts by making a big issue out of (very) small discrepancies that in no case would indicate a much older history of Ancient Egypt. [25]
   
   
6. Hancock ignores the fact that the pyramids have been repeatedly carbon-dated to the late third millennium B.C., a subject that has already been discussed. [26]
   
   
7. Hancock ignores the fact that the pyramid's shafts only align with key stars during Egypt's Old Kingdom in the period around 2,600 B.C. Hancock has been aware of this since his 1995 book Fingerprints of the Gods [27], but, like the Cayce Association [28], continues to argue for a 10,500 B.C. "origin" of the Great Pyramid and Giza Plateau. [29] It appears that Hancock prefers to rush over this fact, instead preferring to focus attention on some of the bogus issues starting with number 9 here that for his ideas are much more convenient.
   
   
8. Hancock claims the Great Pyramid was not primarily built to serve as a tomb. However, the only object located in the King's Chamber is a sarcophagus, which had been looted and damaged by the time western Egyptologists entered the Great Pyramid. We also know that the Egyptians held the most elaborate funeral rites in the history of human civilization, filled with references to Orion, to which one of the shafts of the King's Chamber was pointed around 2,600 B.C. Even as far back as 450 B.C. the Great Pyramid was considered a tomb for Khufu by the Egyptians themselves, who related this to Herodotus. All of this is discussed by Hancock, who somehow still reaches the conclusion that the tomb in the Great Pyramid really didn't serve as a tomb. [30]
   
   
9. Hancock and Bauval have claimed that the three pyramids at Giza formed an exact representation of the three stars of Orion Belt's, not so much in 2,500 B.C., but rather in 10,500 B.C. [31] The highly-esteemed astronomer Anthony Patrick Fairall (1943-2008), who ran the Cape Town Planetarium, and a colleague, redid Bauval's calculations and found that they were wrong. There's no exact match at all with 10,500 B.C. and neither is there with 2,500 B.C. [32] Personally, I still would not be surprised if the three Giza Pyramids were roughly meant to be a representation of Orion, as the two pharaohs after Khufu appear to have had lower standards of precision in construction than Khufu. But it is impossible to prove, something that Hancock and Bauval appear to know all too well.
   
   
10. Hancock claims that the Sphinx must also date back to roughly 10,500 B.C. [33] His first argument, again made with help of Bauval, is that during the spring equinox around 10,450 B.C. (to be exact) the Sphinx was looking at its own image in the sky, the constellation of Leo. [34] Fairall also went over these calculations. He claimed they were incorrect. Although approaching Leo, in 10,500 B.C.--the date Fairall unfortunately went by--the Sphinx would still have been looking at Virgo. [35]
    
    
11. A second argument Hancock and colleagues have made for the "vastly ancient" origin of the Sphinx are the erosion patterns seen on the monument. [36] Although it did take a little bit of additional checking up, also for this aspect there turned out to exist very mundane and sensible explanations:
    
    
    1. For 3,800 years the outer surface of the Giza pyramids consisted of polished limestone. Only in 1,300 A.D. a massive earthquake loosened much of the outer casing, which was soon thereafter used in the construction of other buildings. The pyramids we see today have only been exposed to the elements for 700 years.
       
       
    2. The Sphinx's face has been exposed to the elements for 3,800 additional years compared to the pyramids as we see them today. Luckily it consists of a relatively hard limestone and therefore is still relatively well preserved. However, most of the Sphinx's body consists of a much lower quality limestone than either the Sphinx's face, its bottom layer, or the pyramid blocks. This is why most of the uncovered body of the Sphinx shows heavy weathering by rainwater; it doesn't take much for this to happen. [37] Remember: the Sphinx was carved as a whole from the bedrock and sits in a hole in the ground. It does not consist of high quality limestone blocks specifically mined for the purpose of construction.
       
       
    3. There may have been more rainfall than today during the Old Kingdom, until the drought of 2,200 B.C. But this theory is really moot at this point.
       
    
    
    
    
12. Hancock claims the Giza plateau was picked by the Ancient Egyptians, because in 10,500 B.C. the path of the Nile River at this location exactly mirrored the Milky Way. [38] Dr. Fairall argued that it would be impossible to know the exact path of the Nile River in 10,500 B.C. [39] It must be said, Hancock never mentions any geological surveys investigating the historical path of the Nile. What we do know, and so does Hancock [40], is that Egypt used to be a Savannah with much more rainfall. Erosion, climate change, and major floods all could have permanently altered sections of the Nile's course. We would need more data before even remotely entertaining this argument. It is a rather "out there" theory that doesn't fit the known historical timeline at all.
    
    
13. Hancock claims the Great Pyramid incorporates pi. This is true actually [41], but was already reported by John Taylor in the 1830s [42], with many Egyptologists wondering how deliberate this incorporation of pi has been. Taylor also accurately stated that the Great Pyramid made use of the Golden Ratio [43], something surprisingly not mentioned in Hancock's 1995 Fingerprints of the Gods. It's hard to say for certain to what extent these mathematic principles were incorporated on purpose. For example, 2pi and the Golden Ratio are tightly linked [44], in a similar manner that the Fibonacci Sequence is tied to the Golden Ratio [45] - you can't have one without the other. Also, the other pyramids make little to no use of pi or the Golden Ratio [46], nor do we have any texts from this period documenting these concepts. So we just don't know. One thing is certain though: even if the Ancient Egyptians already had knowledge of pi and the Golden Ratio, it changes little about human history. It might be intriguing math for a variety of reasons, but it is at the high school level.
    
    
14. Hancock enjoys promoting the fact that the height of the original Great Pyramid multiplied by 43,200 gives the polar radius of the earth (from the center of the earth to the north or south pole) to within about 0.75%. This because, if one takes the perimeter of the Great Pyramid's base and multiplies that also by 43,200 one gets the circumference of the earth to within about 0.25%. [47]
    
    That sounds really impressive, especially when you say it quickly, but all pyramids with a slope angle of 51.5° are automatically based on pi and have similar dimensions as a sphere--a sphere like... the earth. The Great Pyramid has an angle like this, but happens to be among the exceptions. All Ancient Egyptian pyramids have varying slope angles. Who knows, pi could have been included on purpose or by accident, even though it serves little purpose in a square design, but in any case the Ancient Egyptians had no knowledge whatsoever about the dimensions of the earth.
    
    To explain this a bit more: 3,950 miles (pole to center of the earth) x 2 = 7,900 miles (diameter from pole to pole). Multiply this with pi and we get a circumference 24,819 miles. Our calculation here differs only 0.16% from the official "meridional circumference" (over the poles) of 24,860 miles, which is only 0.17% different from the equatorial circumference of 24,902 miles. Why? The earth is a ball, but not entirely 100 percent perfectly round. If the Great Pyramid perimeter-to-height ratio is based on pi, then of course there's going to be a correlation with equatorial circumference and the "height" of the earth as measured from the equator: they need to be in balance. The fact that the Great Pyramid has a square design, makes it harder to see, but there's no mystery here.
    
    Just imagine the world with the Great Pyramid sunken into the earth, resting at the center with center of its base. Scale the Pyramid just right, in this case by enlarging it 43,200 times in all directions. How much it needs to be scaled depends on the size of the sphere, but the dimension always remain in balance. With 43,200 the tip of the pyramid will touch the north pole of the earth. Why? Because both are based on pi/balanced circles. In case of the earth, a sphere, this is natural. Now imagine the Great Pyramid's sides morph into a round sphere while keeping the exact same circumference. The base of the pyramid will fit perfectly all along the meridian line of the earth.
    
    
15. Hancock and others often point out that it would have been impossible to build the Great Pyramid in the traditional sense, because it consists of 2 million blocks with an average weight of 2.5 tons. 10 blocks an hour would have had to be put in place every hour over a 30 year period to accomplish this feat. Although this sounds incredible, the base of the pyramid, where by far the most blocks can be found, is 215 by 215 meters (706 by 706 ft). This allows dozens of crews to work simultaneously, with a crew of 20 men necessary to pull up one 2.5 ton block on a sled. In a detailed 1999 study Civil Engineering estimated that even between levels 50 to 74, roughly 180 blocks would have been put in place every hour. [48] Whatever the exact truth, clearly 10 blocks an hour would not have been a problem.
    
    
16. Hancock and others often point out that the much heavier granite blocks from Aswan (most blocks are limestone, which were mined close by, at Tura), one being 80 tons, would have been impossible to transport. This is nonsense, considering primitive people from all over the world were moving stones of tens, even hundreds, of tons. [49] The Lateran Obelisk, its largest piece over 300 tons, was moved from Karnak in Central Egypt all the way to Rome. The fallen granite statue of Ramesseum at Thebes weighs over 1,000 tons and has been transported 270 kilometers / 170 miles in one piece from Aswan. Compared to these weights, the pyramid stones were child's play, even the largest ones.
    
    

    
    

    
    Let's make an estimate here for the 80 ton stone. In contrast to the Romans, the Ancient Egyptians did not have access to horses, oxes, or elephants. Long-distance stones were moved over the Nile. Short distance they had to be pulled on sleds. Water was poured in front of the sleds to reduce friction by roughly another 50 percent. If we assume that one person can pull 50 kilograms / 110 lbs on a sled over any significant amount of distance and then onto a slope, the Ancient Egyptians would have needed 1,600 people to move this one stone. Eight thick ropes with 200 people pulling in unison on each rope: it requires some coordination, but it is do-able, especially when it only involves a very limited amount of stones with this weight. Considering stone pullers would be getting stronger in a short period of time due to hypertrophy and the fact that Civil Engineering estimated that 1 worker could pull at least 125 kg (275 lbs), and quite possibly we'd be looking at less than 650 people who could move that stone.
    
    But the most important conclusion to reach is that there's no need for anti-gravity technology from the Ark of the Covenant to explain the transportation of the 80 ton stone, as Graham Hancock has been doing. [50]
    
    

    
    

    
    
17. Hancock and his allies claim that it would have been next to impossible for the Ancient Egyptians to drill into or cut granite, because the hardest metal available at the time was copper. It's true that copper, as well as bronze, can't be used by itself to shape granite, although it does work on limestone. However, as Hancock was already aware of [51], add (quartz) sand to a copper saw or drill and all of a sudden it's not a problem to cut granite and drill cylindrical holes in it. [52] It's also possible to chip away granite with other granite pieces, or with the even denser and more pressure resistant diorite / dolerite [53], a type of stone that was shaped into hammers and other tools by the Ancient Egyptians. The next question Hancock asks is how the Ancient Egyptians were able to carve hieroglyphics in diorite / dolerite. It's easy to ask questions and not look for answers, as Hancock is fond of doing. Little (published) investigative work appears to have been done on the carving of these stones, but it is generally understood that diorite / dolerite was ideal for fine print due to its hardness. Maybe the simple answer to working these stones is quartz, other pieces of diorite / dolerite, and a little additional patience. In any case, there's no need for the theory that advanced alien power tools were used.
    
    

1. Since the early 1990s Hancock's principal colleagues and supporters have been John Anthony West, Robert Bauval, and Robert Schoch. Virtually no mainstream archeologists or other scientists back these people. The vast majority of support comes from fringe authors who revolve around Coast to Coast AM.
   
   
2. West has always been a fervent follower of the aristocratic French mystic Rene Adolphe Schwaller de Lubicz, a leading pre-World War II member of the fascist Synarchist Movement of Empire who appears to have been very close to Nazi mysticist Rudolf Hess. [54] After the war, Schwaller de Lubicz became an Egyptologist who went looking for evidence that Egypt, including the Great Sphinx, was a remnant of a much older Atlantis. He didn't get his inspiration from Edgar Cayce, but from Synarchie founder Saint-Yves d'Alveydre (1842-1909), who was also convinced of a hollow earth and the existence of Agartha, a secret city in the earth's core. [55]
   
   
3. In 2001 West's produced his documentary serie Magical Egypt, with its extreme focus on the idea that the Egyptians were wise, spiritual people in the possession of hidden esoteric knowledge. Tarot cards continually flash by over the screen with a lot of time being spent detailing Schwaller de Lubicz's questionable Synarchist-type research on the "Temple of Man", i.e., the Temple of Karnak in Luxor. The fact is, when the Old Kingdom pyramids were built in the 26th century B.C., the power of the pharaoh was at its maximum. Khufu was the god Horus, son of Osiris, and a god-king with absolute power. Old Kingdom Egypt was the most absolute form of a pharaoic theocracy. There's little evidence of any type of spirituality or growing knowledge about kundalini and/or meridian system, as began to develop in the Far East. The Egyptian concept of a human soul and its five components does little to change that. Knowledge hardly exceeded the superstition level.
   
   
4. In Magical Egypt, in part based on inaccurate information of Bauval and Hancock and in part because it "corresponds to the [Gods legends in the] Egyptian texts themselves", West states his belief that the Sphinx is 38,000 years old. That's just 12,000 years after the creation of Early Modern Human (Cro-Magnon) and 2,000 years after the first signs of tool-making in Egypt, not to mention more than 30,000 years before the development of the first written script. This is like claiming that dinosaurs never existed because the bible didn't mention them. ISGP also has a timeline on dinosaurs, by the way, for those in doubt.
   
   
5. In Magical Egypt, West makes it clear that he first heard about water erosion patterns on the Sphinx in one of Schwaller de Lubicz's books. [56] In the late 1980s West hired the freshly-graduated Yale geologist Robert Schoch to investigate the erosion marks. While Schoch concluded that the Sphinx was probably no older than 7,000 B.C., West continued his belief that the monument dates back to a whopping 36,000 B.C. In Magical Egypt West completely forgets to discuss the fact that most of the Sphinx's body consists of very poor quality limestone that easily erodes, certainly the exposed aspects. In contrast to the pyramids, consisting of carefully selected limestone and granite, and shielded from the outside world until the 14th century, the Sphinx was carved from the bedrock. This aspect has already been discussed.
   
   
6. In Magical Egypt, West demonstrates a number of deorite, granite and porforie vases and statues he claims could not have been made by the Egyptians themselves because they had nothing better than copper tools. This aspect has also already been discussed. While it has been demonstrated that granite can easily be worked with copper drills and saws in combination with quartz sand, we certainly need a number of experiments as to how exactly diorite was carved. However, this doesn't take away that numerous statues, texts and even hammers were created, all made and perfectly shaped from diorite. There's no need to claim that simple, primitive vases were created with the aid of exotic technology.
   
   
7. Thomas Brophy, a co-author of Robert Bauval, also appears in Magical Egypt, where he discusses Nabta Playa. He explains the astronomical significance of the site, puts it back to 6,000 B.C., and even claims that the builders of Nabta Playa knew the exact distances to the stars of Orion. While no one has tried to confirm or deny Brophy's presented evidence as of yet, it simply appears to be yet another manipulation in line with the earlier invention by Bauval and Hancock of a Giza star map. A quick check reveals that Brophy has appeared on Coast to Coast AM in 2010, along with Robert Bauval, which never spells any good. The team that originally found Nabta Playa agrees that it had an astronomical purpose and that it appears to be linked to Orion and Sirius, similar to the (later) Great Pyramid shafts. However, carbon dating of the quarry sites reveal a date of roughly 4,500 B.C., which would be just after Germany's wooden Goseck Circle, the first known site in the world created to map the stars in order to identify the seasons. It is also in this period that the alignments to Orion, Sirius and Alpha Centauri, the brightest stars in the sky, are applicable. [57]
   

In the mid-1990s rumors and pictures began to swirl over the internet of a peculiar set of hieroglyphics located at the Temple of Seti I in Abydos. They appear to depict a helicopter, a tank or submarine, and two Jetsons' type flying craft. In March 1999 these hieroglyphics received national attention with the Fox television special Opening the Lost Tombs: Live from Egypt. The person promoting the hieroglyphics on the show was Coast to Coast AM's resident astronomer, Richard Hoagland, who also proposed his idea that people from Mars fled their dying planet and ended up as pyramid builders in Ancient Egypt. As might be expected, John Van Auken of the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval and John Anthony West were all featured on the show. Regular Egyptologists were also invited, but weren't asked about their opinions on these alternative theories. [58]

The hieroglyphics are rather easy to explain. They were formed when one set of hieroglyphics was overwritten with a second set around 1,200 B.C. [59] The following three photos should make this clear. The first photo depicts the apparent vehicles. The second picture is from the Temple of Karnak, where a copy of the original set of hieroglyphics can be found. The third picture identifies the two different sets of hieroglyphics.

1. Hancock and other people in the alternative field all claim that the Baalbek stones couldn't have been moved by human effort. Often modern cranes are mentioned, most of which have the biggest trouble lifting and moving 800 tons or more.
   
   
2. This comparison is skewed, however. These 800 ton blocks didn't have to be lifted off the ground. They were pushed and pulled in place, which is many times easier to do. Primitive people from all over the world were moving stones of tens, even hundreds, of tons. [60] The Lateran Obelisk, its largest piece over 300 tons, was moved from Karnak in Central Egypt all the way to Rome. The fallen granite statue of Ramesseum at Thebes weighs over 1,000 tons and has been transported 270 kilometers / 170 miles in one piece from Aswan.
   
   
3. I personally know I can push a 1,350 kilograms (1.35 tons; 3,000 lbs) car down the road without that much trouble, which is about 10 times more than the average male can lift off the ground under ideal circumstances. Highly trained strongmen using a harness and a second rope to pull have moved fire trucks weighing up to 36,000 kilograms (36 tons; 80,000 lbs). [61] In some cases two large draft horses can move an 8,100 kilograms (8 tons; 18,000 pound) sled located on loose dirt ground. [62] Making the ground in front of the sled wet will reduce friction with a considerable percentage. If the weight is loaded onto a wagon, most horse pairs will pull double that weight.
   
   
4. Looking at these numbers, an 800 ton block on a wagon, or located on something that reduces friction to a similar extent, can be pulled by roughly 100 horses or 600 men. The friction to move these stones could have been reduced by the use of wooden or stone rollers, pointy stones, gravel, or rafts and boats floating on water. Small ramps could have been created to pull the stones on top of a wall. It's a project of considerable magnitude, especially in the hundreds of tons range, but humans could definitely have moved stones of this weight. There's no need to suggest anti-gravity devices or aliens, as Hancock and his allies have been doing.

1. Megalithic site Gobekli Tepe in Turkey has indeed been dated to 10,000 B.C. and older, which would make it the oldest type of dolmen or megalithic site known to man. Germany's Goseck Circle dates to 4,900 B.C. and the vast majority of the thousands of dolmen in Eurasia were built starting roughly around 4,000 B.C. All these facts and more have been taken up in ISGP's historical timelines.
   
   
2. That having been said, there's nothing at Gobekli Tepe that really changes the historical timeline of the world. Primarily, there's no evidence of writing at Gobekli Tepe, which was only invented in 3,500 B.C., along with the first great civilizations. Gobekli Tepe is simply an early local megalithic phenomenon, albeit it a very large one.
   
   
3. While some religious individuals have pointed out the fact that Gobekli Tepe is located close to the biblical Garden of Eden, at the source of the Euphrates, Tigris, Pishon and Gihon rivers, there's an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to Africa as the origin of Early Modern Human (EMH) and Anatomically Correct Human (ACH).

1. While the earlier discussed Earth's Crust Displacement/Pole Shift theory, which Hancock still believes in, was first proposed by Manuel Velikovsky in 1950, it was Harvard professor Charles Hapgood who became the most prominent advocate in 1958 with his book The Earth's Shifting Crust. The foreword of the book was written by Albert Einstein, who was "electrified" by the idea that Hapgood may have found the reason behind sudden historical climatic changes. The problem is, today we know that these climate changes were primarily initiated by asteroid impacts and volcanic mega-eruptions Likewise, in the early to mid-1950s scientists were still absolutely puzzled by emerging evidence that continents are continually drifting apart (continental drift). Hapgood was among those who dismissed this idea, instead proposing that the outer layer of the earth is shifting over a molten, inner layer. However, in 1958 the now thoroughly verified (and rival) plate tectonics theory was introduced, and Hapgood's ideas were soon not given any attention anymore. In addition, further research has shown that never in the last billion years has there been a rapid and catastrophic pole shift. [63] It appears there's an organized effort to keep Velikovsky alive in fringe alternative circles. Just the other day I noticed that on June 13, 1999 David Talbott, author of the Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered series, was invited to Coast to Coast AM.
   
   
2. Then, in 1966, Hapgood's book Maps of Ancient Sea Kings was published. It promoted the idea that the Piri Reis map of 1513 shows parts of Antarctica and coast lines as they were during the last age. These conclusions don't make any sense, however. First, looking at a map of the Antarctic bedrock, it looks completely different than the coast drawn on the Piri Reis map. As for the Piri Reis map, the coasts of Africa and North-East South America are mapped in great detail, but everything else in North, Central and South America is just a rough sketch of what explorers were likely to find. If Antarctica was depicted on this map, it would have begun around Rio de Janeiro. The thing is, it's not Antarctica. No fine details are drawn in this part of the map, simply because the only thing explorers knew at the time was that the coastline continued further south. Even the areas in Central America that Columbus first explored 20 years earlier are barely recognizable. North America doesn't appear on the map either.
   
   

   
   

   
   
3. Hapgood also promoted the 1531 Oronteus Finaeus map as depicting Antarctica in its entirety. However, the map instead depicts the well known hypothetical continent Terra Australis. Australia, discovered in 1606, ended up being named after Terra Australis, as Antarctica wasn't discovered for another two centuries, in 1820. Looking closely at the the Oronteus Finaeus, the outlines of the continent don't match Antarctica.
   
   
4. Without knowing anything about Hapgood, ISGP looked for two things: ties to Edgar Cayce and/or ties to intelligence. It may just be a coincidence, but Hapgood had both. During World War II Hapgood was OSS (the later CIA) and acted and as a liaison between the White House and the secretary of war. He also extensively worked with Elwood Babbitt, a trance medium educated by the Edgar Cayce Association, and the new age apocalyptic cult, Brotherhood of the Spirit.
   
   
5. With his students Hapgood did studies into the lost continents of Mu and Atlantis. These concepts, and Atlantis in particular, have been completely discredited in an earlier ISGP article.
   
   
6. In 1972 Hapgood's book Mystery in Acambaro was published, based on the extremely questionable Acambaro figures. In it, Hapgood argues that the figures prove that men and dinosaurs existed together in the same era. That's interesting, because dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago when even the most primitive apes didn't exist yet. Hapgood's book was reprinted in 2000 by Coast to Coast AM veteran David Hatcher Childress, whose other books, as well as those put out by his publishing firm, Adventures Unlimited Press, have put out a vast stream of books on Atlantis and other sunken continents, hollow earth, UFOs, the Indian vimanas, bigfoot, the Knights Templar and Tesla. It's all complete disinformation.

1. In 3,300 B.C. the Indus Valley written script was invented, from which in later millennia the Mahabharata, its Bhagavad Gita, and the Ramayama sacred texts emerged. All of this information has been taken up in ISGP's historical timelines. These texts are rather vague, nonsensical mythological books, harder to read than even the bible.
   
   
2. The widely quoted text from the Mahabharata that supposedly mentions flying vimanas and nuclear bombs is the following and in this case has been taken from a 1988 book of Coast to Coast AM veteran David Hatcher Childress:
   
   

   "Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful vimana, hurled a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose in all its splendor. It was an unknown weapon, and iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas. The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out. Pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white. …After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected... To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and all their equipment." [65]

   
   
3. In contrast to the 1980s and 1990s, today it is possible to instantly search the entire English translation of the Mahabharata and even check it line by line with the original Sanskrit. [66] Conclusion? The above text is a complete fabrication. Not only have completely separate sections and books been lobbed together, the translations themselves are completely inaccurate. For example, compare the "ten thousand suns" phrase with the original: "... that terrible deity robed in skins, looking like 10,000 Suns, and shrouded by the fire of superabundant Energy, blazed up with splendour." [67] Then in a previous section of the book: "Day by day strong winds blew, and many were the evil omens that arose, awful and foreboding the destruction of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. The streets swarmed with rats and mice. Earthen pots showed cracks or broken from no apparent cause. At night, the rats and mice ate away the hair and nails of slumbering men." [68] And from an entirely different book of the Mahabharata: "When the next day came, Camva actually brought forth an iron bolt through which all the individuals in the race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas became consumed into ashes." [69] As anyone can see, no nuclear bombs were ever described in the Mahabharata.
   
   
4. Related to these false Mahabharata citations, in early 2005 an article appeared on the internet talking about nuclear radiation having been found in the Pakistan-India desert, specifically to the west of Indian city Jodhpur. The article has been copy-pasted all over the internet since then. [70] It was written by Philip Coppens, who has been featured on History Channel's Ancient Aliens, in Nexus Magazine and on Coast to Coast AM. The problem is, this is where India has been carrying out its nuclear tests. [71] And that also explains past reports/rumors of spots where sand fused into glass have been found in the desert.
   
   
5. In the same article of Coppens, he talks about archeological evidence at ancient Indus Valley cities Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, located on the other side of the Thar desert, of people having died in the streets in an instant. Problems with these claims: 1) no radiation has been found; 2) only several dozen skeletons were found, who appear to have died in different eras under circumstances that have always been heavily debated; [72] 3) there's no evidence of the city's structures being leveled at the same time; and 4) these cities only flourished around 2,600 B.C. Language was first discovered here in 3,300 B.C. Before that, there was basically nothing but small settlements here and there.