The Ancient Art of Enchanting the Landscape (5)

An Introduction to Earth Mysteries

PART FIVE

In Part Four we saw how an increasing number of authors were joining the ground swell of 'alternative science' throughout the post wars years with some now providing 'evidence' of alien visitations.

Alien Sunset
Robert Temple's book, The Sirius Mystery (1976), in which he proposed that the Dogon people of north-western Mali in Africa preserved an account of extraterrestrial visitation from around 5,000 years ago, proved to be a best-seller and was followed by Zecharia Sitchin with The 12th Planet (1976) the first book in the Earth Chronicles series, suggesting that a superior race of beings once inhabited our world, arguing that these travellers from the stars arrived on earth and planted the genetic seed that would develop into mankind. Using Sumerian texts, which according to Sitchin tell of the leader, Enki, of the first group of astronauts from the 12th planet in our solar system (Nibiru), splashed down in the Persian Gulf and waded ashore dressed as Fishmen.

Ten years earlier in 1966, Ivan Shklovski and Carl Sagan cited in their book Intelligent Life in the Universe the tales of Oannes - the name given by the Babylonian writer Berossus in the 3rd century BC to a mythical fishlike being who brought wisdom to the early Sumerians - as deserving closer scrutiny as a possible instance of paleo-contact due to its consistency and detail.

Although it persisted throughout the 1970’s, following critical analysis of von Däniken's theories and a onslaught of debunking by scholars, highlighting basis errors on the author’s part, (some referred to them as outright fraudulent claims), the Ancient Astronaut theory waned in popularity. The refutation was led by Clifford Wilson in Crash Go The Chariots (1972) and Ronald Story in books such as The Space Gods Revealed, (1976) subtitled “The Chariots of the Gods Turned into a Pumpkin” with a foreword by Carl Sagan, highlighted inaccuracies in von Daniken’s speculations and assumptions and even borrowings from other writers. Story followed this up with Guardians of the Universe? (1980) further demolishing von Daniken’s Ancient Astronaut theory and challenging the notions of Charroux, Jessop, Temple, et al, complete with an appendix by J Richard Greenwell taking a swipe at Flindt and Binder; “Tiptoeing beyond Darwin: An Examination of some Unconventional Theories on the origin of Man”. Edwin C. Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles since 1974, waded into the debate debunking von Daniken and the Sirius myth in Observatories of the Gods and Other Astronomical Fantasies, in the book In Search of Ancient Astronomers (1977).

The case for Ancient Astronauts was not helped when in 1978 the Sun Gods in Exile: Secrets of the Dzopa of Tibet by Karyl Robin- Evans, told the story of how the author travelled to the "mysterious land of the Dzopa" in 1947. Robin-Evans claimed to have encountered a tribe of dwarvish people called the Dropas (or Dzopas) in the Baian-Kara-Ula region. They claimed they were descended from aliens who arrived on earth twelve thousand years ago when their spacecraft crashed in the area. An alleged expedition to the region in 1938 claimed to have unearthed evidence of the remains of people of a small stature and some stone curious discs, known as the Dropa Stones. Robin-Evans had written an account, it was claimed, so unbelievable yet true that he would not publish it. Following his death in 1974, the story was published in 1978, edited by a man under the name of David Agamon, (or Gamon, who some claimed to actually be Robin-Evans) who later confessed in 1995 that it had all been a hoax, originally written as fiction, reworking rumour and legend, as a satire on the alien intervention of the evolution of the human race that was in vogue at the time. Second hand copies of this book now sell for fantastic amounts of money, (£200 +) as it has acquired cult status, still being regarded by some as an authentic account of an actual Ancient Astronaut event.

Unfortunately for von Daniken, who wrote of the of the Dropas Stones in his book Gods From Outer Space (1970), sequel to Chariots of the Gods, the claimed source of his story, apparently a conversation with Soviet writer Aleksandr Kazantsev in Moscow in 1968 - who according to von Daniken, told him that the discs themselves and accounts of their discovery is preserved in Chinese academic institutes - could not be verified. Gordon Creighton of the Flying Saucer Review, contacted a number of Chinese academics about the Dropa stones story, and none of them had even heard of the story. He then contacted Kazantsev to verify von Daniken’s account but surprisingly the response was that von Daniken had actually presented it to Kazantsev and he was indeed not the source.

Writing in 1979 in Broca's Brain, Sagan suggested that he and co-author Shklovski may possibly have been the inspiration behind the wave of Ancient Astronaut books during the 1970’s. Sagan had felt extraterrestrial visits in Earth’s distant past were certainly a possibility but totally unproven and the accounts of von Daniken and his ilk, were no more than unfounded speculation lacking any hard evidence, doing the theory more harm than good. There is little doubt that the fraudulent claims of some authors as sensationalistic attempts to cash in on the ground swell of interest in UFOs in the 1960 - 70’s did immense damage to the genuine possibility of prehistoric extra-terrestrial contact.

Today the theory is only supported by what is generally considered as the ‘fringe’ minority but still it persists with books like The Chinese Roswell: Ufo Encounters in the Far East from Ancient Times to the Present (1995) by Hartwig Hausdorf in which the author in searching for the fabled, forbidden 1,000-foot White Pyramid of Xian, unearthed new facts about the mysterious Dropa stone discs of Bayan Kara Ula, which some believe tell the story of a forced alien landing 12,000 years ago, as we have seen above. Voices from Legendary Times (2005), by Ellen Lloyd, discusses the connection between lost civilizations, ancient cosmic catastrophes and extraterrestrial visitations in prehistory, however, Sitchin remains the present day champion of the theory, having recently released The Earth Chronicles Handbook (May 2009), a compendium of the seven books in the series, “a unique encyclopaedia of ancient civilizations and their space connections…..”

Whereas, most Unidentified Flying Objects can be explained, although not always convincingly, there persists a small percentage of UFO’s that remain unidentified, leaving open the possibility that these could be genuine visitations from a distant world. The public imagination would appear to be very receptive to the notion of visitations to our planet in the distant past and the possibility of mankind’s development being influenced by extra-terrestrials, despite the arguments against it presented by the debunkers and eminent scholars. Man’s origins are murky to say the least and it is not difficult to see that the orthodox account of mankind's origins is holed below the water line.

However, the fundamental problem of the Ancient Astronaut theory is that modern man in his technological age cannot accept that our so called 'primitive' ancestors could possibly have built these ancient astronomically aligned structures - like the pyramids of Giza for example, moving massive blocks of stone weighing hundreds of tons with such precision that in some cases you cannot fit a thin blade between these huge megalithic blocks - without the assistance of a higher civilisation.

Why does Mankind need to be a child of the stars?

Part VI - When Worlds Collide

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The Ancient Art of Enchanting the Landscape (4)

An Introduction to Earth Mysteries

PART FOUR

We saw in Part III that these enigmatic objects in the sky had been witnessed since at least the very beginnings of recorded history and a growing number were becoming suspicious of their involvement in the development of mankind.

Ancient Astronauts
Following the UFO flaps and reports of visitations of the late 1940’s through the 1950’s, a new theory began to lift its not so juvenile head. Many ancient cultures recall accounts of civilising ‘Gods from the sky’ in their foundation myths which seemed to fit in perfectly with the theory that intelligent extraterrestrials had visited the Earth in ancient times and profoundly affected the development of human civilization, teaching mankind agriculture, metalworking, astronomy and the sciences and responsible for megalithic technology, building such great monuments as the pyramids, that still bear testimony to their skills around the globe. Although emerging in the late 1950’s, the Ancient Astronaut theory was hardly a new notion, as that great collector of anomalous occurrences, Charles Fort, had hinted at such a possibility in 1919 when he wrote:

“I think we’re property. I should say we belong to something: That once upon a time, this earth was No-man’s Land, that other worlds explored and colonized here, and fought among themselves for possession, but that now it’s owned by something: That something owns this earth – all others warned off”.

Fort was suggesting that mankind as inhabitants of this world today belong to some alien extraterrestrial race that colonized this planet long ago, thereby providing the explanation for why we still find anomalistic evidence of their existence throughout the archaeological record. Perhaps UFO visitations and abductions are the return of mankind’s fathers to gauge development of their hybrid children?

Fort suggests the existence of hidden knowledge of mankind’s past is possessed only by “esoteric ones” and “secret societies”. The pioneering science-fiction writer H P Lovecraft, who although writing fiction, picked up on this, which was later to become a strong motif of his works which did much to project the Ancient Astronaut theory. Lovecraft took the idea of a pantheon of ancient gods and presented them as a group of aliens who had descended to earth in the distant past and used this in his 1926 short story "The Call of Cthulhu." Sound familiar?

Henri Lhote, a French author, explorer, ethnographer, and an expert on prehistoric cave art, had heard the story of a French soldier remembered as "Lieutenant Brenans", who in 1933, had ventured into a deep valley in the Tassili-n-ajjer plateau in southeast Algeria, where on the sandstone cliffs, he saw rock paintings and engravings of various animals and images of strange human figures. Lhote hypothesised that the humanoid drawings represented space aliens and published ‘The Search for the Tassili Frescoes: The story of the prehistoric rock-paintings of the Sahara’ (1958). Lhote described one particularly large and "curious figure" as the "great Martian god”. A similar character can be found at Sfar in the Tassili, in the Cabro caves in France and in several other places, claimed to date from c.6000 BC.

Inevitably, Tassili art has been used as evidence of visitations by various authors claiming God was an Astronaut, stating it depicts a being in a space suit complete with helmet. In the Kimberley region of North-western Australia, there are unique images known as Wandjina and Bradshaw figures, which dominate the rock art galleries of the area. The Wandjina art in particular has also been used as evidence in the argument for visitations by extra-terrestrials.

The Wandjina rock paintings, discovered accidentally in 1838 by George Grey, represent mythological ancestral creator beings thought to have come from the sea and sky, involved in the creation of the world, believed to have made the earth and all its inhabitants. The Wandjinas painted their own images on the cave walls before they returned to the spirit world. The Wandjina are almost human in form with large round eyes, slim noses but without mouths. The heads are surmounted by a halo, and the figures are often depicted with an oval shaped form on their chests, these are claimed to be space suits. These odd paintings are still believed to have special powers, and if offended or shown disrespect they may punish the people by bringing on flood or lightning.

The Wandjinas depicted in this art are very different from the Bradshaw (or Gwion Gwion) Art found within Jar Island. The Bradshaw figures represent human-like beings often depicted carrying ceremonial objects. However, their true significance remains unknown. According to Aboriginal legend, the art was created by birds that it is said pecked the rocks until their beaks bled and then created these fine paintings by using a tail feather dipped in their own blood. The bird said to be responsible was known as the Gwion. Joseph Bradshaw was the first European to record the style of painting in 1891. The Gwion Gwion art is extremely old; some experts claim it is over 50,000 years old, potentially making them some of the oldest depictions of the human form known to man.

Peter Kolosimo is considered amongst the founders of pseudoarchaeology when he wrote such books as Disowned Planet (1959) and Timeless Earth (1964) in which he argued for the possibility that human civilisation developed under the influence of beings from outer space. Also in 1959 Matest Agrest, a Russian ethnologist and mathematician, proposed number of unorthodox claims, such as that the megalithic stone terracing at Baalbek had been used as a launch site for spaceships, and that the destruction of the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrrah was the result of a nuclear explosion detonated by extra-terrestrial beings. The Ancient Astronaut theorists had now claimed megalithic structures in their dossier of evidence for extra-terrestrial intervention with human development.

Following “five years of questing, through all regions of consciousness, to the frontiers of science and tradition” Le Matin des Magiciens, (The Morning of the Magicians) appeared in Paris, in 1960 by French authors Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. Published in Britain, in 1963, under the title The Dawn of Magic, the author's claim to be prospecting beyond the borders of knowledge and propose that information found in forgotten, or intentionally ignored sources, force us to reconsider if the orthodox account of man's past is correct. The book begins with accounts recognisable to anyone familiar with the works of Charles Fort: objects falling from the sky, objects found in rock, people with strange powers and so on. Including such topics as the occult, the mystic Gurdjieff and even include a short story by science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke, the author’s ramblings simply aim to demonstrate that ‘science has got it wrong’. The main thesis of the book in questioning the accepted dogma no doubt had an immense influence on later writers like Colin Wilson and Graham Hancock to name but two.

British author W. Raymond Drake published several books on the ancient astronaut theory, the first being Spacemen in Antiquity (1961) followed up by Gods or Spacemen? (1964). Drake’s major influence had been Charles Fort, and like him Drake spent many years searching through huge archives of material, looking for anomalies that could support his theories of space aliens impacting human history. As Drake himself said, "I aspired to collect as many facts as possible from ancient literature to chronicle for the past what Charles Fort has so brilliantly done for the present century."

Another British author, Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty and a UFO enthusiast who launched the Journal Flying Saucer Review in 1955, first editor and running the periodical for the next 20 issues, published a number of works in the 1960’s; The Sky People (1960), Men Among Mankind (1962) and The Flying Saucer Story (1966). Le Poer Trench wrote much on extra-terrestrial phenomena and in Men Among Mankind brought together ancient history and the more recent past, examining the relationship of global sites to ancient astronomy and astrology. He argued that in the megalithic ruins around the world there runs a thin thread of forgotten history that weaves them into identifiable patterns, linking the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge, Atlantis and the Somerset Zodiac with ancient Central, Mexican and South American temples.

There is little doubt that the seminal work by Pauwels and Bergier became the spring board for Robert Charroux and Erich von Daniken in the 1960’s. Charroux wrote about lost civilizations, secret societies, ancient astronauts and lost technologies in One Hundred Thousand Years of Man's Lost History in 1963. This work has been referred to as the forerunner of von Daniken's 1968 book Chariot of the Gods, a book of monumental importance to the Ancient Astronaut theory; the first book in modern times to introduce to mass readership the startling theory that ancient Earth had been visited and colonised by aliens, raising questions about mankind’s origins. Although not original in concept, and claimed to be based on inaccuracies and half truths, von Daniken’s book nevertheless captured the imagination of a generation that had been conditioned in readiness by a lifetime of reported UFO sightings, alien visitation and abduction. It was simply the right book at the right time and sold millions.

Sales of Chariots of the Gods, and no doubt the public mind’s eye, had been further fuelled by release in the same year of Arthur C. Clarke’s science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film covers such elements as human evolution, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life, and is notable for its scientific realism and pioneering special effects. Despite receiving mixed reviews upon release, 2001: A Space Odyssey is today recognised by many critics and audiences as one of the most original sci-fi films ever made.

This was followed in 1970 by release of the film documentary Chariots of the Gods based on von Daniken’s book concerning the ancient mysteries of the world, such as the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico, ancient cave paintings, the monuments of Easter Island, followed in 1973 by the TV program “In Search of Ancient Astronauts," narrated by Rod Serling, which was screened throughout the United States, presenting evidence supporting von Däniken’s theories, bearing testimony to his assertions that extra-terrestrial creatures visited earth and were responsible for the many structures which he claimed could not have been built by ancient man alone without the assistance of an intelligent third party.

Part V - Alien Sunset

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