Chariots of the Gods (12 page)

It is well-known that the ancient Egyptians practised a solar religion. Their sun god, Ra, travelled through the heavens in a bark. Pyramid texts of the Old Kingdom even describe heavenly journeys by the king, obviously made with the help of the gods and their boats. So the gods and kings of the Egyptians were also involved with flying ....

Is it really a coincidence that the height of the Pyramid of Cheops multiplied by 1,000 million corresponds approximately to the distance between the earth and sun? That is to say, 93 million miles. Is it a coincidence that a meridian running through the pyramid divides continents and oceans into two exactly equal halves? Is it coincidence that the area of the base of the pyramid divided by twice its height gives the celebrated figure (Pi) = 3.14159, discovered by Ludolf? Is it coincidence that calculations of the weight of the earth were found and is it also coincidence that the rocky ground on which the structure stands is carefully and accurately levelled?

There is not a single clue to explain why the builder of the Pyramid of Cheops, the Pharaoh Khufu, chose that particular rocky terrain in the desert as the site for his edifice. It is conceivable that there was a natural cleft in the rock which he made use of for the colossal building, while another explanation, though only a feeble one, may be that he wanted to watch the progress of the work from his summer palace. Both reasons are against all common sense. In the first case it would certainly have been more practical to locate the building site nearer the eastern quarries in order to shorten transport distances, and in the second it is hard to imagine that the Pharaoh wanted to be disturbed year after year by the din that filled building sites day and night even in those days.

Since there is so much to be said against the textbook explanations of the choice of site, one might reasonably ask whether the 'gods' did not have their say here, too, even if it was by way of the priesthood. But if that explanation is accepted, there is one more important proof of my theory of the Utopian past of mankind. For the pyramid not only divides continents and oceans into two equal halves, but also lies at the centre of gravity of the continents. If the facts noted here are not coincidences—and it seems extremely difficult to believe that they are—then the building site was chosen by beings who knew all about the spherical shape of the earth and the distribution of continents and seas. In this connexion let us not forget Piri Reis's maps' It cannot all be coincidence or be explained away as fairy-stones.

With what power, with what 'machines', with what technical resources was the rocky terrain levelled at all? How did the master-builders drive the tunnels downwards? And how did they illuminate them? Neither here nor in the rock-cut tombs in the Valley of Kings were torches or anything similar used. There are no blackened ceilings or walls or even the slightest evidence that traces of blackening have been removed. How and with what were the stone blocks cut out of the quarries? With sharp edges and smooth sides? How were they transported and joined together to the thousandth of an inch? Once again there is a wealth of explanations for anyone to choose from: inclined planes, and tracks along which the stones were pushed, scaffolding and ramps. And naturally the labour of many hundreds of thousands of Egyptian slaves: fellahin, builders and craftsmen.

None of these explanations stands up to a critical examination. The Great Pyramid is (and remains?) visible testimony of a technique that has never been understood. Today, in the twentieth century, no architect could build a copy of the Pyramid of Cheops, even if the technical resources of every continent were at his disposal.

2,600,000 gigantic blocks were cut out of the quarries, dressed and transported, and fitted together on the building site to the nearest thousandth of an inch. And deep down inside, in the galleries, the walls were painted in colours.

The site of the pyramid was a whim of the Pharaoh.

The unparalleled, 'classical' dimensions of the pyramid occurred to the master-builder by chance.

Several hundred thousand workers pushed and pulled blocks weighing 12 tons up a ramp with (non-existent) ropes on (non-existent) rollers.

This host of workers lived on (non-existent) grain.

They slept in (non-existent) huts which the Pharaoh had built outside his summer palace.

The workers were urged on by an encouraging 'Heave-ho' over a (non-existent) loudspeaker and so the 12-ton blocks were pushed skywards.

If the industrious workers had achieved the extraordinary daily piece rate of ten blocks piled on top of each other, they would have assembled the two and a half million stone blocks into the magnificent stone pyramid in about 250,000 days = 664 years. Yes, and don't forget that the whole thing came into being at the whim of an eccentric king who never lived to see the completion of the edifice he had inspired.

Of course one must not even suggest that this theory, so seriously advanced, is ridiculous. Yet who is so ingenuous as to believe that the pyramid was nothing but the tomb of a king. From now on who will consider the transmission of mathematical and astronomical signs as pure chance?

Today the Great Pyramid is undisputedly attributed to the Pharaoh Khufu as inspirer and builder. Why? Because all the inscriptions and tablets refer to Khufu. It seems obvious to me that the Pyramid cannot have been erected during a single lifetime. But what if Khufu forged the inscriptions and tablets that are supposed to proclaim his fame.? That was quite a popular procedure in antiquity, as many buildings bear witness. Whenever a dictatorial ruler wanted the fame for himself alone, he gave orders for this process to be carried out. If that was the case, then the pyramid existed long before Khufu left his visiting card.

In the Bodleian Library at Oxford there is a manuscript in which the Coptic author Mas-Udi asserts that the Egyptian King Surid had the Great Pyramid built. Oddly enough, this Surid ruled in Egypt before the Flood. And this wise King Surid ordered his priests to write down the sum total of their wisdom and conceal the writings inside the pyramid. So, according to Coptic tradition, the pyramid was built before the Flood.

Herodotus confirms such a supposition in Book 2 of his History. The priests of Thebes had shown him 341 colossal statues, each of which stood for a high-priestly generation over a period of 11,340 years. Now we know that every high priest had his statue made during his own lifetime; and Herodotus also tells us that during his stay in Thebes one priest after another showed him his statue as a proof that the son had always followed the father. And the priests assured Herodotus that their statements were very accurate, because they had written everything down for many generations and they explained that every one of these 341 statues represented a generation and that before these 341 generations the gods had lived among men and that since then no god had visited them again in human form.

The historical period of Egypt is usually estimated at about 6,500 years. Then why did the priests lie so shamelessly to the traveller Herodotus about the 11,340 years? And why did they so expressly emphasise that no gods had dwelt among them for 341 generations? These precise details would have been completely pointless if 'gods' had not really lived among men in the remote past!

We know next to nothing about the how, why and when of the building of the pyramid. An artificial mountain, some 490 ft high and weighing 31,200,000 tons, stands there as evidence of an incredible achievement and this monument is supposed to be nothing more than the burial place of an extravagant king! Anyone who can believe that explanation is welcome to it ....

Mummies, equally incomprehensible and not yet convincingly explained, stare at us from the remote past as if they held some magic secret. Various people knew the technique of embalming corpses, and archaeological finds favour the supposition that prehistoric beings believed in return to a second life, i.e. a corporeal return. That interpretation would be acceptable if there was even the remotest evidence of a belief in corporeal return in the religious philosophy of antiquity! If our primitive ancestors had believed only in a spiritual return, they would scarcely have gone to such trouble with the dead. But finds in Egyptian tombs provide example after example of the preparation of embalmed corpses for corporeal return.

What the evidence says, what visible proof says, cannot be so absurd! Drawings and sagas actually indicated that the 'gods' promised to return from the stars in order to awaken the well-preserved bodies to new life. That is why the provisioning of the embalmed corpses in the burial chambers took such a practical form and was intended for a life on this side of the grave. Otherwise what were they supposed to have done with money, jewellery and their favourite articles? And as they were even provided in the tomb with some of their servants, who were unquestionably buried alive, the point of all the preparations was obviously the continuation of the old life in a new life. The tombs were tremendously durable and solid, and almost atom-bomb-proof; they could survive the ravages of all the ages. The valuables left in them, namely gold and precious stones, were virtually indestructible. I am not concerned here with discussing the later abuses of mummification.

I am only concerned with the question: who put the idea of corporeal rebirth into the heads of the heathen? And whence came the first audacious idea that the cells of the body had to be preserved so that the corpse, preserved in a very secure place, could be awakened to new life after thousands of years?

So far this mysterious reawakening complex has only been considered from the religious point of view. But supposing the Pharaoh, who certainly knew more about the nature and customs of the 'gods' than his subjects, had these possibly quite crazy ideas? 'I must make a burial place for myself that cannot be destroyed for millennia and is visible far across the country. The gods promised to return and wake me up (or doctors in the distant future will discover a way to restore me to life again).'

What have we to say about that in the space age?

In his book The Prospect of Immortality, published in 1965, the physician and astronomer Robert C. W. Ettinger suggests a way in which we twentieth-century men can have ourselves frozen so that our cells can go on living from the medical and biological point of view, but slowed down a billionfold. For the present this idea may still sound Utopian, but in fact every big clinic today has a 'bone bank' which preserves human bones in a deep-frozen condition for years and makes them serviceable again when required. Fresh blood—this too is a universal practice—can be kept for an unlimited time at minus 196° C and living cells can be stored almost indefinitely at the temperature of liquid nitrogen. Did the Pharaoh have a fantastic idea which will soon be realised in practice?

You must read what follows twice to grasp the fantastic implications of the result of the next piece of scientific research. In March 1963 biologists of the University of Oklahoma confirmed that the skin cells of the Egyptian Princess Mene were capable of living. And Princess Mene has been dead for several thousand years!

There have been finds in many places of mummies which are preserved so completely and intact that they seem to be alive. Glacier mummies left by the Incas survived the ages and theoretically they are capable of living. Utopia? In the summer of 1965 Russian television showed two dogs which had been deep-frozen for a week. On the seventh day they were thawed out again and—hey presto I—they went on living as cheerfully as ever!

The Americans—and this is no secret—are seriously concerned, as part of their space programme, with the problem of how to freeze astronauts of the future for their long journeys to distant stars.

Professor Ettinger, often scoffed at today, prophesies a remote future in which men will not be consumed by fire or eaten by worms—a future in which bodies, frozen in deep-freeze cemeteries or deep-freeze bunkers, await the day when advances in medical science can remove the cause of their death and bring their bodies to new life. Following up the implications of this Utopian idea one can see the terrifying vision of an army of deep-frozen soldiers who will be thawed out as necessary in case of war. A really horrifying idea.

But what connexion have mummies with our theory of space travellers in the remote past? Am I dragging proofs in willy-nilly?

I ask: how did the ancients know that the body cells continue to live slowed down a billionfold after special treatment?

I ask: where did the idea of immortality come from and how did people get the concept of corporeal reawakening in the first place?

The majority of ancient peoples knew the technique of mummification and the rich peoples actually practised it. I am not concerned here with this demonstrable fact, but with solving the problem of where the idea of a reawakening, a return to life, originated. Did the idea occur to some king or tribal prince purely by chance or did some prosperous citizen watch 'gods' treating their corpses with a complicated process and preserving them in bomb-proof sarcophagi? Or did some gods (= space travellers) transmit their knowledge of how corpses can be reawakened after a special treatment to a quick-witted prince of royal blood?

These speculations require confirmation from contemporary sources. In a few hundred years mankind will have a mastery of space travel that is inconceivable today. Travel agencies will offer trips to the planets, with precise departure and return dates, in their brochures. Obviously a prerequisite for this mastery is that all branches of science keep pace with the development of space travel. Electronics and cybernetics alone will not do the trick. Medicine and biology will make their contribution by finding out ways of lengthening the vital functions of human beings. Today this department of space research is also working in top gear. Here we must ask ourselves: did space travellers in prehistory already possess knowledge that we must win anew? Did unknown intelligences already know the methods with which to treat bodies so that they could be revived in X thousand years? Perhaps the 'gods' being shrewd, had an interest in 'preserving' at least one dead man with all the knowledge of his time so that some day he could be questioned about the history of his generation? Who can tell? Is it not possible that such an interrogation by 'gods' who came back has already taken place?