Time Leap (21 page)

The next day, we took the
hotel shuttle bus to the pyramid plateau. We were both awestruck by
the sight. The three Giza pyramids and the Sphinx had gone through
much weathering over the years, and the pyramids had lost the vast
majority of the limestone covering that once adorned their entire
surfaces. However, they were still an amazing sight, and we took
some great photographs (which would be the ‘after’ in our
before–and–after set).

That afternoon, we
thought it best to move a little bit away from the monuments before
leaping to the future – just in case we found ourselves in the
middle of a building site. We discovered a secluded spot close to
the hotel and set the date to 2500 BC. I looked at Nik.

“
Ready to
fulfil your dreams?” I asked. She nodded, and I pressed the
button.

“
Oh!” she
gasped. We felt the big wobble I’d experienced in London – the
first time for Niki. It was far greater than any other trip we’d
been on. The hotel had gone (naturally), but the pyramids were
still there… and they looked amazing! Coated in a glistening white
shell, they looked other worldly – as if put there by aliens. Some
people nearby soon noticed our presence and started walking towards
us, so we quickly went back in time a further fifty years. Still no
change to the structures, which wasn’t a big surprise… we were
expecting them to be built between 2500 and 2600 BC. So another
fifty years – and then another. Still no change. Okay, so the
figure we had was just an estimate – an educated guess at best. We
added one hundred years, then another, and another. The pyramids
looked even more magnificent, but still no signs of any
construction work. We began to jump in five hundred year blocks,
and by the time we’d gone back to 5000 BC, Niki and I just looked
at each other with puzzled looks.

“
This is
crazy,” I said, “it doesn’t make sense. We’ve gone back more than
seven thousand years in time... I thought the Egyptian civilisation
started five thousand years ago!”

“
Yes, it did!
The early dynastic period began around three thousand BC. Before
that, from around 5500 BC, there were just small tribes in the
area, such as the Badari. They were known for their high quality
ceramics, stone tools and use of copper...”

“
But not for
their pyramid building?”

“
Not that I’ve
heard of,” smiled Niki. “Before 5500 BC there was nothing – no
Egyptian civilisation.”

“
So what now…
where do we go from here?”

“
We go further
back… to find the people who actually built the
pyramids.”

“
But I thought
you said there was nothing before 5500 BC!”

“
If you study
the standard history books, there
is
nothing. But if you read Hancock
and Bauval, there’s another possibility.”

Niki explained Graham
Hancock and Robert Bauval’s theories regarding the Giza pyramids
and the adjacent Sphinx. Both men believed that two things pointed
to an earlier date for the construction of these monuments. The
first was the deep erosion marks on the side of the Sphinx, which
the authors identified as being caused by a thousand years of heavy
rain. Such conditions last existed in Egypt around 10,000 BC,
meaning that the Sphinx could be more than 12,000 years old (not
the accepted 4,500 years). Their other idea was that the pyramids
and structures around them were built to align with and replicate
the night sky of 10,500 BC, with the three great pyramids
representing three stars in the constellation of Orion (Orion’s
belt). So both the Pyramids and the Sphinx could have been
constructed around 12,500 years ago. I had caught something about
this on a TV documentary several years ago, but dismissed it as a
crackpot theory – like the idea that the Apollo Moon landings were
faked.

“
So are you
saying that some sort of
lost
civilisation
built the pyramids? The people
of Atlantis perhaps?”

“
I’m not sure
about Atlantis… but yes.”

We were standing in 5000
BC discussing something that had happened more than 5000 before
that. I had a feeling for Ancient Egypt having seen all the
Egyptian mummies, artefacts, and pictures of Old Egyptian life in
the British Museum. But a lost civilisation in 10,000 BC was right
outside my ken. We agreed to call it a day, and make the longer
jump in the morning when we felt fresher. It was very hot and dusty
where we were, and we both needed a drink, some food and a shower.
So we headed back to the hotel to plan for the next day.

*

After washing away the
desert and having a bite to eat, we sat in the hotel bar to talk
about our next step. The plan was to jump back twelve and a half
thousand years to try to witness the building of one of the great
wonders of the civilised World… well, at least the civilised World
we knew. Whilst I’d read stories of Atlantis, and heard the name
Lemuria, I must admit I regarded them as fables – far less
believable than the stories of King Arthur or Robin Hood. Now my
mind was changing, and I was eager to discover the race of people
who had constructed these giant pyramids. Niki surprised me with
her knowledge of this alternative theory regarding the age of the
pyramids, and if the theory was correct she was right about one
thing: they were not used as tombs for the deceased Egyptian
Pharaohs, who would not be around for another six thousand years.
What then was the purpose of the three pyramids at Giza? We were
about to find out.

The next thing was to
decide what we should do when we reached our destination. Although
I always like to plan trips to the nth degree, Niki prefers to do
things when she gets there – see the lay of the land, and act
accordingly. It’s the cause of a little friction at
times.

***

Thirty–One

Niki and I returned to
the jump area we’d used the previous day. But this time, a tour
group was occupying the area, so we moved a little further away
from the pyramid plateau. It was a good thing we did. I opened
Micky’s updated app, set the date to 10,500 BC and pressed the
button. This time, the wobble knocked us both to the floor. It
lasted several seconds – at least ten – and we discovered later
that we could expect a one second wobble for each 1000 years
travelled.

“
Are you
okay?” I whispered as we lay on the ground, within what appeared to
be a small park. She confirmed she was. We hid from view behind
some bushes, which still afforded a view of the plateau. We were
certainly no longer in a desert area. All around were trees and
rich vegetation, and it felt more like a green park in England than
a sandy wasteland. When we stood up, the sight that met our eyes
was out of this World. The area around the plateau was a Metropolis
with the pyramids the central point. There were also other large
constructions adjoining them.

“
What are all
those people doing?” Nik asked me.

People were arriving and
departing the area regularly, disappearing inside one the
structures as they arrived. Just then we could hear a high pitched
noise close to the great pyramid. We decided to get closer to see
what was happening – which was a little risky, but we just had to
find out more. Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound, and to our
complete and utter amazement, some sort of small aircraft shot into
the sky from one of the slopes of the great pyramid.

“
Tian
a!
” Niki gasped. I was totally
speechless.

Using the side of the
pyramid as a take–off ramp, the craft shot into the sky at a
forty–five degree angle and then veered off into the distance, soon
disappearing from view. It was one of the most incredible things I
had ever witnessed. The machine seemed large enough to hold maybe
three or four people at the most. There was no smoke plume, and I’d
no idea how it was powered.

“
What
was
that?
” I
exclaimed.

“
I think, Joe,
it was a wake–up call.”

Niki was right. If we
think that we, in the twenty–first century, are the only
technologically advanced civilisation that has ever inhabited the
Earth, we have to think again. Someone else has been here before –
and done air travel.

“
Where do you
think it’s going?” Nik asked.

“
I dunno.
Heathrow perhaps?” I joked.

“
Or China?”
replied Niki. “If you think about it, there are pyramid structures
all around the globe – Egypt, Asia, Europe, Central and South
America…”

“
Are you
saying that other pyramids are like these could also be take–off
ramps for some sort of flying machines?”

“
I am
Joe.”

I was trying to get my
head around this. We’d travelled over than 12,000 years back in
time, but it felt like we’d travelled into the future. If what Niki
said was true, then these people could travel to countries all over
the globe at will – and at high speed – just as we do in
aeroplanes, but possibly faster than ours. And how about outer
space? I was desperate to find out more.

“
Nik,” I
whispered, “what do you think about us taking a closer look?” She
nodded, and we crept out from our hiding place, and moved carefully
and quietly in the direction of the largest of the
pyramids.

As we moved out of
hiding, making our way down a gentle slope towards the plateau, I
began thinking about this civilisation we were witnessing – and
what had happened to them. All knowledge of their technology had
clearly been lost – how had that happened?

We reached the buildings
surrounding the first pyramid without being noticed. It seemed to
be a very relaxed atmosphere, and we had no difficulty walking
inside what appeared to be the main building. If we wanted to blend
in, then an international airport (if that was what this was) was a
good place to be.

Whilst some people were
not so different from us in shape and size, we were taken aback by
the appearance of others. They had large heads with large eyes, but
their faces and teeth were small, giving them a sort of ‘alien’
look. Larger brain sizes, perhaps? Up to half the people we saw
were like this. There were others that looked a little Asian, some
African, and others maybe European. I really wanted to talk to
someone, but we didn’t want to attract attention by
trying.

Our attire was completely
out of fashion and we did receive a few strange looks. Most people
were wearing incredibly bright and colourful clothes – the type
you’d see in an exotic stage musical, and we couldn’t help gazing
at the amazing array of dress and colour. One man, dressed in what
we guessed was some sort of uniform, approached us and said
something in a language we did not understand. Well, we’d travelled
back in time more than twelve thousand years – we can’t expect
anyone to speak the Queen’s English. We smiled at the man and moved
away quickly.

We could hear aircraft
taking off at regular intervals now, and we went outside to watch.
Their take–off was very different from that of aeroplanes in our
time and the whole process seemed to be more like taking a ride at
a theme park. Three of the four sides of the pyramid were being
used, sending the crafts in different directions. I wondered how
long it would take to fly to Shanghai or Acapulco from where we
were. How I would have loved to have jumped on one of these
machines there and then! Niki and I looked at each other with the
same thought.

“
Maybe another
time,” she said.

We decided to take a look
around the plateau before heading home. We were standing close to
the largest of the pyramids, and beyond this were the two others
(Khafre and Menkaure according to Niki). We could hear the sound of
what we thought might be construction work near the second pyramid,
so we decided to walk down to take a look. It was difficult to
relate the thriving complex we were now amongst to the bleakness of
the Giza plateau we had left twelve thousand five hundred years
ago. Only the shape of the three pyramids assured us that we were
in the same place.

As we walked, I asked
Niki what she thought about the strange–looking people we had seen
in the airport building.

“
Boskops,” she
said.

“
Boskops?” I
repeated.

“
People that
were believed to have existed between 36,500 and 11,600 years ago,”
replied Niki. “They had large brain capacities, small child–like
faces and big eyes – well, that’s what archaeologists believe. In
1913 two farmers discovered parts of a skull in
Nan Fei
...”

“
South
Africa?”

“
Yes – close
to a village called Boskop.”

“
What happened
to them?”

“
I think the
farmers took the pieces to a museum,” replied Nik

“
Duh! I mean
what happened to the Boskops?”

“
Oh, it’s said
they were wiped out by climate changes – floods, land upheavals –
that sort of thing. After the first skull was found, many others
were dug up in other places.”

“
Proving it
couldn’t have been a genetic defect that caused this,” I
said.

“
Yes… and not
a hoax either.”