ThothWeb - Your Portal to the Unknown - Ancient Astronauts

Ancient Astronaut theory or Paleocontact theory is the hypothesis that describes how early in mankind’s evolution, possibly even at the dawn of civilisation itself, Earth was visited by extraterrestrial life that shaped our development.

These extraterrestrial visitors are thought by many to be the origin of mankind’s wisdom, religion, knowledge and technology. Evidence for this theory comes from a variety of sources including ancient scriptures, unexplained archaeological artefacts and a seemingly advanced knowledge of engineering by some ancient cultures.

Investigations by a number of prominent researchers have highlighted many differences between what we thought was possible in the past and what our ancestors actually managed to achieve. When viewed in isolation, it is easy to dismiss certain anomalies as strange but unimportant, however when you dig a little deeper and start to examine the evidence as a whole, each clue becomes a tiny piece of the jigsaw and it becomes clear that conventional understanding may not be complete.

Not only is it possible that there have been some highly technological civilisations in the past but also that the origins of that technology might quite literally be, out of this world.

Sumer, the birthplace of civilisation

One of the most well known researcher who has investigated mankind’s origins is Zecharia Sitchin, a world renowned historian and scholar. Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to a race called the Anunnaki from a planet named Nibiru. Sitchin has not based his theory on idle speculation; he is one of the few people in the world who is able to read Cuneiform – the ancient script used by the Sumerians. It is this expertise that has enabled him to lift the veil on this little understood civilisation.

In the 1800’s, tens of thousands of Sumerian tablets bearing the mysterious cuneiform script were discovered in the Assyrian capital city of Nineveh, but at the time of their discovery, no one could translate them. These tablets record how a race of extraterrestrial Gods that the Sumerians called the An.Unnak.ki came to Earth, (An.Unnak.ki translates as ‘those who from Heaven to Earth came’). The text credit the Anunnakki with founding the Sumerian civilisation as we know it and with providing them with the skills to develop it. In the tablets that Sitchen translated, the land of Sumer itself was called Ki.En.Gir, which literally means 'land of the lord of the blazing rockets'.

The creation accounts recorded by the Sumerians later formed the basis of the biblical creation story found in the Old Testament. The Sumerian tablets for example describe a place called E.Din or ‘the abode of the righteous ones’, which directly parallels the biblical Garden of Eden. The most amazing element of the ancient Sumerian texts describes how the Anunnaki created a hybrid race by manipulating DNA and by splicing their own genes with man’s, creating a series of hybrid races of humans and extraterrestrials such as the Nephilim.

Sceptics were quick to dismiss Sitchin’s claims as fanciful, however his academic skills and ability to translate Cuneiform are widely acknowledged, in contrast most of his critics have no knowledge of cuneiform. In 1976, Sitchin wrote his book ‘The Twelfth Plane’ where he made the claim that Nibiru, the mysterious planet from which the Annukki originated had a strange elliptical 3,600 year orbit that took it right out of our solar system and then back in. This idea was immediately rubbished by the astronomy community and by his critics, however almost thirty years later, in 2004, NASA announced that a planet very similar to Nibiru had been discovered. Sitchen’s fabled Nibiru, recorded by the Sumerians, seemed remarkably similar to the planet NASA named Sedna, thus validating one of the cornerstones of Sitchin’s research. Not only did the planet share a highly unusual elliptical orbit but both planets moved in a clockwise direction, unlike most planets.

The Sumerian creation myth is not an isolated one. In South America, ancient legends record how serpent people and Lizard Gods brought great knowledge and enlightenment to the people. One of the Maya’s primary creation texts was known as the Popul Vuh or the ‘Council Book’. This text gives an account of the divine and human origins and of royal genealogies; its cosmogony and creation traditions. It records how the first inhabitants of Mexico were the Chanes or ‘People of the Serpent’ who had come from across the sea. According to legend, a god named Itzamna, which comes from the root ‘itzem’, or lizard, led the Chanes. The worship of serpent or reptilian gods also extends to other South American civilisations such as the Aztecs, who worshipped the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl.

Despite many diverse civilisations sharing a common understanding of non-human gods from the sky bringing knowledge and enlightenment to mankind, history tends to assume that these ancient legends are simply myths. There are however, many instances of physical evidence that have led some researchers to conclude that the ‘gods that came from the sky’ were corporeal in nature rather than symbolic.

Ancient markers

Throughout the world ancient people seem to have invested huge amounts of manpower in creating landmarks that can be seen from the air. Egypt’s Giza pyramids for example, are known to mark the exact centre of the Earth’s landmass. Many think that the pyramids acted as land markers when viewed from the air. Neolithic sites such as Avebury, a massive complex of stone circles, ceremonial walkways, ditches and a conical pyramid found in England, also appear to have been constructed to act as an aerial marker. From the air, the Avebury complex traces a massive serpent into the landscape. This would have been more pronounced at the time of its construction because the entire complex was originally covered in white chalk – similar to the way the Giza complex was originally covered in white limestone.

England is also home to a great many huge chalk figures such as the 180 foot long Cerne giant (left) which is thought to have been an ancient fertility symbol. Could it actually represent man leaving a sign for visitors from the heavens?

There are dozens of these mysterious carvings all across Britain depicting various figures, often horses that have been carved into the landscape. These figures are best viewed from the sky.

The most impressive examples of ancient land markings are probably South America’s Nazca lines, which are found in Peru.

The Nazca lines are geometric line clearings created in a stylised form that resembles twenty six different animals and insects. The lines are located in the Peruvian desert and were drawn between 200 BC and 600 CE. The lines were apparently made by removing the iron-oxide coated pebbles which cover the surface of the desert, causing the exposed area to contrast with the earth that surrounded it. Most of the lines can’t really be identified from the ground and had been all but forgotten about until the development of flight changed that. But why would an ancient civilisation go to the trouble of creating these huge images that can only be seen from the air?

Nazca Astronaut

The anthropomorphic figures are relatively few in number and are situated on slopes in the same way that England’s chalk figures are often cut into the side of low hills. One of the most interesting figures is the figure known as ‘The Astronaut’, which was discovered by Eduardo Herran in 1982. To all intents and purposes, this figure seems to depict a space traveller complete with helmet.

It was James W. Moseley in the October 1955 issue of Fate who first proposed the idea that the Nazca lines might have been built as a landing strip. Swiss writer Erich von Daniken developed this idea further in his 1968 book, Chariots of the Gods.

Although we will never know for sure if this really was their intended function, what most people do agree with, is the fact that the Nazca lines still make excellent aerial markers several thousand years after their construction. It seems natural to question why an ancient civilization would need to construct such markers unless flight was understood.

Technology of the Past

We only need to look at ancient India to see that flight was very much understood. In Vedic literature for example, there are many descriptions of Vimanas, or flying machines. The Samarangana Sutradhara text devotes 230 stanzas to the building of flying machines….

“Strong and durable must the body be made, like a great flying bird, of light material. Inside it one must place the Mercury-engine with its iron heating apparatus beneath. By means of the power latent in the mercury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky in a most marvellous manner.”

Ancient Plane

This preoccupation with flight is not confined to India. The small, gold artefact on the left was discovered in a thousand-year-old tomb in Columbia and was first thought to depict an insect or fish. It was only when two experts, American scientist Dr Ivan Sanderson and J.A Ulrich, had the opportunity to examine it, that opinions began to change. Dr. Sanderson made the observation that it looked too mechanical to be a natural object and suggested that it was a model of a machine of some kind. The object was then shown to an expert on aircraft, J.A. Ulrich, who astounded archaeologists by confirming that it appeared to be a model of a jet plane – something that it should have been impossible for an early Columbian society to imagine. It would be reasonable to suppose that the only way ancient people could imagine mechanical flight was to experience it in some way.

In a tomb in Saqqara, Egypt, a model aeroplane made from wood was discovered in 1898. At the time, it was thought to be a model of a bird (aircraft being unknown in 1898) and put into storage. When it was rediscovered by Dr Khalil Messiha it caused a huge stir amongst Egyptologists and eventually became the star of a special exhibit in the Cairo museum. The plane’s design as described thus.

“The model has the exact proportions of a very advanced form of "pusher-glider" that is still having "some bugs ironed out". This type of glider will stay in the air almost by itself—even a very small engine will keep it going at low speeds, as low as 45 to 65 mph., while it can carry an enormous payload. This ability is dependent on the curious shape of wings and their proportions. The tipping of wings downward, a reversedihedral wing as it is called, is the feature behind this capability. A similar type of curving wings are implemented on the Concorde airplane, giving the plane a maximum lift without detracting from its speed.”

Contradictions

Academia seems to be faced with a rather tricky conundrum. If it maintains the assertion that our ancestors existed in primitive societies, capable of only very basic social and technological development, how does it explain such anomalous artefacts? If it maintains that mankind didn’t possess any advanced engineering skills, but we find that evidence exists to the contrary, then surely it’s fair to say that it must have originated elsewhere. This implies that there is more than a little merit to the ancient astronaut theory because there are far too many pieces of evidence that can’t be easily explained.

There are many indications that ancient cultures have been very technologically advanced in the past, but little indication to really explain why this should be.

For example, the ancient Rama Empire existed in India some 15,000 years ago. According to its surviving texts, not only did they have knowledge of flight but their engineering skills created plumbing and sewage systems which are still far superior to those of found in India today. When you consider Sumerian knowledge of maths and astronomy, theirs is an unbelievably complex system. It was the Sumerians who first documented the 26,000 year cycle of the precision of the equinox in 6,000 BC, created the metric system and allocated 360 degrees to a circle. Their cuneiform script was equally complex, comprising of over 400 characters which is a remarkable achievement for a fledgling culture that seemingly appeared from nowhere. Yet when it comes to the Sumerian account of creation, historians ask us to believe that these remarkably advanced people simply invented their understanding of their own origins.

In addition to the ancient civilisations possessing sophisticated knowledge, there is also documented and archaeological evidence of events occurring that are clearly out of place with the current understanding of man’s development, including nuclear warfare occurring thousands of years ago in India. The construction of amazing feats of engineering such as the pyramids of Giza adds more weight to the theory that somehow mankind possessed a sophisticated level of technology that was later lost. Perhaps, it might be argued, when the source of that knowledge was no longer with us.

Written in Stone – ancient petroglyphs with a story to tell

Strange humanoid creatures depicted in rock paintings are another clue that is suggestive of alien visitations occurring in the past. There are numerous examples of petroglyphs or rock paintings that depict unexplained or unfamiliar creatures and strange aerial phenomena.

One of the most famous examples (left) is located inside a cave that dates back between 10,000 and 30,000 years, in Kimberly Mountain, Australia. The cave wall is filled with images of strange hairless beings with large dark eyes. The indigenous Aborigine people call the characters Wondjina and consider them to be sacred beings. The Wondjina seem to bear a similarity to the beings we know as greys which opens the possibility that this ancient culture may have had contact with extraterrestrial visitors.

In the Sahara desert, another strange figure had been painted on the wall of a cave in the Tassili Mountains in Southern Algeria. A one-eyed ‘Cyclops’ type figure, it became known as ‘Jabbaren’ or ‘The Great Martian’. The cave was discovered by French ethnologist and explorer Henri Lhote on an expedition to the area after World War II.

There is still dispute as to whether this strange figure was intended to represent ordinary humans in ritual masks and costumes or something of a more extraterrestrial nature. Erich von Daniken was convinced that this figure and others that surrounded it, seemingly depicting spacemen, provided evidence of early contact with alien life.

In North America, Hopi petroglyphs also depict what appear to be aliens performing a ritual with the tribesmen. Another of their petroglyphs, called the ‘Star-blower’ tells of how the Hopi's ancestors had visited various worlds and travelled through endless space before reaching Earth.

Panspermia Hypothesis

Wherever we look in the past, we seem to be faced with strong indications that humanity didn’t get where it is today without input from outside sources.

One of the most popular theories today is that our earth was deliberately seeded by one or more extraterrestrial races. Essentially those beings have not only interacted with us, but are responsible for our very creation and may also have manipulated our DNA throughout humanity’s development. Many believe those aliens, who seeded the planet tens of thousands of years ago, still observe and guide mankind today, although opinions are divided as to whether the intentions of these beings is entirely benevolent or whether they are particularly impressed with the way their experiment has developed. It seems one thing all religions agree on is that an intelligence, far superior to our own, was in some way responsible for creating the human race. Whether we think of that intelligence as originating from aliens or gods, it can surely only better our understanding of our past, and the true origins of man.

ThothWeb Resources:

© Thothweb - http://www.thothweb.com

All images copyright © by their respective photographers. This article is copyrighted. No part of this article can be reproduced without the written permission of ThothWeb.