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Intriguing News and Trivia - News & Politics - General - Light For Lives - Message Board - Yuku
The Black Pyramids Spain's Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa hardly seem a place for pyramids, but there seem to be six of them on Tenerife, near Guimar.
The inhabitants of this island have generally ignored these dilapidated piles of black volcanic stones.
However, one perceptive native described them in a letter to T.
Heyerdahl of Kon Tiki fame and a leading proponent of ancient cultural diffusion across all oceans.
Quick to respond, Heyerdahl perceived amid the debris six stepped pyramids of black stone.
He persuaded a Norwegian businessman to buy the site, clean up the debris of centuries, and found a museum.
One of the "black" pyramids has now been restored, but some experts are still unconvinced.
However, recent excavations under one pyramid have yielded artifacts identified with the pre-Spanish inhabitants of Tenerife.
Meanwhile, Heyerdahl has been checking out a rumored pyramid on Sicily.
Could Heyerdahl be right when he claims there were age-old cultural links between Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mexico, the Canaries, and even the Pacific Islands?
(Mead, Robin;
"Riddle of the Black Pyramids," London Times , December 19, 1998.
Cr. A.C.A. Silk)
Comment .
The pre-Spanish inhabitants of the Canaries were the Guanches, who are noted for two other interesting things: (1) A very high frequency of the olecranon perforation of the upper arm bone;
And (2) The use of a language of whistles, which they use to communicate over long distances.
The olecranon perforation of the humerus is usually frequent among the Guanches, the pre-Spanish inhanitants of the Canary Islands.
(From Ancient Man ).
From Science Frontiers #122, MAR-APR 1999 .
© 1999-2000 William R.
Corliss
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Our Lucky Star About every 5 years our sun spits a giant blob of ionized gases in the earth's direction.
These "coronal mass ejections" or flares interfere with terrestrial communications and knock out power grids.
But we are lucky it isn't worse.
Studies of stars in our galaxy similar to the sun find that they emit super -flares about once every century.
If our sun sent such a super-flare our way, the atmosphere would glow like a neon tube, our fleet of satellites would be fried, and half the protective ozone layer would disappear in a flash.
Earth life would survive -- at least for a while.
Our sun, it seems, is favored with anomalous stability, but no one knows why.
We are simply lucky!
(Seife, Charles;
"Thank Our Lucky Star," New Scientist , p.
15, January 9, 1999.)
Comment .
We also live in a "lucky" galaxy.
(See NOW WE KNOW WHY...later in this issue.) The universe is anthropic (i.e., favoring humans) at all levels!
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Another Sucker Female beaked whales are usually toothless, and the males only have a couple of teeth that are used for fighting rivals.
Yet, these whales have no problem catching and consuming their swift, fishy prey.
Apparently, they first stun their dinners acoustically and then suck them in with the pump-like action of their muscular tongues.
(AR#2 and BMA25 in Mammals I )
Occasionally, whalers have caught sperm whales with congenital, grossly twisted jaws that are completely useless in hunting, yet these animals thrive on a rich diet of fast, elusive squid.
A. Werth of Hampden-Sydney College theorizes that these much larger cetaceans also suck in their prey just like the beaked whales.
Sperm whales also generate sound pulses so strong that they can very likely stun the giant squid, their preferred food, as they pursue them with their sonar in miledeep blackness.
(BMO10 in Mammals II )
(Pennisi, Elizabeth;
"Coming to Grips with Whale Anatomy," Science , 283:475, 1999.)
Comment .
Sperm whales and beaked whales are only distantly related, so that we have an interesting example of the triple parallel evolution of hunting strategy, acoustic-stunning capability, and large, piston-like tongues.
Sperm whales may stun their prey with high intensity sound From Science Frontiers #122, MAR-APR 1999 .
© 1999-2000 William R.
Corliss
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Unconsciousness And Its "Zombie Agents" We all harbor so-called "zombie agents" that rapidly and automatically perform actions without our conscious mind being aware of the stimulus and physical response.
Normal people experience this in dancing, fencing, etc.
Extreme examples include sleepwalkers who can even drive cars and carry out other complex actions without remembering what they have done!
Of course, sleepwalking is not a normal condition;
Nevertheless, rigorous experiments demonstrate that normal people will respond to scary pictures of snakes and spiders even though they are not consciously aware of them.
The zombie agent is acting autonomously.
Zombie agents are characterized as on-line systems that act at speeds that far outpace conscious reactions.
Since the zombie agents incorporated in our unconsciousness work so well, why did consciousness ever evolve?
Conscious actions take milliseconds longer to calculate and activate.
Consciousness would, therefore, seem to be a bad evolutionary gambit.
But, C.
Koch and F. Crick may have an answer.
They speculate that:
It may be because consciousness allows the system to plan future actions, opening up a potentially infinite behavioural repertoire and making explicit memory possible.
(Koch, Christof, and Crick, Francis;
"The Zombie Within," Nature, 411:893, 2001.)
Questions.
Could our zombie agents, primitive though they may be, be the source of those flashes of genius that appear out of nowhere, or perhaps that "dreamwork" from which solutions to problems appear fully formed upon wakening?
The quotation from the Nature article presumes that consciousness does have survival value, else it would not have evolved.
What sort of highly innovative genetic changes would lead to such a remarkable brain function?
Did consciousness evolve in small Darwinian steps or in some grand, lucky mutation?
Did any nonhuman animals progress beyond their inheritance of zombie agents?
From Science Frontiers #137, NOV-DEC 2001 .
© 2001 William R.
Corliss
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Did irish monks build this new england chamber circa 700 ad?
Curious stone chambers dot the New England countryside.
Are they all potato cellars built by farmers?
Most archeologists insist that they are.
But some seem too sophisticated for such a mundane application.
One of these problematic chambers is built into a hillside at Upton, Massachusetts.
J.W. Mavor, Jr., and B.E.
Dix carefully measured and studied this chamber over a period of years.
They give three reasons for asserting that it was really built by Europeans around 700 AD -- long before the Norse set foot on North America.
The dry masonry chamber at Upton, Massachusetts.
(Adapted from ESRS Bulletin , 1:12, 1973) The sophisticated corbelling of the structure closely follows that seen in Irish and Iberic chambers, such as New Grange.
The long passageway is aligned with the summer solstice sunset, also a feature of some ancient European structures, but hardly of any concern to a New England farmer.
The Upton chamber seems to be associated with linear arrays of stones and stone cairns on nearby Pratt Hill.
These alignments have obvious astronomical significance.
In fact, based upon changes in the setting positions of several stars (due to precession), Mavor and Dix believe the whole complex dates back to 700-750 AD.
They conclude: "Of all the enigmatic structures that we have seen in America, the Upton chamber stands out as one that could have been built under the influence of Irish monks in the 8th century." (Mavor, James W., Jr., and Dix, Byron E.;
"Earth, Stones. and Sky: Universality and Continuity in American Cosmology," NEARA Journal , 29:91, 1995.
NEARA = New England Antiquities Research Association)
From Science Frontiers #103, JAN-FEB 1996 .
© 1996-2000 William R.
Corliss
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Passenger pigeons not extinct!
The English science magazine New Scientist has received numerous letters from persons confirming this assertion.
For example, J. Quote: :
"In my experience, the sight of pigeons hitching a lift on the underground is nothing unusual.
I too have often travelled from Paddington, westwards in my case -- not in frequently in the company of a pigeon, sometimes even two.
"It raises fascinating questions.
Do they just fly across the line and get the next train back?
How many round trips a day do they make?
Do they decide in advance how far to travel?
Do they study the timetables?"
(Howlett, Jack, et al;
"Passenger Pigeons," New Scientist , p.
66, September 30, 1995)
Comment.
Birds frequently alight on ships at sea and even ride on the backs of animals, but these subway pigeons seem to be more than opportunistic!
From Science Frontiers #103, JAN-FEB 1996 .
© 1996-2000 William R.
Corliss
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The Most Mysterious Manuscript Forget the Kensington Stone and Easter Island's "talking boards," the so-called Voynich Manuscript is claimed to be the most mysterious writing on the planet.
This 234-page, handwritten, parchment-book is in a class by itself.
One's attention is first caught by page after page of truly strange depictions of plants, astronomical maps, and even crude human figures.
Then, there's the boldly written script that annotates the drawings -- copiously on occasion.
Superficially the Voynich Manuscript looks like a medieval herbarium combined with an astronomer's musings.
The words look as if you could read them easily, but you cannot.
No one has been able to, except for the interpretation of a few plant labels.
The words represent no known language, yet statistical tests confirm that a real language was used.
"Real" but uncrackable after much labor by leading cryptographers.
The plants look like species you might find in your backyard and nearby fields.
Botanists, though, assure us that most do not exist in nature.
The copious plant labels in that unreadable language are of no help.
Astronomical drawings and zodiacs fill some pages.
Hope rises when we see a zodiac beginning with Pisces but fades when Scorpius turns out to be a lizard.
Cancer is represented by two lobsters;
Gemini by a man and woman.
Superficially, the manuscript seems so readable and comprehensible, but its meaning forever slips away like the grin on the Cheshire cat.
One student of the Voynich Manuscript, Rene Zandbergen, ventures that the problem goes beyond hidden codes and messages;
I.e., it has deeper meanings.
The Manuscript probably dates from the late Middle Ages, based upon a medieval crossbow drawn on one page.
Down the years, the book has passed through many hands, including John Dee (1527-1608).
It now resides at Yale University.
Who wrote the Voynich Manuscript?
Polymath Roger Bacon is usually mentioned.
Given his interest in ciphers and the occult, this surmise is not unreasonable.
(Schaefer, Bradley E.;
"The Most Mysterious Astronomical Manuscript," Sky Telescope , 100:40, November 2000.
Ber man, A.S.; "Try Your Hand at Cracking the Uncrackable," USA Today , August 3, 2000.
Cr. V. White via L.
Farish.)
Comment.
We have passed lightly over a big subject.
For more, visit: www.vonich.nu Or read: Brumbaugh, Robert S.;
The Most Mysterious Manuscript , Carbondale, 1978.
As for Roger Bacon, it has been claimed that he wrote some of Shakespeare's plays and, further, that these acknowledged works of genius even include an embedded cipher, which, like the Voynich Manuscript, has never been decoded.
One of the astronomical diagrams in the Voynich Manuscript.
The meaning of the star symbols in the eight (not the Zodiacal twelve!) sectors is obscure.
The language used in the accompanying text is likewise mysterious.
From Science Frontiers #135, MAY-JUN 2001 .
© 2001 William R.
Corliss
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Inscribed Stone From Tennessee Necropolis The pictured stone was found during the early 1890s in an extensive cemetery near Nashville.
The stone's back was hollowed out like a cupstone, while its front was inscribed with symbols.
Barry Fell considers the symbols Libyan, pre100 A.D.
Style. He translates them thus:
"The colonists pledge to redeem." (Whittall, James P., II;
"An Inscribed Libyan Token from a Necropolis in Tennessee," Early Sites Research Society, Bulletin , 6:37, 1978.)
Reference .
Several controversial New World inscriptions may be found in Ancient Man .
This Handbook is described here .
Inscribed stone found near Nashville
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The Inscribed Bricks Of Comalcalco Comalcalco is a Mayan site in Tabasco, southeastern Mexico.
It is unusual as Mayan sites go because its 375 structures, including a large stepped pyramid, incorporate millions of fired bricks.
Many of said bricks, when separated from their mortar, display various symbols as well as their makers' fingerprints.
N. Steede collected a "small" sample of these bricks (4612 bricks weighing in at 21 tons) and photographed the inscriptions that decorated some 1,500 of them.
Many bear what are interpreted as "masons' signs".
These turn out to be virtually identical to those found on Roman bricks in the Old World.
Conclusion:
"The illustrated bricks of Comalcalco are pieces to a grand puzzle, whose completed, final image may reveal a Roman Christian presence in the Americas a thousand years before the arrival of Columbus." (Ref.
1)
Some typical mason's signs found on Roman bricks (left) and Comalcalco bricks (right).
Many additional similarities are found between mason's signs from Comalcalco and those from Roman, Minoan, and ancient Greek sites.
See Ref. 2. References
1.
Steede. Neil; "The Bricks of Comalcalco," Ancient American , 1:8, September/October 1994.
2. Fell, Barry; "The Comalcalco Bricks: Part 1, the Roman Phase," Occasional Papers, Epigraphic Society , 19:299, 1990.
From Science Frontiers #99, MAY-JUN 1995 .
© 1995-2000 William R.
Corliss
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American Pygmies Today's anthropological texts say little about pygmies populating ancient North America, but a century ago, when tiny graves replete with tiny skeletons were discovered in Tennessee, controversy erupted.
Were they the bones of pygmies or children of normal-sized tribes?
The latter choice was made, and we hear no more on the subject -- at least on the standard academic circuits.
But a few reverberations are still detectable elsewhere.
V.R. Pilapil, for example, asserts that the disputed Tennessee graves really did contain pygmy remains.
Not only that, but he hypothesizes that the pygmies arrived in ancient times from southeast Asia, probably the Philippines, where today's diminutive Aetas live.
To support his case, Pilapil recalls B.
Fell's examination of the Tennessee skeletal material.
Fell noted that: (1) The skull brain capacity was equivalent to only about 950 cubic centimeters, about the volume of a non-pygmy 7-yearold;
(2) The teeth were completely developed and showed severe wear characteristic of mature individuals;
And (3) The skulls were brachycephalic with projecting jaws.
Fell had, in fact, described skulls very much like those of today's adult Philippine Aetas.
Another line of evidence adduced by Pilapil involved the traditions of British Columbia tribes, which recognized a tribe of very small people called the Et-nane.
More significant is the oral history of the Cherokees, which mentions the existence of "little people" in eastern North America.
(Pilapil, Virgilio R.;
"Was There a Prehistoric Migration of the Philippine Aetas to America?" Epigraphic Society, Occasional Papers , 20:150, 1991.)
From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 .
© 1992-2000 William R.
Corliss
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Costa rica's neglected stone spheres Books and articles on Stonehenge, the Easter Island statues, and the Egyptian pyramids are legion.
Granted that these structures are important and intriguing, we still ask why Costa Rica's meticulously wrought stone spheres are languishing in the wings of science.
They epitomize exquisite workmanship.
Such geometric perfection rendered in granite is remarkable-- -for any ancient culture.
Lastly, the stones' purpose completely escapes us.
Why strew such masterpieces of stoneworking around and even buried under the dark jungle floors?
M.T.
Shoemaker also wonders about these things in a nice recapitulation of the stone-sphere mystery.
His compilation of facts and figures only impels us to learn more about the spheres and what their shapers had in mind.
The spheres are found on the Diquis River delta, near the Pacific coast of southern Costa Rica.
Stone-sphere sizes range from an inch to 8 feet in diameter.
At least 186 spheres have been recorded in the literature.
Surely many more were destroyed and other remain undiscovered.
No local source exists for the granite;
And no stone-working tools have been found near the spheres.
"The best spheres are perhaps the finest examples of precision stonecarving in the ancient world." The maximum circumference error in a 6-foot, 7-inch diametre sphere in only 0.5 inch, or 0.2%.
The spheres are often grouped, but no general system or alignment mode seems to exist.
"One very disturbing mystery emerges in examining the Diquis culture.
The superb stone-carving skill necessary for the creation of the spheres was not applied to any other object." Why?
Such are the salient facts.
To our regret, they tell us little about the How , Why , and perhaps Who of the spheres.
(Shoemaker, Michael T.;
"Strange Stone Spheres," Pursuit , 19:145, 1986.)
Reference .
Costa Rica's stone spheres are covered in greater depth in our handbook: Ancient Man .
This book is described here .
Disposition of six stone spheres on Farm 4-35C, in Costa Rica.
From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 .
© 1987-2000 William R.
Corliss
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Rameses Ii Hooked On Tobacco French scientists examining the stomach of the Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II found fragments of tobacco leaves.
Further analysis of the 3,200-year-old mummy indicated the presence of nicotine in the body.
Conventional wisdom has it that tobacco was unknown in the Old World until the Spanish brought it back from the Americas in the Sixteenth Century.
(Anonymous;
"Tobacco in Egypt," Anthropological Journal of Canada , 16:10, 1978.)
From Science Frontiers #7, June 1979 .
© 1979-2000 William R.
Corliss
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United By An Invisible Cord The largest study of separately raised identical twins has discovered incredible similarities among twins who never set eyes on each other before.
There are difference, too, but not as many as expected by psychologists who hold that we are shaped primarily by our environments.
Only a few of the astounding (and strange) similarities can be recounted here.
Two 39-year-old twins, meeting for the first time, were both wearing seven rings each, two bracelets on one wrist, a watch and one bracelet on the other wrist.
Two men both had dogs named Toy, had married and divorced women named Linda, remarried women named Betty, and named their sons James Allan and James Alan.
Two other males had similar medical histories: hemorrhoids, same pulse rates and blood pressures, same sleep patterns.
Both had put on 10 pounds at the same times in their lives.
(Holden, Constance;
"Identical Twins Reared Apart," Science , 207:323, 1980.)
From Science Frontiers #11, Summer 1980 .
© 1980-2000 William R.
Corliss
Do twins act similarly because of genetics or do they somehow communicate psychically?
There have been many studies of twins, both separated at birth and those who grew together.
Most of these studies are for medical reasons, specially for obesity and heart disease but some are also for psychological studies and there are many similarities in their behaviors, coping mechanisms, likes and dislikes and others which cannot be easily explained.
- Ariel
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Plants Manufacture Fake Insect Eggs Plants are usually considered rather passive to environmental forces, but careful observation show that they fight back against predators in subtle ways.
Williams and Gilbert, for example, have found that a number of Passiflora species, which are heavily defoliated by the larvae of Heliconius butterflies, have developed tiny structures that closely resemble in size, shape, and color the eggs of these butterflies.
Heliconius butterflies, when searching for likely plants on which to lay eggs, tend to avoid plants that already have eggs on them.
The plants' fake eggs, then, help protect the plant from predation.
(Williams, Kathy S., and Gilbert, Lawrence E.;
"Insects as Selective Agents on Plant Vegetative Morphology ";
Science , 212:467, 1981.)
Comment .
We have heard over and over again about Nature's "marvelous adaptations," but it is still difficult to imagine chance-driven evolution of fake eggs of just the right size, shape, and color.
How many shapes and colors were tried before the plants got it right?
From Science Frontiers #16, Summer 1981 .
© 1981-2000 William R.
Corliss
Shades of Creationism and Intelligent Design.
But then, the Intelligence is definitely going against the butterfly's interest.
One would think that this Intelligence would be impartial, at least.
- Ariel
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Neanderthal Man May Still Survive In Asia All continents have their tales of wild men, abominable snowmen, sasquatch, etc.
Most anthropologists give little credence to these stories.
Shackley, however, has assembled considerable evidence for the reality of the so-called Almas (plural form: Almasti), primitive men who closely resemble Neanderthal Man, or at least what we think Neanderthal Man looked like.
Abundant, internally consistent data come from an east-west band running from the Caucacus, across the Pamir Mountains, through the Altai Mountains, to Inner Mongolia.
Even today, sightings of these creatures are rather common;
And several scientists have seen them.
One incident occurred in 1917, when the Reds were pursuing White Army forces through the Pamirs.
The troops of Major General Mikail Stephanovitch Topilsky shot an Almas as he was emerging from a cave.
"The eyes were dark and the teeth were large and even and shaped like human teeth.
The forehead was slanting and the eyebrows were very powerful.
The protruding jawbones made the face resemble the Mongol type of face.
The nose was very flat ...the lower jaws were very massive" In some instances the Almasti have even associated with modern man;
And cases of successful interbreeding have been reported.
After reviewing the mountains of evidence, Shackley feels that the Almasti are very likely surviving Neanderthals, because the physical characteristics of the Almasti and reconstructed Neanderthals are basically identical.
This long review article also discusses the many Chuchunaa sightings from northern Russia -- perhaps another relict population of Neanderthals.
(Shackley, Myra;
"The Case for Neanderthal Survival: Fact, Fiction or Faction?" Antiquity , 56:31, 1982.)
From Science Frontiers #22, JUL-AUG 1982 .
© 1982-2000 William R.
Corliss
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A FAR-WANDERING LOST TRIBE?
Imagine hiking near Los Lunas, New Mexico, and coming upon a huge basalt boulder inscribed as shown in the illustration.
This is obviously not an Indian petroglyph.
Rather, it is the Ten Commandments set down in an old Hebrew script.
The script and its translation seem unmysterious.
What everyone wants to know is: Who chiseled it and when?
It was apparently discovered in the 1880s.
Harvard anthropologist Frank C.
Hibben visited the site in 1930 and pronounced the inscription to be at least 100 years old.
Who in New Mexico in 1830 knew ancient Hebrew?
The inscription may be much older, for the whole boulder, weighing 60-80 tons, is tipped 20-30°, probably by geological forces, so that the lines of script are tilted.
(Underwood, L.
Lyle; "The Los Lunas Inscription," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications , vol.
10, no. 237, 1982.)
Comment .
Is it all a hoax?
Some think so. It is easier to live with a hoax than with the thought of a Hebrew outpost in New Mexico a couple thousand years ago.
It should be remarked that there are many purported Hebrew and Roman finds in the American Southwest;
Viz, the Tucson lead crosses with their Roman inscriptions.
Reference .
More anomalous epigraphy is to be found in our Handbook: Ancient Man .
For more on this book, visit: here .
From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 .
© 1983-2000 William R.
Corliss
A Mysterious Copy Of The Grave Creek Stone The so-called Morristown Tablet was apparently discovered near Morristown, Tennessee.
A symbol-by-symbol comparison with the famous Grave Creek Stone reveals that both are inscribed with the same message, probably in a Semetic language.
Barry Fell renders the message thus:
"Tumulus in honor of Tadach.
His wife caused this engraved tile to be inscribed." Why would anyone wish to make a second copy of such a message?
The Grave Creek Stone was associated with a burial in West Virginia.
Could there have been two Tadachs?
Are either or both hoaxes?
(Buchanan, Donal;
"Report on the Morristown Tablet," Early Sites Research Society, Bulletin , 10:22, no.
1, 1982.)
Comment .
The real anomaly, assuming authenticity, is the presence of Semetic inscriptions in ancient American graves.
Reference .
The Grave Creek Stone and other anomalous epigraphy may be found in our Handbook: Ancient Man .
To order, visit: here .
The Grave Creek Stone
From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 .
© 1983-2000 William R.
Corliss
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A RUSSIAN PALUXY "This spring, an expedition from the Institute of Geology of the Turkmen SSR Academy of Sciences found over 1,500 tracks left by dinosaurs in the mountains in the southeast of the Republic.
Impressions resembling in shape a human footprint were discovered next to the tracks of the prehistoric animals." Professor Kurban Amanniyazov, leader of the expedition, elaborated:
"We've discovered imprints resembling human footprints, but to date have failed to determine, with any scientific veracity, whom they belong to, after all.
Of course, if we could prove that they do belong to a humanoid, it would create a revolution in the science of man.
Humanity would 'grow older' thirty-fold and its history would be at least 150 million years long." (Anonymous;
"Tracking Dinosaurs," Moscow News , no.
24, p. 10, 1983. Cr.
V. Rubtsov.)
Comment .
Strata along the Paluxy River, Texas, contain a similar mixture of dinosaur and human-like tracks.
From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 .
© 1984-2000 William R.
Corliss
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Ancient Egyptians In Hawaii Most people tend to think of the ancient Egyptians as stay-at-homes who were too busy building pyramids to explore far lands.
But many artifacts from the South Pacific and even Hawaii hint that they were otherwise.
Some Hawaiian rock carvings include well-known Egyptian motifs and even a few hieroglyphics.
The three main sites are: (1) the great boulders at Luahiwa, Lanai;
(2) the old landing at Anaehoomalu;
And (3) at Kii, Kauai.
The evidence for an Egyptian presence is even stronger in New Guinea, where the Egyptians may have had a gold-mining colony.
Other ancient cultures also frequented New Guinea, where Sumerian beads and bronze weapons have been found by Australian archeologists.
Further, there seems to have been a thriving market in the Middle East for bird-of-paradise skins, which could only have come from New Guinea.
(Knudsen, Ruth;
"Egyptian Signs in the Hawaiian Islands," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications , 12:190, 1984.)
From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 .
© 1984-2000 William R.
Corliss
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Dolphins to the rescue -- again!
September 1983. Tokerau Beach, North-land, New Zealand.
A pod of 80 pilot whales ran aground and were stranded by the ebbing tide.
Local townspeople followed a new technique developed for aiding stranded cetaceans.
They waded out, talking soothingly to the whales, and keeping their skins wet.
When the tide came back in and refloated the whales, the New Zealanders turned them around and tried to guide them to deeper waters.
Sometimes refloated cetaceans just turn around and reground themselves again, but this time the pilot whales were fortunate.
A school of dolphins fishing offshore somehow apprehended the situation and swam into the shallows around the pilot whales.
The dolphins then guided them out to sea.
76 of the pilot whales were thus saved.
In a similar incident 5 years earlier at Whangarei harbor, a helicopter followed the dolphins and whales several miles out to sea, confirming interspecies aid.
Such stories are reminiscent of those where drowning humans are helped by dolphins.
(Anonymous;
"Dolphin Pilots," Oceans , 17:50, 1984.)
Reference .
More instances where dolphins have come to the aid of humans are presented in BHX3 in Biological Anomalies: Humans III .
Ordering information is located here .
From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 .
© 1984-2000 William R.
Corliss
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A MAMMOTH TALE! In the discussion of the genuineness of the Holly Oak pendant in SF#61, the possibility was raised that mammoths might have survived in North America until just a few centuries ago.
Such survival is contrary to all mainstream thinking.
Thus, when a datum comes along, even though it appears rather far-fetched, that testifies for the recent survival of mammoths, we must at least examine it.
The datum in question (and it really is questionable) comes from the The Na tional Tombstone Epitaph , hardly part of the scientific literature!
The article develops the theme that Chinese explorers landed in North America several millennia ago.
The basis for such speculation is an ancient Chinese work called the Shun-Hai Ching , which is reputed to be about 3500 years old.
In it, the Chinese explorers mention encounters with several strange animals.
One is easily recognized as the collared peccary, known only in the New World, thus establishing the reality of a transPacific contact.
Now, here is the piece de resistance:
"Here we met a creature as tall as three men and so great that the earth trembled as he walked.
He had a voice as loud as thunder.
He was red like fire.
From his mouth he spat spears of pearl, and he had but one long arm.
He was wont to take up men in his hand and dash their brains out against rocks." Could this creature be anything but a mammoth?
Incidentally, the frozen Siberian mammoths are reported to be covered with reddish hair.
(Eckhardt, C.F.;
"Prehistoric Explorers of the West?" National Tombstone Epitaph , p.17, October 1988.
Cr. H.J. Hanson)
Comment .
Ancient Chinese in America and the late survival of the mammoth - all in one article!
This is rich grist for the anomaly mill.
But can we believe any of it?
Reference .
The possible late survival of the mammoth assessed in BMD10 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II .
This volume is described here .
From Science Frontiers #62, MAR-APR 1989 .
© 1989-2000 William R.
Corliss
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Deep-sixing 666s On May 1, 1991, the British Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency announced that it would no longer issue automobile license plates bearing the number 666.
Cars bearing such plates, it seems, have been involved in too many accidents!
(Grossman, Wendy M.;
"No More 666s," Skeptical Inquirer , 16:128, 1992.)
Comment .
Recall that 666 is the "Number of the Beast" in the Bible.
From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 .
© 1992-2000 William R.
Corliss
I wonder, they must have the statistics to back-up their action.
- Ariel
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