Future Science
Unexplained
Anomalies
Your Ad Here
|
|
Shop Atlantis Rising Online
Home | Archives | Discussions
Back Issues | Subscribe | Links
|
|
The exploration of the sites and locales of ancient civilizations is an adventure that tantalizes many an individual fascinated by the writings of such modern researchers as Zecharia Sitchin, Graham Hancock, John Anthony West, and David Hatcher Childress, among others. Alas, the time and expense involved in mounting an expedition of one's own, or even participating in one conducted by a university, archaeological research institute, or nonprofit foundation, can be daunting. The surviving remnants of humankind's earliest settlements, markers, and technological achievements are widely scattered around the globe, and access can be arduous. And, although specialized travel companies have arisen to respond to the growing New Age niche market of seekers eager to glimpse and touch historic and prehistoric artifacts, the obstacles remain. Enter Bob and Bea Connolly of Toronto, who own and operate a video production company, BC Pictures, specializing in videos and CD-ROMs for the travel industry. Invited in 1988 by a Canadian cable network to produce a travel video series on religious themes, the couple gradually became intrigued by the mystery-laden nature of some of the sites. As a result, starting in 1991, they began what would be a five-year trek around the world visiting, photographing, and filming places known to have mysterious archaeological or esoteric significance. Their travels culminated in a 13-episode series entitled Timeless Places, which began airing in Canada in September 1997. U.S. distribution will be negotiated in early 1998, with a cable premiere for American audiences expected in the fall. The program covers phenomena such as the Moai (statues) of Easter Island, Machu Picchu and the Incan ruins of Cuzco, Peru; the mystery sites of Biblical fame in Israel; the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico; the giant granite spheres of Costa Rica; and the Nazca lines of Peru. Already available in the U.S. is a CD-ROM, in which material from various episodes of the television series, together with useful travel information, has been presented in a multimedia format. Styled In Search of Ancient Wisdom, the CD-ROM (published by Cambrix Software of Chatsworth, Calif. for both Mac and Windows) combines the entertaining aspects of travelogue, personal diary, and travelers' guide with the riveting substantive detail associated with photojournalism, investigative reporting, and history lessons. The Connollys gathered background and supporting information from many libraries and museums, as well as a variety of unusual sources including those which the scientific and academic communities typically tend to ignore, (for example, the teachings of Rosicrucianism, the trance readings of Edgar Cayce, the mysteries of Freemasonry, and other esoteric references). The resulting diary highlights striking exemplars of mysterious places and technological achievements for which history and science continue to have no satisfactory explanation. The scope of the CD-ROM is wide, spanning Singapore, Malaysia, the southern republics of the former Soviet Union, Cuba and Aruba, Costa Rica, Easter Island, Peru, Mexico, Israel, England, Denmark, Greece and Turkey, Egypt and a full hour of video clips. The format generally consists of montages of still photographs of stunning clarity, accompanied by intermittent audio commentary by the Connollys, and pull-down/across window shades with detailed information about places, historical background, relevant quotations, and bibliographic references. Music evocative of the exotic or mysterious nature of the scene accompanies the presentation. Clicking on the compass star at the beginning of each chapter yields a map of the area(s), with cities and sites of focus highlighted, as well as icons of transportation which converges on the capital. Clicking here yields a wealth of information. Often included is a short history or description of the place or site, and sometimes even capsule information about the form of government. The first chapter, Searching Inside Asia, begins with an examination of the Vedic records of ancient India, which make many startling references to ancient atomic wars, aircraft, aliens from other worlds, and the power of mind over matter. According to the Vedas, beings came from other worlds and ruled the earth as kings, flying in vimana aircraft and fighting with atomic weapons. They intermarried with native earthlings and produced offspring. With Singapore and Malaysia as a backdrop, the chapter looks at the significance of ancient symbols such as the swastika, in context, and examines ancient temples, statues, and rituals such as Thaipusam, the annual Hindu day of atonement. The healing art of acupuncture is explored, together with its shrouded origins and history. The journey continues into the southern republics of the former Soviet Union, where a society that attempted to create a religion based on science has been able to advance ancient healing arts and develop some unusual new ones. In Yalta, home of alternative health methods in the ex-USSR, ancient acupuncture techniques have been mated with the laser and low-voltage electricity, administered to correct imbalances in a person's central nervous system. Biofeedback and Kirlian photography (the use of machines to photograph the energy fields of living organisms) are explored and their histories reviewed. Most startling is the use of Kirlian photography to capture the standing columnar wave emitted from the apex of a pyramid housing a Tesla coil, demonstrating the spiral energy that might have been generated in antiquity. The next chapter finds the Connollys in Costa Rica examining giant granite spheres, perfectly round and as large as eight feet in diameter, which have been excavated in rural villages in the Diqui Delta. Some lie in a series equally spaced, suggesting some ritualistic or astronomical significance. Native lore holds that giant birds delivered the spheres to earth, a notion supported by artifacts of flying men and birds unearthed nearby. A sampling of national museum holdings of these uncovered artifacts, such as a large golden bird carrying a sphere in its talons and golden discs (reputedly representations of flying discs piloted long ago), is displayed. The search continues on Easter Island, two thousand miles off the coast of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. After describing the discovery of the island in the 1700s and its three indigenous but antagonistic races, the producers focus on the almost 1,000 Moai or huge statues reputedly built by a superior race. It is claimed that these statues once had eyes that looked up towards the heavens. Often surmounted by red cylindrical stone hats and standing on hewn platforms, the enigmatic Moai are carved from rock. Strangely, all originally faced inland. Wooden statues with facial features resembling those of the Moai have been found as well. Also in evidence are petroglyphs found near crude stone houses situated high up near the crater of a dormant volcano. The intriguing mysteries of Peru are next. In Machu Picchu, the abandoned settlement high in the Andes, one is startled to learn that other lost cities lie nearby but remain in an overgrown and unexcavated state due to lack of funding. The city of Cuzco, once the center of the Inca empire, presents several points of fascination, particularly Coricancha, the fabled court of gold. Once overlaid with gold sheets, its stones were taken from Sacsayhuaman, an ancient fortress whose cyclopean walls once stood 30 feet high, some weighing more than 350 tons. The technology used to move and shape such megaliths has been lost to antiquity, but legend has it that a magic liquid that could dissolve solid rock was used by the ancients. In a similar vein, stone carvings are held to show ancient masons melting stones with flaming rods (read laser beams?). That is the official story, at least. In the museums in Lima and Ica, one finds a pair of truly eerie phenomena: (1) skulls that bear evidence of ancient brain surgery, complete with solid gold plates that were used to cover the area of the skull that was trephined, and (2) grotesquely enlarged, elongated skulls that suggest otherworldly origin or the product of some weird experiment in human-alien hybridization. It is claimed that these skulls were those of rulers. In any event, the notion that the deformity is natural or genetic is buttressed by the discovery of similarly shaped skulls in the fetuses of mummies. The Connollys visit several of the pyramid cities of Mexico, noting that the mining of gold and the worship of the sun disk were main preoccupations. Many of the cities were raised and then abandoned, with inhabiting races vanishing for reasons unknown. Tula, capital of the Toltec empire, is noted for huge stone figures, small pyramids, and inscribed columns. So-called Atlantean men, carved figures standing on top of a truncated pyramid, sport belted sidearms resembling laser pistols and wear sun disks on their backs, testifying to their stature as gods. At Palenque, the slab lid of the tomb of Mayan Lord Shield Pacal, found beneath the Temple of the Inscriptions, provides a fascinating glimpse of the king riding what appears to be an artistic rendering of a flying machine of some sort. The narration reminds us that, in the Vedas, a god who flew the skies in vimana aircraft was called Maya. Various sacred temples at Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and Teotihuacan and the sanguinary rituals often practiced at these places are explored. In Merida, at the Museum of Anthropology, possible links between the rulers of ancient Mexico and Peru are in evidence. Later the scene shifts to Europe to explore the history of the Freemasons and their preservation of the sacred geometry encoded into King Solomon's Temple. The role of the Knights Templar, that society of Christian warriors which ventured to the Holy Land and secured ancient secret scrolls for posterity, is featured. In one memorable tableau, we are shown a Templar library with tables and bookcases filled with wisdom texts. Clicking on various volumes both on and off the shelf reveals readings about the Birth of Noah, The Enochian Book of Giants, The Servants of Darkness, and the Era of Light Coming, among other titles. The producers intriguingly note that the Book of Enoch: The Prophet was deleted from all Christian Bibles except the Coptic, because of the reference to 200 fallen angels descending to a mountain on earth and selecting human wives. The book describes the Watchers, or Nefilim, who descended from heaven. This chapter also touches on the famous, strangely accurate world map of Admiral P'iri Reis, drawn in 1513. The Connollys wonder aloud whether the Vikings could have been the white giants referred to in the sacred writings from the early civilizations in Mexico and Peru. In a chapter entitled Denmark's Runic Riddles, they visit Viking burial sites in Jutland, where they encounter skulls that once again show evidence of early brain surgery. They consider the phenomena of runic divination tablets and rune stone communication, and briefly examine the origins of alchemy and its quest to find the legendary philosopher's stone and develop the elixir of youth. It is suggested by some that the misuse of alchemy may have destroyed the continent of Atlantis. Alighting next in Israel, the producers trace the journey of the Ark of the Covenant, fabled repository of the tablets of the Ten Commandments delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai. Their search proceeds from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where the ark was once kept, to its last known resting place, King Solomon's Temple. This chapter recounts many dramatic passages from the Bible relating to the history of the ark, starting in Egypt and continuing through its use in felling the walls of Jericho, to the destruction of the First Temple and the ark's disappearance. The CD-ROM includes an imaginative yet highly realistic 3-D virtual-reality rendering of the Tabernacle, the tent that God ordered built to house the ark during its travels in the desert, using measurements given in the Bible. The Dead Sea Scrolls also receive emphasis. Facing translators of the scrolls who were unwilling to share openly with them, the Connollys echo claims that many of the scrolls contain information that has been suppressed from the original Bible, with translations having been altered to disguise original meanings. The scrolls themselves are highly protected, of course, and now only a reproduction is showcased at the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Egypt is the final stop. Their tour includes the temples at Luxor, Karnak, and Abu Simbel, the pyramids of Giza, and artifacts found in the museums of Alexandria and Cairo. The Connollys show the famous Unfinished Obelisk at Aswan, a prematurely abandoned example of the huge granite towers that graced the entryways to pharaonic temples, and consider the question of how such massive monuments could have been made, transported, and erected. In the museums, they show the elongated head of King Akhenaten's daughter, reminiscent of the skulls viewed in Peru and Mexico. We enter the Great Pyramid and the hotly debated issue of its possible 12,500-year antiquity is raised. Examining the niche in the Queen's Chamber, the Connollys consider one theory of a power device having been stored there. In the King's Chamber, the producers actually feel a strange heat sensation, and ascribe it possibly to pressure on the quartz in the granite ceiling blocks generating electricity via the piezo-electric effect! In support of this thesis, they note that the word pyramid means fire in the middle. Whatever the explanation, the overriding questions about how the pyramids were built remain central. While visiting the step pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara and the Colossi of Memnon outside the Valley of the Kings, they note a shape that appears in close proximity to depictions of the Pharaoh, one which resembles a modern power coil, used to transform electrical current. Known as a dejed, this highly worshipped symbol of pharaonic stability may, according to at least one pyramid-energy researcher, represent the actual device used to generate power for use by the ancient stonemasons. The section ends on a mysterious note: two large dejed cylinders were found at the doorway to King Tut's tomb, but have never been made available for public viewing for some reason. In the concluding chapter, the Connollys emphasize clues pointing to the existence of a superior race of giants that may have ruled the earth in ancient times. Their travels lend credence to the notion that Biblical and other references to giants the offspring of fallen angels are supportable with hard evidence. From clues presented in their CD-ROM, it appears that members of this prehistoric genetic strain may indeed have occupied the pharaohs' thrones of ancient Egypt and guided civilization's development as kings of the Mesoamerican peoples. As the producers candidly state, When an open mind is faced with unusual evidence which defies typical historical explanations, there is no end to the conclusions that can be drawn. The search must therefore continue, with the Connollys having made a very insightful yet entertaining contribution indeed. |
|
|
Shop Atlantis Rising Online
Home | Archives | Back Issues | Subscribe | Products | Links | Forums
Copyright © 1996-1999 Atlantis Rising. All Rights Reserved
800-228-8381
info@atlantisrising.com