No shortage of opinion from readers on Atlantis Rising #8. Here's a provocative sampling from our mailbag.

No Baloney

...About the interview with the astronaut Edgar Mitchell.

You know something that is very disturbing? If I did not know better (and this is what is so alarming. Most people do not have a clue.) I would have believed him when he said there was nothing on the moon!

Mr. Mitchell has proven beyond a doubt that there IS resistance in some quarters. Perhaps he can most assuredly and absolutely stipulate that in his individual case that he is (tenaciously) preserving hisor is it someone else's idea of the truth.

As a hobby (and I am sure that I am not alone in this) I have personally studied the official NASA Moon photographs for 18 years. And what I have found on those pictures is truly astounding and anything but "baloney" as Mr. Mitchell claims. The truth is on the photos.

One of your subscribers put it best this subject is just too hot for the establishment.

Elizabeth Nikols
Nightfalls, NC

I recently saw this sign at the office of Dr. Michael Malin, and it reminded me that there will be a NASA mission to Mars in Nov. 1996. This probe will have Malin's high-resolution camera on it, and millions of Americans want him to re photograph the "Face on Mars," and find out if it is indeed artificial. I urge you to question NASA and Malin about their intentions regarding new photography of the "Face."

Guido Guiseppie
San Diego, CA

Much has happened since we heard from you in July, Guido. And you're right, it does deserve a story. Check out this issue's cover story. ED

Mayan Astronomy

In "The Mayan Calendar Mystery" by Kathie Garcia, the author says that the Mayans "referred to Venus as the eighth planet and the earth as the seventh. This and other archeological evidence has led Sitchin to suggest that they knew of the outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto as well and had obtained their knowledge from aliens, whose 'count' began at farther reaches of the galaxy." (Italics mine.)

The implication is that if the Mayans were aware of the existence of the outer planets, it could only have been through contact with aliens, or at least with a culture that had telescopes. I disagree. Uranus, unlike Neptune and Pluto, is a naked-eye planet; a person with normal vision can see it from the Los Angeles basin on many nights of the year! The problem is that it moves very slowly through the heavens, a mere 4 degrees per year, as opposed to the much faster motion of Saturn and the other outer planets. But regular observation of the heavens night after night, especially in ancient times when there was neither light pollution nor smog to obscure the night skies would fairly quickly reveal Uranus for what it was: unlike a star, but like a planet, it does not twinkle; it is much brighter than most stars; though it moves slowly, its motion along the ecliptic is enormously faster than the proper motion of a true star; and unlike a star, but like a planet, eventually it does return to the same celestial longitude. In fact, many "primitive" cultures have known Uranus for just what it is, a planet, and the Mayans almost certainly must have known this, too, through systematic observations of the skies taken over hundreds or thousands of years. Unlike European-based civilizations, the Mayans weren't hampered in their astronomical work by iron-clad assumptions, based upon theologically oriented ideas, about the maximum "permitted" number of planets. The West required a telescope to "discover" the "new" planet Uranus only because up until then, Western belief-systems blinded Western astronomers to just what was out there and what it implied.

As for Neptune and Pluto, while they cannot be seen without telescopes, their existence can be inferred from the irregularities in the orbit of Uranus. Again, unlike Europeans, the Mayans had no reason not to build a cosmological model in which the Earth and other planets went around the Sun. Once they had done that, they would have been able to associate irregularities in planetary orbits with the presence of other planets, whether or not they ever had a theory about gravity. From there, knowing Uranus existed, it would have been a short step to the obvious conclusion that irregularities in Uranus's orbit unaccounted for by the inner planets had to have been due to the presence of other planets still further out. No aliens required at all, just good, hard, relentlessly meticulous mathematical and scientific reasoning.

Lvg. (Ms) Yael R, Dragwylka, K.S.G.
Seattle, WA

Alien Influence?

Many of the reported stories (in Atlantis Rising) are correct and coincide with our belief. Few are based on debatable assumptions. Man is created with the Seed of Knowledge which, if properly developed through spiritual intervention, will reveal the truth. Our Creator, the Lord God of Hosts, has said: Let us make man in our image and after our likeness. In other words, we are created equal, for the greater part spiritual, and to a lesser degree physical. Moreover, man has been created with the freedom to choose. However, as God admitted, man is born evil. We are flawed and usually choose the wrong way. Man associates himself with demons, false prophets and evil spirits, while contacting Pleiadians and ETs from the Zeta Reticuli star system for assistance and knowledge. The Pyramids at Giza, a monument erected by our Creator (have nothing to do with the sphinx, a monster of ancient mythology) symbolizing the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, is showing man where to find God.

We like to believe that through interactions with aliens from other worlds, the USAF has secured advanced technology enabling them to fly aircraft with atomic power and antigravity systems at high speeds. On the other hand, the U.S. can't defend and protect their own people. On August 5, 1996, we wrote the President of the United States, a.o.: "Although radio and television tell a different story, we learned that TWA flight 800 from New York to Paris was shot down southeast of Long Island by a ground-to-air missile launched from an off-shore vessel." Here is evidence that it is quite possible for an enemy submarine to operate in U.S. waters "UNDETECTED." The grave message is that the same submarine could have dropped a nuclear warhead on Washington. The question is: is the incident indicative of the lack of advanced technology or are we correct to assume that Government and the military are sleeping on the job? Up to this time we have not heard from the FBI to the contrary.

William F. VanGelder
Santa Maria, CA

Hapgood vs. Hoagland

I wish to point out what appears to be a conflict between existing theories cited by two of the contributors you have featured in your magazine...

First, if you recall, Richard Hoagland presents evidence that artificial monuments exist on both Mars and the Moon (Atlantis Rising, Number 2). In his book The Monuments of Mars, Hoagland claims to have discovered a new physical principle in the tetrahedron geometry that he found encoded in the juxtaposition of these Martian monuments. He points to the great Red Spot on Jupiter, to the volcanism in the Hawaiian islands, and to Olympus Moons of Mars as evidence that what amounts to an inscribed higher dimensional tetrahedron in every rotating astronomical body produces an upwelling of energy at 19.5 degrees north or south. He has also cited an unusual circumpolar pattern on Saturn as evidence that on each of these bodies there exists a point of influx supplying this up-welling energy.

The other theory which seems to conflict with Hoagland's ideas is the theory cited by Rand Flem-Ath in connection with his proposals that the location of Atlantis is in Antarctica (Atlantis Rising, number 7). To explain how Atlantis could end up in this polar region, Flem-Ath cites a theory proposed by Charles Hapgood. Hapgood proposed that beyond the piece-meal movements in what is termed "continental drift," every 40,000 years or so the entire crust of the Earth undergoes a dramatic and violent shift of as much as 40 degrees due to a dynamic imbalance produced by a lopsided build-up of polar ice. Hapgood cites as evidence of such a sudden and large shift of the earth's crust the fact that scientists have found warm weather plants in the stomachs of Woolly mammoths that have been exhumed across a large section of Siberia and northern Canada.

It seems to me that if the position of the hot spot responsible for the formation of the Hawaiian islands is "fixed" with regard to the Earth's axis of rotation (as Hoagland's tetrahedral theory postulates), a series of dramatic movements of the Earth's crust of volcanic islands is very unlikely. The islands produced by this hot spot would, of necessity, be scattered in a pattern reflecting that series of sudden non-lineal displacements of the Earth's crust envisioned by Hapgood. It would seem that if either theory is correct, the other must be incorrect.
I hope that someone can resolve this dilemma, since both theories are ingenious, and both provide credible solutions to some very perplexing mysteries.

Bob Neville
Sedona, AZ

Mehler vs. Hancock

I have just read Message of the Sphinx by Hancock and Bauval, and although I think it is a great book, very well researched and thought out, I disagree with many of their conclusions on the dates of the construction of the Sphinx and Pyramids! I would love to do a critical analysis of it and present my own conclusions after nearly 30 years of research into Egyptology...I intend to debate Bauval and Hancock (and J. A. West who agrees with them) on their conclusions. There is no doubt archeoastronomy is a useful tool and the date of 10,500 B.C. is important but they do not convince me that the pyramids and sphinx were constructed when they say they were!
Steven Mehler, Director
The Monument of Giza Research Project
Colorado Springs, CO

Foreign Subscriptions

I am very interested in subscribing to your magazine but I live in Canada. I'd like to know why we Canadians can't subscribe to it?

Anna Mascioli
Canada

Sorry, Anna, but it is a practical impossibility for us to service any subscribers outside the U.S. postal system. At least for now. Within the U.S. we can use the automated zip coding system which make it possible to handle large mailings economically. Foreign subscribers would have to be charged a significantly higher rate (different for every country) just to cover postage, to say nothing of all the extra handling required. Unfortunately, we do not have the manpower (or womanpower) to handle the task. Maybe someday when we're a little bigger. ED

I like the quality of the paper you use. I makes for easy reading. I am sure that "slick" paper is considered a step upward, but believe me it is not necessarily so.

Chuck Hawkins
Lubbock, TX

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for providing such an interesting and enlightening magazine. The articles are intelligent, informative and seem to be well researched. In this day and age where so much of the information we are exposed to is censored, manipulated, or is outright lies, it is inspiring to know that there are other free thinkers like myself out there sharing information of this nature. Atlantis Rising is one of if not the best magazine I have ever read. Keep up the good work.

David Rusin
Wanamassa, NJ

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