The Evidence For Ancient Spaceflight
Keywords: aliens, ancient alien theory, conspiracy, historical
Time to tackle the next section of evidence presented in episode 1 of Ancient Aliens!
Time to tackle the next section of evidence presented in episode 1 of Ancient Aliens!
It's another 10 minutes dealing with the kind of evidence that these guys find compelling as reasons to believe that ancient man was visited by beings from the stars.
If you haven't already, go ahead and read my review of the first 13 minutes, which looks at their evidence for ancient flying machines.
And if you're all caught up, then let's get started!
If you haven't already, go ahead and read my review of the first 13 minutes, which looks at their evidence for ancient flying machines.
And if you're all caught up, then let's get started!
This section begins by showing pictures of man made rockets taking off, while the following voiceover is played:
| Over the past 50 years, NASA has sent astronauts into space inside large rockets. This method has been described by some as simply putting a man on a large firecracker and lighting the fuse. |
Well, when you put it that way, I'm convinced! It's just putting a man on a large firecracker... anybody can do that!! Hell, the ancient Chinese used fireworks!
What the hell do we need NASA for??
Anyway, the narrator goes on to talk about theoretical technologies like magnetically levitated sleds for launching rockets, and continues with:
| While these futuristic propulsion systems seem like something out of science fiction, ancient alien theorists believe past civilizations possessed these same advanced technologies. They point to a number of cultural myths that describe sky people coming to Earth in fire breathing dragons, or metallic looking machines as proof of extra terrestrial visitation. |
Oh, well as long as there are cultural myths!!
And here I was thinking that they didn't have any proof... boy is my face red!
It's not like the night sky is an awe inspiring sight or anything. It's not like it could have inspired people from a wide variety of cultures to make up stories about them. That's crazy talk!
Please, tell me more about how we know that ancient people were visited by aliens!
| Ancient Sanskrit texts dating back as far as 6000 BC, describe in varied but vivid detail flying machines called vimanas. |
Oh, well that makes perfect.....
Hold on a second, did you just say something about ancient Sanskrit texts dating back to 6000 BC?
Now I'm a little bit confused. The oldest known form of Sanskrit is called Vedic Sanskrit, and the oldest known document written in Vedic Sanskrit dates to about 1700 BC.
Linguists have been working on reconstructing the type of language which would have been spoken by these people before that time. They call it Proto-Indo-Iranian, and they believe that it was spoken around 3000 BC.
We don't know what language they were speaking in 6000 BC, but it certainly wasn't Sanskrit. So how can we have any Sanskrit documents dating to 6000 BC??
Here's Dr. Algund Eeenboom, Co-Author of "Aircraft Of The Pharohs", explaining why he believes that Vimanas were ancient spacecraft:
| Vimanas are airplanes, and they are powered by jet engines. This seems to be true because all the descriptions of the flight behaviour say that elephants ran away in panic. Grass was thrown out because there was a lot of pressure from behind those Vimanas. So we can say that this is a description of a spaceship. |
We're shown an illustration of one of these Vimanas at this point, which is known as the Rukma Vimana:
It looks to me more like something out of the imagination of Jules Verne, rather than some sort of highly advanced alien spacecraft.
Is this description and illustration taken from a document written in 6000 BC? What document did this come from??
Still no source on that. While we wait for them to get around to it, let's take a look at this idea of Vimanas.
Vimana is an ancient Sanskrit word that has several meanings. It can mean palace, temple, shrine, chariot.... and yes, one of it's uses is in describing flying chariots of the gods and floating palaces.
Is this description and illustration taken from a document written in 6000 BC? What document did this come from??
| Although mainstream historians believe the Vimana texts are myths, many of the documents contain passages that seem to describe modern machinery and technology. |
Still no source on that. While we wait for them to get around to it, let's take a look at this idea of Vimanas.
Vimana is an ancient Sanskrit word that has several meanings. It can mean palace, temple, shrine, chariot.... and yes, one of it's uses is in describing flying chariots of the gods and floating palaces.
It's a really interesting subject, and some of the descriptions seem to correspond with what we might consider to be science fiction-esque ideas. The thing is, though, that the earliest mention of any such Vimana operating without the aid of flying horses, comes from the Ramayana.
The Ramayana was written somewhere in the 300's BC. So once again I'm left wondering, what ancient document mentions alien spacecraft from 6000 BC?
Here's David Childress, author of "Technology Of The Gods". Maybe he'll be able to tell us!
Great! Now I have something to look up!
The Vaimanika Shastra (or Vymaanika Shaastra) is a very interesting document. Proponents claim that it's an extremely ancient document. The problem is that it was written between 1918 and 1923, and was first published in 1959. We don't have any version of this document existing from before then.
Proponents claim that it's an ancient document because it was written by the use of an Indian mystic, Subbaraya Shastry, who was using psychic powers to channel the ancient Hindu sage Maharishi Bharadwaja.
Accordingly, this ancient book was actually lost and no ancient copies remain. Only through communication with the dead has it been brought back into print for modern audiences to enjoy.
Sounds like an impeccable pedigree for an ancient document to me... I wonder why they never mention this in the show...
Interestingly enough, in his book "The Anti-Gravity Handbook", David Childress actually claims that the Vaimanika Shastra dates to the fourth century BC. He claims that it was discovered in a temple in India in 1875. He gives no source for this, and of course, it's pure nonsense. Even the man who revealed the text, G. R. Josyer, was pretty clear as to it's origins. It was dictated by Shastry and completed in 1923. There's no ambiguity here.
But if Childress claims that the document dates to the 300's BC, where does this 6000 BC number come from?
An internet search reveals that many people are claiming these ancient documents date back to 4000 BC. My guess is that they heard "fourth century", and made the mistake of beginning the number with a 4, and then adding an extra zero.
Yes, it can happen. I'm enough of a dumbass that it almost happened to me while I was writing this article. I realized my mistake only because I took the time to re-check my facts.
In addition, 4000 BC is about 6000 years ago... could it be that a writer from the show just got mixed up and put down "BC" instead of "years ago"?
I'll bet that's it! And you know, this really gets my goat! You'd think that they could at least have the intellectual rigour and attention to detail to make sure that they get their imaginary facts right!
But you really do have to love the "futuristic" depictions of alien spacecraft as described in the Vaimanika Shastra. My personal favourite is the Shakuna Vimana (No, not the song from The Lion King):
The Ramayana was written somewhere in the 300's BC. So once again I'm left wondering, what ancient document mentions alien spacecraft from 6000 BC?
Here's David Childress, author of "Technology Of The Gods". Maybe he'll be able to tell us!
| Vaimanika Shaastra or Science of Aeronautics, part of his unknown work "Yantra Sarvasva" apparently talks about metals, electricity and power sources, about the pilots and clothing they have to wear. It talks about the food that they eat, and even the weapons that are kept on these airships. |
Great! Now I have something to look up!
The Vaimanika Shastra (or Vymaanika Shaastra) is a very interesting document. Proponents claim that it's an extremely ancient document. The problem is that it was written between 1918 and 1923, and was first published in 1959. We don't have any version of this document existing from before then.
Proponents claim that it's an ancient document because it was written by the use of an Indian mystic, Subbaraya Shastry, who was using psychic powers to channel the ancient Hindu sage Maharishi Bharadwaja.
Accordingly, this ancient book was actually lost and no ancient copies remain. Only through communication with the dead has it been brought back into print for modern audiences to enjoy.
Sounds like an impeccable pedigree for an ancient document to me... I wonder why they never mention this in the show...
Interestingly enough, in his book "The Anti-Gravity Handbook", David Childress actually claims that the Vaimanika Shastra dates to the fourth century BC. He claims that it was discovered in a temple in India in 1875. He gives no source for this, and of course, it's pure nonsense. Even the man who revealed the text, G. R. Josyer, was pretty clear as to it's origins. It was dictated by Shastry and completed in 1923. There's no ambiguity here.
But if Childress claims that the document dates to the 300's BC, where does this 6000 BC number come from?
An internet search reveals that many people are claiming these ancient documents date back to 4000 BC. My guess is that they heard "fourth century", and made the mistake of beginning the number with a 4, and then adding an extra zero.
Yes, it can happen. I'm enough of a dumbass that it almost happened to me while I was writing this article. I realized my mistake only because I took the time to re-check my facts.
In addition, 4000 BC is about 6000 years ago... could it be that a writer from the show just got mixed up and put down "BC" instead of "years ago"?
I'll bet that's it! And you know, this really gets my goat! You'd think that they could at least have the intellectual rigour and attention to detail to make sure that they get their imaginary facts right!
But you really do have to love the "futuristic" depictions of alien spacecraft as described in the Vaimanika Shastra. My personal favourite is the Shakuna Vimana (No, not the song from The Lion King):
Those wings aren't just for decoration, they're functional! They're on hinges so that this thing can fly like a bird!
Apparently, these are the types of machines that aliens fly around in! All this "flying saucer" stuff is pure crap!
I wonder why they didn't make a scale model of this thing and subject it to an air tunnel like they did for the stuff in the last section.
Unfortunately, according to Wikipedia, "A study by aeronautical and mechanical engineering at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1974 concluded that the aircrafts described in the text were "poor concoctions" and that the author showed complete lack of understanding of aeronautics."
PFFT!! What do they know! Did they even bother looking at the Shakuna Vimana? That things totally airworthy! Poor concoction my ass!!
Anyway, according to the Vaimanika Shastra, these Vimas were controlled with the mind, and used a propulsion system based on a combination of gyroscopes, electricity, and mercury.. What they did was take several gyroscopes, and place them inside of a "sealed liquid mercury vortex".
Childress explains:
I have yet to find any record of any studies of mercury that show these kinds of effects, and I would love to see the sources for what he's talking about. But I think we can get an inkling of what he's talking about just from a general knowledge of science.
The show goes into a little bit more of a description of how gyroscopes work. A rotating gyroscope wants to stay on it's plane of rotation, and resists toppling over. It's the same reason why a spinning top stays upright. Because of this, some people consider gyroscopes to be defying gravity.
But there's no defiance going on here, gyroscopes are just as subject to the forces of gravity as anything else. Their rotation just makes their position more stable. If you drop a rotating gyroscope, it will still fall.
There are no "levitation effects" going on here. I think Childress was actually correcting his terminology here, and switching instead to "anti gravity kind of effects", which is more vague and may pass muster.
As for the spinning bright light, we know that electricity passing through a metal can create light - it's how light bulbs work. It doesn't seem mysterious to me that a current passing through mercury in a gyroscope would create a spinning light.
There are no mysterious or unexplained properties here that would in any way validate the Vaimanika Shastra as a coherent guide to alien technology.
Propulsion Systems Engineer Robert H. Frisbee, PH.D theorizes on the show that the mercury gyroscope might actually be a flywheel energy storage device. The problem, of course, is that the energy still needs to come from somewhere... and also that these kinds of energy storage devices lose energy very quickly, and wouldn't be suitable for long space flights.
Hilariously, Dr. Algund Eenboom, co-author of "Aircraft Of The Pharohs", makes an appearance at this point and states that he believes the mercury vortex engine may be a mistranslation.
I think we can all agree that we shouldn't put up with mistranslations of our fake ancient documents!
Oh well, I guess even if the mercury vortex engine isn't going to revolutionize flight, we can still enjoy another thoroughly convincing picture of an ancient air battle.
Apparently, these are the types of machines that aliens fly around in! All this "flying saucer" stuff is pure crap!
I wonder why they didn't make a scale model of this thing and subject it to an air tunnel like they did for the stuff in the last section.
Unfortunately, according to Wikipedia, "A study by aeronautical and mechanical engineering at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1974 concluded that the aircrafts described in the text were "poor concoctions" and that the author showed complete lack of understanding of aeronautics."
PFFT!! What do they know! Did they even bother looking at the Shakuna Vimana? That things totally airworthy! Poor concoction my ass!!
Anyway, according to the Vaimanika Shastra, these Vimas were controlled with the mind, and used a propulsion system based on a combination of gyroscopes, electricity, and mercury.. What they did was take several gyroscopes, and place them inside of a "sealed liquid mercury vortex".
Childress explains:
| There's unusual things you can do with mercury. You can put it into a closed gyroscopic device with mercury spinning around, and then you can electrify it. And studies have been done on this by NASA and by other scientists. And they find that you have levitation effects, anti-gravity kind of effects, and a spinning bright light is part of it too. |
I have yet to find any record of any studies of mercury that show these kinds of effects, and I would love to see the sources for what he's talking about. But I think we can get an inkling of what he's talking about just from a general knowledge of science.
The show goes into a little bit more of a description of how gyroscopes work. A rotating gyroscope wants to stay on it's plane of rotation, and resists toppling over. It's the same reason why a spinning top stays upright. Because of this, some people consider gyroscopes to be defying gravity.
But there's no defiance going on here, gyroscopes are just as subject to the forces of gravity as anything else. Their rotation just makes their position more stable. If you drop a rotating gyroscope, it will still fall.
There are no "levitation effects" going on here. I think Childress was actually correcting his terminology here, and switching instead to "anti gravity kind of effects", which is more vague and may pass muster.
As for the spinning bright light, we know that electricity passing through a metal can create light - it's how light bulbs work. It doesn't seem mysterious to me that a current passing through mercury in a gyroscope would create a spinning light.
There are no mysterious or unexplained properties here that would in any way validate the Vaimanika Shastra as a coherent guide to alien technology.
Propulsion Systems Engineer Robert H. Frisbee, PH.D theorizes on the show that the mercury gyroscope might actually be a flywheel energy storage device. The problem, of course, is that the energy still needs to come from somewhere... and also that these kinds of energy storage devices lose energy very quickly, and wouldn't be suitable for long space flights.
Hilariously, Dr. Algund Eenboom, co-author of "Aircraft Of The Pharohs", makes an appearance at this point and states that he believes the mercury vortex engine may be a mistranslation.
I think we can all agree that we shouldn't put up with mistranslations of our fake ancient documents!
Oh well, I guess even if the mercury vortex engine isn't going to revolutionize flight, we can still enjoy another thoroughly convincing picture of an ancient air battle.
