by Jonathan Gray
July 2003
from ArcheologyAnswers Website

 

Choice excerpts from the newly released national bestseller,

 

RIPLEY’s BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

TAKE A LOOK AT THE WORLD’s WEIRDEST FACTS

 

Ripley Publishing,  October 2004, ISBN# 1893951731
National release date: Wednesday, October 6, 2004

WERE WE ALREADY ON THE MOON IN 2309 B.C.? DID AN EXTRATERRESTIAL CIVILIZATION IN EONS PAST -- THE ’ALIEN RAJ’ -- TAKE EARTH HUMANS ON FREQUENT VISITS TO OTHER PARTS OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM AND THE GALAXY AND THEN RETURN THEM TO SOL III WHERE THEIR WRITTEN EXPERIENCES BECAME ’LEGENDS,’ ’MYTHS,’ AND ’FOLKLORE?!’-
By Jonathan Gray

FLASH: First Moon Landing? According to Chinese historical tradition, a man and a woman landed on the Moon over 4,000 years ago. The engineer Hou-Yih and his wife, Chang Ngo, flew to the Moon on a "celestial bird."

Their descriptions of the conditions on the Moon were incredibly ACCURATE. Was their journey the result of an overactive imagination or did they really go there using technology that was later lost to mankind? [ p. 11 ]


In 1926, Professor A. W. Bickerton declared the concept of shooting at the moon to be foolish and impossible. In 1935, the noted astronomer F. R. Moulton wrote that man could never travel in outer space. In 1957, Dr. Richard van der Riet Wooley (former Astronomer Royal) called the idea of space travel "utter bilge." Eight months later Sputnik I was orbiting the earth.

In a remote northern area of Tibet lie the ruins of the Hsiung Nu capital, discovered by Duparc in 1725. Within the city, Duparc came upon a mass of monoliths (once coated with silver), a pyramid, part of a tower of blue porcelain, and a royal palace, containing thrones with sun and moon images. There was also a large milky white stone surrounded by exquisite drawings.

Now for the stunning sequel. In 1952, a Soviet expedition arrived. The group was shown by Tibetan monks some ancient documents, whose descriptions agreed with those of Duparc.

But here is the breathtaking part: the milky white stone, so said the documents, was "brought from the moon." Moon rock? Is it possible? COULD MAN ACTUALLY HAVE LEFT THIS EARTH AND GONE TO THE MOON IN AGES PAST? Was space travel a natural adjunct to his civilization? Are there clues?

Indeed there are. Indications of the reality of ancient space travel do come from widely separated parts of the world. Written and oral tradition is widespread - and, it seems, reliable.

Chinese historians in particular never tried to please their rulers at the expense of truth. Death was preferred to untruthful reports of history. As an example we have the fate of historians in the reign of Chi in 547 B.C. We should therefore take seriously the historical reports of China, even if they seem at first to he far-fetched.

There is a tendency in scientific circles nowadays to regard ancient documents and even mythology and folklore - as sources of history. Anthony Roberts expresses it this way:

"Legends are like time-capsules that preserve their contents through ages of ignorance." 1

In regard to some of the chronicles cited hereafter, internal evidence will carry its own proofs of authenticity.

My first source is an old manuscript described by James Churchward, the English scholar who wrote decades before people spoke of artificial satellites and spaceships. 2

1 - INDIA: Vehicles that could revolve around the earth (i.e., satellites):

"Their fuel is drawn from the air in a very simple and cheap way. The motor is something like a modern turbine: it works from one chamber to another and does not stop or stall unless switched off. If nothing happens it continues to function. The ship in which it is built could revolve as long as it liked around Earth, only falling when the parts of which it is made were burnt up."

2 - INDIA: Philosophers and scientists who orbited the earth "below the moon and above the clouds" are spoken of in the ancient Surya Siddhanta. 3

Giant satellites made of shiny metal and turning about an axis are described in detail in ancient Sanskrit texts, right down to their dimensions and interiors, as well as smaller craft that fly between them and the earth.

3 - CHALDEA: Two "modern" rockets emitting rays at the rear, a box like a loudspeaker and a "copy" of a Gemini capsule - are engraved on a copper chisel unearthed at Ur.

4 - SUMERIA: Pictographic texts describe three related objects on display in Sippar: the golden sphere (command module?), the "GIR" (a long arrow-shaped object, divided into several compartments) and the "alikmahrati," meaning "advancer that makes vessel go" (i.e., a motor, or an engine). Together they look very much like a three-part rocket ship.

Another explicit sign is the combination of two words "DIN" and ’GIR." When joined together to form the word "g-ds," the tail of the finlike "gir" fits perfectly into the opening of the rocket like "din," which exhausts fire from its tail.

5 - PERU: A clay vessel 8-1/2 inches high portrays a kind of "space capsule" on which motor and exhaust are clearly recognizable.

6 - ITALY: A painting discovered in the niche of a room under Rome’s Palatine Hill, in 1961, portrays what appears to be a rocket. It stands on a launching pad. From it run guys or cables; behind is a tall wall, resembling a counterblast wall.

7 - JAPAN: Excavations have uncovered clay figurines of people clad in peculiar "space suits", with helmets entirely covering their heads. On the helmets are representations of something like slit-type glasses, breath -filters, antennae, hearing aids and even night-sight devices.

8 - INDIA: The Mahabharata describes "two storey sky chariots with many windows, ejecting red flame, that race up into the sky until they look like comets . . . to the regions of both the sun and the stars." 4

9 - GUATEMALA: Another ancient description mentions "a circular chariot of gold, measuring 12,000 cubits in circumference and able to reach the stars" 5

10 - INDIA: Other references speak of:

  • Pushan sailing in golden ships across the ocean of the sky

  • Garuda (a celestial bird) carrying Lord Vishnu in cosmic journeys

  • Aerial flights "through the region of the sky firmament which is above the region of the winds" 6

  • The Ancients of Space Dimensions. 7

11 - NEW ZEALAND: Maori legends tell of flying machines and journeys to the moon.

12 - CHINA, 3rd century B.C.: Chuang Tzu, in a work entitled Travel to the Infinite, relates a trip he made into space to 32,500 miles from the earth.

13 - TIBET and MONGOLIA: Ancient Buddhist books speak of "iron serpents which devour space with fire and smoke, reaching as far as the distant stars."

14 - TIBET: The three levels of a pyramid in the Hsing Nu capital commemorated three historical periods in the remote past:

  • the pre space travel era

  • the time when men were able to visit one of the heavenly bodies

  • then afterward when they came back to earth and lost the power of space travel

It was here that there reposed on the altar a "stone brought from the moon."

15 - BABYLON: The Epic of Etana (4,700 years old) supplies us with very accurate descriptions of the earth’s surface from progressive altitudes - descriptions which were not verified in our own era until the high-altitude aerial flights of the 1950s and the first space shots of the 1960s.

The description of this ancient space flight depicts exactly what happens when man leaves the earth (the concept of the round earth which becomes small, due to perspective as distance increases, and changes into particular colors). 8

16 - BOOK OF ENOCH: The ancient Book of Enoch says that in space "it was hot as fire and cold as ice" (where objects get hot on the side illuminated by the sun and icy cold on the shaded side) and "a dark abyss." 9

17 - YUNNAN PROVINCE CHINA: Engravings of cylindrical rocket like machines, which are shown climbing skyward, were discovered on a pyramid which suddenly emerged from the floor of Lake Kun-Ming during an earthquake.

18 - GREECE: Lucian pictured the moon as a body like the earth which could be reached in 8 days and wrote a "fiction" (?) of a moon trip.

 

19 - CHINA: "Desolate, cold and glassy": In the year 2309 B.C. the engineer of Emperor Yao decided to go to the moon. The "celestial bird" provided him with information on his trip. He explored space by the current of luminous air" (the exhaust of a fiery rocket?).

Hou Yih flew into space where "he did not perceive the rotary movement of the sun." 10 (This statement is of paramount importance in corroborating the story because it is only in space that man cannot see the sun rise or set.) On the moon he saw the ’frozen-looking horizon" and erected a building, "the Palace of Cold." His wife Chang Ngo likewise flew to the moon, which she found a,

"luminous sphere, shining like glass, of enormous size and very cold; the light of the moon has its birth in the sun," she declared.

(Chang Ngo’s moon exploration report was correct. Apollo II astronauts found the moon desolate with a glasslike soil - and parts of it even paved with pieces of glass. Most of the moon, at any given time, is in the throes of extreme cold. It plunges to minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit at midnight.) The ancient Greek scientist Empedocles had also declared that the moon was made of glass. Such precise knowledge implies on-site inspection of the moon in the remote past.

20 - CHINA: A story from this same period states that an enormous ship appeared on the sea at night with brilliant lights which were extinguished during the day. It could also sail to the moon and the stars, hence its name, "a ship hanging among the stars" or "the boat to the moon." This giant ship which could travel in the sky or sail the seas was seen for 12 years. 11

21 - CHINA: "The Shi Ching" book says that when the Emperor saw crime and vice rising in the world,

"he commanded Chong and Li to cut off communication between the earth and the sky - and since then there has been no more going up or down." 12

Is this not a clear indication of the cessation of space travel in the past?

22 - TIBET: Sanskrit documents discovered by the Chinese at Lhasa are claimed to contain directions for building interplanetary spaceships. Flight to the moon is mentioned (though it is not stated whether this was undertaken or just planned). The Chinese have stated that certain of the data were being studied for inclusion in their space program.

23 - Relics on the moon? Reports have been made concerning strange messages on the surface of the moon.

  • An object shaped like a sword near the crater Birt

  • Strange cross formations in the crater Eratosthenes and at Fra Mauro

  • Angular lines in the crater Gassendi and seven spots in the shape of the Greek capital Gamma on the floor of the crater Littrow

  • Two giant sets of letters under Mare Serenitalis, to the left of Mare Tranquilitatis, which read: "PYAX" and "JAW" in block letters, easily discernible

  • Strange tracks running right up the wall of a crater.

If such geometric constructions were found on earth, speculation would rage as to the men who left them. Not every discovery has been announced by NASA - and exploration has scarcely begun. Already NASA has run out of budget for further moon visits. It is by no means impossible that future astronauts will discover objects or installations showing that other human beings came to the moon in the distant past.

24 - It was July 20, 1969, the occasion of the first moon landing. During the last reconnaissance flight around the moon, preceding the landing, one of the astronauts made an unexpected announcement: he had just seen the contours of what seemed to be some sort of seven-story structure.

What was it that he saw? Might it have been the "Palace of Cold?" Why did they subsequently delete a full 11 minutes - including this - from rebroadcasts? (But it was too late. We had already heard it.)

If there is a single, ancient, long-abandoned edifice on the moon, if there is a single object indicating earlier intelligence, if there is still one recognizable rock drawing to be found, then just think what such a find would do to our conventional history. But wait! News has continued to filter through - not only from the moon, but from 40 million miles away on the small planet Mars.

25 - A Soviet scientist who defected to the West claims that photographs taken by an orbiting satellite clearly show the ruined temples of a civilization - on the planet Mars!

The 58-year-old scientist was a high-echelon member of an el-te team that has worked together since 1961 when Vostok I carried Yuri A. Gagarin as the first man in space. But Russia’s growing emphasis on the development of a nuclearized "Star Wars" satellite system in space prompted him to flee Russia. He now lives under an assumed identity in Switzerland.

He reports that several years ago, a Soviet satellite was launched for Mars. It reached that destination in 1982 and has been orbiting the Red Planet ever since. Its sole purpose was to beam photographs and other data back to a manned satellite orbiting Earth. The task was accomplished with incredible success.

The photographs are computer-enhanced and in full color. The detail they show is far beyond anything produced in America. And there is no mistaking what they reveal. The city scanned by the satellite’s camera is three times the size of Moscow and it is ringed by wide boulevards, one inside the other and linked together by smaller avenues, like the spokes of a cartwheel.

The temples must have been huge. Most are in ruins, as though crumbled by a tremendous Marsquake. But some still support slate-grey domes that measure two to four miles in diameter. The Soviet Union will never admit to this incredible discovery because it would reveal too much of their technological progress.

End of the story? No, not quite. On February 4, 1985, the Melbourne, Australia, Age reported the belief of thirty U.S. scientists that two photographs sent back from Mars in 1976 by the Viking spacecraft indicate the existence of an ancient civilization.

Richard Hoagland, science writer and member of the group of scientists known as the Mars Investigation Group, said the photos show what appear to be four huge pyramids lined up symmetrically with a face.

Dr. C. West Churchman, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said there are too many details pointing to the possibility of an extinct habitation on Mars. What then, I ask, is the real truth about our past? Have we been to Mars before?
 

End Notes:

1)   Anthony Roberts, Sowers of Thunder. London: Rider and Company, 1978, p. vii.
2)   A passage in the Mahabharata. Tr. By E.R. Rice. New York: Oxford, 1934. Quoted by James Churchward in The Children of Mu. New York: Ives washburn, 1956, pp. 188-189.
3)   The Surya Siddhanta. See Andrew Tomas, We Are Not the First. London: Sphere, 1971, p. 149.
4)   A passage in the Mahabharata. Tr. By E.R. Rice. New York: Oxford, 1934.
5)   Maya folklore.
6)   The ancient Samsaptakabadha.
7)   The Puranas.
8)   A seal cylinder depicting Etana flying on an eagle’s back between the sun and the moon is in the Berlin Museum.
9)   Tomas, We Are Not the First, p. 146.
10) Ibid., p. 47.
11) The Collection of Old Tales, a Chinese work compiled in the fourth century, from ancient sources.
12) Tomas, We Are Not the First, pp. 148-149.