by Randy Koppang

 

Reconciling the perceptions of orthodox tradition with those of an increasingly solidified revisionist history may one day be seen as a challenge of our times.

Today, however as a fair witness to pursuits of unbiased research I find no consistent climate of constructive engagement for integrating out-of-place data with prevailing concepts.

Specifically, new revelations concerning the mysteries at Giza have recently evoked sufficient controversy to suggest that Galileo's telescope-analogy is no longer adequate. Simple resistance to change is merely one factor. And in this context, the following is to update reports of developments at Giza that appeared in Atlantis Rising Nos. 11 and 12.

Let's review Dr. Joseph Schor's Sphinx Expedition. The publicized goal seemed to be locating unknown cavities and geological faults beneath the Sphinx. Yet, as Schor-group documentarian Boris Said stated here, those pursuits have long since reached an impasse, and hopes they may any time soon (resolve the impasse) are fading.

Faded they have indeed! As a repercussion of an inexplicable and dramatic discovery in the Great Pyramid, by Schor consultant Thomas Danley, achieving the Schor goals, or those of any other unorthodox expedition may have been permanently preempted.

Danley's credibility was established in his own words, when introduced by Richard Hoagland as a guest on the July 25, 1997, Art Bell radio show. He is a trained acoustic engineer/transducer designer, recently employed by Intersonics of Northbrook, Illinois. Danley consulted with NASA, flying two space shuttle payloads, using acoustic levitation techniques for containment of experimental high temperature new-materials processing.

Danley demonstrated acoustic levitation for producer Boris Said's NBC special, Mystery of the Sphinx. And Danley's expertise again was solicited in October/November, 1996. Boris Said sent Danley to Giza with a film crew. He was, then, legitimately authorized to perform acoustic (accelerometer) measurement of dimensions in all upper Great Pyramid chambers, spending four nights therein. While placing a vibration sensor, Danley noticed the Col. Howard Vyse (1836) hole into the south-facing granite wall of Davidson's Chamber, the first of four construction chambers above the King's Chamber ceiling. So he climbed through, finding an obviously new tunnel in the process of being expanded where the Col. Vyse tunnel leaves off. Danley and Said's film crew reportedly filmed this new tunneling. On the second level, above Davidson's Chamber, Danley found numerous large bags of Turah limestone tunnel tailings; hoisted up at great effort for apparently temporary storage, not yet taken down for removal. But then, there was a lot of rock to be cleared.

Danley detailed his inspection on the July 25, 1997, Art Bell Show, noting that there were enlarged inter-cavities at two points along the new tunnel. He agreed with Hoagland's view that these two rough-hewn enlargement cavities made no sense, unless they were for either of two purposes:

-  way stations for bagged tailings waiting for removal (implying continued excavation)

-  or probing adjacent areas for something.

Danley said the cavities were large enough to fit 10 to 12 people into. Weeks prior to Mr. Danley's July 25 radio interview, he had initiated the public accounting of his pyramid experience by posting a brief Internet URL communiqué of the facts, with photos. In both instances he referred to his Antiquities Inspector escort. Danley told how he briefed the escort at length regarding these facts, even drawing a map. Danley stated:

The next day he (the escort') went up to see for himself and then reported it to his boss (which he had said he was a little reluctant to do). With reported disbelief, the Inspector personally verified the tunneling, because as Danley reported, he knew nothing about it?!

This disbelief and reluctance by the monument security escort to report to his superior is meaningful. The Inspector's boss would be immediately under Zahi Hawass, Director General of the pyramids. And any such tunneling project would certainly have to be formally approved with the signature of Dr. Hawass. Why then would the Inspector know nothing about it? And as an enigmatic aside to this question as prelude to Danley's appearance on the Art Bell Show, Mr. Bell quoted his previous guest, Dannion Brinkley (Saved By The Light) as saying Zahi Hawass confirmed to him that there was digging being done above the King's Chamber.

Now what a story like this needs is corroboration. Because, based on conventional Egyptological academics, there could be no reason whatsoever for permanently damaging this monument with structural tunneling. None. Period! Allegations of secret unknown chambers have been scientifically refuted. And even Rudolph Gantenbrink's robot exploration is presumably not worthy of pursuit.

Enter our corroborator. When news of the tunneling began to surface, it attracted the attention of Richard Hoagland's Enterprise Mission archeo-astronomical interests. Thus, Hoagland recruited Larry Hunter to investigate. For nearly 20 years and seventeen visits to Giza, Hunter has privately researched the geopositioning function of the Great Pyramid in the Orion-Giza Duat, i.e., its interdisciplinary specifics. The Enterprise Mission sent Hunter to Egypt in mid-June and late July, 1997, to independently investigate and film corroborative evidence of Thomas Danley's claimed experience. Hunter was successful, albeit wary of commitment to the stated objective since, at that time, claims from Boris Said's alleged film footage of the tunnel were never made available to him.

 

Photo Gallery of Richard Hoagland's Enterprise Mission

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Throughout his intentionally low-profile career, Hunter established a valuable asset of total familiarity with Giza monuments and environs. This includes a working understanding of the academic-political nexus for monument management which translates into the policies under scrutiny here. But, in fact, there is a mutual awareness of respective roles between Hunter and the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry he being the missing link for our better understanding of what is unraveling.

During Hunter's June trip to Giza, he indeed documented evidence corroborating specifics of Thomas Danley's tunneling story. On June 17, 1997, he photographed (all in plain view) along the Grand Gallery to the King's Chamber a two-piece ladder, an electric power cable and rope extending up into Davidson's Chamber and burlap bags of fresh hewn limestone tailings sitting right on the Great Step to the King's Chamber!?

Hunter's evidence may have been more than simply a verification of Danley's observation. The scene Hunter and his eyewitness assistant came upon was eight months after Danley's first encounter. Danley had reported tailings bags hidden out of reach not in plain view for tourists to notice. The power cable seen in June was apparently the same one considered new and hot to the touch (compared with cables seen in November 1996), as reported when Danley returned to Giza in February 1997 with Boris Said.

Whatever Danley and Hunter documented, it raises many questions regarding the pronouncement and application of policies by Director Zahi Hawass. On March 25, 1997, the Guardian newspaper quoted Dr. Hawass:

There is no secret work at Giza. Any research project is approved both by the Permanent Committee of Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA) and our Security Department.

So, as Thomas Danley reported, why didn't the official Antiquities Inspector escort to the Schor group know anything about the evidence of tunneling? To be sure, according to policy protocol every activity in the Pyramid requires authorizations and reports a paper trail.

At the close of Hunter's June 1997 trip, he first submitted photos and displayed limestone tailings samples to General Mohammed Asheik and second-in-command Mustapha Anah at the Tourist Police Field Station adjacent to the Great Pyramid. After learning of their reluctance to investigate, Hunter, to light a fire under them, phoned to tell them he had submitted the same evidence to Mohammed Sherdy, Assistant Managing Editor of El Wafd newspaper. Mr. Sherdy has begun a three-part series, publishing his investigation into this matter, as of September 4, 1997.

Now, the complexity and contradictions of the story intensify.

Dr. Hawass told Hunter personally, that he had begun receiving innumerable calls reacting to the story of Mr. Hunter's June appearance on the Art Bell Show as well as the Internet reportage. Hawass' explanation for the activity above the King's Chamber was: cleaning/restoring of hieroglyphics. However, as many of us non-credentialed Egyptologists well know, there are no hieroglyphics in or around Davidson's chamber, or anywhere else in the Pyramid! Hunter also adds that Hawass closed the Pyramid down in 1988 for extensive cleaning and restoration, during which a friend of his climbed into Davidson's Chamber reporting cleaning being done then as well. Given that this area is not accessible to anyone (generally), and there was never anything archaeologically symbolic to view there in the first place one wonders why all this cleaning is required to the extent of producing large limestone rock quantities.

Hunter returned to Giza in July to follow up on his demands for formal inquiry into this tunneling. Investigative reporting from the press, he feels, was not very effective, due to premature Internet exposure.

On Tuesday, July 22, Mohammed Sherdy was invited by Dr. Hawass to visit his office. Sherdy brought Hunter along for confirmation. Due to the publicity Hawass had apparently initiated damage control. Sherdy represents substantial editorial clout in Cairo and controversy was spreading internationally. Thus, Sherdy and Hunter presented their case to Dr. Hawass. The root source of evidence for the tunneling had always come from Boris Said's film project, as described by eyewitness Danley. When challenged with this, Dr. Hawass produced a faxed letter of disclaimer, authored by Said, denying any involvement whatsoever?! Yet with an air of neutrality, Hawass explained: there is activity of cleaning hieroglyphics in the Pyramid, but the rumors now being denied by Mr. Said were (according to Hawass) an effort by Said to coerce Hawass into granting Said license to complete the NBC film he's been doing, featuring the Schor activities at the Sphinx not the Great Pyramid!

In any case, Mr. Sherdy met with Dr. Hawass again, on July 30, his investigation still ongoing.

It is interesting to speculate if any remote sensing correlations were being made between the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid data, those Dr. Schor was authorized to make by the SCA. Even more interesting to know would be whether successful completion of remote sensing tests was then related to the series of delays and excuses issued by key SCA officials ultimately bringing the Schor/Said collaboration to a halt. And, of course, central to historical patterns of impasse experienced by all of the unorthodox, is reported manipulation by Egyptian vested interests with private agendas. Thomas Danley stated it in his Internet briefing:

So far as the Egyptian officials (are concerned), they were, near as I could tell, a costly, non-stop pain in the rear with all their in-fighting and internal struggles and grease money'...

Perhaps under the auspices of Dr. Schor's license the data derived from Danley's expertly applied testing for acoustic properties of the Great Pyramid were being used as computer functions in a context totally unknown to Danley?

Given the deep pattern of Egyptian inconsistencies, these questions seem reasonable. Nothing we know of has yet impugned the credibility of Thomas Danley a trained observer. Mohammed Sherdy was allowed to inspect the Davidson's Chamber area, taking photos. He claims he saw no evidence of tunneling, but the physically demanding circumstances of the situation may have kept the precise area in question out of his reach. Likewise, Larry Hunter's Egyptian sources say they know of an artisan who was sent in to construct a facade covering the tunnel entrance, which, given the absolute darkness of the area, would be effective.

This report seeks to emphasize the provable possibility that the Great Pyramid has been permanently violated via tunneling for some very suspicious reasoning. In the summer 1997 issue of KMT Magazine, Zahi Hawass stated:

The more tourists who visit the insides of the pyramids...the more damage is done to them. I personally feel that pyramids should be viewed only from the outside.

And now we've heard that a massive tunnel has been dug, compromising such damage control, for reasons inexplicable. Odd! Dr. Hawass was invited to discuss such questions on the September 3 broadcast of the Art Bell Show he declined.
 

EPILOGUE
Larry Hunter reports that word on the street, in the village adjacent to the monuments, is that tourist policemen Asheik and Anah have recently lost their jobs. We will try to confirm this.

One last reference of interest from Thomas Danley: he also described the acoustic reflectivity tests applied to the same Queen's Chamber star shaft probed with a robot by Gantenbrink. Danley performed his test repeatedly, concluding that the positive acoustic discontinuity (echo reflection) measured a sizable cavity behind the door, perhaps 30 feet deep.

Hunter again left for Egypt on September 18.