by Dr. Greg Little
from
MysteriousAmerica Website Last issue of Alternate Perceptions, I wrote a brief article on one of Andrew Collins’ stunning new ideas put forth in his latest book The Cygnus Mystery. The article’s long title, “Has Andrew Collins Found the Entrance to the Hall of Records at Giza? Are The Three Pyramids at Giza Aligned to Orion or Cygnus?" expressed the fist of what is actually one of the less important aspects of The Cygnus Mystery.
With a more-than-casual interest in
Edgar Cayce’s many pronouncements about ancient
Egypt, I found the well entrance Andrew found at Giza intriguing and
even more-so when I understood how the main stars of Cygnus
corresponded with the three large pyramids and the well.
Not only is the astronomical alignment to Cygnus present at countless ancient sites, but evidence of a cult of the dead that viewed a northern celestial bird as the carrier of souls is present across cultures. Cygnus was venerated by the ancients as the place of prime importance—the primal cause. In addition, The Cygnus Mystery shows conclusive scientific evidence that powerful cosmic rays from Cygnus have been showering the earth for hundreds of thousands of years.
Collins asserts that these cosmic rays served as a pivotal force that created several leaps in human evolution before 70,000 BC, 45,000 BC, and 17,000 BC. Collins’ idea is that the cosmic rays altered human DNA by mutating several parts of the links comprising the genetic code.
Mainstream physics and genetics
completely accept that cosmic rays alter DNA (they are radiation)
and even
Carl Sagan stated such in 1973.
Of course, there are many more details in the overall idea, and the
fact that Cygnus fits over the three main pyramids at Giza, even
better than Orion’s Belt has been alleged to fit, is a minor point
of interest in the totality of the theory.
For example, several people mentioned
that Cygnus wasn’t discussed in ancient Egyptian texts and that
Egyptian astronomy didn’t have a swan as a constellation. But Cygnus
was in Egyptian astronomy — they didn’t call it “Cygnus” and it wasn’t
described as a swan — it was depicted as another prominent Egyptian
figure. (The Native Americans didn’t call Cygnus, either, but
it was an important constellation of stars to them nonetheless.)
Another individual wrote that he had
been to Giza and hadn’t seen a well, so he questioned if it even
existed. He wanted to see a picture of it. Of course, a color photo
of the well is in the book and it is described as being in a closed
and secured Muslim cemetery. It isn’t open to the public.
Marduk’s review stated that Collins goes,
It was apparent Marduk had not actually
read any of the book.
The Edgar Cayce readings stated that astronomical alignments were present at Giza and since the important date that was being put forth by the British authors touting Orion was 10,450 BC—virtually the same date given in Cayce readings as the construction of the Atlantean Hall of Records and the Great Pyramid—it caused a great deal of excitement. In short, the idea has been about as completely accepted as fact in the ARE as it could be.
But Cayce, of course, did not state that
Orion’s Belt was the key. In an Appendix in The Orion Mystery, Bauval wrote that the Skyglobe program was “quite accurate for the
work described in The Orion Mystery.” (p. 247) But that has turned
out to not actually be the case, at least in the sense of a “perfect
match.”
In short, what this means is that the Orion Skyglobe shows in 10,500 BC is based on the Orion seen in the present—only the precession (the Earth’s wobble) is adjusted for.
In fact, Bauval has stated that the key Orion’s Belt measurement in 10,500 BC from his Skyglobe program is 11.5 degrees. But the actual measurement is almost 9 degrees. It might not seem like much, but his original 11.5 degrees is 28% higher than it should have been. In terms of a “perfect fit” of Orion’s Belt on top of the three pyramids at Giza, the net result is that there really isn’t a good fit.
It might be close, but it couldn’t be described as perfect, near perfect, or perhaps even good. This seems to have been first pointed out by astronomers examining the Orion claims. For example, in a 1999 article in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomer Tony Fairall wrote:
Since The Orion Mystery was published in 1994, a long series of book have been published by Bauval, Hancock, and others utilizing the supposed correspondence between Orion and Giza. These include: Keepers of the Genesis, The Secret Chamber, The Message of the Sphinx, Heaven's Mirror, Fingerprints of the Gods, and The Egypt Code.
The latter book, recently published, is essentially completely based on the idea that Giza was built to represent Orion’s Belt. The key thing to grasp here is that the lack of a good fit between Orion in 10,500 BC with the three pyramids at Giza hasn’t really stopped the writing of books that completely rely on the (non-existent) perfect fit.
But such scientific arguments against
Orion are beyond most peoples’ grasp. And I confess that it was a
bit too difficult for me to try to do the calculations myself,
besides, I liked the idea of Orion.
In addition, the other stars of Cygnus fell into key places at Giza—unlike Orion. This was truly impressive. I immediately wondered if the ARE—and countless believers in Bauval and Hancock’s 12-year-long, frequently made assertion—had been seduced by an overly simplified and inaccurate astronomical alignment. It seemed to me, with substantial training and qualifications in psychology, that the Orion correspondence was pleasing to believers in an unrecognized Egyptian history (myself included).
The lack of a real fit didn’t matter
once so many believers jumped onto the Orion bandwagon. But it also
was apparent that the nonbelievers only argument was that it didn’t
fit perfectly. (They had their own misguided bandwagon touting
“coincidence.”)
It is related that engineer Rodney Hale had utilized the Skyglobe program in vain to see the highly touted correspondence between Orion’s Belt and the three pyramids. Nor could he see the supposed correspondence between the Orion constellation with other pyramids and Egyptian sites alleged to exist. It was frustrating for Hale. In January 2005 Hale decided to see if Cygnus might show some correspondence to Giza.
He found, to his amazement, that Skyglobe showed the three inner stars of Cygnus fit perfectly onto the three pyramids. Much to his credit, Collins wrote that it is possible the correspondence is only coincidence. In short, he did not want to enter the Orion debate as the fundamental points of his book were far larger than the simplistic Giza alignment. And he has steadfastly maintained that he really doesn’t know if the Cygnus or Orion alignments are coincidence or not.
But because of the definite
correspondence between Cygnus and Giza, Collins theorizes that
Giza
possibly reflects Sokar, “ancient Egypt’s oldest funeral deity.” (p.
161) In brief, Sokar is a carrier of the soul, exactly as other
ancient cultures believed about Cygnus.
The reason is simple. Recall Bauval’s statement that Skyglobe doesn’t account for “proper motion” of stars. To understand what this means, all you have to do is remember when you were told that the universe is expanding. Everything in the universe is moving, but not in the exact same direction at the exact same speed. Over time, the actual position of one star in relation to another changes. The greater the time, the greater the change tends to be.
The program Starry Night Pro supposedly
adjusts for proper motion. In truth, I doubt it, because that would
mean that every visible star has been measured in speed and
direction and the program has embedded code that adjusts for each
star. On the other hand, major stars or important stars could be
more accurate. At least I hope so.
The Giza map I utilized was from the 1990s-2000’s Giza Mapping Project, considered to be the most accurate survey of the plateau and pyramids ever made. Rather than measuring the constellation stars on the screen (which is also derided in many commentaries) I actually took the constellation star “picture” from Starry Night Pro and overlaid it so that the center star of both Cygnus and Orion’s Belt would lay at the center of the middle pyramid. I placed colored dots on the key stars as they fell onto the Giza survey map.
The alignment of Cygnus in 2600 BC to the pyramids at Giza and the rest of Giza is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1—The primary stars of Cygnus as they appeared in 2600 BC as they fit onto the Giza plateau.
As
can be seen, two of the crossbar stars of Cygnus fit perfectly onto
two pyramids with the third star offset somewhat, but still on the
Great Pyramid itself. Interestingly, the Cygnus star that was
described as near the well in the Muslim cemetery is actually much
closer to the well than the less precise earlier calculation.
I found that the 10,500 BC alignment of Orion’s Belt fit much more poorly onto the three pyramids than did the 2600 BC alignment. (Actually, the closer you get to present time, the better Orion seems to fit, but it’s only a slight difference.)
Figure 2 shows a comparison of the 2600 BC alignments of Orion’s Belt and Cygnus as they fit onto the three pyramids. (Orion is in blue.)
as they appeared in 2600 BC as they fit onto the Giza plateau.
As can be seen, Orion’s Belt has two
stars that don’t fit well, although both of these still fall onto a
pyramid. It is clear that Cygnus, although it isn’t a “perfect fit,”
is a much better fit than is Orion. I’m sure that someone will fault
my method, perhaps the placement of the colored dots where the stars
fall, but when every method has flaws, one does the best that can be
done.
It is an intuitively satisfying idea—at least to me. But the truth is that Cygnus fits the three pyramids at Giza far better than Orion does. Does that mean that Cygnus is correct? No, not really. It means that there is a lot more investigation has to be done. It also means that we may never know. I’m sure that somewhere in the night sky there are three stars that can be fit rather precisely onto Giza.
The key thing involved in finding the
correct correspondence (assuming it exists) is in a good match as
well as other evidence supporting the match. But what Collins has
done in The Cygnus Mystery is what all good authors should do: Dig
into what’s known and dig in places where no one else has; Challenge
the status quo when evidence to the contrary emerges. And Collins
has done his work in making a massive and impressive case that
Cygnus was extremely important to the ancients for many, many
reasons.
The weight of the star alignment evidence clearly tells us the Orion correspondence is wrong. But so many have so much invested into it. Thousands of websites tout the Orion-Giza "fit" as precise and exact. Yet it isn't so. That’s the underlying psychology of the situation, and that is unlikely to go away or ever be addressed by the Orion proponents. So what is left is for individuals to make their own choices.
Some will choose based on preconceived ideas and professional commitments—whether it is to choose Orion or to decide it is coincidence as skeptics have done. On the other hand, there is the choice to let the cards fall where they will—and seek the truth—no matter how badly one wishes to be right about an idea.
No matter where one falls on this, Andrew Collins deserves a lot of credit for saying that it all might be a coincidence.
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