Disinformation Guide To Ancient Aliens, Lost Civilizations, Astonishing Archeology & Hidden History: (Disinformation Guides) - Softcover

Preston Peet

 
9781938875038: Disinformation Guide To Ancient Aliens, Lost Civilizations, Astonishing Archeology & Hidden History: (Disinformation Guides)

Synopsis

Contributions by David Hatcher Childress, Erich von Daniken, Graham Hancock, Frank Joseph, Robert M. Schoch, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos and others

Was our planet visited by alien astronauts in prehistory? Did it suffer collisions with a comet or asteroid? Do ancient myths and tales describe these visits and disasters in graphic detail?

This is an exploration of "hidden history", an area of enquiry that continues to fascinate an ever wider audience. In this massive compendium, editor Preston Peet brings together an all-star cast of contributors to question established wisdom about the history of the world and its civilisations. Peet and contributors such as Erich von Daniken, Graham Hancock, David Hatcher-Childress and Frank Joseph, guide us through exciting archaeological adventures and treasure hunts, ancient mysteries, lost or rediscovered technologies all of which defy conventional explanations.

Featuring serious scientific reports, scholarly studies and so-called fringe research, THE DISINFORMATION GUIDE TO ANCIENT ALIENS, LOST CIVILIZATIONS, ASTONISHING ARCHAEOLOGY AND HIDDEN HISTORY will change our understanding of where and how did our "modern" civilisation really begin.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Preston Peet is a writer, editor, photographer, musician, actor, DJ, activist and adventurer. He is, also, a regular contributor to High Times magazine and its website, the editor of the controversial website DrugWar.com and a columnist for New York Waste.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

disinformation guide to ANCIENT ALIENS, LOST CIVILIZATIONS, ASTONISHING ARCHAEOLOGY & HIDDEN HISTORY

By Preston Peet

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

Copyright © 2013 Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-938875-03-8

Contents

INTRODUCTION,
ORIGINS MYTHIC OR HISTORIC,
Michael A. Cremo—Human Devolution,
John Anthony West—Consider the Kali Yuga,
N. S. Rajaram—Ocean Origins of Indian Civilization,
Acharya S—Deus Noster, Deus Solis: Our God, God of the Sun,
Dave Dentel—Mysterious Origins—Are Humans Just a Happy Accident?,
ANCIENT CITIES, ANCIENT PLANS,
Richard Nisbet—Ancient Walls,
Gary A. David—Along the 33rd Degree Parallel: A Global Mystery Circle,
David Hatcher Childress—Did the Incas Build Machu Picchu?,
Colin Wilson—Summary of Atlantis and the Old Ones: An Investigation of the Age of Civilization,
Robert M. Schoch with Robert S. McNally—The Meaning of the Pyramids,
Roy A. Decker—The Secret Land,
Robert Merkin—Lingering Echoes: Athens, Jerusalem,
CATACLYSMS AND MIGRATIONS,
Graham Hancock—Underworld: Confronting Yonaguni,
Martin Gray—Sacred Geography: Cosmic and Cometary Induced Cataclysms, and the Megalithic Response,
George Erikson with Ivar Zapp—Atlantis in America: A Summing Up—Awaiting the New Paradigm,
Frank Joseph—Nan Madol: The Lost Civilization of the Pacific,
Graham Hancock—Underworld: Confronting Kerama,
TECHNOLOGIES AND CONTACTS,
Christopher Dunn—The Giza Power Plant,
Erich von Däniken—Aviation in Antiquity?,
Crichton E. M. Miller—The Constantine Conspiracy,
George T. Sassoon—The Ancient of Days: Deity or Manna-Machine?,
Giorgio A. Tsoukalos—The Giant Flying Turtles of Guatemala,
William R. Corliss—Ancient Scientific Instruments,
RELIGIONS AND WISDOMS,
Sharon Secor—Creation of a Gifted People: The Mayan Calendar,
Robert M. Schoch—Ancient Wisdom and the Great Sphinx of Giza,
Ron Sala—Where is the Holy Grail?,
Richard Cusick—Journey to Bubastis,
Dan Russell—Gnosis: The Plants of Truth,
MODERN EXPLORATIONS, ANOMALIES AND COVER-UPS,
Preston Peet—A Conversation With Greg Deyermenjian: Lost Cities Sought, Lost Cities Found,
Mickey Z.—Source of the Blood: Nazi Germany's Search for its Aryan Roots,
Michael Arbuthnot—Team Atlantis,
Troy Lovata—Shovel Bum—A Life Archaeologic,
Will Hart—Archaeological Cover-Ups: A Plot to Control History?,
RESOURCES,
ARTICLE HISTORIES,
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,


CHAPTER 1

ORIGINS MYTHIC OR HISTORIC


Michael A. Cremo

HUMAN DEVOLUTION

MY BOOK Forbidden Archeology, co-authored with Richard L. Thompson, documentsarchaeological evidence for extreme human antiquity, consistent with thePuranas, the historical writings of ancient India. This evidence places a humanpresence so far back in time as to call into question the Darwinian account ofhuman origins.

Kenneth Feder, in his review of Forbidden Archeology, said:

When you attempt to deconstruct a well-accepted paradigm, it is reasonable toexpect that a new paradigm be suggested in its place. The authors of ForbiddenArcheology do not do this, and I would like to suggest a reason for theirneglect here. Wishing to appear entirely scientific, the authors hoped to avoida detailed discussion of their own beliefs.


It is not true that my co-author and I were trying to avoid a detaileddiscussion of our own alternative account. Rather we were hoping to ignite justsuch a discussion. But some practical considerations compelled us to proceed instages. In my introduction to Forbidden Archeology, I wrote: "Our researchprogram led to results we did not anticipate, and hence a book much larger thanoriginally envisioned." I was genuinely surprised at the massive number of casesof archaeological evidence for extreme human antiquity that turned up during myeight years of historical research. Forbidden Archeology went to press with overnine hundred pages. "Because of this," I wrote in the introduction, "we have notbeen able to develop in this volume our ideas about an alternative to currenttheories of human origins. We are therefore planning a second volume relatingour extensive research results in this area to our Vedic source material." HumanDevolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory is that second volume. Thebasic message is simple. We do not evolve up from matter, rather we devolve, orcome down, from a level of pure consciousness, or spirit, if you like that word.

Although I am offering a Vedic alternative to Darwinism, I acknowledge that itis part of a larger family of spiritual alternatives to Darwinism rooted invarious world religions, which I also honor and respect. Interestingly enough,many scholars are now willing to consider such alternatives to the Westernscientific worldview as candidates for truth. For them, belief in suchworldviews is no longer taboo. In American Anthropologist, Katherine P. Ewingsaid:

To rule out the possibility of belief in another's reality is to encapsulatethat reality and, thus, to impose implicitly the hegemony of one's own view ofthe world.


The basic message is simple. We do not evolve up from matter, rather we devolve,or come down, from a level of pure consciousness, or spirit, if you like thatword.

In the Journal of Consciousness Studies, William Barnard, in speaking about theworld's wisdom traditions, advocated:

... a scholarship that is willing and able to affirm that the metaphysicalmodels ... of these different spiritual traditions are serious contenders fortruth, a scholarship that realizes that these religious worlds are not deadcorpses that we can dissect and analyze at a safe distance, but rather areliving, vital bodies of knowledge and practice that have the potential to changeour taken-for-granted notions.

I am asking that scientists and scholars approach in this spirit the Vedicperspective on human origins outlined in Human Devolution.


A PROCESS OF KNOWLEDGE FILTRATION

Before presenting an alternative to the Darwinian concept of human origins, itis reasonable to show that an alternative is really necessary. One thing thatclearly demonstrates the need for an alternative is the archaeological evidencefor extreme human antiquity. Such evidence actually exists, but it has beensystematically eliminated from scientific discussion by a process of knowledgefiltration. Archaeological evidence that contradicts the Darwinian theory ofhuman evolution is often rejected for just that reason.

For example, in the Nineteenth Century, gold was discovered in California. Toget it, miners dug tunnels into the sides of mountains, such as Table Mountainin Tuolumne County. Deep inside the tunnels, in deposits from the early EoceneAge (about 50 million years ago), miners found human bones and artifacts. Thediscoveries were carefully documented by Dr. J. D. Whitney, the chief governmentgeologist of California, in his book The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevadaof California, published by Harvard University in 1880. But we do not hear verymuch about these discoveries today. In the Smithsonian Institution Annual Reportfor 1898-1899, anthropologist William Holmes said,

Perhaps if Professor Whitney had fully appreciated the story of human evolutionas it is understood today, he would have hesitated to announce the conclusionsformulated, notwithstanding the imposing array of testimony with which he wasconfronted.


In other words, if the facts did not fit the theory of human evolution, thefacts had to be set aside, and that is exactly what happened.

Such bias continued into the Twentieth Century. In the 1970s, Americanarchaeologists led by Cynthia Irwin Williams discovered stone tools atHueyatlaco, near Puebla, Mexico. The stone tools were of advanced type, madeonly by humans like us. A team of geologists, from the United States GeologicalSurvey and universities in the United States, came to Hueyatlaco to date thesite. Among the geologists was Virginia Steen-McIntyre. To date the site, theteam used four methods—uranium series dating on butchered animal bones foundalong with the tools, zircon fission track dating on volcanic layers above thetools, tephra hydration dating of volcanic crystals and standard stratigraphy.

The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns themanipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of "enigmatic data,"data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking.


The four methods converged on an age of about 250,000 years for the site. Thearcheologists refused to consider this date. They could not believe that humanscapable of making the Hueyatlaco artifacts existed 250,000 years ago. In defenseof the dates obtained by the geologists, Virginia Steen-McIntyre wrote in aletter (March 30, 1981) to Estella Leopold, associate editor of QuaternaryResearch:

The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns themanipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of "enigmatic data,"data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking. Hueyatlaco certainly doesthat! Not being an anthropologist, I didn't realize the full significance of ourdates back in 1973, nor how deeply woven into our thought the current theory ofhuman evolution has become. Our work at Hueyatlaco has been rejected by mostarchaeologists because it contradicts that theory, period.

This remains true today, not only for the California gold mine discoveries andthe Hueyatlaco human artifacts, but also for hundreds of other discoveriesdocumented in the scientific literature of the past 150 years.


REVISING THE DARWINIAN EVOLUTIONARY PICTURE

There is also fossil evidence showing that the current Darwinian picture of theevolution of nonhuman species is also in need of revision. Beginning in the1940s, geologists and paleobotanists working with the Geological Survey of Indiaexplored the Salt Range Mountains in what is now Pakistan. They found, deep insalt mines, evidence for the existence of advanced flowering plants and insectsin the early Cambrian periods, about 600 million years ago. According tostandard evolutionary ideas, no land plants or animals existed at that time.Flowering plants and insects are thought to have come into existence hundreds ofmillions of years later. To explain the evidence some geologists proposed thatthere must have been a massive overthrust, by which Eocene layers, about 50million years old, were thrust under Cambrian layers, over 550 million yearsold. Others pointed out that there were no geological signs of such anoverthrust. According to these scientists, the layers bearing the fossils of theadvanced plants and insects were found in normal position, beneath stratacontaining trilobites, the characteristic fossil of the Cambrian. One of thesescientists, E. R. Gee, a geologist working with the Geological Survey of India,proposed a novel solution to the problem. In the proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of India for the year 1945, paleobotanist Birbal Sahninoted:

Evidence from biochemistry, genetics and developmental biology also contradictsthe Darwinian theory of human evolution ... As far as evolution itself isconcerned, it has not been demonstrated in any truly scientific way. It remainsan article of faith.

Quite recently, an alternative explanation has been offered by Mr. Gee. Thesuggestion is that the angiosperms, gymnosperms and insects of the Saline Seriesmay represent a highly evolved Cambrian or Precambrian flora and fauna! In otherwords, it is suggested that these plants and animals made their appearance inthe Salt Range area several hundred million years earlier than they did anywhereelse in the world. One would scarcely have believed that such an idea would beseriously put forward by any geologist today.

The controversy was left unresolved. In the 1990s, petroleum geologists, unawareof the earlier controversy, restudied the area. They determined that the saltdeposits below the Cambrian deposits containing trilobites were early Cambrianor Precambrian. In other words, they found no evidence of an overthrust. Thesalt deposits were in a natural position below the Cambrian deposits. Thissupports Gee's suggestion that the plant and insect remains in the salt depositswere evidence of an advanced fauna and flora existing in the early Cambrian.This evidence contradicts not only the Darwinian concept of the evolution ofhumans but of other species as well.

Evidence from biochemistry, genetics and developmental biology also contradictsthe Darwinian theory of human evolution. Although the origin of life fromchemicals is technically not part of the evolution theory, it has in practicebecome inseparably connected with it. Darwinists routinely assert that lifearose from chemicals. But after decades of theorizing and experimenting, theyare unable to say exactly which chemicals combined in exactly which way to formexactly which first living thing. As far as evolution itself is concerned, ithas not been demonstrated in any truly scientific way. It remains an article offaith.

The modern evolutionary synthesis is based on genetics. Evolutionists posit arelationship between the genotype (genetic structure) of an organism and itsphenotype (physical structure). They say that changes in the genotype result inchanges in the phenotype, and by natural selection the changes in phenotypeconferring better fitness in a particular environment accumulate in organisms.Evolutionists claim that this process can account for the appearance of newstructural features in organisms. But on the level of microbiology, thesestructures appear to be irreducibly complex. Scientists have not been able tospecify exactly how they have come about in step-by-step fashion. They have notbeen able to tell us exactly what genetic changes resulted in what phenotypicchanges to produce particular complex features of organisms. This would requirethe specification of intermediate stages leading up to the complex structures weobserve today. In his book Darwin's Black Box, biochemist Michael Behe says,

In the past ten years, Journal of Molecular Evolution has published more than athousand papers ... There were zero papers discussing detailed models forintermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures. This is nota peculiarity of JME. No papers are to be found that discuss detailed models forintermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures, whether inthe Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Nature, Science, the Journalof Molecular Biology or, to my knowledge, any science journal.

Attempts by scientists to use genetic evidence to demonstrate the time and placethat anatomically modern humans have come into existence have resulted inembarrassing mistakes and contradictions. The first widely publicized reportsthat genetic evidence allowed scientists to say that all living humans arosefrom an African Eve who lived 200,000 years ago in Africa turned out to befatally flawed. Researchers have attempted to correct the mistakes, but theresults remain confused. Considering the complexities surrounding genetic data,some scientists have suggested that fossils remain the most reliable evidencefor questions about human origins and antiquity. In an article in AmericanAnthropologist, David W. Frayer and his co-authors said:

Unlike genetic data derived from living humans, fossils can be used to testpredictions of theories about the past without relying on a long list ofassumptions about the neutrality of genetic markers, mutational rates, or otherrequirements necessary to retrodict the past from current genetic variation ...genetic information, at best, provides a theory of how modern human originsmight have happened if the assumptions used in interpreting the genetic data arecorrect.

This means that the archaeological evidence for extreme human antiquitydocumented in Forbidden Archeology provides a much-needed check on the rampantspeculations of genetic researchers. This evidence contradicts current Darwinianaccounts of human origins.


A REAL NEED FOR AN ALTERNATIVE ACCOUNT—THE PARANORMAL

So evidence from archaeology, paleontology, biochemistry, genetics anddevelopmental biology demonstrates a real need for an alternative to the currentDarwinian account of human origins. The work of Alfred Russel Wallace, cofounderwith Darwin of the theory of evolution by natural selection, provides anintroduction to the alternative explanation. Wallace, along with other Britishscientists, such as Sir William Crookes, a prominent physicist and president ofthe Royal Society, conducted extensive experiments into the paranormal. Theseexperiments and observations led Wallace to revise the worldview of science.Wallace concluded that the universe is populated with spirit beings. Some of theminor spirit beings, he proposed, are in contact with the human population onearth, usually through mediums. According to Wallace, the minor spirit beings,acting through mediums, were responsible for a variety of paranormal phenomena,including clairvoyance, miraculous healings, communications from the dead,apparitions, materializations of physical objects, levitations, etc. Morepowerful spirit beings may have played a role in the origin of species.


(Continues...)
Excerpted from disinformation guide to ANCIENT ALIENS, LOST CIVILIZATIONS, ASTONISHING ARCHAEOLOGY & HIDDEN HISTORY by Preston Peet. Copyright © 2013 Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
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