Spring is well and truly upon us and it is time for me to let you know what’s happening in my curious world. This year’s Questing Conference, scheduled to take place at the Institute of Education, Bedford Way, off Russell Square, London WC1 on Saturday, 14 October is set to be the best ever. The most recent addition to the list of speakers is Michael Cremo, the author of the breath-taking book FORBIDDEN ARCHAEOLOGY. He will argue the case for the presence on earth of humanity many millions of years before the date accepted by palaeontologists. He will present astounding evidence of how the discovery of human remains and fashioned artefacts in different geological strata on every continent has been systematically ignored and suppressed by Darwinian scientists. All I can say is that I saw him present this important lecture recently at the San Marino conference, which took place on 25/26 March, and, let me tell you, it is not to be missed by anyone. For example, there is the case of the many flint tools found by nineteenth-century gold miners tunnelling through solid rock inside Tuolumne Table Mountain, California. These priceless artefacts were recorded in 1880 in a book entitled THE AURIFEROUS GRAVELS OF
THE SIERRA NEVADA, penned by California’s state geologist Dr J. D. Whitney. The problem here is that the rock strata in question belonged to the Eocene epoch, which corresponds to a time-frame between 65 and 38 millions years ago.

Then there is the case of the fossilised footprints of modern man uncovered in 1979 at a site near Laetoli in Tanzania by respected paleontologist Mary Leakey, the mother of Richard Leakey. The rock layer in question was 3.7 million, the date given for the oldest known hominid, or ancestor of modern man. Yet this so-called Australopithecus had toes one and half times larger than our own and big toes that turned outwards at an angle. In no way could this hominid account for the footprints found by Mary Leakey.

Michael recounts the plight of American geologist Virginia Steen-McIntyre who was called in to date stone artefacts and human remains found at two site excavations in Mexico - Hueyatlaco and El Horno. After careful consideration of the rock strata in question she concluded that the finds came from a layer corresponding to 250,000 years ago. Archaeologists only believe that ancient man entered the American continent from northeast Asia around 30,000 years ago. Not only was she ostracised for her statements, but the archaeologist in charge of excavations ignored her findings completely and instead claimed that the finds were just 20,000 years old based on a Carbon-14 date achieved several kilometres away!

I could go on. There is so much you don’t know about, and we are not talking here about a few odd reports of weird artefacts being found by chance and reported in books by the likes of Erich von Daniken. There are literally hundreds of well-attested cases where out-of-place artefacts have been found in geological strata they simply should not have been in. Archaeologists and paleontologists dismiss all such claims, and say that any genuine cases where artefacts or human remains have been found at a level deeper than they should be is as a result of intrusive burial. This is where holes are dug to bury the dead and then, when they are discovered in modern times, it is assumed that the remains date to the age of the strata in which they are found. Yet Michael Cremo can show that there are well-attested cases of human remains being found in strata beneath hundreds of metres of solid rock!

Anyway, hear these and many other fascinating stories when Michael Cremo delivers his lecture at the Questing Conference in October. The other speakers are as per the red flyer (which shows, by way of a backdrop, interments inside the Citadel, which houses the Temple of Quetzalcoatl at Teotihuacan in Central Mexico as caught on camera by transoceanic specialist David Eccott). The rest of the line up is COLIN WILSON on the age of civilisation; MICHAEL BAIGENT on lost civilisations, shamanism and the roots of Hermetica; VICTOR CLUBE on the origins of catastrophe myths; GRAHAM PHILLIPS on Egypt, the Early Church and the Marian Conspiracy; ANDREW COLLINS on the Feathered Serpents; MICHAEL CARMICHAEL on Egypt, Sacred Drugs and the Blue Water Lily; plus Special Guest from the United States noted archaeologist NEIL STEEDE on Giza, Mexico and the enigma of Tiahuanaco. You will recall from a previous EARTHQUEST NEWS that Neil Steede has been able to confirm archaeologist Arthur Posnansky’s early dating for the Kalasasaya palace court at Tiahuanaco, near Lake Titicaca, in Bolivia. Using hi-tech measuring equipment, Steede has been able to determine that the solstitial alignments over its eastern gate correspond to a date of between 9000 and 7000 BC, slightly later than Posnansky’s proposed 15,000 to 10,000 BC. Perhaps Neil is just trying to be necessarily conservative in his estimates. His
findings do not necessarily mean that the structure dates to this early period only that the orientation of the court reflects this distant age (conventional dating places the construction of the city at around 2000 years ago, with the earliest occupation some 3,500 years ago). I look forward immensely to Neil’s lecture.

Tickets for the Questing Conference are priced at £28 each. They are available from the PO Box using the reply coupon on the web site accompanying the flyer or via the Credit Card Hotline on 020.7405.2120. By the way, this hotline service is in fact Atlantis Bookshop in Museum St., London, so don’t be surprised when you hear them say this name. It is also my pleasure to announce that the conference is being sponsored by NEXUS magazine, who along with Atlantis Bookshop will have bookstalls on the day.

Look at any world map showing the migrational routes of early man and Antarctica is always avoided. Scholars will tell you that the ice-bound continent was never occupied due to its extreme weather conditions and inaccessibility. However, after many years of speculation about alleged structures and artefacts being found and hushed up on Antarctica (none of which are likely to be true, I might add) comes better news that ancient man did once inhabit the region. This information was given to me by Italian engineer and writer Flavio Barbiero following his lecture on Antarctica, Atlantis and a proposed pole shift following an impact event in around 9500 BC (although I would context this date, suggesting that the event occurred 8500 +/- 500 years) at San Marino. He tells me that the earliest possible evidence dates back to 1903.

In that year the Swedish explorer Carl Larsen landed on Seymour Island, which lies in the Weddell Sea beyond the continent’s north-west coast. In an area of exposed land he is said to have come across various fossils, showing a prior warmer climate, as well as numerous small cylinders and balls of clay, which appeared to be of artificial construction. Flavio and his colleagues have been trying to follow up this story, with one of them even travelling to Sweden to interview Larsen’s descendents. Although the artefacts were destroyed when the family home was lost in a fire, copies of Larsen’s report, which includes an account of the discovery of the strange objects, has been found. I have requested a copy of this report and will follow up this story in due course.

In addition to the strange cylinders and clay balls found on Seymour Island, it seems that sediment cores extracted by a Chilean research vessel from the sea-bottom beneath the ice off South Shetland Island, north of Antarctica, produced more evidence of a human presence in prehistoric times. In two separate cores flint tools of unquestionable human manufacture were found. How they might have come to be there is open to speculation. Yet the fact that they were found in cores taken from different locations suggests that there must be further evidence of human life so close to Antarctica. Once again, I will bring you further news of this story as and when it becomes available.

When I began writing GATEWAY TO ATLANTIS it was my impression that Antarctica was Atlantis. However, after studying Plato’s story of Atlantis, preserved in the Timaeus and Critias I became convinced that this fabled island empire lay on the western Atlantic seaboard. I further pinned down the location to the Caribbean, Cuba in particular, with the sunken lands being the now drowned parts of the former Bahaman landmass and Cuba’s Bay of Batabanó. This was the theory I went with in the book. However, even at this time I realised that the picture was slightly more complex. Although I could not prove it, my colleague David Southwell and I had worked out that prior to 15,000 BC Antarctica might well have been inhabited. Sometime around this date an event occurred to displace its indigenous peoples northwards towards South America, where they created new cultures. Others went by sea to the Caribbean, where they went on to found the Atlantean culture. As mad as these thoughts might seem, this is almost exactly what Flavio Barbiero proposed in his lecture at San Marino. He believes that the Antarcticans arrived via the prevailing ocean currents from Island Southeast Asia around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. They
settled in its north-west region, which at the time was still free of ice. Here they remained, he says, until 9500 BC when an impact event caused a sudden shift of the poles to their current position. Ice and rising waters from the melting of the old ice caps covered any evidence of their occupation. The Antarcticans, he proposes, migrated to different parts of the world including South America, the Caribbean, Africa, India, and even Egypt. We beg to differ on dates but I can handle virtually everything of what Flavio is proposing in this respect (read more on this subject in my review of the conference on Eden – the Andrew Collins web site at http://www.andrewcollins.net).

Flavio Barbiero is seen in Italy as a respectable scholar. He is taken seriously!

We have vowed to work together to sort out this mystery once and for all.

As you might well know, the works of Charles Hapgood, the Flem-aths and Graham Hancock have all played with the idea that Antarctica might once have been the seat of a major lost civilisation. Yet it is as well to remember that the first scholar to propose that the earliest cultures of South America came from Antarctica was Arthur Posnansky, the archaeologist who worked so hard on Tiahuanaco. He concluded that its high culture came originally from the ice-bound continent as early as 15,000 BC and showed maps to this effect in his four-volume masterpiece on the ancient city. So is there any real evidence of an Antarctican influence in South America?

One event that could well provide the answer is the DIE WELT DES UNERKLÄRLICHEN: UNSOLVED MYSTERIES exhibition, scheduled to take place at the Design Center in Linz, Austria, between 22 June and 25 August next year. It will bring together for the first time out-of-place artefacts from all over the world. Key speakers are also being invited to deliver lectures at an opening seminar. Altogether over 150 items have been secured so far for the two month exhibition. They include various crystal skulls, gold models of aeroplanes from Peru, copies of reliefs of ancient `bulbs’ from the Temple of Denderah in Egypt; carved stones from Ica, Peru, as well as some quite remarkable pieces from private collections in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

I have been invited to present a lecture at the opening seminar and have also seen photographs of some of the artefacts to go on display, and believe me you have just got see this lot. For instance, from Colombia there are black stone surgical instruments fashioned into strange amphibian like beasts with wavy blades, as well as strange carved disks with curious stars and beasts and unfathomable cups. These last mentioned items are fashioned from black stone. Yet incised, flush, into their surface are circular specks of a red stone. They seem to spiral towards a centre which is the only spot on the cup that it magnetic. Other similar vessels with strange designs also have inexplicable magnetic qualities.

There is an eerie quality about some of these artefacts - something that just does not compute with the mindset of the ancient world. For example, the cult centre at Nevali Çori in southwest Turkey was constructed around 8000 BC. Yet its design resembles any place of worship built since that time, for it has four walls, is rectilinear in shape, has a flat floor, an entrance portal, niches, statues, and probably even an altar (as per neighbouring Çayonu). The same format is still being used in the design of churches, synagogues, shrines, temples and mosques today. Yet these items from South America fit no known design ideology found among pre-Columbian cultures, or any ancient world civilisation. There is a true mystery here and it is one that might lead us to better identify traces of a lost civilisation that may not have derived from the mindset of the ancient world. I will bring you more news on this fascinating event as and when I receive details. In the meantime visit their web site at http://www.unsolved-mysteries.net or go to Eden, my own web site, at http://www.andrewcollins.net which has a full report with pictures of some of the artefacts to be featured in the exhibition.

Another key lecture given at the San Marino conference in March was that by Vittorio di Cesare, one of Italy’s top
archaeologists. He started with an account of the Dead Sea Community at Qumrân and the discovery in 1947 of the Dead Sea Scrolls, hidden by members of the community in caves in an attempt to preserve their history and teachings for future generations.

Di Cesare then turned his attention to one scroll in particular. Known to Hebrew scholars as the Testament of Amram, it was written around 200 BC. He said it concerned two strange beings that appeared to Amram, the father of Moses. One was unnamed (although in my translation of the fragmentary text he is identified as Michael or Melchizedek), while the other was Belial, the teacher of the Children of Darkness. Amram is asked to choose between the two, who represent, respectively, the truth and the lie. This was a concept that came originally from the Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism. It entered the Jewish religion at the time of the Babylonian captivity following the conquest of Babylon in the mid sixth-century BC by the Persians under Cyrus the Great. Yet it was the appearance of Belial that di Cesare focused on. The being is said to have been dark with a viper-like face and blazing eyes. Serpents, he said, are universally associated with the principles of knowledge and wisdom.

Di Cesare showed next a slide of one of the snake-headed clay figurines found with frequency by Sir Leonard Woolley alongside burials excavated during the 1920s at sites in Lower Iraq. Many, for instance, were found in cemeteries at Ur, the former great city identified by scholars as the biblical `Ur of the Chaldees’. Since the level at which these figurines was found corresponded to the time period in which Iraq was inhabited by the so-called Ubaid peoples, who came originally from the Zagros mountains of Kurdistan, it meant that they dated to c. 3500 BC (although di Cesare spoke of them as dating to 6500 BC). Di Cesare said that mystery surrounded the purpose of the statues, which showed males, females and females holding babies. He suggested that they were buried in order to protect the souls of the dead and to prevent the deceased from becoming victims of vampires, a common belief among the peoples of ancient Iraq.

Di Cesare saw the Ubaid statues as representations of the same serpent-like figure featured in the Testament of Amram. He went on to propose that these beings were an actual race that lived in the Near East in prehistoric times and were responsible for providing the knowledge of civilisation. All these matters are dealt with in great detail within my own books FROM THE ASHES OF ANGELS (1996) and GODS OF EDEN (1998). As you can imagine, I sensed what only can be described as a slight case of déjà vu – the same feeling I experienced when reading Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas’ book URIEL’S MACHINE.

I listened carefully as di Cesare turned his attentions to the significance played by the abstract eye goddess statues found at a temple site called Tel Brak in northern Syria. These, he said, were yet another link to the serpent cult. Yet he failed to note that the veneration of the eye in the Near East derived from its associations with the vulture, the ultimate symbol of the Neolithic cult of the dead, which went hand-in-hand with serpentine symbolism. Di Cesare then showed slides of other `guardian’ statues from Palestine, Syria and even Italy that bore a resemblance to the Ubaid figurines, suggesting that these were likewise connected with the same tradition. This is a matter I also deal with in FROM THE ASHES OF ANGELS, published in Italy in 1997 under the title GLI ULTIMI DEI (‘The Last Gods’) by Sperling and Kupfer. In here I point out that the beak-like faces of these statues, some of which have cobra hoods (and are thus representations of Astarte, the Canaanite form of Eve, the serpent mother of the Nephilim), derive from the earlier association between serpents and abstract vulture symbolism. Di Cesare went on to show a slide which featured a group of Mesopotamian figurines that he said were Anunnaki, the Sumerian
pantheon of lesser gods. Like me, he too identified these beings with the strange figures featured in the Testament of Amram and the Ubaid serpent-faced figurines.

The only topic he subsequently covered which is not in FROM THE ASHES OF ANGELS was the possible link between the serpent-like `guardians of knowledge’, as he referred to them, and the phallic standing stones found at many Canaanite and Phoenician sites in Syria and Lebanon (and generally considered to be symbols of the goddess Asherah). He concluded his lecture by saying that we have here evidence of a widespread cult which revered an ancient race, connected with the symbol of the serpent and the eye and thought to be the givers of ancient knowledge and wisdom.

As soon as Vittorio di Cesare came off stage I asked him if he was aware of my own work on the same subject. From his reaction, this seemed not to be the case. So I offered to send him Italian translations of both works as quickly as possible (he has acknowledged receipt of them). Vittorio tells me that he is preparing a book on the subject to be entitled GODS OF FIRE. I have offered an introduction and wait intriguingly for new developments in this area. I am left with the prospect that one of Italy’s most eminent archaeologists has independently confirmed the existence of a previously unrecognised race connected with serpentine symbolism and the spread of ancient knowledge. As you will know, this shamanic ruling elite are to be associated with the Watchers of Enochian/Dead Sea literature (and through them the angels of Judeo-Christian tradition), the Ubaid statues of Lower Iraq, the eye goddesses of ancient Syria and the Anunnaki of Mesopotamian myth and legend. We must not forget, however, that some of these ideas, especially the human origin of the Watchers of Eden and the Anunnaki, were explored
originally by Christian O’Brien in his landmark book GENIUS OF THE FEW, first published in 1985. Yet I believe I was the first writer to identify the Watchers as a shamanic ruling elite that controlled the spread of the Neolithic revolution and paved the way for the foundations of ancient world civilisation.

Check out my web site which now includes an in depth article on the history and development of the Watchers of Eden. So until next time, Ciao for now.

Andrew Collins

PS. The UK hardback edition of GATEWAY TO ATLANTIS is now out of print with no reprint due (although some first editions are still available in shops – so snap them up!). The book will be available in the US, Italy, Holland and Portugal either later this year or in early 2001. GATEWAY is, however, still available in a large soft-cover format that was for UK export only. Copies of these are available using the reply coupon found on Eden – the Andrew Collins web site.

The following is an intriguing article entitled  “Archeological Coverups”, by David Hatcher Childress in the above NEXUS magazine.  Following that is a newspaper article from a 1909 newspaper indicating a bizarre suppressed find in the Grand Canyon area.

It indicates either a hoax published at the time OR that the Smithsonian and/or the government is covering up details of past archeological discoveries that would rock current understanding of the past.
Despite KeelyNet being primarily a science based board, this article intrigues us because of the similarity in information suppression to “protect the people”....this  would  appear  to be the reason WHY we don’t have working free energy and  anti-grav  devices  as  well  as absolute cures for most terminal diseases.
If, after reading the article and the attached newspaper file, you decide to investigate the matter further, we here at KeelyNet would appreciate you sharing your findings with either/or Mr. Childress at the World Explorers Club or us here at KeelyNet.  Thanks...>>> Jerry Archeological Coverups?
by David Hatcher Childress

Most of us are familiar with the last scene in the popular Indiana Jones archeological adventure film RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK in which an important historical artifact, the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple in Jerusalem, is locked in a crate and put in a giant warehouse, never to be seen again, thus ensuring that no history books will have to be rewritten and no history professor will have to revise the lecture that he has been giving for the last forty years.

While the film was fiction, the scene in which an important ancient relic is buried in a warehouse is uncomfortably close to reality for many researchers.  To those who investigate allegations of archaeological cover-ups, there are disturbing indications that the most important archaeological institute in the United States, the Smithsonian Institute, an independent federal agency, has been actively suppressing some of the most interesting and important archaeological discoveries made in the Americas.

The Vatican has been long accused of keeping artifacts and ancient books in their vast cellars, without allowing the outside world access to them.  These secret treasures, often of a controversial historical or religious nature, are allegedly suppressed by the Catholic Church because they might damage the church’s credibility, or perhaps cast their official texts in doubt.   Sadly, there is overwhelming evidence that something very similar is happening with the Smithsonian Institution.

The cover-up and alleged suppression of archaeological evidence began in late 1881 when John Wesley Powell, the geologist famous for exploring the Grand Canyon, appointed Cyrus Thomas as the director of the Eastern Mound Division of the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of Ethnology.
When Thomas came to the Bureau of Ethnology he was a “pronounced believer in the existence of a race of Mound Builders, distinct from the American Indians.”

However, John Wesley Powell, the director of the Bureau of Ethnology, a very sympathetic man toward the American Indians, had lived with the peaceful Winnebago Indians of Wisconsin for many years as a youth and felt that American Indians were unfairly thought of as primitive and savage.

The Smithsonian began to promote the idea that Native Americans, at that time being exterminated in the Indian Wars, were descended from advanced civilizations and were worthy of respect and protection.
They also began a program of suppressing any archaeological evidence that lent credence to the school of thought known as Diffusionism, a school which believes that throughout history there has been widespread dispersion of culture and civilization via contact by ship and major trade routes.

The Smithsonian opted for the opposite school, known as Isolationism.  Isolationism holds that most civilizations are isolated from each other and that there has been very little contact between them, especially those that are separated by bodies of water.  In this intellectual war that started in the 1880s, it was held that even contact between the civilizations of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys were rare, and certainly these civilizations did not have any contact with such advanced cultures as the Mayas, Toltecs, or Aztecs in Mexico and Central America. By Old World standards this is an extreme, and even ridiculous idea, considering that the river system reached to the Gulf of Mexico and these civilizations were as close as the opposite shore of the gulf.  It was like saying that cultures in the Black Sea area could not have had contact with the Mediterranean.

When the contents of many ancient mounds and pyramids of the Midwest were examined, it was shown that the history of the Mississippi River Valleys was that of an ancient and sophisticated culture that had been in contact with Europe and other areas.  Not only that, the contents of many mounds revealed burials of huge men, sometimes seven or eight feet tall, in full armor with swords and sometimes huge treasures.

(Vangard note. >Eastern Indian texts say that at one time men lived thousands of years and grew very tall in direct proportion to their age, as does the Bible with the comment “and there were GIANTS in the earth in those days...”)
For instance, when Spiro Mound in Oklahoma was excavated in the 1930’s, a tall man in full armor was discovered along with a pot of thousands of pearls and other artifacts, the largest such treasure so far documented. The whereabouts of the man in armor is unknown and it is quite likely that it eventually was taken to the Smithsonian Institution.

In a private conversation with a well-known historical researcher (who shall remain nameless), I was told that a former employee of the Smithsonian, who was dismissed for defending the view of diffusionism in the Americas  (i.e. the heresy that other ancient civilizations may have visited the shores of North and South America during the many millennia before Columbus), alleged that the Smithsonian at one time had actually taken a barge full of unusual artifacts out into the Atlantic and dumped them in the ocean.

Though the idea of the Smithsonian’ covering up a valuable archaeological find is difficult to accept for some, there is, sadly, a great deal of evidence to suggest that the Smithsonian Institution has knowingly covered up and ‘lost’ important archaeological relics.  The STONEWATCH NEWSLETTER of the Gungywamp Society in Connecticut, which researches megalithic sites in New England, had a curious story in their Winter 1992 issue about stone coffins discovered in 1892 in Alabama which were sent to the Smithsonian Institution and then   ‘lost’.    According to the newsletter, researcher Frederick J. Pohl wrote an intriguing letter in 1950 to the late Dr. T.C. Lethbridge, a British archaeologist.

The letter from Pohl stated,  “A professor of geology sent me a reprint (of the) Smithsonian Institution, THE CRUMF BURIAL CAVE by Frank Burns, US Geological Survey, from the report of the US National Museum for 1892, pp 451-454, 1984.   In the Crumf Cave, southern branch of the Warrior River, in Murphy's Valley, Blount County, Alabama, accessible from Mobile Bay by river, were coffins of wood hollowed out by fire, aided by stone or copper chisels.

Either of these coffins was taken to the Smithsonian.  They were about 7.5 feet long, 14” to 18” wide, 6” to 7” deep.  Lids open.  “I wrote recently to the Smithsonian, and received a reply March 11th from F.M. Setzler, Head Curator of Department of Anthropology (He said) ‘We have not been able to find the specimens in our collections, though records show that they were received.”

David Barron, President of the Gungywamp Society was eventually told by the Smithsonian in 1992 that the coffins were actually wooden troughs and that they could not be viewed anyway because they were housed in an asbestos-contaminated warehouse.  This warehouse was to be closed for the next ten years and no one was allowed in except the Smithsonian personnel!

Ivan T. Sanderson, a well-known zoologist and frequent guest on Johnny Carson’s TONIGHT SHOW in the 1960s  (usually with an exotic animal with a pangolin or a lemur), once related a curious story about a letter he received regarding an engineer who was stationed on the Aleutian island of Shemya during World War II.   While building an airstrip, his crew bulldozed a group of hills and discovered under several sedimentary layers what appeared to be human remains.  The Alaskan mound was in fact a graveyard of gigantic human remains, consisting of crania and long leg bones.

The crania measured from 22 to 24 inches from base to crown.  Since an adult skull normally measures about eight inches from back to front, such a large crania would imply an immense size for a normally proportioned human.  Furthermore, every skull was said to have been neatly trepanned (a process of cutting a hole in the upper portion of the skull).

In fact, the habit of flattening the skull of an infant and forcing it to grow in an elongated shape was a practice used by ancient Peruvians, the Mayas, and the Flathead Indians of Montana. Sanderson tried to gather further proof, eventually receiving a letter from another member of the unit who confirmed the report.  The letters both indicated that the Smithsonian Institution had collected the remains, yet nothing else was heard.  Sanderson seemed convinced that the Smithsonian Institution had received the bizarre relics, but wondered why they would not release the data.  He asks, “...is it that these people cannot face rewriting all the textbooks?”

In 1944 an accidental discovery of an even more controversial nature was made by Waldemar Julsrud at Acambaro, Mexico.   Acambaro  is  in the state of  Guanajuato,  175  miles northwest of Mexico City.  The strange archaeological site there yielded over 33,500 objects of ceramic stone, including jade; and knives of obsidian  (sharper than steel and still used today in heart surgery).  Jalsrud, a prominent local German merchant, also found statues ranging from less than an inch to six feet in length depicting great reptiles, some of them in ACTIVE ASSOCIATION with humans - generally eating them, but in some bizarre statuettes an erotic association was indicated.   To observers many of these creatures resembled dinosaurs.

Jalsrud crammed this collection into twelve rooms of his expanded house.  There startling representations of Negroes, Orientals, and bearded Caucasians were included as were motifs of Egyptians, Sumerian and other ancient non-hemispheric civilizations, as well as portrayals of Bigfoot and aquatic monster-like creatures, weird human-animal mixtures, and a host of other inexplicable creations.  Teeth from an extinct Ice Age horse, the skeleton of a mammoth, and a number of human skulls were found at the same site as the ceramic artifacts.
  Radiocarbon dating in the laboratories of the University of Pennsylvania and additional tests using the thermoluminescence method of dating pottery were performed to determine the age of the objects.  Results indicated the objects were made about 6,500 years ago, around 4,500 BC.   A team of experts at another university, shown Jalrud’s half-dozen samples but unaware of their origin, ruled out the possibility that they could have been modern reproductions.  However, they fell silent when told of their controversial source.

In 1952, in an effort to debunk this weird collection which was gaining a certain amount of fame, American archaeologist Charles C.  DiPeso claimed to have minutely examined the then 32,000 pieces within not more than four hours spent at the home of Julsrud.  In a forthcoming book, long delayed by continuing developments in his investigation, archaeological investigator John H. Tierney, who has lectured on the case for decades, points out that to have done that DiPeso would have had to have inspected 133 pieces per minute steadily for four hours, whereas in actuality, it would have required weeks merely to have separated the massive jumble of exhibits and arranged them properly for a valid evaluation.

Tierney, who collaborated with the later Professor Hapgood, the late William N. Russell, and others in the investigation, charges that the Smithsonian Institution and other archaeological authorities conducted a campaign of dis-information against the discoveries.  The Smithsonian had, early in the controversy, dismissed the entire Acambaro collection as an elaborate hoax.   Also, utilizing the Freedom of Information Act, Tierney discovered that practically the entirety of the Smithsonian’s Julsrud case files are missing.

After two expeditions to the site in 1955 and 1968, Professor Charles Hapgood, a professor of history and anthropology at the University of New Hampshire, recorded the results of his 18-year investigation of Acambaro in a privately printed book entitled MYSTERY IN ACAMBARO.   Hapgood was initially an open-minded skeptic concerning the collection but became a believer after his first visit in 1955, at which time he witnessed some of the figures being excavated and even dictated to the diggers where he  wanted  them to dig.

Adding to the mind-boggling aspects of this controversy is the fact that the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, through the late Director of PreHispanic Monuments, Dr. Eduardo Noguera,  (who, as head of an official investigating team at the site, issued a report which Tierney will be publishing), admitted  “the apparent scientific legality with which these objects were found.”   Despite evidence of their own eyes, however, officials declared that because of the object's  'fantastic' nature, they had to have been a hoax played on Julsrud! A disappointed but ever hopeful Julsrud died.   His house was sold and the collection put in storage.  The collection is not currently open to the public.

Perhaps the most amazing suppression of all is the excavation of an Egyptian tomb by the Smithsonian itself in Arizona.  A lengthy front page story of the PHOENIX GAZETTE on 5 April 1909 (follows this article), gave a highly detailed report of the discovery and excavation of a rock-cut vault by an expedition led by a Professor S.A. Jordan of the Smithsonian.  The Smithsonian, however, claims to have absolutely no knowledge of the discovery or its discoverers.

The World Explorers Club decided to check on this story by calling the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., though we felt there was little chance of getting any real information.   After speaking briefly to an operator, we were transferred to a Smithsonian staff archaeologist, and a woman's voice came on the phone and identified herself.
I told her that I was investigating a story from a 1909 Phoenix newspaper article about the Smithsonian Institution's having excavated rock-cut vaults in the Grand Canyon where Egyptian artifacts had been discovered, and whether the Smithsonian Institution could give me any more information on the subject.

“Well, the first thing I can tell you, before we go any further,” she said, “is that no Egyptian artifacts of any kind have ever been found in North or South America.  Therefore, I can tell you that the Smithsonian Institute has never been involved in any such excavations.”  She was quite helpful and polite but, in the end, knew nothing.  Neither she nor anyone else with whom I spoke could find any record of the discovery or either G.E.  Kinkaid and Professor S.A. Jordan.

While it cannot be discounted that the entire story is an elaborate newspaper hoax, the fact that it was on the front page, named the prestigious Smithsonian Institution, and gave a highly detailed story that went on for several pages, lends a great deal to its credibility.  It is hard to believe such a story could have come out of thin air.

  Is the Smithsonian Institution covering up an archaeological discovery of immense importance?   If this story is true it would radically change the current view that there was no transoceanic contact in pre-Columbian times and that all American Indians, on both continents, are descended from Ice Age explorers who came across the Bering Strait.   (Any information on G.E.  Kinkaid and Professor S.A. Jordan, or their alleged discoveries, that readers may have would be greatly appreciated.....write to Childress at the World Explorers Club at the above address.) Is the idea that ancient Egyptians came to the Arizona area in the ancient past so objectionable and preposterous that it must be covered up?  Perhaps the Smithsonian Institution is more interested in maintaining the status quo than rocking the boat with astonishing new discoveries that overturn previously accepted academic teachings. Historian and linguist Carl Hart, editor of WORLD EXPLORER, then obtained a hiker's map of the Grand Canyon from a bookstore in Chicago.  Poring over the map, we were amazed to see that much of the area on the north side of the canyon has Egyptian names.  The area around Ninety-four Mile Creek and Trinity Creek had areas (rock
formations, apparently) with names  like  Tower of Set, Tower of Ra, Horus Temple, Osiris Temple, and Isis Temple.  In the Haunted Canyon area were such names as the Cheops Pyramid, the Buddha Cloister, Buddha Temple, Manu Temple and Shiva Temple.   Was there any relationship between these places and the alleged Egyptian discoveries in the Grand Canyon? We called a state archaeologist at the Grand Canyon, and were told that the early explorers had just liked Egyptian and Hindu names, but that it was true that this area was off limits to hikers or other visitors, “because of dangerous caves.”

Indeed, this entire area with the Egyptian and Hindu place names in the Grand Canyon is a forbidden zone  - no one is allowed into this large area.

We could only conclude that this was the area where the vaults were located.  Yet today, this area is curiously off-limits to all hikers and even, in large part, park personnel.

I believe that the discerning reader will see that if only a small part of the  “Smithsoniangate" evidence is true, then our most hallowed archaeological institution has been actively involved in suppressing evidence for advanced American cultures, evidence for ancient voyages of various cultures to North America, evidence for anomalistic giants and other oddball artifacts, and evidence that tends to disprove the official dogma that is now the history of North America.

The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents still refuses to open its meetings to the news media or the public.  If Americans were ever allowed inside the  'nation's attic', as the Smithsonian has been called, what skeletons might they find?

From the front page of THE PHOENIX GAZETTE of April 5th, 1909
EXPLORATIONS IN Grand Canyon Mysteries of Immense Rich Cavern being brought to light
Jordan is enthused

The latest news of the progress of  the  explorations of what is now regarded by scientists   as   not  only  the  oldest   archeological discovery in the  United States, but one of the most valuable in the world, which was mentioned some time ago in the Gazette, was brought to the city yesterday by G.E. Kinkaid,  the  explorer  who found the great underground citadel  of the Grand Canyon during  a  trip  from Green River, Wyoming,  down the Colorado, in a wooden boat, to Yuma, several months ago.

According to the story related to the Gazette by Mr. Kinkaid, the archaeologists of the Smithsonian Institute, which is financing the expeditions, have made discoveries which almost conclusively prove that the race which inhabited this mysterious cavern, hewn in solid rock by human hands, was of oriental origin, possibly from Egypt, tracing back to Ramses.   If their theories are borne out by the translation of the tablets engraved with hieroglyphics, the mystery of the prehistoric peoples of North America, their ancient arts, who they were and whence they came, will be solved.  Egypt and the Nile, and Arizona and the Colorado will be linked by a historical chain running back to ages which staggers the wildest fancy of the fictionist.

Under the direction of Prof. S. A. Jordan, the Smithsonian Institute is now prosecuting the most thorough explorations, which will be continued until the last link in the chain is forged.  Nearly a mile underground, about 1480 feet below the surface, the long main passage has been delved into, to find another mammoth chamber from which radiates scores of passageways, like the spokes of a wheel.

Several hundred rooms have been discovered, reached by passageways running from the main passage, one of them having been explored for 854 feet and another 634 feet.  The recent finds include articles which have never been known as native to this country, and doubtless they had their origin in the orient.    War weapons, copper instruments, sharp-edged and hard as steel, indicate the high state of civilization reached by these strange people.  So interested have the scientists become that preparations are being made to equip the camp for extensive studies, and the force will be increased to thirty or forty persons.

Mr. Kinkaid was the first white child born in Idaho and has been an explorer and hunter all his life, thirty years having been in the service of the Smithsonian Institute.   Even briefly recounted, his history sounds fabulous, almost grotesque.

“First, I would impress that the cavern is nearly inaccessible.  The entrance is 1,486 feet down the sheer canyon wall.  It is located on government land and no visitor will be allowed there under penalty of trespass.  The scientists wish to work unmolested, without fear of archeological discoveries being disturbed by curio or relic hunters.
A trip there would be fruitless, and the visitor would be sent on his way.  The story of how I found the cavern has been related, but in a paragraph: I was journeying down the Colorado River in a boat, alone, looking for mineral.  Some forty-two miles up the river from the El Tovar Crystal canyon, I saw on the east wall, stains in the sedimentary formation about 2,000 feet above the river bed.  There was no trail to this point, but I finally reached it with great difficulty.

Above a shelf which hid it from view from the river, was the mouth of the cave.  There are steps leading from this entrance some thirty yards to what was, at the time the cavern was inhabited, the level of the river.  When I saw the chisel marks on the wall inside the entrance, I became interested, securing my gun and went in.  During that trip I went back several hundred feet along the main passage till I came to the crypt in which I discovered the mummies.  One of these I stood up and photographed by flashlight.   I gathered a number of relics, which I carried down the Colorado to Yuma, from whence I shipped them to Washington with details of the discovery.  Following this, the explorations were undertaken.

“The main passageway is about 12 feet wide, narrowing to nine feet toward the farther end.  About 57 feet from the entrance, the first side-passages branch off to the right and left, along which, on both sides, are a number of rooms about the size of ordinary living rooms of today, though some are 30 by 40 feet square.  These are entered by oval-shaped doors and are ventilated by round air spaces through the walls into the passages.  The walls are about three feet six inches in thickness. The passages are chiseled or hewn as straight as could be laid out by an engineer.   The ceilings of many of the rooms converge to a center.  The side-passages near the entrance run at a sharp angle from the main hall, but toward the rear they gradually reach a right angle in direction.

“Over a hundred feet from the entrance is the cross-hall, several hundred feet long, in which are found the idol, or image, of the people’s god, sitting cross-legged, with a lotus flower or lily in each hand.  The cast of the face is oriental, and the carving this cavern.  The idol almost resembles Buddha, though the scientists are not certain as to what religious worship it represents.  Taking into consideration everything found thus far, it is possible that this worship most resembles the ancient people of Tibet.

Surrounding this idol are smaller images, some very beautiful in form; others crooked-necked and distorted shapes, symbolical, probably, of good and evil.   There are two large cactus with protruding arms, one on each side of the dais on which the god squats.  All this is carved out of hard rock resembling marble.  In the opposite corner of this cross-hall were found tools of all descriptions, made of copper.  These people undoubtedly knew the lost art of hardening this metal, which has been sought by chemicals for centuries without result.   On a bench running around the workroom was some charcoal and other material probably used in the process.  There is also slag and  stuff  similar  to  matte, showing that these ancients smelted ores, but so far no trace  of  where  or how this was done has been discovered, nor the origin of the ore.

“Among the other finds are vases or urns and cups of copper and gold, made very artistic in design.   The pottery work includes enameled ware and glazed vessels.   Another passageway leads to granaries such as are found in the oriental temples.  They contain seeds of various kinds.  One very large storehouse has not yet been entered, as it is twelve feet high and can be reached only from above.  Two copper hooks extend on the edge, which indicates that some sort of ladder was attached.   These granaries are rounded, as the materials of which they are constructed, I think, is a ver hard cement.  A gray metal is also found in this cavern, which puzzles the scientists, for its identity has not been established.   It resembles platinum.  Strewn promiscuously over the floor everywhere are what people call “cats eye’, a yellow stone of no great value.  Each one is engraved with the head of the Malay type.

“On all the urns, or walls over doorways, and tablets of stone which were found by the image are the mysterious hieroglyphics, the key to which the Smithsonian Institute hopes yet to discover.   The engraving on the tables probably has something to do with the religion of the people.  Similar hieroglyphics have been found in southern Arizona.  Among the pictorial writings, only two animals are found.  One is of prehistoric type.

“The tomb or crypt in which the mummies were found is one of the largest of the chambers, the walls slanting back at an angle of about 35 degrees.  On these are tiers of mummies, each one occupying a separate hewn shelf.  At the head of each is a small bench, on which is found copper cups and pieces of broken swords.  Some of the mummies are covered with clay, and all are wrapped in a bark fabric.

The urns or  cups  on the lower tiers are crude, while as the higher shelves are reached, the urns are  finer  in design, showing a later stage of civilization.  It is worthy of note that all the mummies examined so far have proved to be male, no children or females being buried here.  This leads to the belief that this exterior section was the warriors’ barracks.

“Among the discoveries no bones of animals have been found, no skins, no clothing, no bedding.  Many of the rooms are bare but for water vessels.  One room, about 40 by 700 feet, was probably the main dining hall, for cooking utensils are found here.  What these people lived on is a problem, though it is presumed that they came south in the winter and farmed in the valleys, going back north in the summer.

Upwards of 50,000 people could have lived in the caverns comfortably.  One theory is that the present Indian tribes found in Arizona are descendants of the serfs or slaves of the people which inhabited the cave.  Undoubtedly a good many thousands of years before the Christian era, a people lived here which reached a high stage of civilization.   The chronology of human history is full of gaps.  Professor Jordan is much enthused over the discoveries and believes that the find will prove of incalculable value in archeological work.

“One thing I have not spoken of, may be of interest.  There is one chamber of the passageway to which is not ventilated, and when we approached it a deadly, snaky smell struck us.  Our light would not penetrate the gloom, and until stronger ones are available we will not know what the chamber contains.   Some say snakes, but other boo-hoo this idea and think it may contain a deadly gas or chemicals used by the ancients.  No sounds are heard, but it smells snaky just the same.  The whole underground installation gives one of shaky nerves the creeps.   The gloom is like a weight on one’s shoulders, and our flashlights and candles only make the darkness blacker.  Imagination can revel in conjectures and ungodly daydreams back through the ages that have elapsed till the mind reels dizzily in space.”

In connection with this story, it is notable that among the Hopi Indians the tradition is told that their ancestors once lived in an underworld in the Grand Canyon till dissension arose between the good and the bad, the people of one heart and the people of two hearts.  Machetto, who was their chief, counseled them to leave the underworld, but there was no way out.  The chief then caused a tree to grow up and pierce the roof of the underworld, and then the people of one heart climbed out.   They tarried by Paisisvai (Red River), which is the Colorado, and grew grain and corn.

They sent out a message to the Temple of the Sun, asking the blessing of peace, good will and rain for people of one heart.  That messenger never returned, but today at the Hopi villages at sundown can be seen the old men of the tribe out on the housetops gazing toward the sun, looking for the messenger.  When he returns, their lands and ancient dwelling place will be restored to them.  That is the tradition.

Among the engravings of animals in the cave is seen the image of a heart over the spot where it is located.  The legend was learned by W.E. Rollins, the artist, during a year spent with the Hopi Indians.
There are two theories of the origin of the Egyptians.  One is that they came from Asia; another that the racial cradle was in the upper Nile region.  Heeren, an Egyptologist, believed in the Indian origin of the Egyptians.  The discoveries in the Grand Canyon may throw further light on human evolution and prehistoric ages.