Note: if you like this post, you might also like The Top Five Paranormal Phenomena That Might Be Real. Also be sure to check out the new dashboard for paranormal news: www.area51.org. It’s like a newspaper that covers all the latest about bigfoot, UFOs, ancient mysteries, hauntings, and more stuff like that.
We’ve been picking over the New Seven Wonders of the World, which was announced on July 7, 2007 (7/7/07, get it?), and frankly, we here at Area51.Org are underwhelmed. We have seven alternative wonders that might impress you a little more than the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall. They might even freak you out a little bit. A list of wonders needs a flavor of the unexplained or truly bizarre about it, and perhaps a certain paranormal bouquet.
#7 Easter Island Statues
Easter Island, Pacific Ocean
The heads have been silent for long enough. The truth is that they’re not just heads: there are whole torsos hiding underneath the soil. 
Sure, scientists claim they know how the giant moai statues (more than 500 complete and as many unfinished) were built — if you believe the scientists. And there’s a lot of speculation about how they were transported to their resting places.
Even if this all didn’t require extraterrestrial intervention, as Erich von Daniken speculated in Chariots of the Gods, the moais of Easter Island still command our respect. At up to an imposing 33 feet high, they ought to. And there is some remaining mystery — with no trees on the island, how exactly did the natives get the giant, heavy statues some four miles from their source to their final resting places? Once there, why were they knocked down? Few realize that, until recent restoration attempts, the heads all lay on their sides, the victims of some change in tribal leadership, godhead or cosmic alliance?
#6 Oak Island Mystery Site
Oak Island, Nova Scotia
The year was 1795, and Donald McGinnis and a couple of friends, the teenage sons of settlers on a small island in Nova Scotia, found a large, circular depression in the ground with a tackle block hanging over it. A day of digging later and the boys thought they were on the way to finding Captain Kidd’s hidden treasure — a booty that had become legendary in that time.
Maybe it was pirate treasure — the boys never found out. Neither did the scores of others who spent years trying to dig it up. Some even gave their lives.
Why couldn’t they just dig up a buried treasure? Lots of reasons: for one, in 1802, when diggers had reached a whopping 90 feet beneath the surface, they discovered two things. First, they found an inscription that read “Twenty feet below, two million pounds lie buried.” Second, they found that whatever was below was protected by booby traps: three shafts connected directly to the ocean flooded the pit. Bailing was useless, and attempts to dig alternate shafts failed, too — more flooding booby traps.
What is most fascinating is that after over 200 years, no one knows what’s down there. And not for lack of trying: there have been almost continuous attempts at digging, but it’s still a very difficult proposition, excavating that deeply, even with modern equipment and techniques. The soil at those depths is unstable, making it nearly impossible for explorers to make progress.
One question we might have: since the original designers probably had a secret way of accessing the prize at the bottom, why haven’t investigators tried to figure out what that might be — and use it?
On a side note, a critical mind might wonder what exactly is paranormal about Oak Island. OK, we admit it: probably nothing. But in our own defense, this does involve a heavy dose of the unexplained — and so far, inexplicable. Close enough, don’t you think?
#5 Rosslyn Chapel
Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland
Yes, you know it from The Da Vinci Code. That’s so 2005 of you.
Here are a few things you might not know about Scotland’s most famous chapel.
For one, Rosslyn Chapel was the first Masonic temple. Many believe that Freemasonry was not founded until the 18th century, but all indications are that the Knights Templar who weren’t killed in Philip the Fair’s inquisition fled to Scotland and carried on their traditions in secret. The Templar descendants built Rosslyn Chapel and went on to turn the Knights’ traditions into the rites of Freemasonry.
But the strangeness doesn’t stop there — it only begins there. Did you know that the chapel is an exact replica of the Temple of Solomon (AKA Herod’s Temple) in Jerusalem? The original was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. This has lead some researchers to wonder if the lost treasures of Solomon’s Temple — including the famous Ark of the Covenant — are buried in the sealed secret chamber below Rosslyn’s floor. (Yes, that part of Da Vinci Code was absolutely true: there is a secret chamber beneath the floor, just as in the original Temple of Solomon.)
Rosslyn Chapel also features stone carvings of ears of corn — carved many years before corn was first seen in the New World (it’s native to North America). This could be an amazing coincidence, or it could indicate that the Templar-Masons had knowledge of the Americas that they kept to themselves. The mind boggles.
The Temple’s ceiling, with its arches that feature 213 decorative cubes, is actually sheet music made of stone. Researchers have cracked the code that turned the cipher into music, and it was first performed on May 18, 2007 — inside Rosslyn Chapel, of course. The music is now available on CD.
#4 Stonehenge
Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England
No one knows who built it or why. We can only estimate when it was built — construction began circa 3,000 BC. That’s right: by the time Jesus was walking the Earth doing his Jesus Thing, Stonehenge was already an ancient monument.
One thing’s for sure: the Druids did not build Stonehenge — they came too late, only appearing around the time of Christ. In fact, scientists and historians today have absolutely no idea who built it. They can name off a long list of groups who didn’t build it, including Phoenicians, Gauls, Saxons, Danes, and Romans. Some collection of people got together 5,000 years ago, gathered giant blocks of stone, cut and arranged them, and then were completely lost to history. (If, of course, you accept that they were human at all. Since we want to be taken seriously, let’s just stipulate to their humanity.)
Here’s something most people don’t know: Stonehenge is merely the grandaddy of giant block megalith “henges” — there are over 50,000 of them worldwide (you read that right!) from Europe all the way to North Africa. So whoever built these things seemed to get around. Or, word about how to build a henge made it around the world in a time when walking was the only mode of transportation.
Oh, that’s another thing: how did they build Stonehenge? Each block, 13 feet high (over four meters), weighs an impressive 40 tons. Researchers have tried a lot of different ways of moving gigantic stones using the technology of 3,000 B.C. with varying degrees of success. Maybe the unknown ancients could’ve done it, but it would have been a tremendous feat requiring engineering genius. Let’s not even get started on how they got the stones upright; that’s a whole other problem/mystery. And please don’t bring up how they got those capstones up there.
Why was it built? Turns out there’s a pretty good guess: it’s a cosmic calendar, and a ceremonial stage. On the days of the summer and winter solstice, the sun rises exactly over a prominent stone, the Heel stone. It may have done more, but no one’s figured that out yet. Meanwhile, the site was also used for burials, possibly human sacrifice, and probably for religious ceremonies.
What religion? — that’s a question that we’ll likely never have an answer for.
#3 Winchester Mystery House
San Jose, California, USA
The Winchester Mansion, built by Sarah Winchester beginning in 1886, is arguably the most famous haunted house in the world.
It’s definitely the craziest. Once construction started, it never stopped, not even at night. Builders were on the job 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 36 years straight; the construction finally ceased when Mrs. Winchester passed away. There was no specific building plan, mind you, only orders to keep building and building. The result? Staircases that lead to nowhere, upper-story doors that open to nothing except the outside air, hallways that seem to collapse as you walk through them … in short, insanity.
Not that you can blame the old bat for going batty.
Her husband, William Winchester, was the president of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, manufacturer of the “guns that won the West” — in other words, the rifles that killed millions of American Indians. William died in 1881, but not before their only child, Annie, died mere weeks after birth. Sarah sought solace in a spiritual medium, partly because of her grief, and partly because of the tremendous guilt she’d developed in proxy for her husband’s bloody business. It hadn’t taken long before she believed that she was being haunted.
The medium told Sarah: go West! Build a house and, to be sure you keep those angry spirits at bay, keep building it any which-way you can to confuse the angry ghosts.
Hence the insane mansion. When construction stopped in 1922, it had a total of 160 rooms, including 40 bedrooms, 47 fireplaces, and 17 chimneys. (Don’t ask us how 47 fireplaces worked with only 17 chimneys.)
The crazy scheme might have worked too well — the house is notoriously haunted, keeping all those spirits trapped in its doomed corridors. According to Troy Taylor, author of The Haunting of America:
In the years that the house has been open to the public, employees and visitors alike have had unusual encounters here. There have been footsteps; banging doors; mysterious voices; windows that bang so hard they shatter; cold spots; strange moving lights; doorknobs that turn by themselves…. and don’t forget the scores of psychics who have their own claims of phenomena to report.
You’re welcome to visit; the mansion is now a tourist attraction, open year-round with special nighttime flashlight tours on Halloween and on every Friday the 13th. Boo.
#2 Nazca Lines
Pampas de Jumana, Peru
Out in the flat desert 250 miles south of Lima, Peru lies amazing artwork that dates back to 250 B.C. Mere lines in the sand that were preserved by a cooperative climate, these drawings can only be appreciated from an airplane.
Wait. Environmental sculpture from 250 B.C. that can only be seen from high in the air? The nearest mountains are too far away to be a vantage point.
This mystery has been boggling minds since the 1930s. The “geoglyphs” — many of recognizable animals like the hummingbird and the condor — are upwards of 600 feet (about 200 meters) in length. Imagine making a drawing in the sand the size of two (American) football fields, presumably with no one in the air to guide you.
The why of the lines is, of course, open to speculation. Religious adoration or signs to the gods? Some sort of cosmic calendar? Actually, both explanations are probably valid. Researcher Paul Kosok observed that the sun seems to set above particular lines on notable days like summer and winter solstice. Unusual solar eclipse activity also coincided with the Nasca building period, so perhaps the lines are a communication with the “eye in the sky”. Others believe that they may have been markers for subterranean water sources, seismic activity relays or even landing strips for aircraft, possibly extraterrestrial in origin.
It’s the how that is so perplexing. One intrepid researcher proved that it was possible to make a workable hot air balloon using the technology available to the ancient Nazcans. That’s all fine and good, but there’s no evidence that balloons like that ever existed. And you’d figure there might be a few leftover parts, considering that there are dozens of drawings covering an area of over 150 square miles. Precise mappings of all the drawings has only recently been completed and, sadly, the lines are now threatened by erosion due to climate change.
#1 The Great Sphinx of Giza
Giza Plateau, Egypt
It was 1991 when geologist Robert Schoch shocked the world: the Great Sphinx was not built with the pyramids in 2,500 B.C. after all, but thousands of years earlier, in 7,500 B.C. According to Shoch, it was rain, not sand, that has worn the Sphinx down over the centuries, and the last era of huge rains was about 10,000 years ago. The rain explanation also accounts for the channels in the ditch that surrounds it.
Meanwhile, just as the scientific world was recovering from that carpet-pull, a facial expert announced that after extensive testing, he was convinced that our Sphinx friend was not modeled after Pharaoh Chephren — the Pharaoh who happened to be ruling Egypt in 2,500 B.C. The expert had used sophisticated forensics equipment to compare a bust of Chephren to his supposed likeness on the Sphinx, and things just didn’t match up.
Suddenly, we had a great quandary on our hands. The Sphinx wasn’t built by the ancients, but by the really ancient ancients? Who were these guys, and since civilization wasn’t really supposed to exist in B.C. 7,500, how’d they do it?
There is no certain answer. There is, however, a good opportunity for speculation.
Psychic Edgar Cayce had envisioned an ancient civilization living in Egypt, made up of survivors from the tragedy of Atlantis. That might be a stretch even for us. But how old is old and what, exactly, was this ur-civilization, then?
From the general appearance of it, the Great Sphinx seems to have been made in a traditional Egyptian style — or were the Egyptians merely imitating the style of the Sphinx, already ancient in their day, when they created their headdresses and stoic faces? Animal/man hybrid statues, generically known as sphinxes, abound in Egypt and, in fact, throughout many ancient traditions, including Indian and Asian. Was the Great Sphinx the original? Consider that the first excavation of the statue dates to 1400 B.C.. By then, it was already up to its shoulders in sand. Consider also that the head of the man is clearly disproportionately small for its body, a trait missing in other sphinxes. Some suggest that the pharaohic face may have been carved from the existing head of a lion, suggesting an even earlier life for the monumental riddle in the sand.
What’s weirder is to consider how advanced a civilization must have been in order to create the subtle architecture of the cat statue. We are talking about life nearly 10,000 years ago. As Carl Sagan once pointed out, people from that era were just as smart as you or I, but they didn’t have science or years of recorded knowledge to build upon. Or did they? A sophisticated work like the Great Sphinx may lead us to re-think our ideas about history. One etching in the base of the sculpture’s base describes it as “a great magical power that existed in this place from the beginning of all time”. Perhaps we’re meant to take this more literally than we previously have.
Do They Add Up to Anything?
If there’s a theme here — and we’d like to think there is one — perhaps it’s that there is more to the world, its history, and its inner workings than meets the eye. Even if that eye is an observant eye. Did civilization try itself a few times before it worked well enough to stick? Are there technologies that might suggest hidden veins of knowledge only a privileged few have access to? Is there life beyond this mortal coil?
Naturally, you may have a different list. The arbitrary number seven was probably “picked” because, well, there were seven wonders that people could think of. Or maybe it was the number of God or some other artificial construction. So the list could be much longer.
If you think we’re off our collective rocker, and want to explain to us what a real list of seven wonders looks like, leave a comment here, or write to us at agentzero |at| area51.org.
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July 19th, 2007 at 5:50 pm |
Can I suggest you read up a bit more about Easter Island ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_island )? The island was covered in trees there at one point, but the reason for their disappearance is contested (man made/natural ecological disaster is the current best theory).
Also, what is paranormal about Easter Island (or Stone Henge come to that). The method of construction/transportation is not know for certain, but what evidence is there of any ‘paranormal’ activity?
July 19th, 2007 at 6:30 pm |
Since writing the article I did read that there may have been trees on Easter Island. It might help explain how they moved the heads — but then again it really doesn’t. Moving rock of that size and weight is an engineering feat, even with logs around to help.
Your point about the paranormality (or lack thereof) is true enough. Easter Island isn’t paranormal in the strictest sense of the word (nor is Stonehenge, as you point out, nor Oak Island, as I point out in the article). It all comes down to definition. I am using a broader sense of the word ‘paranormal’ than the dictionary might; I mean it to say something that defies simple explanation. (See our FAQ for our definition.)
I might have made the title The Seven Mysterious Wonders of the World, but that’s awkward. I finally settled on Paranormal, hoping no one would notice.
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:31 am |
about your no#4 mysterious wonder of the world…
There are ways you could do that.
as in logs(rolling), & for getting them on top of 2 upright 1’s: build a big ramp out of earth, push/roll it up, dig away the ramp, & with a lot of people you could pull it up with ropes to get it upright. But how they would get it precisely on time with the sun, well they’d have to be there for years, & on the right day they’d time the sun, put a stone in the right place, etc.
My suggestion is it’s something like a sundial…, or a really big stone calander, cause of the sun on the heel stone at certain times of year, oh, & how do you know the names of the stones… made up by moderners? If we knew the original names, it might give us a LOT of clues as to what it was.
Now onto the easter island heads: if you look at them, they’re circular, getting the stone there: roll, carve it there, so they were being carved, lying down, they left them finished, & went on to another, unfortunately, they didn’t finish them all, their race died out? Change of leader? They might have been for a god, maybe the god dishonoured them, so they stopped, left them? & for they buried treasure, =), did they try filling the shafts of seawater with clay?, maybe a diver could do it? so many possibilities, so little answers. Or you could do something to the sea where shafts are coming from… Or maybe if you dug a hole a relativly fair distance away, then dug a “tunnel” once your deeper than the supposed “treasure level”, then you might be able to dig UP to the treasure.JUST THEORIES…
July 24th, 2007 at 11:21 am |
Replying to previous commenters:
Actually, many heads have been found at the quarry (see wikipedia – ha ha), thus suggesting that the Easter Islanders did not, in fact, carve the moai at the site. Also, the heads were also knocked down rather than left unfinished or supine rather than upright. Just an FYI. Guess I think it’s pretty mysterious if not paranormal!
July 27th, 2007 at 10:10 am |
“proved that it was possible to make a workable hot air balloon using the technology available to the ancient Nazcans. That’s all fine and good, but there’s no evidence that balloons like that ever existed. And you’d figure there might be a few leftover parts, ”
- My quibble is with the “a few left over parts” bit you wrote. Organic items seldem last more than a few decades once exposed to the environment. To expect pieces to last thousands of years is foolish to say the least. One reason why Ootzi (the mummy found in an italian glacier) is so special is because his wood and leather tools, his clothing, etc was preserved. You only have to spend 5 minutes imagining all the wood/plant based tools and artifacts that have been destroyed to appreciate how much ancient technology has been lost and will never be discovered.
nice site btw
July 30th, 2007 at 2:00 pm |
In history class we were learning about evolution and what not, when our teacher showed us this video… It was a video of this Christian guy who totally disproved what our teacher was trying to teach us! He came up with this theory that way back when humans were much, much bigger than they are today. He was saying something about the ozone layer being mainly water, which helped protect humans from the sun allowing them to live longer. Makes sense seeing as the bible says some lived for over 900 years. He also showed pictures of giant skeletons that had been dug up. So, what if they didn’t need a lot of equipment to help them? If they were that big, then they must have been strong. Constructing things like Stonehenge would have been easy…
August 9th, 2007 at 3:42 pm |
The Stone Henge one is interesting but one even more amazing fact is that you didn’t mention, is that those stones originated in Wales. Now how the hell did they get to Easter England? That’s hundreds of miles. I’m guessing they enlisted a bunch of oblivious Welsh guys to drag em over there and our welsh guys didn’t quite realise how far it actually was.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:56 am |
I know a few people have pointed out the errors made in the Easter Island entry. It’s worth checking out Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”. He gives a fascinating archeological/ anthropological history of the island, and how/why the society there collapsed, which also goes a long way to explaining the “mystery” of the stone figures. Something is only a “mystery” until someone develops a credible, coherent theory to explain it. I think that’s pretty much been achieved with Easter Island. Of course that doesn’t make what the people there did any less amazing.
On the same lines as Stonehenge, it’s worth mentioning the standing stones at Carnac, North Western France, which I believe pre-date Stonehenge. They’re not as big as the stones at Stonehenge but they run in perfectly straight lines (they’ve been measured with lasers) for several kilometres. While I’m on the subject, might as well mention Woodhenge. It’s not far from Stonehenge, on the Salisbury plains, and was only discovered relatively recently. I’ve not visited it myself but apparently consisted of massive wooden pillars in a similar pattern to Stonehenge. The pillars have long since rotted away, but left discolouring marks in the ground, which were only discovered when someone flew over it, there’s an RAF base nearby.
One last thing, Piphy, nothing you said makes even the tiniest bit of sense.
August 10th, 2007 at 9:17 am |
Actually, Bransby, in defense of Piphy, there is a bit of something interesting in his post. The giants he mentions are probably the Nephilim, who some believe are the earthly hybrids of man and angel (or even aliens). There have, in fact, been giant skeletons found (as well as tiny “hobbit” ones). Whether or not these belong to the offspring of angels or aliens remains to be discovered.
August 12th, 2007 at 8:50 pm |
Rocks, smocks. Explain how the ancients knew about galaxies and nebula without telescopes, or DNA, chromosomes or sperm cells without microscopes. Explain those and then we can talk.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:18 pm |
As a race us lovely humans have managed to inter mingle to a rather large degree and i would bet that alot of racial diversity has been lost due to it.
There are still some differences between peoples today despite this, skin colour being an obvious one, even blood types though can be traced and seen to have blended cross culturally.
Its not exactly difficult to imagine that there were some peoples who indeed were very tall compared to some others. Look in the guiness book or records and you can see the differences between the tallest and smallest man in the world. Finding a few large skeletons is certainly no basis to believe a whole race of half-angels existed.
Many cultures practice ritual disfigurement, in Japan (may be China) i believe it was customary to make women wear very tight fitting shoes which stunted the growth of the said limbs as it was seen to be an attractive trait in a woman. I wouldnt say finding remains belonging to some of those women indicated that a race of people with very small feet existed. Thats just jumping to conclusions. Imagine how many similar traditions could have been implemented in thousands of years of history with thousands of different cultures.
With stone henge, I strongly believe that humans can accomplish almost anything they put their minds to thanks to the gift of intelligence. Before I was even born as a race we have set foot on another planet. That is; defied gravity, devised a method of propelling the space craft out of earths atmosphere and been able to survive the unforgiving void of space. By no means to I even for one second think that humans couldnt have build stone henge. There ARE ways to do it.
Given the nature of the universe, which can be seen as the perfect womb for sentient life. The size of it is infact almost infinite. That means that millions of other planets like earth could exist for countless billions of years, could develop space travel and still NEVER come into contact with another planet. Even with star trek like technology. And IF a race were to exist that advaced i would expect that they got there through the same hardships we are going through as a race and that they will have developed the needed morals and intelligence to know NOT to interfere with a developing planet such as ours and let nature take its course.
The article is certainly intriguiging and has roused my curiosity. Especially the sphinx section. But once you abandon scientific rigour and logic to, comparitively speaking, INSANE theories about aliens and angelic beings you are no longer evaluating the world around you with truth.You have in effect entered bias into what you are looking at and all you will get what you seek thanks to your bias.
Anyone seen a film called Pi?
Its about a mathematician who ends up obsessing about a number during the course of the film. His mentor shows him that, if he looks for this number, say 15, he will find it everywhere he looks. 15 seconds to load a webpage, 15 steps from his door to the shops, 1 + 5 = 6 and 6 * 15 = 90, the amount of times a certain word in featured in the bible. Whatever it is, your abandoning the search for truth in favour of fantasy.
Dont get me wrong, I dont mean to offend. I would love it if there had been some advanced alien race on earth. I love things like star trek, stargate, and even the Dune books. I love sci-fi and the idea of it. Sadly however it is indeed science-FICTION even if it may come close to predicting the future advances of mankind.
Very interesting site, brings up alot of good questions.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:23 pm |
Replying to Mark:
Hmm…didn’t mean to suggest that the skeletons are the remains of angel or alien hybrids, just that the science isn’t there yet to explain them. Sometimes we have to adjust our comfortable world view to accommodate uncomfortable realities like huge skeletons (or very small ones). Science then has to catch up with the explanations (or at least try a few new theories).
Stay tuned for a very interesting update about evidence of neolithic civilizations found underwater off the coast of India and the English Channel. Just might rock your world view a little bit more.
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:47 pm |
Excellent content. Enjoyed it very much. Did you know that Christ literally means “anointed.” Jesus was called “the Christ” because he was considered “the Anointed” by his followers. The Jews believed in a coming Christ (or Messiah – the one is our English way of translating the Greek, the other the Hebrew, at the moment I can’t remember which way). Anointment was used as a symbol of authority – generally of kings or priests (e.g. David). This isn’t what made Jesus so revolutionary, however, rather it was his argument that the “kingdom” which he was bringing was not physical but spiritual. This did not jive with the traditional interpretation of the passage. Jesus was implying that there was a greater battle to be fought than against the Romans, and it was against man’s own sinful nature – an illness he could not defeat without the anointed.
August 25th, 2007 at 11:02 pm |
“Did you know that Christ literally means “anointed.” Jesus was called “the Christ” because he was considered “the Anointed” by his followers.”
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the latest creation of the Rapture Right: we’ve got Jesus Spam!
August 27th, 2007 at 1:50 pm |
As for the Nazca lines the people that inhabited the area had developed an arithmetic system. They did the whole thing mathematically so the mystery of how they were to become so precise is really no mystery. Humans are pretty amazing, and when you fit mathematics into the picture what passes as a very weird set of lines that couldn’t possibly have been done without the aid of some type of flying machine turns into reality. And the reality is with their own brains and some figurin’ the people of the Nazca lines made a truly great monument that has lasted much longer than their culture. Put on top of the mathematics behind its’ creation the fact that all the animal figures are pointed in ceremonial directions (the bird corresponds with the direction the majority of the rain would come from, etc.) and you get more EVIDENCE that does away with anything supernatural. Very cool place, and even more so because it was made by plain old human beings using numbers to figure out how to lay out the lines.
September 3rd, 2007 at 12:17 am |
You say: “And there is some remaining mystery — with no trees on the island, how exactly did the natives get the giant, heavy statues some four miles from their source to their final resting places? Once there, why were they knocked down?”
One of my college classes recently studied this. I can tell you that scientists have been able to prove that the people who lived on Easter Island used all the trees up! They were gluttonous and didn’t replant new ones, so they’re all gone now. There were once as many as 20,000 people living on that tiny island. When the island was discovered, less than 200 people were still alive. You see, they had used up all their resources. The animals couldn’t survive and when they had no more animals to eat, they began eating each other. Scary, huh? Anyway, they probably used the trees they once had to roll the statues to their locations. And they were knocked down by years of warfare between people who were starving to death, turning cannibalistic and going nuts, by weather, and by natural wear and tear out in the elements with no trees to protect them. Ocean winds can be powerful, and thousands of years of hurricanes and tropical storms can do some damage. And not all of them were tipped over. Several were still standing, and many people worked to get some of them erected again, which may or may not have damaged their integrity. Ask yourself this… if they were ALL lying down, why would people suddenly start standing them up? Wouldn’t they think they were meant to be lying down?
Thanks for letting me comment.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:58 am |
Read this old book called “Secrets Of The Lost Races”……u might find it as an ebook somewhere….try esnips.com
This book provides an alternate theory to that of Erich Von Daniken stating that an extremely advanced civilization existed way back in time! Its a very good read and kind of provides many more “paranormal” examples
October 26th, 2007 at 5:57 am |
If you wonder how they moved the blocks for the pyramids/stonehenge, etc. Check out this link. This is a guy who has figured out how to move gigantic blocks all by himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0
October 31st, 2007 at 6:04 pm |
replying to #4. if my opinion means anything in this debating quarrel i think vikings erected the stonehenge
February 6th, 2008 at 1:41 am |
NEW READING OF MYSTERIOUS OAK ISLAND INSCRIPTION
Theory points to possible connection with nearby Birch Island
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia: Friday January 18th 2008 – -
For the past two centuries, the tunnels of Nova Scotia’s Oak Island have piqued the imagination of historians and treasure hunters alike. Now, a new theory by First Nations researcher Keith Ranville may add fresh speculation to the mystery. Based on a unique reading of an inscription once found in the “Money Pit,” Mr. Ranville believes that the answer to the riddle may be found on nearby Birch Island.
Oak Island, located on the scenic Mahone Bay about an hour’s drive south of the provincial capital of Halifax, has been associated with buried treasure since the late 18th century. Local settlers reportedly found a ship’s tackle block hanging from a tree branch, overhanging a large depression in the ground. Early efforts to dig down failed when the diggers encountered layers of timber every 10 feet. In the ensuing generations, several organized excavation attempts have drilled down nearly 200 feet, en route encountering some artifacts within the staggered layers of logs, clay, putty, charcoal, flagstones and most perplexingly, coconut husks. Among the scores of enthusiastic treasure hunters was a young Franklin Roosevelt, one of the investors in a 1909 excavation attempt.
During the earlier diggings of 1800’s, the tunnel had become flooded by seawater – which many believed was the result booby trap being sprung – thus complicating further digging since then. A drilling effort in the mid 1800’s was said to have uncovered fragments of a gold chain. In 1971, a camera was lowered into the pit and reportedly captured images of wooden chests and human remains.
One of the most fascinating artifacts from the pit was said to be a flat stone recovered at the 90 foot depth, carrying a mysterious inscription. A fragment of stone with similar symbols was found nearby in Smith’s Cove in the 1930’s. The stone tablet itself has gone missing, but a record of its symbols remains. Until now, the consensus is that the symbols are a code translated as “forty feet below two million pounds are buried.” However, Keith Ranville’s theory offers a different interpretation as to the stone’s symbols, which could lead to a new explanation of the Oak Island mystery.
“I believe these symbols have been incorrectly assumed to stand for something else. In the First Nations tradition that I’m a part of, we believe symbols should simply be looked at in and of themselves, rather than thinking of them as codes that have to be cracked,” Mr. Ranville explained. “In the pictograms of Cree Salavics, for example, the images are meant to be descriptive, not abstract.” Using this approach, Mr. Ranville examined the Oak Island symbols and found what may be a set of instructions about a tunnel system involving both Oak Island and nearby Birch Island.
For example, the stone inscription begins with a triangle symbol, which is repeated throughout. Mr. Ranville believes that this represents nearby Birch Island, which has a distinctly triangular clearing on its north shore. Likewise, a symbol showing a circle divided into two hemispheres can be thought of as representing north/south directional markers. A series of dots in singles, pairs and triplets may be quantitative symbols.
Examining all the symbols in this way, Mr. Ranville believes that the symbols on the Money Pit’s stone tablet are actually technical instructions describing the location and layout of a possible underground network involving both Oak Island and Birch Island. “There was a fragment of another stone tablet that was found on Oak Island’s Smith Cove in the 1930’s,” Mr. Ranville explained. “It too has these types of symbols, but one in particular appears to be a Greek symbol designating ‘underwater door’. In conjunction with the other symbols, I believe this points to underwater doors and additional shafts on Birch Island itself.” Smith’s Cove is on the part of Oak Island that is closest to Birch Island, and is said to have yielded several artifacts itself over the years.
“Based on the inscribed symbols, I think we should be looking at Oak Island and Birch Island together in order to solve the mystery. If Birch Island proves to have underwater doors and tunnels around its triangular clearing, then it would be a huge step forward in our understanding of what Oak Island is all about.”
There have been many, occasionally bizarre, theories as to what the Oak Island tunnels may contain: a Masonic vault containing the Holy Grail, Viking or Pirate booty, Inca treasure, the French Royal Crown Jewels, payroll for colonial British soldiers or even the secret writings of Francis Bacon. Mr. Ranville prefers not to speculate. “Those are interesting and sometimes funny theories, but I’d rather just look at the evidence that we do have, and go from there.”
Mr. Ranville is a self-taught researcher born in Manitoba. While living in Vancouver, he became acquainted with the Oak Island mystery and began studying it. In October 2005, he relocated to Nova Scotia to further research and advance his theories on the subject.
Both Oak Island and Birch Island are private property, and access must be sought by permission of the landowners.
http://oakislandtreasurenewsarchives.blogspot.com/2008/01/oak-island-treasure-canadian-native.html
http://oakislandtreasurenewsarchives.blogspot.com/
April 4th, 2008 at 9:01 pm |
1930’s egyptian king…
I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read….
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August 5th, 2008 at 10:23 pm |
WOW what a great site, keep these articles coming!
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:23 am |
This is crazy and I wonder what made all this things. Aliens?
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:28 am |
What is it Aliens?
October 30th, 2008 at 8:45 pm |
I was wondering if anyone is aware of the 2000 foot skeleton in Google Earth? The title was “Mystery Giant Skeleton in Satellite Image”.
November 30th, 2008 at 5:57 pm |
What about Roanoke Island disappearances?
Croatoan, anyone? That should’ve been number 1.
December 15th, 2008 at 10:13 pm |
Neet job, a wealth of information
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October 30th, 2009 at 11:15 am |
I think you should research the costa rica stone balls, a definate must on a list of the unexplained!
October 31st, 2009 at 3:43 pm |
Couple other more interesting facts about Stonehenge (I visited a couple of years ago and had a tour of the stones): the stones themselves are actually from mountains in Wales, and are some of the hardest in the region, if not the world. Stonehenge is 80 miles from the southern tip of the island: Wales, the north. It’s speculated that the builders transported the stones on boats around the west side of the island. This same feat was attempted by a group of Oxford students, who used modern technology…even they did not succeed. Even with lasers and modern boats. There’s also a mini-Stonehenge a few miles away that isn’t as well known, that is thought to be a sort of prototype.
Another fun fact about Stonehenge: cell phone company wanted to build a reception tower and give cell phone reception to all of southern England. Best location they could find? The exact centre of Stonehenge. Luckily, they didn’t build it in an effort to preserve it. A recent development is underway, attempting to put the visitor centre and parking lot about a mile away, and to continue the road in a tunnel under the landscape, in order to preserve the atmosphere. And the only reason why the grass is so green around the monument is because they use tons of fertilizer to “keep it up”– but if they didn’t, the landscape would look even more dry and barren, because the soil is so poor.
I don’t know how they did it! Even with modern technology, the land itself works against such a henge being created. It’s amazing to think about.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:44 pm |
I don’t get why they think the huge drawings need someone in the sky… They made rough maps without being able to fly way back then, why couldn’t they make rough drawings in the sand? I mean, come on, if they had someone in the sky to tell them what was happening, don’t you think that “dog” would look a bit more like…well…a dog?
December 19th, 2009 at 8:34 pm |
These are all man-made objects. How could someone shamelessly say ‘nobody knows’?
Stonehenge was designed as an energy concentration point, made to enhance mind abilities within the circle. (there are others in Europe that get less attention) These days it doesn’t work so well due to the shifting equinoxes.
The ancients had a way of moving large stones using resonance to change the object’s properties, making it lighter or flexible. Once the resonance is removed, the object hardens. I’m not sure if this applies to Stonehenge but I’m betting it does.
I can’t explain the other cases, but the information can always be found. The trouble is not that ‘nobody knows’ but that you’ve decided you know everything
January 2nd, 2010 at 10:50 am |
@KP: There actually was something on the Discovery Channel (or an affiliated channel) on the stone balls in Costa Rica. Basically, these two guys found the biggest and roundest rock they could, found some smaller rocks, and started pounding at it. When they discovered that their lack of working out had left them unsuited for masonry, they hired a couple local laborers to do it for them. It only took a day or two for the laborers to pound the big rocks into almost perfectly spherical shapes using nothing but some smaller, harder stones. There’s still some questions about whether the original positions of the stones had any significance, but that’s impossible to tell since most of them have been moved and used as landscaping decorations.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:12 am |
Stonehenge was “restored” (rebuilt) around 1901. if you search on the net you will find the earlier painting of what it looked like in the 1800’s. Still a good list but the association of a rubbish ,poorly researched novel with Rosslyn chapel is a bit annoying. Read “the Holy Blood and the Holy grail” for a far better researched factual account.