UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

The man’s remains are well preserved and sealed in his tomb, containing various artifacts such as jars in which his previously removed organs were stored, a scarab and tomb figurines made of china. But the woman’s remains are not in good condition and there are indications that her tomb was opened by tomb robbers.

Gold tongue plates are in good condition and are commonly found on ancient Egyptian mummies. They were placed on the tongues of the dead during burial so that the soul could speak to Osiris in the other world. Osiris is said to rule the underworld and judge the souls of the dead. It is believed that the dead could persuade Osiris with their golden tongues to have mercy on their souls.

The man’s tomb (pictured) has remained untouched since he was buried thousands of years ago, and all his funerary treasures have been left inside the tomb.

The picture shows jars found in the man’s tomb, containing his organs removed before burial.

But the woman’s remains are not in good condition

Archaeologists aren’t sure who the man and woman were, but their tombs were built adjacent to each other. The man’s skull is still well preserved, with his golden tongue clearly sticking out of his mouth.

Since he was buried thousands of years ago, his tomb has been untouched and all his funerary treasures have been left inside the tomb. Archaeologists found 402 Ushabti figurines made of china, a tin-glazed ceramic, as well as a number of small amulets and green beads along with the remains of the man.

Archaeologists found 402 Ushabti figurines made of china

Another mummy discovered in February was also buried with a tongue made of gold. Archaeologists excavating at the ancient Egyptian site of Taposiris Magna have uncovered 16 tombs in rock-cut tombs, one of which contained a mummy with a gold plate instead of a tongue.

Dating back about 2,000 years, burial shafts were popular in ancient Greek and Roman times, keeping the remains inside a mountain or natural rock formation.

Scarab beetles were also found in the man’s grave.

There were numerous mummies inside the tombs, and although the remains have since deteriorated, the stone funerary masks were still intact. It allowed the team to see what each person once looked like.

The excavation was led by the University of Santo Domingo, who has been working at the site for nearly a decade. The golden-tongued skeleton was found well-preserved as much of its skull and structure are still intact.

Archaeologists dug it out of the rock tomb and found the golden object still shimmering inside the skeleton’s mouth. They think the tongue was removed by mummies, but replaced by a golden tongue during a burial.

Related video:

Göbekli Tepe (or Göbeklitepe) is the famous Neolithic archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey that is considered to be the first and oldest known permanent human settlement in the world. If it is truly the first place people settled down, that means there were wanderers before then. Where did these particular wanderers come from 12,000 years ago? It turns out the answer to that question has been a mystery … until now. A surprising recent discovery in this well-studied land may have identified the place of origin of the first residents of Potbelly Hill – the Lake Baikal region of Siberia.

“Mass migrations of the peoples of Siberia to Zagros along the Central Asian mountain corridor should have reached the cultural areas of Göbekli Tepe through northern Iraq.”

Professor Semih Güneri from the Center for Archaeological Research of the Caucasus and Central Asia at Dokuz Eylul University, presented his findings at the Preliminary Turkish Congress Bringing Culture to the World held in Istanbul in mid-June 2022. Together with his research partner Professor Ekaterine Lipnina, Güneri introduced the attendees at this international conference to the idea that a mass migration began in Siberia 30,000 years ago, spreading all across Asia and eventually to Eastern and Northern Europe. As reported by Cumhuriyet, Hurriyet Daily News and other media sources covering the conference, Güneri found evidence which leads him to believe these wandering Siberians were the people who stopped and established Göbekli Tepe.

Göbekli Tepe

“Based on the results of joint research with Russian colleagues, we found out that traces of the production of stone tools made by copying by the Upper Paleolithic Siberian peoples, represented by the Early North Asian genetic group, were previously identified in Europe and Russia in the region”

While Göbekli Tepe is rich in structures, especially the circles of massive stone pillars decorated with reliefs of wild animals, the site lacks the kind of archeological data which could identify its residents, including their religion which motivated to build this temple and settle around it. Güneri knew that the Siberians of 30,000 years ago had a unique way of making stone tools. That is why he became excited when he found evidence of toolmaking at Göbekli Tepe.

“We discovered products of microblade copying technology, invented by the ancient peoples of North Asia 30,000 years ago, in the region of the Zagros Mountains.”

Güneri found evidence of a Siberian microblade copying technique in the Zagros mountains in Iran, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey – the pathway Siberians would have taken on their migration. Dr. Güneri refers to the technique as a “pressed microblade stone tool technology.” While other Göbekli Tepe were looking at the giant monoliths, the world’s oldest, Güneri went small … really small.

“The imprinted microblades we are working on are tiny cutters of 2-5 mm in size. These are precision tools used in the finest works by arranging them on bone material.”

The origin of this technique was confirmed in 2019 when he went to the Baikal region of south-east Siberia, home of Lake Baikal, the oldest (25 million years) and deepest (1,700 m or 5577 feet) lake in the world – a lake steeped in history and mystery to this day. The people of this region would certainly have been advanced enough to transport this technology with them and even teach it to others – which Güneri confirmed in his presentation.

“After that, this technique was transferred to the Göbekli Tepe culture. The connection between the high culture of Göbekli Tepe and the carriers of the Siberian technology for manufacturing microblades has already been proven. The results of the genetic analysis of the population of the Zagros region confirmed the presence here of traces of people from Siberia who reached Zagros through the Central Asian mountain corridor and assimilated with the Göbekli-Tepe culture in northern Iraq.”

Professor Güneri used previous genetic research on the people of the Zagros region to support his theory that they were the microblade toolmakers from the Lake Baikal region. The paper he and Professor Lipnina authored has been published in the “most respected archaeological peer-reviewed journal” in Turkey, and they look forward to further research and discussions.

Other than the weather and the rumors of underwater aliens, why would anyone want to leave the beautiful Lake aikal?

OK, so that explains how Siberians got to Göbekli Tepe and made it the first permanent settlement in the world. While the location itself was permanent, the residents weren’t. History shows that many of the people who planted themselves there later uprooted and moved on. Where did the move to? For that answer, we turn to Mehmet Özdoğan, an academic from Istanbul University, who shared his idea on where “the people of Göbeklitepe migrated to” and why.

“The people of Göbeklitepe turned into farmers, and they could not stand the pressure of the overwhelming clergy and started to migrate to five ways.”

Let’s stop here for a moment. Many archeologists follow the theory that Göbekli Tepe was not the world’s first permanent settlement but the world’s first temple where nomadic hunter-gatherers from many areas came to perform their rituals and move on. Mehmet Özdoğan proposes a variation on that theme – he sees Göbekli Tepe as a settlement AND a temple. And, while the former nomads liked the idea of settling down, farming, socializing and all of the other amenities that go with living in a town, they didn’t like having to answer to the settlement’s leaders, which would have also been the temple’s clergy. So, like so many other people have done throughout history, they became the first to move seeing freedom from a religion. Where did they go? Özdoğan cites five directions.

“Migrations take place primarily in groups. One of the five routes extends to the Caucasus, another from Iran to Central Asia, the Mediterranean coast to Spain, Thrace and [the northwestern province of] Kırklareli to Europe and England, and one route is to Istanbul via [Istanbul’s neighboring province of] Sakarya and stops.”

No surprise here – these were former nomads. After trying their hands at farming and regular temple attendance, they headed out in every direction -- Özdoğan says the migration happened fast and the former Göbekli Tepe residents went small – they formed about 300 settlements in what are now northern Greece, Bulgaria and Thrace. What happened to those who didn’t think the temple leaders were so bad and decided to stay behind?

“Those who remained in Göbeklitepe pulled the trigger of Mesopotamian civilization in the following periods, and those who migrated to Mesopotamia started irrigated agriculture before the Sumerians.”

In other words, they sparked what we now call civilization. Follow that trail all the way back to the start and this means civilization’s real roots began at Lake Baikal in Siberia. Proud Siberians will certainly like that theory. What do you think?

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

In 1974, paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson discovered the partial fossilized skeleton of a female of the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis at a dig site in Ethopia. Named “Lucy” because of the Beatles’ song playing continuously on the camp’s loudspeaker system, the early australopithecine was dated to about 3.2 million years ago, making it at the time the oldest human ancestor remains ever found, and helped establish Ethiopia as the top candidate for the birthplace of humanity. That title was previously claimed by South Africa, where in 1947 a nearly complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus was found. Nicknamed Mrs. Ples, it was dated to 2.1 to 2.6 million years ago. That changed recently when new analysis of Mrs. Ples changed her date of birth by a million years – making her about 3.4 to 3.6 million years old, pushing Lucy and Ethiopia back down the list.

“Sterkfontein is the most prolific single source of Australopithecus fossils, the vast majority of which were recovered from Member 4, a cave breccia now exposed by erosion and weathering at the landscape surface.”

In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), co-author Professor Dominic Stratford from South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand explains how Sterkfontein, a set of limestone caves about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Johannesburg, became known as the Cradle of Humankind – now a World Heritage Site. Limestone mining started there in the late 1890s and miners immediately began finding fossils which they turned over to paleontologists. In 1936, paleontology students from the University of the Witwatersrand found the first adult Australopithecine fossils – a child’s skull determined to be Australopithecus africanus was found earlier in Taung and became known as Taung Child. In 1947, British-South African doctor and palaeontologist Robert Broom uncovered a nearly complete skull of an adult female A. africanus (although there was some speculation it was an adolescent male) which Broom called Plesianthropus transvaalensis (near-man from Transvaal) – the name that was eventually shortened to Mrs. Ples.

We must never stop analyzing fossils

In 1997, a nearly complete skeleton of a second species of Australopithecus was discovered in the caves by paleontologist Ronald J. Clarke – named “Little Foot” after the first parts of the skeleton found, its age has been difficult to determine. However, Little Foot kicked off a flurry of paleo activity at Sterkfontein – to date, fossils of approximately 500 hominids have been excavated there, leading it to be called the Cradle of Humankind … despite the fact that most of the fossils have been resistant to accurate dating and those that have are younger than Ethiopia’s Lucy. Until now.

“Sterkfontein has more Australopithecus fossils than anywhere else in the world. But it’s hard to get a good date on them. People have looked at the animal fossils found near them and compared the ages of cave features like flowstones and gotten a range of different dates. What our data does is resolve these controversies. It shows that these fossils are old — much older than we originally thought.”

Co-author Darryl Granger, a professor at Purdue University, explains in Sci-News the new technique developed by the study team to get a more accurate date on Mrs. Ples and other Sterkfontein fossils. It started with the sediments surrounding the fossils in the limestone caves, particularly the cave known as Member 4 where the majority of the Australopithecus fossils have been found. They were looking for radioactive cosmogenic nuclides – which are extremely rare isotopes created by the cosmic rays which are constantly bombarding the Earth as high-energy particles. These cosmogenic nuclides cause nuclear reactions as they hit surface rocks, thus creating new radioactive isotopes within the mineral crystals. In particular, they looked for beryllium-10 and aluminum-26 – aluminum-26 is aluminum that is missing a neutron, causing it to slowly decay into magnesium over millions of years. According to the researchers, finding the two cosmogenic nuclides together was the key.

“Since aluminum-26 is formed when a rock is exposed at the surface, but not after it has been deeply buried in a cave, we can date cave sediments — and the fossils within them — by measuring levels of aluminum-26 in tandem with another cosmogenic nuclide, beryllium-10.”

The cosmogenic nuclides put the date of the sediment and the Australopithecus fossils in it at 3.4 to 3.67 million years ago. That pushed Mrs. Ples ahead of Lucy on the age chart. More importantly, it pushed the australopiths into a more prominent position as a human ancestor. Professor Stratford points out that the previous 2.4 million-year-old age made the South African Australopithecus species too young to be the ancestors of the Homo genus, which appeared starting 2.8 million years ago. By pushing its appearance back one million years, it now overlaps in age with other early hominins in Africa, including Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus deyiremeda at Burtele in eastern Africa, Australopithecus bahrelgazali in Chad at the crossroads of North and Central Africa, Kenyanthropus platyops at Lake Turkana in the Kenyan Rift Valley, and Australopithecus anamensis at Woranso-Mille in Ethiopia. This now solidifies South Africa’s place in early hominin evolution, and Sterkfontein’s hold on the title of the Cradle of Humankind.

We must never stop searching for fossils

But wait … there’s more.

The caves of Sterkfontein were used for millions of years by hominins and animals, resulting in a confusing mix that has made it difficult for paleontologists to paint an accurate picture of the historical evolution of the caves and their occupants. This new age determination technique using cosmogenic nuclides helped the research team draw maps of the cave deposits, which clearly showed how the animal fossils of different ages dating back millions of years were mixed with those from excavations in the 1930s and 1940s. While it helped this research team positively date Mrs. Ples and her friends, Dr. Granger hopes it will aid paleontologists around the world facing similar challenges.

“What I hope is that this convinces people that this dating method gives reliable results. Using this method, we can more accurately place ancient humans and their relatives in the correct time periods, in Africa, and elsewhere across the world.”

This could be the key to finding more Denisova hominin fossils in the piles of bones and sediment in the Denisova Cave in Siberia.

We think we know so much … and yet we know so little.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Door aanhoudende droogte viel de stad – die zich normaliter onder water schuilhoudt – eerder dit jaar heel even droog. Wat volgde, was een race tegen de klok. Mét resultaat.

Als klimaatverandering ergens tot uiting komt, dan is het – even afgezien van de polen – wel in Irak. Met name het zuiden van het land gaat regelmatig gebukt onder extreme droogte. Zo ook in januari en februari van dit jaar. Om de gewassen op de droge akkers in ieder geval nog een kans te geven, werd een beroep gedaan op het Mosoel-reservoir; het belangrijkste waterreservoir dat Irak sinds de jaren tachtig van de vorige eeuw rijk is (zie kader). Het waterpeil in dit reservoir zakte rap. En terwijl het water zakte, dook in het reservoir een grote en daarmee vermoedelijk belangrijke stad uit de Bronstijd op.

Mosoel-reservoir
In 1981 werd in het noorden van Irak aangevangen met de bouw van de Mosoeldam (in die tijd aangeduid als de Saddamdam). Door de dam ontstond een stuwmeer dat men kort na de voltooiing van de dam – in 1985 – liet vollopen. Verschillende archeologische vindplaatsen verdwenen daarbij onder water, waaronder dus ook de stad die begin dit jaar tijdelijk uit het water verrees. Wat deze stad echter bijzonder maakt, is dat deze – ook voorafgaand aan de totstandkoming van het stuwmeer – nooit door archeologen onderzocht is.

Geen vrije tijd
Koerdische archeologen haastten zich – met enkele Duitse collega’s – naar het Mosoel-reservoir. En dat was het startsein van een race tegen de klok (en het water). De archeologen hadden daarbij een duidelijk doel voor ogen: een zo’n groot mogelijk deel van deze stad – voor het water deze weer zou verzwelgen – verkennen. “De tijdsdruk had geen effect op de opgravingen en onze documentatiemethoden,” benadrukt onderzoeker Ivana Puljiz, verbonden aan de universiteit van Freiburg. “Maar het betekende wel dat we bijna geen vrije tijd hadden.”

Zes weken was de archeologen uiteindelijk gegund. En in die periode werd er continu keihard gewerkt. “De grootste uitdaging tijdens de opgravingen was het weer. Door de tijdsdruk bleven we doorgraven in kou, sneeuw, hagel, regen en zelfs stormen. Want we wisten niet wanneer het waterpeil weer zou stijgen en hoeveel tijd we zouden hebben.”

Machtig rijk
Maar het harde werk heeft zijn vruchten afgeworpen. Want de archeologen zijn erin geslaagd om – in de korte tijd die hen daarvoor gegund was – een groot deel van de stad in kaart te brengen. Daarnaast zijn in de stad ook een aantal interessante vondsten gedaan die hopelijk meer inzicht kunnen geven in het nog altijd mysterieuze beschaving die tussen 1550 en 1350 voor Christus over grote delen van het noorden van Mesopotamië en Syrië heerste: de Mittani.

Over de Mittani
“Het Mittani-rijk is één van de grootste staten die tijdens de late Bronstijd in het zuidwesten van Azië te vinden waren,” vertelt Puljiz. “Het bestond gelijktijdig met het Nieuwe Rijk in Egypte, de Kassieten die over Babylon heersten en het Hettitisch Koninkrijk (dat centraal Anatolië en noordwestelijke Syrië besloeg, red.). Het gebied waarin de Mittani heersten, was groot en reikte van de Mediterrane kust tot het noorden van Irak. Maar er is heel weinig bekend over de organisatie van het rijk, omdat de hoofdstad ervan tot op heden nog niet met zekerheid geïdentificeerd is en de archieven nog op ontdekking wachten.”

Waardevol
Het maakt de opgravingen die nu op de tijdelijke oevers van het Mosoel-reservoir hebben plaatsgevonden heel waardevol. “De opgravingen wijzen erop dat dit een belangrijk centrum in het Mittani-rijk was,” vertelt onderzoeker Hasan Qasim. En de stad kan ons dan ook meer vertellen over deze nog altijd vrij mysterieuze beschaving.

Grote gebouwen
Zo zijn de onderzoekers tijdens hun opgravingen op een paleis gestuit, maar ook op een soort fort met muren en wachttorens en een enorm, meerdere verdiepingen tellend pakhuis. “Wat het meest opwindend is, is dat we ons nu een voorstelling kunnen maken van hoe de stad eruitzag,” stelt Puljiz. “Hoe de stad functioneel en ruimtelijk georganiseerd was. Wat ons daarbij onder meer verbaasde was dat we op verschillende plaatsen in de stad op enorme gebouwen stuitten.”

In de stad zijn opmerkelijk goed bewaard gebleven muren ontdekt.

Afbeelding: Universities of Freiburg and Tübingen, KAO.

Metershoge muren
Veel van die gebouwen zagen er naar omstandigheden nog redelijk goed uit. Zo werden er op verschillende plaatsen in de oude stad goedbewaard gebleven muren teruggevonden die soms wel enkele meters hoog waren. Dat de muren – gemaakt van in de zon gedroogde kleisteen – zelfs na meer dan 40 jaar onder water te hebben gestaan, nog heel zijn, is volgens de onderzoekers te herleiden naar een aardbeving die de stad rond 1350 voor Christus verwoestte. Tijdens deze beving stortten de bovenste delen van gebouwen in, waardoor de onderste delen erdoor begraven – en later ook beschermd – werden.

Tabletten
Naast de muren stuitten de onderzoekers nog op een andere spectaculaire vondst; vijf keramische vazen die samen een meer dan 100 kleitabletten tellend archief herbergden. De kleitabletten dateren uit de periode kort nadat de aardbeving plaatsvond. En ook daarvoor geldt dat het bijna wonderbaarlijk te noemen is dat deze kleitabletten hun decennialange onderdompeling hebben doorstaan. De onderzoekers vermoeden dat de tabletten brieven zijn en hopen dat deze ons meer kunnen vertellen over de ondergang van de stad en misschien ook de opkomst van het Assyrische rijk in het gebied.

Hier zie je een met kleitabletten gevuld vat. Eén van de kleitabletten zit zelfs nog in zijn ‘envelop’.

Afbeelding: Universities of Freiburg and Tübingen, KAO.

Zakhiku
Ten slotte denken de onderzoekers dankzij de opgravingen ook te weten hoe de Mittani deze indrukwekkende stad noemden. “Tijdens onze opgravingen hebben we een administratieve tekst gevonden die de oude stad Zakhiku noemt. We nemen aan dat dit verwijst naar de plek waar we opgravingen hebben gedaan.”

Dat de onderzoekers in amper zes weken tijd zoveel gezien en gedocumenteerd hebben, is indrukwekkend. En er viel nog veel meer te ontdekken, maar de tijd ontbrak; de archeologen waren in februari gedwongen de stad weer terug te geven aan het water. Maar niet voordat ze deze voor zover mogelijk met plastic hadden bedekt. “Het is belangrijk om ons gedeelde culturele erfgoed voor toekomstige generaties te behouden,” stelt Puljiz. “En archeologische vindplaatsen in reservoirs eroderen door het stijgende en dalende water. Uiteindelijk zal zo’n vindplaats compleet eroderen en gaan alle ruïnes verloren.” Dat probleem speelt ook in het geval van Zakhiku. “Hoewel de gebouwen uit de Mittani-periode dankzij hun omvang goedbewaard zijn gebleven, zijn de bovenliggende lagen – zonder ooit archeologisch onderzocht te zijn – al bijna vrijwel geheel geërodeerd. We hopen verdere erosie te voorkomen door de vindplaats in te pakken met plastic dat door stenen en keien op zijn plaats wordt gehouden.”

Na de opgravingen werden de ruïnes met plastic bedekt om ze tegen erosie te beschermen.

Afbeelding: Universities of Freiburg and Tübingen, KAO.

Inmiddels is de stad weer volledig door water bedekt. Wanneer deze weer uit het water verrijst, is onmogelijk te voorspellen. “Maar ik hoop dat we ons onderzoek op deze opwindende plek weer eens voort kunnen gaan zetten,” stelt Puljiz. “Er zijn nog zoveel dingen te ontdekken!” En niet alleen in deze stad. Want naast Zakhiku zijn er in de jaren tachtig met de totstandkoming van het Mosoel-reservoir nog veel meer gebieden aan het water ten prooi gevallen. “Voorafgaand daaraan heeft de Irakese overheid een soort reddingsprogramma op poten gezet waarbij talloze van deze gebieden eerst door Irakese en buitenlandse onderzoekers zijn onderzocht.” Hoewel men ook van het bestaan van Zakhiku op de hoogte was, werden de resten van deze stad echter nooit onder de loep genomen. En mogelijk zijn er nog wel meer plaatsen die archeologen toen – bewust of onbewust – niet nader hebben onderzocht. “Er kunnen zomaar tientallen andere belangrijke plaatsen zijn waar we nog helemaal niets van weten,” denkt Puljiz.

Bronmateriaal:

"A 3400-year-old city emerges from the Tigris River" - Universität Tübingen
Interview met Ivana Puljiz
Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: Universities of Freiburg and Tübingen, KAO

{ https://www.scientias.nl/ }

In this age of exploration a lot of attention has been paid to what lies out beyond our planet and what swims about in the darkest depths of our unexplored seas, but an area that seems to get significantly less attention is the world that lies locked down in the never-ending black night below us. Here caves and caverns stretch out and meander over vast distances, sometimes harboring new discoveries beyond our wildest dreams. Yet the most bizarre and baffling supposed accounts of the deep places of the earth are those concerning strange, unknown civilizations long gone, who are claimed to have dwelled within the earth and that remain lost and unconfirmed.

One of the most seemingly absurd claims of such an underground civilization was detailed in a 1956 bestselling book called The Third Eye, which is an allegedly autobiographical account by a man named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, outlining his experiences at Chakpori Lamasery, in Tibet. Among the wealth of strangeness in the book, such as Rampa’s operation to drill a hole in his head to release mysterious mental powers, the titular Third Eye, and the strange discovery of his own mummified body from a previous incarnation, there is his curious account of finding a vast subterranean world crafted by inscrutable entities under the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. Here beneath the palace of the Dali Llama, he joined a priest to explore a system of caves whose walls were adorned with strange symbols and drawings by unknown hands. Following one tunnel down into the darkness, Rampa claimed to have come across a vast cavern with an underground lake and a ceiling so high he could not discern its height as the light did not reach all the way up the soaring chasm above.

Here the walls held mysterious geometric diagrams and diagrams, as well as pictures of giants and machines the likes of which he had never imagined, along with inscrutable writing in some puzzling alien language. They then took a side passageway that wound off and purportedly came to an area with a “black house,” within which were ensconced three sarcophagi apparently made of a smooth black stone similar to obsidian and which were covered with an array of strange symbols and what looked to be a star map of some kind. Within these were the bodies of strange giant beings, which the priest who had accompanied him explained as being the bodies of ancient “gods,” who had come to their world eons before. Rampa would say of these bodies:

I looked again, fascinated and awed. Three gold figures, nude, lay before us. Two male and one female. Every line, every mark faithfully reproduced by the gold. But the size! The female was quite ten feet long as she lay, and the larger of the two males was not under fifteen feet. Their heads were large and somewhat conical at the top. The jaws were narrow, with a small, thin-lipped mouth. The nose was long and thin, while the eyes were straight and deeply recessed. No dead figures, these-they looked asleep.

Things got perhaps even more bizarre yet as they continued their journey through the complex spider web of dank caverns, tunnels, and passageways. Within the oppressive gloom here below the earth Rampa claimed that they came across fantastical creatures the likes of which he had never seen skittering about, as well as a brightly lit room hidden behind a sliding wall panel, which held an array of strange dormant machines with inscrutable purposes he could not fathom. When this tour was finished, Rampa claimed that he had then gained the new ability to look through time, and that he saw visions of the ancient ages when these enigmatic giants he has seen had ruled the earth. As incredible as all of this talk of an ancient race of subterranean giants sounds, it is impossible to verify any of this, no evidence has ever been brought forward other than this account, and there has actually been much debate as to Rampa’s true identity or whether this was all a hoax. We may never know.

Tales of ancient races of enormous stature inhabiting the deep dark places of our world are actually rather numerous, and another tale of subterranean giants comes from the state of Missouri, in the United States. In 1885, the New York Times ran a truly astounding story of an ancient underground city that had been found at a depth of 360 feet during the digging of a shaft for a coal mine near Moberly in Randolph County, Missouri. Two men, a David Coates and Mr. George Keating, then delved down into the depths of the shaft to explore what had been discovered down below, and they would later claim that they had come across an immense underground city which was described as follows:

A hard and thick stratum of lava arches in the buried city, the streets of which are regularly laid out and enclosed by walls of stone, which is cut and dressed in a fairly good, although rude style of masonry. A hall 30 by 100 feet was discovered with stone benches and tools of all descriptions for mechanical service. Further search disclosed statues and images made of a composition closely resembling bronze, lacking luster. A stone fountain was found, situated in a wide court or street, and from it a stream of perfectly pure water was flowing, which was found to be strongly impregnated with lime.

This is already a fairly bizarre thing to find underground in Missouri, but within the nearly impenetrable murk of these corridors the two men claimed to have found the actual remains of the city’s denizens, which had apparently been there in the dark undisturbed for millennia, and were described as being true giants far larger than a normal human being. The bizarre remains were described:

The bones of the leg measured, the femur four and one-half feet, the tibia four feet and three inches, showing that when alive the figure was three times the size of an ordinary man, and possessed of a wonderful muscular power and quickness. The head bones had separated in two places, the sagittal and the coronal suturis having been destroyed. The implements found embrace bronze and flint knives, stone and granite hammers, metallic saws of rude workmanship, but proved metal, and others of similar character, they are no so highly polished, nor so accurately made as those now finished by our best mechanics, but they show skill and an evidence of an advanced civilization that are positively wonderful.

Frustratingly, the article mentions that a follow-up excursion would be launched, but then there is no other word on the alleged discovery. Unbelievably, this ancient underground city of giants in North America was just sort of forgotten in the mists of time. Why should this be? Of course there is the very real possibility that this was a fictionalized fake news story, which were unfortunately rather common in the day, but there have been rumors that the phenomenal discovery was covered-up, perhaps by the Smithsonian. This would be yet another conspiracy painting the Smithsonian as a shadowy organization bent on obfuscating and burying bizarre archeological finds, and if so what happened to those gargantuan bones? No one knows, it was never mentioned again, and the lost underground city of Missouri remains just another weird historical oddity.

The idea of such underground giants can be perhaps best be linked to the Hollow Earth Theory, which more or less states that within our planet rather than layers of rock, crusts, and magma is a lush world full of life and even with its own miniature sun, all of which sits deep within the hollow crust that we walk upon. The idea can trace its roots back to the 17th century, when Edmund Halley proposed in 1692 that the earth consisted of a series of spherical shells that all orbited one another around a hollow core, an idea which he concocted in an effort to explain various mysterious discrepancies in compass readings. Within each of these shells, he theorized, could be areas that were capable of harboring life and even civilization.

The idea caught on, and underwent a sort of evolution, undergoing various additions and iterations until it was no longer a series of layered shells, but simply one vast world lying within a hollow space below us. Indeed, in those days the theory gained such popularity that it was accepted as fact by many, and was even believed by those within the scientific community of the time. The idea that there were two major entrances to this underground realm, located at the North and South Poles, was pursued by some expeditions, the most famous being that of a John Cleves Symmes, Jr. in 1822, who remained a vocal, outspoken proponent of the concept and was thoroughly convinced of the theory's validity up to his death. Although eventually the concept of a Hollow Earth fell out of favor, it has nevertheless been held onto by stubborn believers all the way up to the present day, and there are a surprising number of books and websites devoted to trying to gain credence for it.

Although there are many offshoots of the basic core theory of a hollow Earth, an interesting common detail of many of these ideas is that the animals and people who dwell there are larger than those who inhabit the earth above. The giant people of these civilizations are often described as being the ancestors of ancient peoples, and as being highly advanced, with the technology to tunnel up through the ground where their dwellings and evidence of their existence can be detected by us. According to Hollow Earth “truthers,” these stories of ancient subterranean civilizations and giants can be seen as evidence of their far-out ideology.