One fact I have always found curious is that the Aliens look so much like humans -- two legs, two arms, a head with eyes, nose, and mouth. And all these abduction stories imply that they have DNA that is compatible with our DNA. If they really evolved from scratch on a faraway planet, then this would be highly unlikely. Or maybe not. There are 5 possibilities I can think of.
1) They're just products of human imagination, so of course they look like humans.
2) Panspermia -- the basis of life is universal, and is seeded by tardigrades and spores that hitch rides on meteors to inhabit new planets.
3) Maybe there's only one way to make living things given the (universal) physical and chemical laws. Life everywhere has to evolve in the same way that it has evolved on Earth.
4) I'm inclined to think that the potential for life is the raison d'etre of the Universe. There is consciousness looking to create physical forms that can house it, and it tends to come out the same everywhere..
5) Maybe the "extraterrestrials" are really our descendants, millions of years in the future. when they have learned the technology of time travel.
The miniature alien that you allude to underwent genetic testing. I believe there was something like 92% homology with human DNA. This allowed the researchers to posit that it must have been a highly deformed human fetus, which is of course absurd.
I cite this to introduce another possibility that is a variation of 4) and 5). The ETs are not our descendants but our antecedents, in the sense that they have taken up their role to fulfill the raison d'être of the universe. They have used variations of their own DNA to create physical forms that can house our level of consciousness appropriately. This shouldn't be so outrageous for us to accept. After all, we are drawn to create robots with hints of our physical form that are programmed to think like we do.
As I have discussed with you off-line, a tremendous amount of information has been brought to our planet through "channeled" information, telepathic transmissions that originate in the minds of advanced ETs that have been offered from time to time. One such body of information is "The Law of One".
This transcribed body of work that includes over 100 channeling sessions between a trio of humans and an entity who calls itself "Ra" is nothing less than a doctoral dissertation on metaphysics. Part of this remarkable "transmission" addresses the question you pose here, why do aliens seem to take humanoid form?
Ra suggests that our planets, stars and galaxies are not merely spheres of rock and plasma but conscious entities that influence the containers of consciousness that appear in their field of influence. Our own milkyway galaxy lays out the basic blueprint for physical form as well as the archetypes of the mind. Stars use this to overlay their own variations on the theme, etc.
It would be quite reasonable to expect that many ET civilizations would have physical forms that resemble each other and us. It's not such a huge stretch to see that "man was created in the likeness of his creator".
This video attempts to validate a grainy VHS tape of a gray alien in custody of the US military. He has the basic form of a human, but the video claims that he is a robotic hybrid, an enhanced living organism such as is envisioned by today's Transhumanists.
I think we have to be very careful of offering any kind of video/photo as some sort of evidence. When it comes to such a topic, suggesting that footage somehow authenticates or even vaguely supports such "notions" will automatically be regarded as flimsy evidence which will be used to justify the dismissal of any subsequent arguments.
If time travel is possible then the story of spontaneous life is also more plausible, because it could take much longer to develop. Once developed, it could be seeded "back in time", perhaps spawning a new universe, but this one has life in it much earlier.
Deliberate seeding of planets back in time is perhaps a more plausible form of panspermia.
While we are on the topic of fringe theories, there doesn't seem to be a good explanation for the presence of the moon in its size, density, and orbital configuration. Along with life itself, it seems very unlikely to happen by chance, but it DOES seem to be 4B years old. But for a life seeding time traveling entity, it could be just another amusing miracle.
Why cannot the 'alien creatures' be fakes created by the aliens? I assume that any extra-terrestrial civilization sophisticated and advanced enough to travel via extra-dimensional craft to be able to manufacture bio-organic forms at will. If they are going to leave 'bodies' behind at all, it seems to me highly unlikely that the bodies would be the real thing. After all, this would mean leaving one of their own behind. Nothing ET does is accidental, this would be impossible. Everything is a contact event of some kind.
Thanks for listing the most essential reasons why an ET presence on our planet is not just possible but highly plausible.
There is no question that the government or its factions that have no oversight are in possession of technologies that are well beyond what the public is aware of. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year for decades and the "military" has no more to show for it than some big ships and futuristic shaped planes that can evade radar? The public thinks that the most destructive weapon on the planet is some variation of a hydrogen bomb. That technology is older than the transistor radio.
I have spent time with Dr. Greer and I believe that his intentions are good but he is wrong about all ETs being benevolent.
I posit that there are some that are "good" and some that are "bad". Why would civilizations that have gone interstellar be at odds? It cannot be about gold, petrol or lithium. I suggest that the commodity worth battling over is the control over the free will of conscious beings. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised that the so-called "negative" species have been influencing the trajectory of human civilization for millennia, working largely with those already in power, convincing them that they are uniquely endowed with the ability and rights to govern and control the masses at their whim.
The consequences of such an influence, if it existed, should be obvious. We would have religious doctrine that sets "rules of behavior" with interminable punishment if these rules are broken. We would have developed systems of censorship and surveillance that are somehow accepted with little resistance by the masses, from Sunday confessionals to the collusion of government with big tech.
There would be the exploitation of communities by others, from slavery of ancient and colonial times, to serfdom and now to the modern day miracle of central banking which allows to pay for today's disasters through tomorrow's labor.
I would bet that at their origin, these systems we have built were constructed with "help" from ETs that are primarily interested in conquest, conquest of our free will.
So where are the "good" ETs? Well, if the bad ones seek to control, the good ones must seek to liberate. I suggest that they do not see reality as a battle of good vs bad. They see it as a dance between freedom and control, love of others and love of self.
This puts them in a spot. If their "prime directive" is to allow all beings to be free, how could they interfere in any struggle without violating it?
Could not agree more with the summary and analysis of recent UFO events. Additional resources that can fill in the gaps are Solari.com (Space, here we come! Annual Wrap up), GizaDeathStar (Joseph P. Farrell's community) and the Dark Journalist.
I think they are making every attempt to keep this information secret because they don't want our worldly rivals (Russia and China) to know what our secret agencies know. After all, it took threats from key members of Congress to even get them to talk about this.
But plenty of artifacts land in Russia and China, and surely they are similarly capable of reverse engineering them.
I find it more plausible that a transnational group formed to exploit these technologies, probably initially encouraged, and then infiltrated and controlled by the ETs themselves. National rivalry is just another vector of control, which they have preserved for the purpose of control, and science is encouraged to stay far behind and often on the wrong track. (Being on the wrong track is natural enough and not difficult to foster)
The creation of modern social media has created the capability to manipulate populations with unheard of precision, using automated techniques, which would also be readily available to this transnational entity. Perhaps this is the final stages of a pacification program, preparing us for total slavery and subjugation, or perhaps sold as a hive mind, giving up individuality for the greater good.
As always Josh, I deeply appreciate your cogent presentation of various pathways of truth regarding evidentiary questions where doubt and uncertainty prevail.
I find it so hard at this point to know how to proceed regarding questions of belief and possibility when it comes to alien presence on our world (current or ancient), secret technologies (current or ancient) human prehistory, (and increasingly conventional history), and even scientific presumptions on the nature of what is real, or possibly real, and so on.
I find myself inescapably considering such questions based on what I want to believe (and what I don't want to believe), and then catching myself. I don't want to believe our military a intelligence overlords posses fantastic technology because (in this resolve I am close to certain) I have judged these institutions as hopelessly corrupt and immoral. I want to believe they are trying to daunt us into believing they are far more powerful than they really are, because if that is true, it is easier for me to hope they will fail in refiguring the world into their paradigm of ruthless, soulless control and domination.
I also find myself not wanting to believe these aliens and secret technologies are real/have been real because I do not trust that beings with such powers would actually be benign. It seems to be the case from my lived experience and observations that great material power gravitates toward the possession of those who are most amoral and ruthless. Though I would like to believe that in other dimensions and/or planets, this principle has not turned out to prevail, I am leery of placing my hopes on external protectors and guides to check the power of the sociopaths who hold sway in human societies. This feels disempowering, and also warns my sixth sense that it could be another trap to bestow authority and trust to beings with material powers beyond my own, only to be set up for another round of oppression and enslavement.
Or else, the whole thing could be yet another layer of lies altogether - i.e., the aliens I hope to be enlightened teachers do not turn out to be malevolent oppressors, but instead turn out to not exist at all - yet another deception and false hope to keep us sitting on our hands, abrogating responsibility to the "white hats" (whether human, alien, or angelic) so we can continue to be dominated more thoroughly by those in power taking action to imprison us in the smart grid of digital hell.
When faced with mysteries like the pyramids and Easter Island, which in my youth I willingly accepted on the terms of our academic leaders and their hand-waving non-explanations (or this stunning revelation of the 6-inch elongated head mummy, new information to me in this article), I find myself mired in speculation. I have been fooled enough times by the consensus of established authority, that I can't help but wonder if I am now just as liable to be fooled by rebel anti-consensus evidence. Is it all part of an even greater elaborate psyop designed to break my own trust in my ability to discern any kind of reality at all and render me helplessly pliable to those holding the keys to mass perception and the flow of information?
And as I go through this whole process, I suddenly remind myself that I've been reasoning based on what I do and don't want to believe, attempting to believe in something that lends me some degree of hope and empowerment (as I mentioned at the beginning of this comment), precisely because in this age of digital deep-fakes and multi-tiered perceptory manipulations, I no longer feel confident I can trust any physical evidence or measurement of what is real, even though I remain confident in my rationality, logic, and reasoning. But my reasoning power can be twisted to affirm false realities if the premises it's based on are deceptions.
I have lately been recognizing that there is no escaping the need to trust the work of others in order to supply me with the basic evidentiary facts my reasoning proceeds on. But even if I trust the integrity of those who supply me with this information, how can I trust that they were not in turn deceived by others, even though their belief was established in good faith?
I'm at this hall of mirrors place right now, certain at least, that what I'm currently experiencing is the result of so many mountains of gaslighting that it is threatening to reduce me to a state of learned helplessness.
Thank you again, Josh, for your ongoing work in your efforts to systematically reduce these questions of uncertainty to their bare bones and assist us all in our attempts to unravel the tangles of gas lighting that has done so much to rob us of our very perception.
Fully share Josh's views and even speculations that we, humans, are and have been lied to and manipulated by a small elite, about dangers that do not exist, but allow them - the "elite" to proceed with either human secret technologies or with exploiting and retro-building ET technologies, so the masses will not know.
It would also fit the Agenda 2030 / Great Reset, depopulation and digitization of everything... because reality - science we are prevented from know - is at least dynamic and most likely driven fully by endless energy which is not accessible to a digitally-run world. Only the "cult-cabal" or elite would have access to these technologies, while, we - a necessarily reduced mass transhumanized population - are kept abay by a an all-digitized 1984.
I've always been agnostic as to whether aliens exist and have visited us. I have changed my mind regarding the likelihood though. I used to consider aliens unlikely, but the recent discovery of so many earth-like exoplanets has appraised one variable in the Drake equation at a level that makes their existence at least, seem likely. In the past, I also didn't Want there to be aliens. I had a rosy view of the human race. Maybe we didn't have heaven on earth, but we very much Could. Aliens were a potential threat to that. My opinion of my fellow humans however, soured over the years, and the pandemic provided a nail in that coffin. The paltry level of objection to the lockdowns and other restrictions makes me believe that only some sort of deus ex machina can save us.
As to the pyramids: those 1,000 ton stones were cast in place. This was proven with electron microscopy. I can provide a link to an article if you like.
As to the origin of the need for control and lockdown: no doubt you've noticed that an awful lot of people get off on bossing others around. Of course, maybe it's the origin of That of which you're curious. Feeling no such impulse myself, I don't believe it to be an intrinsic aspect of human nature.
But beyond it being the product of our twisted culture somehow, I have no explanation.
This is the first that I've heard that the blocks in the Pyramids are a composite like concrete. I've always read that they are granite, and that the quarry was identified 100 miles south off the Nile. Do you have a reference for the "cast in place" hypothesis?
I believe the body of the pyramids is granite and the facing is limestone. I see the analysis that the limestone might be a composite material. Certainly, that's what we would do today if we were going to build something solid of that size.
But there are plenty of examples of large stones, including one 1000-ton plus block that has been partially cut but never removed from a quarry. I believe it's off the Nile. There are granite megaliths in Europe, Asia, South America, and of course Easter Island. In Saqqara, there are core drill holes in rock constructions that were clearly cut with more powerful machine tools than anything we have today.
It's hard to imagine making a monument out of 2 million stone blocks, each of a different shape, that is straight and square to within a fraction of an inch without a computer or equivalent.
Sure, I was only speaking about the pyramid limestone. I am inclined to think ancient peoples had access to impressive technologies that modern people do not. I just don't think the pyramids are a manifestation of such. Except though, their cement formula was something previously unknown, involving diatomaceous earth and what not. It seems pretty durable. We might do well to copy it. People are assuming it has less embodied energy than modern concrete. But I wonder if that might be wrong, as the Egyptians might have had energy sources we're oblivious to as well.
Even if you were to explain the pyramids, the Sarcophagi of Saqqara too which Josh makes reference are beyond explanation. UnchartedX has a great 6 part video on them.
Outstanding, Josh! This article treats a very difficult subject with sanity and objectivity--a desperately needed alternative to the sensationalism and hysteria endemic in our society.
Keep it up! There **are** answers out there... Your approach is the way to find them.
Speaking as a person with substantial experience actually making things by hand & by machine, and moving big things, & small things, as well as being a trained physicist & engineer, and as a human -- to suggest that the great ancient works of the ancient Egyptians, and that of other ancient cultures, requires advanced tech beyond our current understanding, and possible alien help is absolute hogwash and an insult to the great accomplishments of those cultures. Uncharted X, Hancock, et al at best display an incredible level of ignorance &/or gullibility, and at the worst end of the spectrum malfeasance.
These folks have been credibly debunked ad infinitum (sometimes their own videos debunk themselves, if you watch carefully) by many over they years. The best debunking I ever saw, as to the topic of the ability of humans to move stone blocks of multi-ton to hundreds of tons using simple techniques of the proper application of leverage, was a series of videos by a humble carpenter, in which he did just that all by himself (he made the videos about 20 years ago (I haven’t been able to track down the originals) and I believe has since passed away, but here's a youtube link I found to some old news footage summarizing his past project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c ).
As to precision stonework with simple hand tools, I've done plenty of that myself, as a hobby, but there are plenty of vids emerging on youtube lately demonstrating this as well -- a couple of channels I found recently on this topic that I think are neat are: Scientists Against Myths, and SGD Sacred Geometry Decoded.
Regarding Dr. Robert Schoch. I have found him to be a credible and accomplished expert in his field, and initially found his interpretation of the weathering of the Sphinx enclosure interesting and compelling -- even exciting, for who doesn't love a good story that supports some interesting ideas. But then I learned of Robert Schneiker's work (see: https://www.robertschneiker.com/), which provides a very compelling counter explanation to Schoch's surface runoff erosion theory. It will be interesting to observe Schoch's public output in the coming months/years and see if he comes to revise his hypothesis.
Another thing that I learned recently, that I was totally unaware of before, is that the pyramids in Egypt are themselves actually carbon dated (and have been for quite some time), and the dates fit reasonably well with the already known historical timeline. This carbon dating is possible because of the mortar used in the pyramids and also of actual wood-in-place used in their construction. Poor Zahi Hawass, he is in the unenviable position of being a good professional with scientific data and wanting to do the right thing to also having political and fiscal obligations to his bosses and the people of Egypt. The known scientific, archaeological, and historical data is not secret, but it is not strongly promoted by Egypt. Why? Well, keeping the perception of unknown mysteries and allowing all the kooks and charlatans to do their thing is good for tourism and the economy. Israel does the same thing in their country – a lot of the archaeological work sponsored and funded by the Israeli Government actually discovers things that are counter to the accepted Biblical and Jewish narrative. Most of it they hide in plain site by not drawing attention to it. The data, sites, and findings are all there and publicly accessible. They just don't emphasize it cause it wouldn't be good for business, or politics.
In short, yes there's much of our history that is lost or yet to be discovered. But don't forget humans are clever and always fiddling and thinking and doing. We should look at the accomplishments of our ancestors with pride and respect. Accept that we know a lot, and that we don't know as much as we think, and there is always someone (past or present) that knows more, or is more clever, more patient, or just plain-old more persistent. Also, just cause you can't conceive or understand something yourself doesn’t mean it’s unknown by others. Sometimes there's no mystery, just awesome work and craftsmanship by someone with simple surprisingly simple skills, and a bit of knowledge, you don't have.
These are subjects that can only be resolved by looking at details. Here are 3 achievements that I claim are beyond the reach of present day technology:
1) To quarry a 1,000 ton granite block, remove it from the quarry in one piece, and transport it tens of kilometers to be used as a building foundation.
2) To drill into granite with a core drill pitched to advance 1 mm for each turn of the drill bit.
3) To cut from inhomogeneous and brittle diorite a hollow shape that is just a few mm thick and fits a prescribed mathematical curve everywhere to 0.01 mm accuracy.
I didn't see evidence for any of these capabilities in the references you supplied. The first is the foundation stone in Baalbek, Lebanon. The second is illustrated in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFuf-gBuuno. The third is illustrated by 40,000 vases in the Cairo museum, unearthed from caves below Saqqara.
I pondered how & if to respond. I humbly present the below links as counter-points for both you and your audience. I’ve come to view Uncharted X (Ben van Kerkwyk ), Graham Hancock, Dunn, The Ancient Aliens group and the like as being in the same category as Flat-Earthers, and Mud Flooders. In some ways they are just so ignorant that they simply don’t understand what they are looking at -- and are so emotionally vested (and in some cases – financially) in their stories that it is impossible to bring them around to objective reality. And some of these people are just outright con artists cashing in on the gullibility of others. Anyway, for your viewing pleasure.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg… for loads of fall-asleep pleasure, you can always read archaeological and history journals.
Just remember, it’s still possible to have cool stories about the past (probably even better than the fictions Hancock & Kerkwyk, etc.. peddle) _without_ the implied assumption that the peoples we actually know of, of times past, were too stupid and unskilled to wipe their own arse. The real world is actually pretty cool.
P.S.: I want to add, that I understand it can be difficult to see through some of the presentations of Uncharted X, and the like. It does take time and effort, especially if you don’t have the requisite background. They have slick productions and carefully constructed rhetoric – also, a lot of their “facts” are not facts at all, and the actual facts that they do present are shown in such a way as to illustrate that which they do not illustrate (I've had this happen to me with reporters quite a bit, so I learned not to deal with them). If for no other reason, their shows and books might be worth examining as to learn how to pull a fast one. It’s important to counter folks like Hancock and Kerkwyk because casually consuming and accepting their material as true makes you know less than before you read or watched their stuff.
That’s all I got now. Hope y’all at least found the links to offer a little food for thought.
Parker - I welcome discussion on the merits, but ad hominem attacks aren't helpful. Perhaps you could summarize for us how the Baalbek foundation stone weighing 1000 tons was quarried and moved. I didn't have patience for the whole video, but skimming through it, I didn't see this topic discussed. Meanwhile, I've listened to another UnchartedX video describing the quarry at Aswan, where there is a partially-cut stone weighing 1200 tons, and from which another 1,000 ton obelisk was quarried and transported 1,000 miles north to become an obelisk in northern Egypt.
You reference "Making Egyptian Drill Holes", which proposes that holes were drilled with copper and sand for abrasion. I agree that this is possible, though very slow. What I don't see is discussion of the scrape marks inside the drill holes that indicate the pitch of the drill = how far the drill moved forward for each turn of the drill. This would be very, very small for a copper drill with sand, somewhat bigger for a high-speed modern core drill, but bigger still for the scars inside some of the actual holes. This suggests a drilling technology more efficient than anything we have today.
There is nothing in any of the videos you cite that attempts to explain 3D shapes that are accurate (and symmetric) to a tiny fraction of a millimeter.
* WAGONS (no pic, sorry): The Romans also built carts/wagons for various loads. Some of the specially built wagons for large block loads from quarries would have huge wheels 12 to 20 feet in diameter.
The above pics are from an online mini course by Dr. Steve Ressler (an excellent instructor and engineer from West Point https://stephenjressler.com/) titled” “Understanding Greek and Roman Technology”
Also, here’s a neat link with very brief discussion on moving big heavy things,
I find it neat cause if you scroll to the bottom it has a pic of a 4,830 tonne light house being moved whole, and in it’s vertical position. Moving large muti-thousand tonne heavy things (both horizontally & vertically) happens fairly regularly in the modern world – even more so than in the ancient world, contrary to what some would have you believe. Moving the large retaining wall stones at Baalbeck is a fairly straight forward affair, both ancient & modern (for a competent larger company – your local small town construction company though is unlikely to have the right people on-hand for the job) with many options, and I do imagine a sled was used for at least part of the move, and maybe even all of it; though if the terrain allowed for it, the use of the polygonal block roller arrangement is a high candidate.
Sleds are interesting, and their behavior can be quite counter-intuitive in certain circumstances. Assuming a flat level surface, the common sense view is that the heavier the load the more friction the sled will experience. But this is not always the case. Just a bit of water on certain surfaces with very heavy sled loads (the heavier the better) and friction can be dramatically reduced, often to the point that super heavy loads of hundreds or even thousands of tonnes can be moved with a sled arrangement with surprisingly less force (often much, much less) than one would imagine. So with just a slight downhill grade (like with the source quarry for Baalbeck), and not all that far a distance really, some sort of sled option, for the whole distance for the Baalbeck stones, becomes a pretty viable option.
As for moving big heavy things long distances, say 500 to 1000 miles or so, in the ancient world of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans (especially the Romans, they really had it down pat – they loved to steal Egyptian obelisks and take them back to Italy), they did that by water, which is well documented (often building special purpose-built ships for the really big super heavy things – getting as close as they could by sea/river to the final destination, and then of course various overland options as mentioned above. They wrote about it a lot, and were quite proud of it. (I translated some stories/letters/histories about some of these events as exercises in my high school Latin studies)
DRILL HOLES: scrape marks and bore rate are discussed in the previous post vids.
SHAPE ACCURACY: If not in the specific links posted, it is in the channels. Also, just as a matter of craftsmanship experience – incredible accuracy by hand (of course using jigs, and the like) is the norm for someone truly skilled and putting in the effort. I myself, as part of and undergrad physics project, ground and polished a glass plate into a parabolic mirror lens of a nearly perfect parabola with deviations substantially less than 0.0001 inch. (and it was my first attempt – though a lot of work)
Ad Hominems: I do not consider the way I refered to Hancock, Kerkwyk, et al as ad hominems, but simply calling a spade a spade, a simple description of their publicly viewable behavior about their work under discussion. It is not an ad hominem to call a convicted bank robber a thief when describing that person; especially when that behavior/attribute is directly relevant to what is under discussion (when it is not relevant, then it is an ad hominem). To create an example, if say you are talking to a group of people about some financial product that just so happens to be managed by the previously mentioned thief, to call him a thief in this context is not an ad hominem. So in discussing Hancock, Kerwyk, Dunn, etc. yadada. Their public behaviors in their areas of endeavor fit with what I said previously (either ignorant/emotionally-vested on the generous end of the scale to con-artist on the less generous end of the scale) - they are very hostile to legitimate, documented factual counterpoints, are not open to honest rational discussion & debate, and have a history of not correcting factual errors in their work when they are pointed out. I’ve also been on the receiving end of some “fun” with them – but that is for private discussion only.
Anyway, this has been a fun break for me. I’m in the middle of some projects that I need to focus better on. I enjoy and respect your work Dr. Mitteldorf – it gives me much food for thought, and am open to private discussions if you wish - though my replies for a while may be sluggish. If the substack platform allows you to message a particular subscriber directly feel free to drop me a line and we can establish communications.
“We should not discount the possibility that advanced technologies are real, whether or not they are of extraterrestrial origin, and that they are presently in the possession of a global elite.”
And since they are intent on controlling and/or destroying all of civilization with any number of PSYOPS, now they will blame space wars they manufacture, on aliens. That’s my gut feeling.
I don’t believe anything they disclose, and why should I?
Speaking as a person with substantial experience actually making things by hand & by machine, and moving big things, & small things, as well as being a trained physicist & engineer, and as a human -- to suggest that the great ancient works of the ancient Egyptians, and that of other ancient cultures, requires advanced tech beyond our current understanding, and possible alien help is absolute hogwash and an insult to the great accomplishments of those cultures. Uncharted X, Hancock, et al at best display an incredible level of ignorance &/or gullibility, and at the worst end of the spectrum malfeasance.
These folks have been credibly debunked ad infinitum (sometimes their own videos debunk themselves, if you watch carefully) by many over they years. The best debunking I ever saw, as to the topic of the ability of humans to move stone blocks of multi-ton to hundreds of tons using simple techniques of the proper application of leverage, was a series of videos by a humble carpenter, in which he did just that all by himself (he made the videos about 20 years ago (I haven’t been able to track down the originals) and I believe has since passed away, but here's a youtube link I found to some old news footage summarizing his past project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c ).
As to precision stonework with simple hand tools, I've done plenty of that myself, as a hobby, but there are plenty of vids emerging on youtube lately demonstrating this as well -- a couple of channels I found recently on this topic that I think are neat are: Scientists Against Myths, and SGD Sacred Geometry Decoded.
Regarding Dr. Robert Schoch. I have found him to be a credible and accomplished expert in his field, and initially found his interpretation of the weathering of the Sphinx enclosure interesting and compelling -- even exciting, for who doesn't love a good story that supports some interesting ideas. But then I learned of Robert Schneiker's work (see: https://www.robertschneiker.com/), which provides a very compelling counter explanation to Schoch's surface runoff erosion theory. It will be interesting to observe Schoch's public output in the coming months/years and see if he comes to revise his hypothesis.
Another thing that I learned recently, that I was totally unaware of before, is that the pyramids in Egypt are themselves actually carbon dated (and have been for quite some time), and the dates fit reasonably well with the already known historical timeline. This carbon dating is possible because of the mortar used in the pyramids and also of actual wood-in-place used in their construction. Poor Zahi Hawass, he is in the unenviable position of being a good professional with scientific data and wanting to do the right thing to also having political and fiscal obligations to his bosses and the people of Egypt. The known scientific, archaeological, and historical data is not secret, but it is not strongly promoted by Egypt. Why? Well, keeping the perception of unknown mysteries and allowing all the kooks and charlatans to do their thing is good for tourism and the economy. Israel does the same thing in their country – a lot of the archaeological work sponsored and funded by the Israeli Government actually discovers things that are counter to the accepted Biblical and Jewish narrative. Most of it they hide in plain site by not drawing attention to it. The data, sites, and findings are all there and publicly accessible. They just don't emphasize it cause it wouldn't be good for business, or politics.
In short, yes there's much of our history that is lost or yet to be discovered. But don't forget humans are clever and always fiddling and thinking and doing. We should look at the accomplishments of our ancestors with pride and respect. Accept that we know a lot, and that we don't know as much as we think, and there is always someone (past or present) that knows more, or is more clever, more patient, or just plain-old more persistent. Also, just cause you can't conceive or understand something yourself doesn’t mean it’s unknown by others. Sometimes there's no mystery, just awesome work and craftsmanship by someone with simple surprisingly simple skills, and a bit of knowledge, you don't have.
One fact I have always found curious is that the Aliens look so much like humans -- two legs, two arms, a head with eyes, nose, and mouth. And all these abduction stories imply that they have DNA that is compatible with our DNA. If they really evolved from scratch on a faraway planet, then this would be highly unlikely. Or maybe not. There are 5 possibilities I can think of.
1) They're just products of human imagination, so of course they look like humans.
2) Panspermia -- the basis of life is universal, and is seeded by tardigrades and spores that hitch rides on meteors to inhabit new planets.
3) Maybe there's only one way to make living things given the (universal) physical and chemical laws. Life everywhere has to evolve in the same way that it has evolved on Earth.
4) I'm inclined to think that the potential for life is the raison d'etre of the Universe. There is consciousness looking to create physical forms that can house it, and it tends to come out the same everywhere..
5) Maybe the "extraterrestrials" are really our descendants, millions of years in the future. when they have learned the technology of time travel.
The miniature alien that you allude to underwent genetic testing. I believe there was something like 92% homology with human DNA. This allowed the researchers to posit that it must have been a highly deformed human fetus, which is of course absurd.
I cite this to introduce another possibility that is a variation of 4) and 5). The ETs are not our descendants but our antecedents, in the sense that they have taken up their role to fulfill the raison d'être of the universe. They have used variations of their own DNA to create physical forms that can house our level of consciousness appropriately. This shouldn't be so outrageous for us to accept. After all, we are drawn to create robots with hints of our physical form that are programmed to think like we do.
As I have discussed with you off-line, a tremendous amount of information has been brought to our planet through "channeled" information, telepathic transmissions that originate in the minds of advanced ETs that have been offered from time to time. One such body of information is "The Law of One".
This transcribed body of work that includes over 100 channeling sessions between a trio of humans and an entity who calls itself "Ra" is nothing less than a doctoral dissertation on metaphysics. Part of this remarkable "transmission" addresses the question you pose here, why do aliens seem to take humanoid form?
Ra suggests that our planets, stars and galaxies are not merely spheres of rock and plasma but conscious entities that influence the containers of consciousness that appear in their field of influence. Our own milkyway galaxy lays out the basic blueprint for physical form as well as the archetypes of the mind. Stars use this to overlay their own variations on the theme, etc.
It would be quite reasonable to expect that many ET civilizations would have physical forms that resemble each other and us. It's not such a huge stretch to see that "man was created in the likeness of his creator".
This video attempts to validate a grainy VHS tape of a gray alien in custody of the US military. He has the basic form of a human, but the video claims that he is a robotic hybrid, an enhanced living organism such as is envisioned by today's Transhumanists.
https://youtu.be/tIHgFr6DTvs
I think we have to be very careful of offering any kind of video/photo as some sort of evidence. When it comes to such a topic, suggesting that footage somehow authenticates or even vaguely supports such "notions" will automatically be regarded as flimsy evidence which will be used to justify the dismissal of any subsequent arguments.
If time travel is possible then the story of spontaneous life is also more plausible, because it could take much longer to develop. Once developed, it could be seeded "back in time", perhaps spawning a new universe, but this one has life in it much earlier.
Deliberate seeding of planets back in time is perhaps a more plausible form of panspermia.
While we are on the topic of fringe theories, there doesn't seem to be a good explanation for the presence of the moon in its size, density, and orbital configuration. Along with life itself, it seems very unlikely to happen by chance, but it DOES seem to be 4B years old. But for a life seeding time traveling entity, it could be just another amusing miracle.
Why cannot the 'alien creatures' be fakes created by the aliens? I assume that any extra-terrestrial civilization sophisticated and advanced enough to travel via extra-dimensional craft to be able to manufacture bio-organic forms at will. If they are going to leave 'bodies' behind at all, it seems to me highly unlikely that the bodies would be the real thing. After all, this would mean leaving one of their own behind. Nothing ET does is accidental, this would be impossible. Everything is a contact event of some kind.
Thanks for listing the most essential reasons why an ET presence on our planet is not just possible but highly plausible.
There is no question that the government or its factions that have no oversight are in possession of technologies that are well beyond what the public is aware of. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year for decades and the "military" has no more to show for it than some big ships and futuristic shaped planes that can evade radar? The public thinks that the most destructive weapon on the planet is some variation of a hydrogen bomb. That technology is older than the transistor radio.
I have spent time with Dr. Greer and I believe that his intentions are good but he is wrong about all ETs being benevolent.
I posit that there are some that are "good" and some that are "bad". Why would civilizations that have gone interstellar be at odds? It cannot be about gold, petrol or lithium. I suggest that the commodity worth battling over is the control over the free will of conscious beings. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised that the so-called "negative" species have been influencing the trajectory of human civilization for millennia, working largely with those already in power, convincing them that they are uniquely endowed with the ability and rights to govern and control the masses at their whim.
The consequences of such an influence, if it existed, should be obvious. We would have religious doctrine that sets "rules of behavior" with interminable punishment if these rules are broken. We would have developed systems of censorship and surveillance that are somehow accepted with little resistance by the masses, from Sunday confessionals to the collusion of government with big tech.
There would be the exploitation of communities by others, from slavery of ancient and colonial times, to serfdom and now to the modern day miracle of central banking which allows to pay for today's disasters through tomorrow's labor.
I would bet that at their origin, these systems we have built were constructed with "help" from ETs that are primarily interested in conquest, conquest of our free will.
So where are the "good" ETs? Well, if the bad ones seek to control, the good ones must seek to liberate. I suggest that they do not see reality as a battle of good vs bad. They see it as a dance between freedom and control, love of others and love of self.
This puts them in a spot. If their "prime directive" is to allow all beings to be free, how could they interfere in any struggle without violating it?
These are thoughts and speculations that could easily be another essay or three. I'm hoping you and I can write them together.
Could not agree more with the summary and analysis of recent UFO events. Additional resources that can fill in the gaps are Solari.com (Space, here we come! Annual Wrap up), GizaDeathStar (Joseph P. Farrell's community) and the Dark Journalist.
Great coverage!
Best analysis I read on UFO subject!
I think they are making every attempt to keep this information secret because they don't want our worldly rivals (Russia and China) to know what our secret agencies know. After all, it took threats from key members of Congress to even get them to talk about this.
But plenty of artifacts land in Russia and China, and surely they are similarly capable of reverse engineering them.
I find it more plausible that a transnational group formed to exploit these technologies, probably initially encouraged, and then infiltrated and controlled by the ETs themselves. National rivalry is just another vector of control, which they have preserved for the purpose of control, and science is encouraged to stay far behind and often on the wrong track. (Being on the wrong track is natural enough and not difficult to foster)
The creation of modern social media has created the capability to manipulate populations with unheard of precision, using automated techniques, which would also be readily available to this transnational entity. Perhaps this is the final stages of a pacification program, preparing us for total slavery and subjugation, or perhaps sold as a hive mind, giving up individuality for the greater good.
As always Josh, I deeply appreciate your cogent presentation of various pathways of truth regarding evidentiary questions where doubt and uncertainty prevail.
I find it so hard at this point to know how to proceed regarding questions of belief and possibility when it comes to alien presence on our world (current or ancient), secret technologies (current or ancient) human prehistory, (and increasingly conventional history), and even scientific presumptions on the nature of what is real, or possibly real, and so on.
I find myself inescapably considering such questions based on what I want to believe (and what I don't want to believe), and then catching myself. I don't want to believe our military a intelligence overlords posses fantastic technology because (in this resolve I am close to certain) I have judged these institutions as hopelessly corrupt and immoral. I want to believe they are trying to daunt us into believing they are far more powerful than they really are, because if that is true, it is easier for me to hope they will fail in refiguring the world into their paradigm of ruthless, soulless control and domination.
I also find myself not wanting to believe these aliens and secret technologies are real/have been real because I do not trust that beings with such powers would actually be benign. It seems to be the case from my lived experience and observations that great material power gravitates toward the possession of those who are most amoral and ruthless. Though I would like to believe that in other dimensions and/or planets, this principle has not turned out to prevail, I am leery of placing my hopes on external protectors and guides to check the power of the sociopaths who hold sway in human societies. This feels disempowering, and also warns my sixth sense that it could be another trap to bestow authority and trust to beings with material powers beyond my own, only to be set up for another round of oppression and enslavement.
Or else, the whole thing could be yet another layer of lies altogether - i.e., the aliens I hope to be enlightened teachers do not turn out to be malevolent oppressors, but instead turn out to not exist at all - yet another deception and false hope to keep us sitting on our hands, abrogating responsibility to the "white hats" (whether human, alien, or angelic) so we can continue to be dominated more thoroughly by those in power taking action to imprison us in the smart grid of digital hell.
When faced with mysteries like the pyramids and Easter Island, which in my youth I willingly accepted on the terms of our academic leaders and their hand-waving non-explanations (or this stunning revelation of the 6-inch elongated head mummy, new information to me in this article), I find myself mired in speculation. I have been fooled enough times by the consensus of established authority, that I can't help but wonder if I am now just as liable to be fooled by rebel anti-consensus evidence. Is it all part of an even greater elaborate psyop designed to break my own trust in my ability to discern any kind of reality at all and render me helplessly pliable to those holding the keys to mass perception and the flow of information?
And as I go through this whole process, I suddenly remind myself that I've been reasoning based on what I do and don't want to believe, attempting to believe in something that lends me some degree of hope and empowerment (as I mentioned at the beginning of this comment), precisely because in this age of digital deep-fakes and multi-tiered perceptory manipulations, I no longer feel confident I can trust any physical evidence or measurement of what is real, even though I remain confident in my rationality, logic, and reasoning. But my reasoning power can be twisted to affirm false realities if the premises it's based on are deceptions.
I have lately been recognizing that there is no escaping the need to trust the work of others in order to supply me with the basic evidentiary facts my reasoning proceeds on. But even if I trust the integrity of those who supply me with this information, how can I trust that they were not in turn deceived by others, even though their belief was established in good faith?
I'm at this hall of mirrors place right now, certain at least, that what I'm currently experiencing is the result of so many mountains of gaslighting that it is threatening to reduce me to a state of learned helplessness.
Thank you again, Josh, for your ongoing work in your efforts to systematically reduce these questions of uncertainty to their bare bones and assist us all in our attempts to unravel the tangles of gas lighting that has done so much to rob us of our very perception.
Fully share Josh's views and even speculations that we, humans, are and have been lied to and manipulated by a small elite, about dangers that do not exist, but allow them - the "elite" to proceed with either human secret technologies or with exploiting and retro-building ET technologies, so the masses will not know.
It would also fit the Agenda 2030 / Great Reset, depopulation and digitization of everything... because reality - science we are prevented from know - is at least dynamic and most likely driven fully by endless energy which is not accessible to a digitally-run world. Only the "cult-cabal" or elite would have access to these technologies, while, we - a necessarily reduced mass transhumanized population - are kept abay by a an all-digitized 1984.
Peter
I've always been agnostic as to whether aliens exist and have visited us. I have changed my mind regarding the likelihood though. I used to consider aliens unlikely, but the recent discovery of so many earth-like exoplanets has appraised one variable in the Drake equation at a level that makes their existence at least, seem likely. In the past, I also didn't Want there to be aliens. I had a rosy view of the human race. Maybe we didn't have heaven on earth, but we very much Could. Aliens were a potential threat to that. My opinion of my fellow humans however, soured over the years, and the pandemic provided a nail in that coffin. The paltry level of objection to the lockdowns and other restrictions makes me believe that only some sort of deus ex machina can save us.
As to the pyramids: those 1,000 ton stones were cast in place. This was proven with electron microscopy. I can provide a link to an article if you like.
As to the origin of the need for control and lockdown: no doubt you've noticed that an awful lot of people get off on bossing others around. Of course, maybe it's the origin of That of which you're curious. Feeling no such impulse myself, I don't believe it to be an intrinsic aspect of human nature.
But beyond it being the product of our twisted culture somehow, I have no explanation.
This is the first that I've heard that the blocks in the Pyramids are a composite like concrete. I've always read that they are granite, and that the quarry was identified 100 miles south off the Nile. Do you have a reference for the "cast in place" hypothesis?
There is indeed some granite in there, but I understand they are mostly man-made limestone, indistinguishable from the natural stuff, to the naked eye anyway. Have a look at: https://new.nsf.gov/news/surprising-truth-behind-construction-great
I believe the body of the pyramids is granite and the facing is limestone. I see the analysis that the limestone might be a composite material. Certainly, that's what we would do today if we were going to build something solid of that size.
But there are plenty of examples of large stones, including one 1000-ton plus block that has been partially cut but never removed from a quarry. I believe it's off the Nile. There are granite megaliths in Europe, Asia, South America, and of course Easter Island. In Saqqara, there are core drill holes in rock constructions that were clearly cut with more powerful machine tools than anything we have today.
It's hard to imagine making a monument out of 2 million stone blocks, each of a different shape, that is straight and square to within a fraction of an inch without a computer or equivalent.
Sure, I was only speaking about the pyramid limestone. I am inclined to think ancient peoples had access to impressive technologies that modern people do not. I just don't think the pyramids are a manifestation of such. Except though, their cement formula was something previously unknown, involving diatomaceous earth and what not. It seems pretty durable. We might do well to copy it. People are assuming it has less embodied energy than modern concrete. But I wonder if that might be wrong, as the Egyptians might have had energy sources we're oblivious to as well.
Even if you were to explain the pyramids, the Sarcophagi of Saqqara too which Josh makes reference are beyond explanation. UnchartedX has a great 6 part video on them.
Outstanding, Josh! This article treats a very difficult subject with sanity and objectivity--a desperately needed alternative to the sensationalism and hysteria endemic in our society.
Keep it up! There **are** answers out there... Your approach is the way to find them.
Speaking as a person with substantial experience actually making things by hand & by machine, and moving big things, & small things, as well as being a trained physicist & engineer, and as a human -- to suggest that the great ancient works of the ancient Egyptians, and that of other ancient cultures, requires advanced tech beyond our current understanding, and possible alien help is absolute hogwash and an insult to the great accomplishments of those cultures. Uncharted X, Hancock, et al at best display an incredible level of ignorance &/or gullibility, and at the worst end of the spectrum malfeasance.
These folks have been credibly debunked ad infinitum (sometimes their own videos debunk themselves, if you watch carefully) by many over they years. The best debunking I ever saw, as to the topic of the ability of humans to move stone blocks of multi-ton to hundreds of tons using simple techniques of the proper application of leverage, was a series of videos by a humble carpenter, in which he did just that all by himself (he made the videos about 20 years ago (I haven’t been able to track down the originals) and I believe has since passed away, but here's a youtube link I found to some old news footage summarizing his past project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c ).
As to precision stonework with simple hand tools, I've done plenty of that myself, as a hobby, but there are plenty of vids emerging on youtube lately demonstrating this as well -- a couple of channels I found recently on this topic that I think are neat are: Scientists Against Myths, and SGD Sacred Geometry Decoded.
Regarding Dr. Robert Schoch. I have found him to be a credible and accomplished expert in his field, and initially found his interpretation of the weathering of the Sphinx enclosure interesting and compelling -- even exciting, for who doesn't love a good story that supports some interesting ideas. But then I learned of Robert Schneiker's work (see: https://www.robertschneiker.com/), which provides a very compelling counter explanation to Schoch's surface runoff erosion theory. It will be interesting to observe Schoch's public output in the coming months/years and see if he comes to revise his hypothesis.
Another thing that I learned recently, that I was totally unaware of before, is that the pyramids in Egypt are themselves actually carbon dated (and have been for quite some time), and the dates fit reasonably well with the already known historical timeline. This carbon dating is possible because of the mortar used in the pyramids and also of actual wood-in-place used in their construction. Poor Zahi Hawass, he is in the unenviable position of being a good professional with scientific data and wanting to do the right thing to also having political and fiscal obligations to his bosses and the people of Egypt. The known scientific, archaeological, and historical data is not secret, but it is not strongly promoted by Egypt. Why? Well, keeping the perception of unknown mysteries and allowing all the kooks and charlatans to do their thing is good for tourism and the economy. Israel does the same thing in their country – a lot of the archaeological work sponsored and funded by the Israeli Government actually discovers things that are counter to the accepted Biblical and Jewish narrative. Most of it they hide in plain site by not drawing attention to it. The data, sites, and findings are all there and publicly accessible. They just don't emphasize it cause it wouldn't be good for business, or politics.
In short, yes there's much of our history that is lost or yet to be discovered. But don't forget humans are clever and always fiddling and thinking and doing. We should look at the accomplishments of our ancestors with pride and respect. Accept that we know a lot, and that we don't know as much as we think, and there is always someone (past or present) that knows more, or is more clever, more patient, or just plain-old more persistent. Also, just cause you can't conceive or understand something yourself doesn’t mean it’s unknown by others. Sometimes there's no mystery, just awesome work and craftsmanship by someone with simple surprisingly simple skills, and a bit of knowledge, you don't have.
These are subjects that can only be resolved by looking at details. Here are 3 achievements that I claim are beyond the reach of present day technology:
1) To quarry a 1,000 ton granite block, remove it from the quarry in one piece, and transport it tens of kilometers to be used as a building foundation.
2) To drill into granite with a core drill pitched to advance 1 mm for each turn of the drill bit.
3) To cut from inhomogeneous and brittle diorite a hollow shape that is just a few mm thick and fits a prescribed mathematical curve everywhere to 0.01 mm accuracy.
I didn't see evidence for any of these capabilities in the references you supplied. The first is the foundation stone in Baalbek, Lebanon. The second is illustrated in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFuf-gBuuno. The third is illustrated by 40,000 vases in the Cairo museum, unearthed from caves below Saqqara.
I pondered how & if to respond. I humbly present the below links as counter-points for both you and your audience. I’ve come to view Uncharted X (Ben van Kerkwyk ), Graham Hancock, Dunn, The Ancient Aliens group and the like as being in the same category as Flat-Earthers, and Mud Flooders. In some ways they are just so ignorant that they simply don’t understand what they are looking at -- and are so emotionally vested (and in some cases – financially) in their stories that it is impossible to bring them around to objective reality. And some of these people are just outright con artists cashing in on the gullibility of others. Anyway, for your viewing pleasure.
Youtube Channel, “World of Antiquity”
“Baalbek: Mystery of the Trilithon Stones”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUiNoAgijpc
“What Brien Foerster Gets WRONG about BAALBEK”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri__Dlox36I
Youtube Channel: “Scientists Against Myths”
“Out-of-place artifact: 100 years of deception | Fake Science Spotlight” (this episode discusses the infamous core 7)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQi4yql7Ysg
“Making Egyptian Drill Holes: Lost Ancient High Technology”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyCc4iuMikQ
Another source of info to ponder that counters the lost ancient hi-tech and alien narratives
Ancient Aliens Debunked:
https://www.ancientaliensdebunked.com/
Again, also the Youtube Channel, “ SGD Sacred Geometry Decoded”
https://www.youtube.com/@SacredGeometryDecoded
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg… for loads of fall-asleep pleasure, you can always read archaeological and history journals.
Just remember, it’s still possible to have cool stories about the past (probably even better than the fictions Hancock & Kerkwyk, etc.. peddle) _without_ the implied assumption that the peoples we actually know of, of times past, were too stupid and unskilled to wipe their own arse. The real world is actually pretty cool.
P.S.: I want to add, that I understand it can be difficult to see through some of the presentations of Uncharted X, and the like. It does take time and effort, especially if you don’t have the requisite background. They have slick productions and carefully constructed rhetoric – also, a lot of their “facts” are not facts at all, and the actual facts that they do present are shown in such a way as to illustrate that which they do not illustrate (I've had this happen to me with reporters quite a bit, so I learned not to deal with them). If for no other reason, their shows and books might be worth examining as to learn how to pull a fast one. It’s important to counter folks like Hancock and Kerkwyk because casually consuming and accepting their material as true makes you know less than before you read or watched their stuff.
That’s all I got now. Hope y’all at least found the links to offer a little food for thought.
Parker - I welcome discussion on the merits, but ad hominem attacks aren't helpful. Perhaps you could summarize for us how the Baalbek foundation stone weighing 1000 tons was quarried and moved. I didn't have patience for the whole video, but skimming through it, I didn't see this topic discussed. Meanwhile, I've listened to another UnchartedX video describing the quarry at Aswan, where there is a partially-cut stone weighing 1200 tons, and from which another 1,000 ton obelisk was quarried and transported 1,000 miles north to become an obelisk in northern Egypt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoqWFlivTdc
You reference "Making Egyptian Drill Holes", which proposes that holes were drilled with copper and sand for abrasion. I agree that this is possible, though very slow. What I don't see is discussion of the scrape marks inside the drill holes that indicate the pitch of the drill = how far the drill moved forward for each turn of the drill. This would be very, very small for a copper drill with sand, somewhat bigger for a high-speed modern core drill, but bigger still for the scars inside some of the actual holes. This suggests a drilling technology more efficient than anything we have today.
There is nothing in any of the videos you cite that attempts to explain 3D shapes that are accurate (and symmetric) to a tiny fraction of a millimeter.
MOVING BIG THINGS
The following pics will be temporarily posted at the following links:
* Roman Slab Sled
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p-683zo4FRkORWiGUuxO7RSaujtGYxnM/view?usp=sharing
* Roman Column & Column Section Roller
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fu0XUWb9UYx68g62qsmlkDt1RxYCaYhX/view?usp=sharing
* Roman Polyganol Block Roller
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KYxqp5vtwoX1kdEz-1HTDxDa4kdLe2DY/view?usp=sharing
* WAGONS (no pic, sorry): The Romans also built carts/wagons for various loads. Some of the specially built wagons for large block loads from quarries would have huge wheels 12 to 20 feet in diameter.
The above pics are from an online mini course by Dr. Steve Ressler (an excellent instructor and engineer from West Point https://stephenjressler.com/) titled” “Understanding Greek and Roman Technology”
Also, here’s a neat link with very brief discussion on moving big heavy things,
http://catchpenny.org/movebig.html
I find it neat cause if you scroll to the bottom it has a pic of a 4,830 tonne light house being moved whole, and in it’s vertical position. Moving large muti-thousand tonne heavy things (both horizontally & vertically) happens fairly regularly in the modern world – even more so than in the ancient world, contrary to what some would have you believe. Moving the large retaining wall stones at Baalbeck is a fairly straight forward affair, both ancient & modern (for a competent larger company – your local small town construction company though is unlikely to have the right people on-hand for the job) with many options, and I do imagine a sled was used for at least part of the move, and maybe even all of it; though if the terrain allowed for it, the use of the polygonal block roller arrangement is a high candidate.
Sleds are interesting, and their behavior can be quite counter-intuitive in certain circumstances. Assuming a flat level surface, the common sense view is that the heavier the load the more friction the sled will experience. But this is not always the case. Just a bit of water on certain surfaces with very heavy sled loads (the heavier the better) and friction can be dramatically reduced, often to the point that super heavy loads of hundreds or even thousands of tonnes can be moved with a sled arrangement with surprisingly less force (often much, much less) than one would imagine. So with just a slight downhill grade (like with the source quarry for Baalbeck), and not all that far a distance really, some sort of sled option, for the whole distance for the Baalbeck stones, becomes a pretty viable option.
As for moving big heavy things long distances, say 500 to 1000 miles or so, in the ancient world of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans (especially the Romans, they really had it down pat – they loved to steal Egyptian obelisks and take them back to Italy), they did that by water, which is well documented (often building special purpose-built ships for the really big super heavy things – getting as close as they could by sea/river to the final destination, and then of course various overland options as mentioned above. They wrote about it a lot, and were quite proud of it. (I translated some stories/letters/histories about some of these events as exercises in my high school Latin studies)
DRILL HOLES: scrape marks and bore rate are discussed in the previous post vids.
SHAPE ACCURACY: If not in the specific links posted, it is in the channels. Also, just as a matter of craftsmanship experience – incredible accuracy by hand (of course using jigs, and the like) is the norm for someone truly skilled and putting in the effort. I myself, as part of and undergrad physics project, ground and polished a glass plate into a parabolic mirror lens of a nearly perfect parabola with deviations substantially less than 0.0001 inch. (and it was my first attempt – though a lot of work)
Ad Hominems: I do not consider the way I refered to Hancock, Kerkwyk, et al as ad hominems, but simply calling a spade a spade, a simple description of their publicly viewable behavior about their work under discussion. It is not an ad hominem to call a convicted bank robber a thief when describing that person; especially when that behavior/attribute is directly relevant to what is under discussion (when it is not relevant, then it is an ad hominem). To create an example, if say you are talking to a group of people about some financial product that just so happens to be managed by the previously mentioned thief, to call him a thief in this context is not an ad hominem. So in discussing Hancock, Kerwyk, Dunn, etc. yadada. Their public behaviors in their areas of endeavor fit with what I said previously (either ignorant/emotionally-vested on the generous end of the scale to con-artist on the less generous end of the scale) - they are very hostile to legitimate, documented factual counterpoints, are not open to honest rational discussion & debate, and have a history of not correcting factual errors in their work when they are pointed out. I’ve also been on the receiving end of some “fun” with them – but that is for private discussion only.
Anyway, this has been a fun break for me. I’m in the middle of some projects that I need to focus better on. I enjoy and respect your work Dr. Mitteldorf – it gives me much food for thought, and am open to private discussions if you wish - though my replies for a while may be sluggish. If the substack platform allows you to message a particular subscriber directly feel free to drop me a line and we can establish communications.
Josh,
Always excited when you have something new to read... Found you through Kevin Barrett unfortunately not enough people know his smart you and he are.
I wrote something on Grusch; only a couple of degrees from high level pedophiles. https://reportsfromtherabbithole.substack.com/p/uf-oh-really
As you state, there's a lot to unpack and a lot of possibilities to what's going on.
“We should not discount the possibility that advanced technologies are real, whether or not they are of extraterrestrial origin, and that they are presently in the possession of a global elite.”
And since they are intent on controlling and/or destroying all of civilization with any number of PSYOPS, now they will blame space wars they manufacture, on aliens. That’s my gut feeling.
I don’t believe anything they disclose, and why should I?
Speaking as a person with substantial experience actually making things by hand & by machine, and moving big things, & small things, as well as being a trained physicist & engineer, and as a human -- to suggest that the great ancient works of the ancient Egyptians, and that of other ancient cultures, requires advanced tech beyond our current understanding, and possible alien help is absolute hogwash and an insult to the great accomplishments of those cultures. Uncharted X, Hancock, et al at best display an incredible level of ignorance &/or gullibility, and at the worst end of the spectrum malfeasance.
These folks have been credibly debunked ad infinitum (sometimes their own videos debunk themselves, if you watch carefully) by many over they years. The best debunking I ever saw, as to the topic of the ability of humans to move stone blocks of multi-ton to hundreds of tons using simple techniques of the proper application of leverage, was a series of videos by a humble carpenter, in which he did just that all by himself (he made the videos about 20 years ago (I haven’t been able to track down the originals) and I believe has since passed away, but here's a youtube link I found to some old news footage summarizing his past project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c ).
As to precision stonework with simple hand tools, I've done plenty of that myself, as a hobby, but there are plenty of vids emerging on youtube lately demonstrating this as well -- a couple of channels I found recently on this topic that I think are neat are: Scientists Against Myths, and SGD Sacred Geometry Decoded.
Regarding Dr. Robert Schoch. I have found him to be a credible and accomplished expert in his field, and initially found his interpretation of the weathering of the Sphinx enclosure interesting and compelling -- even exciting, for who doesn't love a good story that supports some interesting ideas. But then I learned of Robert Schneiker's work (see: https://www.robertschneiker.com/), which provides a very compelling counter explanation to Schoch's surface runoff erosion theory. It will be interesting to observe Schoch's public output in the coming months/years and see if he comes to revise his hypothesis.
Another thing that I learned recently, that I was totally unaware of before, is that the pyramids in Egypt are themselves actually carbon dated (and have been for quite some time), and the dates fit reasonably well with the already known historical timeline. This carbon dating is possible because of the mortar used in the pyramids and also of actual wood-in-place used in their construction. Poor Zahi Hawass, he is in the unenviable position of being a good professional with scientific data and wanting to do the right thing to also having political and fiscal obligations to his bosses and the people of Egypt. The known scientific, archaeological, and historical data is not secret, but it is not strongly promoted by Egypt. Why? Well, keeping the perception of unknown mysteries and allowing all the kooks and charlatans to do their thing is good for tourism and the economy. Israel does the same thing in their country – a lot of the archaeological work sponsored and funded by the Israeli Government actually discovers things that are counter to the accepted Biblical and Jewish narrative. Most of it they hide in plain site by not drawing attention to it. The data, sites, and findings are all there and publicly accessible. They just don't emphasize it cause it wouldn't be good for business, or politics.
In short, yes there's much of our history that is lost or yet to be discovered. But don't forget humans are clever and always fiddling and thinking and doing. We should look at the accomplishments of our ancestors with pride and respect. Accept that we know a lot, and that we don't know as much as we think, and there is always someone (past or present) that knows more, or is more clever, more patient, or just plain-old more persistent. Also, just cause you can't conceive or understand something yourself doesn’t mean it’s unknown by others. Sometimes there's no mystery, just awesome work and craftsmanship by someone with simple surprisingly simple skills, and a bit of knowledge, you don't have.