Space Travel

There are many views in the world of the origins of man, or indeed the origins of any intelligent life form. Given the huge scale of the universe and the billions upon trillions of galaxies, star systems and planets, its also reasonable to assume that we are not the only highly evolved life form in the universe. Indeed its reasonable to assume that there are a great many evolved life forms inhabiting the various domains of the cosmos.

Accepting the almost infinite timescales involved, and mankind’s relatively short lived existence. Its logical to assume that many of these extra terrestrial beings have evolved over a longer period of time than mankind, and that they possibly posses technology vastly superior to our own.

Is it therefore logical to assume that these life forms have visited earth? Or in fact that their technology is not governed by the laws of physics and science as we know it?

Well lets take a quick look at the distances involved in travelling from one planet to another or indeed another solar system. Distances that are far to frequently banded around in flippant conversation with regards to the size of space and travel within it. Terms like light year, galaxy and solar system.

The closest know solar system that is similar to our own is Vega. It is one of the brightest stars in the sky and harbours a complete set of planets similar to our own and an outer belt of colliding comets. It is young, just 350 million years old compared to our Sun, which is 4.6 billion years old, and is easily visible at night without the use of a telescope.

So how far is this ‘closest’ solar system?

Well its approximately 27 light years away… 27? That doesn’t sound like much does it? So how can we comprehend just how far that distance really is in Lamenistic terms.

A light year is how long it takes light to travel from one point to another. In our case, it takes 27 years for light to travel from Vega to earth. Light travels roughly at 186,000 miles per second, and is the fastest scientifically calculable speed possible for anything (For more information on light click here).

So does banding around these extraordinarily large numbers help us comprehend the distance involved? Not really, they are figures still to large to comprehend, so lets use another example.

Lets imagine that the distance between Earth and Vega is the same scalable distance as from New York to Loss Angeles (about 27000 miles). Now we have our scale how far do you suppose the moon would be, still baring in mind its 27000 miles to Los Angeles? Well its about 7 millimetres! Meaning if you set off from New York to Los Angeles you would have comfortable passed the moon after just 1 centimetre, a distance that no car on Earth could take you during its life time.

Even if you invented an automobile that did 1000 miles to the gallon, never broke down, and the fuel for it only cost a penny per gallon, then 1 million pounds worth of fuel would only take you 10 Billion miles. Vega would still be 1584 times further away, and that’s our closest possible neighbour.

Consider the following and bear in mind the example above in each:

~ It is approximately 93 million miles to the Sun from Earth.

~ It is approximately 3660 million miles from Pluto to the Sun. The furthest planet in our solar system.

~ The distance from one end of our Milky Way to the other is about 100,000 light years, and it is about 20,000 light years deep. It contains about 100,000 million stars. Our Sun is about two thirds of the way out from the centre on one of the spiral arms, called the Orion arm.

The next closest real galaxy to our own is the Andromida Galaxy which is about 2.2 million light years away, a veritable stone throw given the size of the universe.

Using our car analogy above, and assuming we never needed to refuel or stop. If we travelled at 200 miles an hour it would take us 7.6 TRILLION years to reach Andromida.

Still think space travel is easy?

If Not Space Then Where?

Given the enormous distances involved in space travel, and the scientific boundaries regarding faster than light speed. Its hard to logically accept a theory of extra terrestrial visitation on earth. Whilst I am open to the possibility that contrary to logic and science, there may be some unexplainable way for long distance space travel to occur, the odds are so infinitely against it, that it merits little thought. Many people may dream of one day winning the lottery, but who dreams of winning it consecutively every week for the rest of their life?

Yet with this in mind, there is a surprising and almost insurmountable amount of evidence to suggest that ‘non human’ intelligent life forms, with technology superior to our own, have (or do) existed, and exerted an influence on our planet. So where did they come from, and how did they get here?

Is it not more feasible to believe, that if such a being existed on this planet, it must have been here all along, or that it must have evolved on this planet to begin with. Likewise any evidence relating to such beings must therefore also be native in origin.

This would certainly overcome our issue of great distances. It would also negate any probability of the discovery of our planet in the first place.

Instead of providing an impossible answer to a question, why not assume these creatures developed and evolved here on this earth all along. After all why not? Isn’t that how we got here? Why then is it not probable to believe that another intelligent being evolved alongside ourselves, or possibly even way before we did.

If there are intelligent beings native to this planet, that have evolved along a similar line to our own, wouldn't that make ‘them’ ‘us’ i.e. human? Well according to most eye witness accounts of an alien type creature, they are not human at all. They may appear humanoid in shape, but definitely not in appearance. The descriptions do vary but a common one that prominently stands out from the rest is a being with a large head, long thin limbs, oval eyes, and grey skin etc.

So what are they then? Well evidence would suggest they have advanced technology, possibly even more advance than our own, thus they must be intelligent, and as their technology is so developed its plausible to assume they have been around longer than we have. In other words, these creatures evolved before we did.

Now before we speculate any further as to where these beings came from, how they evolved, and where they have gone to, lets first take a look at the conditions needed for intelligence to evolve in the first place...

Intelligent Evolution

In examination of the dominant intelligent species of this planet, it seems that certain abilities and attributes are always associated with them:

Bipedal Movement - The ability to walk on two legs is essentially necessary to free the forelimbs, allowing further development into hands rather than paws.

Manipulative Hands - The ability to grasp and manipulate objects, and ultimately their environment is an obvious requirement for any intelligent species to evolve.

Objects require hands and the use of an opposing digit or thumb. To be of maximum use, the thumbs tip should be able to touch the tip of the other digits on the hand. This ability leads to greater co-ordination and an increased ability to interact with the environment.

Sensitive nerve endings or touch pads at the finger tips also lead to greater dexterity and further awareness. They allow the brain to process and obtain a greater understanding of the object and the environment being manipulated.

Binocular Vision - This refers to the ability to direct both eyes simultaneously at an object. The importance of this ability for the growth of the brain, is that it allows a better judgement of distance, invaluable for hand eye coordination, leaping and throwing. It also stimulates the three-dimensional thought and nerve centres of the brain.

When you couple binocular vision with dextrous manipulating hands, and three dimensional thought, you not only have the tools considered necessary for the basic development of intelligence, but you also gain a massive evolutionary advantage, and the ability to manipulate the world around you.

Sociability - Intelligent beings must, by way of definition, also be sociable. Intelligence forms and evolves from the ability to communicate with other intelligent beings, providing an environment for collective learning. The more sociable animals are, and the more able they are to interfere with and transform their environment, the more intelligent they become.

Sociable animals also parent their offspring, providing a massive advantage with regards to survival of the species. By both protecting the offspring in the most vulnerable stages of its development, and imparting knowledge by way of communication and learned behavioural patterns, a parented animal has a far greater chance of survival, and a head start on the intellectual ladder of evolution.

Diet - Diet also plays a large part in intelligence. Meat, being concentrated protein, is an important factor in the development of intelligence. Meat eaters need less bulky food and thus require far less time eating it. This allows more ‘thinking time’, enabling the creature to become more cultural and inventive. Grassers and herbivores spend virtually all their time eating, leaving little time to evolve elsewhere.

Warm Blooded - As intelligence increases so to does brain size, Marsh's Law dictates that brains grow from generation to generation in warm blooded animals. A crocodile of today has the same brain volume as a comparable sized ancestor from 200 million years ago, whereas a modern cat with the same body size as a sabre-toothed tiger of only 30 million years ago has twice the brain volume.

Aggressive Dominance - (to be completed)

In summation it seems then that intelligent earthly beings are bipedal, have an erect stance; are equipped with grasping hands having sensitive fingers and opposable thumbs; are equipped with binocular vision; own a large brain; are sociable and therefore have some form of parental guidance in childhood; are able to communicate; have aggressive tendencies.

It obvious from the above descriptions that humans satisfies all of these criteria, and that other animals perceived to have a degree of intelligence also share many of these qualities. So with regards to evolution, lets go back in time millions of years to see if there were any other creatures that fulfilled these criteria for an intelligent being…

Dinosaurs That Can

In order to find a creature possible of evolving more than we have, it would make sense to look further back in time than mankind’s obvious origins, and look for a creature that was already reasonable evolved hundreds of millions of years ago. We do of course have one outstanding candidate ‘The Dinosaur’.

“The dinosaur!, didn't they become extinct?”

Well before we start a separate debate, lets see if there is any evidence of dinosaurs that fit our model for a highly intelligent creature, and come back to their extinction later.

Well we know that many dinosaurs were bipedal so that's a start. According to biologists, one of the main reasons for the Dinosaurs supremacy was their upright bipedal movement.

So how about manipulative hands?

Well a particular dinosaur that seemed to have evolved a high degree of co-ordination in hands and arms was Deinonychus. Deinonychus had long, grasping hands with wrist joints that rotated so that the hands could turn towards each other enabling the animal to grasp its prey in both hands. Only humans, primates, and certain other mammals can do this.

It is theorised that whilst grasping its prey with its hands, it could stand on one leg and attack its prey with the claws on its other foot. This is a highly complicated dextrous ability, requiring coordination of multiple limbs. An attribute indicative of intelligent animals.

Though Deinonychus possessed opposable thumbs and swivelling wrists, they were primarily used for climbing trees and grasping prey. Its not hard to imagine this creature eventually evolving into something like a monkey or primate which is considered to be among the most intelligent of animals today.

You could however, argue that it fails to meet our definition of freeing up the hands for other tasks as they are used in vertical movement, a similar function to legs on ground.

What about Binocular Vision?

Well as this is a fundamental feature of most predators there is little doubt this can be found in the world of dinosaurs. Interestingly if you look at one of the decedents of Deinonychus you will come a across a dinosaur called the Stenonychosaurus. This animal had a set of complex and advanced features, including both manipulative fingers and binocular vision.

OK, what about brain size?

Well first of all we have to overcome the problem that cold blooded animals have relatively little to no increase in their brain size at all. However it is becoming an increasingly popular theory among Palaeontologists and Biologists alike, who believe that some dinosaurs were in fact Warm Blooded. Here is one quote of many available on this same subject -

"Once it was thought that all dinosaurs were cold-blooded - now many suggest that at least some were warm-blooded, which would help to explain why they became so plentiful and dominant for so long. If we examine today's fauna we find no large land predators that are cold-blooded, except for crocodiles that occupy only one very specific ecological niche and are basically water dwellers. The same is true of the entire Cenozoic era - virtually all large predators were warm-blooded."

(More information on warm blooded Dinosaurs)

So this addresses the issue of increasing brain size. Although the body to brain ratio of the Stenonychosaurus was 1000, compared with a Humans which is about 50, we must take into account the large amount of time the Dinosaurs had to evolve and improve on this since then.

Interestingly enough, one of the fundamental differences between Deinonychus and Stenonychosaurus was that Stenonychosaurus was primarily a ground based creature not a tree dweller. It used bipedal movement to walk along the ground which thus freed up its hands. It is also among the rarest of dinosaurian fossils which is a little puzzling?. If these creatures where intelligent, and highly evolved for their time, they should be highly adaptable to change. You would expect evolution to favour the survival of such a creature, and hence provide lots more fossils or proof of their existence.

There are of course many explanations for this. Maybe its because ancestrally, like Deinonychus , they had an affinity for trees and lived in forests. Anything dying in a forest is quickly consumed by the forest fauna and not preserved or fossilised. It could simply be due to the fact it was a small creature, about 3 meters in length, and incredibly light for its size at only 45kg, with most of that being the tail. Because it was so fragile, this would also contribute to the poor preservation of its remains. There is another possible reason which we will pose later on.

One thing pointing strongly in the evidence camp for Stenonychosaurus being warm blooded, is its unusually large brain size. I say unusual because dinosaurs typically had a very small brain size compared to their large bodies. Interestingly enough, Stenonychosaurus also had the capacity for its brain size to increase during the course of its life. This is a very uncommon facet with less intelligent species, and far more befitting in our intelligent camp.

Now, as can be observe from the depiction of Stenonychosaurus above. The eyes were enormous, surpassing in size those of almost all modern land animals. This single fact alone supports our argument best. Creatures with large eyes are virtually always nocturnal or subterranean.

Now nocturnal animals are pretty much always, by way of nature, warm blooded. This enables them to control their own body temperature and be active at night when its cold. Cold blooded creatures rely heavily on heat from the sun to circulate their blood, and kick start their system so they can hunt for food etc. Cold blooded animals are virtually catatonic when it gets cold, and go into system shutdown mode at night.

Stenonychosaurus as the diagram above illustrates, also had very powerful, very long legs which would allow it to move quickly, but also if you look at the talons on its feet would allow it to dig and burrow. Almost all warm blooded nocturnal mammals have some form of underground dwelling or cave to escape the harshness of the sun during the day, so it doesn’t take much to imagine a creature like this burrowing little underground networks beneath the earth (our third reason why they are hard to find).

Virtually no exploration of what's beneath the surface of our planet has been done at all. It is estimated that most undiscovered animal species on our planet are nocturnal and live underground.

The rest of our intelligent traits, like the ability to communicate, sociability, and aggressiveness are also not difficult to imagine as characteristics of dinosaurs. It is firmly theorised that the modern birds of today are the evolutionary descendants of Dinosaurs. Birds exhibit many strong communication calls and sounds, as well as raising their young, as our criteria dictates.

Its extremely easy to see first hand the direct comparisons to birds and dinosaurs. The pictures below show the scaly foot and head of a modern day Emu.

This brings us back to the question “Didn't dinosaurs become extinct?”, and as thus could not evolve any further than they did millions of years ago. Well that's another question or point of serious contention. One of the main reasons most dinosaurs became extinct was because of their size. Something about the earths ecology changed dramatically preventing the continued support of such large organisms. A slight shift of orbit around the Sun, possibly caused by a large meteorite or other gravitational pull would explain this.

The current gravity of our planet today would never allowed such large creatures to develop in the first place. However not all dinosaurs were large, and as small mammals survived there is no reason to think that some of the more Intelligent Anthroposaurs didn't either.

Fascinatingly enough many experts are proposing that it was the advanced intelligence of Anthroposaurs that caused the mass extinction themselves, rather than any impact by a comet. Considering how short a time it has taken for man to go from stone tools to nuclear weapons, is it not possible to believe this is a pattern repeating itself.

Maybe a few highly intelligent Anthroposaurs survived the mass extinction, maybe they left the planet while it was uninhabitable, or maybe they are still here?

A Missing Link Perhaps?

Imagine if you will, a warm blooded creature similar to Stenonychosaurus. Intelligent, and possessing the capacity for brain growth, with the physiology to adapt and learn from its environment. If such a creature like Stenonychosaurus had such an evolutionary advantage all those hundreds of millions of years ago, isn’t it remotely possible that such a creature did actually survive; and if it did survive, what would it look like today?

Dale Russell, discoverer of Stenonychosaurus, has postulated that late Cretaceous dinosaurs were well on the way to becoming highly intellectual animals, and would have succeeded if the dinosaurs had not suffered mass extinction. Russell deduced what the appearance of a Stenonychosaurus might look like, had it evolved unhampered by disasters until the 20th century (a model of the creature, a Dinosauroid, is on display at the Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada).

Russell believes their brain size would have been close to the human range. To accommodate it, its skull would have expanded and its face would have flattened. The long dinosaur neck would have shortened to bear more comfortably the weight of its brain. Consequently its tail would have been lost since it would not have been needed to counterpoise the neck and head.

Communication may have sounded similar to birdsong. Besides these conjectured features he supposes they would bear characteristics typical of dinosaurs such as scaly skin, large oval eyes with vertically slit pupils, absence of external sex organs and a three fingered hand, one digit of which would be opposable.

The illustration below and to the left was derived from the original depiction of Stenonychosaurus above. It has been modified inline with Russell’s proposition. Though the example here is crude to illustrate the point, you can see that the body posture has changed to become more upright, just as mans evolution has done much the same. Also the tail has become increasingly obsolete and removed.

Even with this very simple manipulation of the original illustration, I think you can begin to see a striking resemblance starting to emerge. Even the comparative limb length and hand shape are similarly proportionate.

Add to this picture the plausible theory that such a creature is highly intelligent, nocturnal, and possibly lives underground and you have a very real argument as to why this creature, or being, has not been found.

A number of animals and reptiles possess phenomenal camouflage techniques, such as the chameleon. Even if you happened to stumble across one of these beings in the dark, you would probably mistake it for a shadow or something else. The chances are that with its superior night vision and highly adapted nocturnal senses, it would see you long before you would ever see it. Even more so if it inhabited the more remote regions of the earth.

Ancient texts and religions are virtually teeming with stories about dragons and cunning serpents. Hebrew texts refer to the serpent of the garden of Eden as ‘Nachash’, which many Hebrew scholars contend was a bipedal or hominid reptile of great intelligence.

‘Nagas’ from ancient Indian mythology, are described as humanoid lizards or serpents.

The American Indians have a creation legend that says they came out of caves underground while the 'reptile people' were banished to underground.

‘Quetezecoatl’ was the feathered serpent of South American fame. He was a culture bearer and law giver. He is sometimes depicted flying on a rocket! He is described as a feathered serpent.

Ancient Flying Machines?

Egyptian Flying Model

In a tomb at Saqquara, Egypt In 1898, a peculiar wooden object six inches long was found that dated back to about 200 BC. The object had a body resembling a fuselage, and a seven inch wing span that curved downward slightly. It also had a fixed rudder, and a tail.

For all intents and purposes the object looked very much like a modern airplane or glider. However the artefact was labelled a model bird at the Cairo Museum in 1898 because aeroplanes had not been invented yet by modern day man.

Years later Dr. Khalil Messiha, an authority on ancient models, studied the object. Khalil claims it has characteristics of very advanced aerodynamics, similar to modern gliders that require very little power to stay airborne. The curved wings are commonly termed today as reverse dihedral wings, which can attain great amounts of lift. A similar design was employed on the supersonic Concorde aircraft.

Though many people still hold to the opinion that this artefact is a model bird, Khalil noted several significant differences between this artefact and common Egyptian bird models, least of which the rear tail stabiliser. No birds with vertical tails were ever seen in Egypt or the middle East.

Central and South American Model

This gold trinket, and others like it, dating between 500 and 800 AD, where discovered in Central America and along the coastal areas of South America. It closely resembles a model of the Space Shuttle or a delta wing fighter aircraft.

Labelled a Zoomorph, or animal-shaped object by it discoverers. It resembles no known flying animal to date. But there is no mistaking its distinctly mechanical appearance. Not only does it appear to have delta-shaped wings, stabilizer fins, and rudder, it also has what looks like a pilot's seat.

(Zoomorph on the left, Space Shuttle on the right)

Experts in aerodynamics, contend that the wings are too far back for the object's centre of gravity and that the nose is not aerodynamically sound. However you could easily argued that the front portion of the model is some form of frontal docking platform similar to the top docking method used by the space shuttle.

The image below shows the actual docking method used by the space shuttle to dock with the Mir space station.

Imagine how it might look if it docked via the nose. The image on the left is the space shuttle, and the one on the right is an example of the Zoomorph docked and undocked.

(Space Shuttle on the left, Zoomorph on the right)

Furthermore the theory of aerodynamics was questioned by three Germans, Algund Eenboom, Peter Belting and Conrad Lübbers, who decided to try and create a scale model of the “airplane”, to prove if it was indeed capable of flight.

After comparing different models from that region and era, they soon realised that the people of South America were very capable of creating insect models that where anatomically accurate, and that this particular artefact was quite different.

Insects have their wings on top of the body, as was commonly modelled by the South American People. But this strange artefact had its wings positioned beneath the body. In fact most propeller driven planes also have their wings attached to the top of the body, and only modern jet planes have their wings positioned beneath the fuselage.

In 1996 They successfully managed to create a scale model of the artefact with a propeller added to the nose. The model, named “Goldflyer I”, could fly without difficulty, but as the artefact quite clearly did not have a propeller, they needed to prove their theory of jet propulsion also. After all if the artefact had had a propeller attached, it couldn’t possibly be compared to an insect.

They went on to develop Goldflyer II. The model (depicted below) had the same dimensions as the artefact, and had a landing gear and jet engine attached at the rear of the fuselage. Most jet planes have the engines attached to the wings, and only the space shuttle has its engine positioned at the rear. However, the space shuttle is launched with rocket technology, that then detach from the craft. So they had to make a design that could take off without such a device.

The “Goldflyer II” flew perfectly and could take off, fly, perform looping manoeuvres in flight, and land without difficulty, proving not only the sound aerodynamics of the artefact, but that the use of an engine at the back of a plane could be perfectly achieved in modern aviation as well, if they wanted to.

The Abydos Temple Glyphs

The images below are taken from The Adydos Temple south of Cairo in Egypt. These same images where filmed and confirmed by Fox Television in 1998 and broadcast in a show titled "Opening the Lost Tombs: Live From Egypt."

The 3000 years old glyphs depicted on the ceiling support have shocked and stunned many through their amazing likeness to modern day aircraft.

It is pertinent to note that there are touched up and doctored versions of these glyphs circling the internet, however the ones depicted here are genuine and unchanged. They where photographed in November 1992 by Bruce Rawless.

(close up)

The images below bare a striking resemblance to a helicopter;

A tank;

A Submarine or Airship;

and a hovercraft;

People have dismissed these astonishing images, saying that the plaster has fallen away and the glyphs have become damaged to appear like something they are not, yet the rest of the surrounding temple is in exceptional condition.

Surely if this was just the random crumbling of rock and plaster, the coincidence of them crumbling so perfectly to resemble these modern day machines, is a coincidence not easy to stomach.

Other scholars claim its a ‘palimpsest’, a manuscript that has been written on more than once. They claim that the original glyphs where not fully erased, and that the new glyphs placed over the original ones happen to form the images depicted above.

The image below shows the new and old glyphs in red and blue overlapping each other.

A translation of the glyphs reveals the following:

"It was decided in antiquity to replace the five-fold royal titulary of Seti I with that of his son and successor, Ramesses II. Who repulses the Nine Bows” or “Who protects Egypt and overthrows the foreign countries"

The term ‘Nine Bows’ refers to the ‘nine traditional enemies of Egypt’ so an alternate translation would read "Who repulses the Nine Enemies of Egypt".

Is this all just one amazing coincidence? Is this nothing more than crumbling plaster and ancient typing errors? Or is it evidence that the ancient Pharaohs had great machines of war to repel the nine enemies of Egypt?