Sunday 21 October 2018

The Citizens' New Archaeology - Without a Spade (Para-Archaeology I) [UPDATED]


The evidence we've compiled so far
strongly indicates that the ancient aliens hypothesis is correct.

[Updated: this rather long post continues in a second, which was written later but I have posted below this one. A third is planned in which I hope to make some more general points, but I have a big translation project on at the moment, so have to use my spare time on that]

I was prompted to write something more substantial on this aspect in connection with the claims by its supporters that artefact collecting is some kind of 'citizen archaeology'. It started with a perfectly sensible Twitter thread by David S. Anderson (Radford University, Virginia USA) about 'Pseudooarchaeology', a subject I have long been interested in and concerned about (though I think the term is incorrect, 'Para-archaeology' or 'fringe archaeography' seem better to me). here's what Anderson said:
Archaeologists, it is time to admit that our discipline is at a point of crisis. Belief in #pseudoarchaeology claims is rampant and rising, and yet I’m repeatedly confronted by professionals who tell me this is no big deal, or not worth our time. We need to act now!  For the third year in a row, the @ChapmanU survey of American Fears has shown a rising rate of belief in #AncientAliens, we are now at 41%. To put it another way, that’s more then 133 million people! And 57% of Americans now believe Atlantis, or something like it is real. This rise in belief has been fueled by conspiracy theory driven television shows like @AncientAliens and America Unearthed. These shows are not just silly fun, they are undermining people’s abilities to tell truth from fiction. We need to stand up for cultural heritage. We should be talking to our students about these claims, we should be talking to the public about these claims. We should be seeking out media platforms to address these claims. We cannot afford to bury our heads in the sand, and assume there’s no harm in these claims. [...] We need to save our heritage from those who would sell it up stream for a quick buck.
Chapman University survey of American fears

 While I am sure making money from lunatic fringe writing is one aim (hotelier Von Daniken raising money to pay off his debts with Chariots of the Gods is one example), I am not sure that is the whole explanation. There were a number of replies/comments from people agreeing in principle with Anderson, and then...  along came this guy, and quite oblivious to what the thread was about jumped in (18 October 2018) with a multiple series of posts illustrating perfectly exactly the sort of material Anderson was talking about. The writer was John R. Clevenger @GQuestJohn, Santa Barbara - Manager of "Genesis Quest"  ("Genesis Quest: The Hunt for the Global Maritime Empire") . This is what he posted there [my hyperlinks]
Hello. If Genesis Quest can get team expeditions going, we will open-mindedly assess these matters, as archaeology--which should indeed change--should, too.
1. I don't think spirits, telekinesis, or psychics are valid, but I'm open-minded about these matters. As for the others:
2. Atlantis, as such, almost certainly did exist. It was a transatlantic Bronze Age metal-trading empire, probably seated on an Atlantic Island that sank. It mined copper in Upper Michigan and tin in what is now highland Bolivia (then a seaport). I can and will prove this.
3. I was totally opposed to the Ancient Aliens theory when I started on this endeavor 8 years ago. But the evidence actually very strongly points to not only contact with aliens in ancient times, but also the likelihood of hybridization or even seeding of humanity by aliens. A startling twist to this will be revealed in my film series on this, if I can get it into production. I've finished my Atlantis trilogy and may get to pitch it to studios in early 2019. But there is another, very startling twist that you may as well be aware of: We have good reasons to believe that aliens still exist on Earth and are hiding out in remote areas of Latin America. Not only do we know one such location, we've been offered land on it. Our chief Latin American researcher helped recover one of their bodies. [Atacamba foetus PMB]  So: Archaeologists need to be open to the possibilities of (1) pervasive ocean-crossing in ancient times, the evidence for which is overwhelming; and (2) visitation by aliens in both modern and ancient times, as well as hybridization and even seeding of humanity. I now believe that an antigravity technology facilitated building of the megaliths, and this tech was a subset of an ancient alien star-jump technology, based on torsion physics. We think we know how it worked, and hope eventually to help replicate it. 
4. Metal-trading Amorite giants
were part of the phenomena remembered as Atlantis. We have some of their bones, and permission to dig in a cemetery where others are buried. They may have been hybridized by aliens, and they were the original mound buildersThere is a chain of evidence which strongly suggests that relict Amorite giants are Bigfoot. The kicker: A special forces squad was killed by a relict Amorite giant in the Afghanistan War. Goliath was an Amorite, by the way. [...]  Equally interesting are the gnomes. The evidence suggests they're aliens. [...]

Further: My basic intent here is not to troll; I revere the discipline of archaeology. But it should no longer be so inflexibly doctrinaire. Most of the points I've made here, and other related ones, can very likely be proven without much difficulty, and not for a quick buck, either. I've been working on this full-time for years and have yet to be paid a dime. If my film series sells and then takes off, I'll funnel proceeds into this research, inviting archaeology grad students to our research center in South America, which we intend to build on said land and - for which we have second financing aligned. This is extremely difficult and may never happen. But I rather self-importantly prefer to call what we're trying to do the New Archaeology. The first script in my series has been compared to Avatar and Star Wars. So it may happen.
Wow. So layer upon layer of misconstrued and misleading (misled) reasoning ) I use the term loosely) to construct an 'alternative past' of the writer's own. The key problem here is the opposition between two views of how we construct an argument. the first sees a pile of - at first sight - mutually supportive 'facts' that can be put together to construct a picture - and that picture is the result. The second approaches a depicted situation (such as giants in Atlantis) and looks to see if there is anything that falsifies it. I belong to the second group - and so questioned the 'giant killed in Afghanistan' nonsense - which turned out to be a non-fact, Mr Clevenger's theory about the giants as presented still has no supporting evidence. It seems to me as an archaeologist that it is enough to look for material evidence that could either support or falsify the suggestion and (since I have never come across any evidence of the existence of non-mythical in giants and gnomes), a non-discovery of any 'Atlantis' is just negative evidence. It seems to me, giving it some consideration, that (at least) one problem with all this is the actual archaeological evidence of that metal trade, so far there are no papers showing that the tin and copper in European bronzes have an isotopic footprint corresponding to Michigan and Bolivian origins of the raw metal traded by 'Amorite Atlanteans', and in the Andes themselves tin bronzes did not appear in pre-Tiwanaku times, only being first attested c.1000AD under the Incas - which would be odd if Bolivian tin was going to fuel the European Bronze Age from 3300BC.

I think the para-archaeologists also show the degree to which they are out of their depth by assuring us they can help to replicate the 'antigravity technology' they surmise 'facilitated building of the megaliths', and they suppose was 'a subset of an ancient alien star-jump technology, based on torsion physics', and which they imagine they 'know how it worked'. I think one can safely assume that probably about as much as they know about the process of archaeological reasoning.


Update 22.10.2018
Seen on Facebook while looking into what's behind these claims. Their Facebook page bills itself as 'educational' (sic) and has 5.5 thousand followers. There we find (5th August 2018) another version of the main claims of this group:
I [adding in a comment: ' I being John Clevenger, and the foundations of this work having already been laid by truer giants of this renegade research than I myself will ever be.'] am considering publishing as a companion tome to my brewing novel, The Flood, a preliminary presentation of our research findings. This includes some very wild stuff that we no longer publicize for various compelling reasons. When one combines results derived from extremely detailed assessments of published materials (such as my compendium about Tiahuanaco, which includes major revelations) with a bunch of unpublished and very sensational stuff (such as what I now regard as proof that relict Amorite metal-trading half-human giants inspired Indian legends of Sasquatch and almost certainly explain many current Bigfoot sightings), the picture that is drawn will simply shock the world. Obviously, we're not yet in a position to undertake the indicated ambitious program of research, and perhaps we never will be in a position to do it. Yet merely formulating these hypotheses could virtually change the world, and this may be a workable way for me to do it. [...] with perhaps this adjunct volume outlining these sensational research results, which are so sensitive that I've had no other way to publish them so far, even though their implications are truly astounding (some things I can't even allude to here, yet). Such a companion volume, which could become a series of nonfiction studies (very possibly with group authors under the auspices of GQ, as we've long planned), may be that first logical vehicle to start getting this material out into the world.
There is also a You Tube video 'Genesis Quest Intro: Genesis Quest's Ecuador Project' (82 views):

Highlights I noted in this video:
(soundtrack from after 0:22  - reminiscent of Zimmer's Chevaliers de Sangreal from the Da Vinci Code):

(0:25) "we believe that myths are often rooted in fact and the Scriptures can be history" and "conventional dogma should never stop us from looking truth right in the eye" (0:33) [shot here is the 'giant discoverer' in Ecuador]

(0:45) "we believe that what happened in prehistory was far different from what mainstream views allow".

(1:16) "GQ is on the verge of proving that a global maritime empire laid the foundations of civilization before being wiped out in worldwide catastrophe"

(1:27) "to prove it, we've acquired permits to explore the mountains of Southern Ecuador where bizarre gold relics recovered from the surrounding jungle  [photos of Crespi Collection objects] seem to reveal connections to Mesopotamia, Egypt and Minoa (sic)"

(1:55) "In a burial place of giants (sic) near a sacred mountain (sic) there, a twenty foot tall female skeleton was reportedly unearthed in the 1960s. We have some of her bones* [2:08 shot of a model femur in Mt Blanco Museum, Texas, created on basis of Turkish reports  - original has never been produced]. We'll apply DNA testing and carbon dating to find out if senora gigante was human** and if so where she came from and how long ago she lived. If a skeleton three times the size of modern people proves human and especially if her DNA reveals ancestral links to the British Isles, which is where we believe the giants originated (2:29), our proof will be complete, and just imagine the fear that would ensue (sic) if we found senor gigante"

 The film ends with showing in quick succession mug shots of (alleged) 'members of the team', mostly from the US, in which one can recognize several people involved in 'fringe archaeography'.  There is a promise that for 'support' of 'this initial investigation', 'you will be rewarded with campaign perks such as free (sic) e-books', so privileged access to the revelations of this new vision of the past concocted by "Genesis Quest", and 'some of you may even join the team [free of charge? PMB] and appear in a documentary series for cable TV' ("Join our quest, together, let's make history!")

How to even begin to discuss this with these people? Why is this happening, and why does so much of it seem to centre around misunderstandings of the archaeology of Mesoamerica and South America?


* the bones shown between 2:14-21 and the second set to 2:22-2:40 are shown in this film. The first lot are father Carlos Miguel Vaca Alvarado's collection. There is a huge amount of uncritical internet waffle from creationists and biblical fundamentalists about these bones, and I cannot find anything easily that refers to anyone who's actually identified the species of megafauna they come from but they are clearly not parts of any human skeleton, oversized or not. 

** in the film, we see the bones handled by people without gloves and in one case (2:27-2:37) the guy seems to be wiping spit on one of them. As anyone who knows even a little about forensics would say, it'd be difficult NOT tto find human DNA on those items - DNA that would suggest a link to modern populations of the region where they were dug up. But this would be a false result from contaminated material.


27 comments:

David Knell said...

Scientific method:
First find evidence, gather all related data, examine and test everything repeatedly, and then draw tentative conclusions. Submit to informed peer review, and make a potential discovery.

Pseudoscientific method:
First draw a firm conclusion (the wackier, the better), and then find any old bits of misunderstood evidence that seem to support it while carefully ignoring anything that doesn't. Submit to YouTube or a TV programme, and make lots of dosh.

Who needs reality, eh?

Unknown said...

Hi Paul. I may consider posting here, but I'd note that your tone is hostile and dismissive. The giants were involved in the ancient Michigan copper mining. I was similarly dismissed (in that case as "racist") by a so-called "expert" on that, who believed the Indians did it, and to claim otherwise is "racist."

We have credentialed archaeologists on our team, and the theorist about the antigravity technology worked for 12 years at NASA's JPL. What we need is funding, and that's why I've been focusing on my film franchise the last few years. I now have four films (of eight total) initially drafted. Now, perhaps as a film project, this may go nowhere fast--none of this is easy. Hopefully at least it will be a published novel--that's next, after I pitch the film version to studios, hopefully by early 2019. I do have an old-guard Hollywood producer who has compared the first film to Avatar and the most successful films in movie history. So that's a good start.

Tiahuanaco is of particular interest to me. I think it proves (a) that it was a tin-mining center during the Bronze Age, and (b) that a crust displacement event happened, therefore, during the Bronze Age, and not before it, as some other "alternative theorists" (or pseudo-archaeologists if you prefer to use such loaded language) think. We know such an event happened around 10,900 BC, killing the Ice Age megafauna. But if another such event happened during (and possibly at the end of) the Bronze Age, we need to bring that out. My main point is that I'm convinced, and confident we can prove fairly easily, that Tiahuanaco was a seaport. Such a finding would be revolutionary to multiple disciplines, not to mention scary as hell.

The giants clearly did exist; what they represent is murkier. Ralph Glidden's photos of 4000 giant specimens recovered (unprofessionally) on Catalina Island has recently been recovered. We have been given permission to dig in a "Cemetery of the Gods" where such specimens lie buried in South America. With funding our results could be of interest to those open-minded enough to consider them.

Unknown said...

"The first script in my series has been compared to Avatar and Star Wars" that sounds like a genuine scientific endoresement. Is this film fact or fiction? In any case surely the more usual way of presenting scientific evidence is in peer-reviewed writing in accepted academic publishers, no? Weird...

Unknown said...

Trying to figure out how to sign in, so I'm not anonymous/unknown. John Clevenger of Genesis Quest here. Thanks.

Unknown said...

"First find evidence, gather all related data, examine and test everything repeatedly, and then draw tentative conclusions." We're at this stage. I'm not against submitting for peer review, however I'm very dubious about it, as that's where enshrined orthodoxies are enforced. We'll likely try it for particular points of focus, such as Tiahuanaco or the giants, once we're at that stage (if we can test the vast testable evidence in the Altiplano supporting our view for the former; if we do recover giant skeletons from that "Cemetery of the Gods," and then assess those specimens in our lab for the latter).

Right now I'm at the stage where enmeshing with even the orthodoxy informally is appropriate. That's because I'm almost ready to pitch my Atlantis trilogy, which if I'm right may have huge commercial value. Some of our initial findings/hypotheses can be too readily stolen by those who are interested in making a quick buck. As for me, I intend to be in this for the long haul, and yes, I'll take my lumps on stuff I or we may get wrong. I'm not saying I know it all, but I am asserting that from where I sit, given what I do know or at least have very strong, mutually reinforcing indications of, mainstream views on much of this are radically wrong.

Paul Barford said...

I am only being dismissive of what seem to me to be loose claims – amateurish attempts to join up some dots - with not only very little hard evidence to back them up but very clear evidence that refutes them. You say Bolivian tin was traded across the Atlantic, I ask where the isotope signatures evidence of that is. You say Michigan copper… ditto.

You see, the problem is none of this is really all that new. Much of this goes back to Ignatius Donnelly and his 1882 ‘Atlantis, the Antediluvian World’ [http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/ataw/], then Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier’s 1960 ‘Le Matin des magiciens’ (the giants bit) and then the whole series of Van Daniken books starting with 'Chariots of the Gods?', published in 1968. Now we have Clifford Wilson’s 1972 ‘Crash Go the Chariots‘ (and 'The Chariots Still Crash' of 1975). Ronald Story’s 1976 ‘The Space Gods Revealed: A Close Look At The Theories of Erich Von Däniken‘ followed, also debunking much of this same sort of stuff. Has that made any difference? Nope. Here’s a guy churning out the same unaltered mish-mash forty years later! OK, the details differ, but these are the same old, same old ideas. Nota Bene, forty years on, the same ideas that have still the same abysmal lack of supporting evidence, despite a whole load of amateur sleuths out there looking for the ‘evidence’ to prove their pet theories and overturn the traditional views.

So, yes, anything that is just a wild “looks-like…” speculation, and “is it just a coincidence that…?” weaselworded suggestion, backed by the usual “academics reject this because…” [jealous/ afraid/ closed-minded/ arrogant/ linked with government coverup] defensiveness requires being dismissed. Let us see some real evidence.

First show that copper was being mined in Michigan in 3300BC (the beginning of the Bronze Age metal trade your ‘Amorite giant Atlanteans’ were allegedly engaged in) before you tell me “the giants” were involved in it. Likewise some pre-Tiwanaku use of tin anywhere in the Andes. Then find the evidence that it was ‘giants’ and not the native populations.

Tiwanaku is currently nearly 4 km above modern sea level. You say it was a ‘Bronze Age’ tin-mining centre and seaport which was then uplifted four kilometres by some (violent/gradual?) mystical ‘crust displacement event’ in the last five thousand years. There should be some pretty prominent geological traces of such an uplifting, they’d not have eroded away in such a short (geologically-speaking) period of time. So why have geologists not noticed it? Is this because they too – like you claim the archaeologists have – institutionally closed minds? Or is it that you – the non-geologist – really have not the slightest idea what you are talking so dogmatically about here too?

Another dogmatic statement: “ We know such an event happened around 10,900 BC, killing the Ice Age megafauna” National Geographic? I think they died because that’s the period when the climate changed at the beginning of the Holocene, which is a global event, not a local one.

“ Such a finding would be revolutionary to multiple disciplines, not to mention scary as hell” or just plain wrong.

"The giants clearly did exist” Really? The Bible says so didn’t it? It says a lot of other stuff too…. Book of Mormon also says it I believe. Dogmatic/ no generally acceptable evidence – but lots of lunatic fringe pseudo-science
for example: https://www.thoughtco.com/giant-human-skeletons-found-in-greece-3299810

Ralph Glidden's photos of 4000 giant specimens recovered (unprofessionally) on Catalina Island has recently been recovered"". And...?
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/07/the-mysterious-giants-of-catalina-island/

>We have been given permission to dig in a "Cemetery of the Gods" where such specimens lie buried in South America. With funding our results could be of interest to those open-minded enough to consider them.<
and why not use that funding to employ proper archaeologists and osteologists? Who gave you permission?

Paul Barford said...

> I'm not against submitting for peer review, however I'm very dubious about it, as that's where enshrined orthodoxies are enforced. <
That's what Mr Von Daniken used to say....

> enmeshing with even the orthodoxy <
Hmmm.

> from where I sit, given what I do know or at least have very strong, mutually reinforcing indications of, mainstream views on much of this are radically wrong.<

Balony detection kit mentions that kind of talk:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/

Michael Shermer: How to detect baloney the Carl Sagan way https://youtu.be/mn7jVTGjb-I

Michael Shermer: Baloney Detection Kit https://youtu.be/aNSHZG9blQQ https://youtu.be/mUvQbKkGtjA


Michael Shermer 1997, 'Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time'.

Unknown said...

Thanks, Paul. You actually are quite versed, and that can be helpful. A few comments, and I may chime in further down the road, and would actually appreciate your further input:

1. As for Von Daniken, in Gold of the Gods he flat made stuff up. I oppose that sort of thing entirely. However, I think his open-mindedness has brought many anomalous evidences to public awareness, and these things merit much more investigation. Nan Madol, for example.

2. The local government has given us permission to dig in said cemetery, located in an unexplored archaeological zone that seems to me to be of extraordinary importance. They also offered us 10.2 acres in a national park there. We have second financing up to several million dollars already lined up, and are submitting a proposal to two high net-worth people who may possibly be interested in providing first funding. If we get that and can proceed with our plans (rather extensive) to build a research and medical tourism center there, we will naturally invite all sorts of credible and credentialed authorities to take part. I'm but an amateur archaeologist, of course, but several of us do have PhDs.

3. I am aware of several giant bones. One person who lives in the Ohio Valley has in their possession a giant femur. And from some of the mounds not far from the Michigan copper mining, jawbones have been recovered that wrap around a normal person's face.

4. I'm no geologist or geophysicist either. But the book Cataclysm! (Allan and Delair) collates massive evidence of hugely destructive geological events, such as the one I believe is patently evidenced by Tiahuanaco. Why? Because I believe I can already prove, based on published evidence I've collated, that Tiahuanaco was built as a seaport. That means that it was settled during modern human times, yet it now sits 12,500 feet above sea level. But it has not really been fully investigated get. We have the capacity to engage people who can properly assess it, if we can pull together such funding.

Unknown said...

...5. I understand that carbon dating of the ancient copper mines has established dates around 2000 BC, and possibly as early as 3000 BC or even earlier for that activity. I'm a bit skeptical of carbon dates generally, but that aligns with other evidence I've seen on the giants dating their global activity to at least 2000 BC.

6. People can pan baloney talk all they want. What I'm referring to are similar geoglyphs in Central Russia and Peru (the former revealed to us by our Russian participant), similar megalithic formation in Russia and Ecuador, a Sumerian account that matches what pureblood Inca descendants told me directly (details of which I'm not ready to reveal publicly, however--sorry), similarities between Jomon pottery and pottery recovered in Ecuador, etc. I think there's no question that oceans, including both the Atlantic and Pacific, were crossed commonly in prehistory, certainly around 2000 BC, and perhaps before 10,000 BC (as many other "alternative" theorists conclude without much evidence, however). I also think there were land bridges during the Ice Age. A member of a black South African tribe told me that they have oral traditions that their ancestors walked across a land-bridge from Africa during the Ice Age. I also think that "Solutreans" are the same as the "Clovis hunters." Moreover, overlap between Mohenjo-Daro script and Easter Island rongo-rongo I find compelling. So I believe the Pacific was crossed far earlier than the Polynesians.

8. I suspect pyramid technology was an ancient, and possibly alien, super-technology, resulting from a grasp of physics beyond our own. Apparently, by the way, there is a masonry pyramid in a remote part of the Urals in central Russia. I aspire to go there eventually.

So there is a lot to this. As I publish my novel as an e-book, I'll accessorize that with a more presentable collation of the evidence I and we have compiled so far. However, what I really hope to do is generate massive funding through my film franchise and fund scientifically rigorous and unassailable research at various evidence-rich nodes (like Tiahuanaco) that can prove--or perhaps disprove--these points. Let me close for now by saying that just what I believe can be fairly readily proven at Tiahuanaco would be of revolutionary import. As conditions make possible the engagement of credentialed but open-minded professionals, I would welcome that. Much will depend on the studios' reaction to my first three films, together constituting my Atlantis trilogy.

Oh and yes, much of this goes back to Donnelly. He was panned as a pseudo-scientist. I think he was a genius, and that many of his claims were at least roughly true.

Unknown said...

Sam, I will present the film series, the series title of which is The Flood, to studios as fact-based, or at least research-derived, fiction. And yes, that it basically recreates things based on unpublished scientific findings is quite unique. Every detail in The Flood 2: Doom of the Gods, which depicts the main part of the global catastrophe that I believe did destroy the advanced antediluvian civilization vaguely remembered as Atlantis, is derived from hard scientific evidence or ancient accounts. Something like this clearly did happen; there are over 500 ancient accounts of the Flood.

A main purpose of this is to generate funding, per the James Cameron model. It may or may not work, but if it does, we may be in a position to fund much hard scientific investigation into areas that the mainstream has largely ignored.

I agree that it is most unusual to present fresh scientific results in a film series. Perhaps nothing like this has ever been presented to Hollywood before. Whether they deem it commercially suitable for such a huge production cost remains to be seen. Nobody said this would be easy. That said, I think the initial trilogy on Atlantis, now basically complete, is really good. Movie 1 has been compared to the most successful films ever; I'm pretty sure Movie 2 is better. And I'm liking to think that The Flood 3: A New Sun, is best of the set. Movie 1 is The Flood 1: Escape from Atlantis. Basically the trilogy tells the Aztec tale of the Flood, not really the biblical one. Let's see if it works.

David Knell said...

> "First find evidence, gather all related data, examine and test everything repeatedly, and then draw tentative conclusions." We're at this stage.

No, you are not. You drew firm conclusions ("Atlantis ... did exist", "It mined copper in Upper Michigan and tin in what is now highland Bolivia", "aliens still exist on Earth and are hiding out in remote areas of Latin America", "relict Amorite giants are Bigfoot", etc.). Phrases like 'almost certainly', 'reasons to believe' and 'strongly suggests' do not disguise your total conviction.

You came across bits of misunderstood evidence that seem to support those conclusions, clearly without gathering ALL related data or testing everything, while remaining oblivious to anything that conflicts. You propose to publish your foregone conclusions which "may have huge commercial value".


> I'm not against submitting for peer review, however I'm very dubious about it, as that's where enshrined orthodoxies are enforced.

What? You mean those pesky "enshrined orthodoxies" (aka sober reality) that would leave your fairy tale looking less like Russian caviar and more like Swiss cheese?

Unknown said...

And perhaps you folks see how all this can be boiled down to specific points of proof. If we can generate massive funding through my film series, our group has the scientific and technical wherewithal to prove or disprove my assertion that Tiahuanaco was built as a seaport. Rendering that proof irrefutably would be big news.

Similarly, if we get the relatively modest funding needed to do a fully professional dig at the Cemetery of the Gods near land we've been offered, digging up one or more 9-foot-long skeletons (or even perhaps 15 feet long) and assessing them properly anatomically and in terms of DNA etc. would be a big deal.

There is a mummified longhead fetus in a museum in Peru. If we can access that specimen, studying it anatomically etc. would be interesting. I suspect, based partly on claims Inca descendants have made to me, that it is an alien, and I know where from--and that particular revelation I may just leave for the film franchise, as it is sensational in its implications.

As another example, we believe there are Minoan or Egyptian copper freighters in Lake Superior. Our chief scientist sent gear down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench with James Cameron. With funding, we could look, pending requisite permissions, of course.

And on from there. If we can organize and fund an expedition to the masonry pyramid (if that claim is true; I'm not 100% sure it is) in the Urals, who might like to join us for that? Your Glidden link said something like "perhaps we'll never know" if the giants are real. Guess what. All we need to do is look, with open eyes but also with proper procedures. With funding, we can do that. And with luck, perhaps we'll have said funding. Anyway, that's what we and I are trying to do.

P.S.: If my film franchise gets into production, or at least the Atlantis trilogy with which it begins, watch The Flood 2: Doom of the Gods in IMAX 3D. I predict you'll agree it's the most spectacular film you will ever see. (Little commercial plug. ;-) )

Unknown said...

David, my research summary for Tiahuanaco was 98 pages single-spaced, as I recall, a collation of thousands of pages of research (true, no fieldwork there yet). For evidence of catastrophe, the summary file was 254 pages single-spaced. But here I am not formally publishing anything. I'm asserting initial research findings and articulating hypotheses for which I have assembled massive mutually corroborative evidence. Especially on Twitter, space constraints necessitate leaving off too many "the preponderance of evidence suggests" etc., which is why a blog like this is vastly better.

Let's take one item as a case in point. A persuasive case exists that Tiahuanaco must have been, and was, built originally as a seaport. In fact, the evidence for that, compiled largely by Posnansky, is overwhelming as things stand. A modicum of fieldwork there would likely seal the deal--assuming sufficient access and permissions can be had, not necessarily easy. But if we can prove my thesis there, basic assumptions of archaeology (about the peopling of the Americas and when that first occurred) and geophysics (that crust displacement did occur at least once in prehistory) would have to be corrected. Also, what is the main point of my eight-film franchise will be illustrated in the real world. If such a global catastrophe recurred today, billions of people would die by tomorrow--if my further supposition, based in part on Plato (conjecturally, yes!), that said upheaval of the Altiplano may have occurred "all in one dreadful day and night," as depicted in The Flood 2: Doom of the Gods. Incidentally, my full theory is that during said crust displacement, a countering effect involved the subsidence of the Atlantic seafloor, taking Atlantis down with it.

Anyway, now that I'm at a point where I can engage discussion among willing participants--including critical ones, who may hurl insults as they wish--I may soon move such discussions to our website, www.genesisquest.org, where we do have forums set up. So we would welcome input there, at least once I've finished polishing and proofing this first trilogy by the end of December. Indeed, I'll then review all my research files--many thousands of pages of books and online sources--to prepare for our pitch to the studios.

This may be justly criticized as an uncomfortable mix of entertainment and science. But my scripts hew as closely to the facts as possible, given the constraints of storytelling (which are considerable). There are many simplifications of things that were far more involved, and I know I'll be panned for that. Yet I do believe I've written a highly entertaining and well-told trilogy. If I'm right and the studios agree, the edutainment products could fuel huge amounts of field research, in which credentialed authorities pro and con would be invited to participate. That's my dream, and it may be a pipe-dream. But then again, it may just work. Frankly I suspect my opening trilogy may be better than The Lord of the Rings. Ah but time will tell on that!

Paul Barford said...

Whew! That's a lot of comment... You wrote
>Every detail in The Flood 2: Doom of the Gods, which depicts the main part of the global catastrophe that I believe did destroy the advanced antediluvian civilization vaguely remembered as Atlantis, is derived from hard scientific evidence or ancient accounts. Something like this clearly did happen; there are over 500 ancient accounts of the Flood.<

So WHEN did this global catastrophe happen? I guess you are saying (yes?) that this is what destroyed Atlantis, right? So when was Atlantis destroyed according to your theory?

And would I be right interpreting your last post to mean that in the light of your research, Atlantis was destroyed by this Flood at the same time as Tiwanaku was uplifted by a crstal shift and was no longer at sea level?

Unknown said...

(1/3) Thanks, Paul, and yes, you can tell I'm a driven writer by nature. That's the one point I forgot to specify, addressing your answer about the Ice Age megafauna. I've been in touch with UCSB geologist James Kennett, who although too busy to work with us, co-discovered an impact crater in eastern Canada with a large scientific team that dated the impact to 10,900 BC. That's the event that killed the Ice Age megafauna while precipitating the Younger Dryas you cited, or so I believe.

Now, this thread started on Twitter in response to a list posted by an archaeologist colleague of a nice retired archaeologist in Michigan kind enough not to be dismissive of my queries several years back. In that post, he listed a laundry list of fallacious ideas, most of which I think are actually true. Through the years of discussion with my large group of "alternative theorists," the research finally came full circle, leading me to conclude that Atlantis did, in fact, exist, at least as a transatlantic metal-trading network during the Bronze Age, and most likely seated on an Atlantic island that sank during what is remembered as the biblical Flood.

Having said that, as even Plato stated, the Egyptian priests had told his ancestor Solon that there had in fact been several floods, and several disasters where fire had come from above (meteor impacts or even volcanoes, indeed such as Thera). The reality is far more complicated than one can portray in a movie story, and indeed will almost certainly never be fully reconstructed. We just don't have records to pinpoint everything that happened from, say, 10,900 BC until the time of Christ.

So one of the things my initial trilogy will be panned for is that I consolidated various events we think happened into one big event. To avoid taking too much time and space, let me distill out one key point, which remains murky, but the implications of which are very scary. Following Kennett's (et al.) work, some of which (images etc.) he sent to me, I do think the 10,900 BC impact is basically what killed the megafauna. However, another piece of evidence often cited by "alternative theorists" or open-minded writers has been the frozen muddy pits filled with suddenly killed mammoth carcasses in Alaska and Siberia. I had always assumed that was the 10,900 BC event. But I gather that some of them carbon-date to 30,000 years ago. So even that evidence is very unclear.

I do suggest you read Allan and Delair's Cataclysm. It goes through a world of evidence showing that something big happened around that time, though they--like to many "alternatives" stick literally to Plato's stated date of 9500 BC (itself unclear). Now, Donnelly himself theorized that a comet passing close by the Earth caused the Flood, which destroyed Atlantis. That is, indeed, the storyline I've adopted for my trilogy. He cited the "Drift" as evidence that supposed debris from the comet had fallen, and he was not far wrong. I think in 10,900, per Allan and Delair, that a comet did, in fact, pass close by the Earth, resulting in myriad impacts. That's where most of my scientific evidence comes from. It came from the northwest. But the Drift was not dust from a comet; it was debris from a global flood. (continued)

Unknown said...

(2/3) Here's the kicker, on which you may feel free to inform me of aspects you may know better than me: following Posnansky, many alternatives think Tiahuanaco was destroyed in this relatively ancient event (9500 BC or 10,900 BC as one may prefer). My close read of available evidence indicates that Puma Punku was a cassiterite (tin) ore processing facility. And as several other alternatives believe, it was upheaved from sea level by the more ancient event. But they don't know that it was (probably) a Bronze Age facility. Now, perhaps you're right, and the tin mined there was not of the Bronze Age. But I doubt it. I think that ancient seaport was upheaved during, or possibly at the end of, the Bronze Age. That upheaval must have been a colossal event. And by the way, we have from a chronicler native descriptions of a mountain near Cuzco being born in that event, and that section of the Andes is very "fresh" and ragged.

There are vast amounts of other evidence one must weigh. But Tiahuanaco, in my view, and the entire Altiplano, was SUDDENLY upheaved, possibly in Plato's "one day and night," either in 10,900 BC (but why the tin?) or during, or at the end of, the Bronze Age (perhaps 1200 BC). If the latter, there were at least two massive, Earth-changing events. That's what's scary. My read on the evidence is that there were, in fact, two such disasters, within a fairly limited span of time. Hence the scary implications--what if it happens again. (Billions of people would die.) That's the point of my eight-film franchise.

Even there, for story purposes, I set the date of the latter event at 3114 BC, August 10th to be exact--"Mesoamerican Day Zero" as I specify it in The Flood 2: Doom of the Gods. That's a simplification! There WAS some such event around then too, as volcanic evidence at the Azores suggests. But the catastrophe in question may actually have been what I believe is called the Bronze Age Terminus Event (anyway that's what I call it), around 1200 BC we think. (It gets more complex. Per Velikovsky, dating based on Egyptology may be off 500 years, so it may be more like 700 BC. And I do not necessarily trust carbon dating, which as a lay person I think may be inaccurate precisely because of cosmic rays during such catastrophes.)

So you can perhaps agree with me that collating this vast amount of evidence is too much for one person! One needs a team; hence the impetus for GQ. And the members of that team must not be married to orthodox notions that, however broadly accepted they may be, are, I believe, clearly wrong. Two-mile vertical displacements of landmasses ARE possible, both up (Altiplano) and down (Mid-Atlantic Ridge). And yes, my hypothesis is that in this event, the Altiplano was upheaved that amount, while the Atlantic seafloor subsided, perhaps as much, but in any case taking Atlantis down with it. Spoiler alert: That's what's portrayed in my Movie 2.

Let me throw in one last wrinkle. Allan and Delair and some others have further posited that the Earth overturned during such an event, at least once in prehistory. That too I decided to adopt for my story, even though it is highly conjectural. (There is evidence for it, and I did not want to let objective reality get beyond what I'm willing to tell in my drama.) So I created a damn-hard-to-create computer model for this event, and that's what I based Movie 2 off of. Thing is, the model is in accord with Egyptian, Chinese, and South American accounts suggestive of such an actual overturn of the Earth--it's really quite remarkable. So just perhaps, what I depict in my trilogy may be much like what actually happened. (continued)

Unknown said...

(3/3) I'll close simply by saying that I actually welcome informed input such as you and other professionals can provide. Somebody said "weird!" about the film project. But the truth is, I'm a researcher-writer above all, and one who has always aspired to write about ancient catastrophes. From the film series was born the notion of trying to solve these puzzles in the real world, by assembling such a multidisciplinary team. Well, that's hard to do, but we do have 50+ researchers willing to work with us if we can get funded, as may possibly happen if my trilogy sells big (and it might, or it might not). Others will be happy to have their research funded, I surmise. :-) So with luck, perhaps we will solve these puzzles for real. Or perhaps all of these last 8 years will have been for naught. Time will tell.

When I'm ready--I have two more months of polishing, editing, and proofing to do on the trilogy--I'll start using our existing blog functionality at our website, www.genesisquest.org, to put these preliminary findings and provocative hypotheses out. I'm probably wrong on some of this, but I bet I (and Donnelly, and Posnansky, and Velikovsky etc.) am right about some of it, too, regardless of what credentialed authorities think. We know the giants were real--they were the Greek Titans and the Norse frost giants (as also portrayed in my fanciful, fact-based fictional tale). The gnomes too (I strongly believe), as we have two mummies, connected with ancient metal-mining and megalithic areas, are associated with the giants somehow. But the key figures were the natural-born longheads (the main character is a longhead). Based on what Inca descendants told me and some direct scientific evidence, I have concluded that they were not of our Earth. And what's too sensitive to reveal publically--watch the film series--is that I think I know exactly where they came from. Around all that, I built a trilogy that may be pretty good. (Like, better than Avatar, maybe even...) But we'll see, I hope and trust, what the studio execs think. Hopefully my producer will be able to get me into pitch meetings, as he said he could when he signed on in 2016. Let's see what wants to happen.

(I won't bother to edit, so please forgive infelicities. Once I can begin posting at our website by early 2019, I'll compose things more carefully, while welcoming feedback as I attempt to launch a serious effort to solve these puzzles properly in the real world, not just for the purpose of concocting entertaining because somewhat plausible and fact-founded fiction.)

Paul Barford said...

We do not have a Clovis problem or megafauna issue in Europe, no crazy theories about impact craters/ comet tails or whatever, the climate changed at the end of the ice Age. This seems a US fixation and you're welcome to it. The "drift" where I am was produced by the glaciations, not a flood, you can see that in the structure and interrelations between the various units.

My interest is in this alleged Bronze Age Atlantis, so you are telling me that the Flood, the one that destroyed Atlantis can be dated to "during, or possibly at the end of, the Bronze Age (perhaps 1200 BC)". "The catastrophe in question may actually have been what I believe is called the Bronze Age Terminus Event (anyway that's what I call it), around 1200 BC we think". Let us forget Velikowski's attempt to shift Egyptian chronology half a millennium and your "cosmic ray" proposal.

> I bet I (and Donnelly, and Posnansky, and Velikovsky etc.) am right about some of it, too, regardless of what credentialed authorities think. <
Perhaps, just perhaps, there are actually REASONS why all three names you mention are not regarded as reliable sources.


Unknown said...

No problem. Views that don't fit accepted orthodoxy are too readily dismissed, and this makes your field look bad. I'm not sure we'll be able to gain traction to finance our proposed research, but if we do, we need merely confirm various critical points of proof to call into question what you're arguing for here, especially that Tiahuanaco was built as a seaport.

I do suggest you read Allan and Delair's tome, as it is filled with evidence of catastrophe (probably conflating several different events, however--including ice dams breaking and causing proglacial lakes to flood with incredibly destructive results, as well as isostatic rebounding after the Ice Age). When I'm ready, I'll present our various hypotheses and preliminary findings probably at our website and FB fan page, both long dormant. I'm hoping you're not mired in uniformitarian dogma, which is laughably wrong. The evidence screams "catastrophism!" If we can prove that Tiahuanaco was a seaport (and I can present compelling arguments for that now), so much for uniformity. Also, humanity would need to prepare for the next such disaster. If I'm right that a big event occurred in 10,900 BC, but another such disaster happened in 1200 BC or otherwise during the Bronze Age, then we'd better be ready for another one. That's the point of my film franchise--may it be a good one.

As of January I'll probably blog on this at our updated website, www.genesisquest.org. So do please feel free and pin me down on loose ends there as you may wish. Thanks.

Paul Barford said...

"No problem. Views that don't fit accepted orthodoxy are too readily dismissed, and this makes your field look bad". "strictures of established orthodoxy can lead to suppression of evidence"

Rather, I would say - the problem here is one of source criticism - determining in a rigorous and reasoned manner what is evidence of what, and what is not evidence.

Instead of "orthodox", which has the (and I think in your case intended) smackings of dogma, you should use the word "consensus". This is the consensus we reach by discussing, but actually discussing not a dialogue of the deaf - which is what you are engaged in. Once you recognize that what you are suggesting goes against what has already been discussed and agreed by a whole group of diverse thinking people with many brains no less acute than your own, it means the onus is on you to give account why you disagree with that consensus view - reached over many decades of serious study (first) and discussion of the results. And yes, reinterpretation of those observations (like Posnanski's) and their meaning. You have not done that in a meaningful way - just accusing your oponents of being dogmatically blind to your 'common sense/common man' approach and "mired in uniformitarian dogma, which is laughably wrong".

I think rather it is somebody who seizes on scraps of "looks like" non-exidence uses faulty reasoning, ignores more recent research and relies on popular charlatan-pseudo-science to generate more, is the one making themself here the laughing stock.

Unknown said...

1. Okay. I'm good with consensus. My point is that evidence I (and to some extent my as-yet loose-knit group) have collated indicates strongly that many such consensus views are wrong. We already have patent proof of the giants, about some of which I've formulated some pretty wild hypothesis (specifically, that the redheaded ones with certain Neanderthal-like features) may have been hybridized by extra-terrestrials). I don't know if that wild idea is remotely correct, but I do know they did exist. Also, I'm not 100% certain the Afghanistan giant account is true; it could be an elaborate hoax. But it matches our research, and I deem it plausible enough to take seriously.

Uniformitarian dogma (or consensus if you prefer) IS laughably wrong. Just read Allan and Delair's Cataclysm. Although it conflates evidence from multiple prehistoric disasters, lumping them into a supposed 9500 BC event per Plato's Atlantis dialogues, the evidence is overwhelming that the Drift was not pushed by ice, but by a global flood. I suggest you read it at some point.

As I've explained, we do believe the gnomes are real--I'm the one who first observed that the Russian gnome has the same non-human cranial structure as the Chilean one, which our Latin American researcher, Alex Chionetti, helped recover from an ancient gold mine. Further, they have been reportedly sighted on the land we have been offered at an extremely rich, yet largely as yet unexplored, archaeological site I need to keep close to the vest for now. They *may well* be of this Earth, but I've concluded they are certainly not human--even though Dr. Garry Nolan, at Stanford, thinks it is. He and others are unaware of the Russian specimen, which appears to be identical.

Now that my Atlantis trilogy, which recreates these purported events as best I can reconstruct them, is basically finished, my intention is to start using the forums at our website to present the evidence I and we have collated about several of these controversial points. If I do end up doing that, you and others will see, for example, that a seemingly very persuasive case can be made that Tiahuanaco was built as a seaport. If we can prove that with onsite investigations in coming years, it would call uniformity into question in a very serious way. That conclusion, in particular, should not be ignored, dogma or consensus or no.

Unknown said...

2. But all of that depends on funding. My focus the last couple of years has been to finish said trilogy, as that gives some hope of at least initial funding for our prospective field research, including at our primary site and Tiahuanaco. If that effort fails, and it might, then we'll not likely be the ones doing that important research--hopefully someone else eventually will. But in coming weeks, a proposal for a construction company I'm working with will be presented to two high-net-worth individuals, one of whom is a major billionaire who believes he has alien blood. That proposal includes our archaeological research center in said evidence-rich zone. If we pull that off, which remains very much to be seen, we would welcome thoughtful input from credentialed authorities. And yes, we intend to install night-vision video systems and remote sensing equipment (used for example on the International Space Station) to try to prove the existence of living gnomes there.

Quite possibly they don't still exist, and maybe they never even did. With all such points of proof, I'm open to refutation and disproof if that's what further evidence-collecting and analysis reveal. But if they do exist, contacting the gnomes could amount to First (acknowledged modern) Contact with an alien species. That would be very important, although I agree--it may well be just a pipe dream.

But our ultimate preliminary finding is where we--or really just me in this case--think the natural-born longheads are from. Honestly, this finding has astounding potential commercial value and could too easily be stolen by researchers or writers intent on making that quick easy buck. I have a whole other film trilogy planned on that incredibly important topic. Now, perhaps that's all just bunk; I have yet to be in a position to confirm or refute claims that were made to me by pureblood Inca descendants. But what they told me jibes with a Sumerian account. If true, this finding would be far more important than simply proving that the Bolivian Altiplano was upheaved over two miles in an ancient catastrophe--while (per my other oddball and quite possibly wrong fanciful theory) the Mid-Atlantic Ridge subsided, perhaps an equal amount in a crust displacement event, taking the seat of said Bronze Age metal-trading empire (called Atlan or Aztlan, after which the Atlantic Ocean was named) with it.

As a doctoral student, I won multiple national awards for my writing and research in another discipline (I'm as much an artist as a scientist). I would urge credentialed authorities to seriously consider our work, insofar as it can be brought to fruition. Let's see what the future holds.

Actually, I do appreciate your very thoughtful reactions to my claims and informal ramblings here. Once fully collated, even the preliminary work we and I have done will, I believe, stand up to earnest critical scrutiny. My claims are based on huge amounts of hard evidence. Now that I'm ready to spell that evidence out, feel free to have at it. But keep in mind: All I need do is (a) dig up a giant skeleton and document that find, (b) prove incontestably that Tiahuanaco was originally a seaport, or even (c) find another gnome mummy--let alone video living ones. Add to that several other potential points of proof, such as finding a Minoan copper freighter wreck in Lake Superior (we know where to look, and with funding have the wherewithal to do so properly). So were I you (and I offer this in a friendly spirit), I wouldn't be too loose with my counter-claims or personal attacks, either. In the end, we might just be able to prove this stuff.

Paul Barford said...

Okay. I'm good with consensus. My point is that evidence I (and to some extent my as-yet loose-knit group) have collated indicates strongly that many such consensus views are wrong. We already have patent proof of the giants"

No, as I explained here, You really have not shown that you have a shred of it: http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2018/10/para-archaeology-ii-citizen-science-and.html

Neither have you produced any convincing argument that concensus views of the Bronze Age or anything else are "wrong"... Above all, you seem pretty unclued-up about a lot of more recent literature than that commonly cited by the fringe.

Nor have you shown why you, and only you, have some mental ability lacking in the several hundreds of scholars that in the past seven decades have looked very carefully at the evidence we have (and in several disciplines) and come to the concensus view that they have. You say they have all "missed" what you and other people in your circles see and are able to reliably interpret. All of them. That seems supremely arrogant considering that you have revealed that you have not the slightest idea why the conciusions reached over the past seven decades since Posnansky (for example) are the conclusions reached. And it seems to me that when it comes to Tiwanaku, it is Posnanski who is your authority, and U=Ignatuius Donnelly on Atlantis.

No the Drift across North America and Europe is NOT a deposit left behind by a worldwide flood - absolutely not. Go out and buy yourself a good book on geomorphology or maybe you'd prefer to Google "Geomorphology+of+periglacial+deposits" and just read up on it. Don't take one source as gospel, read several, but please until you do, do not imagine you have a better grasp on teh subject than the geomorphologists who sttudy the stuff. By the way, of course, when Donnolly was writing, there were geologists who had until recently been trying to show that the stuff (which had been termed then "diluvium") over the 'hard geology' had been left by the Biblical Flood, geologists like Lyell, Buckland and Agassiz in the 1830s and 1840s were moving away from this notion - because of nota bene the observed evidence in the field that was not consistent with an interpretation as deposited by floodwater, but the interpretation of the effects of glaciation did explain what they saw. Dilluvium was replaced by 'drift'. Check out the (really nteresting) history of the changes in intellectual climate in the natural sciences of the period 1820s to 1860s. Fascinating.

"Uniformitarian dogma (or consensus if you prefer) IS laughably wrong. Just read Allan and Delair's Cataclysm. "
You say that you personally are brighter than almost every single geologist since Charles Lyell and you |"know" what they could not see. None of them (apart from the loopy Creation geologists - worked with one once, sad case).

Paul Barford said...

As for your "gnomes", look up Sensenbrenner Syndrome (Cranioectodermal Dysplasia) and Sagittal Synostosis or Scaphocephaly... OK? As I said, p[laying about with human remains (and in this case human tragedy) for sensationalism is pretty disgusting in my book.
But I am sorry to disillusion you, people have been contacting the gnomes for years, centuries really:
https://www.gabrielleisis.com/single-post/2016/06/15/Nature-spirits-elementals-fairies-elves-gnomes-unicorns
http://www.tanahoy.com/magical-beings/what-are-gnomes/

"that a seemingly very persuasive case can be made that Tiahuanaco was built as a seaport. If we can prove that with onsite investigations in coming years, it would call uniformity into question in a very serious way. That conclusion, in particular, should not be ignored, dogma or consensus or no."
Well, you "prove" that (and not by the "looks like" argumemnt of Posnansky) and we'll all be surprised. But, um... you do know what "uniformitarianism" means don't you? You seem to be writing as if you think it denies orogeny. Of course it does not. But the principle of uniformity does suggest that if this surmised "uplift" happened just 3000
years ago, the effects would be so in-your-face-obvious that a twelve year old kid would see it, the newest mountains on Earth will look exactly like the newest mountains on Earth. Yet, again, in your opinion, you are the only one who can look at that and "see" what "really" happened.

". So were I you (and I offer this in a friendly spirit), I wouldn't be too loose with my counter-claims or personal attacks, either. In the end, we might just be able to prove this stuff. From what I have seen, no you will not. And as far as I am aware you have not been the victim of any "personal attacks". Your ideas are wrong, the way you have justified them inspires no confidence that you actually know what you are talking about, but I do not believe that I have said anything about you, personally. I can, if it would make you feel better to be attacked.

"https://youtu.be/l8ukak8P2vY"

David Knell said...

John Clevenger,

> a major billionaire who believes he has alien blood

Admittedly, that may explain some of the wilder eccentricities of your current president.

But on a more serious note: you have - predictably - failed to take on board the points that Paul has so patiently tried to explain. Why not cut the pretence of employing anything even remotely resembling a scientific method and simply admit that you are intent on doing the precise opposite? Much like Velikovsky and others long before you, you are frantically scrabbling for any bits of supposed "evidence" that you hope can twist reality into conforming with your preconceptions, a literal interpretation of the Bible and mythology with a bit of extraterrestrial sensationalism thrown in for good measure.

Your project may well be suited to a Hollywood blockbuster but what worries me relates to the point raised by Anderson at the head of this post. Presenting such nonsense as factual is in danger of "undermining people’s abilities to tell truth from fiction" and exacerbates the rising trend of disengagement from scholarship and the real world. That would be a sad achievement.

Paul Barford said...

" Presenting such nonsense as factual is in danger of "undermining people’s abilities to tell truth from fiction" and exacerbates the rising trend of disengagement ... "

Which is why Mr Clevenger and his compatriots are represented on the world stage by an orange, serial-liar, disgusting pussy-groping clown - because a load of Americans using the same lack of judgement and caution and disregard for anything much voted him in.

Unknown said...

David, Paul: Boy am I ever an enemy of Trump. AndI agree: What a clown.

We have preliminary findings and some tantalizing conclusions, some of which we're highly confident of (the giants foremost, and that one is really just patently proven as fundamentally correct, as is--so I would argue--that we in fact live in a catastrophist realist, not a uniformitarian one), some much less so. The gnomes are somewhere in the middle, especially my conclusion that they still exist. I also think that the legend of Bigfoot was prompted by sightings of relict Amorites. That's controversial even within my group, but it makes for interesting film fare. We have many reasons to suspect that there was an ancient method for producing true antigravity fields, with clues as to how it works. My conclusion that it arose from an alien star-jump technology is of course conjectural. But here's a tidbit for you folks to chew on there: A member of our team is embarrassed to admit that he came from a proud German family. His great uncle worked on the Nazi Bell. That's why he knows basically how this stuff works. Basically rotating magnets within a high-energy field.

Now, it is absolutely true that I've pulled from the voluminous evidence I've reviewed so far the premise for a movie as fantastic as Avatar but in line with anomalous evidence from the archaeological record and otherwise. Indeed, the film project is what spawned GQ, not the other way around. But I am a very serious minded, multiple national award-winning researcher and a very good writer (despite my quick infelicities herein!!!). If we can win funding--and not through grants, which are out of reach for us; besides, on moral grounds I wouldn't want to take research funding from credentialed archaeologists even if I thought I could--we intend to apply proper archaeological procedures and rigorous scientific analysis to anything we find. You should bear in mind that we've been offered land in an evidence-rich archaeological zone, and indeed, another member of our group is from a family that lives on the mountain in question; they have a ranch there. We have second financing aligned in the multiple millions of dollars. And if we can get first funding and build that center (I'm working with a construction company most of whose employees speak Spanish, by the way), we'd be happy to welcome scientists there, as well as their grad students. If we can finance a proper dig in the Cemetery of the Gods there, you're invited. Meanwhile, we will quietly undertake a serious-minded search for living gnomes.

I'm probably imperfect, but I'm well intended. If my eight-film franchise (with as many as four prequel films also planned; and four of the eight first films are now drafted) scores big, we may just generate funding for "New Archaeology," and really old archaeology to boot, such as you've merely dreamed of. Then again, I may totally fail. Then that would be eight years of privation and my life's best work gone for naught. Just doing the best I can here. That said, I'm pretty sure my trilogy is BETTER than Avatar. And Avatar made $2.8 billion at the box office, I believe. So perhaps we're getting close to success here.

Cheers, guys--and if we can undertake this adventure, you're welcome to come along and lend a critical eye.

 
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