Graham Hancock, after a U.S. book tour and selling 750,000 copies of The Message of the Sphinx in Japan, argues Giza’s pyramids—built with lost knowledge like mental energy (hakau)—are 12,500-year-old "time capsules" from a forgotten civilization, not slave labor. Leaked claims of nine underground chambers beneath the Sphinx, allegedly containing metallic artifacts, raise concerns about exploitation by Zahi Hawass and Florida State University’s secretive project. Hancock warns dark forces may suppress discoveries, urging humanity to resist spiritual misguidance and awaken immortal potential through ancient Egyptian wisdom preserved in Hermetic traditions. [Automatically generated summary]
From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening, good morning across all these many, many, many time zones.
From the Tahitian and Hawaiian Islands in the west, eastward, over flyover country, that's all about.
To the U.S. Caribbean, the Virgin Islands, South into South America, north to the Pole worldwide on the internet.
This is Coast to Post AM.
Good morning, everybody.
It is great to be here.
I'm Arbell, and my guest's coming up, and we are going to devote this evening, mostly to Paul.
My guest coming up is Graham Hencock, author of Fingerprints of the God, the Message of the Speaker, and a very knowledgeable guy about things Egyptian.
We have him as a guest time lives, what was it, a couple of weeks ago.
He has been on a U.S. book tour.
He just jetted in from Japan, I think, Tokyo.
We'll find out here in a minute.
Then slept today and is now awake.
You know how that is, or maybe you don't, but it's strange.
Zooming across time zones, you don't know where you are after a while.
All right.
We will get to Graham and your hall, so if you want to start stacking up on the lines early, you're going to get a good shot here.
Because last time we pretty much hogged Graham to ourselves.
This time, it's your turn.
unidentified
This time, it's your turn.
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from July 11, 1996.
The news briefly, Bertha is aiming for the Carolinas, probably going to make landfall somewhere between Myrtle Beach and Charleston sometime between 9 a.m. and noon.
That would be roughly the time I get off the air in the morning, and six hours from then.
Three hours from then.
And so sometime in the morning, but she has weakened some, 80 miles an hour, still a hurricane, no question about it.
And we'll just have to wait and see.
There are warnings all the way up to the North Carolina-Virginia border.
And we'll just have to wait and see.
This has been one unpredictable hurricane.
Other than that, you may recall my guest Graham Hancock by great waves of popular demand and a U.S. tour, and I guess a quick trip to Japan.
Graham, and I suspect that we have him this evening because his time zones probably are as fouled as time zones can get.
Once you do enough flying, it all mixes together after a while.
He is author of Fingerprints of the Gods, The Message of the Sphinx.
It is an area of great fascination to many people.
Let me give you the call-in numbers because tonight it's your turn.
If you're a first-time caller to the program, the number is Area Code 702-727-1222.
You see the curvature of the Earth beneath you and how small and how precious it all is and how we are affected incredibly by the rhythms of life on this planet.
And in fact, I was in Japan for the same reason, because Fingerprints of the Gods was published in Japan three months ago, and it's just been an extraordinary success there.
In fact, when I arrived, they announced that they'd sold 750,000 copies, three-quarters of a million copies in three months.
And I think that what it is, is that people are waking up everywhere to the big questions, getting less focused on trivial day-by-day issues and asking themselves very, very large questions about who we are and why we are here.
And it sounds like the ultimate cliché, but what is the meaning of life?
What is it all for?
People are asking themselves these questions all around the world.
And the answers that they're coming to, first and foremost, is that what we've been spoon-fed for the last century by our governments and by orthodox religion and by our economists and by social leaders of all kinds is just not satisfactory at all.
And people are looking in a much bigger framework these days and asking very large questions and looking for information that just has not been made generally available.
To the best that I can say, I think it's a mystery.
I think life is a spiritual mystery.
I didn't think this 10 or 15 years ago.
I really did think that we were just a kind of chemical accident, a fairly unfortunate chemical accident at that.
I've completely changed my view on all of these issues.
And I think that we're involved in a very, very mysterious process that has to do with perfecting and equipping ourselves, preparing ourselves for something bigger and something beyond.
I've come to regard life as an extraordinary opportunity to learn and to grow and to develop.
And I don't think that anything that we learn, any experience that we encounter, any challenge that we overcome is wasted.
I think it's all part of something that we add to ourselves as we go along.
And I think that every time we take refuge in illusions of safety and security and fail to take the opportunities that life throws at us to transcend ourselves, I think we're letting ourselves down very, very badly.
I've come to believe passionately that consciousness can and does survive death.
And since I do believe that, I think that every moment I spend on this planet is precious and must not be wasted.
And that's the view I honestly and genuinely try to communicate to everybody I talk to.
Well, the best evidence is that we haven't done it.
We haven't built the pyramids, nor anything like them.
We've built temporary, ugly, meaningless pieces of architecture all around the world that are not connected to any powerful spiritual force.
You see, the pyramids, the three great pyramids of Egypt and the great Sphinx, are much, much more than just three massive buildings.
They are a place of spiritual transformation.
They have an extraordinary effect upon the soul.
And there is nothing, nothing that we build today which does that or which has that effect because we have lost the knowledge of how to do so.
Perhaps if we were to expend an enormous quantity of skill and effort and ingenuity, perhaps we could create something like the Great Pyramid.
Although I can tell you there have been two attempts in modern times, one by an American team and one by a Japanese team, to build a pitiful little 30-foot-high pyramid.
The Great Pyramid is more than 450 feet tall and weighs 6 million tons.
These two modern attempts attempted to do the job, first of all, using what they thought was the technology that was used in the building of the pyramids.
And you have to understand that, according to Orthodox theory, the ancient Egyptians had basic, very simple copper tools.
They didn't have the wheel or anything like this.
So initially, both of these teams, one was from Waseda University in Japan, another involved Mark Lehner of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
They tried to do the job with simple tools.
And they really, the Japanese attempt was a total disaster.
And Mark Lehner and his team managed to build one-third of their pitiful little 30-foot-tall pyramid before giving up.
And what both of these attempts demonstrated, the Japanese actually had to give up using so-called ancient technology and started trying to use cranes.
And even this failed.
It was a dismal, laughable joke.
And it shows that we don't actually even have the technical ability to do that job with that perfection on that scale.
But the technical ability, to me, is much less interesting than the spiritual effect of these monuments.
Let me tell you that there's been a safety development on this because just today I gave a presentation on this matter after coming in from Japan and before having my nap, I gave a presentation on this matter to the Egyptian ambassador in Washington and provided him with full documentation and asked him to look into this, which he promised to do.
Because my impression is that the majority of officials in the Egyptian government are not fully in the picture about what is happening.
The control over the monuments of Giza has been delegated to a subcommittee within the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, and that subcommittee is deeply and powerfully influenced by a man called Zahi Hawass, who is the official responsible for the pyramids and the Sphinx.
And Zahi Hawass is directly personally involved in the project that is taking place at the Sphinx at the moment and indeed plays a starring role in the ghastly commercial promotional videotape produced by the team who are working, who have got the license to do the work at the Sphinx.
And I'm not sure how much further knowledge of this goes within the Egyptian government, but I think that the more noise we all make about this, the more likely this horrific project is to be stopped.
Well, I think that I believe very strongly in concentration of force.
And while it would be good for people, I think that what needs to be done is to get a major newspaper or a major investigative television program in this country to actually go to Giza to question all the officials involved, to question the Florida State University officials who are involved in this project,
To question Joseph Shore, S-C-H-O-R, who is the individual through the Shore Foundation who is largely involved in financing this project, and to get full details on what is happening and to report this.
And my knowledge of the American media is not as wide as it should be, but I would say that rather than send letters to lots of different programs or newspapers, it would be worth nominating one or two and have everybody write to them and say we're concerned about this matter and we want it investigated.
Well, curiously enough, and I can only report this anecdotally, without being able to tell you that it is definitely fact, we've had a leak of information from one of the people involved in the team working at the Sphinx.
And that leak of information, and I repeat, I cannot confirm that this is definitely the case, but it is interesting because it's from one of the people who has been working at the Sphinx with this team in the last couple of months using ground-penetrating radar and seismic equipment.
And that leak of information says that they have found nine underground chambers and that metallic objects have been identified in all of those nine chambers.
Particularly since if we examine the ancient Egyptian traditions concerning the quote-unquote hall of records, concerning the secrets, the great secret of the gods that they say is concealed at Giza, it speaks of books, documents, records going back to the time of the gods.
And it says that this record chamber is guarded by metal statues of curious or strange abilities.
I think that there's a grave misunderstanding of the nature of Egyptian religion, and this has partly been spread by our Egyptologists who make it their business to try to trivialize as much as possible this extraordinary ancient civilization.
Everything about ancient Egyptian religion is symbolic.
It's symbolism.
And they use symbolism at several different levels of meaning.
And all the animal figures, the animal masks which we see in Egyptian reliefs have symbolic functions.
And often these symbolic functions at root are astronomical.
The feline symbolism in Egypt is, we're quite sure, is associated with the constellation of Leo, the lion constellation, and represents that constellation and the way that that constellation marks a particular age or epoch.
And we find that same symbolism expressed in the Great Sphinx, which is a lion-bodied monument.
If Graham Hancock were standing at the door, that first door leading to the first chamber beneath the Sphinx, and you were able to go through it, would you have trepidation or would you march right through?
No, I would have immense trepidation about going through it.
These places are not meant to be marched into.
I do think that they were meant to be found.
But I think that what is required is a period of preparation, of careful preparation.
And that's one of the reasons amongst many why I think that the project currently granted a license by the Egyptian Antipodes Organization of the Sphinx must be stopped forthwith and the license must be withdrawn while proper consideration is given to how this matter should be followed up.
I do definitely believe that these chambers should be opened.
I think, however, that the question of exactly which teams open them and under what circumstances they are opened should be very, very carefully weighed up and considered by the Egyptian authorities and others internationally should have a very direct input into this because the pyramids and the Sphinx are a legacy of all of mankind.
And one of the things we should consider is what the ancient texts say about the sanctity and significance of these chambers and about the state of mind of those who enter them.
It's material that one could call broadly historical in nature, which records the lost story of human civilization, the civilization that had the capacity 12,500 years ago to conceive of this extraordinary scheme, and that date of 10,500 BC is fully evidenced in my books, Fingerprints of the Gods, and in The Message of the Sphinx.
So, partly historical in nature, definitely a hall of records containing a sort of time capsule of information from a forgotten episode in human history.
But also, the Egyptian traditions tell us that what is concealed there touches on the fundamental mystery, the mystery of the immortality of the human soul and of how we should live our lives in order to prepare for the journey that we will make after death.
I believe that that information could change the entire world, and I believe it was intended to change the entire world, and that it was always conceived of as that a time would come when it would do that.
Look, we're looking here at a very careful attempt to hide away time capsules, and I repeat this is in plural, two places, not just one place at Giza.
And for me, this is part of the significance that we don't only have a chamber underneath the Great Sphinx, but we also have a chamber inside the Great Pyramid, the doorway to which was discovered by a robot camera in 1993.
I mentioned this on your last show, but just to fill in those who weren't with us then, the Great Pyramid of Egypt, which weighs 6 million tons, has within its massive superstructure four very unusual features which are not found in any other pyramid.
And these are narrow shafts which angle up steeply through the monument from inside two of the known chambers of the monument.
And two of these shafts, they're just eight inches wide and eight inches high.
You could roughly fit a small dog into the mouth of one of these shafts.
Two of these shafts go all the way through the body of the pyramid and exit on the outside and actually point at particularly significant stars.
And the other two shafts from the lower chamber do not exit on the outside of the monument.
And it was these, both the northern and the southern shaft, that were explored by the German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrich in 1993 with a very high-tech robot camera.
And in the northern shaft, after a journey of approximately 80 feet, the robot came to a bend in the shaft.
There were some metal objects observed on the floor, which the camera could not capture in high definition.
But they felt that they did not want to negotiate it around the bend unless it became stuck in the shaft.
So they pulled it down.
They then explored the southern shaft, and they reached the end of the southern shaft after a journey of 200 feet.
And what was at the end of that shaft was a door, a portcullis door complete with two metal handles.
And this was the point at which Rudolf Gantenbrink's project inside the Great Pyramid was cancelled forthwith by the Egyptian authorities and has never since been resumed.
Although in a rather parallel case to what is happening at the Sphinx, and again involving this same Egyptian official, Zahi Hawass, an announcement has been made that a Canadian team will be involved in opening that door later this year.
And again, there are signs of some sort of ghastly commercial enterprise surrounding this project as well.
Now, if you were the survivors, let's just look at this theoretically, if you were the survivors of a lost civilization, of a civilization that was destroyed in the enormous cataclysm that brought the last ice age to an end, and a great civilization,
I believe, and one with a high spiritual knowledge and purpose, if you had survived, if you were amongst the few survivors and you had precious knowledge that you wished to pass down to the future, and you would be far-sighted enough to know that mankind would revert to barbarism and that there would be a time of terrible darkness,
perhaps for thousands of years, before humanity again reached a level where it could use this information, you would hide it away very, very, very carefully, but you would provide clues that would enable people eventually to find it.
And I think that that's what we're looking at on the Giza Plateau in Egypt.
We're looking at the clues that lead to specific locations.
That shaft which led to that doorway was always a clue.
The opening of that shaft was sealed until 1872.
The last five inches of stone over the mouth of that shaft had been left deliberately in place.
And if you walked into the lower chamber in the Great Pyramid, before 1872, you would just have seen blank walls.
But a very enterprising engineer went around those walls one day, tapping with a hammer, and found two hollow-sounding points.
And he chopped those through with a chisel.
And lo and behold, there were the mouths of these two shafts ascending up at steep angles into the body of the pyramid.
And it's in these shafts, as I say, that these discoveries were made in 1993.
And I think the builders of that monument always intended them to be found, but did not intend them to be found by barbarians who would not know what to do with the knowledge hidden there.
There is a curious suggestion of this, which is locked deeply into the entire ancient Egyptian system of knowledge.
And this is connected to the changing patterns of the stars and the great cycle of the constellation of Orion, which, like all the stars in the sky, changes its positions over a 26,000-year cycle.
And the effect of this change in position is to cause its altitude above the horizon to continuously rise for 13,000 years, then to fall for 13,000 years, then to rise again for 13,000 years.
And if we go back to the beginning of that cycle, we find ourselves in the period when these monuments, when this incredible site was originally conceived, which I'm absolutely adamantly certain is the epoch of 10,500 BC.
And it is now a simple astronomical fact that we're at the end of the current cycle.
We're at the highest altitude, whereas at that time the stars were at the lowest altitude.
We were then at the first time of Orion Osiris, and we are now at the last time, what would be in astronomical terms literally the last of days.
And there is a strong indication in that material that this is the time, the time we live in now.
Of course, you're speaking in terms of vast expanses of thousands of years, and you would have to say, give or take 100 or 200 years, but it is our time.
This appears to be the time that this was intended to happen.
And when I look around the world and see the state and the mess that we are in, it frankly seems to me that this is indeed the time when we desperately need a vision from the past, something that will shake us up and help us to understand that we must, absolutely must find a new direction in life as a species if we are not to completely blow it, completely waste and destroy the opportunity we've been given.
And that's why I'm so concerned about the projects that are taking place at Giza.
I'm concerned with the secrecy surrounding these projects, and I'm concerned that objects could actually be removed from those chambers and could be taken away without the rest of us knowing anything about it whatsoever.
Now, I don't know a lot about the pyramids, but I remember all the old movies, Graham, about the pyramids and sand shifting and walls and rocks coming down.
Is it not possible that if they go blundering in in the wrong way, Graham, there could be destruction?
I would say that the ancient geniuses who created these structures had a profound knowledge of human nature and knew that greed and ego and the lust for power would come into play when these chambers were being discovered.
And it is most probable, indeed, that they will have taken safeguards to protect against that, which still doesn't mean that the rest of us should be complacent about it.
Perhaps the safeguard that they created was a psychological one.
Perhaps the safeguard is us.
Perhaps it's up to us.
Perhaps it's up to the world community to assert definitely that these monuments are a legacy of the whole of mankind and that the research and the projects that are taking place at them cannot be monopolized in secret by a few wealthy and powerful individuals.
Perhaps that's the safeguard.
Perhaps it's awakening human knowledge which will protect these chambers ultimately.
One quick question, then we've got to go to the phones.
Here it is.
My question to Mr. Hancock, this is my facts.
If the pyramids were not built, as the scholars say it was, by thousands of unwilling workers and made long sand ramps, then tell me, Mr. Hancock, how was it built?
Please be specific if you are so sure how it was not built.
Well, first of all, we can be sure that it wasn't built with long sand ramps.
There's simple engineering reasons for this.
A team of human labor hauling a 2.5 ton block, and 2.5 tons is the minimum weight of a block in the Great Pyramid, cannot haul that block up an incline steeper than 1 in 10.
Any steeper incline than 1 in 10 is impossible.
Very detailed engineering studies have been done on this, and Robert Boval, who is, by the way, a construction engineer, my co-author on The Message of the Sphinx, Robert Boval and I report this information in The Message of the Sphinx in considerable detail.
Now, a 1 in 10 ramp to reach the top of the Great Pyramid would have to be a mile long.
If it were made of sand or mud or earth of any kind, it would collapse entirely under its own weight.
The blocks being hauled up that ramp would cause the ramp itself to collapse.
This is simple physics.
The ramp would not support the weight of the blocks.
Therefore, the only kind of ramp you could build which would be sufficiently stable to haul very heavy blocks, and I stress the minimum weight is 2.5 tons, there are blocks of 70 tons in the Great Pyramid, the ramp itself would have to be made of material as stable as the pyramids themselves.
In other words, the ramps would have to be made of 2.5 ton blocks of stone as well.
And a one-mile-long ramp reaching a height of 450 feet would occupy many, many times more area, of course, and more weight and millions and millions of times more material than the Great Pyramid itself.
That material is nowhere to be seen around the Giza necropolis.
That material that would have had to have been used to make those ramps has never been found.
But I think it's clear that we are looking at a lost technology or a lost form of human knowledge.
I pay attention to the many ancient Egyptian traditions that speak of priests using a kind of focused energy of the mind that they called hakau, which we primitively translate as magic, using focused energy of the mind to lift blocks of stone off the ground without effort, literally a levitation of the blocks of stone.
I don't want to sound like some crazy, but you know, we are so rooted and grounded in our materialistic conception of how things can be done, our society has conditioned us like slaves ourselves to think that difficult tasks can only be accomplished by technology.
And we fail to realize that we may not be using untapped capacities of the human mind.
We may have the capacity as a species to do the most wonderful and extraordinary things, to achieve almost anything we can imagine, but we've got so fixed and locked into the technological way of thinking that we always look for a technological explanation.
And that's why, since we know that there is no evidence, there is no surviving evidence of a high technology from the period of 2500 BC, we therefore go along with the Egyptologists when they come up with these ludicrous theories about slaves and ramps.
Then, Graham, isn't it possible That once this is opened and it is realized that mankind has been, in effect, going entirely in the wrong direction, in the technological direction, when there was all the while another direction we should have or could have been going in, it will explode everything.
Yes, that's why this material is in fact so subversive and why there is such hostility and opposition to it by established authorities.
Because this material questions the entire foundations of modern society, and it questions the entire ethic and philosophy of modern society, which has sought that the whole ethic of our society seeks to persuade us that we are nothing more than material beings and that we must define ourselves entirely in material terms and in technological terms and in terms of the objects that we possess.
And so insidious and dark and ugly is this philosophy of modern society that we even come to regard other human beings as objects.
And we're prepared to visit mass destruction on them without the blink of an eye.
People use the bodies of other human beings as though they are objects to be traded.
There was a case in England recently of two men who murdered a small child.
They used his body and then murdered him and disposed of the body without a second thought, without a qualm, without a conscience.
Monsters like that are the creation of our society.
And thank God something else is happening all over the world as well, which is that people are waking up to the other side of our character, to the possibility that we are capable of transcending ourselves, that we have something wonderful within us, something divine as well as something dark, and that we can reach that.
But if we stay locked in the mindset of the late 20th century, locked in the mindset of technology and objects, and fail to realize our spiritual potential, then it's going to be a terrible loss.
So I think we're at a crucial, critical turning point in the life of mankind.
Is it possible, Graham, very quickly, because we're coming to the top of the hour, we never did get calls, is it possible that we will miss it, that Orion will come and go and mankind will not get to this information and or, worse yet, lose it?
It was while I was writing The Sign and the Seal, which is my quest for the lost Ark of the Covenant, that I first started to bump into these strange echoes of a kind of lost system of knowledge from long, long ago.
Strange descriptions of objects and artifacts that seemed out of place in time and didn't fit with the orthodox view of history at that time.
And actually, I think that the person who sent the facts is getting a couple of points that I made in the Sign of the Seal mixed up.
There is a strange tool, I guess would be the word for it, that I refer to in the Sign of the Seal, which was known as the shamir, the stone that cuts rocks, or in some translations, the worm that cuts rocks.
And this strange device was said to have cut through the hardest of rock without creating any friction or heat, that it was to have been soundless in operation,
and to have had such a nature that it had to be kept in a lead container, that any other form of container would become dangerous because of it.
And this strange object is said in ancient Judaic traditions to have been used in the construction of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, because there was a prescription against using iron tools in the cutting of the ashlar blocks of the Temple of Solomon.
And therefore it is said in many ancient Judaic traditions that the shamir was used instead.
Some kind of device that we don't understand, which was capable of cutting the hardest rocks.
said that it could engrave tiny letters onto jewels.
Yes, it does sound like some Like some kind of laser, art.
With an energy source.
Now, the other point that the person who sent the facts makes is right.
The Bible tells us that Moses, in fact, went up Mount Sinai twice, two periods of 40 days.
At the end of the first 40-day period, he came down with the, supposedly, with the Ten Commandments written on two tablets of stone by the finger of God.
And he found the Israelites worshiping the golden calf.
And the Bible says that he destroyed the two tablets of stone at that time.
He then returned back up the mount, up Mount Sinai, spent another 40-day period there, and came down with two more tablets of stone.
And this time, when he came down, his face is reported to have glowed so horribly that all his followers were terrified, and that ever afterwards, until the end of his days, he had to wear a veil over his face.
It sounds like he was bent.
And when you listen to the descriptions of what went on at the top of Mount Sinai in the Bible and in extra-biblical sources, it does sound very, very odd.
And for me, the answer to this, and it was really the research I was doing on that, that led me to the research of fingerprints of the gods and from there to the message of the Sphinx, because the background of Moses is the crucial issue.
Moses grew up in the household of a pharaoh of Egypt.
In fact, he was groomed as a potential pharaoh.
And this means that he would have been initiated into all the high wisdom and knowledge of ancient Egypt.
And I think that much of the magic and miracles associated with Moses needs to be understood in context of his Egyptian background as a high initiate, as a high priest, in fact, in the Egyptian tradition.
And even the Ark of the Covenant itself, I found, has precedence in Egyptian traditions.
Golden boxes are described, which when opened produce a jet of flame that comes out and burns, consumes anybody standing around them.
Well, let me tell you what the symbol meant to the ancient Egyptians.
It meant the immortality of the soul.
They called it the Benben, and it was the top or the pyramidion, the top point of a pyramid, and you also see the same device on top of all obelisks.
And it was associated with immortality.
It was a symbol of immortality, and it was the primary symbol of ancient Egypt.
I think, and I really think that the evidence for this is very strong, and indeed Robert Boval and I plan a second book and are working on the initial research of that at the moment, which will go into this, that the ancient Egyptian wisdom tradition,
which was a tradition aimed at the spiritualization of mankind, did go underground after the destruction, the final destruction of Egyptian civilization under the jackboot of the Roman Empire, that this wisdom tradition went underground and that it has found many ways to filter through into the modern world and to express its symbolism in the modern world.
And there could be no more effective way of subtly impressing that symbolism on millions and millions of people than on placing it on the most common currency, the most widely distributed currency in the world, the U.S. $1 bill.
unidentified
Also, I wanted to quickly mention that as a scientist, many of my friends, I believe you know Dr. Patrick Flanakan, is that correct?
And the golden section is expressed in the mathematics of the so-called King's Chamber, which we believe was a chamber of initiation.
It was used in the...
And that the frequent out-of-body experiences which modern people who have spent the night in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid report are connected to this ancient ceremony, that the initiatory function Of these monuments is still active today, that they're working all by themselves, even without the cultural context that once energized them.
Well, I think that when we look at monuments like the three great pyramids of Egypt, we are looking at complex, multifunctional monuments, which do many different things.
To give a couple of, before I come to that point that you just raised, to give a couple of other examples, we know now that the three great pyramids represent on the ground the three stars of the belt of the constellation of Orion.
They're laid out in exactly the pattern of those three stars, and indeed in the pattern of those three stars in 10,500 BC.
So at one level, they're a stellar diagram.
The Great Pyramid of Egypt is also a mathematical scale model of the northern hemisphere of the Earth.
If you take the height of the Great Pyramid and multiply it by 43,200, which is not a random number, it would take me too long to explain why, but it's connected to the precession of the equinoxes, then you get the polar radius of the Earth.
And if you take the base perimeter of the Great Pyramid and multiply it by the same value, 43,200, then you get the equatorial circumference of the Earth.
So we're already seeing that these monuments can be at one level a model of the Earth, at another level that they map three stars in the constellation of Orion.
And I think it's highly likely, I'm absolutely certain about the initiatory function of the monument, but extraordinary ceremonies took place inside them aimed at heightening and spiritualizing the consciousness of mankind.
And we express this in the Message of the Sphinx.
It is also highly likely that these monuments had a function related to the Earth itself and to the balancing of the Earth itself.
Many people are unaware that the Three Great Pyramids stand precisely on latitude 30.
And latitude 30 is exactly one-third of the way between the equator and the North Pole.
This positioning is not accidental.
These monuments may well have been designed to have a balancing function.
And indeed, we go into this to some extent in an appendix in the Message of the Sphinx.
And those shafts, whilst I'm certain that they had important symbolic and ritual functions, may also have had much more practical functions.
I think that one of the very few things that perhaps could destroy the Great Pyramid would be a direct hit with a nuclear bomb.
That's right.
And again, this is a sign of the monstrous direction that our society has turned in, that we are capable of visualizing and creating devices such as these.
This is one of the terrifying things about humanity, that those things which we imagine in one generation, we bring to fulfillment in the next.
And when our imaginings turn dark and evil and wicked and cruel, look what we produce.
Look what we have produced in this century.
The atomic bomb, the horrible specter of a nuclear destruction and of a nuclear winter, the Holocaust, the mass destruction of the First and Second World Wars, as I was saying earlier, the manner in which people use other human beings as objects without any conception that the human life is a precious gift to be treasured and venerated, a light shining in the darkness.
we've created the society that can do this and yes we've created the society that has that has harnessed the power of the sun and that can and that and that can through through it through nuclear processes could destroy the great pyramid of egypt well in other We have the power to turn out the light.
Well, I react with a great sense of openness of mind.
Because I think that I believe in reincarnation.
I think we're talking in the area of belief here.
Let's be very clear about this.
When a scientist, and I mentioned this the last time that we were talking on your show, when a scientist asserts and insists that there is no life after death and no such thing as reincarnation, that scientist is also making a statement of belief, not of fact, because he doesn't know.
He's making a statement of his particular religious belief, and I find it a very unnourishing and unfulfilling religious belief indeed.
Such scientists believe in nothing whatsoever apart from the material body.
So we're in the Area of belief here, and my belief, contrary to the so-called rational view of modern science, is that life is an extremely mysterious process and that we are here to learn and to grow, that it's a precious opportunity, and I think we do come back.
I think we do live many lifetimes.
Can't prove it, it's just my belief.
And it's a belief that has been strengthened by a deep immersion in the study of ancient texts and traditions.
Now, if it's the case that we come back, then this experience that has just been reported to us may well be a valid one.
And I can tell you that many, many people around the world today have a sense of an awakening memory.
There is a sense that the pyramids of Egypt are operating like a beacon, drawing people towards them.
And imagine this.
Imagine if you were the survivors, as I spoke before, of a lost civilization with a high wisdom and knowledge, a knowledge that we do not have today, and you believed in reincarnation and not just believed, you knew that it happened, and you knew that you would be reborn 12,000 or more years in the future, and that you knew that part of the deal with reincarnation is that you do not remember past lives, that at the most you get these faint, haunting recollections, but you do not clearly remember.
Perhaps you would create an alarm clock for yourself.
Perhaps you would create a beacon that would draw you towards it, and an alarm clock, a symbolic alarm clock, that would awaken those repressed memories of past lives.
And therefore, I don't think it's necessarily to be scoffed at or entirely an accident that the great pyramids of Egypt have this effect on so many people that they awaken their memories to past lives.
And perhaps a whole generation is coming back and being awoken.
That's about John Anthony West's wonderful work on the Sphinx.
And John West is an individual to whom we should all pay credit because John was a lone voice crying in the wilderness for 20 years about the implications of the geological weathering patterns on the Sphinx.
And John single-handedly managed to mobilize the effort and the energy that got that geological study done, which proved that the Sphinx couldn't possibly have been built in 2,500 BC, that the erosion patterns alone demonstrate absolutely objectively that it's thousands of years older than that.
And yes, so that's the mystery of the Sphinx.
And it was first shown in 1993.
unidentified
It reinforced the idea that behind the Egyptian sacred science was a complex understanding of number systems and geometry.
And I've been musing over the past year or so about the possibilities of a proportional symbolic relationship between the face on Mars.
Art Bell Back now to my guest, Graham Hancock and our caller.
Caller, you're back on the air again.
I think you are.
No, wait a minute.
As soon as I press a button, you are.
Let me try this.
Now I think you're back on the air again.
unidentified
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
Anyway, first question was that I was wondering about the proportional and symbolic relationships between the face on Mars and the Sphinx in Gisa, and I wanted to know if you had any, if you would reflect any ideas on what you think about this.
Let me tell you, I'm in regular contact with Richard Hoagland.
He's a fellow researcher and has become a friend over the last couple of years.
And I'm a great admirer of Richard's work.
I think that Richard Hoagland has done incredibly important and courageous work against an enormous amount of opposition in drawing attention to these extraordinary anomalies on the surface of Mars and to certain anomalies on the moon and to anomalies concerning our exploration of those worlds.
And by FedEx this morning, I received an amazing package of material from Richard Hoagland concerning star alignments over the key landing sites on the moon and at the time of the orbital mission to Mars.
I think it would be, I can highly recommend, I'm not going to reveal what these computer printouts show me, because this is Richard Hoagland's work and it's his research and I think that Richard himself should talk about this.
But what I can tell you is that it suggests a stunning series of links, not only in terms of the physical appearance of the monuments, but also in terms of astronomical alignments and in terms of the very secretive exploration of these worlds by our organizations here in the United States, by our scientists.
A stunning series of alignments and connections have been shown to me in these computer printouts that Richard Hoagland has prepared.
I am more and more convinced that there is something very, very peculiar going on and that there is indeed a terrestrial connection, as Richard puts it, with these anomalous structures on Mars.
The material that I'm looking at is quite stunning, and I hope that you'll have Richard on to talk about this at some point.
Of course, he wanted me to have you on, almost demanded it, and it's well that I did.
And I should tell you, since I had you on last, I have Professor Stanley McDaniel on.
And the professor revealed new studies which are showing that in some cases, the odds of the structures on Mars being anything but being some sort of normal formation, the odds against that are literally now millions.
And looking at the star maps that are presently in front of me concerning the locations of those structures and concerning the landing sites for the moon missions as well, I think that we're looking at something quite extraordinary here.
And I think it's very, very urgent that this work be taken further.
Everything suggests to me that there is a connection between the structures on Mars and the structures at Giza in Egypt, and that this connection is deep and mysterious, and that there are people today in America, the powers that be, who have financed the space exploration and who have kept large aspects of this secret from the public who are aware of this.
I'd like to compliment Graham on the wonderful way he puts his books together.
They're very well read and easy to read.
I appreciate it.
I had a multiple question on the shafts in the Great Pyramid.
Yes.
A couple of things bothered me.
I was wondering why these shafts were aligned on different stars when the shafts conclude at their bases and angle off, but thereby you can't see up the shafts.
And I was wondering if these shafts were continued on their normal course, would they possibly align on any chambers that we are unaware of in the Great Pyramid?
The shafts were never intended as sighting instruments on stars.
The two shafts from the upper chamber, which cut all the way through the body of the monument and exit on the outside of the monument, the southern shaft of the upper chamber, targeted the lowest of the three stars of Orion's belt in 2500 BC.
But it was never intended as a sighting instrument by which that star could be seen.
As a matter of fact, the shaft first goes in horizontally for about eight feet before rising at the 45 degree angle that targets it, like the barrel of a gun, on that star.
So what is intended here is a symbolic connection with the star, not any kind of fighting instrument.
And secondly, in terms of hidden chambers, the most inviting shafts are the northern and southern shafts of the lower chamber, which Egyptologists on no good basis like to call the Queen's Chamber.
The northern and southern shafts of that chamber, neither of them exit on the outside of the monument.
The northern shaft was partially explored in 1993 until the robot came to a curve in the shaft around which it could not be negotiated.
Doesn't mean it can't be explored, but it requires further work on modifying the robot to take it round the corner.
unidentified
Might there be a possibility that the shafts might be pointing to something downward rather than just upward?
My impression of all of these features of the Great Pyramid is that they were designed, deliberately designed to stimulate inquiry and to raise questions of exactly the kind that you're asking.
And the unfortunate fact is that it's only really in the last four or five years that people have started to look seriously into these implications.
And I want to pay credit here to the vitally important work of my co-author, Robert Boval, who is the discoverer of the Orion correlation, of the correlation between the three belt stars of the constellation of Orion and the three great pyramids.
And it is also Robert who calculated the alignment of the Southern shaft of the lower chamber with the star Sirius, which was considered to be the celestial counterpart of the goddess Isis.
Now, it's this southern shaft that terminates, as I mentioned about half an hour ago, in a mysterious door complete with two metal handles at a depth of 200 feet inside the 6 million ton body of the monument, and every indication of a chamber lying beyond that door.
It may well be that there are many, many chambers within this monument, not just one or two, but dozens, possibly even hundreds.
There's plenty of room for them, and you could well be right in suggesting that the angles and pointings of the shaft suggest places to look.
Well, for me, it's above all else, a profound sense of mystery and of the sacred and of an invitation.
And the invitation says, know me, work me out, work out what I am.
Don't just stand there awed, but figure me out.
To me, this is what the pyramid says more than anything else.
It invites me to use my mind and to try and work out what it is.
And this is why I feel Egyptologists have done us such a horrible disfavor over the last 150 years by telling us that they have all the answers and that we need not think about this monument.
It was meant to make us think.
And through thinking, through stimulating the intellect, it was meant to heighten the immaterial, the spiritual part of ourselves.
I'm not aware of any formal ban on the books anywhere.
The way that the knowledge filter works in our society is to generally discourage people in one way or another, sometimes by making books difficult to get from reading things.
Wildcard Line, you're on there with Graham Hancock.
Hi.
unidentified
Hi, all right.
Graham, hi.
I have a question here.
If Moses was inducted into all of the rites and the knowledge of ancient Egypt, which you believe is incredibly superior, it sounds like, why do you think he left all of that and decided to go off and follow what he said at the time was the one true God?
Well, I think that all of these ancient Egyptian initiates believed in only one true God.
And they saw the other gods, the reference, the whole concept of multiple gods in the ancient Egyptian system is entirely symbolic.
And if you get down to the basis of the ancient Egyptian scriptures, you'll find that there is a belief in one and one only self-created deity, Atum, the God, the Genesis figure, who creates himself out of nothingness, out of the primordial ocean, and who then creates all life.
And all the other gods are simply manifestations of him.
So there's no conflict within Egyptian religion, with the notion of one God.
Secondly, I think that Moses had a specific mission which has actually been incredibly successful, which was to spread into another culture the germ of the ancient Egyptian idea, to carry that off and lead to its dissemination around the world.
And through Judaism and through Christianity, an offshoot of Judaism, I don't think it's an accident that in Christianity we see many features of the ancient Egyptian religion.
The figure of Christ, I'm sorry if this is going to offend fundamentalist Christians, but the figure of Christ is an Ossyrian figure, the once and future king, the king who is sacrificed, the God, the son of a God, who is sacrificed and who will return, who will come again.
This is precisely the symbolism of Osiris.
And I think that what Moses was doing was spreading this concept, this idea, into another culture, and through that culture it is tilted down and around the world in many different ways.
Graham, you likened the pyramid, the Sphinx, to an alarm clock.
You talked of reincarnation and said that if you knew that you were going to be reincarnated, you would put something there to remind yourself, to an alarm clock, to remind you.
I think we've been asleep for at least the last 2,000 years.
But I do think that modern man, large numbers of people around the world, are hearing that alarm clock.
And that's why I feel that we are poised at a crossroads in the story of mankind.
And that if we survive this period, then future generations will look back on Our time, the time we're living through now, as a time of enormous creativity and a time of renaissance, of rebirth of the human soul, I think that there is an incredible awakening taking place all around the world.
The only thing that I would urge people to realize who sense this awakening in themselves is to know that they must do the work.
Do not expect initiation, enlightenment, to be handed to you on the plate in some sort of second-rate New Age text.
It is necessary to immerse yourself deeply in ancient traditions.
People must be prepared to do the work.
When they sense this awakening within themselves, they must also be prepared to work their minds and not expect to receive it handed to them.
Graham, many modern prophets, many, and I never know what to think of them, but I interview many of them, predict the possibility of catastrophic events.
Well, I don't think it's sealed, but I think it's possible.
I went into the whole issue of cataclysms in depth in my book, Fingerprints of the Gods, and I reported many of the ancient traditions, including those of the Maya, which speak of the coming of a terrible cataclysm.
But what all of these ancient traditions, every single ancient tradition in the world that speaks of a former cataclysm and of the destruction of a great antediluvian civilization, all these traditions indicate that we ourselves, mankind ourselves, played a role in bringing that cataclysm down on our heads.
And the suggestion is very strongly the case that if a future cataclysm will come, we ourselves will be instrumental in bringing it about.
And therefore, the possibility remains that we can change and transform our destiny and that we need not confront a cataclysm.
You mentioned earlier that you were afraid of the individuals that were going to be getting involved in this next, I don't know, if you want to call it an excavation or digging or whatever.
Yes, the expedition that is taking place at the Sphinx at the moment and the plans for a similar expedition to be mounted inside the Great Pyramid for the opening of the door inside that pyramid.
Yes, I'm concerned about the conditions that surround these projects, about the secrecy, about the hints of heavyweight commercialization and about the possibility of a hidden agenda.
And I'm concerned that objects and artifacts of enormous significance to mankind under these circumstances could be removed from those chambers and that other artifacts could be replaced within them and that we may never get to the truth as a result of this.
unidentified
Have you ever read the book The Celestine Prophecies?
Okay, are you kind of thinking something on that order where the government or whoever the powers it may be would be interested in hiding or spiriting away, so to speak, any information that might be enlightening to people, that might be a threat to people?
I think there are definitely people who have an interest in hiding the potentially explosive discoveries that could be made at the Great Pyramids and the Great Sphinx, at hiding them, at keeping them from the rest of the world, of not allowing that information to come out.
There is a huge vested interest in the current system, and discoveries of this nature would change everything.
And indeed, there are many who would wish such discoveries never to be made.
And that's why I'm concerned, I repeat, about the secretiveness surrounding the project, because it makes it possible for discoveries to be made and for those important discoveries to be hidden away again and never made public, and for more sanitized and politically correct objects to be placed in the chambers instead.
Well, this is the question, is were they ever really conquered?
Again and again, Egypt was invaded.
If you go back through Egyptian history, the first thing to note about Egypt is that this was not a militaristic society.
They were capable of defending themselves when they had to, but fundamentally this was a society that was opposed to military adventures and which concentrated on cultivating the spiritual essence of man.
And that's why when the Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt in the 5th century BC, towards the end of the story of Egyptian civilization, he was still able to describe it as the happiest, the most serene, and the most beautiful civilization that he had ever encountered.
These were not people who liked to go around killing other people.
Now, Egypt, during its long history, was invaded on a number of occasions.
The earliest major invasion was by a people known as the Hyksos, who occupied Egypt for several hundred years.
And during this period of the Hyksos occupation, it appeared that Egyptian civilization had entirely submerged and vanished.
And they're looking for chambers under the Sphinx.
Now, this team, as I've outlined earlier on, is operating under conditions of total secrecy.
And I am deeply disturbed about the nature of this project.
And my colleague Robert Boval is as well, and so are many, many others of us who are working in this field.
And we think we ourselves are very anxious to have the research done and to find out in the proper manner what is in these chambers under the Sphinx and in the hidden chamber that we know now exists inside the Great Pyramid.
But we also feel that this work is presently not being done properly in the right manner and that it is obnoxious and wrong and extremely worrying that there is no public oversight of the research that is taking place.
And we're therefore calling for these projects to be stopped, for the whole matter to be reviewed very, very, very carefully, and then for projects to be started again, but under proper circumstances with proper public oversight, no secrecy, no hidden agenda, and no commercialization.
And with that said, what I'll tell you is that not everybody working on the project at the Sphinx appear to be happy with the conditions of secrecy surrounding it either.
And we have had a leak from one of those individuals, leaked information, and what they tell us, what we were informed of, is that this remote sensing equipment, the ground penetrating radar equipment that they're using, and other remote sensors have detected nine separate chambers deep in the bedrock beneath the Sphinx, and that all of these chambers appear to contain metallic objects.
We are actively pursuing every avenue on this matter, and we are also calling on every concerned individual to apply pressure to get these current projects stopped.
Because I repeat, the grave danger under these circumstances is that the public may never learn what is in these chambers.
It's perfectly possible with all this secrecy for objects to be removed from those chambers and for nobody to be told what is happening.
And this is not the right condition for proper scientific research to occur in.
So we think the most important thing is for pressure to be put on the Egyptian authorities to stop these projects.
I spent two hours today with the Egyptian ambassador to Washington presenting him with our dossier of information on this.
And you mentioned, Art, I think earlier on, that perhaps a good show in the United States to investigate this matter, a powerful show with the resources to do the job, would be something like 60 Minutes.
You betcha.
And because the concentration of force is the most effective way to work, I would urge anybody who's concerned about this matter and would like to get this problem investigated to write a letter to 60 Minutes.
If they get enough letters from enough people, even they will wake up and pay attention.
Our media have a tendency to tamely follow the orthodox Egyptological line, but they also have a responsibility to listen to the voice of the public.
And if enough members of the public write to 60 Minutes and demand that they investigate what is going on at Giza to explore the issue of this license that has been granted to a team from the United States, a team that includes geologists from Florida State University, to explore the conditions under which this license has been granted, to put the team members and the Egyptian authorities under the spotlight, then I think the veil of secrecy may begin to be lifted.
And the whole background to this whole extraordinary story that is unfolding at Giza is contained in our book, The Message of the Sphinx, that I've co-authored with Robert Boval.
For anybody looking for background information on that, and if 60 Minutes or anybody else wants further specific information, they can always contact either myself or Robert Boval through our publishers who are Crown publishers in New York.
Well, I believe passionately that there is hope, and that the hope lies in a generalized human awakening and an awakening Of the ancient system of knowledge, which is a system of spiritual enlightenment.
Just before the break, you were asking me how it was that Egypt, for all its wisdom, could have been destroyed.
And I started to talk about the possibility that, in a sense, it never was destroyed.
There were several periods in Egyptian history when that country was overtaken by military invaders.
Sometimes the light of Egypt would seem to go out, sometimes for as long as 200 or 300 years, and then miraculously it would come back on again when the invaders were driven out.
There was some secret academy, a secret group of initiates passing down the knowledge behind the scenes.
They called them the followers of Horus in the ancient Egyptian tradition.
And they kept this knowledge alive through thousands of years, through the ups and downs of the political misfortunes that any country will suffer.
And frequently, when Egypt was invaded, as it was by the Greeks, instead of, although the Greeks physically colonized Egypt, Egypt mentally colonized the Greeks.
And the whole of Greek culture became imbued with Egyptian ideas.
And thus, through the Greeks, Egyptian ideas spread out around the world.
And again, in a later time, although the Romans physically crushed and destroyed Egypt, nevertheless, the light of Egypt did not go out.
And we're convinced that the secret wisdom, the transformatory wisdom of Egypt passed on down through the ages in such wonderful concepts that are expressed in, for example, the Hermetic texts, which, and many people may not be aware that we owe the whole renaissance in the 15th and 16th century to the rediscovery of these Hermetic texts, which are deeply imbued with Egyptian wisdom.
So I think that the light of Egyptian wisdom is still alive in the world.
It's still touching people today.
People are waking up to this extraordinary system of ideas all around the world.
And if enough of us get together and focus our minds and concentrate on the good enough and on what is good and what is positive and what is worthwhile in mankind, then the dark forces in society will not prevail.
There were one or two abherent pharaohs who may have been involved in a small-scale manner in slavery, but the notion that Egypt was a society that enslaved others is totally false.
There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of slavery in Old Kingdom Egypt.
Well, I know that Constantine and the jack-booted involvement of the Roman Empire in Christianity was the worst thing that ever happened to this otherwise beautiful religion.
unidentified
And there was this one man that people remembered, but not Christ.
They didn't remember Christ, but they really did remember him.
But I just want to, I really would like to strongly stress to you that if you immerse yourself, as I have done, in the ancient Egyptian texts themselves, and they're all available in translation today, we can read all of the Egyptian books of the dead, the pyramid texts, these wonderful, the book of what is in the duat.
If you study their scriptures and ideas and look closely at their monuments, you will realize that this was a society that was filled through and through with beauty and truth and a deep and abiding understanding of the mystery of existence.
There are no carvings or inscriptions in any of the three great pyramids of Egypt.
The only place where I have seen carvings which look a bit like somebody operating some kind of technological device, may or may not be a spaceship, could be a telescope, could be any kind of device,
but it certainly doesn't fit with the historical picture, is in Central America, notably in Mexico and in the Olmec area of Mexico and in the Maya, some of the Maya monuments such as Palenque and in the Olmec area along from La Venta through Villa Hermosa in Mexico.
You can find artifacts, carvings, very old, from the oldest strata that do appear to be people manipulating some kind of technical device.
Mr. Hancock has set my mind on fire with his latest assertion of the pyramids being some sort of spiritual alarm clock.
Please ask him about the Mayans and their pyramids.
Could they be of the same design?
Ever since I've been a child, I was fascinated by pyramids, but when I learned about the Mayan culture and civilization, I became obsessed reading Everything I could, trying to understand about them so it captures my imagination.
I go into this issue in depth in my previous book, Fingerprints of the Gods, which is available in paperback recently, by the way.
In the Message of the Sphinx, we concentrate entirely on the mystery of Egypt and of the Great Sphinx and the pyramids and the spiritual implications of these monuments.
But in Fingerprints of the Gods, I did comparisons around the world between many ancient civilizations, and I looked very closely at the comparisons between the pyramids of Egypt and the pyramids of Mexico.
And yes, there is undoubtedly, undoubtedly, a link and a connection between these monuments.
And the connection, in my view, is not a direct influence of Egypt on Mexico or of Mexico on Egypt, but it's an inherited common influence, a remote and ancient influence that touched both of those places.
And for me, it's particularly significant that the three most mysterious pyramids in Mexico, which are the pyramids of Teotihuacan, the pyramid of the moon, the pyramid of the sun, and the smaller pyramid of Cuesal Corato, which run alongside the so-called Way of the Dead in the city of Teotihuacan, just north of Mexico City.
Teotihuacan is a very mysterious place.
But these pyramids have an enormous amount in common with the three great pyramids of Giza.
And I went into that in depth in Fingerprints of the Gods.
But one thing that they have in common, very important, is what Teotihuacan actually means.
It means the place where men became gods.
That there is an ancient tradition attaching to these extraordinary Mexican pyramids, which suggests that they were in some way involved in the spiritualization of mankind, in the recognition or the realization of the immortal part of our nature.
That is precisely, precisely what the three great pyramids of Giza in Egypt were about.
They were part, we are convinced, of an ancient spiritual science of immortality to awaken the immortal part of ourselves.
Well, to answer the first question first, yes, all three of the Great Pyramids, it is known for sure, were once completely encased in polished white limestone.
And from the very few surviving casing blocks, we are able to say a number of things about this limestone casing.
Firstly, it was an extraordinary technological feat.
There were 22 acres of limestone facing stones on the sides of the Great Pyramid.
Secondly, these stones had an average weight of 16 tons each.
Thirdly, they were lined up to each other with such precision that in the few remaining casing stones, it is impossible to slip even a sheet of paper, of thin paper, into the joints.
The joints are so closely aligned.
And the great Egyptologist William Plinders Petrie, at the turn of the century, likened the precision of the casing blocks to modern opticians' work, to quote him, on a scale of acres.
They were a remarkable technological feat.
Now, we know that they covered the entire pyramids from earlier travelers' tales.
Many of the Arabs, the Arab commentators, wrote about how the pyramids shone brilliantly in the sun with this polished white casing.
What we're now seeing is this substructure that lies underneath the casing.
But there was an enormous earthquake hit the city of Cairo in 1301.
And it is this earthquake that shook loose the majority of the facing stones.
And unfortunately, those facing stones were then, the remainder, large part of the remainder, were then quarried off the pyramids by the local population and used in the construction of large parts of Cairo.
As to the source of the stone, it's the Makatim Hills about 20 miles away to the east of Giza across the River Nile.
The missing capstone of the Great Pyramid is an extremely interesting matter.
We cannot be certain that it was ever in place.
It is possible that the Great Pyramid never did have a capstone.
I personally think it probably did have a capstone.
But since it has been missing since recorded history began, we cannot be absolutely certain of this.
I've climbed the Great Pyramid three times, and the top of the Great Pyramid today forms a perfect square, roughly 20 feet along each side, with half an additional course of masonry.
What's happened is that masonry has been knocked off the top and rolled down over the centuries.
There is enormous significance in Egyptian tradition attached to the pyramidion, the capstone, the top of a pyramid.
It was called, as I said earlier, the Benben.
It was the ultimate symbol of the immortality of the soul.
And my colleague Robert Bavar has argued in his earlier book, The Orion Mystery, that one possibility for what may be hidden inside one of the concealed chambers in the Great Pyramid is indeed this missing capstone, that it was taken off by the high priest at a certain point and placed inside the pyramid.
unidentified
Boy, you'd have to wonder what would happen if they put it back.
Yeah, and if people put pressure on 60 Minutes, write to them and urge them to investigate what is happening at Giza concerning this license that has been granted under bizarre conditions for the excavations of the Sphinx.
And if 60 Minutes want further information, definitely the best way is for them to get in touch with me through my publishers who are Crown Publishers of New York, and we'll take it from there.
One thing I really would caution people against, however, is imagining that any of this is easy.
And one of the problems I have with the so-called New Age stuff is that it tends to suggest that there is a quick and easy route to enlightenment.
There isn't.
We all have to do the work.
Life is an initiatory journey.
And we cannot expect to achieve that initiation just easily at the snap of a finger, by reading some lightweight text.
It's a matter everybody in their personal lives has to expect to work.
Don't expect it to come easily.
And it's a matter of how we relate to the world, how we relate to people around us, what we do with our minds and with this precious opportunity that we've been given on this planet to learn and to grow.
Well, I'm suspicious of the notion which has been expressed in some rather badly researched in my view that specific modern events such as, for example, the Great Depression and other events in the 20th century have in some way been prefigured by the angles of certain passages inside the Great Pyramid.
I don't think the geniuses who created the Great Pyramid, the spiritual geniuses who created that, were particularly interested in predicting the ups and downs of the modern economy.
I think that their focus was spiritual.
I think there is a sense in which the Great Pyramid is a prophetic device and in which it is bringing to a focus today the energies of millions of people around the world.
And I think that it was always designed to do that.
But no, I don't think that it specifically predicts particular events.
I think that, as a matter of fact, I don't think that any destiny is carved in stone.
I think we make our own destiny as we go along, and we always confront crossroads, and we always have to make choices.
And the fundamental choice in the world today is the choice between good and evil.
And all the ancient texts say that evil exists in the world, and that God could not prevent evil from existing in the world, but that mankind was created with the power of choice, that we have the power to choose between good and evil.
We have the power to choose the destiny that will confront us.
And for that reason, I reject the notion that the Great Pyramid is specifically prophetic of particular events in our century.
We live in dark times and a dark night of the soul.
And terrible forces are at loose in the world today, which are leading mankind on the path of destruction.
And too many people are prepared to go along with this and to make excuses for cruel and vicious behavior towards others and to turn a blind eye to cruelty and unkindness and wickedness in the world.
And this is a terrible mistake that we are making.
One thing that the ancient Egyptian texts make absolutely clear is that in the life beyond death there is a reckoning and that we will confront with absolute clarity and truth the consequences of our own actions and also of what we failed to do during life.
And that's why I think it's so important for everybody to wake up to the mystery of life and to realize that this life is an opportunity that we've been given to prepare and not to waste it away and not to allow the darkness that is engulfing the world to continue to spread.
We can resist it.
We can oppose it.
And on what we do about this, we will ourselves be held accountable in the final reckoning.
And I must say, in a world full of people who use fear to motivate, you are a true soldier because you use courage and knowledge to guide us.
And I appreciate that.
Thank you.
And for Graham, I've been to the pyramids in Chichen, Itsa.
And I was about 15.
That was 10 years ago.
And my father took me and my sister.
And regardless of how they were built or what their tolerances between stones are, you have to realize that it took a great passion from a great many people to want to build these things and want to put them there for some reason.
And all I can say is that you have to look forward and you have to realize that there is a reason for their knowledge.
When you go to these monuments with an open mind, as you clearly did, it becomes immediately apparent that you are looking at works of transcendent skill and beauty and spiritual power.
The principal pyramid at Chichen Itza, which is a steppe pyramid, and it stands in the middle of the great grassy area in the center of Chichen Itza, is called the pyramid or the temple of Kukul Khan.
And Kukul Khan was the Mayan name for the civilizing deity Quetzalcoatl, who's a very similar figure to the ancient Egyptian god Osiris, a god of resurrection and rebirth.
And that pyramid of Quetzalcoatl at Chichen Itza is so perfectly situated in relation to the rising of the sun, so perfectly designed in its positioning on the earth, that on the spring equinox, an amazing effect is observed on the northern staircase.
For three hours and 22 minutes exactly, an illusion of light and shadow creates the figure of a gigantic fettered serpent, and that was the emblem of Quetzalcoatl, undulating up and down that staircase.
Now, to position the monument so precisely in relation to the rising of the sun on that particular day requires an amazing geodetic and astronomical knowledge, and yet this is just totally overlooked by our Orthodox scholars.
I have this horrible feeling, Graham, that when we, and if we ever do learn the secrets held within the Sphinx, within the pyramids, we're going to discover that we've been doing it all the wrong way.
And I had a question for Mr. Hancock, and that is, is my now 10-year-old son will be traveling with his grandmother in November of 97 with John Anthony West.
Well, they'll have a marvelous journey because John has the deepest and most profound and beautiful knowledge of the mysteries of ancient Egypt.
unidentified
Yes, and I've seen his video on his theories of that area as well.
But my question to you was, I'm looking for information that my son, who is now 10, who will then be 12, that he can look at and gather knowledge about that is a truer sense of the history of Egypt.
Because after listening to you and listening to my grandmother, your textbook is not necessarily what the history of Egypt is about.
Well, I find I give many talks, public talks, at bookshops and at conferences.
And I find that many young people attend those talks.
And I've frequently got through to people under 10 years of age.
And the new book, The Message of the Sphinx, does contain technical information concerning astronomy, but it's all backed up with very, very clear diagrams which help the more difficult ideas to be understood.
And I would say, for all of us, the sooner we start doing the work, the better.
As I've always said, never expect it to be easy.
And the younger we start on the journey of discovery, the better.
Definitely, I'm not trying to sell my books on the air, but unfortunately, there are very few books around which look at Egypt from what I think is the true point of view.
And I would urge your son to have a look at the Message of the Sphinx.
Have a look at Fingerprints of the Gods.
Have a look also at the Orion Mystery.
unidentified
The Orion Mystery, that was the other one I couldn't remember the name of.
The first question I have is that how do you think the Islamic fundamentalists of Egypt will react if they find out what's going on at Giza, especially with the discoveries that could be discovered there?
I think that there is this curious political background to what is happening in Egypt, which needs to be taken very carefully into account.
There is, unfortunately, in extremist Islam, a tendency to believe that anything which precedes the Quran is knowledge that should not be known.
There's a story concerning the burning of the great library at Alexandria in Egypt, which I suspect is probably not a true story because the first Muslims were great learners and great guardians of knowledge.
But nevertheless, for what it's worth, I'll tell you the story.
That when the Muslims from Saudi Arabia invaded Egypt shortly after the time of the Prophet Muhammad, they found this amazing library containing reputedly a million scrolls, all the collected knowledge of the ancient world.
And they sent message back to the Caliph Umar in Iraq, and they asked him, what are we to do with this library?
And his reply was the following.
If it contains material which is contradictory to the Quran, then it is against God, so burn it.
And if it contains material which is in the Quran, then it is superfluous, so burn it.
And as a result, the Great Library of Alexandria was burned.
I'm so afraid, Graham, that the knowledge contained in the chambers of the Sphinx, the pyramids, when it is finally opened, will receive a similar order.
Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but I do want to stress that we can put a stop to this bad project that is taking place at Giza, and a good one can replace it.
Music Now, during the time that I was on the air, the following cleared the wire.
Dear Ark, get a load of this.
The news report, between your program segments, just reported a story of a cat that was choking on its own collar, went to the phone, hit the button for speed dialing 911.
The emergency operators got a recording of a cat choking and squealing over the phone.
Paramedics arrived and saved the cat's life.
They played the tape of the cat on the news, and it was horrific and heart-wrenching.
You could almost hear the cat saying, I'm choking.
That's incredible.
That's from Fritz in Petaluma, California.
Absolutely amazing story.
Amazing.
I'm going to repeat one more time for those of you who would like to get involved in the tragedy occurring at Giza.
If you would like it investigated, urge 60 minutes to get hold of Graham Hancock.
Their fax number in New York is area code 212-975-0322.
212-975-0322.
We're trying to get the latest coordinates on the hurricane.
Last I heard it was due to come on shore in a matter now of hours.
It is weakened.
Last I heard 80 mile-an-hour winds.
That may have changed.
Due to come on shore in the morning, this morning.
Between Myrtle Beach and Charleston, possibly.
Any of that is subject to change.
We don't know.
If you're in the affected areas, watch your butt.
AIDS researchers have ended a global conference holding out hope that the very powerful new drug treatments we now have might offer a cure for the deadly disease that has infected now 28 million people.
They have actually been able to drive the virus to zero, to the undetectable range.
It is an expensive process, perhaps not for Americans, at about $15,000 per year.
For the rest of the world, it is.
It brings very, very serious questions to mind about what we can and should do and the morality of withholding because of the cost of treatment.
A big horrible debate in Congress yesterday almost seems like part of the quickening.
Barney Frank, homosexual Barney Frank, a representative Democrat in a big fight with Representative Steve Larden.
All about marriage of homosexuals gays.
And it was not a pretty thing to watch.
There's going to be a vote in Congress today.
We'll see how it turns out.
Then there was a brawl.
What appeared to be a racial brawl.
More quickening news as far as I'm concerned.
After the fight at Madison Square Garden in New York.
As I told Graham, I have this horrible feeling that we've been going, when we open all this, if we do, we're going to find out that we've been 90 degrees from whatever path is described in those chambers.
I guess we'll find out, won't we?
God, what a fascinating three hours.
It's going to be a while before I absorb all of that.
I'm going to have to sit down and re-listen to all of that myself.
First time caller line, you're on the air.
unidentified
Hi.
Yeah, hi.
Good evening, Art.
Good evening.
I wanted to say something about the chambers underneath the Sphinx.
I heard from some sources that if you are not the chosen people that are meant to find the right room underneath the Sphinx that has ancient artifacts of highly technological, advanced equipment, that's what I've heard.
Now, I've also heard that there's the tunnel underneath the Great Pyramid used to be open to tourists and to visitors.
And many, many people would go down there and what they would think would manifest, whether it would actually manifest to everyone or to them.
And several people got ill and several people, from what I understand, have died from it.
And then they since closed it off.
Now, I wanted to address that when Graham was on, but I know he's off now.
I wonder if in the future he might be able to respond to that.
I was just captured, my imagination was just captured by your last guest.
And I wanted to ask you, I wanted to ask him, but have you ever heard of Jose Arguellis who wrote The Mind Factor?
I wanted to ask Graham if he had ever found in any of the Egyptian writings, in the text, anything that related to the similar information in the mind calendar and perhaps in the way that Jose had interpreted it.
I believe that to be so, and perhaps it's magnified with the size of what you have at Giza.
unidentified
Uh-huh.
Did you ever hear about the, well, I forget his name, but the scientists who got into it, and he has apparently he had a patent, and then they shut him down on the patent, the U.S. government.
I would just like for you to tell some of your skeptics that if they will take the time to go out and buy Hancock's stories, a sign and the seal, I know, and also the fingerprints of the gods, it will change their way of thinking about certain things.
There's a passage, I believe it's in Isaiah, that's rather interesting.
It says, depending upon what translation you read, it says there is a pillar and a monument, or some of the others say an altar to God Almighty in the center of and at the border of Egypt.
Now, most people assume they're talking about a pillar on one border and a monument over in the center someplace.
But interestingly enough, there's an upper and lower Egypt.
And the Great Pyramid of Giza sits right at the boundary between Upper and Lower Egypt.
It also sits smack dab in the middle of both of them.
One of the things that struck me during that whole interview was his belief in reincarnation, followed by his statement with regard to the way he feels about the Sphinx and the whole Giza area of the pyramids,
that it is in effect an alarm clock for mankind, that we are meant to be at about this time to learn the knowledge that is within.
But that when we do, it will reveal to us that we've been doing it all the wrong way.
Well, the thing is I've been kind of hard times, but that's for sure.
But the thing is, I was listening to they've had some stuff on C-SPAN, and I was listening to these independents talking.
And I kind of like their viewpoints, but the thing is that I feel that's unfair about the system is that these little guys that make sense to you never get in the limelight.
He has been nominated as the Libertarian presidential candidate.
And he's going to be on the program, and he will make sense to you.
Now, you say it's not fair because they never get the limelight.
You know, if an idea is powerful enough, and if the time is right, you know, timing really is everything, and enough American people believe and embrace an idea, then it can happen.
And the only reason it hasn't happened yet is because the two main centrist bodies of thought embrace pretty much the center, a little to the left and a little to the right generally of center.
And then, of course, there's people like the idiot that I knocked off here a while ago who are way out at the fringe.
But though they may seem to at times dominate talk radio, or some of it, not here, you know, the main bodies of thought are slightly conservative or liberal from center.
And that's the truth.
Now, that's why generally you end up with a nominee of one or the other of those bodies of thought, or political parties, if you will.
There's a place down here called the Coral Castle, and it's a two-story structure, and it was built by this very slight man from Latvia in the early part of the century, and it was just cut out of slabs of coral.
And it's a two-story structure with a wall of coral completely around it, and there's one slab, which is a revolving door, which you can just push with your finger and turn it.
Well, he went and got white soap and started making crosses.
I think it's too late.
When he said, okay, I think it was all over.
unidentified
Well, I hope not, but I got my rosary out and I haven't been bothered.
But I told myself, if I have this kind of a dream or whatever it was again, I was definitely going to go to somebody higher up and say, you know, you've got to do something to help me here.
Because I do believe that people can be possessed by the devil.
Well, when I was 13, I owned two pinball machines.
It was my life's dream to own a pinball machine.
And I lived at that time in a place called Media, Pennsylvania, and my mom drove me to Chester, Pennsylvania, where we went to this warehouse, and she bought me my first pinball machine, which I proceeded to take apart and clean and refurbish.
She claims that I bought it for $25, which now as an adult I know is total bull.
It's one of those things that you have got to go experience for yourself.
unidentified
And if the Egyptian pyramids are half as interesting as, and I'm sure they're more, than the Mexican ones, somehow, some way, somewhere, I've got to get there.
It is not an easy project because there are a number of domestic shortwave radio stations that we could already be on right now, but we don't want that.
unidentified
I understand the logic, but you want to encircle the world better.