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April 8, 1998 - Art Bell
01:21:08
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Mars and Egypt - Graham Hancock
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Graham Hancock.
You should know who Graham Hancock is.
Many, many books to his credit.
Fingerprints of the gods.
The message of the Sphinx, the sign and the seal.
He's working on a new one, all about Mars.
So we'll be asking about that and a whole lot of other things.
Well, I'll tell ya, the rumors are flying around about Egypt.
Our State Department, of course, has warned Americans away, saying they've got indications there's going to be more terrorism in Cairo, and I imagine Egypt is about empty right now.
Well, alright, uh, Graham Hancock, ...was formerly East Africa correspondent for The Economist, and covered the war between Somalia and Ethiopia.
And I'll tell you, for those of you who don't know, The Economist is the publication that everybody in Europe reads.
You see it there as you would see the New York Times ads if you're in the middle of New York City.
I mean, it's everywhere.
He also, by the way, worked for the London Sunday Times.
His books include Africa Arc, Peoples of the Horn, the very widely acclaimed Lords of Poverty, which earned the 1998 JL Mencken Award for an outstanding book of journalism, The Sign and the Seal, the international bestseller that documented his real-life quest for the Ark of the Covenant, A quest that took him from Jerusalem to southern Egypt and the highlands of northern Ethiopia.
In a review, as a matter of fact, of The Sign and the Seal, Hancock was credited by The Guardian with having, quote, invented a new genre, an intellectual whodunit, by a do-it-yourself sleuth, end quote.
He is a very prolific writer, indeed.
Message of the Sphinx.
By Graham Hancock, Robert Bavall, and a new work underway now all about Mars.
All the way across the continent and all the way across The Atlantic, if we have done it, here is Graham Hancock.
Graham, welcome to the program.
Hi, how are you?
I'm just fine, Graham.
Very honored to have you back on again.
Thanks, it's a pleasure.
It's a pleasure to be on, and I suppose it's deep in the night where you are, and I'm looking at a misty morning in the southwest of England here.
Well, then that is as usual anyway.
We've been having this... Yes, all is fine with the planet.
Alright, boy, so much to talk to you about.
Graham, I'm going to start right off with the heavy stuff.
Here in America, we are having a real row right now about the new Global Surveyor Photographs of the face on Mars.
The first photograph came out and frankly it looked like the leavings of a cat box.
You know, a litter box or something.
Certainly not what we originally had seen and called the face.
Then there was, in the middle of the night, after all the newspapers had printed this first photograph, there was yet a second photograph, higher res, that looks a lot more like the face that we We all know, but nobody printed that, so there's this giant argument going on now.
Most of the mainstream news people in America are saying it was nothing but a trick of light and shadows the whole time.
And so I'm sure you've heard about all this.
What do you think?
Well, certainly, and I've been logging on to the internet sites with images of the face, of course, and also looking at the British press.
Who have reacted in exactly the same way, which is to look at the medium resolution image that came out first and to say, well, this absolutely proves that there's nothing of interest in terms of artificial structures on Mars.
I mean, there seems to me, certainly in the press in Britain, I can't speak for the American press because I haven't seen it, to have been An incredibly hasty and almost relieved reaction along the lines of, oh yes, all those Mars people were just cranks after all, and now NASA has proved it, so we can all rest quietly and forget about it.
And I think that this is a huge and extraordinary pity that the issue should be taken that way.
We're engaged in a seminal event here.
This is the first time that we have ever really explored A neighboring world, at least the first time in our memory as a species.
And to allow ourselves to be deflected from a very intriguing aspect of that exploration and to allow ourselves to feel that there's nothing there further to look for in terms of signs of intelligence.
I think extremely sad on the basis of this image.
Quite frankly, the image is ambiguous.
It's extremely ambiguous, and I always felt that it would be.
Oh, I absolutely agree with you, Graham.
As a matter of fact... Birds here even agree on that, but they nevertheless insist On claiming that this ends the controversy and there is no face.
I think those who support the position of artificiality at Cydonia have definitely been dealt a grievous blow by this photograph.
I think it's up to them now to sustain their position.
And it has to be remembered, and it's a very important point, that the face structure,
whatever it is, whether it's a hill or whether it's actually some kind of face, is set in
a context, and that context is very large, surrounded by a lot of other structures.
And I think that NASA must, and I believe they hope they will, photograph those other
structures on the coming two passes that are going to be made over that area.
And I think that really what's needed to get to grips with this issue is to look in detail
at photographs taken from a variety of different angles, not only of the face, but also of
the dozens of other structures that are found all around it.
And I think it would be really premature and silly, and in fact I'd go further, stupid
of us, to write off this aspect of the Mars mystery simply on the basis of one photograph.
We aren't in a much better position now than we were in 1976, and I think that more images
are needed before anybody comes to a conclusion.
But you know, Art, at the end of the day, this question of images of things is never
going to settle the matter.
The only thing that's really going to settle the matter, and most people who have been researching in this field have said this from the beginning, the only thing that's really going to settle this matter is a manned landing on Mars.
I can give you an example of why I think that.
And that concerns another disputed structure, this time on Earth.
And that disputed structure is the so-called underwater monument.
At Yonaguni in Japan.
Now, I dive, I scuba dive, and I've dived to that monument more than a dozen times.
Oh, I would really like your impressions of that.
This, folks, is off the Ryukyu Islands near Okinawa.
That's right.
And what have you found there?
What is there?
I'll come to that, but the first thing that I want to tell you is that I've dived at that monument with two geologists.
On two separate occasions, and subsequently I've put those two geologists together to discuss the monument in a room.
Now, one of the geologists was Professor Robert Shock from Boston University, who, as you know, is a very open-minded man and is extremely open to the idea of an earlier Sphinx.
In fact, he's provided the basic geological work that has raised the whole issue over the age of the Sphinx at Giza.
and I thought it would be a very good idea for him to have a look at this underwater monument in Japan.
Quite frankly, after six dives to the monument, Shock's impression, although he feels that it definitely
merits further research, a great deal of further research,
his instinctual impression is that somehow this extraordinary thing is natural.
Now, I've also dived there with Professor Masaaki Kimura from Okinawa University, who's made more than a hundred dives to the monument.
Kimura is also a geologist, and he is convinced that it's artificial.
So we have here an enormous structure.
It's about 500 feet long and 60 feet high, which has been seen and physically touched by two highly qualified geologists.
and they both reach different opinions about it. Now if that happens, you know, with ground truth,
actually when you're face to face with the object itself, if we can get that level of disagreement
over such an object that we can actually see and touch, you can imagine how difficult it is to
reach a rational and informed judgment on the face on Mars simply from a photograph. Well, maybe this
is where you can help me out a little bit, Graham.
You're absolutely right, of course, and the two camps, with regard to the artifacts on Mars, are literally at war.
I mean, they are ripping each other's guts out, the insults are flying.
We realize, of course, that this is a war for the human soul.
This is not a war for some petty scientific definition.
This is a war for the question of what we are and what our place is in the universe.
It's a war of paradigm between a view that sees us as the center of creation, with nothing else outside us, and a view that sees the universe as filled with life.
There's a fundamental issue in society here, which is underlined by this debate.
And it's inevitable, since the stakes are so high, since the stakes are our own understanding of what we are, it's inevitable that that war, unfortunately, should be fairly bloody with neither side taking any prisoners.
And as they say, and have said for a long time, the first casualty of war is the truth.
Um, indeed.
So then you don't see any... I certainly don't think anything has yet been settled with these photographs.
I have high hopes for the ones they're going to yet take of the other artifacts there, but I'll bet when the day has ended, we still have a great big fight on our hands.
Do you think in our lifetime, Graham, it'll ever be settled?
I think the only way that it can be settled is to land on Mars and look at these issues.
And that requires a scientific establishment which is prepared to recognize that as a priority.
The way that NASA has presented this whole recent adventure is as a kind of stop to public opinion.
Oh well, the public got a bit excited about this, so we'll just show them.
how stupid they are. And I just think that that's a very sad and dull attitude to this whole wonderful
mystery. Mars is the most intriguing planet in the solar system. But then it's also one, Graham,
that doesn't make any sense because NASA, of course, would want to be funded to try a shot,
a man shot, to Mars. And that effort would certainly get a big boost if they found something
that appeared to be artificial.
Now, the conspiratorialists, on the other hand, think that NASA is hiding all of this.
You know what I think may be being hidden is more profound than that.
I think that Mars has something to tell us about the cataclysmic history of the Earth.
I think that if one really gets to grips with Mars and looks at this extraordinary planet which has a thing called the Line of Dichotomy running along the middle of it, it's like an equator only it's tilted at about 35 degrees to the present equator of Mars and it divides the planet roughly into two hemispheres.
and north of the line of dichotomy the planet is three kilometers lower than it
is south of the line of dichotomy so one can almost imagine a ragged line of
cliffs running all the way around the planet dropping sheer down three
kilometers to a lower area and that lower area is extremely smooth and
uncratered whereas the southern part of Mars is unbelievably devastated with
thousands of massive 30 kilometer plus wide craters This planet has been hit by the most horrific devastation from space.
It's been hit by a bombardment of asteroids, or I believe more likely fragments of a giant comet.
The question that really arises is, is Earth subject to the same fate that Mars has been subject?
And this is why the monuments on Mars, in inverted commas of course, the supposed, the alleged monuments on Mars, are so interesting to me.
Because taken in context with the cataclysmic History of the planet with again disputed evidence of primitive microbial life on the planet which under any normal Evolutionary laws one would expect eventually to have developed into into higher life forms, but to me this raises the whole Other issue over the story of life on Mars and the story of what happened to Mars and the story of what happened to Earth And I've become very aware during the research for the book on Mars that I'm publishing in June of a huge body of scientific
study into the issue of asteroid and comet impact. A huge body of scientific study that
has really not made its way out in any thorough manner to the general public and believe me,
this is scary, scary, scary material and I can understand why certain people in government and
in science would not want that material, the real story of what happened to Mars,
to get too much out into the public domain.
Well, what was Mars once?
Mars had an atmosphere, I believe, a rather thicker atmosphere than it does now.
There's no doubt that Mars once had a dense and possibly Earth-like atmosphere, that Mars had ocean,
that Mars had rivers that ran for millions of years, etching deep channels in the surface of Mars.
And there's no doubt that all of this formerly attractive and undoubtedly potentially life-bearing atmosphere of Mars...
There's no doubt that it was all stripped away as a result of a horrific cataclysm.
You have to envisage this planet, which is about half the size of the Earth, being hit by a massive simultaneous bombardment of huge quantities of rock.
from outer space, very, very, very large. We're looking at some massive object which
fragments close to Mars and which peppers the entire southern hemisphere of the planet
south of this line of dichotomy with an enormous explosion of objects.
Dr. Van Flanderen rather believes that it is an exploded planet that used to be, that
in fact Mars was a moon of that planet. Your theory is very much like that, but you think
rather that it was a series or a very large, kind of like a...
There's a couple of problems with the exploded planet theory.
I'm familiar with Van Planden's work, and I think it's very interesting work, but one problem with an exploded planet theory is to explain how you explode a planet in the first place, which is something that Van Planden has never successfully done.
In my opinion.
And the other theory, which has been put forward by a number of people, of a planet-sized body coming close to the existing Mars and then exploding, also raises the question of how a planet-sized body does that, how it moves into an orbit that would bring it close to Mars.
But there are objects in our solar system which are capable of doing this damage, and which we're all familiar with, and those objects are comets.
And what's, I think, not widely understood by the general public is that comets can vary enormously in size.
And a group of astronomers, including Victor Klube of Oxford University in Britain, Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramsingh and others, have developed a theory concerning giant comets, objects three or four hundred kilometres wide, which drift in from the outer solar system and which fragment As they come close to planets, rather as Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragmented in 1994.
With what kind of return cycle?
Well, the thing about comets is that we really know almost nothing about them.
Our entire database on comets is really based on 300 years of observations from this tiny corner of the solar system, which itself is a tiny little pocket of the galaxy.
Well, we watch Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragment and then plow into Jupiter.
If instead of Jupiter, those pieces had plowed into Earth, what would have been the result?
End of all life on Earth, without any doubt.
Without any doubt, the planet would have been sterilized.
There would be no life left at all.
The planet would be a bit like Mars, actually.
So, we have a rather recent example close by of this occurring.
Yes, we have.
It's as though the cosmos decided to give us a warning call, you know, a kind of wake-up call.
Hey guys, look what comets can do to planets.
Here's Jupiter, a giant planet made largely of gas.
You think it would shoulder aside or absorb an object like this?
Well, let's just show you what 21 fragments of a 40-kilometer-wide comet can do to a planet.
And we saw the gates of hell open on Jupiter when those fragments of a comet hit it.
Yes, we did.
Alright, Graham, hold on.
We're at the bottom of the hour.
Rest.
We'll be right back to you.
My guest from Great Britain, live, is Graham Hancock, a very, very prolific author.
And also, uh, one of those who will be along, debating with Zaha Youssef, Daniel Brinkley, Robert Duvall, Dr. Krupp.
Oh, that's gonna be some cruise.
We'll tell you about it.
I'm Art Bell.
This is Coast to Coast AM.
Don't leave me this way.
I can't survive.
Okay.
Okay.
I'm not going to do it again.
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Now again, here's Art Bell.
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1-800-618-8255. Now again, here's Art Bell. My guest live from Great Britain is Graham
Hendock, and he'll be right back. Now, let us operate with the scenario that we are sort
of skirting around, or maybe we're not skirting around it, and that is that man has been around
before, that our origins may not be what we think they are.
There has been a new discovery in southern Egypt that is confounding the Egyptians.
All over the world we are making discoveries that suggest all the timelines we thought were right are wrong.
But, Graham, can the world accept, will the world accept that, or do you think that it ought to be kept secret?
I'll tell you, the bottom line for me, Art, is I believe that this wonderful planet that we live on is in enormous danger.
I'm convinced of this now, and I really can't quite understand why it is that the work of the scientists who have been embedded in this field for a long time, the field of of giant comets and asteroid research.
I really can't understand why their work hasn't got out to the public to the extent that it should have done because what that work shows is that we are in clear and present danger and yet it is a danger which it is possible for mankind to avert.
But if we're going to avert this danger We need a complete change of heart, a complete change of attitude.
Ours is a species that has become immersed to an appalling degree in materialism and in a kind of wicked violence during the course of this century.
And accompanying that wicked violence has been a closure of mind.
to all that cannot be immediately weighed and measured and empirically tested.
And it's the reverse side of the coin that leads to the blind, horrific violence of which our species is so careful.
And because it has led us to be closed-minded and blind, it causes us to ignore the danger that confronts us,
and it causes us to ignore the advice and the warnings of the ancients on this matter.
It's as though we've deliberately cut off our entire heritage as a species beyond...
The last two or three thousand years when things have been written down, everything before that is just considered to be irrelevant to us.
And yet, what we have there is the accumulated advice of our ancestors, who undoubtedly experienced cataclysmic events before, particularly at the end of the last Ice Age.
And because of the state of mind that we're plunged in today, we're ignoring that.
And if we continue to ignore it, I'm convinced that we're going to pay a terrible price, and that in the language of ancient mythology, that the gods will once again punish us for our arrogance and our cruelty.
Well, I suppose this is pure speculation, but if the Hall of Records is ever uncovered, would you expect it to contain, Graham, a sort of a instruction manual from those who were once here about the mistake they made that shouldn't be made again?
Is that what they left for us?
I'm convinced that such a message has been passed down to us, not just in a single hall of records, but in an entire network of monuments all around the world, which are linked to mythology and linked to astronomy.
And using the tools of astronomy and an open-minded consideration of mythology and of the nature of the monuments, there is an enormous amount of information that has been very carefully encoded and deliberately passed down to us.
By our ancestors, but we have to take a step in order to benefit from that information.
We have to be prepared to listen to what they have to say and right now we're not.
Let me quickly turn my attention because we don't have a lot of time.
I want to talk about Dr. Zahi Was a little bit.
There is a persistent rumor that Dr. Zahi Was has been removed from office.
Now, this is a fairly recent rumor, and I wonder if you've heard anything.
I have not heard anything of that, and I have no reason to assume that that's the case.
As you know, I'm participating in a conference on board a cruise ship, a floating conference, the first ever confrontation between myself and Zahi Hawass.
Yes, I should tell you, Graham, that I interviewed Zahi about the coming cruise, and he suggested That somebody might get tossed in the water, and I think that he might have had you or Robert in mind.
Well, I don't think so, actually, because there's been a series of developments over the course of the last year concerning ourselves and Zahi, and I last met with Zahi in December in Egypt, at which time I spent six hours around Thinx with him.
And at which time he showed himself willing to answer any question that I had to ask and to show me anything that I wanted to see.
This meeting of mine with Zahi had been preceded by a meeting that Robert Boval had with Zahi in July of 1997 and had been preceded by a meeting in November of 1997 that John Anthony West had with Zahi.
And I feel that A number of painful issues that have arisen and been the subject of a great deal of controversy over the last two to three years are on the verge of resolution and that all parties to this debate are no longer
anxious to engage in personal attacks and personal insults, but rather want to get down and discuss the issues,
the real issues, the issues of the true origins of mankind, the past of our species.
Well, then, then, then...
Discuss those issues in depth, and that's why we're doing this conference.
Then let us, yes, of course, let us then discuss what really might be.
I, too, last year went to Giza and got a personal tour by Zahid.
And, of course, he said, you can ask anything you want, you can go anywhere you want, and I did.
But I also realized, Graham, that if there was something going on there that Zahi did not want to tell me about, and I did not know to ask, believe me, I would not know that it was there.
Would you agree with that?
Yes, I would agree with that.
The situation which we often forget is that Egypt has a government and that Zahi Hawass is a senior official in that government.
And like any country with a government, it has a right to run its affairs in the way that it chooses.
And we will be told exactly what the Egyptian government wants to tell us.
and nothing else. This is a certain fact and we should not expect any more.
I feel that the best way forward is definitely to engage in dialogue
and through that dialogue, through a gradual opening to consideration of
wider issues, that we may in the future get better information on Giza
than we've had in the past and I'm
at present cautiously optimistic that that better information will be
available during the course of this year and will be shared with the general public.
Because one thing that the debates and the controversy over the last two years have done, without any doubt, is that they've made the Egyptian government aware of international public opinion.
It made the Egyptian government aware that a very large number of people in countries all around the world are deeply concerned by what happens at Giza.
And I'm pleased to say that that awareness on the part of the Egyptian government does now seem to be translating itself into a new spirit of openness.
I hope I'm right.
I hope you are too.
When I last spoke with Zahi here on the air, he announced that he was going to close the Great Pyramid for a six or eight month period.
Are you aware of that?
Yeah, I am aware of that, and I personally never feel happy when a monument like the Great Pyramid is closed down for eight months, and I cannot understand the logic of closing the Great Pyramid for eight months.
It isn't necessary to close it for eight months in order to conduct renovations in it.
Could it be he has other work to do?
Look, this possibility of work, archaeology investigation being done at Giza, out of the public eye, is one that will never go away.
This is a place where the stakes for investigators are very high.
They're high for two reasons.
Firstly, because a serious archaeologist who regards himself as a member of that profession and who values the opinions of his peers is placing himself in mortal danger every time he looks for anything at Giza beyond the normal routine run-of-the-mill theory of Egyptologists.
So one can see reasons why people who were investigating such issues at Giza would wish to keep it from the public purely because they don't want to be embarrassed if they turn out to If they turn out to be wrong, and of course, one can envisage other much more sinister reasons why secrecy might take place.
Personally, I think that this decision to close the Great Pyramid for eight months is going to lead to an enormous amount of speculation.
Of course, at the moment, it may not matter.
There are so many warnings about travel to Egypt that almost nobody's going there anyway.
Yeah, Egypt has been devastated by this whole situation, and it was very sad.
To note, when I was there in December, and I travelled very widely around the country at that time, that there were almost no foreigners in Egypt at all.
Almost none.
And this has come about very naturally, because people don't want to get shot and murdered while they're visiting a temple.
But the situation, like so many issues, has been really badly overplayed.
I found, on my travels in Egypt in December, that the country Uh, is safer than it's ever been.
I mean, at long last, the Egyptian government has taken a step it should have taken long ago, which is to put armed and highly visible units, um, and clearly, uh, competent and professional men at all of these sites.
If those, if those armed men had been present at the Temple of Hatsheps during last year's massacre, there would have been no massacre.
You can get your reaction to it.
This is a spotlight, uh, a Guardian spotlight interview of Dr. Hawass.
The Guardian asked him, Dr. Hwas, I'm sure you're aware, that Robert Bavall and Graham Hancock are publicly saying negative things about you and others who oversee the treasures of ancient Egypt.
Dr. Hwas, yes, it is unfortunate the things they are saying.
For example, Hancock and Bavall are asking people to sign petitions to stop secretive work at Giza, but he says there is no secret work going on at Giza.
Of course, for Hancock and Bavall to suggest some kind of conspiracy at Giza helps them sell books.
They profit from the pyramids, while in Egypt we struggle to conserve these treasures.
When was that done?
That was in March of 97.
Yeah, that was a year ago.
It's interesting to hear that voice from the past because it is a voice from the past and things have moved on a lot in the last year.
The first point that I'd like to make is that the issue of petitions and of the public campaign regarding excavations at Giza was 100% successful.
The project at Giza to which we objected, the project involving Florida State University looking for tunnels and chambers
under the Sphinx in an extremely secretive manner and undoubtedly with certainly on the part
of some individuals involved in that project a background hidden agenda. That project was
stopped and I don't believe that that project would have wouldn't would I don't believe it would have
been stopped if there hadn't been this massive public reaction to it and we felt very
strongly.
But whatever is to happen at Giza in the future, that project should not continue, because the nature of the project was fundamentally flawed.
The other thing that has happened following the meeting that Zahi Hawass had with John
West in November is that he has indicated a powerful willingness on the part of the
Egyptian authorities to reconsider the Boston proposal which John West and Robert Schock
had put in to conduct a thorough geological scientific investigation of the Sphinx.
This was the other problem that Robert Bavar and I had with Zahi Hawass was the way that
that earlier project had been arbitrarily stopped and then replaced with a much more
suspect one pursuing rather similar objectives.
That situation has been redressed.
The objectives of our campaign have, as far as we're concerned, been achieved and we see
no reason to engage in further personal animosity.
What we want to do is to get down and discuss the issues and keep a serious public debate
and public awareness going on about Giza well into the future.
Alright, well let's address one of those.
When I was at Giza, Dr. Hawass took me to the base of one of the pyramids where he had several workers and he said, Art, I am going to show you how the Egyptians built the pyramids.
Upon which he said, look at this one ton or five ton stone, limestone, I can't remember what it was, and a worker got up on top of this rock, giant rock, and started pounding on it and pounding on it all the way around until incredibly it cracked right in half in front of my eyes.
I've got it on video and he said, Art, that is how the pyramids were built.
Yes, the only problem is that there's two and a half million blocks like that, and they're raised to a height of 450 feet above the ground, with absolute spot-on modern scientific precision to North, South, East and West.
That would be a trick that nobody today could pull off.
But of course, we agree, when I say we, I mean myself, John West, Robert Bavale and others, we disagree fundamentally with Zahi Hawass.
And Egyptologists over this issue.
We think the pyramids are an enormous mystery and we think that any rational and reasonable human being should see that immediately.
but we're glad that the level of debate on this has now stopped being a series
of vituperative personal attacks and has moved on to the level of serious
discussion involving involving serious academics and ourselves in looking in
depth at this issue and trying to present our case
jointly in front of the public. Well do you think if the age of these artifacts
and now new ones uh... i believe discovered uh... south to the south? A very intriguing megalithic circle has been
found in southern egypt somewhat south of aswan which has
rather like a small version of stonehenge in some ways which has
which has very precise astronomical alignment
and which appears to be extremely old perhaps as old as six and a half thousand
years perhaps older because you can't date stone Again, what this shows is a heritage of astronomical and architectural knowledge in Egypt, which has previously been dismissed by Egyptologists as impossible.
But the age of these things would tamper with a lot of what Egyptians believe as their personal paradigms, would it not?
Yes, I think that Egyptians and indeed the whole world have to wake up to the exciting possibility that Egyptian civilization may be much older than we have previously thought it to be.
there's been a kind of uh... again it's been part of the hysterical
media climate over this issue has been in egypt itself a tendency to say that whenever
somebody like me or john west or robert burrell stands up and says that
there's evidence of an older civilization in egypt that we're somehow
trying to steal history from the egyptians and our view really is
this is a terrible misunderstanding of what we mean because what we
are actually trying to say is that egyptian history
is much older and much more noble
uh... than anybody could ever have imagined that this country bears
a legacy for the whole of mankind and that that legacy goes deeply back into prehistory and that it's a legacy of
knowledge and wisdom which we desperately need today
Well as you well know, Edgar Cayce predicted the location of the Hall of Records beneath the Sphinx and I interviewed Edgar Cayce, Edgar E. Cayce, Edgar Cayce's son And I believe that this is the year, is it not, that that discovery was to be made?
What do you think?
Yes, it's very interesting.
The Cayce readings indicate an opening of the Hall of Records in 1998, and unfortunately
indicate that opening being conducted in secretive conditions and not being shared with the general
public.
That's why we felt that a project which was connected, albeit loosely, to the Edgar Cayce
organization, the Association for Research and Enlightenment, was perhaps not the best
organization to be conducting an archaeological excavation at the Sinks in 1997.
Do you see that again now, the Great Pyramid, as you know, is being closed, and there has
been quite a bit of talk about a possible tunnel?
In fact, I believe there is some ground-penetrating radar indicating that, indeed, there is some sort of tunnel angling down toward beneath the Sphinx, and sure enough, there are chambers that they believe they've located beneath the Sphinx and so forth.
You don't suppose, during this eight-month period, That they'll be looking, do you?
Anything is possible, and I wouldn't be surprised if people are looking under the Sphinx and inside the Pyramid, because of course we have the question of the doorway inside the southern shaft of the Queen's Chamber in the Great Pyramid as well, which Rahi did indicate to me would be opened publicly this year, and specifically in September or October this year.
You know, we have to be... We just have to be sensible about this and realize that this is a site on which anything can happen.
At any time, without the public knowing about it, because it's on the sovereign territory of a nation called Egypt, and that nation called Egypt, much though we may dislike it, has got the right to make up its mind what it does, and is not obliged to inform anybody.
What Robert Bavaal and I and John Wexner have been trying to do is to widen this debate so that there is public awareness about it, and so that the Egyptian government realizes that it really should, that it's in its interest.
All right, Graham, we are at the top of the hour, so hold tight, and I'd like to do one more hour if I could with you and let the audience ask you questions.
Sure.
All right.
When we come back, your opportunity with Graham Hancock.
I'm Art Bell from the high desert.
This is Coast to Coast AM.
This is Coast to Coast AM.
Oh, we gotta get right back to where we started from, love is good, love can be strong, we
gotta get right back to where we started from.
My guest is Graham Hancock, and he's going to be back in a moment.
This hour, I'm going to give you an opportunity to ask him any question you wish about his works, his investigations, his books.
Just a couple fingerprints of the gods.
Many of you have read that.
The message of the Sphinx.
The sign and the seal.
A new book coming on Mars shortly.
At any rate, it's going to be your opportunity with Graham Hancock.
Just one caution.
I'm going to ask you to be short and to the point.
Because there is, of course, a transatlantic delay.
So it would be best if you ask your question and then pause and allow him to answer that question.
Uh, otherwise it gets kind of mixed up with the delay between here and...
Great Britain, because he's with us live from Great Britain.
So coming up shortly, Graham Hancock.
To talk with Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nye.
From east of the Rockies, dial 1-800-825-5033.
West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, 1-800-618-8255.
West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, 1-800-618-8255.
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And you may call Art on the wildcard line at area code 702-727-1295.
To reach Art from outside the U.S., first dial their access number to the USA, then 800-893-0903.
This is Coast to Coast AM, from the Kingdom of Nye, with Art Bell.
It is indeed, and I'll tell you what, we are going on this incredible cruise.
Next month, May 10th through the 17th, there's going to be a great debate on board.
It will be Dr. Zahi Awass, Danyan Brinkley, Graham Hancock, Robert Baval, Dr. Ed Krupp, and I will moderate all of this, and it's really going to be something.
And of course, it's going to be a wonderful cruise.
Now, at the bottom of the hour, I'll tell you how.
I'll give you a number to call if you wish to come along, because we can still fit you in, I think.
I'm back.
Hi Art, yes.
Hi there.
Good to hear you again.
I would very much now like to allow you to talk to some of the people out there that have a lot of questions.
We've got an awful lot.
Boy, how many books have you sold, Graham?
Well, Fingerprints of the Gods has actually sold four and a half million copies.
Wow, that's absolutely astounding.
Yeah, the book has been something of a phenomenon.
I quite agree with you.
Let's go to the phones, as promised.
First time caller line, you're on the air with Graham Hancock.
of the book sales and of the response that it's had in the public. But the book survived
and continues to sell and I think that if it was fundamentally wrong in any area, that
wouldn't have happened.
I quite agree with you. Let's go to the phones as promised.
First time caller line, you're on the air with Graham Hancock. Where are you calling from,
please?
Good morning, this is Glenn calling from Denver, Colorado.
Denver.
Yes, I'm listening to you on 630 AM here.
Yes sir, Kay Howell.
You have a question for Graham?
Go ahead.
Yes I do, Graham.
I have two quick questions for you regarding Fingerprints of the Gods.
The first question is, The Great Pyramid is very interesting in terms of its geometry, which requires very accurate measurements of its dimensions, and yet we know that the facing stones from the Great Pyramid have largely been removed.
So I'm curious about how that problem was dealt with by the scientists and others who examined it.
My other question... Well, hold on, sir.
One at a time.
Go ahead, Graham.
Okay, yes, let me reply to that first.
Fortunately, some fragments of the original facing stones of the Great Pyramid at the base Have survived, and we have quite a lot of the original cladding of the second pyramid near the summit, which has survived.
And from this information, it's been possible to do, I believe, highly accurate projections.
These have been done by completely orthodox Egyptologists and scientists, which give us the precise dimensions, exterior dimensions, of the Great Pyramid before the cladding fell off.
It's a relatively routine problem to do, I believe, highly accurate projections.
These have been done by completely orthodox Egyptologists and scientists,
which give us the precise dimensions, exterior dimensions, of the Great Pyramid before the cladding fell off.
It's a relatively routine mathematical problem, and it's been solved fully to my satisfaction.
I think we can count on the dimensions that have been well worked out since the end of the 19th century.
And your second question?
My second question concerns the caption underneath a very interesting photograph of the object in the King's Chamber, which is referred to as a sarcophagus.
In the information under the caption, you mentioned The speed with which a tubular drill apparently removed this material, very, very hard granite material.
I'm wondering how you arrived at that conclusion.
Well, I rely on the work of two men.
One, Flinders Petrie, a great Egyptologist at the turn of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century.
And the other, Christopher Dunn.
A machine tool maker who lives just south of Chicago and who has been involved in the machine tool making and specifically drill making business for most of his life and who, by the way, has a book on the engineering of the Great Pyramid coming out.
Now, Chris Dunn's work and Petrie's work both concur that this object, whatever it is, and we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that it's a sarcophagus, that this object was hollowed out using incredibly high speed drills.
Not only this object but other granite objects in Egypt as well have been found which were cut in this way and in some cases the drill cores have survived.
You get a core with a tubular drill which cuts down into the stone and leaves a central core which is then knocked out and another drilling is done and gradually they hollow the object out.
Now what's interesting from the drill cores is that it's possible to calculate the speed at which the drill was turning.
And both Flinders Petrie at the turn of the 19th century and Chris Dunn in the last decade have demonstrated beyond any doubt, beyond any shadow of doubt in my view, that these drills were turning at an uncannily fast rate.
In fact, as fast or faster ...than modern power drills, and this becomes just one more of the many enigmas of Giza, which has rather been brushed under the carpet by academics.
So that people understand what it is you're telling them right now, you're talking about a higher speed drill than we have now in the modern day, and this would have been done how long ago?
Well, at least four and a half thousand years ago, if we accept the orthodox dating for the pyramid, and perhaps long before that.
It's a very disturbing and troubling finding, and as I say, it's a finding which really can't be written off as a sort of lunatic fringe speculation because of the real solidity of the two people separated by almost a hundred years who came up with this information.
Flinders Petrie in the early 1900s was Completely baffled.
I mean, this was perhaps one of the most orthodox of all orthodox Egyptologists, and he really believed that he'd demolished most 19th century speculation about the pyramid, but he was baffled, baffled, baffled by this one issue of the speed of the drills, because the ancient Egyptians in that period, the period of the construction of the Great Pyramid, Really, it's supposed to have only had copper tools.
And any fool knows that copper cannot cut into a stone as hard as granite.
No matter how much you temper the copper, you just can't drill granite with it.
And if you embed, for example, jewels into the tip of the tubular drill, you then have the question of the pressure that's applied to the drill, and that pressure would collapse.
Any copper tube.
So we have a real problem here, which has never been resolved and which hints very strongly at a lost technology at Giza.
Graham, I had the opportunity while I was there to lie in what is called the sarcophagus.
Me too, I've done that.
It's a great place to be.
Yes, and I noticed there were some very, very, very unusual acoustic properties when one speaks in there.
Bara Saeed and others have done acoustic work in that chamber and have found some pretty strange things.
Do you have any comments on the acoustics of that?
Well, they're extremely powerful.
They have an extremely powerful effect on any person uttering sound in that chamber.
It's best to be in it alone, really.
Or at most with one or two other people who are prepared to keep absolutely silent.
That was the case, Graham, and I must say I cannot even find words to tell you what I experienced.
Yes, it's a really disturbing sound.
It quite shakes you up.
And of course I'm convinced that the entire chamber and the so-called sarcophagus were designed to produce such effects.
I've been convinced for a long time that the notion that the Great Pyramid was simply the tomb of some megalomaniac pharaoh is a completely idiotic idea, which unfortunately has been foisted upon us with great success by Egyptologists during most of the last century.
I'm sure that the purpose and function of these monuments has been completely misunderstood by Egyptologists and that they're designed to have an effect on human consciousness and that they do have that effect and that they have it.
In many, by many different means, one of which is sound.
All right, let's keep moving.
A wildcard line, you're on the air with Graham Hancock in Great Britain.
Where are you, please?
Yes, hi.
Hello, speak up good and loud.
Where are you, sir?
I'm Marshall from Vancouver, B.C.
Vancouver, British Columbia, okay.
Do you have a question?
Yes, I have two.
Fire away.
First question is, hi, Graham.
Hi.
Have you ever read The Keys of Enoch?
Yes, I have read The Keys of Enoch and I know Jim Hurtack.
You do?
It's a very interesting book.
It is very interesting because he makes references to the tunnels in page 73 and page 74.
I've always felt that in this respect, and in other respects of his analysis of Giza, that James Hurtack, by some means which I don't fully understand, managed to be very far ahead of the game back there in the early 70s when he wrote that book.
Yes, since 1973 actually, when he published this book.
Yeah, no, it's quite extraordinary.
He also highlights the connection with Orion, which really didn't get properly into the public domain until Robert finally put the pieces together and Robert Boval and came up with the Orion.
Right, right.
theory which makes sensible that. Now, Hurtak didn't speak of an Orion correlation, but he did speak of a connection
between the pyramid and Orion, and he did so way back in 73.
So, again, I don't know how he did it, but it's a great achievement.
Right, right. When did they first start to make extensive excavation or research the tunnels under the pyramid in the
Sphinx?
Well, we don't really know how long this has been going on.
It's written that since the early 70s there has been a series of projects which have addressed themselves to this mystery.
The mystery of tunnels and chambers under the Sphinx and indeed inside the Great Pyramid.
And one of the odd things is the way that virtually every project which has ever got going on this has sooner or later been stopped by the Egyptian authorities.
But that may simply be because so many of these projects do actually turn out to have a hidden agenda.
It's difficult to say why, but the history of exploration and excavation at Giza over the last 20-plus years has been very peculiar, and it does seem that there has been an ongoing, continuous concern regarding the possibility of tunnels and chambers.
And personally, I'm absolutely sure That the whole of the Giza Plateau, what we see above the ground, is matched by an enormous tunnel system under the ground.
It stands to reason that anybody who could build up as successfully as the pyramid builders did, could also build down.
And indeed, they were masters of hewing out of solid rock.
Right.
That was the most amazing construction.
Right.
My Drafting 11 teacher told me that the pyramids, from where he stood, Well, I find that difficult to see how that could be, I must say.
Well, yeah, I find that difficult to see how that could be, I must say.
The issue of putting the cladding on is another matter.
I think, I think there's no doubt that the Pyramid was built from the base up, as far as the core structure of the Pyramid goes, which is the structure that we see today.
The two and a half million, uh, gigantic blocks that make up the body of the Pyramid.
But the issue of the cladding, the, the, um, covering of the Pyramid, which fell off in antiquity, is another matter.
And, uh, much does suggest that that must have been laid in place from the top down.
Now, while I realize, Graham, that you have a sort of a new Communication with Zahi Awass.
I've got to ask about this.
When I was in Egypt, I asked Zahi about the allegation that he will invite various institutions and groups to Egypt.
To do ground-penetrating radar work and all other sorts of work, and then just when they find something, that's the moment that somehow or another they manage to get kicked off the plateau, and a lot of people feel the work then goes on in secret.
Now, of course, he said that's asinine and ridiculous.
What do you say?
Well, what I say is that if a research group gets a properly authorized excavation and investigation permit, a scientific permit, as opposed to a commercial license, which simply allows people to make films and so on, and if that group sticks honestly to the term of that permit, then there is no way that they're going to be thrown off the site.
But if, on the other hand, as has been the case in the past, A group does not stick to the terms of its permit.
If, for example, it has a commercial license and it starts doing scientific work, or if it has a scientific license that is actually doing different scientific work from the work set out in the license, then that group can definitely expect to be stopped.
So it's incumbent upon anybody wanting to work at Giza.
First of all, again, you know, some of us in the West find this hard to deal with, but we have to accept the fact that Egypt is a sovereign government and has a right to run its affairs the way it wants.
We have to work within the ballgame that they set.
What I detect is a new openness, a new willingness to consider proposals.
Um, and as long as those proposals are stuck to by the group concerned, I believe that they will be allowed to do their work.
Well, uh, but then that of course has to be balanced.
I realize, uh, the sovereignty and I have great respect for it, but the message, if it is there, is for the entire world, not just Egypt.
Yeah, that's why it's so important that everybody working in this field is completely honest and open.
If people really are looking for hidden chambers under this thing, Then they must tell the Egyptian authorities that that's what they're doing.
They mustn't try to pull a fast one on the Egyptian authorities.
They mustn't say, well, we're here to do some kind of survey or other, but not really specify hidden chambers, when actually their whole objective is to search for hidden chambers.
Now, the problem in the past has been that the Egyptian government really wouldn't say yes.
To any team that was looking for hidden chambers.
And therefore, there was a natural tendency on the part of those teams to somewhat disguise their motive.
I understand.
My view is that this situation has changed.
And I believe that it has changed because of the voice of the public.
The voice of the public that's been heard in the last two years.
And I believe that the Egyptian government is very sensitive and very concerned Uh, to be seen to be doing the right thing.
So I think there's a new spirit of investigation afoot and I think that this offers an opportunity.
For serious research at Giza into extraordinary possibilities.
But those doing the research must be honest about their objectives.
All right.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Graham Hancock in Great Britain.
Hi.
Yes.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm thrilled to be talking with your guest.
Sure.
Where are you calling from?
Gainesville, Georgia.
My name is Joanne.
Hi, Joanne.
I have a very important question.
I was intrigued with the sign and the seal, and I was wondering, what, if anything, does Mr. Hancock know about the Israelis' plans for rebuilding of the Third Temple?
Well, the answer to your question is not very much.
I've always doubted that the government of Israel would put itself directly behind any attempt to build the Third Temple, because the issue is so explosive politically.
But there's no doubt that there are Important groups in Israel which are absolutely determined to build the Third Temple and which indeed have fully developed architectural plans in place and are just waiting for their moment.
Do you have any information or know anything about the so-called unblemished red heifer that has been born?
Well, I have to confess that that side of things interests me much less than Than others.
I'm not impressed by the work concerning the red heifer and the various bits of dust and oil that have been found in the Dead Sea area and so on.
I just think that it just makes very little sense to me.
On the other hand, if you were to see these signs rapidly unfolding, it would get your attention, I'm sure.
Well, one thing I can tell you is that certain signs are rapidly unfolding.
And those signs are there for anybody to see, and that is that we live in a very dangerous time.
And anybody who has studied biblical prophecy will be aware of the prophecy of the last of days and the end of time.
And one thing for sure, and again I don't know how it came about, is that all the conditions of that terrible prospect
are in place today.
Evan, I take it you feel that it is so close, Graham, the danger so great and so close, that we had better get to finding out what the message is while we have time?
First of all, a change of heart.
A species like ours, human beings today, this worldwide problem of paedophilia, people who murder children for pleasure, People who annihilate whole countries just because they feel like doing it.
These are members of our species, and while we allow this kind of grotesque outrage to continue, we will never, ever, ever come to grips with the real danger that faces us from the cosmos.
I could not have said it better.
Graham Hancock, stand by, and now I'm going to ask the audience to get a piece of paper and a pencil, because when we come back after this break, I will take a moment And tell you how you can still, if you wish, come along on this incredible cruise.
I mean the cruise by itself is something that will remain with you for all your life.
I guarantee I've been there, I know.
But the debate on board, oh my, this is one you don't want to miss.
So get some paper and a pencil and we'll be right back.
It is.
Good morning.
I'm Art Bell.
My guest is Graham Hancock and he is one of the participants who will be along on this incredible cruise.
Trust me when I tell you it's once in a lifetime when you've seen a gigantic glacier coming down to water that is As clear as any water you've ever seen in your entire life.
As a matter of fact, it's kind of like a mirror.
There is no way... I put some photographs on the website last time I went to Alaska.
There is no way to describe to you the majesty and the understanding that's imparted to you when you go on this cruise.
It's, um... It's something important you can do with money.
You know, money...
Uh, really has limited use once you're comfortable, once you have enough to be comfortable.
Uh, one of the only good uses for it, in my opinion, is to travel and to see things that you would not otherwise ever see.
We'll be on a deluxe ship.
Uh, the Staten Dam, uh, Holland America Lines, and believe me, it is luxurious.
Very luxurious.
It'll be May 10th through the 17th.
We'll be going through the inside, uh, passage.
In Alaska, two days cruising the Inside Passage, it just, it'll be with you for the rest of your life.
But then as kind of a gigantic bonus to the whole thing, on the way back down from Alaska toward Vancouver, itself a great destination, there will be a great debate on board this ship, and I mean a great debate, with Dr. Zahia Wass, Danyan Brinkley, Graham Hancock, Robert LaValle, Dr. Ed Krupp, I will moderate this whole thing.
If you would like to come along, there still is an opportunity for you to do so.
Here's how you do it.
Nationwide, you can call 1-800-888-5509.
Let me give that again.
1-800-888-5509.
1-800-888-5509.
Let me give that again.
1-800-888-5509.
In fact, it's what, about a month.
It's about a month now, and we'll be on our way.
1-800-888-5509 or in California, if you're in California, you must call Area Code 310-568-0138.
That's Area Code 310-568-0138.
9 or in California, if you're in California, you must call area code 310-568-0138.
That's area code 310-568-0138.
Love to have you come along.
You'll remember it all your life, I guarantee.
5 to Great Britain and Graham Hancock.
Graham, I've got a fax I want to read here.
It says, when I read The Sign and the Seal, I couldn't put it down.
Graham's investigation and storytelling are completely engrossing.
Whenever I meet someone from Ethiopia, I tell them I know they have the Ark of the Covenant, and they smile and seem very proud.
Indeed, do they have it, Graham?
Oh, yes.
I'm quite sure they do.
That's why I wrote a 580-page book saying so, really.
The circumstantial evidence is compelling, that that's where this extraordinary lost object is.
And, you know, I think that a reasonable approach to the evidence will lead any sensible person to the conclusion that the Ethiopian claim has an enormous amount of merit to it.
Will the world get an opportunity to see it, or will the guards remain where they are?
No, the world will not get an opportunity to see it, and the world was never meant to see the Ark of the Covenant.
It's a sacred object, and it's a power object.
And it's an object that, from its very beginning, has been in the custodianship of a lineage of priests.
Since it's been like that for several thousands of years, I think it's probably quite good if it stays that way.
All right.
First time caller line, you're on the air with Graham Hancock in Great Britain.
Where are you, please?
I'm in Tinley Park, Illinois.
All right.
And I have a question.
It's concerning a paper you mentioned by Francois Chabas concerning a wand that was used by the ancient Hebrews and Egyptians.
From the Museum of Art and Archaeology in France, and I was wondering what he thought that wand did.
Sorry, I don't... I didn't mention this paper, and I don't know what you're talking about.
Oh, he's talking about a wand?
Uh, is that right, Caller?
Yes.
Uh-huh.
I guess he is not familiar with it.
I don't know anything about this paper.
All right.
It was mentioned in one of your books by, um, François Chabat.
Well, maybe I'm not understanding your pronunciation.
Um, it was called De La Yusef Des Petins of the ancient Hebrews and the Egyptians.
I don't know.
Give me the name.
I really don't understand this name.
Um, Francois Chabas.
Francois, yes.
Chabas, C-H-A-B-A-S.
Chabas.
It doesn't, it doesn't ring a bell.
Which book was this in?
It was in The Sign and the Seal?
Yes.
Oh.
Well, I referred to more than 1,000 separate individual sources.
You'll have to forgive me for having forgotten one of them.
That's part of the problem, I guess, of being as prolific as you are.
Well, I wrote The Sign and the Seal eight years ago and since writing The Sign and the
Seal I've written several other enormous books and all of these books draw on a huge database.
In fact, that's part of the service that I really try to provide to my readers is to
give them access to all the original sources I used, which in every case runs into well
over a thousand.
Those are there in the footnotes and the references and people can follow up those sources themselves.
My objective really isn't to provide final answers to people but to provide intelligent
and inquiring people with food for thought to follow their own quest.
I would really like to ask you a question, Graham.
As a talk show host, I have dealt in this kind of material now for years.
And I have made the assessment through thousands, if not tens of thousands of letters that I receive, commenting on my various programs, that the kind of material we are now discussing Inevitably makes about 20% of the people who write to me very, very angry.
Angry.
And I'm sure that you must get a great deal of correspondence.
What percentage would you say reacts in that way?
Well, it's curious.
I do get a great deal of correspondence.
It runs into tens of thousands of letters.
Yes.
And they keep coming.
And the correspondence is almost always very interesting.
My one regret is that it's so overwhelming that it's been impossible for me to answer it.
I have not, to be honest, encountered very significant hostility.
I find myself, I'd spend my whole life writing letters if I did.
No, I fully understand, but the question was...
I have not, to be honest, encountered very significant hostility.
In fact, the percentage of hostile letters is so small, such a fraction of 1%, as to
be almost negligible.
By and large, it's been very, very positive.
These letters don't tend to be just saying, thank you for writing a nice book.
They tend to be raising queries and questions, which are exactly what I hope these books would do.
But no, not hostility, not anger.
That's come exclusively from the academic establishment.
And the academic establishment have certainly reacted with hostility and anger.
To all my books and to the and to the public Support that these books get and that's why I feel this this cruise that we're doing is so important because the first time ever The first time ever that there is going to be a serious debate between Orthodox academics Ed Krupp is a major astronomer Zahi Hawass as we all know who he is and people like myself and And Robert Bovard, it's the first time that we've actually had the opportunity in public to sit down and debate the big issues.
And I'd like to thank Abbas Nadim, the gentleman who first thought of this conference and set it in motion.
Yes, indeed.
What an incredible concept.
Even with all said about Zahi Hawass, and I know that you seem to have a new relationship with him, I noticed when I was there, there are two Dr. Hawasses.
One is the Dr. Huas who would like to greet you and shepherd you through seeing whatever it is you want to see while you're there.
And the other is another Dr. Huas who has a very quick flash temper.
Would you agree?
Yes, I would agree.
I have quite a temper myself, although I try to keep it under control.
But Zahi Hawass is a powerful personality and a charismatic man.
He's a great talker.
I have found through my meetings with him in December, which included six hours at the Sphinx, and then a very long private discussion afterwards, I found him to be Much more open-minded than I imagined him to be when he was just a bogeyman who I hadn't met.
I'd encountered his public statements, but I hadn't encountered him as an individual.
Encountering him as an individual was a very interesting experience for me.
I've said a lot of hard things about Zahi Hawass over the last couple of years.
Things which have certainly reached his ears in all manner of shape and form.
He was willing to set that aside and sit down and discuss with me and we got into quite a hot discussion about the antiquity of the Sphinx and about the meaning of the Pyramid.
At one time I believe that he responded to something you said by suggesting that he would have you thrown in a very deep pit
and sever your head and...
That wasn't my head. That was Robert Bavar's head.
Although Robert Bavar and I stand side by side on all of these issues.
But yes, in the period of intense controversy and intense public speaking on these matters,
there's no doubt that we said harsh things about Zahi and Zahi said harsh things about us.
And the conclusion we've come to is that this exchange of personal insults is absolutely useless to anybody.
Not productive. Yeah, not at all productive.
Yeah, it's just not productive and it was actually blocking any step forward in this area.
I do feel that the most important development of the last two years was the huge public interest in the matter and the thousands and thousands, and I can tell you it was many thousands of letters that were written to Egyptian embassies and to the Egyptian government.
I think what these letters did was they made people in Egypt realize the depth of feeling on these matters and that's why I'm pretty confident that we'll find Egypt much more responsive to our concerns in the future, and this conference is the first sign of that.
That at least there's a willingness to sit down and really debate the issues, and to do so in public, not in private.
Now, I realize that it's a horrible thing to contemplate.
However, I think the following is true.
Because of the State Department, U.S.
State Department, warnings to Americans not to go to egypt because of terrorist forecasts
and because they're very hungry over there and because there's nobody going to egypt right now
is it not more likely that they would be open to any grand project
properly administered uh... it is no doubt that it's more likely
there's no doubt about that i think i think the most important
issue in all of this is to be completely honest about human nature and there's
no doubt that the egyptian
are desperate to see tourists return to egypt and realize that this
particular debate this particular issue of the antiquity and meaning
of uh... the last surviving wonder of the ancient world is an issue that
really does have a huge resonance in the public all around the world
But I see this as a natural development from what has happened and it does create The opportunity for a new style of investigation to get underway in Egypt, and certainly there is a new spirit afoot.
And I'd like to repeat, and I can only repeat my own impression, I have made more than 40 visits to Egypt, and I travelled very extensively in that country.
My honest opinion, following the terrible disaster that happened last year, is that the Egyptian authorities have finally woken up to the necessary security steps that must be taken to protect tourists.
If one is going to Egypt as a tourist, I would urge people as often as possible to travel
independently to Egypt.
The large tour group is inevitably a target.
But the individual traveling alone is not a target.
And I can't tell you how many Egyptians came up to me in the street.
They just came up to me in the street, not knowing me from anybody, and just said, sorry.
They said, we're so, so sorry about what happened at the Temple of Hatshepsut last year.
The people of Egypt are devastated by this.
It's such a contravention of their tradition, and of their genuine warmth and hospitality, that were such a thing ever to start again, you can be sure that the people of Egypt themselves would do everything they could to prevent it.
I certainly hope so.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Graham Hancock in Great Britain, where are you please?
Arthur, this is 50,000 watts of power, KLH in Reno.
Reno, Nevada, yes sir.
Graham, I got two quick questions, I'll take an answer on the phone.
I agree with what you say about the security of Egypt, because the beggars in the streets, and I used to live in Egypt for about a year, were always glad to see you, and they thanked you, and they were glad you were Americans, and they were glad you were there.
Absolutely.
My two quick questions are, I had hired a professor from the university who taught Egyptian history for decades there and I hired him on a daily basis during my year living there to guide me and give me an education.
Two quick questions he couldn't answer exactly to my liking.
One was, do they have a date now that they settled on when the great pyramids were built?
Well, yes, orthodox Egyptologists haven't changed their position on this throughout the 20th century, and they put the date at around 2500 BC.
A little-known study of the mortar that was used to join the blocks together, mortar that contains organic materials, and therefore is susceptible to carbon dating, has indicated that this date is incorrect, and that the pyramid may be up to a thousand years older.
Than Egyptologists believe it to be, but certainly not 12,500 years old.
That's not indicated by the carbon dating.
So what the carbon dating indicates, and I have to stress with carbon dating, you can only date organic materials, and there are organic materials in the mortar.
What it indicates is that the Egyptological scenario for the pyramid is completely wrong, but that the pyramid is not 12,500 years old, and that fits with my own views.
I think the pyramid was probably built over a period of several hundred years, I tend to agree with you from what I heard from him.
in the third millennium BC, but I think that other aspects of the site, particularly the
Great Sphinx, especially the Great Sphinx and the massive megalithic temples beside
it are vastly older and do date back twelve and a half thousand years.
I think this is a site that's been completely misunderstood by orthodox academics and that
it has a tremendous secret to reveal to us.
I tend to agree with you from what I heard from him.
The second question is, the Nile has switched its route of flowing along several places
from Luxor to Abel Semble up through Cairo.
Has anybody done any soundings and God forbid like core drillings within about a mile and a half or so of where they were presently at and the river where it presently runs and or Is there some phase now that HAARP could give some locations of any underground buildings or structures, like old mine shafts, that they can do, I understand?
Undoubtedly the case.
Aerial surveys are revealing new evidence all the time.
I can give you an example of this, not at Giza, but at Angkor in Cambodia, where NASA aerial photographs have revealed an evidence, a very, I mean, convincing, definite evidence of a much earlier layer of construction at Angkor.
So Angkor what?
As it looks today was built in 1150 AD but what this aerial photography has shown is that it stands on top of a much more ancient site and I think that the same techniques applied to Egypt and they haven't been applied to Egypt extensively yet could yield fascinating information and the old course of
the Nile, which in the Giza area is not so different today from how
it was many thousands of years ago, is a particularly promising
area for excavation. Well Graham, you know we're rapidly running out of
time. Your books, all of them I take it now, save the one that you're still writing about Mars at the moment.
Well, it's a Mars mystery.
It's coming out on June 15th, and I'm going to be traveling in America to talk about that book for two weeks at the end of the second half of June.
Well, in that case, obviously by then we will all be back from the cruise and the great debate, and there would, I hope, would hope be another opportunity while you're here in the States to interview you again.
I'd love to do that, Art, because the story of Mars is just the most mysterious story in the solar system.
And it tells us so much about ourselves and our predicament on this planet.
One last real clincher question.
You expressed that you feel there is great danger for Earth and that it is imminent.
Do you have any sort of timeline?
Yes, I do.
Before the year 2030, it's the fragments of a giant comet.
This is what the whole book that I've done on Mars is really focusing on.
It's the fragments of a giant comet.
The astronomy behind this is absolutely 100% sound.
The top academics.
You see, a comet in itself is a relatively For a comet, a full comet, to hit the Earth is something that doesn't easily happen.
But what people don't understand is that when these comets fragment, and when you have a giant comet which is 400 kilometers across, fragmenting, then these fragments spread out along the whole of the orbit of the original comet, and they create a much bigger target for the Earth to collide with.
And the evidence is that we have a 30 kilometer fragment of comet on an Earth-crossing orbit which will hit us.
Before the year 2030, unless we do something about it.
Kind of like a sawed-off shotgun.
Graham, we're out of time.
Yeah, nice to talk to you.
I will see you in Alaska in May.
Looking forward to it.
Take care, my friend.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
That's Graham Hancock.
I'm Art Bell.
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