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July 12, 2016 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
01:05:24
Edition 260 - James Swagger

This time a great guest - ancient civilization researcher James Swagger...

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Across the UK, across continental North America and around the world, on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes and this is The Unexplained.
Very sorry that this one is a little bit later than advertised.
Just for a whole variety of reasons, I lost a couple of days one way or another and I took a couple of days away.
I think I've mentioned before that I haven't had anything that is a holiday or even like a holiday for about six years, you know, proper holiday.
But at least I was able to get away for a couple of days.
I drove down to the new forest.
Now, that should be about a two-hour drive from where I live.
It turned out to be five hours in the car because of roadworks.
They're upgrading a motorway called the M3 here.
It's going to take about another year to do.
And I was stuck in that.
When there's an accident in those roadworks, you know what it's like.
You get completely stuck.
But after a five-hour drive, complete peace and quiet, a place where they don't have much in the way of 4G connection for smartphones and internet and stuff like that.
It's very erratic and sporadic.
But that was actually very good.
So I was partly out of touch and partly in touch for the period.
But now I am back.
And we're going to develop this show.
Can only do that with your help and your donations, though.
If you have donated recently, thank you very much from the bottom of my heart.
And if you can make a donation to the show, please do.
Go to the website theunexplained.tv.
That website designed by Adam at Creative Hotspot, theUnexplained.tv.
Follow the link, and you can send me a donation from there if you can.
And if you'd like to send me a message or a guest suggestion, grateful for that.
Lot of shout-outs coming up.
And then the guest on this edition, a man who talks about, among other things, megaliths.
His name you might have heard, it's James Swagger.
And I think you're going to like him on this edition of The Unexplained.
Okay, let's get into the shout-outs.
Magnus in Sweden, thank you for yours.
Says, thank you for your great show, Howard.
The best one out there for sure.
I've listened to them all now, so I'm waiting for new shows.
Magnus, I will do them, I promise.
I'm not sure if I can do another 200 quickly, but we'll do them as quickly as we can.
Dan in Brighton wants me to get onto the Rudolph Hess deception, conspiracy theory during World War II.
Will do.
Heard a bit about this.
Fascinating story.
Need to get it done.
Harmony in Gateshead, in the northeast of England, says she's found some of my old talk sport radio shows online about JFK and various other things.
I must have a listen to those.
Thank you, Harmony.
A lot of those I've lost.
Some of them I've found recently, though.
Wilfie and Helen says, hello, Howard.
I'd like to send a message to say how much I love your unexplained show.
Delighted to hear you back on the radio where you belong.
That's nice.
We used to listen 10 years ago when you were on the radio.
So pleased to hear the show is back there again.
Well, it is on Sunday nights.
But the podcast, where it all started, continues independently here.
And that's my promise to you.
Wilfie and Helen, thank you.
Will Smith in the US says, I enjoy your style, your poise, your astuteness, your professionalism.
Is this me you're talking about?
Thank you.
And I like the way that you engage your guests in a genuine and honest fashion.
Well, you know, some people don't like the fact that I ask a few hard questions.
You know, they say, if you want to do a debunking show, do a debunking show.
But I think you've got to.
If you want to be different, then you've got to ask a few questions.
And I don't think I can change that part of myself because it's part of my DNA.
Hi, Howard.
My husband and I have been listening to your shows while we tour the UK in a camper van, what you call in America an SUV.
We love having you on while driving or cooking the dinner.
We'd like to hear you interview Rick Simpson from Run from the Cure if possible.
We think your audience would love it.
I'll get on it.
And Sarah and Chris, thank you.
And Thomas the Camper Van.
Do you do this in America?
We tend to name vehicles that we love.
I can completely understand Sarah and Chris because I had a VW bug beetle for years, 1972, marathon beetle, and it was 20 years old when I had it.
And I spent a lot of money on it, restoring it, having it painted and everything.
And I loved that car.
And I called it, and my sister owned it before me, Taffy.
And everybody knew that the blue beetle and Howard were synonymous.
Howard and Taffy.
And I miss that car even now.
Erica says, hi from Seattle.
Love to hear Andrew Basciago on the show.
I've got some new contact details for him.
I'm going to try them and hopefully I can do this.
So thanks, Erica.
Brandon says, hi, my name is Brandon Nitty.
I'm new to your podcast.
Can't get enough of it.
Thank you, Brandon.
Justin Murphy in Marystown, Newfoundland, Canada.
Thought I'd take the time to give you a big shout out for the great work you're doing.
Thank you for that.
It says, keep up the great work, Skipper.
Thank you.
I would like to hear Clifford Stone or Stephen Greer again on the show.
I'm working on getting Stephen back.
And Justin says, thanks very much, bro.
Thank you, bro.
Terry says, evening, Howard.
Hope all is well.
Just a quick suggestion that I think would work well for the podcast or your radio show.
Joseph White, thank you for that.
My name is Chris.
I'm from Ipswich, UK.
Listening to your show for a while now.
It's fantastic.
Don't change anything.
Thank you for that.
Rusty in Wollonga Basin, Australia says, dear Howard, I wonder if you'll cover or be attending the War Minster UFO and Paranormal Event in September.
Got it in the diary.
And Rusty in Wollonga Basin, Australia.
Really nice to hear from you.
Nice to know that my Aussie listeners are faithful to the show.
From G, G says, as I was growing up in the Midlands area, maybe five or six, I go into the back garden, middle of the day in the summer, and see the vision of an ape-like creature, a chimper, a gorilla in the sky.
It was very clear, and it seemed to be so real.
35 years or more on, I'm still sure that that's what I saw.
Thank you, G, for that.
If you want to tell me more about that at any time, please do.
Adam in South Georgia, U.S. says many thanks for the show, and I want to send you a shadow person story.
So let's see if I can cut down a long email and thank you for it, Adam.
Adam says, at the age of about seven, I had a terrifying feeling that somebody was in my closet.
I looked over and saw a shadow of somebody sitting in the closet with knees drawn to the chest.
The closet had double access, and the other door went to my brother's room.
So we kept the floor clear so we could go through and see each other.
I looked at the ceiling and I hoped I was imagining things, glanced back to the closet, and a pitch black, darker than a shadow silhouette figure was standing in front of the closet.
Age seven.
These stories, you know, and you know that I was very dismissive of shadow people, but they are more and more common.
I keep getting them.
And many kids absolutely scared by figures like this, but also grown-up people, some people, you know, tormented or haunted their whole lives by shadow people.
So if you've got any kind of story to tell me like that, please get in touch through the website of theunexplained.tv.
Now, on this edition of the show, James Swagger, James Swagger's biography says that in my career and education, I pursued engineering first.
I worked in heavy industrial process control systems, wind farms, power plants, oil rigs, water systems, all those sorts of things.
15 years, and I traveled through much of Western Europe, mostly based in the UK and Ireland, and at times in Denmark.
In that period, I always sought out megalithic monuments in my spare time.
And in retrospect, I don't think I would have had either the passion or the resources to research these megaliths had my vocation not taken me to these places.
That's what we're going to be talking about, among other things, with James Swagger.
Very highly recommended guest.
And thank you to Roger Saunders in California for helping me to connect with him.
So thank you very much for being part of this show.
Please stay in touch.
And let's cross now to our guest on this edition of The Unexplained, James Swagger.
James, thank you for coming on the show.
Howard, it's great to be here.
An honor to be here.
And like I said, you know, I'm a longtime fan of the show.
So I'm just so excited today.
Listen, this is something that I've just discovered through Roger Sanders in California.
He said, James has been following you for years.
Apparently, you've been listening to this show for quite a while, yeah?
I know.
Here I end up on it, you know, and it's like I grew up with Graham Hancock and Robert Boval.
And I kind of got into this from the history end of things.
And I was maybe 14 when I started reading books like that.
I loved The Fingerprints of the Gods.
Who didn't?
I mean, what a successful book in that genre.
And I used to go to Waterstones in the UK and Ireland.
And I'd always be going to the alternative history section or the mystery section.
I'd be looking for the next book.
And there wasn't much there, Howard.
You know, and then I found radio shows like yourself and when I was growing up and the genre.
And I discovered who to go looking for then.
Well, this thing that we're in now, this platform that we're on, is an expanding universe, I think.
I've worked in radio for all of my life.
I haven't had a proper job ever.
So literally from being a kid, you know, from going to school, university and going on the radio, it's all I've ever known.
And it was what I wanted to do.
But when I started in doing this, there was no podcasting.
There was no chance to reach people directly.
And that's what we've both got now.
We've got a platform.
And if necessary, we don't have to bother with the mainstream.
That's the beauty of it.
And keeping yourself as an independent source for knowledge is key to everything because this is where everything started.
And I mean, look at Graham Hancock and Robert Boval, Andrew Collins and all these guys have pioneered and gone out there against the odds, against archaeology, to try and upturn this paradigm and done it and still, you know, working hard against it.
And now they're starting to tolerate and embrace some of it.
And it's like they're fighting a war almost.
Well, it is.
And it's strange, isn't it?
Because the war is being fought or was being fought, not only with academia and with some people who've got vested interests in seeing things the way they've always been seen.
But, you know, in some cases, it's government who are guarding the secrets.
You look at Egypt, the way the Egyptian government has limited access to what's out there over the years and controlled it.
I've been there five times, Howard, and that one's obvious, though, because the famed Zahi Hawash, and it's very easy to see that in Egypt, but there's places like Malta, Howard, I've been to many, I think probably eight, nine times.
I've lost count of times I've gone to Malta, and it's very, very controlled there, Howard.
I mean, the hypogeum is you're basically not even allowed to have a thought in there.
They're telling you what to think and know about the place on an audio documentary as you're walking through the place.
They just want your money and they want you to get out of there.
I never thought that we would talk about Malta, but Malta is a place I know pretty well.
And there is a great sense of history in Malta, but so few people go there and explore it.
Yeah, they don't know.
Any of the people that go there, they go for the sun and they go for the holiday.
But Malta, the history never stopped, Howard, right up till the Nazis.
And I mean, they were given like the from the from the Queen for holding out against the Nazis.
Like the Romans were there, the Greeks, the Phoenicians, medieval, right up to the British colonial.
I mean, everybody was in Malta.
It's such an energy hotspot.
But the fact of the matter is, isn't it, when you go there, the temptation, and look, when I've gone there, I've often gone for relaxation to Malta and to Gozo, the neighboring island.
But the temptation is to stay on the coast where the hotels and the beaches are.
But actually, the history, if you want to take the time, is in the middle.
Yeah, inland.
I'm actually probably going to be moving there next year.
I've been looking towards going there because I fell in love with the place.
And there's not a part of those islands I haven't explored.
And I just love the layers of history.
You know, and I reckon there's probably still a lot of stuff underneath buried.
I mean, the civilizations and cultures that have been there have just literally layered over the top.
There's just layers of it.
And what have you found that's whetted your appetite and piqued your interest there?
Well, the reason I went there was mostly because of the artwork, Howard.
So again, I'm doing this documentary, Megalithic Odyssey, and I've got a who's who of megalithic people in there.
It's not a documentary about me and what I think.
It's about all the current researchers out there for megalithic Europe.
I'm setting the parameters as megalithic Europe, except for episode 8, which is kind of a bit of a global connection.
So Malta is unusual now.
Ireland, the Orkneys and Scotland, and Malta share a massive connection in rock art and symbolism and megalithic architecture.
So I kind of went on a quest to get a grip on that.
For example, some of the art between the Orkneys and Malta, you're talking spirals and double-barred spirals.
I found ceremonial urns.
Now one of them has been removed from Tarjan Temple, but it was a tri-cornered bowl for ceremonial use.
That's exactly the same as the stuff in Vaulting Glass Passage Tomb in Ireland.
You have the solar wheel with the eight-segmented wheel with the dots representing the Celtic pagan wheel of the year, which kind of is really a megalithic wheel.
So this is also in the Valetta Museum found at Talkadi Temple.
And then you have the, they call them temples, we call them passage tombs, but the exact same style.
They're basically a sunbeam comes in and illuminates the chambers on a special day, either the equinox or the solstice or some other special day.
And then they call them apses and we call them recesses, these side chambers.
The same acoustics, the same astronomy.
So what the big mystery for me is, Howard, is why two ends of Europe are connected.
And the megalithic stuff in the middle is kind of somewhat elusive, you know?
Well, that is the mystery, isn't it?
It's easy to say in words, which you've just done.
But if you stop for just a second and examine the implications of what you just said, the implications are that people a long, long time before this modern fast-moving civilization in places that supposedly couldn't reach each other because they didn't have the transport facilities that we had.
They didn't even know about each other.
How could they have a connection in that way unless, of course, they had technology that we haven't appreciated up to now, or they were influenced by something else?
Well, yeah, and so the only way to do that, Howard, is to go there, check out the evidence, look at what you're dealing with firsthand.
And sometimes you go there and you discover a few things and you put things together and formulate theories.
I have no doubt in my mind now.
I've got Crichton Miller coming to speak at my conference for Megalithic Odyssey this August in Avebury.
And he's talking about megalithic mariners, that these ancient peoples were mariners first and foremost.
And I have to give that credence.
I have to say that these people, they've all got a common connection that's so solidified that they had to be navigating around the whole of the Mediterranean basin and British Isles.
It makes sense.
Look, you've got a dolmen in Ireland and you've got a dolmen in Britain and you've got a dolmen in the Middle East and Jordan.
You've got a dolmen in Sardinia and they're all looking the same.
The same company, the same mindset, the same people built there.
That gives you a few options.
Either, number one, they were all going to and from these places navigating like mariners or they all came from a common source and then ended up in these locations.
That could be still mariners, but refugees by boats.
Or then it could also be that they were at one end of Europe and migrated to the other, building these places along the way.
However, the problem with that is we see the oldest parts scattered and then the youngest parts scatter too.
It doesn't seem to be like the way we map the Romans, starting in Rome and spreading like a virus across Europe.
But could it be anything to do with the fact that the bits in the middle that you talk about are the most populous bits?
They were the bits that were affected by the Industrial Revolution.
Could it simply be that traces of whatever was in the middle, as you say, were erased?
I don't think so.
No.
Because most of the stuff is coastal.
You've got to look at this as a coastal phenomenon.
What we see is they seem to spread inland.
Here's the thing.
If you get a topography map, so you look at Western Europe or Mediterranean Northwestern Europe, and you look at all the megalithic hotspots, what you find is the oldest are in the Gulf of Morbihan in Brittany and Sligo in the northwest of Ireland.
And they're two natural landing bays.
They're two natural coastal bays or hotspots or beacons that you're going to land your boats in if you come from somewhere.
And the rest of the stuff seems to be built from there and going inland.
So again, in Portugal, in Evora, you see that coming in from Faro as well.
So you see, if you look at it in terms of that, or be aware of that at the very least, I mean, we do have boats drawn in Malta.
There's a very ancient depiction at one of the Tarjan Temple of boats being drawn.
So we do know that these guys were able to do it.
I mean, it's not, of course, we can see Scotland and Ireland on a clear day from each other.
Most people don't realise that up in Antrim, up north of Belfast and the top of Antrim, you can see Scotland on a clear day.
You can see England and France from each other.
Because look, the ferry crossing from what you're talking about, Scotland and Ireland, it's not that at the closest points, it's not a big distance.
I think the closest point is 16.2 miles.
So people always know about the Dover de Calais crossing.
So these islands weren't that remote.
So they weren't like treacherous sea journeys.
They would have navigated the coastline or hugged the coastline and they could have done that in very small boats.
So I learned to think that these guys were mariners right into the Neolithic.
I mean, the Orkneys settlements up in the Orkneys, these guys were, we know from the Neolithic spheres that were found there, these sacred geometry spheres that are so ornate and intricate and geometrical artistic representations that are phenomenal.
They used a fish paste varnish.
They were found at the Neolithic settlements and all there.
They were fishermen.
So they weren't just mariners getting on a boat and using it as a form of transport.
They were mariners because they were fishermen as well.
So these guys were doing sea fishing and navigating by boat.
These guys were highly evolved, Howard.
Highly evolved.
And one of the things that would be a missing link for ordinary people to understand is how these people, as you say, could cover great distances.
But if you look at it on a sort of skipping stone analogy, if you do it and hug the coast, you say this is a coastal phenomenon, then actually you can cover big distances because you're going from point to point to point to point.
Let's just say that distance, Howard, by the way, is northern Norway.
They're up as far as latitude 68 in standing stones up there.
And they're down as far as western of Africa, the islands, the Spanish Islands, to the words of the Azores.
There's rock art down there as well.
So that's very, very close to rock art in Northern Ireland as well.
So if there was this big, you know, we're having this great big debate at the moment, aren't we, with the European Union and the moves towards not being quite so closely connected and Brexit and all the rest of it, which listeners in North America actually know all about, and we certainly know all about at the moment.
You know, The fact might be that there was a civilization that was connected like a kind of European Union, but somehow it got lost and the things that it knew disappeared.
I'm glad you made that analogy, Harold, because this was like a civilization of Europe.
These were like, at the very least, a unified European megalithic culture.
That's my aim.
That is my number one mandate for Megalithic Odyssey documentary season one, to show these bodies of knowledge that they had acoustics, astronomy, the same artifacts, the same art, same engineering.
They had like shamanism practices, rituals.
They were one culture dominating the whole of Europe from around, we're talking like Middle Eastern Mediterranean, right along the Mediterranean basin of Sardinia, Majorca, Menorca, Malta, archipelago, all around, right up around the southern Iberian Peninsula, keep going right around to France, Germany, Holland, up to around Scandinavia, and then around the British Isles as well.
And it's all very easy to navigate by small boats hugging the coastline.
However, you would look for those little natural landing bays.
Belfast is one of them.
Sligo Bay is another one in Ireland.
Gulf of Morbihan, and of course the islands as well in the Mediterranean Basin.
So these guys could go anywhere.
And, you know, most of that route from the top of Scotland down to Malta is like 90% waterway.
You may know from listening to me, which you have done, that Liverpool is close to my heart because it's where I come from.
Did they reach Liverpool?
Because, of course, we know that the Dee and the Mersey are great natural harbours themselves.
Yeah.
Well, again, like you say, Liverpool being a city and that Dominion, there's stuff everywhere in the British Isles.
Liverpool's got stuff around it.
I think some of the most important stuff would be up in Anglesey.
So you have, I think the Principia, the Brinkilli-Dew.
I think that's the pronunciation, but those Welsh names are funny for me, even my Irish tongue.
But they had lots of really interesting stuff up there.
So we see in Sligo, for example, they came in and out of Sligo.
We have like, but they didn't build, they built a cemetery complex, this megalithic complex called Carroll Moor, very, very close to where Sligo City is today.
But then there's another one 20 miles inland called Carol Keel.
So it seems to be the older they are, they were in closer to the city.
And then, I mean, Carol Moor is pretty much decimated.
You've got to understand it's pretty much wiped, but there's lots of stuff still there.
It was huge.
But then you see about 3000 BC, they go in further a bit more inland for some reason.
So, yeah, I mean, there's stuff around Liverpool.
It's an interesting...
Like, for example, Calanish in Scotland, they were obsessed with that place.
It was like Mecca for megalithic building because the moon does something funny at certain latitudes.
So latitude 60 up around Scotland, the moon's very, very low in the horizon.
So it looks like it's bobbing along on top of the mountain ridges.
And then they mapped it out on the metonic cycle at its most extreme point.
And they put like a Celtic cross-shaped monument and used crosshairs to this thing.
And they were able to pinpoint the moon and do certain things at certain latitudes.
So it's like they were playing around with the sky as well at latitude.
So it seems to be Scotland was very, very popular and riddled with stuff.
I don't know what kind of education that you had, James, but mine was a Liverpool comprehensive school.
And for us, history began with the Romans.
We just didn't understand or comprehend anything before that.
I've actually walked, I've lived up in Lockerbie in Carlisle, up in the north of England and Scotland.
And I've actually walked all of the wall, the Hadrian's Wall, pretty, not in the one day, by the way.
But I've walked it in sections.
And, you know, I do like the Roman history.
And I'm an engineer.
That was my training.
But I don't like everything from the Romans and after that because it's all patriarchy and warmongery.
And it's just not my thing.
I'm in through the history of engineering, the history of science.
So it's funny that the Romans kind of took on the Celts, Howard, and they were almost a laughingstock when they tried to take on Bodicea.
And that was a woman, and they were being beaten until that was all hands on deck to beat Bodicea.
So it was a very strange thing.
And I find that episode with the Romans, you know, the frontier of Hadrian's Wall up north of Liverpool there, that they just went, that's it, no more Roman Empire.
That's the limit.
And the Scots, like, they couldn't deal with them.
So I find it hilarious.
It's one of these bizarre little quirks of history that we just have to wait.
You'll say that history seems to be repeating itself, I wonder.
Yeah, you know, it does.
It does.
There is a point that I want to mention because a lot of what we know about the Celts comes from the Romans.
But another bunch of what we know about the Celts comes from the Irish because the monks that inhabited when you got the St. Patrick history stroke mythology, but the Christianization of Ireland in the 6th to the 9th century, they wrote down all the Irish mythologies that are the oral histories of Ireland.
And they don't deviate by 5% of the story, Howard.
We're talking over centuries and over geographic locations.
There's many books that have been found written down by the monks.
And they didn't even, if they had have known the true history of what they were writing down, because they were writing it down in Gaelic, and if they didn't even understand it, it was in direct opposition to the church.
There were 70 deities or 70 gods and goddesses of Ireland, which were like peoples or royal lineage and stuff.
And some of it was kind of science fiction-y, some of it was kind of reality-based.
But if they had have known the truth of those stories, they wouldn't have wrote them down and they being Christian.
Well, it's amazing, isn't it?
bearing in mind the hold that we know the church had, that those things survived and were able to be promulgated.
Well, not only did it survive, they actually wrote down...
And the reason I mention that, by the way, because they mentioned the people of the mounds.
They mentioned the megalithic people in the...
And not only that, they wrote down in the margins of the books archaic terms that they didn't understand.
They didn't know what was going on.
So they just went, look, we don't know what this means, but we're putting a footnote in saying we don't know what it means and it's an old term.
So they were very accurate in their descriptions.
And because they wanted to, the reason they did this was they wanted dialogue with these Irish peoples, which were Celtic, if you will.
They weren't Irish at that point.
They were basically a generic Celtic type.
And they were, the thing is, the Celts that were in Ireland, they were at a time, they came in at the very earliest 1500 BC, most likely about 1000 BC.
But they mixed with the people that were there, and they were the megalithic people.
So there was an overlap of about 500 years.
So the megalithic people die out at about 1000 BC.
We know that from their monuments, maybe 800 BC at the latest.
So there's an overlap there.
And we know there's an overlap there because of places like Nose.
And we see a Celtic use of the old megalithic monuments.
And then we have the ritual use of Tara Hill, this megalithic complex that all the ancient high kings of Ireland were crowned upon.
So this overlap is really interesting because what we know about these people is these Irish mythologies.
And they talk about the people of the mounds with all these, you know, strange, bizarre stories.
And there was a literal translation from the Gaelic text, just a straight translation in the 19th century.
You'll probably get it called Celtic mythology.
And people think it's an interpretation.
They think it's somebody's interpretation of what they think it means.
It's just a literal translation.
And it reads like the wildest, craziest science fiction that you could create today.
It's like it was the inspiration for Lord of the Rings.
So it's beautiful.
It's beautiful that we have this.
So we have an ancient civilization here, we think, that has remarkable technology.
And we may only have just scratched the surface here.
Why do you think, and this is all of what we're going to say is probably a supposition, but let's go there anyway.
Why do we think that mainstream archaeology and mainstream science has a sense of this, but is not too keen to go there?
Yeah, I don't think there's a lot of people sitting around.
I don't think there's masses of people sitting around in smoke-filled rooms with cigars plotting to kill our history.
I think there may be a few people doing that.
And I think, you know, there's a control on everything out there, Howard.
People, you know, military control everything.
Military control the governments.
Governments, they want to monopolize their country.
All countries do that.
I mean, they don't want technology getting out until they've had their spin out of it.
They control everything.
History is controlled.
Everything is controlled.
You know, people, that's the reality of our, that's the reality of our civilization today.
So I think there's a control grid in place, but I don't think there's a mass of people doing it.
I think it's just decisions from the talks filtered down.
And, you know, I think there's a, there's a, when you go into any academic institution, I did this myself in physics, it's like anything that is creative or original is weeded out.
And you just follow the academic paradigm and you keep your head down and you, you know, anything weird and wonderful, if you show interest in it, oh, you're a neither nutcase.
And it's not said, it's like, it's just this kind of air of mystique in academia that, you know, if you have any sort of an original thought, you're just pushed aside.
And you basically stick to the academic program.
And it's almost like robotic, Howard.
It's like a breeding process.
It's like a manipulative program that we run in this world.
You talked about control.
I think there's also security.
And I'm talking about the most basic kind of human security.
You know, if you have one story, and that's the story that goes from generation to generation, everybody feels secure.
Everybody feels safe.
And most importantly, everybody feels disinclined to rock the boat.
Yeah, but I'm not that person, Howard.
No, I'm getting that impression.
I'm getting that impression, James.
Yeah, no, no, you're totally right.
And people, I mean, it's like I'm not there to convert the masses.
I know that there's people out there who couldn't care less what the truth is because they just want to go and do their job and come home, feed their family and watch their football.
And, you know, that's your thing.
That's your thing.
But I think we're in a very unique timeframe since the invention of the internet.
Nobody could have envisaged what way it would grow with like social media and growth of, you know, commerce and the way things are done these days.
I mean, I couldn't be doing what I do today without the internet.
I mean, you know that, I know that.
I mean, the people that I meet now, it's all at a very fast pace.
The information shared on archaeology on Facebook these days is so quick and instant.
I mean, you know, so we're living in an exciting time.
I think so too.
And, you know, that's why I'm here now.
That's why I've got an independent voice and I wouldn't have it any other way because I can reach people directly.
However, we both know by doing our researches online, because it's so democratized now and because anybody can go out there and say anything, there's a lot of trash out there too.
Unfortunately, Howard, yes, unfortunately there is.
I find it an easier way to do research and I find it an easier way to do people, but I inherently, I'm not an armchair researcher.
I get out there and I do it.
I spent, well, four years of my life going around pretty much every piece of megalithic art in Ireland.
I kid you not.
I've been to 600 passage tombs across the whole of Europe.
Anybody that knows me, they just think I'm a maniac.
Just like I am like a Duracell bunny megalithic researcher out there.
But I always find, I don't know what I'm looking for until I get it.
And I mean, I went to Holland, for example, and I went to 54 megalithic sites and they were all boring.
Sorry to the Dutch people and for my heritage.
You know, I've got to say, I didn't even know there were megalithic sites in Holland.
Most people don't.
And they're all in the one region, Drente.
But they're all very, very the same structure.
They're very robotic.
They all basically look the same.
All you're looking at is the skeleton.
The mound is all gone, but the skeleton of back, and there's huge stones too.
But they're all very much the same.
So it's when I go there and then I compare it to another place like Britain or Ireland, the British and Irish monuments are so diverse.
We've got everything from dolmen, circles, all types of different mounds and shapes and earthworks.
And there's a ridiculous diversity in this, in these islands.
And I find it amazing.
And then you go and you don't see much diversity, but you see the megalithic connection.
So these are the questions I ask.
You go to Denmark, for example.
Denmark has more passage tombs than anywhere.
There's like a thousand originally there.
There's something like 250 survive.
And, you know, they're all, again, very, very similar and robotic.
They just don't have any rock art or, I mean, here's another one.
You're going to be blown with this art.
There's 75% of the rock art of the whole of Europe is in Ireland.
Really?
45% of that rock art is in a two-mile radius of Newgrange and North.
Now, is that because it's there and has always been there?
Or is that because it just happens to have survived better than it might have done elsewhere?
No, that's just, I mean, literally, that's because it was like a cultural hotspot.
I mean, so within the megalithic empire, if you want to call it that, you just have an explosion of art in Newgrange Notes and then the rest of Ireland.
And even within Ireland, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't make sense why you see pockets of it within Ireland.
And then when you take out the 75% of the rock air, you have another pocket of it in the Orkneys in Scotland, another pocket in a little bit in Sardinia and a little bit in Malta, and then another bit in Brittany.
And then just doesn't seem to be rock air anywhere.
So it's like, this is why I kind of came up with the refugee by boats theory that imagine like, you know, megalithic people scrambling because of a cataclysm, getting into like a little megalithic arc.
And they needed one astronomer and one acoustician and one shaman and one artist and one engineer and one architect.
And they had a scramble for boats.
I don't think they got everybody into the equally into each boat.
I think they just scrambled and they hit Western Europe and they set up their little empire again.
And I think rising sea levels knock these guys off sunken landmasses in the Atlantic.
That's personally what I've kind of gone to.
And that's why it also explains why you have diversity in some regions and why you don't have it in others.
It also explains the mariner concept and it explains so many things.
And usually when you have something that explains so many things, you're probably onto something.
I will say though, Howard, that's a very good point that you make.
Like, is it just that we haven't found the other stuff yet?
And no, we have found the other stuff and it's totally lacking in art.
And we do have many examples of the structures remaining.
And they're just like, it's like the artist has gone on holiday and it's like there only was one architect and he came up with the same plan time and time again.
And it's like the British Isles seems to be very unique because we have nearly all of the puzzle there.
But if you looked at every megalithic country, so you take out the Scandinavian countries and Iberia and the British Isles and the Mediterranean and you list every megalithic country and you drew up what everyone has, you go, this one's got a dome and this one's got a stone circle and this one's got a stone row.
And, you know, everybody's got about minimum 70% of the megalithic goods, basically, the art and the architecture.
Nobody seems to have it 100%.
Now, from what you're saying, this is very much a European phenomenon.
I'm wondering, just because of my own fascination, really, about those places that are the frontier, in a way, between Africa and Europe.
And I'm thinking about places here like maybe Gibraltar, but also places like Madeira and the Azores.
Have you ever considered those places?
Sure.
Yeah, I mean, well, the top of North Africa, up around Morocco, there's a stone circle that's been coming out of the sand there.
I don't know if there's great photographs.
There's very little on it.
Not a lot of people want to go there to do research in the top of North Africa, as you can understand, but there's apparently stuff in Libya, too.
Of course, war-torn countries, it's just, you know, it kills the archaeology.
But I think personally, the sands in the top of North Africa have covered lots of stuff.
And we know that definitely from Morocco, there's a stone circle there.
It almost looks like it was a passage tomb with the curbstones.
Because it would be interesting to find out, wouldn't it, how far down this civilization got and how it merged and melded with whatever was coming up from down there.
Well, I mean, the islands off the coast of West Africa, from the Azores right up the Spanish islands too, they seem to...
So, I mean, I think personally, you're looking at 45 degrees of latitude, Howard, from northern Norway, but latitude 23 to about latitude 68, latitude 68 being northern Norway.
So that's half the northern hemisphere in terms of latitude.
And you're looking from Israel to Ireland, basically, just in terms of what we would call the megalithic culture.
It just struck me that there would be synergies between, you know, I know Michael Tellinger, met him in South Africa, between the work that he's done.
I've done mine too, Howard.
Yeah, I'm actually doing a tour with Michael in the British Isles in May.
So, yeah, and I have a lot of respect for Michael.
I actually had Michael in Northern Ireland with him.
He's in the documentary Megalithic Odyssey.
He did a great little film shoot for me in Northern Ireland.
And I had a lot of inspiration for Michael.
And when I look at stuff in South Africa, I mean, the aim for my documentary is just to, because megalithic Europe is not unified in its concept, I want to start there.
But I have no doubt that there's some sort of a throwback to other stuff around the world.
And I think South Africa, some of the stuff there is very like megalithic Europe.
I mean, Peru, for example, I mean, you go to Saxon.
I've been to Peru several times.
It's mind-melting.
As an engineer, it fries my brain iron.
However, it's very, very different to the stuff.
It's very big, yes, and it's very megalithic, but it's very, very kind of complex and different to the megalithic Europe.
It seems to be like Cara Hunge and Gebekli Tepe and the stuff in South Africa, Adam's calendar is very, very much like Ireland.
But then you've got the different epochs and why they're so scattered and far away.
So, yeah, I think stuff like Michael stuff is very important.
And what do you think the ancients and their knowledge can teach us today?
What can we learn from them?
I find myself questioning that recently, Howard, going, What am I doing here?
I mean, what is okay?
I want to do this kind of thing for posterity.
Yes, I want to.
I found some megalithic rock art that wasn't properly documented.
So I wanted to put that out there.
And it's going into Carmen Volter's documentary.
I'm working with Carmen on another documentary for her as well.
So I'm excited for that.
And I'm kind of doing this kind of service because there isn't many people that have either the passion or the desire to do this.
What is it going to teach me?
Well, it's teaching me that there is episodes in history that are lost, Howard.
So I guess that can teach anybody that.
I mean, I can do whatever I want for posterity and try and get the megalithic picture right.
But at the end of the day, what does that teach me and what does that teach other people?
It's a great thing.
I'm questioning that myself, Howard.
And I find myself going, yeah, it does teach me something.
Teaches me number one to get off my ass and go look for stuff because you never know what you're going to find because I did find stuff.
But I think anybody can, Harold.
And I mean, basically, I'm an astronomer and engineer.
That's what I worked at most of my vocation.
But it's not necessary to do what I do.
Most of my revelations have come from lay people or artists or musicians who understand acoustic or understand these monuments from the artistic representative mind.
And I don't have that.
I'm very kind of stuck in my way sometimes of how I think about things.
Now, you mentioned acoustics.
That's the second time you've mentioned it.
You mentioned it at the beginning of this.
Now, Michael Tellinger in South Africa was doing some work a few years ago, and I needed to talk with him again.
I must do that about the power of sound.
He's not the only one to do that.
I think Robert Boval has mentioned that as well in Egypt.
Sound, it is coming to our attention now, was for them a very important thing.
Yeah, okay.
This is going to fry your head, Howard.
Okay.
The acoustics for me is as much as an element of these monuments as the astronomy.
The only problem is we see the astronomy, we see the sunbeams coming in, and we see the moon alignments, and we see the astronomical rock art that I wrote about.
And you can see, oh, God, that's a picture of the Pleis.
That looks like the Pleiades.
That's the Ursa Major.
That's Ursa Major.
So people can, you know, feel affiliated with the astronomical concept.
But when you start saying acoustic to people, they go, you know, some people don't know what acoustics is.
I mean, in a scientific sense.
And, you know, unless you're into music or as a musician, you start explaining resonance to people and infrasound and all the stuff that's associated with these monuments, it gets a bit mind-melting.
However, it's all measurable and quantifiable.
If you take any room or any chamber, Howard, it's got its own acoustics.
The room I'm in has its own acoustics.
The only problem is the doors, the windows, and all the furniture in it dampens the sound down and it loses that, you know, that resonance echo effect, basically.
So the passage tombs are no different.
The chambers of Europe are no different.
However, there's less in them and they were geometrically designed first and foremost.
And for example, let me go to the hypogemon Malta that we mentioned at the start.
Every room is carved within another room.
It's like there's not like a doorway going into rooms either.
There's like apertures, like the sound hole on a guitar box.
There's a room within a room within a room.
And then to get into the other room, you have to go through these little oval holes to get into an oval room.
And it's basically, if you go there, you can arm or chant into this little thing called, they call it the oracle hole.
And when you chant into the oracle hole, the whole thing resonates at the at the male vocal range.
I have no doubt that that was a purely intentional design, that they were exploring acoustics.
It's one example of many in megalithic Europe, probably the best one.
And two questions.
How could they have known that?
And number two, we don't understand this, but what effect were they doing that to achieve?
In other words, what benefit were people getting from that?
These three questions, Howard.
The two I ask myself, because when I ask myself those questions, I go, can I prove that?
And I think I have.
I wrote a book, The Megalithic Acoustic Mystery.
It's coming out actually this month.
I'm re-releasing it with extra evidence.
And basically, the effect would be infrasound, and that has an effect on healing.
And this has been scientifically proven.
Infrasound affects different parts of the body.
So infrasound affects the lung cavities at about 60 hertz.
The lowest of the male vocal range is about 80 hertz, 84 hertz, something like that, the baritone range.
But if you can manipulate those acoustic waves and shift them towards infrasound, it's only 20 hertz you have to shift.
But also, if you can do a drum beat, so drum beat will like four to seven times a second, that also affects the cetaphra, the cranial part of the body.
So that will be about four to seven hertz.
So each part of the body actually has a resonant frequency that are an infrasound that will affect it.
How would the guys know?
Okay, so that's the effect what would have.
How would the people know this?
Well, experiential discovery, I think, is the method, Howard.
I think they discovered it by experience.
If you look at all the rock art, it looks like it's acoustic waves or Gabriani Goats Island in Brittany is some of the most expressive geometric mathematical form of interlocking waves and how they coalesce with each other, like constructive and destructive interference.
I personally think they were drawing acoustic waves, not water waves.
And that's what people, archaeologists say, oh, they're just drawing water waves.
They're not drawing.
They're trying to get out of the acoustic thing.
However, I think that they, if they had smoke or incense or something like that inside these chambers, you would literally see a sawtooth wave in the air because the standing wave, basically a single note going, ah, would set up in between the parallel walls.
They were very geometrically inside, So, they would have an enhanced acoustic effect.
So, you would have a sawtooth wave if you hit the right note.
Obviously, too high, it won't fit between the walls.
Too low, it won't fit between the walls.
That's just right.
That standing wave will be like a sawtooth wave in the air.
And if they had something spurning like an incense, you would physically see it.
This is an effect that you will see at a church today when they burn frankincense.
You will see the choir singing, you will see notes literally as standing waves in the air because there's a geometrical layout to a church, i.e.
the cross.
So I always believed there's an experiential way for discovering this stuff, Howard, that people just, unless they see how, if he gives them the experiential method of discovery, they seem to accept it a lot easier.
There was also, and Michael's work does this too, that they were obsessed with quartz, Howard.
And what you'll find is Gavrini is not only did they carve these concentric circles and interlocking wave patterns in stone, but they did it in very hard stone, which is highly high quartz content, and it reflects in the light.
And this is the thing, because it's what they call an undifferentiated passageway, so basically a long straight corridor, it doesn't go into any room or anything, and it's at a certain width, at a certain height, and a certain length, and it resonates at the baritone range.
And if you stand at that door and you armor chant, and I've done this, and you will have a standing wave set up in that.
And what it does is it will certainly, so a standing wave is basically an acoustic wave pressing the side walls.
It's literally pushing the walls.
That's what happens in a speaker.
You'll know this working in the audio industry.
Basically, a speaker is basically a diaphragm that's getting pushed outwards.
And everybody will see this when you look into your big bow speakers for your hi-fi equipment.
That little speaker is a diaphragm going out and in.
And it's just literally air pressure getting pushed by an electrical magnetic coil.
The passion terms are no different.
They're literally pushing the walls of the upright of these with your highly quartzite content.
Now, the quartz is piezoelectric and it reacts to physical pressure.
If you take piezoelectric quartz and you squash it, it will give you an electrical pulse.
If you give it an electrical pulse, it will physically change its shape.
In other words, it will do the opposite.
Did the agents know this?
I don't think they knew it in a scientific way, but I think you would notice that the air was electrified literally by physical pressure or sound.
So the one thing they had was time, and as you say, it's experiential.
Yeah, and it's now, you've got to understand the use of quartz, Howard, is two numerous examples.
I mean, it's too numerous to mention.
And here's the other bizarre thing.
It would also electrically be charged by the sunlight coming in, and it would also enhance the two.
So you have a double effect of the acoustics and the light coming in, affecting these quartz walls.
I have so many examples of this.
Sephon Hill is another great example in Ireland where you have quartz-lined passageways.
This is literally, this is what they did, Howard.
They would take a quartz vein, like a sheet of quartz running through the rock.
They would bash away the granite on one side, exposing that quartz vein as if it was a sheet of quartz stuck to the rock.
So much work to do that, and then use that as an upright slab so that the whole of the passageway was lined with quartz.
It's an incredible amount of work just to build that passageway.
And they did it so that the light would reflect off it.
And if they were arming or chanting, then you had this other bizarre effect, Harold.
And I showed this in presentations to people, then they get it.
If you blow into a wine bottle, you're basically blowing into a Helmholtz resonator.
So a Helmholtz resonator is a chamber with a long neck, which is i.e.
the wine bottle.
Now, what affects that resonance of that bottle, and if you've took seven wine bottles and you filled different bits of water into each one, you would notice that you would have a different note.
People would know this.
People have seen this in experiments.
Basically, you're changing the size of the cavity inside that wine bottle.
That's one factor you can do to change the Helmholtz resonator of a bottle.
You change the chamber size.
But you also, if you change the width of the neck and the length of the neck of that bottle, you'll change the frequency also.
There's three parameters for changing that.
And when we see the passage terms of Europe, and this is why I've gone to so many, Howard, because every time the more I go to, the more I see why they're similar and why they are different.
And I looked at the geometry of all these and you can see a manipulation of the sound by the geometrical layout.
So we have long passageways and the ones in Ireland, what we see is like a long bottleneck.
It seems they were trying to affect the helmhouse resonance of the internal sound of those chambers.
And there's no reason why you would do this because, I mean, I've got quite wide shoulders.
I'm six foot three, but I'm tall, thin.
But I mean, I have to go on my side to go down some of these chambers.
The ones in Portugal are equally the same.
They have very, very thin, long bottlenecks going into a big chamber which opens up like a cathedral somehow.
Mays Howe in the Orkney is another great example of this.
And the more geometrical they are, sometimes they're octagonal chambers.
And you can see like sound vents in the ones in Ireland and Carroll Keel where they filtered the sound back out to the central chamber again.
And they did that by specifically corbal vaulting the side recesses as well as the main one.
There's no other reason for doing that.
No structural reason.
There's only one reason for doing that.
And that's to put like a sound filtration system in where a feedback loop, if you will, Howard.
So the question to ask, isn't it, is these geographically separate, but in some ways connected groups of people had similar sorts of things.
They understood the power of sound.
They discovered quartz, but they were all slightly different.
So the question is, because they had lots of time and lots of time to try things out and experientially go through things, did they evolve these things reasonably separately or was there a master plan behind it all?
I think there was a, well, I think that they had a seriously good body of knowledge, each one of them, that was similar.
But I think there was slightly variations.
I mean, there's lots of core stuff used in Brittany and Ireland and the rock art too.
So there's massive connections between Brittany and Ireland.
So I think the acoustics and the astronomy and some of the rituals was definitely a binding force that these guys all had.
These guys all had the same body of knowledge to a certain point.
But I think it's like you'll get the Da Vinci in every group of people out there.
You'll get the little genius guy who comes up with a new plan or new way of doing things.
And it's like if you train 100 engineers, Howard, and you send them all out to work, I mean, they're all going to work in different fields or they're all going to maybe work in the same field, but one of them will do something different one day.
And then that will be the new thing, and that will be the new way of doing it.
And so I didn't think it was any different in the megalithic world.
I think these guys were polymaths, first of all.
I think they were doing so many different things there, you know, and they did it against the odds of, you know, they did it in the Neolithic age.
But they were in existence from 5001 BC to 1000 BC within megalithic Europe.
You know, you have Carohunch 7000 BC and Gabekli Tepi 10,000 BC.
Yeah, I'm admitting to all the other stuff, but just within Europe, we know that they were in existence for 4,000 years, minimum.
The dates could be pushed further, I guess, but minimum, that's what they were in existence.
And within those 4,000 years, Howard, and just within Ireland, we see an evolution in megalithic chambers.
We see them more, the next of these passageways getting longer, they're affecting the resonance.
And we can see them, you know, each design is getting slightly different or tweaking.
I see that in Sardinia too.
The hypogames in Sardinia, they seem to have the same plan repeated somewhere else, but then they're slightly tweaking it like the other recesses are slightly tweaked a different way.
And it's so the problem is they're having to do a massive amount of building to do an experiment and just twist it another little way the next way.
But if you haven't got the scientific facilities that we've got now, then you have to build the things and try them out, don't you?
That's the only way that you would know.
Yeah.
And I think they weren't just building it to see what the acoustic resonance was on the next one they built.
I think they were building these as multifaceted, we call them tombs or whatever, but they were multifaceted monuments.
So they had acoustics and astronomy.
They had a ritual burial function with them.
And so they were multifaceted.
Some of them are built over energy hotspots.
And I have Maria Wheatley.
She's a great author from England, from Wiltshire in the UK, in Avebury.
I'm doing the conference with her next month.
And she's into Earth energies.
And, you know, it's something I've been dragged into, Howard, because I've had to, and I've had to deal with it because it's scientifically measurable that these things are all over hotspots.
If you go to Avebury, they seem to be obsessed with the geological strata as well, because don't forget these guys are quarrying rock.
You know, they're obsessed with like the blue stones of Stonehenge, this blue quartzite stuff, their chalk beds.
They worked with many, many different types of stones.
And I have no doubt they were aware of various energies.
Maybe the dowsing rod goes back, and I didn't know this till I met other researchers and authors, that the dowsing rod, there's ancient cave art of them showing them dowsing.
So maybe they had dowsing rods.
Maybe they had a more holistic or a right-brain way of engineering art.
Even if you're listening to this now, and I'm talking to you if you're listening to this now, and you don't understand much about this stuff.
And look, I'm a generalist, I'm a journalist, so I'm learning all the time too.
If you think about Stonehenge here in the UK, you go there, the one thing that I know as a guy who knows a little bit about it and studied it at school, and that's about it, is that there is a quality of peace there that is very strange, and it's around the site.
And to me, when there's silence at Stonehenge, the quality of that silence is different.
It's better.
And I don't understand that.
But what it says to me is that people a long time ago knew more than we ever gave them credit for.
Yeah.
I'm glad you mentioned it, Howard.
I've made quite a few visits to Stonehenge recently, just for either tours and otherwise, and filming.
But I had a small group on it.
Because you have to get private access these days.
So we had a private access group at about 6 a.m. just as the sun was coming up.
So it was just so amazing because it's better to get the group when the sun is already coming up.
Because if you watch the sunrise, you're only getting the last 20 minutes at the end.
So the sun had already come up, but it was a calm, peaceful environment.
And it was like the stones were electrically charged by that sunrise.
I mean, the battery equipment failed on the mics.
I gave up.
I just went, you know what, forget it because the batteries, everything failed.
It was like, oh, the stones were electrically charged.
You could feel it on the back of your arms, but it wasn't freaky.
It was calming and beautiful and serene.
And you just couldn't explain that to anybody other than saying when I was there, that's what happened, you know.
But I totally agree with you, Howard.
I mean, can you imagine the Neolithic era, Howard, and these monuments that were built in pristine shape?
I mean, there was nothing on the landscape other than these stone structures.
These were the first monuments of Europe.
And thank God, you know, James, that we've realized that they're special because there are tales from not that many decades ago where people would go there and play about.
Off-duty soldiers would take land rovers up there and all the rest of it.
I'm sure you've seen those stories, but thankfully, you know, in 2016, we're a little more enlightened and we realized that there was something important going on there.
We don't quite understand what it was, but it needs a great deal more understanding.
I mean, the famous Newgrange in Ireland, it's like a sister monument to Stonehenge, the two beacons of Europe, Newgrange and Stonehenge.
And Newgrange is only getting popular in the last 20 years, but it wasn't until the 1960s that they were excavating it and they realized that the sunbeam came in and the sunbeam was illuminating this chamber.
And it's so powerful.
Today, there's a lottery of 25,000 people.
There's only 100 places.
There's a lottery of 25,000 people to get those 100 places every year just to go in and see it and appreciate it.
And 5,000 years later, this building is waterproof and watertight for 5,000 years.
They put gullies into this thing to make it waterproof.
5,000 years later, it's waterproof and the sunbeam comes in and illuminates it no different to the day.
This thing is pristine inside, like the day it was, like the day it was built.
And I can imagine, you know, these people were taken and brought to our era now.
They would be just...
Maybe they wanted this thing to last forever.
That's the way I think about it anyway.
What we have to do the next time we talk, and I hope there is a next time and a next time, is stratify the conversation, to segment it.
We'll talk about specific things.
This is meant to be an introduction to you, and I think we've done that well.
I found everything that you've said utterly fascinating.
I wonder if it frustrates you, though.
One of the news stories that I had to cover today was that 5G mobile phone technology is being tested in one Berkshire town quite soon.
And the march of technology is spiraling.
It's quickening all the time.
And people, you know, their eyes are on their smartphones constantly.
They want the next bit of technology and history in this thing that we're generating, this technological universe that we're generating, which is good in many ways.
It's allowing us to communicate.
But it's drowning out the quest for knowledge about the sorts of stuff that you study, I think is the point that I'm coming to.
Does that frustrate and concern you?
Yeah, you know, I worked in a heavy...
I've worked on some big high-tech.
I've worked on the most automated place in the whole of Britain at one point, Howard.
So I know what these technologies are like.
And I walked away from it because I don't want to do it.
I don't want to be a part of the infrastructure.
And that's all I was doing was feeding the infrastructure.
So you're asking a very pertinent question to somebody who was kind of entrenched in the whole thing.
And now I guess I'm happy in the sense that I'm following my heart and my dream and my passion.
Only thing I can do, Howard, is not get too dissuade by that.
And you could easily do that.
But I try to inspire.
That's why I do radio shows.
And I keep my eye on everything from Egypt to Sumeria.
And I have a fascination with cylinder seals and all sorts of weird and wonderful things in history.
But megalith's my thing, really.
But all I can do is try to inspire people and show them respect for the past.
I have people on tours and it's just a great way to give them information because when I get them on a one-to-one basis, Howard, I just had a really successful, I had 16 people on my march tour for the Equinox in Ireland.
It was amazing, absolutely truly amazing.
I blew people away.
And they went back with a sense of appreciation for life, humanity, not that they didn't have it beforehand, but an even enhanced one.
And it's, you know, it's people coming to the British Isles.
And I had a guy from Birmingham.
He grew up in Birmingham.
He left when he was 10.
So he hadn't been back in a long time.
Even he came back and he has such a sense of appreciation for these ancient monuments.
So people feel connected with them because they are part of our lineage and our history.
You know, the British conquered it low, pretty much.
The sun never set on the British Empire.
But so things started here in British Isles.
People forget that.
The megalithic heart of Europe, basically, if you look at Britain and Ireland on its side, it's like it's the center of Europe because you have Scandinavia surrounding it.
If you ever seen that, Howard, you'll see a Britain and Ireland on its side.
Turn it 90 degrees.
That was like to the Mergalithic people right through to the Vikings.
They seen that as the heart of Europe.
And that is where things started.
This is the origins of time.
The oldest calendar in the world is 4000 BC in North in Ireland, County Meath.
They invented time.
They mapped out the first calendar.
They have a 16-month calendar.
They have the sun mapped out, the solar cycle, the metonic cycle, the situal and synodic lunar month.
Everything started here.
And then that fractal repeated with the British Empire again.
And you know what?
Maybe we'll come back in another few centuries and we'll say, look, maybe we'll have, maybe this is a hippy-dippy, but maybe we'll all have a unified idea of megalithic world and the modern world all together and appreciate the past, but still live in the modern world.
That's where I would like to go.
And by then we'll understand our place in the scheme of things.
And I guess these people you educate, these people you do tours for, and the others that you reach in other ways, I suppose if you can only leave them with one message, which will be enough to rock their world and it's just one sentence, that the ancient people knew more than we actually gave them credit for.
I guess the last message, Howard, is to question everything.
And, you know, for me, I focus, I have a narrow focus on the megaliths because I see a duty there and I see a problem there.
But I think it's for history.
Question everything.
You know, don't accept things because I say it.
You know, I back up what I say anyway in my books, but don't accept things when I say it.
Go and look at it.
Go and look at this knowledge.
Because people don't question anything.
You know, they're given the answers and they're given the solution or maybe they ask the wrong question first.
They go, why would somebody do that?
Or why would they, that's not the way to do it.
The question is, is the evidence there first?
And then ask questions because of what you look at.
Instead of asking the second question or the third question, you're eliminating that very first one.
It's not, did something happen?
It's why did it happen that way or whatever.
So question everything.
Look at the whole picture.
Question everything.
That's what I try to do in my work.
And it's what I did in my career.
I had a very big spectrum for an engineering solution problem.
And I see it as no different.
I'm just trying to look at a problem of megalithic Europe, question everything and see what fits and see what doesn't and see what it all means.
Well, I'm glad you're doing it.
If people want to know about you, have you got a one-stop shop website these days where they can go?
Yeah, megalithicodysse.com for the conference and symposium and the documentary.
Jameswager.com for me as an author.
You can read about my background.
And of course, I did my own podcast, Capricorn Radio, and it's still going.
It's not as much as I'd like these days, but I still chisel away at it.
But I try to keep everything separate.
They are all linked to each other.
You'll find me somehow.
God knows how you get time for it all, but I'm glad you do.
James, we've got to talk again, and I know we will.
And thank you very much for doing it.
I'd love to, Harold.
I'd love to, brother.
It's been an honor running the show.
You know, I'm a longtime fan anyway.
Well, it's really kind and very humbling.
And I'm now a big James Swagger fan.
So I'm going to find out even more about you.
And thanks for making time for me.
Thank you, Harold.
The voice of James Swagger.
Thank you very much to him.
I'll put a link to his work on my website, theunexplained.tv.
Gotta go.
Thank you very much indeed for all of your help and support.
More great guests as ever in the pipeline on this online show, The Unexplained, that's been here for you for 10 years.
Please continue to support the show.
If you Can send a donation, please do.
And if you can send me an email with a guest suggestion, that would be great too.
When you email, as I always say, please tell me where you are, who you are, and how you use this show.
Till next, we meet here on The Unexplained.
My name is Howard Hughes.
I am in London, where it's a little bit humid at the moment, has been for weeks, but that's another story.
Please stay safe.
Please stay calm.
And above all, please stay in touch.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
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