Why don't people take UFOs and ancient astronauts seriously?

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Well, here's an example of one such invention which was used by infantry and naval vessels of the Eastern Roman Empire that was only reinvented in the 20th century.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhsduCQyIA[/youtube]

Wow, that video was pretty cool. I had no idea flamethrowers went that far back. That's really not any less technologically complex from a muzzle loading gun, which is, more or less, just a tube that guides exploding shrapnel. This has pistons in it, so you might be argue that its actually more sophisticated.

That puts me in mind of something George Carlin said too in one of his stand up shows.

...as true today as it was 2000 years ago.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4nknAzQPHE[/youtube]

The Stonehenge builders didn't but the Macchu Picchu builders did.

Here's a documentary about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rd6VWLbv9w

It was a heiroglyph written language that they carved on pretty much every surface of Macchu Picchu. I watched the documentary and some of it has been translated. Mostly (unsurprisingly) it is a written account of battle victories and royal lineage.

From what I've read about Stonehenge, it was believed to be functional rather than memorial so that may be why it's not covered with carvings.

It's supposed to be for determining the solstices and equinoxes I think, as a form of four point solar calendar, wasn't it? But weren't there carvings of grains or bugs or something on some of them, indicating times to plant and harvest?

Last edited by iamnotaparakeet on 04 Aug 2011, 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wait dude, that documentary has to do with the Maya, not the Inca or the precursor civilization that may have built Machu Pichu. The Mayans were a Central American Culture, were the Incans were centered more around the Andes Mountains in modern-day Peru and Bolivia. From what I remember, the Inca (as well as their modern descendants) didn't believe their culture built the cities but a water God from the Eastern Ocean named Veracocha (that's where the extra-terrestrial theories come into play).

Mainstream archaeologists, who assume the Incans built Machu Pichu, are actually puzzled that the Incans were the only bronze age empire to not develop a writing system according to the link.

http://www.slate.com/id/2298567/

I don't know about the hieroglyph language you saw on Machu Pichu. I don't really recall it. Keep in mind that there's a difference between pictographs and full fledged written languages.

Last edited by JNathanK on 04 Aug 2011, 5:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

pictographs convey a certain amount of meaning, but it isn't the same as a written language. That sounds fascinating though if that is the case.

I have to say though that even for ruins that don't have any writing or designs of any kind on them though, they could have had at one time and it all just eroded off.

Well, if the job of interpreting "when you stand here and the sun appears to rest on that block with the grains, it means it's time for harvest" is done with sufficient training there would be little need of having the instructions written on them.

Its not the same as having a developed writing system though that can symbolically record and convey every word in a given language. Pictographs don't do as good of a job at transmitting meaning and specifics, because they're open to interpretation. That's why they're really only useful when they contain really straight forward information, like when to plant grains or which door leads to the ladies or men's restroom. You're going to have a difficult time trying to translate translate a modern novel or movie script into an ancient, rudimentary pictoral system though, especially since a lot of it probably relied on cultural context anyway.




Take this painting for one. It was made 400 years ago by a Dutch painter, a European culture. The images in there are different inside references that people at the time would have understood through the memes of the day. However, it just seems like gibberish to me. The only way I'd understand it is if I read documents from the time or read the work of a modern day scholar who specializes in studying Norther renaissance history.






I look at this, and I have no idea what it means. I can't read up on what was going on in the minds of the culture that made that at the time, because they have no written language. I can't relate it to my culture either, because it has nothing to do with Plato, Jesus Christ, or Johnny Knoxville. I'm clueless.

At least with written languages, archeologists can recognize patterns held in common to their offspring languages and interpret old Babylonian and Egyptian epics. You can't do that with pictures, which are abstract and more dependent upon cultural context.

Last edited by JNathanK on 04 Aug 2011, 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not necessarily puzzled. It is an interesting anomaly. If anything it provides further support to the idea that writing systems are not always necessary for massive social mobilization. Because in all honesty the engineering facets of most ancient architecture are vastly overrated by many commentators- I don't mean that they are underwhelming, but that the engineering was the simpler part of things in some respects. For instance to manufacture perfect blocks for the pyramids requires little more than tools set to measure them out in a perfect template, which the Egyptians most certainly did. And instead of constructing a gigantic and impractical Earthen ramp it is more likely that they piled hard packed dirt and gravel in a path leading up to the top, twisting around the pyramid, being built as the blocks are put into place.

Really it is the social mobilization that is the most difficult part for those time periods. The cultures that engaged in megalithic projects all shared certain things in common- and asides the frequent choice of pyramids (which is almost an inevitability of convergent cultural evolution) all of these civilizations had extensive methods of communication and mobilization for their time. That some where able to do it without apparent writing systems is testament to Human ingenuity. It is also possible that some had substituted written language for some other form of abstract communication

A greater respect for authority probably helped when it came to civil engineering programs. Nowadays, people are oppositional to authority for the sake of having an authority to oppose. Modern culture in many nations is one that rebellion has be deified within. However, in cultures where respect for authority is considered virtuous I would suspect that people would be more willing to join construction projects because their monarch says to, and farmers to donate so much grain and eggs and whatnot for the workers because their monarch asks it of them, and so forth.

Yah, and another thing is the elites may have had a writing system of their own for organizing, while everyone else was illiterate and just took orders and built Machu Pichu and the Nazca lines. That could be a possible explanation of why there's no evidence of a written language. They may have even been so smart they didn't need a written language.

An interesting thing to note though is that an Incan king wanted to prove they could haul just one 50 ton stone up the mountain as the builders of the city did repeatedly (since the stones originated 20 miles down hill from the site if I remember right). They got a bunch of men to haul it by hand with ropes, and the venture failed when the rock fell off the path and crushed some workers below. Its proof that the Incans either had no idea how to do what's attributed to them or that they'd forgotten. They said a water god, very similar dogmatically to Jesus and Osiris. did it, which means they were probably as clueless about how it was actually built as we are, whether it was done by humans, aliens, or Viracocha.

What I find weird about the choice of building a pyramid though is that the pre-Colombian cultures would have had no means of communicating and converging with the Old World cultures (China and Egypt) that built pyramids too since they were separated by time and space. I'm of the mind that common, universally held archetypes drive the evolution of the human psyche and that pyramidal structures may be one of them for some reason. Maybe its because they resemble breasts or something. The resemblance of Viracocha to Jesus and Osiris is also striking since he walked on water, was killed and resurrected, had disciples, healed people, brought them out of barbarism, etc etc.

Last edited by JNathanK on 04 Aug 2011, 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The tallest mountain on Earth is only 29,029 feet, or about five and a half miles. But you probably meant something else, like the site being 20 miles distant horizontally or combined. Anyhow, the Incan king would be wrong to assume that if he couldn't do it that it couldn't be done. It's something the Mythbusters have done with the Archimedes legend about having a few thousand professional soldiers hold mirrors to set sails on fire. They go about using a relatively small surface area of mirrors and show that they can't do it and so it thus can't be done. That doesn't work. There were lots of failed attempts at heavier than air flight prior to the Wright brothers mathematically developing the field of aerodynamics and designing a proper airfoil for the wings to work with Bernoulli's principle. If the failed attempts of people flapping around and killing themselves had been the only example there would probably still be people saying that heavier than air flight is impossible for humans. Likewise, one king being unable to move a block once doesn't mean that others before him were less capable.

I meant a combination of horizontal and vertical. I live up on a hill and sometimes I say, "I'm gonna go downhill to the store", even though. even though a good part of the drive is flat.

I'm not saying its proof positive UFO's did it and that it was impossible for people to do it back then. I'm just pointing out that its odd that an Incan King, a leader of a culture that's attributed by modern experts to have built Machu Pichu, that lived in the area, was unable to get the large stone up the hill. It shows, in a major way, that they'd forgotten a lot of basic knowledge that their predecessors had. I suppose that lack of a written language could explain that though.

Also, I hate myth busters. lol

Last edited by JNathanK on 04 Aug 2011, 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Quite possibly. If a single generation were not taught to do basic math in any "modern" "Industrialized" nation of the world, they'd be on the same level of understanding of mathematics and mathematical sciences as anyone else who was never taught.

Its a good lesson to keep in mind. Its probably just the consequence of a small, ruling minority keeping the majority illiterate, if the Incans did have a writing system at one time anyway. I mean, they did live close to the Mayans, who we know for a fact did have an advanced a written language and an advanced mathematical system with a concept of 0 and negative numbers. They could have learned it in an older era then forgot it because of war or something.

Its just like middle ages. Most of the art in the churches was all pictoral so that the illiterate masses could be indoctrinated with basic, biblical concepts. Most the writing was on parchment, and if, for some reason, all libraries burnt down, we'd have little evidence that those cultures had a writing system.

He obviously means 20 miles on an upward incline. Not 105 thousand feet straight up!
When you bicycle along the Potomac down stream from Bethesda to Haines Point its seven miles downhill. Returning is seven miles up hill. But its only a couple hundred feet diference in elevation (but you definetly feel it when your bicycling). If you describe it as such no one takes it to mean that your bicyling straight up and down to and from 35 thousand foot summit.