ANCIENT FLYING MACHINES

Interestingly, in another of his books, The Gold Of The Gods, Von Daniken presents us with a photograph of an old Indian bas-relief which is, he tells us, a depiction of a vimana that was easily identified by Sanskrit scholars. He presents the picture of this ancient Indian vimana, or flying machine, next to a prehistoric drawing found high up on a rock face in the Sete Cidades. In Daniken’s opinion the Sete Cidades drawing is “identical in style and layout” with the ancient Indian bas-relief.

In a similar vein to the above mention of awesome and devastating mention of weapons in The Mahabarata, The Ramayana also seems to make mention of such weapons, too. For instance in the tale of ‘Rama and Sita’ the king promises Rama that if he succeeds in bending a certain immensely powerful bow, he will have his daughter, Sita, the princess born from the earth. “Straight away the King gave the orders: five thousand well-built men strained to drag the eight-wheeled iron cart which contained the divine weapon. Try, commanded the devout king, and effortlessly Rama seized the bow and drew it. He bent it to such an extent that he broke it and the sound that the string made in breaking struck fear in everyone who witnessed it. My daughter, said the king, will be the prize won by your strength”.

Also in The Ramayana is the account of one of Rama’s comrades, the King of the Apes. This King of the Apes could apparently not only evolve into a giant or shrink into a midget at will, but he is also a brilliant and fearless pilot of an obviously tremendously powerful flying machine of some kind. As Von Daniken recounts from the original text:

When he begins his flight from the mountains, the tops of the cliffs break, the foundations of the mountains shake. Giant trees are stripped of their boughs and broken, a shower of wood and leaves falls to the ground. The mountain birds and animals flee to their hiding places.

Furthermore this same King of the Apes mentioned in the ancient Indian text The Ramayana, could also apparently lift off in his flying machine from within built-up cities. He did not, by all accounts, need a runway like most modern aircraft in order to take-off:

With burning tail he swings himself up over the rooftops and kindles vast conflagrations so that the tall buildings and towers collapse and the pleasure gardens are laid to waste.