The Evidence For Ancient Atomic Warfare-D.H. Childress

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L. Sprague de Camp mentions in his book, The Ancient Engineers,13 that at some point it was found that petroleum, which seeps out of the ground in Iraq and elsewhere, made an ideal base for incendiary mixtures because it could be squirted from syringes of the sort then used in fighting fires. Other substances were added to it, such as sulphur, olive oil, rosin, bitumen, salt and quicklime.

Some of these additives may have helped--sulphur at least made a fine stench--but others did not, although it was thought that they did. Salt, for instance, may have been added because the sodium in it gave the flame a bright orange colour. The ancients, supposing that a brighter flame was necessarily a hotter flame, mistakenly believed that salt made the fire burn more fiercely. Such mixtures were put in thin wooden casks and thrown from catapults at hostile ships and at wooden siege engines and defence works.

According to de Camp, in AD 673 the architect Kallinikos fled ahead of Arab invaders from Helipolis-Ba'albek to Constantinople. There he revealed to Emperor Constantine IV an improved formula for a liquid incendiary. This could not only be squirted at the foe but could also be used with great effect at sea, because it caught fire when it touched the water and floated, flaming on the waves.

De Camp says that Byzantine galleys were armed with a flame-throwing apparatus in the bow, consisting of a tank of this mixture, a pump and a nozzle. With the help of this compound, the Byzantines broke the Arab sieges of AD 674-76 and AD 715-18, and also beat off the Russian attacks of AD 941 and 1043. The incendiary liquid wrought immense havoc; of 800 Arab ships which attacked Constantinople in 716 AD, only a handful returned home.

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The formula for the wet version of Greek fire has never been discovered. Says de Camp:

By careful security precautions, the Byzantine Emperors succeeded in keeping the secret of this substance, called "wet fire" or "wild fire", so dark that it never did become generally known. When asked about it, they blandly replied that an angel had revealed the formula to the first Constantine.

We can, therefore, only guess the nature of the mixture. According to one disputed theory, wet fire was petroleum with an admixture of calcium phosphide, which can be made from lime, bones and urine. Perhaps Kallinikos stumbled across this substance in the course of alchemical experiments.

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Vitrification of brick, rock and sand may have been caused by any number of high-tech means.

New Zealand author Robin Collyns suggests in his book, Ancient Astronauts: A Time Reversal?,14 that there are five methods by which the ancients or "ancient astronauts" might have waged war on various societies on planet Earth.

He outlines how these methods are again on the rise in modern society. The five methods are: plasma guns, fusion torches, holes punched in the ozone layer, manipulation of weather processes and the release of immense energy, such as with an atomic blast.

As Collyns's book was published in Britain in 1976, the mentions of holes in the ozone layer and weather warfare seem strangely prophetic.

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Explaining the plasma gun, Collyns says:

The plasma gun has already been developed experimentally for peaceful purposes: Ukrainian scientists from the Geotechnical Mechanics Institute have experimentally drilled tunnels in iron ore mines by using a plasmatron, i.e., a plasma gas jet which delivers a temperature of 6,000°C.

A plasma, in this case, is an electrified gas. Electrified gases are also featured in the Vymaanika-Shaastra,15 the ancient book from India on vimanas, which cryptically talks of using for fuel the liquid metal mercury, which could be a plasma if electrified.

Collyns goes on to describe a fusion torch:

This is still another possible method of warfare used by spacemen, or ancient advanced civilisations on Earth. Perhaps the solar mirrors of antiquity really were fusion torches? The fusion torch is basically a further development of the plasma jet. In 1970 a theory to develop a fusion torch was presented at the New York aerospace science meeting by Drs Bernard J. Eastlund and William C. Cough.

The basic idea is to generate a fantastic heat of at least fifty million degrees Celsius which could be contained and controlled. That is, the energy released could be used for many peaceful applications with zero radioactive waste products to avoid contaminating the environment, or zero production of radioactive elements which would be highly dangerous, such as plutonium which is the most deadly substance known to man. Thermonuclear fusion occurs naturally in stellar processes, and unnaturally in man-made H-bomb explosions.

The fusion of a deuterium nucleus (a heavy hydrogen isotope which can be easily extracted from sea water) with another deuterium nucleus, or with tritium (another isotope of hydrogen) or with helium, could be used. The actual fusion torch would be an ionised plasma jet which would vaporise anything and everything that the jet was directed at--if...used for harmful purposes--while for peaceful applications, one use of the torch could be to reclaim basic elements from junk metals.

University of Texas scientists announced in 1974 that they had actually developed the first experimental fusion torch which gave an incredible heat output of ninety-three degrees Celsius. This is five times the previous hottest temperature for a contained gas and is twice the minimum heat needed for fusion, but it was held only for one fifty-millionth of a second instead of the one full second which would be required.

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It is curious to note here that Dr Bernard Eastlund is the patent holder of another unusual device--one that is associated with the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), based at Gakona, Alaska. HAARP is allegedly linked to weather manipulation--one of the ways in which Collyns thinks the ancients waged warfare.

As far as holes in the ozone layer and weather manipulation go, Collyns says:

Soviet scientists have discussed and proposed at the United Nations a ban on developing new warfare ideas such as creating holes or "windows" in the ozone layer to bombard specific areas of the Earth with increased natural ultra-violet radiation, which would kill all life-forms and turn the land into barren desert.

Other ideas discussed at the meeting were the use of "infrasound" to demolish ships by creating acoustic fields on the sea, and hurling a huge chunk of rock into the sea with a cheap atomic device. The resultant tidal wave could demolish the coastal fringe of a country. Other tidal waves could be created by detonating nuclear devices at the frozen poles. Controlled floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and droughts directed towards specific targets and cities are other possibilities.

Finally, although not a new method of warfare, incendiary weapons are now being developed to the point where "chemical fireballs" will be produced which radiated thermal energy similar to that of an atomic bomb.

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Vitrified Ruins in California's Death Valley: Evidence of Atomic War?





In Secrets of the Lost Races,16 Rene Noorbergen discusses the evidence for a cataclysmic war in the remote past that included the use of airships and weapons that vitrified stone cities.

The most numerous vitrified remains in the New World are located in the western United States. In 1850 the American explorer Captain Ives William Walker was the first to view some of these ruins, situated in Death Valley. He discovered a city about a mile long, with the lines of the streets and the positions of the buildings still visible. At the center he found a huge rock, between 20 to 30 feet high, with the remains of an enormous structure atop it. The southern side of both the rock and the building was melted and vitrified. Walker assumed that a volcano had been responsible for this phenomenon, but there is no volcano in the area. In addition, tectonic heat could not have caused such a liquefication of the rock surface.

An associate of Captain Walker who followed up his initial exploration commented: "The whole region between the rivers Gila and San Juan is covered with remains. The ruins of cities are to be found there which must be most extensive, and they are burnt out and vitrified in part, full of fused stones and craters caused by fires which were hot enough to liquefy rock or metal. There are paving stones and houses torn with monstrous cracks. [as though they had] been attacked by a giant's fire-plough."

These vitrified ruins in Death Valley sound fascinating--but do they really exist? There certainly is evidence of ancient civilisations in the area. In Titus Canyon, petroglyphs and inscriptions have been scratched into the walls by unknown prehistoric hands. Some experts think the graffiti might have been made by people who lived here long before the Indians we know of, because extant Indians know nothing of the glyphs and, indeed, regard them with superstitious awe.

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Says Jim Brandon in Weird America:17

Piute legends tell of a city beneath Death Valley that they call Shin-au-av. Tom Wilson, an Indian guide in the 1920s, claimed that his grandfather had rediscovered the place by wandering into a miles-long labyrinth of caves beneath the valley floor.

Eventually the Indian came to an underworld city where the people spoke an incomprehensible language and wore clothing made of leather.

Wilson told this story after a prospector named White claimed he had fallen through the floor of an abandoned mine at Wingate Pass and into an unknown tunnel. White followed this into a series of rooms, where he found hundreds of leather-clad humanoid mummies. Gold bars were stacked like bricks and piled in bins.

White claimed he had explored the caverns on three occasions. On one, his wife accompanied him; and on another, his partner, Fred Thomason. However, none of them [was] able to relocate the opening to the cavern when they tried to take a group of archaeologists on a tour of the place.

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Endnotes:
1. Steiger, Brad and Ron Calais, Mysteries of Time & Space, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1974.
2. ibid.
3. Corliss, William, Geological Anomalies, The Sourcebook Project, Glen Arm, Maryland, 1974.
4. Corliss, William, Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts, The Sourcebook Project, Glen Arm, Maryland, 1978.
5. Welfare, Simon and John Fairley, Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, Wm Collins & Sons, London, 1980.
6. ibid.
7. ibid.
8. ibid.
9. Bord, Janet and Colin Bord, Mysterious Britain, Granada Publishing, London, 1972.
10. Edwards, Frank, Strangest of All, Ace Books, New York, 1956.
11. Keller, Werner, The Bible As History, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1956.
12. Sprague de Camp, L., The Ancient Engineers, Ballantine Books, New York, 1960.
13. ibid.
14. Collyns, Robin, Ancient Astronauts: A Time Reversal?, Sphere Books, London, 1976.
15. Bharadwaaja, Maharshi, Vymaanika-Shaastra, translated and published by G.R. Josyer, Mysore, India, 1979.
16. Noorbergen, Rene, Secrets of the Lost Races, Barnes & Noble Publishers, New York, 1977.
17. Brandon, Jim, Weird America, E.P. Dutton, New York, 1978.

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VITRIFIED RUINS IN CALIFORNIA'S DEATH VALLEY





It seems one local character knew how to find the place. Brandon relates that "Death Valley Scotty", an eccentric who spent millions building a castle-estate in the area, was known to go "prospecting" when funds ran low. Death Valley Scotty would check out for a few days of wandering in the nearby Grapevine Mountains, bringing back suspiciously refined-looking gold that he claimed he had prospected. Many believe that he got his gold from the stacked gold bars in the tunnel system beneath Death Valley.

Evidence of a lost civilisation in Death Valley came in a bizarre report of caves and mummies in the Hot Citizen, a Nevada paper, on August 5, 1947. The story ran as follows:

 

EXPEDITION REPORTS NINE-FOOT SKELETONS





A band of amateur archaeologists announced today they have discovered a lost civilization of men nine feet tall in Californian caverns. Howard E. Hill, spokesman for the expedition, said the civilization may be "the fabled lost continent of Atlantis".

The caves contain mummies of men and animals and implements of a culture 80,000 years old but "in some respects more advanced than ours," Hill said. He said the 32 caves covered a 180-square-mile area in California's Death Valley and southern Nevada.

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ARCHAEOLOGISTS SKEPTICAL




"This discovery may be more important than the unveiling of King Tut's tomb," he said.
Professional archaeologists were skeptical of Hill's story. Los Angeles County Museum scientists pointed out that dinosaurs and tigers which Hill said lay side by side in the caves appeared on Earth 10,000,000 to 13,000,000 years apart.
Hill said the caves were discovered in 1931 by Dr F. Bruce Russell, Beverly Hills physician, who literally fell in while sinking a shaft for a mining claim.
"He tried for years to interest people in them," Hill said, "but nobody believed him."
Russell and several hobbyists incorporated after the war as Amazing Explorations, Inc. and started digging. Several caverns contained mummified remains of "a race of men eight to nine feet tall," Hill said. "They apparently wore a prehistoric zoot suit--a hair garment of medium length, jacket and knee-length trousers."


CAVERN TEMPLE FOUND




Another cavern contained their ritual hall with devices and markings similar to the Masonic order, he said.
"A long tunnel from this temple took the party into a room where," Hill said, "well-preserved remains of dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, imperial elephants and other extinct beasts were paired off in niches as if on display.
"Some catastrophe apparently drove the people into the caves," he said.
"All of the implements of their civilization were found," he said, "including household utensils and stoves which apparently cooked by radio waves."
"I know," he said, "that you won't believe that."


While of doubtful authenticity, this is an interesting story, to say the least. The last comment about cooking food with radio waves being unbelievable is ironic. That is the one thing that modern readers of the story could certainly believe was true, considering the widespread use of microwave ovens today. Who had heard of them in 1947?

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Sodom and Gomorrah meet Hiroshima and Nagasaki





Probably the most famous of all ancient "nuke 'em" stories is the well-known biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah:

And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his [Lot's] wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. And lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. (Genesis 18:20; 19:24-26,28)

This biblical passage has come to epitomise the destructive power of God's wrath visited on those places which sin. The Bible is very specific about the site of Sodom and Gomorrah plus several other towns; they were in the Vale of Siddim, which was located at the southern end of the Salt Sea (now called the Dead Sea). Other towns in the area, according to the Bible, were Zoar, Admah and Zeboiim (Genesis 14:2). As late as the Middle Ages, a town called Zoar existed in the area.

The Dead Sea is 1,293 feet [394 metres] below sea level and at least 1,200 feet [365 m] deep. The bottom of the sea is therefore about 2,500 feet [762 m] below the level of the Mediterranean. Approximately 25 per cent of the water of the Dead Sea consists of solid ingredients, mostly sodium chloride. Normal ocean water is around 4.6 per cent salt.

The Jordan and many smaller rivers empty themselves into this basin, which has no solitary outlet. What its tributaries bring to it in the way of chemical substances remain deposited in the Dead Sea's 500 square miles. Evaporation under the broiling sun takes place on the surface of the sea at a rate of over 230 million cubic feet per day. Arab tradition has it that so many poisonous gases come out of the lake that birds could not fly across it, as they would die before reaching the other side.

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The Dead Sea was first explored in modern times in 1848 when W. F. Lynch, an American geologist, led an expedition. He brought ashore from his government research ship two metal boats which he fastened onto large-wheeled carts. Pulled by a long team of horses, his expedition reached the Dead Sea some months later.

Lynch and his team discovered that the traditions were correct in that a man could not sink in the sea. They also surveyed the lake, noting its unusual depth and the shallow area or "tongue" at the southern end of the lake. This area is thought to be where the Vale of Siddim was located and the five cities existed. It is possible to see entire forests of trees encrusted with salt beneath the water in this southern part of the lake.

Standard historical theory on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, such as in The Bible As History by Werner Keller,18 holds that the cities of the Vale of Siddim were destroyed when a plate movement caused the Great Rift Valley--of which the Dead Sea is a part--to shift, and the area at the southern end of the Dead Sea to subside. In the great earthquake there were probably explosions, natural gases issuing forth and brimstone falling like rain. This is likely to have happened about 2000 BC, the time of Abraham and Lot, thinks Keller, though geologists place the event many thousands of years before this.

 Says Keller:

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The Jordan Valley is only part of a huge fracture in the Earth's crust. The path of this crack has meantime been accurately traced. It begins far north, several hundred miles beyond the borders of Palestine, at the foot of the Taurus mountains in Asia Minor. In the south it runs from the south shore of the Dead Sea through the Wadi el-Arabah to the Gulf of Aqabah and only comes to an end beyond the Red Sea in Africa.

At many points in this vast depression, signs of intense volcanic activity are obvious. In the Galilean mountains, in the highlands of Transjordan, on the banks of the Jabbok, a tributary of the Jordan, and on the Gulf of Aqabah are black basalt and lava...

The subsidence released volcanic forces that had been lying dormant, deep down along the whole length of the fracture. In the upper valley of the Jordan near Bashan there are still the towering craters of extinct volcanoes; great stretches of lava and deep layers of basalt have been deposited on the limestone surface.

From time immemorial the area around this depression has been subject to earthquakes. There is repeated evidence of them and the Bible itself records them...

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Did Sodom and Gomorrah sink when perhaps a part of the base of this huge fissure collapsed still further to the accompaniment of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions?

As for the pillars of salt, Keller says:

To the west of the southern shore and in the direction of the Biblical "Land of the South", the Negeb, stretches a ridge of hills about 150 feet high and 10 miles from north to south. Their slopes sparkle and glitter in the sunshine like diamonds. It is an odd phenomenon of nature. For the most part this little range of hills consists of pure rock salt.

The Arabs call it Jebel Usdum, an ancient name, which preserves in it the word "Sodom". Many blocks of salt have been worn away by the rain and have crashed downhill. They have odd shapes and some of them stand on end, looking like statues. It is easy to imagine them suddenly seeming to come to life.

These strange statues in salt remind us vividly of the Biblical description of Lot's wife who was turned into a pillar of salt... And everything in the neighbourhood of the Salt Sea is even to this day quickly covered with a crust of salt.

However, Keller himself admits that there is a very serious problem with this theory of a cataclysm sending the Vale of Siddim to the bottom of the Dead Sea: it must have happened many hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years ago--at least according to most geologists. Says Keller:

In particular, we must remember there can be no question that the Jordan fissure was formed before about 4000 BC. Indeed, according to the most recent presentation of the facts, the origin of the fissure dates back to the Oligocene, the third oldest stage of the Tertiary period.

We thus have to think in terms not of thousands, but of millions of years. Violent volcanic activity connected with the Jordan fissure has been shown to have occurred since then, but even so we do not get any further than the Pleistocene which came to an end approximately ten thousand years ago.

Certainly we do not come anywhere near to the third, still less the second millennium before Christ--the period, that is to say, in which the patriarchs are traditionally placed.

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In short, Keller is saying that any geological catastrophe that would have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah would have had to have happened a million years ago, or so geologists have told him. Keller says that geologists have not found any evidence of a recent catastrophe at the southern end of the Dead Sea, at least not for about 10,000 years. Says Keller:

In addition, it is precisely to the south of the Lisan peninsula, where Sodom and Gomorrah are reported to have been annihilated, that the traces of former volcanic activity cease. In short, the proof in this area of a quite recent catastrophe which wiped out towns and was accompanied by violent volcanic activity is not provided by the findings of the geologists.

So here is the problem: the Dead Sea area may have had a cataclysm that could be the origin of the Old Testament story; however, conservative uniformitarian geologists have said that any such Earth changes must have occurred long before any sort of collective memory of the event.