The Giza Power Plant (35 page)

When carbon dating was first being developed, organic samples were collected for testing from around the world. The stipulation on the kind of samples that were collected was that they had died and ceased to draw carbon in from the atmosphere before the advent of our industrial age, and especially before nuclear testing had been carried out. The explosion of
nuclear devices releases neutrons that would result in an elevation of C
₁₄
in the atmosphere. Tree-ring dating had revealed that there was an elevation of C
₁₄
in the atmosphere and in artifacts older than 1,000
B.C
., which had thrown off the atomic clock. Around 8,000
B.C
. to 10,000
B.C
., the level of C
₁₄
started to fall back to "normal."

What we are forced to consider is whether the high level of C
₁₄
in prehistoric artifacts is a "smoking gun" left behind by a highly evolved civilization 10,000 years ago. As I have argued, a complete interpretation of a civilization such as ours is beyond the scope of one individual or group of individuals who are trained in only one discipline. Archaeologists and Egyptologists have interpreted and explained artifacts surviving ancient civilizations from a perspective that has resulted in a belief that our own civilization is the first to develop technology that uses electricity as a means of performing work. Working from this premise, it is not surprising that evidence such as the granite artifacts found in Egypt, which demand that we include the possibility of advanced technological knowledge existing in prehistory, has been misinterpreted, disregarded, or overlooked.

We also must consider, however, that if this unthinkable nuclear catastrophe actually transpired, someone would have put into writing the horror they witnessed. It is possible that such writings would survive the centuries to provide future historians with some clues to the horrific events, assuming those records were interpreted correctly. Without doubt, an event of such magnitude would leave its mark. And indeed, written records do entice us with clues of what could have been an ancient nuclear accident—or even an ancient nuclear war.

The ancient Indian Sanskrit text
The Mah
bh
rata
is a work that has no precise chronological origin. It is estimated that it was written around 400
B.C
. but probably was copied from earlier texts from a much earlier date. A complete translation in eleven volumes, though unelegant in some scholars' minds, was made by Kesari Mohan Ganguli and published under the name P. Chandra Roy between 1883 and
1896.
⁵
The work is replete with references to terrible wars that involved the use of weapons that we normally do not associate with the primitive warriors ofprehistory. The writer, or writers, of
The Mah
bh
rata
seemed to exaggerate, or get confused, when describing weapons that—given the era in which they were used—should
have been limited to swords, spears, and bows and arrows. Was it imagination or wishful thinking that prompted the writer(s) to describe weapons that included missiles and "birds" that swooped down from the heavens, issuing forth fire to demolish entire forests? There also was a terrifying device that moved in a way that, if considered to be a simple projectile, defied the laws of physics:

Thus the terrifying tumult of war was rampant when the Gods Nara and N
r
yana joined the battle. The blessed Lord Visnu, upon seeing the divine bow in Nara's hand, called up with his mind his D
navadestroying discus. No sooner thought-of than the enemy-burning discus appeared from the sky in a blaze of light matching the sun's, with its razor-sharp circular edge, the discus Sudarsana, terrible, invincible, supreme. And when the fiercely blazing, terror-spreading weapon had come to hand, God Acyuta [Visnu] with arms like elephant trunks loosed it, and it zigzagged fast as a flash in a blur of light, razing the enemy's strongholds. Effulgent like the Fire of Doomsday, it felled foe after foe, impetuously tearing asunder thousands of D
navas and Daityas as the hand of the greatest of men let go of it in the battle. Here it was ablaze licking like a fire, there it cut down with a vehemence the forces of the Asuras. How it was hurled into the sky, then into the ground, and like a ghoul it drank blood in that
war.
⁶

There seem to be forces at work in this battle that we do not possess even today. There is an intelligence that guides this discus. Is this intelligence just the imagination of the writer, or is it the report of an eyewitness observation? In order to justify the latter, we have to consider not only the intelligence that guided this discus, but the source of its energy. As though to answer our question, the text later refers to the "Elixir" that brought an added dimension to the ancient Indian wars so that they more closely parallel our own: "When that grand bird had rid them all of life, he strode across them to look for the Elixir. He saw fire everywhere; blazing fiercely, it filled all the skies with its flames, burning hot and razor-sharp rays, and evil under the stirring of the
wind."
⁷
Then as if to make an association between the Elixir and its use: "He saw, in front of the Elixir, an iron wheel with a honed edge
and sharp blades, which ran incessantly, bright like fire and sun. . . . And behind the wheel he saw two big snakes, shimmering like blazing fires, tongues darting like lightning, mouths blazing, eyes burning, looks venomous, no less powerful than gruesome, in a perpetual rage and fierce, that stood guard over the Elixir, their eyes ever-baleful and never blinking. Whomever either snake's eyes were to fall upon would turn to
ashes."
⁸
This passage brings to mind the important role gasoline has played in modern war, not only as a weapon, but as fuel for vehicles. Could the Elixir have been the gasoline that fueled these ancient conflagrations?

Perhaps the foregoing is just an ancient myth that has no basis in reality, although there are more references to other weapons of war that are closer to home and that have more meaning today than they did when the Sanskrit was first translated: "The King of the Gods, beholding the rage of Phalguna, unleashed his own blazing missile, which streaked across the entire sky. Thereupon the Wind God, who dwells in the sky, thunderously shaking all the oceans, generated towering clouds that sent forth shafts of
water."
⁹