Twilight of the Gods: The Mayan Calendar and the Return of the Extraterrestrials (4 page)

According to this World Ice Theory, our Earth has harbored numerous highly developed cultures that existed in various geological ages-before today's moon even came into existence. These cultures were always destroyed when mighty boulders approached from space and exploded in our atmosphere. The debris that thundered down onto the Earth has caused such catastrophes as the Flood and the downfall of Atlantis. In Horbiger's opinion, mankind was already highly civilized in the tertiary era. The moon that arose during the tertiary crashed down to Earth, according to Horbiger, 25,000 years ago, causing all of the lands in the tropics to flood-with the exception of a few high peaks in the Andes and Ethiopia.

Hans Horbiger was a wrathful prophet indeed! And he certainly had the look for it: He wore his white beard long, and had a permanently fierce expression. On top of that, he had handwriting that was virtually unreadable. Rather egocentrically, he viewed himself as one of the world's great scholars and the only one who proclaimed the truth. Accordingly, he demanded radical recognition from the scientific community of the mid-1920s. His way of thinking was much like Hitler's-and vice versa. In his unholy zeal, Horbiger tolerated no opposition, damning the mathematical and astrophysical knowledge of the times as worthless lies.

itler and Horbiger

In the scientific and technology-fixated world of pre-war Germany, Hans Horbiger blazed his trail with a mixture of dogmatism, brute force, and alleged enlightenment. Together with his students, he began agitating among the circles of the intelligentsia. Lacking any sort of scruples and utterly immune to criticism, he invested some of his not-insubstantial wealth to set up a movement that was made up of paying members and also had its own small elite troop unit. Adherents plastered the walls of universities and sports stadiums with posters, and handbills were distributed by the thousand. Lectures held by astronomers who disagreed with Horbiger's opinions were disrupted with boos and ironic laughter, and professors were badgered on the streets. Horbiger wrote to well-known engineers and astronomers: "Either you must learn to believe in me, or I must treat you as my enemy."'

The Horbiger movement published a total of three extensive reference works and 40 further books aimed at a wider audience. Not only that, there were countless pamphlets and brochures. Their monthly magazine, Der Schlussel zum Weltgeschehen (The Key to World Events), achieved a circulation of 100,000 copies.

Hitler believed in Horbiger and supported him publicly. They also met many times. Hitler listened avidly to Horbiger's lectures, even though the irascible Horbiger wouldn't allow even the Fiihrer to interrupt. In one of the pamphlets the group published at the time, one can read: "One Austrian, Hitler, banished the Jewish politicians. A second Austrian, Horbiger, will banish the Jewish scientists too!"'

Luis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, two great French thinkers and journalists, wrote about Horbiger's teachings:

Horbiger claims that he can reveal the truths about our planet's earliest history as well as its distant future. He throws all current theories on the history of cultures, the appearance and development of mankind and his societies simply out of the window. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago, he maintains, there already existed god-like peoples, giants and highly developed cultures.. .the entire universe is undergoing a kind of uniform phase of development; it is a living organism in which every part exerts an influence on every other part. The quest of mankind is linked to the quest of the stars; everything that happens in the cosmos is reflected in events on the Earth, and vice versa.'

But what has all this got to do with the highlands of Bolivia and mysterious ruined city of Tiwanaku?

1.1. The Gateway of the Sun in Tiwanaku. Image courtesy of Tatjana Ingold, Solothurn, Switzerland.

The answer is that one of Horbiger's followers was an archaeologist, a certain Dr. Edmund Kiss, who spent nine years carrying out research in the highlands of the Andes. There, in Tiwanaku, a monolithic gateway had been discovered-what is today known as the "Gateway of the Sun." For Edmund Kiss, the engravings on this sun gate represented some kind of calendar. It was possible, he claimed, to read the solstices, the equinoxes, every day of the year, the position of the moon for every hour-and all of this data even took into account the rotation of the Earth! "The people that invented this calendar belonged to a higher civilization than ours," insisted Kiss.' According to his calculations, Tiwanaku was erected around 27,000 years before Christ's birth. This calendar, he maintained, was engraved in the stone by astronomers from the tertiary period and provides us with "incontrovertible, scientific evidence."5

1.2. Winged beings flank the central figure. Image courtesy of Tatjana Ingold, Solothurn, Switzerland.

Indeed, Horbiger's followers actually did find evidence-in and around Tiwanaku-of some kind of global disaster. For instance, the remains of a large harbor, sea sediments at an altitude of 2.5 miles, volcanic ash mixed in with the mud from a flood of biblical proportions, and even fragments of bones from alleged giants. Not only that, all of these things originated from the time when our previous moon allegedly exploded, initially causing a ring of debris to form around the Earth that subsequently rained down catastrophically upon our planet. And let us not forget that-at least according to Horbiger-this was not the first time. There had been many previous moons and many catastrophes. Horbiger worked out that the amount of time that had elapsed during which the Earth was not orbited by any moon at all was 138,000 years. During that time, giant kings apparently reigned over the Earth. Then, around 14,000 years ago, the Earth captured our present moon and yet another catastrophe rolled over our mistreated globe: "From the north and the south, the seas flooded into the middle regions of the Earth; and in the north, on the plateaus that the newly captured moon had laid bare, the ice ages began."'

But has Horbiger's World Ice Theory been completely refuted? Not quite, because giants did live on the Earth in days gone by-at least according to ancient records. But for now, let me tell you what I actually know on the subject.

iants Roam the Earth

In Christianity's most holy book, the Bible, giants are mentioned as early as the Book of Genesis (Genesis 6:4): "There were giants on the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them: the same became mighty men, who were of old, men of renown."'

In the fifth book of the Pentateuch there is even mention of a mighty sarcophagus: "For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? Nine cubits was the length of it, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man" (Deuteronomy 3:11). (The Hebrew cubit was equivalent to 19 inches.) The same book mentions "a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim" who God plans to destroy with a "consuming fire" (Deuteronomy, Chapters 2 & 3).

And we've all heard of the famous struggle between David and Goliath. In the Bible, it is described by the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel, Chapters 4-7):

And there went out a champion from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span... and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass.. .and the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam; and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron...."

All but a very few of the gigantic "Anakites" were driven out by Joshua: "No Anakites were left in the land of the Israelites; only in Gaza, in Gath and Ashdod did any remain" (Joshua 11:22) and "In earlier times the name of Hebron had been Kiriath-arba, named after Arba, the greatest of the Anakim" (Joshua 15).

In the first Book of Chronicles, the reader can marvel at the story of how the last giant was finally killed:

...at which time Sibbechai the Hushathite slew Sippai, that was of the children of the giant... a man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were four and twenty, six on each hand, and six on each foot: and he also was the son of the giant. (Chapter 8) ...these were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants. (1 Chronocles 4 ff.)

Of course, the Bible is not the only source that confirms the existence of giants in previous ages. In the ancient texts on the legends of the Jews you can read: "There were the `Emim' or the terrible ones, then the `Rephaim' or giants, and also the `Giborim' or the violent ones..."s

And giants are also mentioned in the 14th chapter of the book of the antediluvian prophet Enoch, one of the apocrypha. Here, the "Most High" reproaches his "fallen guardians of heaven": "Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth, and begotten giants (as your) sons?"'

In the Greek saga "The Argonautica," giants are mentioned frequently. Here's an example: On the Kapidag Peninsular, the Argonauts unwittingly climb a mountain to get a better view of their position. Heracles and a few men remain on board to guard the Argo. Suddenly, they are attacked by giants. But the monsters are unaware of Heracles who shoots and kills several of them from a distance with his arrows. "Their bodies have three pairs of nerved hands, like paws. The first pair hangs from their gnarled shoulders, the second and third pairs nestle up against their misbegotten hips...."10

These monsters crop up in many of the classic Greek sagas and legends. For instance, in Homer's Odyssey, when the hero battles against a giant on the Island of the Cyclops and burns out his only eye.11 Nowadays, walls made of gigantic stone blocks are known as cyclops walls.

Monsters of varying kinds turn up in the Gilgamesh epic that was unearthed in Nineveh (in modern-day Iraq). The ancient clay tablets were part of the library of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal. The story tells how Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu climb the mountain of the gods together. Shortly before they reach their goal, they are confronted by a terrifying being called Humbaba. Humbaba has paws like a lion, his body is covered with iron scales, and his feet are armed with claws. The two brothers in arms shoot arrows at the monster and fling their throwsticks, but everything simply bounces off. The "Park of the Gods" too is guarded by dreadful creatures. Namely, gigantic "scorpion-beings... Trembling terror they inspire, the sight of them is death, their frightening aura sweeps over the mountains."12 These monsters cannot be any ordinary creatures: They can talk and even give the two friends a stern warning.