Australia’s Mystery Animals
While most scientists solemnly declare that the Queensland Tiger and the Tasmanian Tiger—marsupial predators which survived into recent times in Australia, to be extinct—each year, members of the public report seeing the creature in remote areas of Tasmania and mainland Australia.
Although Thylacines, or Tasmanian Tigers, supposedly died out in New Guinea 10,000 years ago, and on the Australian mainland as recently as 3,000 years ago, the animal lived on into the 20th century in Tasmania, the last one dying in captivity in 1936. However, ever since then, people have continued to report encounters with Thylacines, including a sighting in 1995 by a Parks and Wildlife Service officer in the Pyengana region of eastern Tasmania.
Although the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service, World Wildlife Fund, and even the Walt Disney Film Company have been monitoring and investigating recent reports of sightings, various search parties have thus far failed either to capture or film a living Thylacine.
Evidence for the Queensland Tiger
In the 19th century, there were several livestock killings associated with Queensland Tiger of Australia’s far northern tropical rain forests. So in the 1940s and 1950s, when a wave of sightings of a striped, tigerlike beast erupted to the south of North Queensland’s tropical rain forests, the tigers were killed to extinction… or so it was believed.
Like the Thylacine, the Queensland Tiger has been seen numerous times since the 1950s, although no specimen has yet been captured or photographed.
Some think these animals may be a surviving remnant of Thylacoleo carnifex, the fearsome “Marsupial Lion,” a creature that stalked the forests of Ice Age Australia. Farmers in the mountains of Victoria refer to the creature as the “Big Cats,” although some insist that what they are seeing are actually North American mountain lions. Many, however, say that while the creature looks superficially like a puma or a panther, on close inspection, it most definitely is no cat.
The Queensland Tiger is usually described as a heavy-set animal about the size of a large dog, with stripes across its back. It has a feline head and is said to be able to disembowel dogs with one swipe of its claws. Its peculiar hopping gate, great leaps, and pouches in females, indicate that it is a marsupial.
However, nearly all the tigers seen in Victoria are black or dark chocolate brown. A few reports from New South Wales, the state immediately north of Victoria, describe the creature as having black stripes on its rump and tail, which are hard to see from afar on its dark brown fur.
The creature is said to have a large, round head with small, pointed, or triangular ears. The head is often described as disproportionately large in relation to the body and is supported by a thick neck. Their eyes are large and positioned towards the front of the head, giving the creature binocular vision.
These beasts are superb climbers, literally able to run up the trunks of gum trees and sheer rock faces with ease. They generally keep to thick eucalyptus forests but are sometimes, especially in winter, seen in bracken scrub, which is plentiful in the lowland forest that abuts their main habitat.
They can supposedly spring up to 30 feet from a standing start. In flight, their motion is one of leaping or bounding, with all four legs involved in the action and the tail beating up and down in rhythm. Since they move with an awkward, shuffling gait at slow speed, some believe that this is because, as marsupials, they are unable to move their hind legs independently.
These Australian “lions” may primarily be tree-lovers, but reports of them come in even from the remotest corners of the Australian desert. There, the creature is frequently reported as tan colored and sporting either prominent stripes or spots.
One thing is certain, Australia is not short on animal mysteries that claim the interest of many researchers.
A Young Woman’s Search for the Queensland Tiger
In 2002-2003, Debbie Hynes, a high school student from Victoria, Australia, led several expeditions in search of the supposedly extinct Thylacoleo. Hynes first heard the tale of the Queensland Tiger several years ago when on vacation in the Victorian mountains. The yarn fascinated her and since then, she has endeavored to track and photograph one, mainly on expeditions into the wilderness during term breaks. The result? She has found some tracks and evidence of it killing many farm animals, but she has yet to capture one on film.
“The creature’s seasonal movements are easy to track, says Hynes. “When it is a lean winter, it comes down from the mountains and leaves dead bodies wherever it goes.”
For more information about her research, visit www.Thylacoleo.com
Racing Towards the Apocalypse:Calculating the Coming of “End Times”
It could come from an asteroid slamming into the Pacific Ocean, vaporizing millions of tons of water and sending tsunamis to flood the coastlines of scores of nations. It could come from some unknown, genetically modified organism, escaped from its test tube to run amok through the biosphere. It could come from the innocent tinkerings of scientists in a particle accelerator deep underground, who accidentally create a black hole that annihilates the whole planet. Or, as some claim, it could come from the death rays of an invading alien armada. So how likely is the Apocalypse? If Martin Rees, a professor at Cambridge University and British Astronomer Royal is correct, the odds are 50-50.
The way he sees it, mankind’s meddling with nature, combined with our historically irresponsible use of technology, can only lead to disaster. From the slash-and-burn deforestation of the Amazon to the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it would seem that any new way of affecting our world will inevitably destroy us.
Belief in the Apocalypse
The Indian Vedas and Mayan texts from ancient Mesoamerica describe a cycle of creation and destruction, death and rebirth. Similarly, in ancient Persia, the Zoroastrians saw the universe as a cosmic battlefield between the forces of good and evil. Christianity quickly picked up on this theme.
For instance, according to many historians, medieval Christians were seized by fears of the coming Apocalypse. In fact, Dr. Richard Landes, director of Boston University’s Center for Millennial Studies, believes that the great spate of cathedral-building in the 11th century followed the “terror of the year 1000,” in which entire villages made pilgrimages to repent for their sins before what people then believed was Christ’s imminent return and the ensuing battle between Good and Evil.
This obsession with the Last Judgment continued through the Renaissance, when the artistic and intellectual light that shone in the city of Florence was dimmed in the 1490s by the would-be prophet Savonarola, who preached a message of repentant austerity. Even as late as the 1600s, scientist Sir Isaac Newton was obsessed with trying to calculate the coming of the End Times, as promised in the Book of Revelations.
However, as the Age of Reason gained ground, and thinkers sought to improve life in the here-and-now, interest in Armageddon declined. In the 1800s, the holy men in western European countries were more interested in Christianizing heathens in Africa, China, and the South Pacific as a means of justifying their competition for imperial power than they were in preparing for the world to come.
However, the New World, which had been the refuge for the apocalyptic faith that had proven unpopular in Europe after the Reformation, was fertile ground for such beliefs. For instance, the Millerites of rural New York State, as well as the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, believed that the end would come in 1844, a notion based on the lifespans in Genesis and a division of history into a 6,000-year “week” (beginning with Creation) followed by a 1,000-year “sabbath.”
However, as the optimism of the Victorian era was replaced by the post-World War II dread of chemical and biological warfare and the nuclear angst of the Cold War, so, too, has fear of the End regained its popularity—albeit in a different guise. For just as technology has replaced religion as our means of explaining the world to ourselves, so, too, have the various end-time scenarios assumed a modern façade. Today, it is believed that asteroids and biological disasters will bring about history’s grand finale. Such fears may reflect a deep ambiguity that many feel about the world that we have created for ourselves—and, of course, there is the danger that the Apocalypse will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Modern Doomsday Scenarios
The mechanisms of which modern prophets warn vary wildly. Some scientists warn that an experiment in nanotechnology could result in a horde of tiny, self-replicating robots that transform everything they touch into “gray goo.” Other harbingers of doom feel that genetic tinkering with more mundane viruses and bacteria could create a super-plague that would make the Black Death seem like a bad cold.
Another type of doomsday scenario is the specter of a titanic meteorite hitting the earth. Such a disaster is generally believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous age. And certainly, such life-shattering impacts are not unheard of in modern times. (For instance, in 1908, what is now believed to have been a meteor leveled 830 square miles of Russian evergreen forest.) Though large meteor impacts are rare, the frightening aspect is that science has no means of destroying such a threat if it should arise.
Then, of course, there are intentional bringers of doom: terrorists or disgruntled souls who feel that the world might be better off without people. Such a person or organization could unleash a chemical or biological plague that would kill thousands, or even millions, before it was stopped. Even worse would be a nuclear bomb set off on California’s San Andreas Fault, an event which would set off devastating earthquakes in the region. When one considers the multitude of groups and individuals who might want to cause such a disaster, the real question becomes not their possible motivations but who is closest to developing the means.
Keeping the End at Bay
So how does one prevent the End? Our best defense, it would seem, would be knowledge. By keeping close watch on the scientific projects now being undertaken, potential threats could be identified before they reached the stage where they might pose a threat to life on Earth.
Yet at the same time, civil libertarians and scientists warn against such a system. The only way in which the boundaries of human knowledge can be expanded, they feel, is through free scientific inquiry, unregulated by political concerns—and what government or organization could be trusted to keep such monitoring completely impartial?
Another suggestion for avoiding disaster—and one long championed by those who feel that the human race’s best chance for long-term survival is to move outwards to the stars—is to devise an early-warning-and-interception system for incoming asteroids. Such a system would do more than serve as a security blanket for those who lie awake at night contemplating cosmic doom; it would also push forward the frontiers of space technology, putting us one step closer to establishing a base on the Moon, Mars, or Alpha Centauri.
Indeed, perhaps the human race’s best strategy for surviving the end of the world is not to tie our own future to that of the planet Earth.
The Face on Mars: Evidence of ET Intelligence?
In 1976, a space probe orbiting Mars took a photograph of a formation on the surface of the planet which resembled a humanoid face. Is the formation the signature of an unknown intelligence or simply the work of erosion? At first glance, the implications of intelligent life on Mars—let alone an intelligence capable of carving a human likeness in the desert—seems absurd.
But regardless of first impressions, the Face on Mars remains a genuine scientific enigma. Its dimensions and geometry are suspiciously artificial-looking, as would be expected from an intentionally created monument. And rigorous computer modeling has put to rest the conventional wisdom that the Face is a fortuitous trick of light and shadow; the Face remains face-like when viewed from a variety of angles and illumination conditions.
Over the years, our collective dismissal of the Face has affected the very fabric of scientific methodology. For instance, when a confirming photograph of the Face arrived from Mars in April of 1998, technicians at Pasadena, CA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) obliterated it with an arsenal of arbitrary graphics filters before releasing it to the media.
With the mainstream press placated by what looked more like a two-dimensional footprint than a humanoid face, NASA hoped that the mystery would vanish. Instead, the Face—and other unusual features in the Cydonia Mensae region of Mars—became underground superstars. Hundreds of sites cropped up on the Web, many of them claiming that the Martian face must have been artificially created.
The Face in Context
The Face rests upon a rectangular platform and seems to have a linear adornment along its so-called “headdress,” which brings to mind the megalithic artwork found on Earth. But what is most intriguing is that the Mars Face is humanoid in structure, with an anatomically correct eye visible beneath a heavy brow, at least one nostril, and a gaping mouth.
Nearby lurks the City Pyramid, an enormous five-sided feature with suggestions of erosion around its edges, and an enigmatic feature dubbed the “Fort.” Both of these anomalies share the Face’s vertical axis and both are roughly the same size, implying architecture. Futhermore, the Cydonia region on Mars contains several intriguing small-scale Mounds that suggest deliberate mathematical arrangement, emphasizing the tetrahedral constant of 19.5 degrees.
Not only that, but the architectural resemblance is striking between Mounds P and E. Mound P is a bisymmetric, bunker-like feature accompanied by an elevated hexagon, whereas Mound E appears to be a weathered five-sided pyramid, not unlike the much larger City Pyramid, which is perched atop a shallow buried square. In the adjacent corner of the square, a smooth-edged tetrahedron pokes up from the accumulated dirt, also begging explanation.
Together with the vast D&M Pyramid to the south—and other unnatural-looking formations in the region—the Face appears to be part of a complex of artificial structures. Even if the Face were not present, the Fort and Mounds would certainly warrant further investigation.
Whose Face Is It, Anyway?
If the Face on Mars is artificial, how do we reconcile its humanoid likeness with its location on a supposedly dead planet?
The theory of panspermia—in which hibernating microscopic life is shuttled through space aboard comets and planetary debris—has become an increasingly accepted theory on the origins of life among exobiologists, who note that both Earth and Mars exchange tons of matter annually in the form of meteors.
In fact, some scientists have argued that life on Earth originated not on Earth itself but inside comets that crashed together during the formation of the solar system, potentially seeding both Earth and Mars with ready-made micro-organisms derived from the same genetic alphabet. If so, the hypothesized “Martians” who constructed the Face may be our relatives. For if lifeforms are indeed capable of hitching rides between planets, then life on Earth could have Martian ancestry, or Martian life could have terrestrial ancestry. Or Mars and Earth could host life that was originally foreign to both planets.
Theoretically, panspermia could even accelerate evolution on a recipient planet by importing new DNA sequences, or even simple organisms. The idea of bio-friendly planets being genetically jump-started threatens the prevailing wisdom that Mars was not “alive long enough” to produce advanced or intelligent life. If both Earth and Mars share a genetic heritage, it is possible that a human-like species could have evolved on Mars.
Although many believe that the Face on Mars must have something to do with humanity, there is the equally unsettling possibility that the Mars Face was constructed by alien beings who just happen to look similar to humans.
Mars in the Crossfire
In the three years that have passed since the Mars Global Surveyor probe returned its second glimpse of the Face, the scientific search for alien artifacts on the Martian surface has achieved an urgency offset only by the scoffing remarks offered by NASA and JPL, whose statements have led some to suggest that the experts either do not understand the workings of their own instruments or else feel threatened by the Face’s enduring mystery.
Self-proclaimed skeptics have continued their denouncements of the features in Cydonia. Yet debunkers who compared the Mars Face to natural profiles on Earth (such as New Hampshire’s former “Old Man of the Mountain”) ignore that the formations on Earth are only visible under limited viewing conditions. And NASA has continued to betray its pledge to reimage the Cydonia region.
At the same time, our understanding of Mars is changing. We now know that the rusted sands of our sister planet may harbor liquid water, a prerequisite for carbon-based organic chemistry. Not ony that, but notable scientists such as Arthur C. Clarke have stated that images from the Mars Global Surveyor show probable macroscopic lifeforms.
NASA refuses to comment, presumably because the discovery of life on Mars would encourage a manned mission to Mars, thus dealing a fatal blow to JPL’s Mars Exploration Program, which hinges solely on telerobotic orbiters and landers. But rather than drown in speculation, many scientists and curious laymen simply want to resolve the lingering question: is the Face artificial or a freakish natural formation?
As Stanley McDaniel has argued both online and in The McDaniel Report (his book on NASA’s scientific failure to investigate Cydonia), the Face on Mars offers a challenge to the prevailing Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) paradigm; perhaps “aliens” are not so alien after all!
Bronze Age Solar Observatory Found in Eastern Germany
In September of 2002, German archaeologists revealed a Bronze Age find with the potential to change modern-day thought about how the ancients viewed their relationship to the stars, moon, and sun, and how they may have used solar observatories to predict the cycle of life. Based on its association with other Bronze Age artifacts found near Nebra, a site located about 110 miles southwest of Berlin in eastern Germany, archaeologists believe that the bronze Sangerhausen Star Disk may be 3,600 years old.
Despite having been discovered about four years ago by metal detectors illegally working the site, it was not until July of 2002 that authorities seized the artifact, along with two swords, two axes, a chisel, and a set of arm-rings, and arrested the people who had plundered the site. Only then were archaeologists able to pinpoint exactly where the looters had unearthed the plate-like disk and begin excavating the site. Thus far, archaeologists have uncovered a circular earthen embankment some 200 yards in diameter, which encloses the entire site and includes a series of ramparts and ditches that were used continually from 1,600 to 700 BC.
Valued at about $10 million, the disk’s images were embossed with gold leaf. They display the sun (or a full moon), a crescent moon, the horizon, and 32 stars, several of which may represent the Pleiades, the star cluster used by Bronze Age peoples to predict the timing of autumn and the fall harvest. If determined to be authentic, the Star Disk could be the earliest astronomical map in existence, and the forested site where it was found—Mittelberg hill—might be the home to the oldest surviving solar observatory.
Speculating that the structure was a celestial observatory, astronomer Wolfhard Schlosser from the University of Bochum, said, “The site’s special aspect can be seen in the correct determination of at least two important dates. On June 21, the sun can be seen from here to set exactly behind the Brocken, the most important mountain in the Harz, and on May 1, the sun sets behind the Kulpenberg, the highest hill of the Kyffhäuser.”
Superficially, then, the Nebra site has similarities to other henge sites in Europe, including Stonehenge and Avebury, both of which were enclosed with earthen banks and ditches. However, since the German site was constructed with timber logs rather than stone slabs, it is more similar to Woodhenge, an ancient site in England where timber uprights were erected instead of stone.
The Purpose of the Disk
While scholars have wrestled with the possibility that such megalithic sites functioned as some sort of celestial observatory, they have been unable to offer concrete physical proof to bolster their theories. So the association of the Star Disk with the henge-like structure at Nebra may be just the breakthrough they have been seeking. The images on the Star Disk may even correlate with the view of the night sky as seen from Mittelberg hill during the Bronze Age.
Besides identifying several astronomical bodies on the bronze disk, scholars have offered a variety of interpretations about the two curved shapes depicted opposite each other on the object. According to Professor Schlosser, the two gold bands represent an angle of 82.5°. This represents the circle of the daily period passing from the summer solstice on June 21 to the winter solstice on December 21 in central Germany. A third more curved gold band lies between the two horizon arcs, and may represent either the Milky Way or a ship sailing between the horizons across the nocturnal celestial ocean.
Archaeologist Harald Meller, director of State Museum for Prehistory in Halle, Germany, believes that both the circular building and the Star Disk were used by the ancients to track the sun’s movement from winter to summer solstices, providing information on when to sow and harvest their crops.
Findings from the Nebra excavations will be published in early 2003, and a conference on the subject is planned for 2004 in Halle, Germany, where the Star Disk is currently being studied. Future plans for the site near Nebra include reconstructing the solar observatory and turning the hilltop into a tourist attraction so that visitors will be able to experience how the structure may have functioned during prehistoric times.
Perhaps by then, sufficient evidence will exist to determine whether the bronze plate is authentic and confirm both its original purpose and that the henge site was used by the ancients as a solar observatory. Its broader implications may change the way archaeoastronomers understand the prehistoric world, how megalithic monuments were used, and whether or not the ancients had an intellectual sophistication that modern humans have yet to define.
Kailasa Temple
Kailasa Temple situated in caves at Ellora, was carved to represent the Kailasa Mountain, which is believed to be the home of Lord Shiva, the god of destruction.
This temple is more of a marvel than a mystery, but coming to thing, it is the largest monolithic structure in the world, carved top-down from a single rock. It contains the largest cantilevered rock ceiling in the world.
The scale at which the work was undertaken is enormous. It covers twice the area of the Parthenon in Athens and is 1.5 times high, and it entailed removing 200,000 tonnes of rock. It is believed to have taken 7,000 labourers 150 years to complete the project.
The rear wall of its excavated courtyard 276 feet (84 m) 154 feet (47 m) is 100 ft (33 m) high. The temple proper is 164 feet (50 m) deep, 109 feet (33 m) wide, and 98 feet (30 m) high.
It consists of a gateway, antechamber, assembly hall, sanctuary and tower. Virtually every surface is lavishly embellished with symbols and figures from the puranas (sacred Sanskrit poems). The temple is connected to the gallery wall by a bridge.
Kailasa Temple
More Info on Ajantha and Ellora.
Ajanta and nearby Ellora are two of the most amazing archaeological sites in India. Although handcrafted caves are scattered throughout India’s western state of Maharashtra, the complexes at Ajanta and Ellora – roughly 300 kilometres northeast of Mumbai (Bombay) – are the most elaborate and varied examples known. The caves aren’t natural caves, but man-made temples cut into a massive granite hillside. They were built by generations of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain monks, who lived, worked, and worshipped in the caves, slowly carving out elaborate statues, pillars, and meditation rooms.
Ajanta Caves
Ajanta (more properly Ajujnthi), a village in the erstwhile dominions of the Nizam of Hyderabad in India and now in Buldhana district in the state of Maharashtra
(N. lat. 20 deg. 32′ by E. long. 75 deg. 48′) is celebrated for its cave hermitages and halls.
Located 99-km from Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Ajanta encompasses 29 rock-cut rooms created between 200 BC and AD 650 using rudimentary hand tools. Most are viharas (living quarters), while four are chaityas (temples).
The Ajanta caves were discovered in the 19th century by a group of British officers on a tiger hunt.
Ajanta began as a religious enclave for Buddhist monks and scholars more than 2,000 years ago. It is believed that, originally, itinerant monks sought shelter in natural grottos during monsoons and began decorating them with religious motifs to help pass the rainy season. They used earlier wooden structures as models for their work. As the grottos were developed and expanded, they became permanent monasteries, housing perhaps 200 residents.
The artisans responsible for Ajanta did not just hack holes in the cliff, though. They carefully excavated, carving stairs, benches, screens, columns, sculptures, and other furnishings and decorations as they went, so that these elements remained attached to the resulting floors, ceilings and walls.
They also painted patterns and pictures, employing pigments derived from natural, water soluble substances. Their achievements would seem incredible if executed under ideal circumstances, yet they worked only by the light of oil lamps and what little sunshine penetrated cave entrances.
The seventh century abandonment of these masterpieces is a mystery. Perhaps the Buddhists suffered religious persecution. Or perhaps the isolation of the caves made it difficult for the monks to collect sufficient alms for survival.
Some sources suggest that remnants of the Ajanta colony relocated to Ellora, a site closer to an important caravan route. There, another series of handcrafted caves chronologically begins where the Ajanta caves end.
Ellora Caves
Near Ellora , village in E central Maharashtra state, India, extending more than 1.6 km on a hill, are 34 rock and cave temples (5th–13th century).
Located about 30 Kilometres from Aurangabad, Ellora caves are known for the genius of their sculptors. It is generally believed that these caves were constructed by the sculptors who moved on from Ajanta. This cave complex is multicultural, as the caves here provide a mix of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain religions. The Buddhist caves came first, about 200 BC – 600 AD followed by the Hindu 500 – 900 AD and Jain 800 – 1000 AD.
Of the 34 caves chiselled into the sloping side of the low hill at Ellora, 12 (dating from AD 600 to 800) are Buddhist (one chaitya, the rest viharas), 17 are Hindu (AD 600 to 900), and 5 are Jain (AD 800 to 1100).As the dates indicate, some caves were fashioned simultaneously – maybe as a form of religious competition. At the time, Buddhism was declining in India and Hinduism regaining ground, so representatives of both were eager to impress potential followers.
Although Ellora has more caves than Ajanta, the rooms generally are smaller and simpler (with exception of Kailasa Temple).