Free Republic

Who created mankind? According to some researchers, the answer lies with those who came from beyond the stars. The imagery of extra-terrestrial visitors who came in from other planets, and possibly even other galaxies, to seed the human race is a fascinating one, although highly speculative. Erich von Daniken, who popularised this theory with his book, Chariots of the Gods, believes that these visitors — termed as ancient astronauts — landed on Earth when the planet was still in its infancy. As part of their breeding experiments, they seeded the first human being and imparted them with the skills required...

Erich von Däniken's Mystery Park has closed its doors. The pseudoarchaeological Disneyland opened in Interlaken, Switzerland in 2003 and was billed as the ultimate expression of von Däniken's theories, made famous by such books as Chariots of the Gods? ("Letter from Switzerland" January/February 2004). The Swiss hotelier became a best-selling author on the strength of his claim that aliens had a hand in virtually every ancient achievement, from the Giza pyramids to the Nasca lines. If you didn't make it to the park, a bizarre hodgepodge of pyramids and space-age pavilions surrounding a geodesic sphere, you weren't the only one....

The Hollow Earth Perhaps some of the most bizarre scientific theories ever considered were those concerning the possibility that the Earth was hollow. One of the earliest of these was proposed in 1692 by Edmund Halley. Edmund Halley was a brilliant English astronomer whose mathematical calculations pinpointed the return of the comet that bears his name. Halley was fascinated by the earth's magnetic field. He noticed the direction of the field varied slightly over time and the only way he could account for this was there existed not one, but several, magnetic fields. Halley came to believe that the Earth...

Nation Monday, July 22, 2002   Mystery of Delhi's Iron Pillar unraveled New Delhi, July 18: Experts at the Indian Instituteof Technology have resolved the mystery behind the 1,600-year-old iron pillar in Delhi, which has never corroded despite the capital's harsh weather. Metallurgists at Kanpur IIT have discovered that a thin layer of "misawite", a compound of iron, oxygen and hydrogen, has protected the cast iron pillar from rust. The protective film took form within three years after erection of the pillar and has been growing ever so slowly since then. After 1,600 years, the film has grown just...