Unexplained Mysteries of The Unexplained
For a couple of years now I’ve been re-researching The Unexplained — lost civilisations, the paranormal, cryptozoology, alien technology, that sort of thing — a popular genre that I was a fan of in the mid to late 1970s. I’m putting together a post including some great book covers, but for now here’s something from Graham Hancock, the greatest modern exponent of The Unexplained. I proudly reprint in full the text of a letter from him that I wrote in reply to a communication I sent in late 2005:—
Dear Neil
Thank you for your letter.
Ever since man first started pondering the clear evidence of unexplained mysteries all around him, he has sought to explain them and leave the results of his research scattered all over the place for posterity to find. It is only relatively recently on man’s journey that he has stopped noticing the abudance of the self-explanatory unexplained under his own nose and has started to offer his own intricate expositions of unexplained evidence that either resort to science, thereby rendering the truth as no more than a series of so-called coincidences, or attach themselves to a conspiracy framework, within which unexplained mysteries become little more than the historical context for the fleeting concerns contemporaneous popular ‘radicalism’. Either way, the short-term findings of The Explained can hardly compare with The Unexplained, which is to do with the long term in deep time and space and is therefore more interesting and amazing.
I, too, suspect that the origins of Ancient East Anglia are to be found under the Antartic Ice, as are the origins of Civilization as we know it. Your prediction that giant man-made ritual stones will be revealed under Fenland, due to soil shrinkage, is very interesting. I’m not sure about your assertions on Ancient Drainage Techniques, although you may be on the right track in likening certain sites in the eastern counties to those I’ve described off Malta and, indeed, those amazing Olmec sites. Anyway, I await the uncovery of your hidden ritual stones with bated breath. Of course, our brave archaeologists will only have a very brief time to examine them before global warming floods most of these newly uncovered East Anglian sites of world importance. One wonders how much their closed academic minds will actually discover about these great monuments from deep time, before they’re covered once more by seas of our own making. Ironic, isn’t it that in the pursuit of knowledge and betterment, we’re about to add to the storehouse of man-made mysteries under the seas that first began with the great floods of 10,000 years ago?
Yes, it is a great shame that rising sea levels will make it virtually impossible to investigate the lost ancient cities located offshore of the coasts of all the major known continents. However, I predict that in years to come satellite imagery will penetrate the murky depths and afford a splendid view of what lies beneath, viz. loads of lost civilization sites, with roads, temples, walls and many other man-made structures, the existence and location of which are otherwise unexplainable by science. But how much will we care about ancient unexplained mysteries when so much of our contemporary world is being similarly lost due to rising sea levels?
On a different tack, why was it that humans only started religion, art, sophisticated symbolism and lateral thinking 50,000 years ago? How did humans suddenly work out that decorative patterns were pleasing, or that talking to each other was a good thing? In every part of the globe, all those many years ago, all the skills and qualities that we value most highly in ourselves today appeared suddenly, already fully formed, as though bestowed on us by hidden powers. Scientists describe this change as “the greatest riddle in human history”.
What is the significance of the astonishing similarities between the entities known as “aliens”, “ETs” or “greys” in modern popular culture, the entities known as “fairies”, “elves” and “goblins” in the Middle Ages, and the entities that shamans in surviving tribal cultures know as “ghosts”, “gods” and “spirits”? Why are such figures depicted in prehistoric art as far afield as Africa, Europe, the Americas and Australia? Why have eminent scientists at the cutting edge of consciousness research, especially those who study the ways that hallucinogens work in the brain, recently begun to question long-established theories about the nature of reality? Why are some now even ready to consider the possibility, long ago embraced by shamans, that, far from being false perceptions what we see in the strange imagery and experiences of hallucinations may be real perceptions of other dimensions and the beings inhabiting them? Why did Nobel Prize-winner Francis Crick keep concealed until his death the astonishing circumstances under which he first “saw” the double-helix structure of DNA? And why did he become convinced that natural laws are unable to explain the mysterious complexity of the DNA molecule itself?
Well, who knows? It’s not called The Unexplained for nothing!
Glad to hear you’re keeping The Unexplained alive! I’m off to the World Mystery Forum at Interlaken, on 4-5 November. Perhaps I’ll see you there! If not, all the best and keep buying the books. The truth will out, eventually, then you’ll see!
Kind Regards,
Posted by Neil
on September 12, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Tags: East Anglia, Graham Hancock, The Explained, The Unexplained