David Hatcher Childress is the author of 15 books, including The
Lost Cities Series, The Time Travel Handbook and The Fantastic
Inventions of Nikola Tesla. He has appeared in numerous
documentaries about Atlantis, ancient mysteries and UFOs, including
The Mysterious Origins of Man, with Charlton Heston, and The Search
For Atlantis, with Richard Crenna. He also appears regularly on
national and international radio programs. He lives near Chicago.
At the age of 19 David Hatcher Childress left the United States
on a six year research and adventure odyssey.
Childress would study first-hand the ancient civilizations of
Africa, the Middle East and China; along with journeying into
dangerous territory occasionally, like Uganda during the overthrow
of Idi Amin.
Further expeditions to South America, Africa and remote Pacific
Islands, along with his books and media attention certified
Childress as the Real Life Indiana Jones.
From his further 20 years of global search for lost
cities, ancient mysteries and clues of our origins, The LOST CITIES SERIES of 8 titles has come about.
The style of this author is an entertaining blend of his personal
experiences with people and legend along the way coupled with well
researched facts that can give both the armchair adventurer and
hardened skeptic somewhere to hang their hat.
The Evidence for Ancient Atomic Warfare?
Religious texts and geological evidence suggest that several
parts of the world have experienced destructive atomic blasts in
ages past.
Below is a small part of an
article from Nexus Magazine based on extracttion from Chapter 6 of
the book Technology
of the Gods : The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients by
D.H.Childress.
Mysterious Glass in the Egyptian Sahara
The following segment is One of the strangest mysteries of ancient Egypt is that of the
great glass sheets that were only discovered in 1932. In December of
that year, Patrick Clayton, a surveyor for the Egyptian Geological
Survey, was driving among the dunes of the Great Sand Sea near the
Saad Plateau in the virtually uninhabited area just north of the
southwestern corner of Egypt, when he heard his tyres crunch on
something that wasn't sand. It turned out to be large pieces of marvelously
clear, yellow-green glass.
In fact, this wasn't just any ordinary glass, but ultra-pure
glass that was an astonishing 98 per cent silica. Clayton wasn't the
first person to come across this field of glass, as various
'prehistoric' hunters and nomads had obviously also found the
now-famous Libyan Desert Glass (LDG). The glass had been used in the
past to make knives and sharp-edged tools as well as other objects.
A carved scarab of LDG was even found in Tutankhamen's tomb,
indicating that the glass was sometimes used for jewellery.
An article by Giles Wright in the British science magazine New
Scientist (July 10, 1999), entitled "The Riddle of the
Sands", says that LDG is the purest natural silica glass ever
found. Over a thousand tonnes of it are strewn across hundreds of
kilometres of bleak desert. Some of the chunks weigh 26 kilograms,
but most LDG exists in smaller, angular pieces--looking like shards
left when a giant green bottle was smashed by colossal forces.
According to the article, LDG, pure as it is, does contain tiny
bubbles, white wisps and inky black swirls. The whitish inclusions
consist of refractory minerals such as cristobalite. The ink-like
swirls, though, are rich in iridium, which is diagnostic of an
extraterrestrial impact such as a meteorite or comet, according to
conventional wisdom. The general theory is that the glass was
created by the searing, sand-melting impact of a cosmic projectile.
However, there are serious problems with this theory, says
Wright, and many mysteries concerning this stretch of desert
containing the pure glass. The main problem: Where did this immense
amount of widely dispersed glass shards come from? There is no
evidence of an impact crater of any kind; the surface of the Great
Sand Sea shows no sign of a giant crater, and neither do microwave
probes made deep into the sand by satellite radar.
Furthermore, LDG seems to be too pure to be derived from a messy
cosmic collision. Wright mentions that known impact craters, such as
the one at Wabar in Saudi Arabia, are littered with bits of iron and
other meteorite debris. This is not the case with the Libyan Desert
Glass site. What is more, LDG is concentrated in two areas, rather
than one. One area is oval-shaped; the other is a circular ring, six
kilometres wide and 21 kilometres in diameter. The ring's wide
centre is devoid of the glass.
One theory is that there was a soft projectile impact: a
meteorite, perhaps 30 metres in diameter, may have detonated about
10 kilometres or so above the Great Sand Sea, the searing blast of
hot air melting the sand beneath. Such a craterless impact is
thought to have occurred in the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia--at
least as far as mainstream science is concerned. That event, like
the pure desert glass, remains a mystery.
Another theory has a meteorite glancing off the desert surface,
leaving a glassy crust and a shallow crater that was soon filled in.
But there are two known areas of LDG. Were there two cosmic
projectiles in tandem?
Alternatively, is it possible that the vitrified desert is the
result of atomic war in the ancient past? Could a Tesla-type beam
weapon have melted the desert, perhaps in a test?
An article entitled "Dating the Libyan Desert
Silica-Glass" appeared in the British journal Nature (no. 170)
in 1952. Said the author, Kenneth Oakley:3
Pieces of natural silica-glass up to 16 lb in weight occur
scattered sparsely in an oval area, measuring 130 km north to south
and 53 km from east to west, in the Sand Sea of the Libyan Desert.
This remarkable material, which is almost pure (97 per cent silica),
relatively light (sp. gin. 2.21), clear and yellowish-green in
colour, has the qualities of a gemstone. It was discovered by the
Egyptian Survey Expedition under Mr P.A. Clayton in 1932, and was
thoroughly investigated by Dr L.J. Spencer, who joined a special
expedition of the Survey for this purpose in 1934.
The pieces are found in sand-free corridors between north-south
dune ridges, about 100 m high and 2&endash;5 km apart. These
corridors or "streets" have a rubbly surface, rather like
that of a "speedway" track, formed by angular gravel and
red loamy weathering debris overlying Nubian sandstone. The pieces
of glass lie on this surface or partly embedded in it. Only a few
small fragments were found below the surface, and none deeper than
about one metre. All the pieces on the surface have been pitted or
smoothed by sand-blast. The distribution of the glass is patchyÉ
While undoubtedly natural, the origin of the Libyan silica-glass
is uncertain. In its constitution it resembles the tektites of
supposed cosmic origin, but these are much smaller. Tektites are
usually black, although one variety found in Bohemia and Moravia and
known as moldavite is clear deep-green. The Libyan silica-glass has
also been compared with the glass formed by the fusion of sand in
the heat generated by the fall of a great meteorite; for example, at
Wabar in Arabia and at Henbury in central Australia.
Reporting the findings of his expedition, Dr Spencer said that he
had not been able to trace the Libyan glass to any source; no
fragments of meteorites or indications of meteorite craters could be
found in the area of its distribution. He said: "It seemed
easier to assume that it had simply fallen from the sky."
It would be of considerable interest if the time of origin or
arrival of the silica-glass in the Sand Sea could be determined
geologically or archaeologically. Its restriction to the surface or
top layer of a superficial deposit suggests that it is not of great
antiquity from the geological point of view. On the other hand, it
has clearly been there since prehistoric times. Some of the flakes
were submitted to Egyptologists in Cairo, who regarded them as
"late Neolithic or pre-dynastic". In spite of a careful
search by Dr Spencer and the late Mr A. Lucas, no objects of
silica-glass could be found in the collections from Tut-Ankh-Amen's
tomb or from any of the other dynastic tombs. No potsherds were
encountered in the silica-glass area, but in the neighbourhood of
the flakings some "crude spear-points of glass" were
found; also some quartzite implements, "quernstones" and
ostrich-shell fragments.
Oakley is apparently incorrect when he says that LDG was not
found in Tutankhamen's tomb, as according to Wright a piece was
found.
At any rate, the vitrified areas of the Libyan Desert are yet to
be explained. Are they evidence of an ancient war--a war that may
have turned North Africa and Arabia into the desert that it is
today?
Consider these verses from the ancient Mahabharata*:
...(it was) a single projectile
Charged with all the power of the Universe.
An incandescent column of smoke and flame
As bright as the thousand suns
Rose in all its splendour...
...it was an unknown weapon,
An iron thunderbolt,
A gigantic messenger of death,
Which reduced to ashes
The entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.
...The corpses were so burned
As to be unrecognisable.
The hair and nails fell out;
Pottery broke without apparent cause,
And the birds turned white.
After a few hours
All foodstuffs were infected...
....to escape from this fire
The soldiers threw themselves in streams
To wash themselves and their equipment.24
* Berlitz, Charles, Mysteries of Forgotten Worlds,
Doubleday, New York, 1972.
© 2000 by David Hatcher Childress
E-mail: David Hatcher
Childress
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