Spend five minutes scrolling ... just about anywhere. X, Instagram, Facebook. Hardly matters. People leaping to establish their "I'm a dope" credentials.
I don't go around fact checking lies on the internet — if I made a habit of that, it's all I'd ever do.
But sometimes I can't help myself, and give in. Curiosity gets the better of me. I was on Facebook, the other day, and it served up the post on the right. A huge, well-made stone wall, from antiquity apparently. Since it's posted by "Real UFO's And More" they don't even have to come out and say it. Their readers do it for them.
"Aliens," concludes one. "HUGE GIANTS," another. "Proof that our religions and history books are bullshit" (I actually agree with half of that one)
To be fair, some state the obvious. "Once again this has absolutely nothing to do with aliens or UFOs."
"Who knows how this was accomplished?" the caption asks.
Archeologists, I assume. I plugged the photo into Google Image, and instantly found the wall is at an Inca site in Peru called "Saqsaywaman."
Among the sites offered was "EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SACSAYHUAMAN FORTRESS."
The site explains:
"Despite the Incas being an advanced civilization, they didn’t know the wheel. So they used a technique of hard-work movement. First, the colossal lime rocks were carved in the same quarries of Muyna Waqoto and Rumiqolqa situated 32 kilometers far away. Next, they situated the giant carved stones over oiled logs. These stones were tied down by thick ropes by several people who pulled them. In this form, the stones were sliding over the wooden reeds. Please note that the Incas re-carved these stones, refining them even more, in the same place of construction.
"According to the chronicler Pedro Cieza de León, more than 20,000 people participated in the construction of this Inca complex, and its construction lasted a century, approx. The process was slow, but the result endured over time to the present."
Eyewitnesses, watching the thing built. Not aliens. People.
I never thought of this before — and as a rule, I try not to see racism crouching under every bush. But maybe part of this whole "aliens had to have made this!" nonsense is ignorant white people who can't conceive of brown folks long ago doing something with a high degree of skill. A problem that plagues us to this day.
"Despite the Incas being an advanced civilization, they didn’t know the wheel. So they used a technique of hard-work movement. First, the colossal lime rocks were carved in the same quarries of Muyna Waqoto and Rumiqolqa situated 32 kilometers far away. Next, they situated the giant carved stones over oiled logs. These stones were tied down by thick ropes by several people who pulled them. In this form, the stones were sliding over the wooden reeds. Please note that the Incas re-carved these stones, refining them even more, in the same place of construction.
"According to the chronicler Pedro Cieza de León, more than 20,000 people participated in the construction of this Inca complex, and its construction lasted a century, approx. The process was slow, but the result endured over time to the present."
Eyewitnesses, watching the thing built. Not aliens. People.
I never thought of this before — and as a rule, I try not to see racism crouching under every bush. But maybe part of this whole "aliens had to have made this!" nonsense is ignorant white people who can't conceive of brown folks long ago doing something with a high degree of skill. A problem that plagues us to this day.
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ReplyDeleteA huge part of the problem is that humans always believe that THEIR time is the most modern, most sophisticated, best that ever was, and nobody could have been more advanced, etc., than us. The Renaissance believed it about themselves, even though they still had rats, lice, war, and plague. Today, the same. The truth is, the greatest geniuses were probably the ones who, back thousands of years ago, figured out little things like domesticating animals, controlling fire, cooking, cheese making, building the first buildings... We can do things quicker, with less physical labor today, but that's all. For one thing, much of today's standard building - from suburbs to offices - are about as aesthetically pleasing as mud, especially compared with, say, the amazingly beautiful mud structures of Timbuktu, or the stone creations of Teotihuican.
ReplyDeleteWe still have rats, lice war & plague! Of course, the worst rat has two legs, fake hair, an orange face & a huge fat body!
DeleteOr maybe we generally think we are more intelligent than our ancestors, close and distant. We benefit from all the discovery and progress that came before us but we don't have to know the details. I'd guess the average American living 150 years ago knew how to raise food, build a shelter, travel by compass, tie knots, create usefull ojects, et cetera. I've seen toilets used an example. We know how it works; push the lever and water flushes it clean. How many people understand the sophisticated siphon action?
ReplyDeleteAs a whole, we are much more technologically advanced. Individually, we are specialized.
I can imagine sentient beings far in the future trying to figure out what caused the great human civilizations to implode and fail and coming to the conclusion that it was because of melanin.
ReplyDeleteMultiple ancient cultures could predict eclipses pretty accurately over 2000 years ago.
ReplyDeleteFor my money, the advancement that sets us apart from earlier civilizations was the printing press……followed by all the great teachers who taught people how to read. Now, sadly, we have regressed to a stage of sharing crazy ideas and opinions anonymously…..on the internet. Perhaps we could return to normal, if they could invent means to prevent social media sharing anonymously. It’s killing our society.
ReplyDeleteThe press has been ridiculing UFOs for decades. Have you seen the Nimitz videos? Have you heard the testimony in Congress? There's something there, those craft move at 1000x the speed of our advanced aircraft and don't seem to have any visible exhaust.
ReplyDeleteBecause they're ridiculous. There's no question unexplained phenomenon exist — it's the explanation I dispute. Nothing hints that these are extraterrestrial craft, while the raft of more plausible explanations crowd around and are ignored.
DeleteQuite right, Mr. S.
DeleteMy first thought is that space aliens wouldn't bother with trying to fit the random stone shapes into smoothly curved mating surfaces. They would simply use their space lasers to smooth the stones into uniform brick shapes before using their anti-gravity devices to lower them into place.
ReplyDeleteRealistically, the ancient people probably had WAY more spare time to ponder problems than we do, despite having to, for example, forage for food instead of inventing the supermarket. They had plenty of time to solve problems such as How to Lift a Really Heavy Object, or How to Fit Really Heavy Objects Together.
For example, one team would need to figure out how to machine a big piece of stone, such as by finding smaller stones that were hard enough to grind down the big one. Someone would also have to devise a method of mapping out the contours of one block so that they could grind a mating surface into the next block. (Bundling some reeds of identical length together would be one solution: press their ends onto one surface, and their other ends will form a relief map of the surface.) No one said it would be easy, but obviously it was possible when they all worked together. Perhaps there is a lesson for us there.
And when you live in a world without mass social media, computers, cell phones, or other timesucks, you have plenty of time to figure things out and put in the work to get the job done.
ReplyDeleteThat's the key. They had no Fakebook, no internet, no phones, no TV screens. The Incas had no diversions, and unlimited time to puzzle out the problems, and to roll up their sleeves and perform the back=breaking physical labor required. Inca Dinka Do.
DeleteTerry asks: "How many people understand the sophisticated siphon action (of a toilet)?"
ReplyDeleteWith regard to many folks not really understanding a lot of basic stuff about today's world, comedian Nate Bargatze has a very funny bit about if he were a time traveler. It's very funny to me, anyway, because I've long felt the same way.
"If I went back in time, knowing everything I know now, I don't think I would make a difference. ... If I went back to the '20s and I, like, saw some guy on an old phone, I'd be like 'Hey, eventually they have phones you just carry in your pocket. And he'd be like 'Yeah, how do they do it?' and it's like pfff, 'You know, I mean I don't know. It's like a satellite or something,' and they're like 'What's a satellite?' 'Well, I shouldn't have even brought that up then. .... I honestly don't believe I could prove I'm from the future."
Starting at about 3:10 on this 4 1/2 minute clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5X1m16-Jvc
Then there's the great line from "Hannah and Her Sisters." "How the hell do I know why there were Nazis; I don't know how the can opener works."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcz7oGmeEtY
Well, I certainly do know how a can opener works!
DeleteBargatze is a riot. He's got a great deadpan delivery of clever gags.
DeleteThe ingenuity of early peoples is even more amazing because they had to use their hands and brains together. We could not replicate some of the craftsmanship today.
ReplyDeletealiens? I don't know-but there's an awful lot of real-estate out there.
ReplyDeleteSorry Kaye, but your remark is the classic bait-and-switch. Nobody is saying they aren't out there somewhere in the vastness of time and space. We're saying there's no evidence they're here, now. Not a subtle distinction.
DeleteWell some people are saying that they're not out there. Christian wingnuts who think we're the only life in the universe
DeleteThe possibility of UFOs, aliens, and other so far unexplained phenomena is real, tho unproven. There is more that we don't know than there is that we do.
ReplyDeleteTo quote a standup comedian: You know why Mexicans are regarded as the hardest working people in the world? There are pyramids in Mexico. No one asks who built those.
ReplyDelete