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How to Build Your Indian Flying Machine


Saard

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Hello all,

A while ago I came across an intriguing story online that I'd like someone to debunk please, mostly because it's a little too cool to be true.

I apologise if this has been dealt with before, but I did a site search on the bloke's name and it came up empty.

Anyway, in 1895, on a beach in front of dozens of journalists and other witnesses, a Sanskrit Scholar called Shivkar Bapuji Talpade presented an unmanned machine that flew about a hundred feet into the air. He claimed to have based all the technology for his machine on ancient Vedic writings. His device used a mercury vortex engine, a technology NASA are currently working on. There are apparently loads of other old writings, dealing, in depth, with navagation, transportation, military applications, preferred flying techniques and so on. These (Vaimanika Sastra - Aeronautical Science) and other writings suggest that a handful of an elite cast in an otherwise historically predictable society somehow had the technology to create flying machines.

I want this debunked because I don't want to go around believing something untrue, especially something I'd very much like to be true. I've looked online on this subject a lot and there are various different off-shoots up to and including ancient nuclear wars. I thought I'd start small and try to find if Mr Talpade did actually do this infront of all these credible witnesses. I ran aground in people's enthusiasm for Stargate-style histories in favour of anything resembling fact. Short of going to India and looking in the paper's achives, I'm not sure how to check this out.

Has anyone already researched this or know anything about Shivkar Bapuji Talpade's claims?

Thanks!

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Just had a quick look through the links at google.

A lot of them to be carbon copies of each other, maybe a good idea to trace the first report.

Their is no entry for his name on Wikipedia, but some for the ancient texts used.

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Its actually true. And here is a very detailed and in-depth site on the subject of those mentioned ancient flying machines. They are called Vimanas:

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Vimanas.htm

Thanks for the link.

I've seen sites like these and they make my imagination dance the funky chicken, up until the point it's viciously rugby-tackled by my rationality.

There's a wealth of sources from all over the world, India especially, with fantastical tales about ancient civilisations messing around with what looks to the modern eye like advanced technology.

For advanced technology to be widespread, I would think there'd need to be a massive infrastructure of equivalent technology. Archaeology as I know it simply doesn't support this. There are suggestions that our timescales could be off. Things pop up all the time that can't always be explained, except by dodgy timescales or, in successively more extreme explantions, by aliens or time travel (or occasionally 'rational' explantions more ridiculous than anything else), all of these are dealt with on other threads.

There are several lifetimes of study required in this subject, it's all a little scary. One of the biggest problems is that these ideas are such fodder for the imagination that a non-scholar such as myself finds it all but impossible to tell what might be true from what's understandable but misguided enthusiasm for a lovely idea. The events are all so far in the distant past that we usually have only stories and conjecture.

Our Indian friend, however, might have done something on his beach not much over 100 years ago that would back it all up perfectly.

More info on Shivkar Bapuji Talpade's experiments anyone?

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They were called Vimanas by the Hindu. If you look further into flying machines of the past you may see it is possible that Noah's Ark was also a flying machine. used to remove life from this planet, and at a later date when safe, put it back on this planet.

The truth is out there.

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LOL, so if somebody makes the plans it must be real?

linked-image

Then I suppose this is real to...

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:huh: Of course it's real. My ship's made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs. I've outrun Imperial starships, not the local bulk-cruisers, mind you. I'm talking about the big Corellian ships now...
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:huh: Of course it's real. My ship's made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs. I've outrun Imperial starships, not the local bulk-cruisers, mind you. I'm talking about the big Corellian ships now...

In that hunk of junk?

Edited by Saard
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Anyway, in 1895, on a beach in front of dozens of journalists and other witnesses, a Sanskrit Scholar called Shivkar Bapuji Talpade presented an unmanned machine that flew about a hundred feet into the air. He claimed to have based all the technology for his machine on ancient Vedic writings. His device used a mercury vortex engine, a technology NASA are currently working on. There are apparently loads of other old writings, dealing, in depth, with navagation, transportation, military applications, preferred flying techniques and so on. These (Vaimanika Sastra - Aeronautical Science) and other writings suggest that a handful of an elite cast in an otherwise historically predictable society somehow had the technology to create flying machines.

Saard,

I'm familiar with this tale, but I'm also familiar with the fact that it is only a tale. There's no evidence that it ever happened, and thus no reason to believe that it ever happened.

Also, I want to say that maybe you should re-read the story you're talking about here. As I recall, this man never claimed to have used the knowledge in the Vymanika Shastra because the Vymanika Shastra wasn't written until well after the turn of the 20th century. Not exactly "evidence" of any "ancient flying technology" there!

Harte

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Saard,

I'm familiar with this tale, but I'm also familiar with the fact that it is only a tale. There's no evidence that it ever happened, and thus no reason to believe that it ever happened.

Also, I want to say that maybe you should re-read the story you're talking about here. As I recall, this man never claimed to have used the knowledge in the Vymanika Shastra because the Vymanika Shastra wasn't written until well after the turn of the 20th century. Not exactly "evidence" of any "ancient flying technology" there!

Harte

Well, one book called the Vaimanika Sastra was written recently by some idiot in a trance, who claimed that it was ancient info.

Will avoid that one where possible, but there are others of the same or similar titles much older.

Why do you say it's all just a tale? There seems to be something to it to me, I'd be surprised and, obviously, dissapointed if it turns out to be just a story.

I'm expecting to hit a dead end where no-one has ever reproduced his results, or he faked it or something.

The event on the beach seems genuine, though I haven't varified it beyond reasonable doubt yet, so you may be right.

Incidentally, that trance guy's not necessarily an idiot, but info beamed into a bloke's head from wherever is a little too spurious, even for me.

oh and yes, the books Shivkar used are apparently Brihad Vaimanik Shastra by Rishi Bharadwaj and Vimana Bindu by Acharya Vachaspati, not the Vaimanika Sastra exactly, unless that turn out to be a name for a group of books about flying. Early stages yet.

Edited by Saard
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He claimed to have based all the technology for his machine on ancient Vedic writings. His device used a mercury vortex engine, a technology NASA are currently working on. There are apparently loads of other old writings, dealing, in depth, with navagation, transportation, military applications, preferred flying techniques and so on. These (Vaimanika Sastra - Aeronautical Science) and other writings suggest that a handful of an elite cast in an otherwise historically predictable society somehow had the technology to create flying machines.

Ok, here's the deal. The story checkes out regarding the old writings... Ive read plenty about that and there do seem to be texts that can be interpreted to mean these sorts of things... Its really interesting infact. I havent heard of the person actually building a machine from the descriptions though, because there werent descriptions detailed enough to do so.

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Cheers Aztek, your second link was dead handy and has supplied all sorts of things, like names of books and researchers and a company, Hindustan Aeronauticals Ltd, who apparently recieved all his notes (which, bizarrely didn't make a sudden huge advancement in engine science).

Now Harte's post has put the fear in me that the story is apocryphal though, so I'm wanting to somehow check if it actually happened. Don't know how yet.

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nasa is researching mercury engines.

One possible ion engine uses mercury as a propellant. The mercury starts as a liquid in a small tank, but its atoms slowly evaporate to form a low-density gas. An electric discharge through this gas, such as occurs inside a fluorescent lamp, knocks electrons off some of the mercury atoms. When a mercury atom loses an electron, it becomes a positively charged mercury ion and can be accelerated from the discharge by electric fields. In the ion propulsion engine, an electric field extracts and accelerates the mercury ions toward a hole in the side of a spaceship. The mercury ions are ejected into space at enormous speeds. As they accelerate, the mercury ions exert reaction forces on the engine and these forces are what propel the spaceship forward. Overall, the mercury ions accelerate in one direction while the spaceship accelerates in the other direction. To keep the spaceship electrically neutral, the engine also ejects electrons into space. However, mercury ions provide most of the engine's thrust.

http://rabi.phys.virginia.edu/HTW/page1.php?QNum=1118

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Ok, I've done the obvious and emailed the newspaper, asking them to verify their coverage of the story.

Fingers crossed...

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Ok, I've done the obvious and emailed the newspaper, asking them to verify their coverage of the story.

Fingers crossed...

do you honestly think they'll verify 100 years old coverage?? i'm gonna cross all my fingers, hope that helps.

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do you honestly think they'll verify 100 years old coverage?? i'm gonna cross all my fingers, hope that helps.

yep. I've worked on papers. If they did it, someone will know about it.

Or they'll be fed up with people like me asking them about something that never happened.

Either way...

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At some point in my scrolling from thread to thread here on u.m. I thought I came across a link that reffered to the seven wise men in India, where each mane wrote a book. Each book had plans and discriptions on how to build certin technologies. One book on flight and vemina's, another on weapons such as nuke's, one on space flight well something along those lines anyway. I think if I remember correctly some of the books were found but kept secret. I can't seem to find anything on this.

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Hello all,

A while ago I came across an intriguing story online that I'd like someone to debunk please, mostly because it's a little too cool to be true.

I apologise if this has been dealt with before, but I did a site search on the bloke's name and it came up empty.

Anyway, in 1895, on a beach in front of dozens of journalists and other witnesses, a Sanskrit Scholar called Shivkar Bapuji Talpade presented an unmanned machine that flew about a hundred feet into the air. He claimed to have based all the technology for his machine on ancient Vedic writings. His device used a mercury vortex engine, a technology NASA are currently working on. There are apparently loads of other old writings, dealing, in depth, with navagation, transportation, military applications, preferred flying techniques and so on. These (Vaimanika Sastra - Aeronautical Science) and other writings suggest that a handful of an elite cast in an otherwise historically predictable society somehow had the technology to create flying machines.

I want this debunked because I don't want to go around believing something untrue, especially something I'd very much like to be true. I've looked online on this subject a lot and there are various different off-shoots up to and including ancient nuclear wars. I thought I'd start small and try to find if Mr Talpade did actually do this infront of all these credible witnesses. I ran aground in people's enthusiasm for Stargate-style histories in favour of anything resembling fact. Short of going to India and looking in the paper's achives, I'm not sure how to check this out.

Has anyone already researched this or know anything about Shivkar Bapuji Talpade's claims?

Thanks!

I once saw a documentary on the ancient south american gold 'aeroplanes'....a model engineer made a flying model from one. Worked well too.

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hello

i am harsh** ( don't mind the stars, it's my real name...it means someone who is happy...lol ) sinha from india...and would like to thank you all for discussing something as vimanas. As i am an indian, let me introduce you to some things about the vimana theory. It just so happens that one of our ancient texts, the ramayana, frequently mentions vimanas, and as you all have discussed the person who did the vimana thing in 1895 ( but who dos not have anything on him on google ) i would like to point out that practically no personal recorded history of saints and sages, unless of extreme national power, was ever recorded. this goes for a long time in british rule.

And as you call yourselves non-beleivers in such things, let me tell you some things about indian 'mystical' people. A person in ahmedabad, a saint, mentioned by different names, who was there on NDTV, a national news channel in india has not eaten or drunk anything for many years, yet he survives...he did this after many years of meditation in the himalayas...similarly a person in the same city has survrivd by looking at the sun two hours daily and drinking water.

Similarly, if you have heard about them, there are numerous saints in india, although there are some fake ones too...but the actual power of these people cannot be denied.

This leads us to the second thing. There was an emporor ashoka in around the 2nd century bc in india, i am not so sure of the time period, who is known to have been the founder of the nine unknown men society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Unknown_Men

please read about ashoka also and about the delhi iron pillar too.

Similarly, the mahabharata, another ancient, but more recent text from around 5000 or more years ago, points out that there was an ancient city of dwarka, built by krishna ( a human form of god vishnu, who you might have heard of from ISCKON, again please read about him too

)on the coasts of gujarat...and the city has been found very recently...which proves that these texts are not wrong in all aspects...in fact almost all the facts have been concerned...except a concept of ram janm bhoomi...which is a disputed issue in india as a mosque, build by emperor babur's general, a mughal emperor, who had come from central asia...i personally want the mosque to stay...despite being a hindu...as a destruction of the mosque would be against a religion...

anyways, not getting off the point, ancient texts aren't wrong and so isn't ancient indian knowledge...

infact, the now settlers of a major part of north

india ( me included ) came much later ( called the aryans, who came from central asia and europe ) about 4000 years or so ago...and destroyed a major part of the existing structures including the indus valley civilisation...one of the four main civilisations of the ancient world...

i would like to add more...but later...please see that everything is not passed at criticism...nor any from your part...truth is in everything....you only need to discover it

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Actually here on some satelite channel they have started showing the tv programe of the mahabharata. its in Indian but has English subtitles.

Now if this story was writteen 5000 years ago its 5000 years ahead of its time all the battles have visnas they have bombs. i mean if it was written when it says it was there had to be flying machines because its way to scifi to be a coincendence.

Personally i like to think there were visnas and the technology had been passed down by ancient astronauts.

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:sk maybe they invented red bull....which would be a perfect explanation :sk
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Ok, here's the deal. The story checkes out regarding the old writings... Ive read plenty about that and there do seem to be texts that can be interpreted to mean these sorts of things... Its really interesting infact.

Stellar,

There's really not much need to determine whether or not to accept someone else's interpretation of these old books (most of them aren't exactly all that old BTW - they were mostly written in the Common Era.) You can find the accepted translations of practically all the translated ones at Sacred-Texts. com Read them yourself and then tell me about these technologically advanced flying machines.

Also, the word "vimana" is a sanskrit term that means "temple roof."

I havent heard of the person actually building a machine from the descriptions though, because there werent descriptions detailed enough to do so.

The only descriptions that seem to correspond at all to modern technology are found at pseudoscientific websites or Hindu Creationist websites/publications, like the book "Forbidden Archaeology" by the college droupout and Hindu Creationist Michael Cremo or the scribblings of the former journalist Graham Hancock.

These "ancient" writings are quite long and boring, and these authors take it for granted that nobody is going to wade through the old texts to check on whether or not they are lying. It appears that they are.

Harte

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