These golden sculptures are pre-Columbian. It is difficult to determine their exact age as gold is hard to date. However it is strongly believed that they date from around 500 - 800 CE. They have been found in central and also coastal regions of South America. When first found they were thought to be zoomorphic (representing animals). Well, looking at those images I can't come up with one animal looking like these artifacts below. Is it a bird, is it a plane...well it certainly looks like it from where I stand.



And why not? It is easy to dismiss these finds as the creation of complete morons who only serve their gods without knowing what they are actually doing. It has wings, it has a stabilising tail, it has some kind of landing gear, what else do you need? Lets face it even if this model of an aircraft came with a signed letter stating that these are flying machines, orthodox science would still doubt it. Well, some have said that the object in the top picture isn't very aerodynamic as there is a very large semi disk in the way where we would imagine the cockpit to be. True but then again some people have come up with another ingenious explanation.


See how the "nose" of this device is retractable? For landing you have it forward, for flying you put it underneath. I like this idea a lot. Also considering the ornaments on both wings, it was mentioned that in Amerindian culture spirals were representing "ascend" and "descent". Unless it was just a very naive but artistically gifted ancient Indian that thought to himself : "Hmm, those triangles on my stylised bird look a little boring...oh I know, I'll put some spirals on there just for fun." As I keep saying, "Give our ancestors some credit."


This surreal model of a bird has been dated to 200 BC and wad discovered in 1898 in a tomb at Saqqara, Eqypt. Not knowing much about aeroplanes in those days it was put away in a box in an Egyptian Museum and rediscovered by a Dr. Khalil Messiha. This model has undergone far more tests as the above as you can make several models like it without using the original. So what did these tests come up with? They revealed that it seems to have the proportions of a push glider which can take heavy loads at very low speed but there was a catch; it seemed the device was still in development as it was not quite perfect yet. However to even design a model to be near perfect takes a lot of aerodynamic knowledge. Something that was lacking quite profoundly at the beginning of our own aerodynamic history. To me the Egyptian model has far more finesse than even the Wright brothers whimsical first flying machine.


Yes of course those models could be birds or fish or flying rats. It seems that if it doesn't fit into our modern view of history it gets molded until it fits, hence the bird analogies.

More from Egypt, exactly in a 3000 year old temple at Abydos a few hundred miles from Cairo these hieroglyphs were found only recently:


There is far more to the idea of ancient flying machines. Most are accounts from ancient scriptures such as the bible or other holy books. The most impressive and detailed description of all must be the ancient Indian flying machines or "vimanas". Text about these machines can be found in many Indian scripts of which a list will be given at the end. However the Samara Sudradhara text goes into great detail (written about 400BC). No less than 230 verses are written about the vimanas including construction, take off, cruising for more than 1,000 miles and even what to do in case of a collision with a bird!

Basically there were two distinct kinds of vimana. The first manmade with wings and very much like our modern aeroplanes, the second one a non-aerodynamic shaped, disc-like or cylinder-shaped craft not made by humans. Within these two categories seem to be many differing variations. These aircrafts were capable of quite astonishing maneuvers nowadays mostly associated with UFOs.

Texts vary as to fuel they used, some claim that the vimanas used a mercury powered vortex engine, others talk about a yellow liquid. In the Vaimanika Sastra (Aeronautical Science) text which takes its sources also from ancient scripts (400BC), there is talk about 3 kinds of different flying machine, 31 parts of these vehicles and 16 materials are described that have been used in their construction. An ancient named Bharadvajy the Wise who used ancient scientific texts as his source wrote about 70 authorities and 10 experts in aeronautical travel. However the vimanas allegedly "traveled with the speed of wind" and "gave forth a melodious sound".

There is understandably far more to these vimanas as I can possibly put down here (like the plan to fly to the moon and Shivkar Bapuji Talpode's unmanned flying craft build after the vimanas in 1864, which traveled 1800 feet before crashing to earth). It is worth to delve a little deeper on this subject. The more of these text is known, the less it seems just another surge of inspirational fantasy by our ancestors. There is just too much technical detail and too many teachings only relevant to the pilots rather than the common man. In order to reveal a lot of detail there has to be an audience that knows what is talked about. The vimanas were either real or the whole book was a really boring early science fiction book.

for the visuals aids its more convinient to just visit the site where i got this article


http://2atoms.com/weird/ancient/plane.htm

Rancour,

That is incredibly interesting to me because of what Edgar Cayce said about the people of Atlantis. He said that the people of Atlantis had flying machines and machines that could go on water and under water. Before Atlantis submerged under the ocean some of the people left for Egypt and South America.

Thanks for that piece of the puzzle. The plot thickens.

Must've been a typo.

"The plot" actually "sickens."

Harte

LOL. thats Funny

But as usual, the ever skeptical Harte!

As far as the ancient Egyptian 'airplanes' go, does it seem likely that the putative ancient astronauts they're credited to would need 'em when they had flying saucers? Heiroglyphics and coincidence.

The precolumbian 'airplanes' are probably sculptures of Skates (see pic).

No question about it.

Some are also stylized sculptures of flying fish.

Harte

You gotta admit they do look like sculptures of planes though.

What do you make of the one that resembles a helicopter?

I'm not on either side of the argument by the way, but if their genuine artifacts of that era I am interested in knowing what they are.

Thanks.

could it be possible that earlier than the wright brothers, there is already a technology that can lift things or simply fly?
i'm saying that could it be possible that the airplane is not invented by the wright brothers but just adopted it from others, such as technology from 'aliens'?

No, not aliens. It was just good old human ingenuity.

I can't load the site you lionked, it's blocked by our server.

But I know what you're talking about and I've addressed it at least a half dozen times here at U.M.

Here's one post of mine where I did this, and it includes a link I wish you would follow:

Harte on the Pharoah's Helicopter

Harte

There are ancient artifacts and monuments that are quite strange and interesting such as those of model "planes" found in south america, egpyt and other places. And things like the indian vimanas which in great details describes flying vehicles. I have long been fascinated by such things, and wondered about their true origin myself. I see it as very improbable that people had airplanes and such sort of advanced machinery thousands of years ago as there has never been found any remains of such, so then the most likely explanation is something else. And that can be several things, such as ideas o flying crafts but not the technology to make them so they made small scale models of their ideas instead, and stories about them and how they would work like the vimanas, or it could possibly been observations of UFO's in ancient days thus they are credited to the "gods" in texts such as the vimanas, and another possibility I see is that they might have seen the future through visions of some sort and created it based on that. With that said it is not impossible that they had some primitive and simple gliders similar to our modern day hang gliders made of wood and animal skin or other material they had access to back then, instead of metal and synthetic fabrics.

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

Egyptian "plane model": http://www.catchpenny.org/model.html

You also have things like the Axum obelisk which also indicates the same possibilities as mentioned above, as it seems to be a model representing a modern day sky scraper yet there is no evidence for any such things existing back then (it is almost 2000 years old if I remember correctly). So, did they just create models of something they would like to have had but didnt have the technology to create, and which we later created and somehow ended up looking extremely similar to their own ideas back then, or did they have visions of the future that inspired them, or did they really have this kind of technology or witness it from "someone else" ? Probably we'll never know the real answer to it unless we come across some really groundbreaking discovery that leaves no doubt about the origins of such ancient artifacts, monuments and stories. The real answer may be a mix of things proposed here and elsewhere and the bottom line is that we don't really know, we can only make theories about it, and even the most probable theories may be completely wrong.

Here is some photos of the Axum obelisk:








And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelisk_of_Axum

The thing dates from 300 A.D.

Any skyscraper from that time would probably still be around - might even be still standing. After all, the Acropolis is, and it got bombed.

Harte

Please forgive me for not having read every response you've made on topics here at UM.

ETA: So basically, you're saying the helicopter image came about by what would be the equivalent in the modern day to writng something, than doing a half-assed job of erasing it, before writing over it again and as a result getting letters to form that would look a bit odd due to the erased word still being left in some portions. At least that is how I understand the post you linked to.

Sorry, hit by a cannonball, but as the Turks used the well preserved buildings as powder magazine (imagine...an over 1000 year old powder magazine !) the thing blew its top.

LOL
Lefty,

My opinion of myself might be a notch high, but I didn't mean you to think it was that bad!

No, I just linked you to an old post that had a link to a website in it.

The old panel was plastered over. Some of the plaster fell out. You gotta agree that for plaster to last a thousand years or more, you wouldn't have necessarily had to have done a "half-assed" job of plastering, right?

But, yeah, you got the gist of it.

Remember, hieroglyphs are letters, in that they are shapes that stand for sounds. They are not pictures. The lettering on than panel actual translates to things that make perfect sense, things that are repeated almost verbatim elsewhere in other places. If you go to the Catchpenny site linked in that old post, you can read about what words these letters spell and what they are known to mean.

My point is, the Egyptians had art as well as writing. They didn't confuse the two. Neither should you.

Anyway, thanks for the laugh.

Harte

If they date from 500-800 AD, then they can't be Inca; the Inca Empire rose and fell in the span of 100 years, starting in the early Fifteenth Century and lasting to the death of Atahualpa at the hands of Pizarro in 1533 (the act often seen as the "symbolic" end of the Empire, though rebellions continued after that date, including Tupac Amaru, executed in 1572 after the last bastion fell).

The idea of being aeroplanes really seems far-fetched, considering that those who actually speak with people from the indigenous groups there don't talk about "flying machines"; they do talk about winged spirits and gods, however... as such, in addition to the possibility of the skates or rays, they strike me as possible depictions of their deities.

That being said, there are many mysteries here in South America yet to be solved; in the black-water region where I work, the indians there have shown me many glyphs on boulders. When I asked who made them, they claim not to know - and I believe them, as I've been working with them long enough to have gained their confidence (learning their language has certainly facilitated that).

Raven

It's quite possible that the Inca believed they could building flying models, I doubt they ever managed it but I bet they all wished they could.

Super, thanks for the explanation. I had been wondering how something like that came about and your explanation makes a lot of sense. I appreciate it.

And I must admit, I was surprised to see you laughing - I wasn't sure you had a sense of humor for a while. (j/k)

Its quite possible flying machines did exist thousands of years ago but the ancients did not realise the potential of flight.

If man was to be wiped out "now" by some cataclysmic event, and three thousand years or more into the future he starts to learn to fly again, and then comes across the remains of say a lunar module that at present is in a museum. Man would act the same then in three thousand years as he does now, and say it was impossible three thousand years ago as it did not advance further.

There is enough out there to be found that do not make sense now, and in three thousand years there will be more.

Dan Dare

If you look at the pictures of the engravings, there is no "erosion", the edges are crisp and relatively sharp. If you saw the overlay representation of what it is "really" suppose to be, it is ridiculous. This argument is so lame it doesnt deserve consideration or counter comment.

Well, I'm not really on either side of the debate. But what Harte has proposed for the reasoning seems like a logical explanation. I can't say I've heard a logical explanation from those that take the other side of the argument.

http://home.att.net/~m.standridge/fsync3pt.htm


Lots of interesting ideas here...

It's not my proposition. It's simply fact.

Most photos (on the web) of this panel have been photoshopped. The evidence for this retouching is on the page at the link in the old post I linked to, IIRC.

Harte

ok say they had fling machines......how does that serve us today.what good does it do to know our ansistors had flying machines...........that flyin fish theory has alot of merit...flying fish are in most every ocean and appear in most cultures that have oceans......real good thred....makes a good read....Ej

seems to me people figured out how to fold paper and make a flying object like a paper air plane we have today

This is interesting...

The technical term for '2000 year old sycamore wood' is 'dust'.

Not quite





http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highl...henutmehyt.aspx





From the tomb of Henutmehyt, Thebes, Egypt
19th Dynasty, around 1290 BC
This box is made of expensive sycamore wood, coated with resin. The black colour of the resin is associated with the Afterlife, and with rebirth.

Thats the trick!!
The Resin!!
The resin coat would prevent the decay of natural wood, i suppose.

From the link which was provided in the 2nd post..

1. The so called "pre-Columbian Flying Zoo-Morphic animal Planes". These represent birds anf were used as ornaments or tokens. These were given world wide publicity by the supreme fraudster - Erich Von Daniken. After him, the whole lot of psuedo -what-ever-ians have latched on to these and many more 'discoveries" by daniken and his brother from a different set of parents - Garaham hancock ...and add their own spice to the stew they are brewing.


2. The Famous Saqqara Bird -
What I feel is that the Saqqara Bird represents just what it is - a Bird. it can only be a play toy for children of that era or a show piece, not an aeroplane.


The Birds Physical structure is aerodymanic. Our Aeroplanes/flying machines too aerodynamic. its through trial and error that we have found out about the aerofoil shape.
so what sense is there to associate the scuplture or engraving or casting of a bird to a flying machine???
a bird is a Bird.

3. the egyptian apache helicopter and flying saucers.
This is a riot. why only in this particular place?? why dont these appear all over old structures of egypt?? as harte suggested, the paster has fallen off or eroded and causes a interesting case of Pareidolia.

4. the vymanikashashtra.....has been milked to the core.
The pictures shown in the link to be realted to ancient indian flying machines is baseless.
Vymanika shastra was written and published in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This has been done in depth before & explained satisfacturally . Its a non-mystery.

P.S. The 'apache helicopter' is in fact a sarcophagus laid horizontal, with a spear held above, & means 'Dead king'.

If man is wiped out how will he still be around in three thousand years time?

If a nuclear war struck ..many would be wiped out..cities would be destroyed... man will fight for survival... telecommunication would be down.. factories would be out...people would be consentrating on the next meal.. survival... there would be mass disorder... who would go to work the next day and keep everything going??? our resources would only last so long... the ability to mass produce gadgets would be severely limited by lack of people... raw materials.. expertise to fix machinery...experts required i n many fields would be distracted to say the least... scientists would be otherwise occupied...... it could take years to recover... if ever... soon everything will will be a memory...until we can regroup.. nuclear wars would start earthquakes... tsunamis... disease... fear...

Look how badly Katrina was handled... imagine that scenario all over the world... wars... fights for the few remaining resourses.. if there are any left..

depending on how we survive it...( we are all more free thinking these days).... it may take quite some time to re-establish ourselves...

yours is a large what if scenario ..CS.

it's been said before.. by many others....


Our teacher even mentioned a similar scenario decades ago..

yeah, your teacher had a bout of what-if-ism too. may be its a communicable disease!!

http://www.legendarytimes.com/index.php?me...7edcf4546f76439


http://www.aliencrossing.com/ancient-alien-evidence/








http://www.steveaylett.com/pages/vimanas.html


http://www.light1998.com/Vimanas/Vimanas.htm



http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...ic=193&st=0

My god....this crap was debunked back in the eighties when Von Daniken wrote his stupid books.

What ??? as fake?

No ... it is just weighing possibilities of potential outcomes to certain actions....

What would happen if some loon ..hacker...set off a nuclear bomb... would other nations panic and send their's off in retaliation??

What about all those nuclear power stations built on fault lines???
What?!! They Built the Largest Nuclear Power Plant on an Earthquake Fault Line?
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/offbe...-fault-line/124


With all the bombings going on.. this will certainly tip the apple cart!!!
IRAN'S NUKE SITES SIT ON FAULT LINE
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19432

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) stated clearly that "Yucca Mountain is not a safe place" to store spent nuclear fuel due to the "considerable seismic activity" in the area.
http://www.agiweb.org/gap/legis110/nuclear_hearings.html

Meanwhile, Japan has closed seven nuclear power stations built on an earthquake fault line
http://www.odac-info.org/node/2110

Indian Point is Built on Earthquake Fault Line...Reactors Will Break Apart
http://greennuclearbutterfly.blogspot.com/...earthquake.html



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2502755.stm
that's just the start... note we are experiencing more and more seismic disturbances than ever before...
It's just a matter of time... unless we smarten up and use alternatives... Nuclear power with it's resultant toxic waste is a lose lose situation

ave a gander at these Shibam's skyscrapers......

wishful thinking

lmao

...you wouldn't need all that dramtization,its happen before and may be only a matter of time before happening again(dammit m.night why does your movies suck,why why!)...that is a solarflare. We get hit head on by one of them bad boys its back to the flinstone era minus Dino.

The whynsos

That ....or the odd asteroid.. or meteors with odd viruses.. bacteria.. spores...hibernating life forms...

http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/mar/08gspec.htm

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/aliens_all_001027-1.html