Strange Relics from the Depths of the Earth (I)

Editor's Notes:

The article, Strange Relics From the Depths of the Earth, is a 12 part listing of documented discoveries that negate Darwin's 'Theory of Evolution'. It is not nearly as extensive as the book, Forbidden Archeology, which is reviewed elsewhere in our category.

'Strange Relics' consists of 12 parts and a bibliography. We will publish this information in 4 stages so as not to overwhelm our readers. The first stage consists of parts 1,2,3 and the bibliography, which is usually located at the end. We're placing the bibliography at the beginning to allow you immediate access to the reference sources.

As Falun Dafa cultivators * we know that this information barely begins to touch upon mankind's actual history. In the book, Zhuang Falun, by Master Li Hongzhi, we read of a civilization from 2 billion years ago that had a nuclear reactor in operation for 500,000 years! The information presented here is merely a third party confirmation of some of the information in Zhuan Falun.

The immediate question that comes to mind for most people is: 'So, why is it that mankind is in this repetitive cycle of civilization and destruction?'

The answers, of course, are in Zhuan Falun and we urge you to get a copy for yourself so that you too can understand how our contemporary western science has led us so far from the correct path.

* Falun Dafa cultivator: Fa means law or principle, lun means wheel, da means great. So, the literal translation of Falun Dafa is Law Wheel of the Great Law. This is the symbol adopted by Master Li Hongzhi. A cultivator is a person who has committed to cultivating his/her mind nature (xinxing, sheen shing) in order to become the best person possible. Zhuan Falun tells us how to accomplish this.

(1) Accepted theories and unaccepted facts

In most of the academic and scientific world today, the interpretation of the history of the earth, of life, of man, and of human culture, is defined within the narrow boundaries of specific, prevailing theories. The geology of the earth, for example, is viewed almost exclusively in terms of uniformitarianism. This means that the present-existing processes of erosion and volcanism are thought to have been the only forces at work in the past. Because of the slowness of these processes of change, and the tremendous transformations observed in the earth's depths, the age of the earth is thus counted in billions of years - today, it is put between 4 1/2 and 5 billion years.

Likewise, the history of life on this planet is seen as a lengthy development by evolution, or, the progression from simple to increasingly more complex forms. Since the simplest - and supposedly earliest - life forms appear in Cambrian rock, and Cambrian rock is dated geologically at 600 million years, this is deemed the age of life on earth. Only in the final stage of evolution did man appear on the scene, the ultimate end-product: According to the most recent anthropological finds, the earliest man-like creatures roamed the earth just 4 million years ago. Finally, the very nature of evolutionary theory dictates that man's cultural development must have been linear - a slow, gradual, but constant, upward climb from primitive beginnings, spanning the last 10,000 years, with the advent of modern technological civilization and its products the recent culmination of that climb.

These theories, which together form the uniformitarian-evolution-linear model, have predominated modern science for the past century, to the extent that all finds made - every rock sample, every fossil, every human remains and every artifact - have been carefully interpreted and categorized so as to fit this model's framework, at the exclusion of all other. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that not all facts from the past find their 'proper' place. Other discoveries have been made that contradict the accepted model. Yet these discoveries are largely ignored, since it is far easier for the majority of scientists and historians to uphold what is 'established,' than to try to build a new model based on the 'exceptions.'

One of the greatest pitfalls of the uniformitarian-evolution-linear model is that it must accept the premise that man, as an intelligent being, was a very recent arrival in the history of the earth. With the geologic record counted in billions of years, the fossil record in hundreds of millions of years, the record of human fossils in the millions of years, and human civilization only in the thousands of years, there would be no way to explain the presence of human bones, or sophisticated artifacts derived from the hand of man, in deep rock strata. In fact, the finding of even a single such item would be totally devastating to the model, for it would negate the entire concept of uniformity, and the evolution of man and human culture in the past.

The point that will be brought out in this book is that there is evidence for man, and the products of human civilization, in the deep recesses of the earth. Herein are presented the case histories.

(2) The bones of forgotten men

Walk into any natural museum today, or read any textbook on anthropology, and one invariably finds a large chart exhibited, tracing the ancestry of man back through more primitive forebears, until the line is lost somewhere amid the apes. Recently, paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, excavating in Ethiopia, announced the discovery of what are supposed to be the oldest accepted fossil remains of man - about 4 million years old. What has been disturbing about the new finds is that they are, in part, too human: Their great age, yet partly 'modern' appearance, has forced evolutionists to push back the departure of man from the ape stock farther into the past, so that now it is beginning to infringe upon the time period necessary for the development of the apes themselves.

But while the African finds are revolutionary, there have been other discoveries of human fossils greatly more important, but these have been deliberately neglected or denounced, because they are far older than man is 'supposed' to be.

Over a hundred years ago, in the 1850's, gold miners began digging tunnels into the sides and top of Table Mountain, northwest of Needles, California. Gold was discovered, but along with it were bones of extinct mastodons, mammoths, bison, tapirs, horses, rhinos, hippos and camels - all dating from the Pliocene. In 1863, a physician from nearby Sonora, Dr. R. Snell, began to collect specimens from the excavations. In that year, with his bare hands, he loosened from among the fossils a stone disc that appeared to have been used for grinding. But Dr. Snell was not the first, or last, to unearth mysterious objects from the mountain gravel: In 1853, Oliver W. Stevens made affidavit that he removed a large stone bowl from the lowest level tunnel; in 1857, the Honorable Paul Hubbs, of Vallejo, dug up part of a human crania from inside the Valentine shaft; and in 1862, Mr. Llewellyn Pierce also signed affidavit that he had found a stone mortar 200 feet in from the mouth of the same shaft. The most dramatic find, however, was reserved for a Mr. Mattison, one of the owners of the mines. In February of 1866, Mattison unearthed from beneath a layer of basalt an object which - because of the encrustation's - he first thought was the petrified root of a tree, but on closer examination discovered was a complete human skull. The miner sent the skull to the office of the State Survey in June of the same year. Eventually, the skull came into the possession of Dr. L. Wyman, of Harvard College, who removed the encasing material around the cranium. Dr. Wyman, and an associate named Professor Whitney, identified the skull as very modern in type, but also noted that, 'the fragments of bones and gravel and shells were so wedged into the cavities of the skull that there could be no mistake as to the character of the situation in which it is found.' The stickler was, however, that this meant the skull, along with all the artifacts found, were 12 million years old.

In 1958, Dr. Johannes Huerzeler, of the Museum of Natural History in Basel, Switzerland, unearthed a human jawbone at a depth of 600 feet, in a coal mine in Tuscany, Italy. The bone had belonged to a child, between the ages of five and seven. Though flattened like a sheet of iron, the jaw was declared by several experts to be not only human, but modern-looking at that. But what mystified them was that it had been encased in a Miocene stratum - geologically dated at 20 million years. Dr. Huerzeler declared it to be the world's oldest man' - but his fellow anthropologists did not dare give it the same distinction. Here were human remains more modern in appearance than all the 'ape-men' forms ever found - yet they were five times as old as any of them. In fact, the jaw bone is as old, if not older, than many ancestors of the apes. The bone raised more problems than answers - so the find was quickly 'shelved,' and no further work was ever done to give it due recognition.

Early in November of 1926, archaeologist J.C.F. Siegfriedt made a discovery in another mine, this one the Number Three shaft of the Mutual Coal Mine of Bear Creek, 55 miles southwest of Billings, Montana. What Siegfriedt found was a human tooth, in which the enamel had been replaced by carbon and the roots by iron, by seepage petrification. In an account published in the Carbon County News and dated November 11, 1926, Siegfriedt reported that he had meticulously preserved the mineral matrix that had been deposited around the tooth, and several dentists identified the mold created as being a human second lower molar. The tooth, however, came from the lower level of the mine - from an Eocene deposit dated at 30 million years old. Siegfriedt could generate no interest in his find among other specialists, and as far as is known, no one has done any further study of the mystery.

One of the more controversial of the 'out-of-place' bones from extreme antiquity is today part of the collection of the Freiberg Mining Academy in West Germany. It is a poorly preserved human skull, found in brown coal in 1842, from an undisclosed locality. Early European authorities dismissed the skull as a fake, but more recent research and analysis has questioned this hasty pronouncement, putting it back into the realm of the authentic. The reason for its initial denunciation is understandable: The coal it was embedded in, a portion of which still clings to the skull, is estimated to be as much as 50 million years old.

It seems that even when authentication is overwhelming, the response by the scientific community is, inversely, underwhelming. In 1973, a rock collector named Lin Ottinger was searching over a rock plateau that had just been bulldozed over, in preparation for the beginning of mining operations by the nearby Big Indian Copper Mine. The mine is situated 35 miles southwest of Moab, Utah. During his pickings in the exposed rock, Ottinger suddenly found pieces of bone and teeth, and traced these to a patch of sand with a brown stain - the tell-tale sign of decayed organic matter. Carefully removing the sand, Ottinger discovered the top portion of a large intact bone. The rockhound, realizing the importance of his find, decided to have a credited expert look at it, and let him do the digging, so that everything would be 'scientifically acceptable.'

A week later, Ottinger returned to the plateau with Dr. J.P. Marwitt, professor of anthropology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, several photographers, a news reporter, and a number of observers. With cameras recording the event, Dr. Marwitt carefully removed the lower halves of two human skeletons. The bones were articulated - that is, laid out naturally - showing the bodies had not fallen or been washed into the stratum in which they were situated. These and other factors revealed the bones to be as old as the layer in which they were found. The one problem was, the layer is Lower Dakota and Upper Morrison formations -over 100 million years of age, according to uniformitarian geologists. Yet, as Marwitt noted, the bones were not simian or even half-ape: They were fully human and modern-looking.

(3) The bones of forgotten men

The skeletons were taken by Marwitt back with him to the University of Utah, to run laboratory datings on them. But whether the tests were ever run, there was no official confirmation. One gets the impression they were, and that the findings were too disturbing for conservative thinking. Marwitt suddenly became 'disinterested' in the project, and left Utah to take up a teaching position elsewhere. After a year waiting for results, Ottinger recovered the bones - and that ended the scientific inquiry.

More finds, made in the last century, were similarly reported, and promptly forgotten. The Saturday Herald of Iowa City carried an article that on April 10, 1867, human remains and artifacts were brought to light at the Rocky Point Mine, in Gilman, Colorado. At a depth of 400 feet below the surface, excavators found human bones embedded in a silver vein. Along with the bones was found a well-tempered copper arrowhead. As best as can be calculated, the vein in which the items were situated was 135 million years old, by present geological standards. ((SR. #2))

At times, the discoveries made revealed 'mysteries upon mysteries.' In July, 1877, four prospectors were looking for gold and silver outcroppings in a desolate, hilly area near the head of Spring Valley, not far from Eureka, Nevada. Scanning the rocks, one of the men spotted something peculiar projecting from a high ledge. Climbing up to get a better look, the prospector was surprised to find a human legbone and knee cap sticking out of solid rock. He called to his companions, and together they dislodged the oddity with picks. Realizing they had a most unusual find, the men brought it into Eureka, where it was placed on display.

The stone in which the bones were embedded was a hard, dark red quartzite, and the bones themselves were almost black with carbonization - indicative of great age. When the surrounding stone was carefully chipped away, the specimen was found to be composed of a leg bone broken off four inches above the knee, the knee cap and joint, the lower leg bones, and the complete bones of the foot. Several medical doctors examined the remains, and were convinced that anatomically they had indeed once belonged to a human being, and a very modern-looking one. But an intriguing aspect of the bones was their size: from knee to heel they measured 39 inches. Their owner in life had thus stood over 12 feet tall. Compounding the mystery further was the fact that the rock in which the bones were found was dated geologically to he era of the dinosaurs, the Jurassic - over 185 million years old. The local papers ran several stories on the marvelous find, and two museums sent investigators to see if any more of the skeleton could be located. Unfortunately, nothing else but the leg and foot existed in the rock.

The next and last skeletal find takes us another quantum leap in geologic time, and plunges us even deeper into the earth's strata. A Scientific American article published in 1880 reprinted the particulars of a discovery made in the spring of that year, reported in the St. Louis Republican. Dr. R.W. Booth, who operated an iron mine about 3 miles from Dry Branch, in Franklin County, Missouri, unearthed from a depth of 18 feet a human skull, portions of ribs, vertebrae and a collar bone. With them were two barbed arrowheads of flint, and pieces of charcoal. Dr. Booth realized the significance of all this, but was frustrated when at just a touch the skull crumbled to dust, and the other bones likewise broke into pieces. But these pieces nevertheless told their story: Later analysis showed they were definitely human. Two and a half weeks later, Dr. Booth reached a level of 24 feet, and found more of the same skeleton - a thigh bone, vertebrae, and more charred wood. What is more, the remains were found resting on a layer of iron ore, which bore the impressions of coarse matting. One could still see the marks of criss-crossing fibers. What astounded Booth was that the layer in which both portions were dug up was the second or saccharoidal sandstone of the Lower Silurian - dated an incredible 425 million years old.

Let me repeat that: 425 million years. We have gone far beyond the purported age of human culture, of man himself, the apes, all mammals, even the age of the dinosaurs. According to evolutionary theory, the Silurian age saw the advent of life on land and was in fact more than two-thirds of the way back to the supposed advent of life itself. But what are the remains of man and his products doing at this level? Something, certainly, is very wrong.

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