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NEWS September 2023
September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we move to Sicily and Malta. The trip is purely vacational. Unfortunately, I am writing this in a dreadful apartment, sitting on a bed, with access to just one useable socket and a small Notebook. Consequently, I possibly will not […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Hall of Records
Hall of Records
The Hall of Records (HoR) is a term used to describe an alleged repository of ancient wisdom, frequently claimed to be situated under the Sphinx at Giza. Today, the HoR is usually associated with the prognostications of Edgar Cayce who, in one of his trances, told us that there were three such repositories, near Bimini, the Yucatan and Giza.
Popular writers Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock were convinced that the HoR had been situated under the rear paws of the Sphinx in Keepers of Genesis [1050], published as Message of the Sphinx in the USA. Ian Lawton & Chris Ogilvie-Herald have noted in Giza the Truth [1690] how both Bauval and Hancock have modified their view of the HoR in a later video [p.400]. Cayce thought that the HoR would be found under the left paw of the Sphinx.
Lawton & Ogilvie-Herald also review the comments of other writers, both modern and ancient regarding the HoR. Their preliminary conclusion was “that it would appear that the weight of evidence supports the idea that secret records of mankind’s ancient past and knowledge do indeed exist in various locations in the world. However, the evidence linking them to Giza is far less substantial.” [p.242]
In 2000, Ralph Ellis announced his intention to lead an expedition to Mount Kailash in Nepal to find the Hall of Records!(a)
(a) Atlantis Rising magazine #23 p15 http://www.pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At *
Gunung Padang
Gunung Padang is a megalithic site on the Indonesian island of Java, which was first surveyed in 1914 by the Dutch colonial authorities and published as Rapporten van de Oudheidkundige Dienst (Report of the Department of Antiquities). A post-war Australian investigation concluded that the site was much older than previously believed. Now, with presidential support, local archaeologists are carrying out an extensive investigation of the site.
The site has recently been claimed as part of 
Atlantis. Evidence that the site contains hidden chambers prompted Graham Hancock to speculate whether it “Could it be the fabled “Hall of Records” of Atlantis?”(k).
A few years ago the late Arysio dos Santos was the leading proponent of Sundaland, which included Indonesia, being Atlantis. Then Danny Hilman Natawidjaja (DHN) an Indonesian geologist has made a similar claim in his Kindle ebook, Plato Never Lied: Atlantis Is in Indonesia[961]. In it, Gunung Padang plays an important role. Mount Padang has also been claimed as the world’s oldest pyramid! Although I do not support the idea of an Indonesian Atlantis, I am forced to admit that a far more interesting case for it has been made by Dhani Irwanto.
In his review of Hancock’s Magicians of the Gods, Jason Colavito refers to “Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, the Indonesian geologist who declared the site of Gunung Padang on Sumatra to be ten or twenty thousand years old, and thus making Indonesia the cradle of civilization. Natawidjaja is a true believer in fringe history and suspects that Plato was speaking of Gunung Padang when writing of Atlantis. His opinions are noteworthy only because the previous government of Indonesia gave him the money and resources to excavate the site in search of proof of Indonesian primacy in history before the current government shut down the investigation for becoming an international laughingstock. Like Semir Osmanogich in Bosnia, Natawidjaja sees artificial layers of construction in the deepest layers of what his colleagues in Indonesia and archaeologists around the world believe to be a natural hill crowned with later ruins.” (n).
Nevertheless, a recent (May 2017) assault on Natawidjaja’s theories in an open letter(i) from Rebecca Bradley has laid bare the weaknesses in his claims.
DHN in an address to the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in 2018, said that radiocarbon dating suggests the top layer of the site could be up to 3,500 old years old, the second layer somewhere around 8,000 years old, and the third layer anywhere in the vicinity of 9,500 to 28,000 years old(j).
Graham Hancock has written a review(b) of the excavations at Gunung Padang and in October 2014 added further comments(d)(m). Robert Schoch has also offered a geologist’s view of the site(f).
One report that I thought rather interesting was that “aside from its age, is that during coring it was found that much of the buried structure was reinforced with a type of cement. This bonding agent, which has been used as a mortar and sort of glue in certain parts of the site, consists of 45% iron ore, 41% silica and 14% clay. It’s said that this mixture provides for a very strong and durable mortar base, and is surprising evidence of the level of sophistication of the building technique.”(l)
Andrew Collins has now added an article(h). to his website that examines the preliminary claim that the lower levels at the site could be 12,000 years older than Gobekli Tepe. If confirmed, it will undoubtedly require some rewriting of history books. Do not lose sight of the fact that radiocarbon dating has limitations, being accurate for up to around 6,000 years with increasing unreliability up to perhaps 50,000 BC after which it is generally useless.
We now (Nov. ’14) have a report(e) that some type of ‘electrical device’ has been discovered at the site ‘made out of gold and copper and seems to resemble a primitive electrical capacitor.’ Until further information is available this claim must be treated with caution.
There are, however, dissenting voices as reported by journalist, Michael Bachelard(g), such as vulcanologist Sutikno Bronto, who says “Gunung Padang is simply the neck of a nearby volcano, not an ancient pyramid. Danny Hilman is not a vulcanologist. I am.” As for the carbon-dated cement between the stones, on which Hilman relies for his claims about the age of the site, Sutikno believes it is simply the byproduct of a natural weathering process, ”not man-made”. Other sceptics are even tougher. One archaeologist, who does not wish to be named since the President took such an interest, says the presidential taskforce is deluding itself. ”In the Pawon cave in Padalarang [about 45 kilometres from Gunung Padang], we found some human bones and tools made of bones about 9500 years ago, or about 7000 BCE. So, if at 7000 BCE our technology was only producing tools of bones, how can people from 20,000 BCE obtain the technology to build a pyramid?” the archaeologist asks.
In October 2023, Danny Hilman endeavoured to return to the limelight with a paper in the journal Archaeological Prospection(o), published by Wiley, in which he recycled some of his earlier claims identifying Gunung Padang as an Ice Age pyramid. Jason Colavito commented briefly(p) on this latest feeble offering from Hilman and cites a more forensic article by Carl Feagans(q) as an effective rebuttal. It was subsequently revealed(r) that the journal and its publisher have launched an ethics investigation into the flawed paper, according to a report in Nature!
March 2024 saw Archaeological Prospection retract this flawed paper(s).
>Danny Hilman et al published their reaction to the retraction on Graham Hancock’s website, describing the rescindment as ‘unjust’(t).<
(c) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/gp.htm
(d) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockG10-Gunung-Padang-Latest.php
(h) https://www.facebook.com/notes/1076395952375272/
(i) https://www.skepticink.com/lateraltruth/2017/05/14/gunung-padang-open-letter-danny/
(j) Long-Hidden ‘Pyramid’ Found in Indonesia Was Likely an Ancient Temple | Live Science
(k) Gunung Padang: The lost records of Atlantis? — Secret History — Sott.net
(l) Gunung Padang and The Lost City of Atlantis | Mysterious Universe
(n) Magicians of the Gods Review – JASON COLAVITO
(0) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/arp.1912
(p) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/on-the-fantasy-of-a-primeval-gunung-padang-pyramid
(r) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03546-w
(s) Archaeological Prospection | Archaeological Journal | Wiley Online Library
Collins, Andrew
Andrew Collins was born in England in 1957. Several of his earlier books are concerned with psychic questing(v). However, he eventually shifted his focus to a study of alternative history.
Over the past twenty years, he has been investigating the possible existence of ancient advanced civilisations. He has written three books on the subject of pre-history[072][073][074]. His volume on Atlantis has been well received as an example of how the subject should be researched. Although Collins initially thought that Antarctica had been home to Atlantis, he eventually concluded that Cuba was its location and provided a wealth of evidence to support this view in his book, Gateway to Atlantis. David Rohl wrote a sympathetic Introduction for the book and repeated and expanded on his expressed views at a subsequent lecture(h).
What did surprise Collins, was that following the publication of his carefully-argued ‘Gateway’ was that most responses to his book indicated that the dominant theory regarding the location of Atlantis favoured Antarctica!(ac)
Collins also wrote of why his chosen Cuba is a better candidate for the location of Atlantis than the Bahamas(r). He seems to have been reluctant to exclude the Bahamas completely from the Atlantis story. In an article in Atlantis Rising magazine(z), he commented “There is no question that if the Bahamian landmass did once support a prehistoric culture, then it was also present on Cuba as well”.
Collins has recently written another controversial book[075], on the place of the constellation Cygnus in prehistoric consciousness. Arising from this study, it appears that the position of the Cygnus stars correlates more accurately with the Giza pyramids than those of Orion, which was proposed some years ago by Robert Bauval. Incredibly, a fifteen-year-old Canadian boy has produced a comparable theory(e) involving Mayan cities and a star map. The site proposed by him has now been identified, by people who personally know the location, as either an abandoned cornfield or a marijuana crop(f).
In 2018, Gustavo Muniz posted a number of videos on YouTube suggesting an Orion connection with a site in the Amazon Basin(i)!>His ideas were developed into a book, Orion: The Connection between Heaven and Earth [2082].<
However, Collins has not been completely seduced by Bauval’s discovery and prudently remarks that the correlation may just be a coincidence. Jason Colavito has written a brief critique(b) of this book.
In 2002 Collins teamed up with Chris Ogilvie-Herald to write Tutankhamun [1898]. It is a great read involving as it does, unexplained deaths, political intrigue and possible blackmail. Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon are also accused of looting some of the treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb. However, for me, the core weakness in this book is that it is dependent on a claim that the plunder taken by Carter and Carnavon had included papyrus documents, the contents of which allegedly contained material that was still deemed politically sensitive even three thousand years later! Without the papyrus, there is no book.
In 2007, he wrote an article(q) for Alternate Perceptions Magazine reviewing the comet impact theory of Richard Firestone et al and its possible implication for his Atlantis theory.
In 2005, Collins published The Cygnus Mystery[075]in which he explored the significance of the Cygnus constellation in the ancient cultures of America, Egypt and Britain. (a condensed version of the book is available online(s)). Furthermore, in August 2013 he published a paper(c) with Rodney Hale suggesting that the Göbekli Tepe site is probably aligned with the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation. This idea has now been expanded on in Collins’ 2014 book, Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods[0983], although his treatment has been heavily criticised as pseudoscience(g).
In a recent paper(t), Andrew Collins disputed Bauval‘s Orion Correlation Theory and instead offered evidence that the alignment of the three principal Giza pyramids matches more closely the ‘wing’ stars of the Cygnus constellation than the ‘belt’ of Orion! Greg Little offered some rather lukewarm support for Collins’ alternative to the OCT(u).
Nevertheless, Little & Collins teamed up as co-authors of Denisovan Origins [1672] in 2019, a literary bromance that has led to another joint offering, Origins of the Gods due for publication in 2022, in which the authors explore “how our ancestors used shamanic rituals at sacred sites to create portals for communication with non-human intelligences”. If that does not sufficiently whet your appetite, the news that the well-known convicted fraudster Erich von Däniken has written the Foreword should clinch it for you.
Collins has made some dramatic claims regarding the significance of Cygnus including the proposal that “The veneration of Cygnus as a bird associated with cosmic life and death goes back 17,000 years to when the constellation occupied pole position in the northern night sky” and perhaps even more extreme, the idea that “Cygnus is at the root of all the world’s religions.”
Collins continues with the Cygnus-Giza connection in a subsequent offering Beneath the Pyramids[631]. This book reveals the tunnels and chambers beneath the Giza pyramids and their possible connection with the “Hall of Records” predicted by Edgar Cayce to be located there and due for discovery.
In a paper(d), co-authored with Rodney Hale, published in April 2016, Collins returned to the theory of a Cygnus-Giza correlation based on a master plan that they claim can now be demonstrated mathematically.
Collins has now moved on to new ground with his Lightquest[895], in which he attempts to offer a new explanation for the UFO phenomena. He claims that what has been described as UFOs are “the product of sentient light forms and light intelligences that co-exist with humanity, and have done so since time immemorial.”
Nevertheless, Collins returns to the subject of Atlantis with a new book, Atlantis in the Caribbean[1197], which is a revised version of Gateway to Atlantis. In it, he follows some of Otto Muck’s ideas and “Explains how Atlantis was destroyed by a comet, the same comet that formed the mysterious Carolina Bays“.
Collins, who proposes Cuba as one of the legendary Hesperides and also the location of Atlantis, has offered a critical response to Emilio Spedicato‘s Hispaniola theory in both Gateway to Atlantis and its revised version Atlantis in the Caribbean, which can be read online(ad).
When the Denisovans were recently identified as an extinct species of hominid, related to the Neanderthals It did not take long for speculative history enthusiasts to jump on board this new bandwagon. Andrew Collins has now published The Cygnus Key[1509], in which he claims to present “compelling evidence showing that the earliest origins of human culture, religion, and technology derive from the Denisovans, the true creators of the lost civilization long known to exist but never before proved.” Jason Colavito also presents a critique of this latest ‘Cygnus’ book in a two-part(m)(n) offering.
While the first Denisovan remains were found in Siberia, now there is evidence that they were also the earliest hominins on the Tibetan Plateau(j).
Before the identification of the Denisovans, Colin Wilson had claimed that the Neanderthals “were the civilising force behind Atlantis”![0336] One cannot help wondering if another early hominid species is discovered, which is quite possible, will they also be claimed as the progenitors of Plato’s lost civilisation?
In this new book Collins also “explains how the stars of Cygnus coincided with the turning point of the heavens at the moment the Denisovan legacy was handed to the first human societies in southern Siberia some 45,000 years ago, catalyzing beliefs in swan ancestry and an understanding of Cygnus as the source of cosmic creation.” Hmm.
Collins and chartered engineer, Rodney Hale have studied the Gunung Padang site in Indonesia, which has generated claims of antiquity greater than that of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. While their investigation raised a number of minor matters, they were unable to endorse the rather extreme dates suggested until more convincing data is available(x).
Collins and Hale have also co-authored a paper on the possible astronomical significance of images on what is known as Pillar 43 or sometimes the ‘Vulture Stone’ at Göbekli Tepe(af). This is not the first such suggestion, but their new interpretation should be considered.
In June 2019, Collins published a two-part article(l) on the Ancient Origins website, in which he explores the possibility of Giza’s Great Pyramid having sound technology incorporated into its construction and that “its Dead-end passage function as an infrasound generator?”
Later in 2019, Collins had his 1996 book, From the Ashes of Angels, banned in Turkey(p), it is not clear yet if he is personally banned as well. Apparently, it all stems from some perceived support that Collins gave to the Kurdish cause in ‘Ashes’! I hope he refrains from mentioning the Armenians. A YouTube video from Collins offers his account of the episode(y).
Collins has seemingly made peace with the Turkish authorities as he is now planning a tour of Karahan Tepe later in 2022(ab). This link has some interesting images.
Andrew Collins maintains a useful website(a) that has plenty of information on his books and lectures. He also offers an extended section relating to his Atlantis theories(o). Nevertheless, he does seem to have retained his interest in metaphysical subjects, which is where he started.
An article on Graham Hancock’s website offers a rebuttal of a series of Collins’ claims(ae).
Collins is now a regular contributor to Ancient Origins. His website lists the articles published there so far(aa).
(b) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/10/did-cosmic-rays-from-cygnus-create-religion.html
(c) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Gobekli_Sirius.htm
(g) Wayback Machine (archive.org)
(h) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/mysteries/drohl.htm
(i) Gustavo Muniz – YouTube and Bing Videos (Spanish) *
(k) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/great-pyramid-0012166
(l) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/great-pyramid-0012179
(m) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-the-cygnus-key-by-andrew-collins-part-1
(n) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-the-cygnus-key-by-andrew-collins-part-2
(o) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/news/Atlantisfile.htm
(p) https://www.reddit.com/r/kurdistan/comments/d6u3zu/another_attack_to_the_kurds_in_turkey_andrew/
(q) https://andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Firestorm.htm
(r) https://andrewcollins.com/page/interactive/bahamas.htm
(s) The Cygnus Mystery (archive.org)
(t) (99+) (PDF) Orion: The Eternal Rise of the Sky Hunter | Andrew Collins – Academia.edu
(v) Psychic Questing (andrewcollins.com)
(w) Andrew Collins – author – books & DVDs
(x) http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/gp.htm
(y) Andrew Collins Book Ban in Turkey and Abuse at Gobekli Tepe – Bing video
(z) Atlantis Rising magazine #37 http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(aa) http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/AO_articles.htm
(ab) Andrew Collins – Earthquest News – January 2022 (ymlp.com)
(ac) QC2K – Andrew Collins (archive.org)
(ae) http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=122922&t=122922
(af) Göbekli Tepe’s Pillar 43 – The Vulture Stone (andrewcollins.com)
A.R.E. *
A.R.E. (Association for Research & Enlightenment Inc.) promotes the
A.R.E. Campus
cause of Edgar Cayce in particular his Atlantis prophecies. Their headquarters are in Virginia Beach, Virginia and operate on a multi-million dollar budget. A.R.E. has also been associated, somewhat controversially, with investigations on the Giza plateau, to substantiate Cayce’s claim of a Hall of Records existing near the Sphinx. Cayce also claimed that a second and third ‘Hall of Records’ was situated in the Bahamas and the Yucatan(c), while Joseph Robert Jochmans has suggested(b) the possibility of a fourth ‘Hall’.
A.R.E. purchased the library and papers of the late Egerton Sykes, the well-known British Atlantis investigator and have now made them available to other researchers in Virginia Beach.
A husband and wife team, Dr. Gregory and Laura Little, have carried out underwater investigations in the Bahamas, seeking evidence of Atlantis there. They also produce a monthly newsletter for the Association called “Ancient Mysteries” and are authors of many books and articles. A.R.E. also supports an Ancient Mysteries website(a).
(a) Ancient Mysteries | Edgar Cayce Readings |Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. | Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. (archive.org) *
Appleby, Nigel
Nigel Appleby (a.k.a. Major Niall Arden) is the ‘author’ of Hall of the Gods[076], which purported to identify the location, in Egypt, of the Hall of Records that is supposed to contain the accumulated knowledge of an advanced worldwide civilisation that preceded the ancient Egyptians.
The author wrote of ‘Atlantis’ being “really just a symbolic name for the previous worldwide civilisation that existed prior to the last reversal of the Sun and Earth’s magnetic fields and the subsequent cataclysm that followed.” He then added that most of this civilisation still exists, virtually intact, beneath the Antarctic ice (p.363). He also claimed to have identified Nibiru in Sumerian texts independently of Zechariah Sitchin and to have deduced that it is “about the size of Earth and nearer than anticipated.”
He also announced the establishment of ‘Operation Hermes’, which had the objective of locating the Hall of Records near Giza(c) as well as other expeditions to Central & South America, China and Antarctica (p.378). Operation Hermes was abandoned when the Egyptian authorities refused permission for the expedition.
Shortly after the publication of the book in 1998, the publishers had to withdraw it from sale following claims of plagiarism by a number of other authors(a). Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince reveal some of the details of this episode in their Stargate Conspiracy [705.97].>Ian Lawton & Chris Ogilvie-Herald also devote a chapter of Giza the Truth [1690] to ‘The Appley Affair’ giving more detail, particularly the battle that Ralph Ellis had to demonstrate that large chunks of his book, Thoth: Architect of the Universe, had been used by Appleby.<
The whole matter was further confused when Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval along with Colin Wilson, Andrew Collins, Christopher Knight, Robert Lomas, Simon Cox and Alan Alford issued An Official Statement Regarding Operation Hermes(a) declaring that they were unaffiliated with Operation Hermes, then and in the future.
Lightning struck twice when the second book of Appleby’s, Desert Fire, was also withdrawn from sale within days of publication in 2006!
(a) https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg03919.html
(b) https://www.dailygrail.com/blogs/Chris-Ogilvie-Herald/2006/7/Nigel-Appleby-Egypt-Iraq
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20010818232620/http://www.islandearth.net/hermes/content.htm