The Giza Power Plant (33 page)

Steiger presented another analysis by a professional engineer, who saw the wall carvings at Dendera as an accurate illustration of an electrical device—one
which would not be out of place in a modern electrical blueprint file. "In regards to the ancient Egyptian electron tubes, electromagnetic engineer Professor S.R. Harris identified a box-and-braided cable in the picture as 'virtually an exact copy of engineering illustration used today for representing a bundle of conducting wires.' The cable runs from the box the full length of the floor and terminates at both the ends and at the bases of two peculiar objects resting on two pillars. Professor Harris is said to have identified these representations as high voltage
insulators."
³

While technologists compare the image in this wall carving with what they know of science, Egyptologists interpret these images with what they know of ancient Egyptian symbolism. Unorthodox Egyptologist, John Anthony West, is convinced that Egyptian symbolism fully explains these images without having to invoke higher scientific knowledge. According to West, the carvings represent a manifestation of consciousness, with the serpent born aloft by the lotus—symbols representing a cosmogonical principle underlying all creation. As these are only illustrations and not the object they actually represent, different interpretations of what they actually mean may always exist. They are interesting graphics, in light of what is presented in this book, but not an essential part of my theory.

Even though I have solid evidence to support my Giza power plant theory, I am still haunted with questions that challenge this radical notion that the ancient Egyptians had electricity. "What did they do with the energy they produced? Where are the machines?" I often hear these questions when discussing my power plant theory with others. Of course, when we consider a civilization that is blessed with abundant electrical energy, we immediately think of refrigerators, washers, dryers, and other appliances that have become so necessary to our own comfortable existence. Not being able to identify any museum with a prehistoric toaster oven on display, I generally have responded that once a society develops a power system, it mayor may not go on to invent the kinds of devices to use that power. But with the Crookes tube parallel, we have a hint that at least one of the devices the ancient Egyptians had developed had inspired an artisan to carve its likeness in stone.

The Great Pyramid a power plant. The carving at Dendera an electrical device? Igneous rock at numerous locations throughout Egypt that shows
signs of having been precision machined. The evidence is there that the ancient Egyptian civilization was a lot different, and more advanced, than historians have led us to believe. So what did the Egyptians do with the energy they produced? From the exit point of the Southern Shaft of the Great Pyramid, the energy that flowed fulfilled a need for the civilization that invested in its construction. How was this energy delivered to those who used it? Our route to an answer takes us full circle, and we find ourselves starting at the Giza power plant itself.

As evidenced by their ability to lift huge weights, both Edward Leedskalnin and the ancient Egyptians were utilizing technology that we do not possess. Their ability to use gravity against itself and make large masses weightless forecasts the development of new technology which may include vehicles that use very little energy and that, conceivably, could gently break through the Earth's atmosphere, hover indefinitely at any point in space, and then safely return to Earth. A society that is not bound by the effects of gravity is a society that is finally unchained from the primitive wheel (which Egyptologists note the Egyptians did not use) and the wasteful, albeit
so
phisticated, use of fire (such as a jet engine). Such a society would no longer need to burn up the planet. Dare we speculate that the energy that exited the Southern Shaft of the Great Pyramid may have been directed to a point in space where a satellite collected the energy and beamed it to a distant point on Earth? Perhaps that point was within the borders of the mythical Atlantis. Perhaps the use for this energy was even more fantastic than we have ever before dreamed.

Robert Bauval is a man who dares to venture into the land of the fantastic. He has an incredible passion for his work and for the theory he proposed, with Adrian Gilbert, in
The Orion Mystery.
I first met Bauval in February 1995 when he, along with Graham Hancock and Netherlands Television producer Roel Oostra, knocked on my door at the Movenpick hotel near Giza. They were making a courtesy call to inform me that the following morning, after breakfast, they planned to do some filming with me in the King's Chamber inside the Great Pyramid. I had just completed a long journey and was tired, so after their visit I lay down to rest and replayed the events that had brought me to Egypt.

I had concluded many years ago that the ancient Egyptians left nothing,
in their design and construction, to chance. When I saw
The Orion Mystery
in Paul and Ardith Keller's bookstore in Camby, Indiana, and leafed through it for a few minutes, I knew I had to buy it. I was holding in my hands a new and revolutionary theory on the pyramids of Egypt.

The Orion Mystery
described the placement of the three major pyramids on the Giza Plateau to be analogous to the belt of the constellation Orion. The Great Pyramid and the Second Pyramid (Khafra's) are in alignment and close in size, and the Third Pyramid (Menkaura's) is smaller and offset from the others, mirroring the spatial relationship of the three stars of Orion's belt. With this revelation, the work of astronomer Virginia Trimble became more valuable. Trimble calculated that the Southern Shaft leading from the King's Chamber, with its angle of 44.5 degrees, was in alignment with Orion's belt. The Pyramid Texts associate Orion with the god of the afterlife, Osiris. Trimble surmised that after death, the king's soul traveled up the Southern Shaft to Orion and the king was reborn as Osiris. As Bauval describes Trimble's and his revelation in a documentary, he was indeed inspired with this relationship, and he carried this inspiration for over twelve years before finally writing about it in his best-selling book in 1994. It was the autumn of 1994 that I read the book and sent a letter to Bauval along with my article ''Advanced Machining in Ancient Egypt."

Bauval introduced me to Graham Hancock, who was writing
Fingerprints of the Gods
at the time, and subsequently to Roel Oostra, who invited me to Egypt to participate in a documentary. I believed in Bauval's theory—with the exception that he still maintained the tomb theory. Like him, however, I do not believe the Southern Shaft alignment and the placement of the three Giza pyramids happened by chance. For me, any references in the Pyramid Texts to the king's soul traveling through the Southern Shaft and rising to Orion are metaphors. I am, therefore, in agreement with Bauval and Gilbert who related the process of interpreting these hieroglyphics as analogous to reading a word processing file in a computer:

Anyone who has worked with a computer knows that calling up a file using a word-processing program not compatible with the one being used, means a garbled version of the text appearing on the screen.

This is more or less what happened (and in many ways is still
happening) with the Pyramid Texts and the pyramids of Egypt. We believe that the wrong program for reading them has been used. We are not talking of the translation from the hieroglyphic language to modern languages; we have the utmost faith in the work of Faulkner and others like him. We are referring specifically to the interpretation put on these texts by Egyptologists. We believe that the proper program or decoder exists and needs to be understood before we can properly decode the Pyramid Texts and extract their real, esoteric
meaning.
⁴

Their idea prompted me to consider my own theory in another way. Given the astronomical association and significance of the Southern Shaft, is it possible that the energy produced in the King's Chamber, and which then exited the Southern Shaft,
is
referred to in the Pyramid Texts? Perhaps I had only to apply the correct algorithm to interpret it. I read on in
The Orion Mystery,
noting a recurring metaphor from the Pyramid Texts:

'. . . The king is a Star . . . '
[PT 1583]

'The king is a Star which illuminates the sky . . .'
[PT 362, 1455]

'. . . The king is a Star brilliant and far-travelling . . . the king appears as a star . . .'
[PT 262]

'Lo, the king arises as this star which is on the underside of the sky . ..'
[PT 347]

There can be little doubt that the Pyramid Texts make a clear statement that the dead kings become stars, especially seen in the lower eastern sky. They also tell us that it is the souls of departed kings which become stars:

'be a soul as a living star . ..'
[PT 904]

'I am a soul. . . I (am) a star of gold . ..'
[PT 886–9]

'O king, you are this Great Star, the companion of Orion, who traverses the sky with Orion, who navigates the Duat with Osiris . . .'
[PT 882]
⁵

What an incredible description of events related to the pyramids' link to the stars. Suddenly I saw a new meaning for this star. Imagine if we had
put a vehicle in space, for whatever reason, and were beaming energy to it—for the vehicle's own use or to be returned to some location on Earth. Would that vehicle not appear as a bright star in the night sky? Assuming that the energy beam would have some divergence (it would grow in size) the farther it traveled from its source, then the larger the microwave receiver—the "star"—would have to be. On a clear night, we can see a small satellite as it orbits the Earth. What an incredible view we would have of such a receiver dish (refer to Figure 70). Looked at from an angle, would it appear as an eye in the sky?

And more fantastic still, what if the energy were being used to provide power to a space ship? The microwave energy that was projected from the Southern Shaft to Orion's belt stars may have been delivering more than Khufu's soul to the heavens. The energy, which Robert Bauval describes as Khufu's soul traveling to Orion, may have been his actual person along with an entourage!

If this seems too fantastic a speculation, take a moment to consider how future civilizations might interpret our own account of the Sojourner expedition to Mars. Five thousand years from now they probably would not be able to make sense of it because the media that contains the information would have degraded by then. We are in the same position with respect to the ancient Egyptians as our far future descendants will be to us. The Egyptians left multiple records of this "star" carved in stone. Have they been interpreted correctly? Is the interpretation of the hieroglyph of "king" correct?

In the English language there are different meanings for the word "power." It can mean strength, ability, or authority, as in a leader (king). It can also refer to the energy contained in a battery or delivered to your home through a wire. Is it possible that the Pyramid Texts refer to an environment associated with the production of power that was projected into space? We may never be able to answer this question, but it is one that is worth asking and thinking about.

Our speculations on the relationship between the Giza power plant theory and the interpretation of the Pyramid Texts could go on endlessly. For now, they may seem to be more in the realm of science fiction, but we must keep in mind that some of the technology that exists today, and that has been described in this book, was originally described in works of science
fiction many years ago. Space travel, global communication satellites, and handheld remote communication devices were technologies that inspired generations of scientists and engineers during their formative years as they devoured the imaginative yarns spun by science fiction writers.

And we must push our speculations even harder. The interpretation of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs by Egyptologists presents us with a view of a civilization that placed tremendous emphasis on the afterlife, with the kings and pharaohs being preoccupied with life after death. Since Neanderthal tribes first started to bury their dead, humans have held the belief that there is more to our existence than what our physical senses can detect. Many of us require three-dimensional definitions for the things that surround us, but all of natural phenomena cannot be described in these terms—if they could there would be no more mystery or research.

I am compelled, therefore, to touch on a subject that I have been advised to avoid because it brings an element that is not three-dimensional to my work. Every three-dimensional object we use and enjoy today had its beginnings with some form of inspiration or speculative thought. This inspiration may be characterized differently by different people, but common to all is the fact that creativity transcends what we know as physical "reality." If this book is going to be complete and honest, I cannot ignore the information that came into my hands recently in the form of a small blue paperback entitled
Edgar Cayce on Atlantis.

My wife, Jeanne, has this book in her library, and she compelled me to read what Edgar Cayce had to say about Atlantis because of the flurry of activity he has generated in Egypt. Edgar Cayce, also known as the sleeping prophet, has influenced powerful people in all walks of life. His research foundation in Virginia Beach, Virginia, is the site of yearly conferences at which both scholars and avant-garde researchers have met to discuss and debate issues pertaining to the long-sought-after Atlantean Hall of Records that Cayce predicted would be found near the Great Sphinx.

The jostling for recognition in the historical record is no different today than it was in 1922 when archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamen. Recent discoveries made public by Boris Said and Tom Danley spring from a Cayce follower's lifelong desire to find evidence supporting one of Cayce's prophecies—that there is an Atlantean Hall
of Records located near the Sphinx. The follower's name is Joseph Schor, and he funded Said and Danley's sonic tests inside the Great Pyramid and around the Sphinx, as well as the exploration of a deep shaft that was discovered close to the causeway nearby. Dr. Zahi Hawass, the director of the Giza Plateau, facilitated their activities, perhaps hoping for an increase in tourism that would follow such a discovery. Hawass has shown support for the discovery of Cayce's Hall of Records and teased before the camera in a tunnel near the Sphinx with news of what was described as a new chamber, which would be opened on live television. The promotional video was not meant to be released, but it was and Hawass's excited promo was revealed to the public prematurely.