The Nonsense Thread

Photoshop. I forgot you are too busy to read an article. ;)

I skim-read the article.;)

Has anyone ever heard of the songs Werewolves of London and Roland the Headless Thomson Gunner both by Warren Zevon? I'm listening to them right now and I have to say they're wierd, but catchy.:D I'm assuming many have heard Werewolves of London except maybe our southern most friends.
 
Well, I have no formal training in zoology, so cryptozoology is all good fun to me. I have formal engineering/technology training, so I feel more comfortable assessing artifacts. The Delhi Pillar is a great example of nationalists not really understanding metallurgy/chemistry. The Baghdad Battery, I think, is an example of an artifact where you need rose-tinted glasses to believe it was used for electroplating, given that we haven't found electroplated items from that era. The Saqqara bird/plane can't actually fly or glide!

I am a huge fan of a modern version of Daniken though: Graham Hancock. At times I wonder if he should change his name to Hankook, but he raises some interesting points. :D I like the idea of the sphinx being 10,000 years old based on weathering patterns of the limestone.
well that is the perennial problem with alternative theories. The artifacts themselves may be genuine (e.g. the Baghdad batteries) but the alternative theories range from plausible to insane. In the case of the "batteries" they can be used to produce electricity (with, I gather, a little bit of modification) but as you say there's literally no evidence that they were ever used for that purpose.*

Lots of other "artifacts" are, of course, out-and-out fakes and hoaxes.

Graham Hancock is a nutter :D

Do you read any of the Atlantis books? They are great too. Pretty much every bit of land (and sea) on the planet is claimed as being the original Atlantis! :D




*Have you heard the one about the Ark of the Covenant actually being a giant electrical conductor, because the Baghdad battery proves the ancients knew all about electricity, and that's how all the unbelievers were struck down by the Ark and killed (i.e. massive electrical discharges)?
 
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I too went through the Graham Hancock phase where I bought (hard copies, would you believe!) all his books. I like some of his theories, but dislike the way he twists the evidence to fit his wilder theories. I am still a fan. :D

I have never heard the Ark electrocution story, but I did see it in an Indiana Jones movie. I have read that it is actually a piece of alien technology though - which I think is plausible, but like god and cryptozoology, you need faith to believe in lieu of hard evidence. :D

Oh I am all over the Atlantis stuff. With global warming, we must might realise that Antarctica is where Atlantis is. I would not be surprised if they do find signs of human occupation from prehistory, but I doubt we will find a lost, technologically advanced civilisation.
 
I too went through the Graham Hancock phase where I bought (hard copies, would you believe!) all his books. I like some of his theories, but dislike the way he twists the evidence to fit his wilder theories. I am still a fan. :D

Yes, but if he twists the facts on some things, what makes you think he doesn't twist all the facts?
 
Yes, but if he twists the facts on some things, what makes you think he doesn't twist all the facts?

Ah! Cross referencing! Also, there were a few docos on TV around the time that he was popular, where other researchers dissected his books and pointed out the facts and fallacies.

Which reminds me, has anyone heard of the ancient Egyptians visiting Australia thousands of years ago? Some nutter faked some heiroglyphs in a cave, but what a tantalising story!
 
I skim-read the article.;)

Skimming is a highly developed skill whereby a person can very quickly review a document and pull out the salient bits. If you could not even gather from the article that it was a photo shopped pic, then you did not scan it. Clicking on a link and scrolling to the bottom is not scanning. ;)
 
nanoboy said:
Oh I am all over the Atlantis stuff. With global warming, we must might realise that Antarctica is where Atlantis is. I would not be surprised if they do find signs of human occupation from prehistory, but I doubt we will find a lost, technologically advanced civilisation.
wait, what? Oh that's right, you believe the Piri Reis map is real :p
 
Which reminds me, has anyone heard of the ancient Egyptians visiting Australia thousands of years ago? Some nutter faked some heiroglyphs in a cave, but what a tantalising story!
but they did! They also visited NZ, as did the Portuguese, Spanish, Sumerians, Phoenicians, Arabians, Tamils, Chinese, Vikings, Celts, some of the African and South American tribes...

NZ was veritably awash with foreigners back in the day.
 
The Piri Reis map is indeed real. It is the interpretation of the map that is suspect. Everyone believed that there must have been a big continent down there, so I suspect they just drew some land down there. Maybe it was just an extension of South America they drew. But yes, the actual map does exist.
 
The Piri Reis map is indeed real. It is the interpretation of the map that is suspect. Everyone believed that there must have been a big continent down there, so I suspect they just drew some land down there. Maybe it was just an extension of South America they drew. But yes, the actual map does exist.
yes the map exists. I was referring to the "ice-free Antarctica" that is claimed by many people to be at the bottom. (As you know, the claim is that Piri Reis compiled his map from very much older maps passed down through the generations from when humans lived on Antarctica).
 
yes the map exists. I was referring to the "ice-free Antarctica" that is claimed by many people to be at the bottom. (As you know, the claim is that Piri Reis compiled his map from very much older maps passed down through the generations from when humans lived on Antarctica).

I believe that it is possible that humans may have lived in Antarctica at one time in the distant past.

It is also fair to accept that Piri Reis compiled his map from older maps. But, I am sceptical that the bit at the bottom was sourced from an ancient map that had its origins 12,000 years ago. When the ice melts and they find a lost city, then I might believe it.

Are there really stories that all those people visited NZ? Is there any evidence at all, or even hoaxes or myths?
 
nanoboy said:
I believe that it is possible that humans may have lived in Antarctica at one time in the distant past.

It is also fair to accept that Piri Reis compiled his map from older maps. But, I am sceptical that the bit at the bottom was sourced from an ancient map that had its origins 12,000 years ago. When the ice melts and they find a lost city, then I might believe it.
in contrast I believe it is literally impossible for humans to have lived in Antarctica in the distant past. Perhaps read up on the age of the ice cover of the continent....and I mean actual science, not "fringe science" or the ramblings of followers of Hancock, Hapgood et al ;) At least you're sceptical of the 12,000 years ago date!!


nanoboy said:
Are there really stories that all those people visited NZ? Is there any evidence at all, or even hoaxes or myths?
indeed there are (stories). NZ has the same sort of nutjobs writing books as other parts of the world. The Chinese explorers is the most famous one because of Gavin Menzies' books (which have been widely ripped to shreds by real historians). The Tamil story derives from the so-called Tamil bell (google it), a shifting buried shipwreck, and of course the fishing otters left behind by them (i.e. the waitoreke: google it). The Phoenicians established an entire colony in the central North Island before being wiped out by the Taupo eruption (the existence of these people has been proven by the rock carvings they left behind....which look suspiciously like the effects of root-action on the rocks but never mind). The Celts and Vikings left runes and woodhenges and things like that....apparently. The legendary Maori hero Maui (google him) was actually an Egyptian or Ethiopian or Sumerian or something (I forget the story now). The Arabians derives from the story of Sinbad (you know, the roc, which was actually a Harpagornis, and the giant snakes he saw were actually the heads and necks of giant moa sticking up above the undergrowth; the giant egg he found was naturally a moa egg). As you can see, all quite convincing :D

The only ones I can get behind are the Spanish and Portuguese. There's no actual documented evidence that they visited NZ but they were very active in the Pacific and it is more than likely that at least one of their ships found the country at some point (potentially well before the time of Abel Tasman).
 
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nanoboy said:
I have read that it is actually a piece of alien technology though - which I think is plausible, but like god and cryptozoology, you need faith to believe in lieu of hard evidence.
do you even know what "plausible" means?
 
so what did you think of the recent movie versions then? :p

The A Team was a complete travesty! So embarrassing. I didn't mind The Dukes Of Hazzard though, it was quite fun.QUOTE]

Dukes of Hazzard as you say was fun and really no more than that. I didn't watch the new A-Team film. My brother went to the cinema with his wife and on his return he told me that it would only annoy me on many levels if I saw it, so I took him for his word, many others since have said the same too, shame really.
 
do you even know what "plausible" means?

If one believes in the existence of aliens, and one believes that they visited earth in the past (and still do today), then it isn't a stretch to believe that some of their technology could have ended up in the hands of the ancients. So yes, plausible is an apt word. However, along with "goad", I shall add "plausible" to the list of words that you need to look up. 10 bird books and no dictionary? :D

Ah, Hapgood. Interesting stuff. :D I know that Antarctica has had ice on the order of hundreds of thousands to millions of years, but I can't see why there couldn't be people there, given that humans were capable of surviving the harsh conditions of an ice age and had the ability to travel long distances in ships. In addition, given the warming and cooling periods over the last few thousand years, I see no reason for some parts of Antarctica near the coast to have been ice free where a settlement/city could have been established. We are a pretty adventurous species. :D Until they found evidence of plants/trees there a few decades (?) ago, no one would have believed that plants could have survived there, ever!

There is no shred of evidence for Portuguese and Spanish in NZ, yet you think it is plausible. ;) Looks like I have some reading to do about NZ tonight. Maybe I'll just skim it and ask you to summarise the webpages. *chuckle chuckle* All your NZ stories sound plausible to me though. :D I mean, until a couple generations ago, the "legend" of Vikings settling America was still just a saga right? :D
 
Especially Germans. Hard evidence of this is found in some cave paintings showing beach towels positioned across the best sun bathing areas at dawn.

Yes, even here in Australia, we still have sea-faring people trying to settle on this island. :D
 
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