Explaining the Mystery of the Vanished Maya.

Main plaza of Mayan ruins in Tikal, Guatemala (Image Credit: weisserstier [Flickr])

Jaguar Temple in Tikal (Image Credit: erushing [Flickr])

Mayan ruins at Calakmul, Mexico (Image Credit: von Kinder [Flickr])

We tend to think of the Dark Ages as a bleak time when King Arthur was caught in the grip of lusty princesses and clashing knights. But while Europeans were busy eating giant turkey legs and trying to act interested in converting pagans to Christianity, a great culture was flourishing in Southern Mexico and northern Central America. Between 200 B.C.E. and 900 C.E., the Mayan civilization was anything but dark. Kings and queens rules over a huge empire of cities, palaces, and temples adorned with fine art and steeped in gold and gems.
Its people were highly advanced, mastering disciplines as varied as astronomy, engineering, architecture, and urban planning.
Today, however, these once-great Mayan cities lie hidden under dense rainforest. To the average American, how this happened is a mystery. We say the Maya “disappeared” and blame it on alien invaders. But the Maya aren’t gone. Millions of them still live in Guatemala and Honduras, and thousands more come to the United States to eke out livings as migrant laborers. It didn’t take a supernatural force to put their civilization into decline, either. In fact, archaeologists now blame the fall of the Maya on deceptively simple flaws that could topple any culture - even ours.
RAIN DROPS AREN’T FALLING ON MY HEADThese days, so few people live in the region once dominated by the Mayan empire that researchers believed there weren’t a lot of Maya living there in the past, either. But the landscape is deceptive. Decades of research reveal that the Maya had completely transformed the land on which they lived by turning jungles into a vast area of plains filled with cities, farms, and an ever-growing population. In fact, settlements around centers like Tikal reached population densities of up to 2,600 people per square mile. That’s more than half the population density of modern-day New York City.

The ancient ruins of Tikal, as captured by the IKONOS satellite
(Image: Space Imaging, Inc.)

Archaeologists have even found evidence of a kind of Mayan urban sprawl. In the spans between large cities, they’ve uncovered thousands of house foundations connected by what were paved roads. Even more spectacular, recent satellite imagery from NASA shows that may areas where the Maya used limestone plaster as floor and wall coverings can still be seen in the colors of the rainforest trees.
As the Mayan population grew, however, the society became vulnerable to the limitations of their environment. They gobbled up the resources around them, but failed to develop new technologies that might have allowed them to adapt to changes in their natural surroundings. So when change finally did arrive in the form of drought, catastrophe wasn’t too far behind.
Archaeologist Richardson Gill blames the Mayan collapse on an extended period of drought that affected most of Mexico and Central America in the 9th century C.E. Of the more than 15 million Maya inhabiting the region at the time, many lived far from major rivers, so people relied on water collected in reservoirs during the rainy season. Of course, when climate changes caused these reserves to drop to dangerous levels, it became impossible to feed the huge Mayan population. In 2003, Gill’s theories received support following the analysis of mud from lake bottom in the Yucatan. Essentially, the find confirmed they spread of deforestation, soil erosion, and drought. Sadly, famine and thirst appear to have contributed to widespread death and disease, eventually driving people out of the Mayan heartland.
While widely accepted, this theory of the Mayan collapse still leaves a lingering question. Evidence shows that most ancient civilizations dealt successfully with drought at one time or another; so why weren’t the Maya able to cope? The answer, according to recent research, was war.
AN OPEN WAR POLICY

Mayan ruler Chaan Muan with prisoners from a raid for sacrifices and slavery - from the murals of Bonampak (Image Credit: Ancient Mexico)

At the same time the drought was taking hold, it appears the Mayan city-states had their resources and attention focused on something else - fighting. In a way, some evidence of this has always existed in the form of smashed monuments and burned palaces found in the region. In the early 20th century, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russian inspired a theory that rapid Mayan collapse was the result of a popular peasant revolt, fueled by the lavish lifestyles and oppressive rule of the theocratic Mayan kings. Mayan revolutionaries, rejecting religions hocus-pocus from rulers who claimed to be able to bring rain for crops while stuffing their houses and tombs with expensive artwork and jewels, overthrew their priest-kings and, in the process, ruined everything. It wasn’t a bad theory, but it seems that the rulers, not the people, deserve most of the blame.
In the wake of new research, it appears that Mayan cities were locked in something similar to the Cold War, only hotter. Hieroglyphs in the area reveal that two metropolitan “super-powers,” Tikal and Calakmul, were bitter rivals for centuries. Skirmishes between the kings of each city grew increasingly violent, prompting both dynasties to build alliances with other cities via raids, conquest, and royal coups. But, as more and more cities got involved, the warfare spread.
In 2002, a few more clues came to light after archaeologists discovered a stunning new set of hieroglyphic texts carved into the steps of a palace staircase at Dos Pilas (uncovered thanks to an earthquake that hit the region the previous summer). The texts told the surprising story of renegade princes from Tikal, who tried to create an empire of their own by waging a full-force attack on their home city with the help of neighboring allies. Unfortunately, their timing was poor. The invasion occurred during the height of the drought, and the result was pure devastation. Pyramids and temples were torn apart to build fortifications, and what few trees were left in the razed rainforest were cut down to build fences. Eventually, farmers had to retreat to the fast-growing weeds. The war destroyed the cities, leaving behind ruins and refugees. The land could no longer support the population due to the drought, and the government was too weak to do anything about it due to the war. Rather than to remain in the cities and face death, the people scattered, and the jungle eventually reclaimed the land.
NOT-SO-UNSOLVABLE MYSTERIESIn the end, it was neither laser beams nor a migration to Atlantis that destroyed the Maya, but a simple failure to plan. Leaders put the majority of their resources into warfare, while simultaneously forgetting that those resources weren’t infinite.
Then, when a severe but conquerable drought crisis appears, they were unable to cope. In his new book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond claims that the scenario is more common than you might think, and that it maybe responsible for the fall of many ancient cultures we deem “mysterious.” Environmental destruction and the depletion of natural resources create vulnerability, especially in the face of natural disasters. And just like the Maya, the ultimate fate is rarely disappearance or extinction, but usually a decline from opulence to poverty.

Mystery of Dwarka, The Lost City of Krishna

Bangalore, India: Once upon a time, in the midst of sea lay a mystical kingdom. The city was home to 900 palaces, all made of gold. This golden city was supposed to have arisen out of the sea on the command of a person who is very much the heart of Hinduism. The story about the city is as much magical as the story of the man who built it. Legends surrounding this mysterious city fascinated poets and scholars for centuries. Poets have described the radiance cast by the island city as spreading over miles in the sea. The personality ruling over this kingdom was none other than Lord Krishna, the charismatic God ruling over the hearts of millions of devotees. Dwarka as the golden city was called, had many ‘Dwaras’ or ‘Gateways’ that were connected to the mainstream land via bridges.


The story of Krishna as told in the sacred scripture Srimad Bhagavatam, describes the scenario that led to the construction of Dwarka. Once, when Krishna was ruling the city of Mathura, the kingdom was repeatedly attacked by Jarasandha, the tyrant King of Magadha (the present day Bihar), around 17 times. The Monarch lost to Krishna in all 17 battles, and he attacked Mathura the 18th time. At this stage, Krishna decided to build a separate city on an island in the Western coast of India, to save his citizens, his Yadava clan from the trouble of repeated wars. The city was built by the divine architect, Vishwakarma himself. The city soon grew in fame and became the invincible pivot of Lord Krishna’s mission, housing thousands, in around 900 palaces. The city was well fortified and could be reached only by ship. Dwarka soon became a talking point everywhere, and commanded awe and wonder all over the world.


When the Lord decided to unwind his mission, and left for His heavenly abode, the island of Dwarka also sunk, leaving traces of its wonderful existence only in scriptures, until recently when archeologist found an underwater kingdom of the coast of Dwarka town in Gujarat, supposed to be the original Dwarka.

Dwarka was the first archeological site in India, where marine explorations were undertaken, and continued for four decades. Many amazing discoveries by marine archeologists and oceanographic studies over the last three decades point in no uncertain terms to the historicity of Krishna’s kingdom, the original Dwarka of the Mahabharata era.

In 1963, the marine exploration carried out by the Deccan College in Pune and the department of archaeology, Government of Gujarat, unveiled many artifacts and inscriptions, hundreds of centuries old at a supposed Dwarka site.


The greatest exploration happened when the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) conducted a second round of excavations under the direction of the famous underwater archeolog ist, S R Rao, leading to the discovery of Krishna’s Dwarka under the sea. The well-fortified city of Dwarka was discovered in between 1984 to 1990, extending more than half mile from the shore. The township was built in six sectors along the banks of a river. The foundation of boulders on which the city’s walls were erected proves that the land was reclaimed from the sea. What is amazing is that the general layout of the City of Dwarka described in the ancient texts agrees with that of the submerged city discovered by the Marine Archaelogical Unit. Many ancient inscriptions were also found. One of the inscriptions refers to Dwarka as the capital of the western coast of Saurashtra and more importantly states that Lord Krishna lived here.


Further, Marine Archeologists found a large number of stone structures, rectangular, semicircular and squared shaped, in water depths. They are randomly scattered over a large area. Moreover, many varieties of stone anchors were also found. These discoveries seem to suggest that Dwarka was once, one of the busiest ports along the western coast of Bharatvarsha (ancient India). Many more areas of original Dwarka may be discovered in near future.

The discovery of the legendary city of Dwarka was an important landmark in the history of India. It dispelled the doubts raised by historians about the historicity of Mahabharata and Lord Krishna, and the very existence of Dwarka city. It has extended the history of Indian civilization from the present day to Vedic age.

Ancient Mysteries

Introduction

The wisdom of our ancestors frequently puzzles modern people. In fact, an average person is totally unaware of that wisdom and many of today's thinkers who study ancient writings do not understand their true meaning.



Fig 1. Sample of extinct Akkadian (Cuneiform) writing

Translation:
When heaven above was not yet named, nor earth below pronounced by name,
Apsu, the first one, their begetter and maker Tiamat, who bore them all,
had mixed their waters together, but had not formed pastures, nor discovered
reed-beds. When yet no gods were manifest, nor names pronounced,
nor destinies decreed, then gods were born within them.

Source: Language Museum http://www.language-museum.com/a/akkadian-cuneiform.php

ka-gold-jewelry.com >>
The ancient texts are usually interpreted in two ways:

1. Spiritual

This approach views the ancient writings as a source of religious methodology of spiritual self-perfection and knowledge about God, Life and Death, Evolution, and the meaning of life.
Where does God live, where can one find Him? The overwhelming majority of people involved in primitive forms of religion would answer this question by pointing up to the sky.

Just like they raise eyes and hands when praying. Where does the belief that God is above originate from? Maybe the reason is that on the Earth’s surface one sees suffering and temptations and in the sky — tranquil clouds, endless expanse, caress of the Sun, mystery of the Moon and distant stars?

But Jesus laughed at such speculations:

“If your leaders say to you: ‘Look, the (Father’s) Kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. … Rather, the Kingdom is within you and it is outside you.”
(The Gospel of Thomas, 3)

“(And) those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed, … they will marvel, and (having established in the Kingdom) will reign over all”
(The Gospel of Thomas, 2).

Source: Divine Way of Spiritual Heart
a website of Vladimir Antonov






Vision of the Throne of the Lord (The Paris Apocalypse)
Image Source: http://www.wga.hu/html/zgothic/miniatur/1401-450/index.html
from the "Illuminated Manuscripts" section of the
"Web Gallery of Art": http://www.wga.hu/html/zgothic/miniatur/index.html









Mesopotamian "Tree of Life"



Alchemy Symbols >>




2. Literal

This approach treats ancient texts as a source of information about historical events - the Bible becomes a history book... Is there any truth about history of the mankind and our planet in ancient writings, or is it all religious fantasy and fairy- tales? Can we penetrate the ancient wisdom hidden in the writings of our ancestors?
High Technology in the Bible?

There are readers out there who would be surprised or offended with the notion that high-technology was described in the Bible. There are other readers who have realized that the only explanations to Biblical mysteries are ancient Close Encounters. A good question is: Why are certain, Old Testament events written about in the Bible? The answer could be that these were special events between basically two groups of people: One group was the primitives or the general state of humanity in Biblical times. The other group was the relatively few HUMANS that still retained and utilized technology originating from the days of Atlantis.


Read the whole article on this subject:
HIGH-TECHNOLOGY IN THE BIBLE.
Spaceflight in the Mahabharata?


"[...] After the Lokopalas had gone away, Arjuna -- that slayer of all foes -- began to think,
O monarch, of the car of Indra! And as Gudakeca gifted with great intelligence was thinking of it, the car endued with great effulgence and guided by Matali, came dividing the clouds and illuminating the firmament and filling the entire welkin with its rattle deep as the roar of mighty masses of clouds. Swords, and miscrias of terrible forms, and maces of frightful description, and winged darts of celestial splendor, and lightnings of the brightest effulgence, and thunderbolts, and Tutagudas furnished with wheels and worked with atmospheric expansion and producing sounds, loud as the roar of great masses of clouds, were on that car. And there were also on that car fierce and huge-bodies Nagas with fiery mouths, and heaps of stones white as the fleecy clouds. And the car was drawn by tenthousand horses of golden hue, endued with the speed of the wind. And furnished with prowess of illusion, the car was drawn with such speed that the eye could hardly mark its progress. And Arjuna saw on that car the flag-staff called Vaijayanta, of blazing effulgence, resembling in hue the emerald or the dark blue lotus, and decked with golden ornaments, and straight as the bamboo. And beholding a charioteer decked in gold seated on that car, the mighty-armed son of Pritha regarded it as belonging to the celestials. [...] Matali the charioteer of Cakra, hearing these words of Arjuna, soon mounted the car and controlled the horses. [...] Arjuna, blazing like the sun itself, ascended the celestial car. And the Kuru prince, gifted with great intelligence, with a glad heart, coursed through the firmament on that celestial car effulgent as the sun and of extraordinary achievements. And after he had become invisible to the mortals of the earth, he behold thousends of cars of extraordinary beauty. And in that region there was no sun or moon or fire to give light, but it blazed in light of its own, generated by virtue and ascetic merit. And those brilliant regions that are seen from the earth in form of stars, like lamps (in the sky) -- so small in consequence of their distance, though very large -- were beheld by the son of Pandu, stationed in their respective places, full of beauty and effulgence and blazing with splendor all their own. [...] 'These, O son of Pritha, are virtous persons, stationed in their respective places. It is these whom thou hast seen, O exalted one, as stars from the earth!'"

The secret behind Mona Lisa's smile

The secret of how Leonardo da Vinci produced the optical effects that created the Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile can be revealed for the first time.





Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci Photo: CORBIS






Scientists have discovered how the artist managed to achieve his trademark smoky effect, known as sfumato, on the painting; by applying up to 40 layers of extremely thin glaze thought to have been smeared on with his fingers.


The glaze, mixed with subtly different pigments, creates the slight blurring and shadows around the mouth that give the Mona Lisa her barely noticeable smile that seems to disappear when looked at directly.


Using X-rays to study the painting, the researchers were able to see how the layers of glaze and paint had been built up to varying levels on different areas of the face.


With the drying times for the glaze taking months, such effects would have taken years to achieve.


The scientists also suspect that he used his fingers to apply the glaze to his paintings as there are no brush marks or contours visible on the paintings.




Leonardo da Vinci is known to have employed the sfumato effect to seamlessly blend shading together and to blur outlines. But the exact techniques used to achieve this have long fascinated and intrigued art experts.

The new discoveries have been made by scientists at Laboratoire du Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musees de France and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.

Writing in the scientific journal Angewandle Chemie, Dr Philippe Walter, who led the study, said: "The perfection of Leonardo da Vinci's painting technique has always been fascinating.

"The gradation of tones or colours from light to dark is barely perceptible. Above all, the way the flesh is rendered gives rise to many comments because of its crucial role in the fascination exerted by Leonardo's portraits.

"The thinness of the glaze layers must be underlined: it confirms the dexterity of the painter to apply such thin layers. Moreover, the measured slow and regular evolution of the thickness of the glaze layers implies that numerous layers... have to be applied to obtain the darkest shadows.

"Even today, Leonardo's realisation of such thin layers still remains an amazing feat."

The scientists used a technique known as x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to study the painting as it allowed them to examine the layers of glaze and paint in detail without having to take samples that would damage the masterpiece.

A beam of high energy X-rays were focused on the painting which allowed the researchers to determine how the layers of glaze and paint had been built up while also giving them information about their composition.

As well as the Mona Lisa, the team also studied skin tones in six other of Leonardo's most famous paintings, including Virgin of the Rocks, Madonna of the Carnation, Saint John the Baptist and the Virgin and the Child

They found that each layer of glaze was around just two micrometers, around 50 times thinner than a human hair. In the lightest areas of the skin, the glaze was found to be very thin but in the darkest areas it had been built up layer upon layer to be up to 55 micrometers thick.

Grains of black and red pigment were also found in the glaze, but were so small that they would be impossible to detect using conventional analysis techniques.

Dr Walter and his team believe that Leonardo experimented by creating different types of glaze and with different pigments to perfect the sfumato effect.

Professor Francis Ames-Lewis, a distinguished art historian and vice-president of the Leonardo da Vinci Society, an organisation devoted to the scholarly study of the Italian painter's work, said: "Leonardo da Vinci was concerned with producing smooth tonal gradients from light to dark without any perceptible change like we see in real life and sfumato was essential to this.

"What is extraordinary is the meticulous way he carried this out and the precision of his technique. In the Mona Lisa, he captures a complex and ambiguous personality and conveys it with the help of sfumato."

The Mystery of the Delphi Oracle

Archaeologists try to uncover the truth behind a greek prophecy.

The mystery behind Netaji's death

At last people of India got the answer for the question which was arising in their minds for so many years. Manoranjan Roy, from Mumbai, asked to Government of India under RTI act for which Home ministry of India has sent the answer. The question was "How, when and where Subhashchandra Bose died?". The internal Security Section of Home ministry gave the answer as below:

"Till now the Govt of India has formed three committees to do inquiry about the reason behind Netaji's death. In 1956, Shahnawaz committee was formed, in 1970 Khosala Committee and last in 1999 Mukharjee Committee. Shahnawaz committee came to the conclusion that on 18th August 1945 Netaji was expired in an plane crash near Tiahoku. Netaji's ashes are kept in a temple in Renkoji near Tokyo. Khosala committee also came to the same conclusion that Netaji died in a plane crash near Taihoku. But Mukharjee committee concluded something different. The committee accepted that Netaji is now no more, but the cause was different. It was not the plane crash and the ashes which has been kept in Renkoji temple near Tokyo are not of  Netaji's. The Govt of India accepted the conclusion derived by Shahnawaz committee and Khosala Committe completely, but did not agreed 100% upon the conclusion derived by Mukharjee Committee. It means the Govt of India accepted Mukharjee Committee's conclusion that Netaji is now no more, but it did not agreed with Mukharjee Committee's conclusion that Netaji did not die in plane crash and the ashes kept in Renkoji Temple are not of Netaji's."

Now even though the official stand of Govt of India has been cleared about Netaji's death has been cleared, it has neither satisfied the people of India nor it has uncovered the secret behind Netaji's death. And since  Govt of India is hiding so many things in this matter, lots of questions are still arising among the people of India. Govt's efforts have been completely failed to uncover the secret behind Netaji's death, because it has many reasons. Nobody means nobody has ever believed  in the news that Netaji has been expired in "that" accident, even in that period(means in 1945). Not even British govt or national leaders like Mahatma Gandhi. Most of the people believed that just to escape from British army or to avoid from charges of being declared as War Criminal, the story of plane crash accident would have been created. The inappropriate view of the then Congress leaders about Netaji, has created doubt among people's mind that the Govt of India has not made any serious efforts to know the truth. And the heroic way in which Netaji escaped from Britishers prison, was enough to believe most of the people that Netaji can create such stories of plane crash very properly. In fact at that time most of the people believed that Netaji is alive and will return to home soon. But even after independence when Netaji did not return, lots of stories about Netaji started spreading in India. Nearly 40 or 45 years back the senior reporters like Prakhad Keshav Atre(very well knows as Acharya Atre) made large efforts to reveal the secret. He challenged the conclusions of Shahnawaz Committee report, but he still could not come to the conclusion that the sadhu in Shoulmary Ashram was Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose or not.  

The Mukharjee Committee which did not believed that Netaji was killed in that accident came to know that the Soviet Russia's Govt has some secret references about the incident. Some stories like "Netaji himself went to Soviet Russia" or "Soviet Russia has arrested Netaji and kept him arrested" were spread at the time of independence. The Manoj Kumar Mukharjee committee wanted to study those references to know exactly how Netaji had traveled during that period of time, but the Central Govt of India not only refused the permission to the committee to study the secret references kept in Soviet Russian Govt, but also not made all the documents available to the committee which were kept with the Govt of India itself. Even though 10,000 files were available in this matter with Govt of India, it made only 993 files available to the committee. The interesting thing is all the documents which were made available to the Khosala Committee were not made available to the Mukharjee Committee. Few of the documents were lost, and 30 files about this matter were burned when the Khosala committee was carrying out their work(During the period of 1972). Who gave the instructions to do so, is their any record about it. When the Mukharjee committee asked these questions to the Govt of India, they did not answered to them.

When the Govt of India was not co-operating with Mukharjee Committee, Taiwan Govt officially informed Mukharjee Committee that "No plane accident has happened during the period of 14th August 1945 to 20th September 1945 in the areas near Taihoku." It clearly means there was not a single possibility of occurring Netaji's death in a plane crash near the Taihoku airport.
Dr. Bhatanagar has put all the important details mentioned in the Mukharjee committee in his book. Even former Prime Minister of India Mr. Moraraji Desai during his tenure of Prime-minister-ship also made a statement that it is hard to believe that Netaji Subhashchandra bose was died in that plane crash. Dr. Bhatanagar has also mentioned in his book that senior MP Satyanarayan Sinha claimed that Mrs. Vijayalaxmi Pandit and Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan(former President of India) has also met Netaji Subhashchandra Bose in Russia. Dr. Bhatnagar also said to find out the reason why the central Govt of India has behaved in a such a way with Netaji, we have to think about the role played by one of the most popular leader of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. During Independence movement when Netaji started rising as a youth leader of India, at that time only Jawaharlal Nehru started his political fight with Netaji. Sometimes openly and sometimes secretly.
The battle which Azad Hind Sena had started against british during the World War II(also when the independence was nearing), gained a huge popularity for Subhashchandra Bose among indian people. It is quite possible that Pandit Nehru started believing that the only person in India who can challenge his leadership  was Subhashchandra Bose. If this was untrue then he would have tried hard to reveal the secret behind Netaji's death. He would tried to convince Joseph Stalin(the then Russia's President) to release Netaji from Russia's prison. But instead of it the Nehru administration took a strange stand that if Netaji would return back to India, they will be hand over to British Government.
Jawaharlal Nehru's letter to Mr. Attlee:
Dear Mr. Attlee:
I
understand from a reliable source that Subhas Chandra Bose, your war
criminal, has been allowed to enter Russian territory by Stalin. This
is a clear treachery and betrayal of faith by the Russians. As Russia
has been an ally of the British-Americans, it should not have been
done. Please take note of it and do what you consider proper and fit.
Yours sincerely, 
Jawaharlal Nehru


The most important part in Dr. Bhatanagar's book is about Lal Bahadur Shastri and Tashkent Agreement. During the tashkent agreement, USSR was putting tremendous pressure on Lal Bahadur shastri to sign the agreement. USSR was telling India to return back the part which Indian army has captured from Pakistan during 1965 war. Lal Bahadur Shastri tried his hard, but have to bow in front of Russian Administration. When he came to know that now he has to sign on the agreement he put one condition to Russians that if they want him to sign the agreement, then they have to arrange his meeting with Netaji. At first Russians did not agree, but when Shastriji stick to his demand, at the end Russian agreed his demand.
When the two leaders meet, Shastriji requested Netaji to return back to India. Due to previous experience, at first Netaji was suspicious on his demand, but then Shastriji assured him about hissafety. Shastriji told Netaji that now at first he will tell this news to his wife. Netaji asked which news. Shastriji said"I will tell her that my countrymen will be unhappy because the agreement on which I have signed, but they will be happy when I will tell them the news about you".
Did shastiji told his wife about this news at that night? Or since he told the news, did the personalities in both the countries who do not want Neatji to return to India, did something, that causes Shastriji's death on the same night? Dr. Rajendramohan Bhatanagar claimed that Netaji was alive till January 1966. And he has proved that the conclusion drwan by Shahanawaz and Khosala committee that Netaji died in a plane crash in August 1945 was baseless. Also he had put some light on the suspicious death of Lal Bahadur Shastriji. Now if Govt of India is thinking that by answering the question raised by Manoranjan Roy, all the doubts are cleared, then Dr. Bhatanagar has proved that the Govt is wrong.

Artist 'solves' mystery of Mona Lisa by finding hidden animals in painting

An artist claims to have cracked the 500-year-old mystery of the Mona Lisa after spotting hidden images in the famous painting.

An artist has spotted hidden images in the Mona Lisa (Pic: Solent)

An artist claims to have cracked the 500-year-old mystery of the Mona Lisa after spotting hidden images in the famous painting.
Ron Piccirillo spotted the heads of a lion, an ape and a buffalo in the landscape behind Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous portrait by turning the painting on its side.
The 37-year-old also believes there is a hidden crocodile or snake coming out of the left-hand side of her body.
The painter and graphic designer claims to have found the hidden images by following instructions da Vinci himself laid out in his journals.
And he believes his discovery has solved the mystery behind the Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile – that the painting is actually a representation of envy.
By turning the painting, which was finished around 1519, on its side, Mr Piccirillo first saw the lion’s head floating next to the right-hand side of the Mona Lisa’s face.
He reportedly said of his discovery: “I realised I was really on to something.
“I just could not believe what I was looking at. I realised, 'This is what I've been looking for.'
"I spent the next two months poring over da Vinci's journals and came across the passage on envy which for me sums up what this is about.
"The Mona Lisa is a depiction of envy. It's amazing because everyone thought that da Vinci never wrote about the Mona Lisa, but now it appears that he did."
A passage in da Vinci’s work claims: "Envy must be represented with a contemptuous motion of the hand towards heaven, because if she could she would use her strength against God."
Mr Piccirillo studied the painting and saw that the Mona Lisa’s hand is bent awkwardly at the wrist, and a swirling serpent shape lurks in the background behind her.
He also compares the lion’s head to a passage which reads that artists trying to paint envy must "give her a leopard's skin, because this creature kills the lion out of envy and by deceit".
Mr Piccirillo also claims to have found similar hidden images in the works of other Renaissance painters including Titian and Rafael.

The Death of Mary Reeser

The 1951 death of Mrs. Mary Reeser of St. Petersburg, FL, who was found reduced to ashes in a practically undamaged apartment, was a landmark case of spontaneous human combustion because it was the first instance where every possible tool of modern scientific investigation was used to determine the cause of this mysterious phenomenon. Yet despite the efforts of the FBI, fire officials, arson experts, and pathologists, a year after the incident Detective Cass Burgess of the St. Petersburg police commented as follows:
"Our investigation has turned up nothing that could
be singled out as proving, beyond a doubt, what actually happened. The case is still open. We are still as far from establishing any logical cause for the death as we were when we first entered Mrs. Reeser's apartment."
And Dr. Wilton M. Krogman, a physical anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine and a world-renowned expert on the effects of fire on the human body, finally gave up trying to figure out what happened. Dr. Krogman said:
"I regard it as the most amazing thing I have ever
seen. As I review it, the short hairs on my neck
bristle with vague fear. Were I living in the Middle
Ages, I'd mutter something about Black Magic."
Here are the details of the case:
Mrs. Mary Hardy Reeser, an agreeable, motherly widow of 67, was living in St. Petersburg, Florida, to be near her son, Dr. Richard Reeser. On the evening of July 1, 1951, she had remained in her son's home with one of her grandchildren while the rest of the family went to the beach. When they returned, they found that Mrs. Reeser had already left for her own apartment. The younger Mrs. Reeser drove to her mother-in-law's to see if everything was all right. According to her testimony, there was nothing in Mrs. Reeser's appearance or demeanor to cause any alarm. Dr. Reeser visited his mother later that evening. She was mildly depressed over the fact that she had not heard from two friends who were supposed to rent an apartment for her in anticipation of a return trip to Columbia, PA, formerly her hometown. His mother told him that she wished to retire early and would take two sleeping pills to ensure a good night's rest. Dr. Reeser left at about 8:30 PM and returned to his home.
The last person to see Mrs. Reeser alive was her landlady, Mrs. Pansy M. Carpenter, who lived in another apartment in the four-unit building (the two units between them were unoccupied). Mrs. Carpenter saw Mrs. Reeser briefly at about 9 PM. She was wearing her nightgown, a housecoat, and black satin slippers and was lounging in a comfortable chair smoking a cigarette. The bed covers had been turned back. Mrs. Reeser's last night was a typical summer night in Florida: the sky was overcast with occasional flashes of heat lightning in the distance.
When Mrs. Carpenter woke up Monday morning at 5AM, she noticed a slight odor of smoke but was not alarmed, since she attributed the smell to a water pump in the garage that had been overheating lately. She got up, turned off the pump, and settled back into bed. When she got up an hour later to collect her newspaper outside, she no longer smelled any smoke.
At 8AM a telegram arrived for Mrs. Reeser. Mrs. Carpenter signed the receipt and went to her tenant's apartment to bring her the telegram. The doorknob, when she placed her hand on it, was hot. Alarmed, she stepped back and shouted for help. Two painters working across the street ran over. One of them opened the door; as he entered, he felt a blast of hot air. Thinking of rescuing Mrs. Reeser, he frantically looked around but saw no signs of her. The bed was empty. There was some smoke, but the only fire was a small flame on a wooden beam, over a partition separating the living room and kitchenette.

The firemen arrived, put out the small flame with a hand pump. and tore away part of the partition. When Assistant Fire Chief S. O. Griffith began his inspection of the premises, he could not believe his eyes. In the middle of the floor there was a charred area roughly four feet in diameter, inside of which he found a number of blackened chair springs and the ghastly remains of a human body, consisting of a charred liver attached to a piece of the spine, a shrunken skull, one foot still wearing a black satin slipper, and a small pile of ashes.
Coroner Edward T. Silk arrived to examine the body and survey the apartment. Although deeply puzzled, he decided the death was accidental and authorized the removal of the remains. The scooped-up ashes, the tiny shrunken head, and the slipper-encased foot were taken by ambulance to a local hospital.
The ensuing investigation included police and fire officials as well as arson experts. The facts that confronted them seemed inexplicable considering the great heat necessary to account for Mrs. Reeser's incinerated body. Little of the furniture, other than the chair and the end table next to it, was badly damaged, but the apartment had suffered some peculiar effects. The ceiling, draperies and walls, from a point exactly four feet above the floor, were coated with a smelly, oily soot. Below this four foot mark there was none. The wall paint adjacent to the chair was faintly browned, but the carpet where the chair had rested was not even burned through. A wall mirror 10 feet away had cracked, probably from heat. On a dressing table 12 feet away, two pink wax candles had puddled, but their wicks lay undamaged in their holders. Plastic wall outlets above the four foot mark were melted, but the fuses were not blown and the current was on. The baseboard electrical outlets were undamaged. An electric clock plugged into one of the outlets had stopped at precisely 4:20, but the same clock ran perfectly when plugged into one of the baseboard outlets.
Newspapers nearby on a table and draperies and linens on the daybed close at hand - all flammable - were not damaged. And though the painters and Mrs. Carpenter had felt a wave of heat when they opened the door, no one had noted smoke or burning odor and there were no embers or flames in the ashes. 

Faced with such a mystery, the St. Petersburg authorities called in the FBI. Laboratory findings showed that Mrs. Reeser's estimated weight of 175 lbs. had been reduced to a total of less than 10 lbs., including the foot and shrunken head. The final report concluded that no known chemical agents or other accelerants had been involved in starting the fire.
Dr. Krogman has burned cadavers with gasoline, oil, wood, and all kinds of other agents. He has experimented with bones encases in flesh or stripped, both moist and dry. His tests have utilized combustion apparatus ranging from outdoor pyres to the most modern pressurized crematorium equipment. He has demonstrated conclusively that it takes extraordinary heat to consume a body, and that only at over 3000 degrees Fahrenheit would bone become volatile enough to lose its shape and leave only ashes. "These are very great heats," he said, "that would sear, char, scorch or otherwise mar or effect anything andeverything within a considerable radius."
Another mystery was the slippered left foot, which Mrs. Reeser, having been in some discomfort, was in the habit of propping up on a stool. The foot was left unburned, apparently because it was outside the mysterious four-foot radius of incineration.
Perhaps strangest of all, and unique to this case of SHC, was the shrunken skull. Dr. Krogman commented:
"...the head is not left complete in ordinary burning cases.
Certainly it does NOT shrivel or symmetrically reduce to a
smaller size. In presence of heat sufficient to destroy soft
tissues, the skull would literally explode in many pieces.
I...have never known any exception to this rule."

Amityville Horror

The Amityville Horror Ghost real ghost photo looking out the window.....

Amityville

George and Kathy Lutz: victims of supernatural horror, or common swindlers?

THE MOST FAMOUS and horrific ghost story of the last century must be that of 112 Ocean Avenue, in Amityville, New York. The terrifying tale has been turned into a best-selling book and successful film, and captured the public’s attention like no other haunting. Indeed, such is its place in the American consciousness that most people assume that it is a real story – and that is certainly how it was publicised. There is no doubt that some awful events did take place in the building, but were they really caused by ghostly actions? The now infamous three-storey Dutch colonial house was built in 1924. The owners lived happily in the building for many years, raising a family and leaving the house to their daughter who had such fond memories of her childhood home that she moved her own family into it. In 1960 the building left the care of the original owners’ descendants and was bought by a couple who lived in the house until they sold it following their divorce in 1965.

In June 1965 the DeFeo family bought the house. They were an unhappy family and the father, Ronald DeFeo Sr., was known to be abusive. Over a period of nine years the family was not said to experience any type of frightening event other than those inflicted by paternal forces. However that all changed on the night of the 18th of November 1974 when one son, Ronald DeFeo Jr., shot and killed his mother, father, two brothers and two sisters. Just over a year later, in December 1975, a young couple bought the house. George and Kathy Lutz, and her three children moved in, knowing the building’s terrible history. Almost immediately they began experiencing strange phenomena. Doors and windows would open by themselves, bizarre noises were heard, and a Catholic priest who had come to exorcise the house was ordered to get out by a devilish voice.

Things rapidly grew worse. Blood and sticky goo oozed from the walls, clouds of flies appeared on windows, ghostly hooded apparitions manifested, and one of the children started communicating with a demonic pig called Jodie. One night Kathy Lutz was even thrown from her bed by a supernatural force, and it was famously claimed that the face of the devil appeared in the brickwork of the fireplace. After 28 days of this horror, the Lutzes moved out. They soon went to the media with their story. In February 1976 two of America’s most famous celebrity paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, were filmed by a television news team whilst conducting séances at the house. The Warrens stated the house was indeed haunted with evil spirits, but other investigators were not convinced. Dr Stephen Kaplan, the executive director of the Parapsychology Institute of America, based in New York, initially had great doubts about the story, and discovered some very interesting facts about the Lutzes. However, his studies were ignored, and it transpired that the couple had already collaborated with an author, Jay Anson, and had written a book, The Amityville Horror – A True Story.

An instant best-seller on its release in 1977, a blockbusting movie version of the tale was released in 1979. As Kaplan suspected, there were some dubious actions and motives behind the Amityville tale. It was revealed that Ronald DeFeo Jr’s defence lawyer had met with the Lutzes before their story was released. Kaplan found no evidence to support many of the claims written in their book, but he did discover that the Lutzes were able to return to the house to hold a garage sale only a couple of weeks after apparently fleeing in terror. Similarly, many investigators noticed that the Lutzes were holding contracts for book and film rights as soon as they decided to publicise their account. Since the Lutzes left, three different families have lived in the house with no reports of ghostly experiences. Dr Stephen Kaplan’s in-depth report and its subsequent revelations about the house were never viewed with as much interest as the dramatic original story, but his book, The Amityville Horror Conspiracy, was eventually published some years after his death. Many investigators and cynics have been led to conclude that the whole case really revolved around money, rather than the popular perception of paranormal influences. It seems the evil forces in this story have less to do with supernatural unknowns, and more with all too common, base human instincts.

Fact or Faked: Mystery Mermaid/Ghostly Guardian

One of the Great Mysteries of Our Universe

Time is always running!

From VOA Learning English, this is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in Special English. I'm June Simms.

Our program today is about a mystery as old as time. Bob Doughty and Sarah Long tell about the mystery of time.

​​If you can read a clock, you can know the time of day. But no one knows what time itself is. We cannot see it. We cannot touch it. We cannot hear it. We know it only by the way we mark its passing.

For all our success in measuring the smallest parts of time, time remains one of the great mysteries of the universe.

One way to think about time is to imagine a world without time. There could be no movement, because time and movement cannot be separated.

A world without time could exist only as long as there were no changes. For time and change are linked. We know that time has passed when something changes.

In the real world -- the world with time -- changes never stop. Some changes happen only once in a while, like an eclipse of the moon. Others happen repeatedly, like the rising and setting of the sun. Humans always have noted natural events that repeat themselves. When people began to count such events, they began to measure time.

In early human history, the only changes that seemed to repeat themselves evenly were the movements of objects in the sky. The most easily seen result of these movements was the difference between light and darkness.

The sun rises in the eastern sky, producing light. It moves across the sky and sinks in the west, causing darkness. The appearance and disappearance of the sun was even and unfailing. The periods of light and darkness it created were the first accepted periods of time. We have named each period of light and darkness -- one day.

People saw the sun rise higher in the sky during the summer than in winter. They counted the days that passed from the sun's highest position until it returned to that position. They counted 365 days. We now know that is the time Earth takes to move once around the sun. We call this period of time a year.

Early humans also noted changes in the moon. As it moved across the night sky, they must have wondered. Why did it look different every night? Why did it disappear? Where did it go?

Even before they learned the answers to these questions, they developed a way to use the changing faces of the moon to tell time.

The moon was "full" when its face was bright and round. The early humans counted the number of times the sun appeared between full moons. They learned that this number always remained the same -- about 29 suns. Twenty-nine suns equaled one moon. We now know this period of time as one month.

Early humans hunted animals and gathered wild plants. They moved in groups or tribes from place to place in search of food. Then, people learned to plant seeds and grow crops. They learned to use animals to help them work, and for food.

They found they no longer needed to move from one place to another to survive.

As hunters, people did not need a way to measure time. As farmers, however, they had to plant crops in time to harvest them before winter. They had to know when the seasons would change. So, they developed calendars.

No one knows when the first calendar was developed. But it seems possible that it was based on moons, or lunar months.

When people started farming, the wise men of the tribes became very important. They studied the sky. They gathered enough information so they could know when the seasons would change. They announced when it was time to plant crops.

The divisions of time we use today were developed in ancient Babylonia 4,000 years ago. Babylonian astronomers believed the sun moved around the Earth every 365 days. They divided the trip into 12 equal parts, or months. Each month was 30 days. Then, they divided each day into 24 equal parts, or hours. They divided each hour into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds.

Humans have used many devices to measure time. The sundial was one of the earliest and simplest.

A sundial measures the movement of the sun across the sky each day. It has a stick or other object that rises above a flat surface. The stick, blocking sunlight, creates a shadow. As the sun moves, so does the shadow of the stick across the flat surface. Marks on the surface show the passing of hours, and perhaps, minutes.

The sundial works well only when the sun is shining. So, other ways were invented to measure the passing of time.

One device is the hourglass. It uses a thin stream of falling sand to measure time. The hourglass is shaped like the number eight --- wide at the top and bottom, but very thin in the middle. In a true "hour" glass, it takes exactly one hour for all the sand to drop from the top to the bottom through a very small opening in the middle. When the hourglass is turned with the upside down, it begins to mark the passing of another hour.

By the eighteenth century, people had developed mechanical clocks and watches. And today, many of our clocks and watches are electronic.

So, we have devices to mark the passing of time. But what time is it now? Clocks in different parts of the world do not show the same time at the same time. This is because time on Earth is set by the sun's position in the sky above.

We all have a 12 o'clock noon each day. Noon is the time the sun is highest in the sky. But when it is 12 o'clock noon where I am, it may be 10 o'clock at night where you are.

As international communications and travel increased, it became clear that it would be necessary to establish a common time for all parts of the world.

In 1884, an international conference divided the world into 24 time areas, or zones. Each zone represents one hour. The astronomical observatory in Greenwich, England, was chosen as the starting point for the time zones. Twelve zones are west of Greenwich. Twelve are east.

The time at Greenwich -- as measured by the sun -- is called Universal Time. For many years it was called Greenwich Mean Time.

Some scientists say time is governed by the movement of matter in our universe. They say time flows forward because the universe is expanding. Some say it will stop expanding some day and will begin to move in the opposite direction, to grow smaller. Some believe time will also begin to flow in the opposite direction -- from the future to the past. Can time move backward?

Most people have no trouble agreeing that time moves forward. We see people born and then grow old. We remember the past, but we do not know the future. We know a film is moving forward if it shows a glass falling off a table and breaking into many pieces. If the film were moving backward, the pieces would re-join to form a glass and jump back up onto the table. No one has ever seen this happen. Except in a film!

Some scientists believe there is one reason why time only moves forward. It is a well-known scientific law -- the second law of thermodynamics. That law says disorder increases with time. In fact, there are more conditions of disorder than of order.

For example, there are many ways a glass can break into pieces. That is disorder. But there is only one way the broken pieces can be organized to make a glass. That is order. If time moved backward, the broken pieces could come together in a great many ways. Only one of these many ways, however, would re-form the glass. It is almost impossible to believe this would happen.

Not all scientists believe time is governed by the second law of thermodynamics. They do not agree that time must always move forward. The debate will continue about the nature of time. And time will remain a mystery.

Top 10 Mysteries of the Bible

The Bible is a source of inerrant truth to over a billion humans but with a book (or more literally a set of books) of this age, speculation arises as to the facts contained therein. This list looks at some of the historical mysteries and even some of the theological mysteries contained in the Bible. These are all topics which fascinate biblical scholars and laymen alike.

10 Holy Grail

The mystery: Where is the Holy Grail?
According to Christian mythology, the Holy Grail was the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to possess miraculous powers. The connection of Joseph of Arimathea with the Grail legend dates from the late 12th century in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Great Britain. Belief in the Grail and interest in its potential whereabouts has never ceased. Ownership has been attributed to various groups (including the Knights Templar, probably because they were at the peak of their influence around the time that Grail stories started circulating. There are cups claimed to be the Grail in several churches, for instance the Saint Mary of Valencia Cathedral, which contains an artifact, the Holy Chalice (pictured above – note, only the top “cup” portion is original), supposedly taken by Saint Peter to Rome in the first century, and then to Huesca in Spain by Saint Lawrence in the 3rd century. The Valencia chalice does hold some merit as a contender for the true grail as it has been scientifically asserted to have been created between the 4th century BC and the first century AD in the Middle East. Other stories claim that the Grail is buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel or lies deep in the spring at Glastonbury Tor. Still other stories claim that a secret line of hereditary protectors keep the Grail, or that it was hidden by the Templars in Oak Island, Nova Scotia’s famous “Money Pit”.

9 Ark of the Covenant

The mystery: Where is the Ark of the Covenant?
The Ark of the Covenant is a container described in the Bible as containing the tablets of stone on which were inscribed the Ten Commandments as well as Aaron’s rod and manna. The ark was kept in Jerusalem until the Babylonians plundered and destroyed the temple. From then, the Ark entered the domain of legend as it vanished forever. Some of the theories for where it may be are: Intentional concealment by the priests under the Temple Mount; Intentional removal from Jerusalem in advance of the Babylonians; and Removal of the Ark by the Ethiopian prince Menelik I. Modern excavations near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem have found tunnels, but digging beneath the Temple Mount is heavily restricted. One of the most important Islamic shrines, the Dome of the Rock, sits in the location where the First Temple of Solomon is alleged to have stood. According to the Bible, King Solomon, when building the temple, had the Ark of the Covenant put on a platform which could be lowered down into a tunnel system if the Temple were ever overrun. This would make it a plausible location.

8 Sodom and Gomorrah

The mystery: Were they real cities and if so where are they?
For the sins of their inhabitants Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim were destroyed by “brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven” (Genesis 19:24-25). In Christianity and Islam, their names have become synonymous with impenitent sin, and their fall with a proverbial manifestation of God’s wrath. The historical existence of Sodom and Gomorrah is still in dispute by archaeologists. The Bible indicates they were located near the Dead Sea. Possible candidates for Sodom or Gomorrah are the sites discovered or visited by Walter E. Rast and R. Thomas Schaub in 1973, including Bab edh-Dhra, which was originally excavated in 1965 by archaeologist Paul Lapp. Other possibilities also include Numeira, es-Safi, Feifeh and Khanazir, which were also visited by Schaub and Rast. All sites were located near the Dead Sea, with evidence of burning and traces of sulfur on many of the stones and a sudden stop of inhabitation towards the end of the Early Bronze Age.

7 Garden of Eden

The mystery: Where is the Garden of Eden?
While the majority of Biblical scholars and theologians consider that the story of the Garden of Eden is most likely not literal, some people do believe that the place existed in reality. Furthermore, the Bible gives directions to the location. This has led to many attempts to locate the garden. The creation story in Genesis relates the geographical location of both Eden and the garden to four rivers (Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, Euphrates), and three regions (Havilah, Assyria, and Kush). There are hypotheses that place Eden at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates (northern Mesopotamia), in Iraq (Mesopotamia), Africa, and the Persian Gulf. While the true location is a mystery, there is a particularly fascinating twist to this tale: Ethiopia is mentioned as being near or surrounding the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2:13 (“And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that compasseth all the land of Ethiopia.”). Since 1974 Paleontologists have excavated six million years of life and conclude that Ethiopia is the scientific location of human origin, a scientifically true Garden of Eden.

6 Bible Codes

The mystery: The Bible appears to contain coded messages; is this a coincidence?
The Bible code, also known as the Torah code, is a series of messages alleged to exist within the Bible text, that when decoded form words and phrases supposedly demonstrating foreknowledge and prophecy. The study and results from this cipher have been popularized by the book The Bible Code.
The primary method by which purportedly meaningful messages have been extracted is the Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS). To obtain an ELS from a text, choose a starting point (in principle, any letter) and a skip number, also freely and possibly negative. Then, beginning at the starting point, select letters from the text at equal spacing as given by the skip number. For example, the bold letters in this sentence form an ELS. With a skip of -4, and ignoring the spaces and punctuation, the word SAFEST is spelled out backwards. Bible codes proponents usually use a Hebrew Bible text. The use and publication of “predictions” based on Bible codes has succeeded in bringing about popular awareness of the codes, most notably based on the work of journalist Michael Drosnin. Drosnin’s most famous prediction, in 1994, was the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, using a Bible code technique.

5 The Lost Tribes

The mystery: What happened to the lost tribes?
The phrase Ten Lost Tribes of Israel refers to the ancient Tribes of Israel that disappeared from the Biblical account after the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed, enslaved and exiled by ancient Assyria. Many groups of Jews have doctrines concerning the continued hidden existence or future public return of these tribes. This is a subject that is partially based upon authenticated and documented historical fact, partially upon written religious tradition and partially upon speculation. There have been some bizarre claims about who may be descended from the lost tribes. Some claims include the Irish, Native Americans, British, and the Japanese. The Kaifeng Jews (pictured above) in China claim to be descended from one of the lost tribes.

4 The Pharaoh of Exodus

The mystery: Who was the pharaoh of the Exodus?
The Pharaoh of the Exodus is the pharaoh (king) who ruled over ancient Egypt at the time of the Exodus. More precisely, it is the question of who this pharaoh might have been. The story of the enslavement of the Children of Israel in Egypt, the plagues by which God forces their release, and their subsequent escape from a pursuing army at the Crossing of the Red Sea, is told in the opening chapters of the Book of Exodus. The pharaoh of the story is not named – he is referred to simply as “pharaoh” – and the question of his identity has been the subject of much speculation among those who believe the Exodus to be a real event. The most commonly imagined figure in popular culture is Ramesses the Great, although there is no documentary or archaeological evidence that he had to deal with the Plagues of Egypt or anything similar or that he chased Hebrew slaves fleeing Egypt. There is also an account made by Merneptah, in the form of a poem from the so-called Israel Stele, which makes reference to the supposed utter destruction of Israel in a campaign prior to his 5th year in Canaan: “Israel has been wiped out…its seed is no more.” There is basically no evidence to strongly support the view of any specific Pharaoh as the one mentioned in Exodus.

3 Noah’s Ark

The mystery: Where is Noah’s Ark?
From at least the time of Eusebius (c. 275 – 339 AD) to the present day, the search for the physical remains of Noah’s Ark has held a fascination for Christians, Jews and Muslims. Despite many rumours, claims of sightings and expeditions no scientific evidence of the ark has ever been found. The search for the ark has been called a “wild goose chase” by some archaeologists. Ark searchers have had little to guide them to the Ark beyond Genesis’ mention of the “mountains of Ararat”. By the middle of the 19th century, archaeologists had identified a 1st-millennium BC kingdom and region of Urartu, contemporaneous with the Assyrian empire and the early kingdoms of Judah and Israel, located in the mountains of present-day Armenia and eastern Turkey. Not until the 19th century was the region settled enough, and welcoming enough for Westerners, to make it possible for significant expeditions to search for the Ark. By the beginning of the 21st century, two main candidates for exploration had emerged: the so-called Ararat anomaly (pictured above) near the main summit of Ararat (an “anomaly” in that it shows on aerial and satellite images as a dark blemish on the snow and ice of the peak), and the separate site at Durup?nar near Dogubayazit, 18 miles (29 km) south of the Greater Ararat summit. Here is an interesting article on the most recent discovery of petrified timber purported to be part of one of the walls of the boat.

2 The Beloved Disciple

The mystery: Who was the Beloved Disciple?
One of the biggest mysteries in biblical scholarship concerns the identity of “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” According to the Gospel of John, this was the disciple who leaned on Jesus during the Last Supper, and the only male disciple present at the crucifixion. In addition, John 21:24 implies that the entire Gospel of John is based on this disciple’s memories. Yet, oddly, it never gives his name. The other three gospels don’t give his name either. In fact they never even mention this “Beloved Disciple” (as he is often called). They also say nothing about any disciple leaning on Jesus during the Last Supper or witnessing the crucifixion. Their total silence on the matter only adds to the mystery. A number of scholars have argued that the Beloved Disciple was Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany, and the man that Jesus raised from the dead. The reason for this is the fact that when the sisters summoned Jesus to help Lazarus, they said: “Lord, the one you love is sick.” Some modern theories even claim that Mary Magdalene was the Beloved Disciple – an idea which would certainly impress Dan Brown. [Source]

1

Authorship of the Gospels

The mystery: Who wrote the Gospels?
The gospels are probably the most important part of the New Testament and until the 18th century their authorship was generally not regarded as a mystery. But as modern biblical scholars investigated the history of the four books, they began to question the fact that they were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There is much speculation (mostly based on the order of the writing of the books) that the gospels were written by people who know the apostles, but not by the apostles directly. This is a mystery that is unlikely to be solved unless a “master” source document for the common quotes in the gospels is discovered which would explain the anomalies which are spoken of in support of the non-apostolic author theories.

The Mystery Behind Taj Mahal

No one has ever challenged it except Prof. P. N. Oak, who believes the whole world has been duped. In his book Taj Mahal: The True Story, Oak says the   Taj Mahal is not Queen Mumtaz’s tomb but an ancient Hindu temple palace of   Lord Shiva (then known as Tejo Mahalaya ) . In the course of his research Oak discovered that the Shiva temple palace was usurped by Shah Jahan from then Maharaja of Jaipur, Jai Singh. In his own court chronicle, Badshahnama,   Shah Jahan admits that an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in Agra was taken from Jai Singh for Mumtaz’s burial . The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur still  retains in his secret collection two orders from Shah Jahan for  surrendering the Taj building. Using captured temples and mansions, as a burial place for   dead courtiers and royalty was a common practice among Muslim rulers.

For example, Humayun,Akbar, Etmud-ud-Daula and Safdarjung are all buried in such mansions. Oak’s inquiries began with the name of Taj Mahal. He says the term ‘ Mahal ‘ has never been used for a building in any Muslim countries from Afghanistan to Algeria. ‘The unusual explanation that the term Taj   Mahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal was illogical in at least two respects.

Firstly, her name was never Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani,’ he writes. Secondly, one cannot omit the first three letters ‘Mum’ from a woman’s name to derive the remainder as the name for the building.’Taj Mahal, he claims, is a corrupt version of Tejo Mahalaya, or Lord Shiva’s Palace . Oak also says the love story of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan is a fairy tale created by  court sycophants, blundering historians and sloppy archaeologists . Not a single royal chronicle of Shah Jahan’s time corroborates the love story.

Furthermore, Oak cites several documents suggesting the Taj Mahal predates Shah Jahan’s era, and was a temple dedicated to Shiva, worshipped by Rajputs of Agra city. For example, Prof. Marvin Miller of New York took a few   samples from the riverside doorway of the Taj. Carbon dating tests revealed that the door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan. European traveler Johan Albert Mandelslo,who visited Agra in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz’s death), describes the life of the cit y in his memoirs. But he makes no reference to the Taj Mahal being built. The writings of Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra within a year of Mumtaz’s death, also suggest the Taj was a noteworthy building well before Shah Jahan’s time.

Prof. Oak points out a number of design and architectural inconsistencies that support the belief of the Taj Mahal being a typical Hindu temple  rather   than a mausoleum. Many rooms in the Taj ! Mahal have remained sealed since Shah Jahan’s time and are still inaccessible to the public . Oak asserts they contain a headless statue of Lord Shiva and other objects commonly used for worship rituals in Hindu temples … Fearing political backlash, government tried to have Prof. Oak’s book withdrawn from the bookstores, and threatened the Indian publisher of the first edition dire consequences . There is only one way to discredit or   validate Oak’s research.

The current government should open the sealed rooms of the Taj Mahal under U.N. supervision, and let international experts investigate.

Its not just taj mahal but even the red fort
The 5th generation Mogul emperor Shahjahan is credited with having built the Red Fort in Delhi. Shahjahan ascended the throne in 1628 A.D. This contemporary painting shows him receiving the Persian ambassador in 1628 itself, in the Diwan-i-Aam (Common Room) of the Red Fort itself. This painting preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, was reproduced in the Illustrated Weekly of India (page 32) of March 14, 1971. Since Shahjahan was in the fort in the year of his accession, this documentary evidence disproves the notion that he built the fort. Compare with this the photo of the tablet in English raised inside the fort by the Govt. of India’s archaeology department asserting that Shahjahan built the fort during 1639-48. This is emphatic proof of Indian history having been thoroughly falsified during Muslim rule in India.

The Red Fort in Delhi has in its Khas Mahal, alias the King’s apartment, the royal emblem of its builder King Anangoal. It consists of a pair of swords laid hilt to hilt curving upwards, the sacred Hindu pot (kalash) above the hilts, a lotus bud and a pair of scales of justice balanced over it. Dotted around are representations of the sun from whom Indian ruling dynasties claimed descent. At the sword points are two small conches considered sacred in Hindu tradition. Bigger conches may be seen at the left and right corners at the base.

This royal Hindu insignia of the Hindu king who built Delhi’s Red Fort, is still there in the Khas Mahal pavilion. But even this visual symbol has been blatantly misinterpreted. The two swords laid hilt to hilt, curving upward are being inadvertently styled by ignorant guides, archaeologists and historians as an Islamic crescent. The sacred Hindu Kalash (water pot) on the hilts is never noticed. The lotus bud on the kalash represents royal wealth. The pair of scales is symbolic of impartial justice.

The conical arch seen in Indian forts, palaces and temples though of native Hindu origin has been mistaken and misrepresented by erring Western scholars as Saracenic i.e. Muslim. This photo of a Saudi Arabian currency note shows the typical Muslim arch which is quite different from the conical Hindu arch. Had historic buildings in India been of Islamic origin they should have had such arches. In the top right corner is a palm tree and crossed, face-down swords. Even this typically Islamic motif exists nowhere on historic buildings in India.
and many others….

Note the veranda is typical Rajput architecture.

 

Inverted water-pots on top. Their number is always odd, 11 in this case, typical of the Vedic system. Notice also the cobra design in pairs below the gallery. Koranic inscriptions were a graffiti added by Shahjahan.

Wall decorations as we see here are typical Rajput style. There is also a balcony at first floor level.

Note the Trident within the lotus form at the apex. Both of which are Vedic references, the trident being connected with Lord Shiva.

You can see blocked doorways and windows where there are several rooms in the 19 foot high plinth. This would be where entrances would lead to many pathways to the rooms within.
 

We are now outside the Cenotaph Chamber. Note how the steps in plain marble break up the designs on the plinth wall. This means that they are not original.

The Cenotaph chamber with marble screen. The point is why have an octagonal screen around two graves? It is more likely to have been an area of where sacred activities once took place.

The Cenotaphs, or the supposed graves of Shahjahan (on the left) and Mumtaz.
If the tiles on the graves can me mimiced with the design on the outside then the scripting of the kuran can also be mimiked thats a point to note

The Vedic style design on the under-side of the dome over the central cenotaph chamber. Note the blazing sun surrounded by circle of Tridents, which are definite Vedic designs.

he interior of the so-called Mosque at one end from the Taj with evidence it was converted later into a mausoleum. Steps were for the Mullahs to preach. But see how they break the pattern of decoration on the wall and also on the floor. This means that these steps are not original, but were put up when this building was converted into Mosque by Shahjahan. Also, when praying in this building, Muslims would face West, i.e. Bandar Abbas in Iran, NOT Mecca as is more correct.

Survey plan of Taj Mahal by Col Hodgson, 1825. Note the platform on the north side running from N/W to N/E tower and steps at two places from this platform to go to the river: a sure sign of planning for residential activity, not what you would need for a vacant mausoleum.

Blue print of the Taj Mahal showing cross-section of Central Edifice in a book by J Fergusson in 1855. It clearly shows the hidden basements

Entrance to lower basement floor that is now bricked up.

The timber door before it was sealed up with bricks. In 1974 American Professor Marvin Mills took a sample from this door for Carbon dating and concluded that the Taj Mahal pre-dates Shahjahan. After this revelation, the Government of India removed the timber doors and the openings were bricked up, as shown in the previous photo.

After we climb down the steps we see a doorway to the passage on right of the hidden rooms.

Here is a typical tower (Burj) that is in familiar Rajput style, not Islamic in any way.
You can refer to any building built by rajputs it will resemble this….