Return to the Stars: Evidence for the Impossible by Erich von Däniken Read Free Book Online Page B

there are no parts held together by a binding agent. The whole thing looks as if it had come from one casting-mould. The edges are cut at right-angles and are knife sharp. Eight inch wide granite ledges lie stepwise as neatly as if the wooden mould had been taken away yesterday.
     
    We walked upright through galleries and chambers, waiting tensely for the surprise awaiting us around the next turning. I kept on thinking about the current archaeological explanations of these masterpieces of technology, but they did not convince me. It seems much more likely to me that superlatively built fortifications must have existed here above Sacsayhuaman. All these faultlessly dressed stone colossi could have formed part of a megalithic building complex. Presumably this lay-out could be excavated or reconstructed if systematic research was carried out on the site.
     
    Naturally I have also asked myself whether there might not be conventional explanations for the 'ruins' above Sacsayhuaman.
     
    Volcanic eruptions? There have been none for miles around.
     
    Movements of the earth's crust? The last violent movement is supposed to have taken place about 200,000 years ago.
     
    Earthquakes? They could hardly have caused the damage which leaves so much order recognisable among the disorder. To add a double question mark after all the questions, the dressed granite blocks show signs of vitrification of the kind that only appears as the result of tremendously high temperatures.
     
    Freaks of nature? The granite blocks have accurately cut grooves and they have mortises as if they had been torn loose from the block next to them.
     
    Neither the city archaeologist at Cuzco nor his colleagues in the museums of Lima could give me a satisfactory explanation of the structures we had examined. 'Pre-Inca,' they said, 'or perhaps the Tiahuanaco culture.'
     
    Of course, there is nothing shameful about admitting one's ignorance. The fact remains that no one knows anything definite about the blocks we saw above Sacsayhuaman. Only one thing is certain. This great complex was built by a method unknown to us by beings unknown to us at an unknown date. It is also certain that it existed and had already been destroyed again before the famous Inca fortress of the Sun God was built.
     
    This applies equally to Tiahuanaco on the Bolivian plateau.
     
    I had studied many books on the subject and learnt extraordinary things about Tiahuanaco in the process, but everything in them was surpassed by what I saw with my own eyes. I had also read a lot about the remarkable 'water conduits' that were discovered at Tiahuanaco. During my last journey to the Bolivian plateau I singled them out for special study.
     
    There I stood in Tiahuanaco, 15,000 ft above sea level, for the second time. I had paid too little attention to the 'water conduits' during my first brief visit, but this time I wanted to rectify the omission.
     
    I found the first remarkable example of these half-pipes set in the wall of a reconstructed temple. It had been put there arbitrarily. Where it sat in the wall the half-pipe was quite pointless, except perhaps in a decorative sense, as if it was aimed at the tourists.
     
    When I was able to examine the 'water conduits' in other places, I found that what I had read about them was true. They had a completely modern shape with smooth cross-sections, polished inner and outer surfaces and accurate edges. The half-pipes have grooves and corresponding protrusions that fit together. They can be joined like children's Lego pieces.
     
    If I was staggered by the technical and mechanical perfection of these works that the archaeologists attribute to pre-Inca tribes, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw that the finds long classified as 'water conduits' existed in the form of double pipes. One conduit was masterpiece enough, but now there were double pipes made out of one piece of rock. What is more, double pipes with faultlessly executed right-angled