-Caveat Lector- from: http://www2.eridu.co.uk/eridu/interview.html <A HREF="http://www2.eridu.co.uk/eridu/interview.html">Interview with Alan F Alford</A> ----- AN INTERVIEW WITH ALAN F ALFORD (Author of "Gods of the New Millennium" & "The Phoenix Solution") By Jon East 20th July 1998 JE: "Firstly, I must say that this is a really excellent jacket design on your new book. Presumably the fire around the pyramid is evoking the Phoenix rising from the ashes?" AFA: "Yes, Hodders [Hodder & Stoughton] have done a great job there, although I do take credit for the idea of the fire surrounding the pyramid. But it's not so much evoking the rise of the Phoenix, as the ascension of the Egyptian king to heaven, via a reversal of the catastrophic 'act of creation', when fiery fragments of the planet Osiris fell to the Earth. Hence the gate of fire which had to be passed through to get back to heaven. As for the Sun on the horizon, well that represents the Egyptian symbol of death and rebirth. Not of the Sun itself - that would be too obvious - but the more profound death and rebirth of a planet which exploded and then rose from its ashes by reincarnation in the Earth. That is the idea behind the Phoenix." JE: "OK, and that is the basic theme behind the book isn't it? That the Egyptian religion was an exploded planet cult." AFA: "Right. It sounds so mundane when you put it like that, but actually it happens to be an extremely controversial conclusion, because it overturns just about everything we thought we knew about ancient Egypt. For the last 170 years, Egyptologists have assured us that Egyptian religion was a confusing mixture of solar and stellar cults, whereas in reality the Sun and the stars were merely visible symbols for the invisible - a planet, or rather two planets, which exploded 250 and 65 million years ago." JE: "And what makes your theory so exciting, if I understand this right, is the long string of coincidences between Egyptian beliefs and modern astronomical research." AFA: "So much so that they are unlikely to be 'coincidences' at all. We have a clear description in Egyptian mythology of a confrontation between two planets - a watery planet and a red planet; and myths which describe their 'dismemberment' or explosion. And scientific data backs that up exactly - the encounter scenario, the explosions which formed the asteroid belts, and the evidence of water from one planet, and red asteroids from the other. In addition, the myths describe a 2:1 satellite exchange between the two planets, and that is in absolute accordance with the laws of celestial dynamics. And then we have several legends of moons exploding and one of them ravaging mankind, and that is backed up by evidence that a moon from one of these planets did explode as recently as 3 million years ago. Furthermore, we have a description of the Earth becoming an 'Island of Fire' as a result of the meteoric impacts, and that is almost exactly the terminology used by geologists to describe the Earth after the multiple impacts 65mya - when the dinosaurs were wiped out. We also have legends of a huge flood of cold water falling to the Earth, and this too is exactly what would happen following the explosion of a watery planet. Even the sequence of the two explosions was correctly recorded by the Egyptians, who named one planet Osiris and the other Isis. Hence Sirius, the star of Isis, rose on the horizon after Orion, the star of Osiris, whilst in mythology Isis came searching for Osiris inside the Earth after he had abandoned her." JE: "So you are suggesting that the Egyptians possessed a well-developed scientific knowledge of astronomy." AFA: "Absolutely. I think that anyone who denies this is being blinkered by prejudice and preconceptions. But one can understand their reluctance, because this level of science is something that we have only recently rediscovered by using telescopes and space probes." JE: "Hmmm. It's a real paradox. But as you point out in your book, so is the Great Pyramid, and no-one can deny the fantastic science that went into its construction - thousands of years ago." AFA: "Yes, until now the Great Pyramid has stood alone in Egypt as evidence of a 'lost civilisation' with a fantastic scientific knowledge. But what 'The Phoenix Solution' does is to completely corroborate this idea. It's the software alongside the hardware, as it were - and it now makes the case for a 'lost race' virtually irrefutable." JE: "I must say that you have countered all the objections to the lost civilisation in a brilliant and very academic style. You have also done a very thorough hatchet job on the idea that the Egyptians built the [Great] Pyramid." AFA: "Well I wouldn't call it a hatchet job. What I've done is to try and weigh up the evidence scientifically. I've shown on the one hand how the orthodox case rests entirely on a highly dubious, fraudulent set of inscriptions. And on the other hand, I've discovered several new clues that totally undermine the notion of Khufu building it [the Great Pyramid]. The funny thing about this is that these clues have been there all along, under the noses of Egyptologists, though not very well known outside those circles. And you really can't help wondering what other clues they're still sitting on which we don't know about." JE: "The one thing you don't really get to grips with in your book is what the Great Pyramid really was. I mean, what was its purpose or function?" AFA: "I accept that, although I did put forward an idea in my previous book 'Gods of the New Millennium'. The problem is that we don't have the complete picture of all the Pyramid's shafts and chambers, and it's as if the authorities don't want us to have it. We've waited five years for the Gantenbrink 'door' to be opened, and we're still waiting. I'm still open-minded on what the Pyramid's function might have been, but I'm trying to take an honest approach in saying that I really don't know for certain. I only wish that Egyptologists could be brave enough to let go of the old tomb-theory and admit that they don't know either!" JE: "One area where you don't hold back, however, is the chronology of the Great Pyramid. You have come up with a date which is anathema both to Egyptologists and to Bauval/Hancock fans. And although your renovation-hypothesis is a bold one, I can't help wondering whether your fancy footwork here is a little too fancy." AFA: "What do you mean?" JE: "Well, what I mean is that you have drawn up an entire scenario based on very little evidence, and you have rejected as much evidence as you have used." AFA: "Aha, I see. The problem we all face here is that there never will be much hard evidence to date a monument built almost entirely from stone. But that doesn't remove the need to at least come up with a theory based on the little data that we do have. So I don't make any apologies for that. As to your accusation that I have been 'selective' with the data, I would say that I have simply been 'decisive' in accepting or rejecting data for good reasons - as set out very clearly in my book. It is absolutely essential to make these kind of decisions for the simple reason that the present data-set creates an irresolvable conflict. What I have tried to do is to remove the conflict in the simplest possible way. Some people might not like it, because my dating of the Great Pyramid and Sphinx - to around 5000 BC to 4000 BC - seems kind of 'middle-of-the-road'. Well, sorry folks, but that's just the way I think it is. I honestly feel that we've all been totally misled by the false assumption that the Sphinx was originally a lion, whereas really it was the dog Anubis. What many people don't realise is that the lion was a dual concept in ancient Egyptian thought, arising from the idea of a planet with two satellites. And there's absolutely no scrap of evidence for a second Sphinx. So the idea of it being a lion has nothing whatsoever to commend it... I know that will upset a lot of people who have bought in to the idea that Giza was commemorating a Zep Tepi or First Time circa 11000 BC - I did too originally - but I have now amply demonstrated that Zep Tepi was a primeval age, millions of years ago, when the planet Osiris fell to Earth with fire and a flood." JE: "I'm sure Bauval and Hancock's fans can cope with your criticisms, especially as you're putting forward an equally radical and attractive alternative. But what about Bauval and Hancock themselves, what kind of response are you expecting from them?" AFA: "I hope they're pretty thick-skinned! But I'm sure they will appreciate that my criticisms are purely academic and not personal in any way. Much credit is due to them for getting us all looking at Egypt again with a fresh perspective. But the debate must move on, and there is a lot more still to be said. Although they challenged many orthodoxies, they didn't really go far enough. They never challenged the widespread assumption that the Sphinx was a lion, and they never challenged the assumption that Ra was a Sun-god. My view is this. We're all on a quest for the truth, and it would be a shame if anyone starts to get dogmatic about this or that pet theory. And that includes me. But what we have to remember at the end of the day is that my thesis provides powerful support to the idea of a lost race with a high science. So, in that respect, Bauval, Hancock and myself ought to be on the same side." JE: "Fair point. Now let's talk about the reaction of Egyptologists. In your book, you seem concerned that they will be very hostile towards you." AFA: "Yes, Egyptologists don't like outsiders butting in to their business, and the first mention of the Great Pyramid and a lost civilisation causes them to run for the hills. It's a great pity. I think there will be one or two who recognise the value of what I'm saying, but they'll be in the minority, and may be afraid to speak out. In my opinion, a whole generation of Egyptologists will have to pass away before the exploded planet thesis becomes mainstream. And meanwhile our children will be taught the same old c*** about the Egyptians being primitives, psychologically that is. But there is a means to circumvent this. Right now I'm talking to a major computer games company, with the intention of turning 'The Phoenix Solution' into a huge, best-selling computer game. Think of it - action, adventure, and a profound inter-planetary mission in a metaphysical world, all mixed up with the mysterious sex-appeal of ancient Egypt, with its pyramids, gold, mummies and magical spells. It should be a runaway success... and will really educate as well as entertain." JE: "Sounds great. But anyway, coming back to your new book, in the foreword, the historian Michael Rice states that Egyptologists shouldn't dismiss your work but owe you a proper and critical response. Do you think this will ever happen?" AFA: "I have done all I can for now, especially in getting Michael Rice to lend some academic credibility to my thesis with a very supportive foreword. Beyond that, it's difficult to know how to pursue it. I have got no plans to write articles for Egyptological journals, because my thesis is 500 pages long, and it really needs that kind of length. It would be impossible to abbreviate my argument, because it overturns everything we know. So I have no plans to take them [the Egyptologists] on, not until they come up with a full and detailed response to my thesis. In the meantime there are much bigger fish to fry." JE: "And those bigger fish are...?" AFA: "Let me put it this way. 'The Phoenix Solution' is much bigger than Egyptology. It's already obvious to me that most modern religions, including Christianity, are simply echoes of the exploded planet cult. In other words, God was a planet which exploded. And the angels of God - his emissaries - were the meteoric fragments which rained down on the Earth. In my next book, I will be emphasising this much more strongly, and tracing the path of the Phoenix right through to the present day. These echoes still exist in some very surprising places..." JE: "So, you are now a man with a religious mission!?" AFA: (laughs) "Well, my philosophy is that there is no religion higher than the truth. And I don't care who I upset in pursuit of the truth. All I want to do is to enlighten people to the fact that most religions are ultimately based on planetary astronomy. And that God and Satan simply personify the primeval planets of Osiris and Seth in Egyptian lore. When we see things in this way, all the divisions and fighting among mankind begin to look pretty silly." JE: "But isn't there a danger that your thesis will destroy religion, and replace it with nothing but atheism? I mean, how would you describe your own religious beliefs?" AFA: "I have a strange answer to that question, which is 'ask NASA'. As strange as it might seem, my personal religious beliefs hang on NASA's ongoing exploration of comets and asteroids. If they prove Van Flandern's exploded planet hypothesis correct - as I suspect they will - then the Egyptian cult will turn out to be the most profound religion imaginable, linking us literally back to our evolutionary roots. Then I'll have no hesitation in adopting this as my personal religion - of sorts - but it still begs the question of 'God' as a higher spiritual force that goes back way beyond our own solar system to the Big Bang or whatever." JE: "So, right now you're sitting on the fence?" AFA: "Yes, that is the right thing to do. The last thing I want is to create another false religion. The world has got enough of them already." JE: (laughs) "Changing the subject, one thing we haven't discussed yet is flesh and blood 'gods' - the ancient astronaut theory which you put forward in your first book 'Gods of the New Millennium'. In your introduction to 'The Phoenix Solution', you say that the Egyptians caused you to revise some of your own preconceptions. I wonder if that is something of an understatement. How do you think your readers are going to react to your latest comments on the ancient astronaut theory, and particularly on Sitchin and Planet X?" AFA: "When I started my investigation into ancient Egypt, I was positively looking to back up Sitchin's hypothesis. I expected to find lots of references to flesh and blood gods, to rockets, to spacecraft, and an underground space centre, and so on and so forth. But what I actually found was exactly the opposite. There was little or nothing to support Sitchin's theory, and all the Egyptian gods turned out to be planetary in nature, with specific roles in the battles of the planets, their explosion, reincarnation and metaphysical resurrections. My preconceptions were entirely overturned. Fortunately, as a new author to this field, I was able to come to terms with this shock, and report exactly what I found. The way I explain this to Sitchin fans is to point out that he modestly claims to be a 'reporter', who is communicating to us the ideas of the Sumerians and other Near Eastern cultures. Whereas I am simply acting as a reporter for the Egyptians. Who is to say that the Sumerians were right and the Egyptians wrong or vice versa? If we want to get the truth, we have to listen to both sides of the story, and try to work out what's going on." JE: "But you do seem to have sided with the Egyptians..." AFA: "Mmm. It's perhaps inevitable that I am a little biased in favour of the ancient Egyptian perspective. Frankly, you can't crack the mystery of the Egyptian Pyramid Texts by sitting on the sidelines as a dispassionate observer. You have to wade right in and immerse yourself in the culture, in order to begin to think like an Egyptian. My comments on Sitchin's thesis must be taken as provisional at this stage. I can see how the Egyptian perspective might explain some of the Near Eastern myths, but I haven't had time to revisit them all. The jury is still out on whether some of them might refer to flesh-and-blood gods. But, you know, if there's any doubt here, we really ought to be applying Occam's Razor... As for Planet X/Nibiru, yes I have changed my view, but that is not just down to the Egyptians. The astronomical evidence suggests that Planet X has exploded and now lies in fragments in one of the two asteroid belts recently discovered beyond Neptune. The interesting thing here is that the Egyptian myths refer to their version of Planet X (Seth) as 'red-headed', and sure enough the new asteroids are incredibly red in colour. So one is inclined to believe the Egyptians when they described Seth as being decapitated or dismembered, but still coming back to cause atrocities. It's a perfect description of a broken-up planet. The fact that the Sumerians described seeing this red planet [Nibiru] and the gods ascending and descending to and from it, doesn't worry me at all, because the Egyptians said the same things - but clearly from a metaphysical and not a physical perspective." JE: "Yes, I found that argument very convincing. But how do you think Sitchin himself will react to this idea?" AFA: "I honestly don't know him well enough to say. You have to realise that he has invested a lot of energy in writing seven books on this theme, and it may be difficult for him to change his stance. As a general rule, if you examine any field of science or religion, it's a case of 'dogma rules OK'. The genre of 'alternative archaeology' is no different. It is difficult to think of a single author who has ever changed his (or her) mind on any point, even when they have been researching and writing for twenty years or more." JE: "So have you, or have you not, changed your mind on the ancient astronaut hypothesis?" AFA: "That's a very complex question. I still stand by the central theme of my first book - that the origin of Homo sapiens is highly evocative of some kind of genetic intervention. But I now consider that the mythological support for an intervention by ancient astronauts is not quite what it seems. So, in my mind I have downgraded the status of the ancient astronaut theory from 'definite' to 'probable/possible'. I also think that so much of the evidence that we turn up in support of ancient astronauts is actually very ambiguous, and could equally be explained by a terrestrial culture which developed aeronautics. A good example of this ambiguity is the exploded planet cult in ancient Egypt. In my book I have put forward both sides of the argument - for a terrestrial or an extraterrestrial source of this knowledge. What I am trying to do, in a nutshell, is become the rational voice for the ancient astronaut theory, and in so doing I have had to considerably rethink what is a plausible scenario. The importance of 'The Phoenix Solution', and the exploded planet hypothesis, is that it brings into the equation two additional planets in our own solar system, both in the Sun's 'habitable zone'. And both of these exploded planets, it would seem, were once watery. Furthermore, the evolutionary impact of one exploding alongside the other could have significantly accelerated the development of intelligent life [on the latter]. I find this kind of scenario much more convincing than the Planet X hypothesis, so I haven't hesitated to change my mind. If I think I'm wrong, I change my mind, what would you do? But, as you see, it's not a black-and-white issue of changing my mind on the ancient astronaut theory per se." JE: "I see. But does it bother you that some people might draw on your work to attack the theories of Sitchin, Bauval, Hancock etc, without giving the other more positive side of the story which you've just given me?" AFA: "I hadn't really thought about it, but yes, it could be a problem. But it sure as hell could backfire on them, because 'The Phoenix Solution' contains some of the best evidence yet for the ancient astronaut theory and for a lost civilisation on Earth." JE: "Last question - if I haven't totally exhausted you yet. What happened to the 'lost civilisation'? In your opinion, did they die out, move on, or what?" AFA: "As I state in the book, I think of them more as a 'lost race', not a huge global civilisation. As far as I can tell, they were intellectual, pacifist, isolationist, anti-materialist - the antithesis of modern society. It's possible that we still share this planet with them without even realising it, just as a remote tribe in the jungle might have little or no contact with us modern folk. If that's the case, the 'lost race' might feel rather threatened by the expansionism of modern societies, and particularly by the threats of pollution and nuclear weapons. Now, I'm sticking my neck out here, but... if this is scenario is correct, and bearing in mind the head start this race has had in so many fields of science, they might well be the intelligence that has been controlling the UFOs - the flying disks - which began to appear in earnest at the beginning of the nuclear age. It's an intriguing thought isn't it? On the other hand, this 'lost race' might simply have carried on living a simple nomadic life style and died out many centuries ago due to warfare, disease or any manner of reasons. The honest answer is that I really don't know what became of them, and it's almost pointless to speculate. What is important, though, is that we can trace the legacy of their knowledge, all the way down from Egypt to the present day, where we find the exploded planet cult in some very surprising places." JE: "Yes, you blew me away with one example last week..." AFA: "And there's plenty more like that. But I don't want to give it all away now Jack, or it'll spoil the surprise in my next book." JE: "OK Alan, understood. One last thing. Do I get to keep this copy of 'The Phoenix Solution'?" ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! 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