The building of the pyramids has caused more controversy than almost any other subject in the history of science. It is agreed that the construction could not have been undertaken by a civilisation with no more resources than the Egyptians are commonly believed to have had. Therefore there must have been what can only be described as outside assistance, and one vital point of evidence has hitherto been overlooked. This relates to the polar orientation.
The phenomenon of precession means that the celestial equator shifts slowly and steadily, so that the vernal equinox shifts too. In ancient times it lay in the constellation of Aries, and is still known as the first point of Aries, though it has now moved into the adjacent constellation of Pisces and will ultimately enter Aquarius. In the time when the pyramids are assumed to have been built, the north polar star was not our own Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris), but Thuban (Alpha Draconis). Most authorities assume that this was the star which the Egyptians used.
In fact it is well known that the orientation is not so precise in this respect as in all others. Calculations recently undertaken at the Kiev University research station indicate that the orientation is not with Alpha Draconis, but with the nearby star Zeta Draconis. And this is the pole star not of the Earth, but of the Moon.
It is true that the Moon also shows a precessional effect, but the shift is much quicker and much slighter than in the case of the Earth, for well understood reasons into which I need not enter. The lunar pole star was then, as now, Zeta Draconis; and it can hardly be coincidental that the Pyramid alignment is with this star. The odds against coincidence are astronomical in any sense of the term. We must, then, assume that the ‘outside help’ given to the Egyptians was lunar.
On the other hand it would be very dangerous to assume the existence of a lunar civilisation indigenous to that very hostile world. We must look further afield, and this presumably leads us to Mars, where the conditions are not overwhelmingly hostile even to our kind of life and which would be very tolerable to forms only slightly different from our own (after all, the Viking revelation that there is plenty of H2O are conclusive). Yet in some ways Mars is as lunar in type as terrestrial, and it would be natural for any ‘Martians’ (I use the popular term) to land on the Moon first before coming down onto the Earth, to endure an atmosnhere which would to them seem very dense and oxygen rich.
Confirmatory evidence seems to have been provided by George H. Leonard in his new book Somebody Else is on the Moon (Mckay, New York 1976). Using NASA photographs, and with NASA consultation, Leonard has detected what he believes to be artifacts in many regions of the Moon – not dwellings, but landing gear, rigs, cranes and so on. He believes that these are currently in use. However, it may well be that they are disused, at any rate for the moment, and were left there by the pyramid-builders after they departed for their home planet Mars.
Leonard’s conclusions are bound to be challenged, but the photographic evidence, which he has published in detail, speaks for itself. The existence of the artifacts is not really in question; the point at issue is – whether or not they are ancient or modern. (On the airless Moon there can be no weathering, and therefore no deterioration of machines.) To check on any movements will be difficult, as it would be a very fortunate coincidence if the same area were photographed twice, at a time-interval, under identical conditions of libration, angle, and solar illumination. On the whole, it does seem likely that the Moon is deserted now – but was not so in Egyptian times.
A further check is possible. The present north polar star of Mars itself is Deneb (Alpha Cygni), but the precessional effects are more violent, and the axial inclination can range between 35° and 13° to the perpendicular; at the moment it is almost the same as that of the Earth (24°), and the cycle of approximately 100,000 years as against 26,000 years for the Earth. Calculating the precessional effects backwards for Mars, and taking the accepted date of the Pyramid, we come back to Zeta Draconis, and this must surely prove that the arguments advanced here are valid.
We have then, a sequence of events: the expedition from Mars to the Moon, the setting-up of bases, the transfer to Earth, the building of the Pyramids and the return. We now need evidence of Pyramids on Mars as well, and there are reports that non-natural features have been strongly suspected on the Mariner 9, Viking 1 and Viking 2 photographs. If these are confirmed, then one of the main riddles of the Pyramids will have been solved – though admittedly we still know nothing about the methods used by the interplanetary pyramid-builders.