Forgotten Ages Research

Deep Time Out-of-Place Artifacts—Four Interpretations of Their Origins

Product ID: OPA2

Report Topics:

• A general assessment of the existence of “out-of-place artifacts” and “geologic anomalies“—why they are an embarrassment to modern conservative researchers
• List of over 220 artifacts giving location, date of discovery, artifact description with geologic settings, and the geologic age
• Artifact examples from the Pleistocene, Pliocene, Miocene, Oligocene, Eocene, Paleocene, Cretaceous, Jurassic, Triassic, Permian, Carboniferous, Devonian, Silurian, Ordovician, Cambrian, Precambrian, Proterozoic, Archean and Hadean ages
• An examination of four models of interpretation—Uniformitarian Evolution, Bible-based Creationism, Ancient Astronauts Theory or Extraterrestrialism, and the Philosophical-Metaphysical-Occult-Esoteric Paradigm
• Has the Earth had more than one graduation class of intelligent life, going back over 4 billion years?

Full Report:

Here are some of the many examples of out-of-place artifacts that have been discovered so far among the geologic layers of deep time. Each listing gives the Location, the Date of Discovery, the Artifact Description with Geologic Setting, and the Geologic Age:

PLEISTOCENE 12,000–2 million years ago—

*Aiud, Rumania—1974—manufactured wedge of aluminum—11,000 to 12,000 years old
*Costa Rica and other global locations—discovered in the 1930’s to the present—over a thousand perfectly carved stone spheres of various sizes, some inscribed with images—1,200 to 12,000 years old
*Acambaro, Mexico—unearthed beginning in 1945—33,000 sculptured clay figurines of dinosaurs extinct from 65 to 275 million years—the figurines themselves are 7,000 to 12,000 years old
*Prehistoric site situated on the northwest Black Sea littoral area, Bulgaria— 2003—graphite cylinder with finely-worked smelted and coiled gold wire internal wrap, specifically designed to hold an electrical charge—8,000 to 12,000 years old
*Yakutsk, Siberia, Russia—circa 1900—auroch bull skull with a bullet hole in the center of its forehead, partially grown back—12,000 years old
*Bayan Kara-ula, Qinghai Province, China—1938—cavern containing 716 cobalt stone disks with spiral grooves lined with unknown letters belonging to the extinct Dropa peoples—over 12,000 years old
*Lubaantum, Belize—1927—Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull—between 20,000 and 50,000 years old
*Kottenforst, Germany—first recorded in thirteenth century—non-corroded iron pillar half-buried in glacial till—30,000 years old
*Broken Knife Ridge, Northwest Territory, Canada—1950’s—inscribed quartzite boulder atop pyramidal mound—30,000 years old
*Broken Hill, Zambia—1921—Human skull with bullet hole, found under 14 feet of rock—38,000 years old
*North of Mexico City—1920’s—remains of buried city with pottery and engraved tablets found 38 feet below surface—50,000 years old
*Off Yonaguni island, Okinawa—1996—massive sunken ruins of large block construction in 40 to 100 feet of water—oldest aspects dating back to 50,000 years old
*Near the Ohio River north of Cincinnati—1826—buried tree trunk showing signs of ax marks, and embedded oxidized wedge of iron, from a well dug to 54 feet deep—50,000 to 75,000 years old
*Santa Ana River Valley, Ventura County, California—1888—a dozen cogged stone wheels averaging 6.5 inches in diameter—estimated 60,000 years old
*Jinmium, Northern Territory, Australia—1996—thousands of carved stone circles and stone tools—between 60,000 and 176,000 years old
*Near Montauk, Long Island, New York—1990—large machine-like components covered with undecipherable glyphs, excavated from glacial morainal till—estimated 65,000 years old
*Sheguaiandah, Manitoulin Island in northern Lake Huron—1952—advanced stone tools, found in glacial deposits—65,000 to 125,000 years old
*In silver mine in the Andean mountains near Lima, Peru—1572—well-preserved six-inch iron nail, embedded in large conglomerate boulder—between 75,000 and 100,000 years old
*Old Crow River, Yukon, Canada—1970’s—bones with cut marks—80,000 years old
*Texas Street, San Diego, California—1950 to 1953—hearth and stone tools dug up—between 80,000 and 90,000 years old
*Near Stirling, Illinois—1881—copper knife unearthed near a mastodon leg-bone buried together in undisturbed drift gravel—100,000 years old
*Moses Lake, Washington—1971—choppers and scrapers made from quartzite, unearthed from beneath glacial moraine—100,000 years old
*Pretoria, South Africa—2008—flaked hunting tools—100,000 years old
*Petite Anse Island, Louisiana—circa 1890—well-worked pottery shards with remains of baskets and matting, unearthed at a depth of 15 to 20 feet beneath glacial layers containing mastodon bones—over 100,000 years old
*North of Albuquerque, New Mexico—1998—man-made object of ceramic and steel-like metal, very similar to a three-prong electrical plug, found encased in a stone of quartz and feldspar granite—100,000 years old
*Trenton, New Jersey—1899—human femure and skull fragments found in Sangamon Interglacial stratum—107.000 years old
*Black Forks River, Wyoming—1932—stone hand axes and other tools—150,000 years old
*Crowley’s Ridge, Arkansas—1921—carved stone head with metal ornaments and other stone artifacts—175,000 years old
*Washout of the River Carron near Edinburgh, Scotland—1726—remains of a 36-foot oak canoe embedded beneath several layers of sea deposits and glacial till—between 175,000 and 225,000 years old
*Whiteside Country, Illinois—1851—copper hook and ring brought up from 120 feet down—200,000 years old
*Rock shelf between Edmond and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma—1969—inlaid floor covering several thousand square feet composed of evenly spaced diamond-shaped tiles into which were drilled post holes for wall supports, encased in rock at a depth of 3 feet—at least 200,000 years old
*Banks of the Elbe River near Hamburg, Germany—between 1865 and 1873—a series of carvings depicting Ice Age mammals and portraits of modern-looking humans—200,000 years old
*Calico, California—1929, 1930—variety of cutting stone tools—200,000 years old
*Uran-Zohra in the Euphrates Valley, southeastern Turkey—1958—road construction unearthed a tomb containing a human femur measuring 47.25 inches long—estimated age 200,000 years old
*Near Managua, Nicaragua—1884—human foot prints found in quarry—200,000 years old
*Narada River, eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, Russia—1993—spiral-shaped objects, the smallest being 1/10,000th of an inch in size, made of copper, tungsten and molybdenum—between 200,000 and 318,000 years old
*Lawn Ridge, Illinois—1870—machine-rolled, acid-etched metallic coin unearthed from 114 feet down—between 200,000 and 400,000 years old
*Hueyatlaco near Puebla, Mexico—beginning in 1973—sophisticated stone tools—when dated using uranium series, zircon fission track and tephra hydration dating techniques, the convergent age was calculated at 250,000 years old
*Near Demirkopru, Turkey—1970—modern human foot print in volcanic ash—250,000 years old
*Near Buda, Hungary—1990’s—modern-type human skull fragments—between 250,000 and 450,000 years old
*Lagoa Santa and Bahia, Brazil—1970, 1986, 1987—human skull cap, crude cave paintings and stone tools—295,000 years old
*Nampa, Idaho—1889—clay doll-like human figurine brought up by a drill pump from a depth of 320 feet—between 300,000 and 2 million years old
*Near Marlboro, Ohio—1880—black marble statuette—300,000 years old
*Galley Hill near London—1888—modern-looking skeleton along with stone tools, embedded in chalk deposits from the Holstein Inter-Glacial—330,000 years old
*Beneath the Avenue de Clichy, Paris—1868—skull, femur, tibia and foot bones of a modern-type human, from a layer between two glacial morainal deposits—330,000 years old
*Moulin Quignon, Abbeville, France—1863—anatomically modern human jaw accompanied by Acheulean stone implements, removed from a layer of black sand and gravel—recently re-assessed at 400,000 years old
*Near Ipswich in East Anglia, England—1911—an anatomically modern human skeleton unearthed beneath a layer of glacial boulder clay—400,000 years old
*Archaeological site in the northern Jordan Valley, Israel—1989—a petrified plank of willow wood measuring 10 inches long by 5 inches wide, highly polished on one side and with a straight and beveled edge—500,000 years old
*Coso Mountains near Olancha, California—1961—porcelain, copper and other metal components of what looks like a spark plug embedded in a geode— 500,000 years old
*Near Jinan, Shandong Province, China—2001—sophisticated wooden club with rope and metal cutting blade, found in undisturbed Lower Paleolithic soil— 700,000 years old
*Anza-Borrago Desert, California—1980—mammoth bones incised by stone tools—750,000 years old
*Bed II at Olduvai Gorge in East Africa—1913—anatomically modern human skeleton embedded in rock matrix—1 million years old
*Near Cleveland, Tennessee—1891—stone wall with red slate plaster covering unknown script with pictographs—over 1 million years old
*El Salvador—1955—fossil human foot prints uncovered during road construction—over 1 million years old
*Sierra de Atapuerca region, Spain—2007—human tooth—1 to 1.2 million years old
*Buenes Aires, Argentina—1896—upper portion of modern-looking human skull—found 36 feet below bed of La Plata River—1 to 1.5 million years old
*East bank of Connecticut River, south of Hadley, Massachusetts—1852—imprint of boy’s foot in stone buried by 20 feet of alluvial sand—1 to 2 million years old
*Near Puebla, Mexico—2003—human foot prints pressed in solidified volcanic ash—1.3 million years old
*Java, Indonesia—1877—fossilized cement-plastoid castings found inside Solo River Formation—1.5 million years old
*Near Memphis, Tennessee—1880—remains of pavement stones, cisterns and brickwork, found at a depth of 70 feet underground—estimated at 1.5 million years old
*Woodbridge in the San Joaquin Valley, California—circa 1885—a beautifully plummet-like object made of sienite that had all the appearance of being machine-tooled, discovered at a depth of 30 feet in undisturbed Pleistocene gravel—over 1.5 million years old
*Gorno-Altaisk and Uriak on the Lena River, Siberia, Russia—1961—wide range of stone tools—between 1.5 and 2 million years old
*In the Palk Straits between India and Sri Lanka—2002—NASA Shuttle photographed the sunken remnants of a prehistoric bridge—1.75 million years old
*Xihoudu, China and Diring Yurlach, Siberia—1980’s—paleoliths, cut and burnt bones—1.8 million years old

PLIOCENE 2–5 million years ago—

*Gobi Desert, Outer Mongolia—1959—human shoe track with well-defined sole ribbing and stitching—2 million years old
*La Denise, France—1840’s—human skull fragments—2 million years old
*San Valentino, Italy—1876—cut animal bones found in Astian strata—2 million years old
*South-central Louisiana—1990’s—unnatural cylindrical structures found in Pliocene Citronelle Formation—2 million years old
St. Prest, France—1863—rhino tibia with cut marks—2 million years old
*Near Carson City, Nevada—1882—human footprints along with Pliocene animal tracks imprinted into sandstone surface—over 2 million years old
*Central Italy—1871—pointed flint instruments recovered from Acquatraverson erosion materials—over 2 million years old
*Suffolk, England—1881—a shell carved with the shape of a human face, found in Pliocene Red Crag Formation—over 2 million years old
*Southern Georgia—1881—two silver crosses, one inscribed with alphabetic writing—2 to 3 million years old
*On the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, Italy—1503—a huge boulder containing the pieces of a petrified ship—estimated age between 2 and 3 million years old
*Suffolk, England—1923—eoliths found in Red Crag Formation and below it—over 2.5 million years old
*Foxhall, England—1855, 1924—a human jaw of modern type; discovered at the later date were stone tools and evidence of the use of fire—2.5 million years old
*Various locations in the Kent Plateau in southeastern England—1892—a series of stone tools identified as eoliths and paleoliths, dating to the Middle Pliocene—2 to 4 million years old
*Monte Hermosa, Argentina—1912—advanced stone tools, signs of fire, broken mammal bones and human vertebrae were unearthed in a Pliocene formation—at least 3 million years old
*Near headwaters of Tennessee River, south of Braystow, North Carolina—1840’s—several giant human tracks imprinted in solid stone—3 million years old
*Corwen, Denbighshire—first reported in sixth century A.D.—large shoe imprint embedded in stone surface—3 million years old
*Miramar, on the Argentinian coast south of Buenos Aires—between 1913 and 1921—stone implements, including bolas and an arrowhead embedded in the femur bone of an extinct toxodon, as well as a fully human fossil jaw fragment, all encased in Chapadmalalon Formation—3 to 5 million years old
*Near Tulsa, Oklahoma—1969—human footprints in sandstone stratum—between 3 and 5 million years old
*Laetoli, Tanzania—1979—a footprint indistinguishable from those of modern humans was discovered in solidified volcanic ash—between 3.5 and 3.75 million years old
*Near Castenedolo, Italy—1860—upper portion of a human cranium and portions of two children's skeletons, from Astian stage of the Middle Pliocene—3 to 4 million years old
*Banks of the Schuykill River near Birdsboro, Pennsylvania—1968—human footprint embedded in red shale—4 million years old
*Gold mine at Table Mountain near Needles, California—1863—stone grinding disk, mortar and pestle unearthed among fossilized animal bones from the Pliocene—5 million years old
*Pikermi, Greece—1872—Pliocene animal bones with tool marks—5 million years old
*Averayer, near Chermoog, Armenia—known since fifth century A.D.—large human stone profile face unearthed by an earthquake—5 to 6 million years old

MIOCENE 5–23 million years ago—

*Various gold mines in California—1863 to 1880—spear points and stone artifacts—older than 9 million years old
*Near Concordia, British Columbia, Canada—circa 1930’s—complete skeleton of a mastodon encased in an artificially made salt pond with paving stones on its floor—10 million years old
*Table Mountain Mine, near Needles, California—1886—complete modern-looking human skull—12 million years old
*South of Arezzo, Italy—1863—part of a human skull dug up in fossil-filled blue clay—15 million years old
*White Sands, New Mexico—1931—giant human tracks—15 million years old
*Lake Titicaca region, Bolivia—2008—human footprint in Miocene strata—20 million years old
*Mediterranean region, Indonesian region, other planetary locations—2005—gravitational anomalies revealing huge mega-figures, symbols and tunnel systems shaped into rock formations at great depth—estimated 20 million years old
*Lake Eyre basin, south-central Australia—1906—carving of platypus, only possible when indigenous during the Miocene—20 million years old
*Yenangyaung, Burma—1894—flint tools, scrapers—20 million years old
*Pedro Mountain, Wyoming—1932—diminutive human skeleton blasted out of solid rock—20 million years old
*Ravine wall in Nye Country, California—1952—rock-encased iron chain and fragments of pavement stone—20 million years old
*Northern Portugal—1884—stone tools firmly embedded in Miocene conglomerate—20 million years old
*Coal mine in Tuscany, Italy—1958—human skull brought up from a depth of 600 feet—20 million years old
*Near Paris, France—1873—fossilized rhino bones with cut-marks made by an intelligent hand, plus the bone fragment of a dinotherium engraved with the figure of a quadruped, all found in Miocene stratum—20 million years old
*East of the village of Moule on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe—1812—a number of human skeletons unearthed from Miocene limestone strata—20 million years old
*Near the Dardanelles, Turkey—1873—carved mastodon bone depicting a horned four-legged animal and eight pictographs, discovered in Miocene flintstone—over 20 million years old
*Plateau Valley, Colorado—1936—buried pavement made with five-inch square tiles found in same layer as Miocene horse bones—over 20 million years old
*Abbey Mine of Treasure City, Nevada—1865—piece of feldspar containing the remains of a 2-inch metal screw—over 20 million years old
*Mazong Mountain region, Gansu Province, China—2000—pear-shaped black lithic stone encasing a metal bar with highly regular screw threads entwined its full length—estimated between 20 and 30 million years old
*Tongariro region, North Island, New Zealand—1904—anthropomorphic gold micro-sculptures embedded in Pareora rock series—23 million years old

OLIGOCENE 23–34 million years ago—

*Aix-en-Provence, France—between 1786 and 1788—heavily corroded metal coins, stone pillars, and wooden tools with handles petrified into agate, excavated from an Oligocene limestone quarry—24 to 36 million years old
*Theney and Aurillac, France, and Boncelles, Belgium—1893—paleoliths unearthed from Oligocene strata—between 25 and 38 million years old
*Mutual Coal Mine of Bear Creek, Montana—1926—petrified human tooth—30 million years old
*Ohio River Valley—1883—thimble-like metal object embedded in Oligocene coal—30 million years old

EOCENE 34–55 million years ago—

*Delemont, Switzerland—1883—human skeleton found in ferruginous clays from the Late Eocene—35 million years old
*North of Pachacamac, Peru—circa 1920—pottery remains depicting llamas with five toes that were extinct since the Oligocene, unearthed along with the bones of five-toed llamas—35 million years old
*Kalinin, Russia—1987—amber containing piece of woven fabric—38 million years old
*Near Santa Fe, New Mexico—1975—human-like footprints—40 million years old
*Globe, Arizona—1875—nine-inch pure silver globe with surface etchings—45 million years old
*Montaigu, France—1861—carved chalk ball with tool marks dug out of a lignite coal mine—between 45 and 55 million years old
*Near Frieberg, Germany—1842—human skull turned to brown coal excavated from a lignite quarry—50 million years old
*Bavaria, Germany—1876—carbonite artifacts surrounded in German Messel Oil Shale—50 million years old
*Akpinar, Turkey—1993—small submarine-like metal craft encased in sandstone—50 million years old

PALEOCENE 55–65 million years ago—

*Near Vocklabruck, Austria—1885—incised cast-iron cube found encased in Tertiary coal—60 million years old
*Near Hohot, Inner Mongolia—1967—fossilized mammoth found in a coal seam along with dinosaur bones, both geologically out-of-place—60 million years old

CRETACEOUS 65–141 million years ago—

*Coal mine in Bernissant, Belgium—circa 1890—geologically out-of-place mixture of dinosaur species including iguanodon along with modern forms of tortoises, crocodiles, fish and human remains—65 million years old
*Near Bogota, Colombia—1998—fossilized human hand and foot bones—over 65 million years old
*Quarry at Saint-Jean de Livet, France—1973—forged and cast metal nodules encased in Aptian chalk—over 65 million years old
*Near Bozeman, Montana—2005—Tyrannosaurus rex bone fragment containing still soft organic cellular tissue—70 million years old
*Near Alamogordo, Texas—1971—giant human footprints impressed into gypsum—70 million years old
*Dinosaur Flats, Texas—1992—set of regularly-spaced cog-wheel imprints running alongside dinosaur tracks in Cretaceous limestone—70 million years old
*Alberta, Canada—1899—intricately carved fossilized ceramic segments encased in Bully River stratum—70 million years old
*Near Bredenstone, England—1910—copper coin inscribed with images and lettering, found in Dover chalk formation—between 87 and 90 million years old
*Near the mouth of the Little Cheyenne River, South Dakota—1882—three moccasin prints impressed into white magnesium limestone—100 million years old
*Carizzo Valley, Oklahoma—1973—human footprints and sandal prints embedded in both Morrison Formation and Dakota Sandstone—over 100 million years old
*Lisbon Valley near Moab, Utah—1971, 1992 and 1996—two human skeletons removed out of Lower Dakota and Upper Morrison Formations; since this initial discovery other skeletons have been discovered in the same site—all dated over 100 million years old
*In Hughenden northeast of Winton, Queensland, Australia, near Porcupine Gorge, and southeast of Winton—1969—human footprints located along with a wide assortment of animal prints, including those of emus—100 million years old
*Rock ledge next to a waterfall near London, Texas—1934—a small iron-alloy hammer 6 inches long and 1 inch in diameter, with a partially carbonized wooden handle, found embedded in Travis Formation sandstone of the Lower Cretaceous—between 110 and 115 million years old
*Banks of the Puluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas—between 1908 and the present—dozens of human footprints in the same stratum with, and in some cases crossing into, dinosaur prints, situated in Twin Mountain Formation of the Trinity Group—between 115 and 130 million years old
*In the mountains of the Canton of Berne, Switzerland—1460—the petrified remains of a wooden ship with unknown carvings, broken masts and sails made from rotted woolen fibers, and embedded with the skeletal fragments of forty individuals, uncovered in a metal mine at a depth of 100 feet—estimated age 120 million years
*Chandar, the Urals, Russia—2002—stone map composed of three different elements (dolomite, diopside and porcelain) depicting a detailed hydrological survey in three dimensions of the entire region, including the presence of the Magnetic North Pole in the Yamal Peninsula as it existed 120 million years ago—between 60 and 120 million years old
*Chalk Mountain, Texas—1957, 1992 and 1993—a human tooth and part of a fossilized human finger embedded in Glen Rose Formation; later, two more teeth were discovered in the same layer—125 million years old
*Private mine near Beckley, West Virginia—1985—coal chunk containing a gold-plated pendant necklace with a purple heart in its center, and made up of large and small links ending in a clasp—estimated 130 million years old
*Ica, Peru—1572 to the present— over 100,000 andesite stones bearing carved images of plants, extinct animals including dinosaurs, sunken continents, open-heart surgery, brain transplants and mystical symbols—between 130 and 185 million years old
*Oamaru, South Island, New Zealand—known since eighteenth century—Moeraki carved spheres containing quartz cores—135 million years old
*Coal mine in northern Scotland—1852—molded and machine-refined iron rod embedded in Cretaceous coal—between 135 and 235 million years old
*Rocky Point Mine in Gilmore, Colorado—1865—human bones and copper arrowhead removed from a silver vein 400 feet down—135 million years old
*Matto Grasso, Brazil—1841—miscellaneous ceramic containers encased in Brazilian Santana Formation—140 million years old

JURASSIC 141–202 million years ago—

*Near Parkersburg, West Virginia—1876—human footprint enclosed in stone—150 million years old
*North of Sacramento, California—1851—a piece of gold-bearing quartz broken open to reveal embedded inside a two-inch cut iron nail perfectly straight and with a pristine head still to be seen inside the quartz—150 million years old
*Kara-Kum Desert, Turkmenistan—1992—calcified human footprint found among dinosaur tracks—150 million years old
*Silesia, Germany—1833—silicate replacement fossilizations found in German Solnhofen Limestone—150 million years old
*Utah, varius locations—since 1970’s—rusted iron pipes embedded in Navajo Sandstone—160 million years old
*Near Tuba City, Arizona—1987—mixture of human footprints, sandal prints, mammal and dinosaur tracks occurring in the Keyenta Formation of the Glen Canyon Group, part of the Colorado Plateau Sequence—175 to 200 million years old
*Near Eureka, Nevada—1877—giant human leg-bone and kneecap encased in a dark red quartzite outcropping—185 million years old
*On the Macleary River near Kempsey, New South Wales, Australia—1966—large-sized human footprints impressed into sandstone—between 185 to 200 million years old
*Arizona-Utah state line—2007—three-quarters acre stone surface with dinosaur tracks with underlyng geometric patterns—190 million years old
*Along Guyandotte River, West Virginia—rediscovered 1920—mega-block construction and sculpted human-like head—200 million years old
*In the Megalong Valley in the Blue Mountains and at Mulgoa, south of Perinth, NSW, Australia—1960’s and 1970’s—a total of over 90 giant human footprints found impressed into ironstone—estimated 200 to 225 million years old
*Mount Victoria, NSW, Australia—1978—giant human track impressed into Mount Victoria stratum—over 200 million years old

TRIASSIC 202–250 million years ago—

*Jomson, northern Nepal—1984—solid steel cylinder surrounded by polished brass rings embedded in Triassic Dogger and Malm Formations—between 200 and 225 million years old
*Silver mine near Cayatambo, Peru—1572—a 6-inch corrosion-free nail or spike in the shape of a cross riveted to a piece of petrified wood encased in extremely hard metamorphic rock—estimated age 220 million years old
*Mined hill near Callao, Peru—1680—an embedded ship whose petrified masts protruded out of the rock face just above the mine's entrance—over 220 million years old
*Fisher Canyon, Nevada—1922—shoe print with leather heel and double-stitching imprint pressed into Triassic limestone—213 to 248 million years old
*Near Ulaan Bataar, Outer Mongolia—1923—carved stone artifacts found in Djadochta Formation—235 million years old
*Southern Argentina—1822—silver alloyed cubicles buried in the Ischigualasto Badland Formations—250 million years old
*Morrisonville, Illinois—1891—ten-inch gold chain encased in a lump of coal—between 250 and 320 million years old

PERMIAN 250–290 million years ago—

*Elysian Park, Savannah, Georgia—1897—shoe print in fine-grained shale containing Permian fish and flora fossils—at least 275 million years old
*Twenty-four coal seam sites near Mohaney and Shenandoah, Pennsylvania—beginning 1981—thousands of bone fragments including giant human femurs, jaws and craniums, plus pieces of carbonized tool handles, all encased in coal—280 million years old
*Room 24 of Mine Shaft Number 9 near Heavener, Oklahoma—1928—masonry wall composed of 12-inch highly polished cement cubes encased in a coal seam—286 million years old
*Macoupin County, Illinois—1862—bones of a man coated with a glossy black coal layer extracted from a coal bed capped with 2 feet of slate rock and at a depth of 90 feet below the surface—between 286 and 320 million years old
*Zapata track site, Robledo Mountain, New Mexico—1987—large barefoot human print pressed into Permian limestone—290 million years old

CARBONIFEROUS 290–363 million years ago—

*Eastern Scotland—1834—geometric impressions found in coal seams of the Edinburgh Beds—300 million years old
*Coal mine in Wales—1901—inscribed metal coin embedded in Carboniferous coal—300 million years old
*Abandoned coal mines throughout southern Illinois—2007—fossilized fern forest with blade-cut ends and geometrically arranged branches forming an intelligent floor pattern—300 million years old
*Big Hill near Berea, Kentucky—1930—twelve human footprints in gray Pottsville sandstone—over 300 million years old
*Coal mine near Hammondville, Ohio—1869—smooth slate wall covered with unknown alphabetic writing of raised letters that left impressions in the surrounding coal—over 300 million years old
*Mount Baigong region, Qinghai Province, China—2008—several dozen uniform sixteen-inch wide iron pipes embedded in various caverns—300 to 425 million years old
*Ellengowen Mine, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania—circa 1880—at a depth of 1,500 feet, outlines of a human leg of gigantic stature impressed into the coal, along with the clear images of extinct leaves and ferns—320 million years old
*Wilberton, Oklahoma—1912—chunk of coal containing a small metal pot—between 320 and 325 million years old
*Wilkes-Barre Coal Mine near Ashley and Hazelton, Pennsylvania—1881—at a depth of 475 feet, the impression in a block of coal of the limbs, muscles and ligaments of a twelve-foot tall human—325 million years old
*Rock quarry near Tweed and Rutherford, England—1844—gold thread embedded in stone—between 320 and 340 million years old
*Mine Number 23 near Wilberton, Oklahoma—1926—grooved silver barrel-shaped artifact embedded in coal—325 million years old
*Near Charleston, West Virginia—1944—brass bell with long handle topped with a winged being, and containing an iron clapper, encased in lump of coal—325 million years old
*Nova Scotia, Canada—1859—heavily oxidized objets d'art from the Joggins Formation—325 million years old
*Lehigh Coal Mine of Webster City, Iowa—1897—sandstone slab with carved portraits of a man—over 325 million years old
*West bank of the Mississippi River south of St. Louis, Missouri—1822—human footprints and an impression of a roll of parchment on an outcropping of grayish-blue crinoidal limestone—345 million years old
*Near Manchester, England—1851—series of burnt carved spherical stones embedded in coal—345 million years old

DEVONIAN 363– 409 million years ago—

*Kindgoodie Quarry near Inchya, Scotland—1844—nail found encased in sandstone block—between 360 and 400 million years old
*Grampian Hills, Scotland—1861—crystallized iron artifacts embedded in Scottish Old Red Sandstone—375 million years old
*Gilboa, Catskills, New York—1870’s—earliest tree fossils having trunks with cut marks—385 million years old
*Adorf, Germany—2008—microscopic tubular filaments of an artificial nature—400 million years old
*North of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—1822—several rows of evenly spaced machine-precision perfect diamond shapes with raised bands across each center, impressed in sandstone—over 400 million years old

SILURIAN 409– 439 million years ago—

*Dry Branch, Missouri—1880—human skull, portions of ribs and vertebrae, two barbed flint arrowheads, and impressions of fiber matting encased in saccharoidal sandstone—425 million years old
*Northern Berks County, Pennsylvania—1966—tiny arrow or trident impressions in a straight row found in Silurian stratum—425 million years old
*Outside Amman, Jordan—1918—metallic geometrics unearthed from Jordanian Wadi Ram Formations— 440 million years old

ORDOVICIAN 439–510 million years ago—

*Near Lake Windemere, England—1948—shoe impress with tacking, linear and floral designs in the sole and heel—500 million years old
*Near Salt Lake City, Utah—1929—nickel-steel alloy artifacts surrounded in Whitelock-Champlainian Formation series—500 million years old
*Henerson Quarry near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—1829—block of Cambrio-Ordovician marble with two precision-cut letters, "I" and "U," engraved in it—between 500 and 600 million years old

CAMBRIAN 510–560 million years ago—

*Antelope Springs, Utah—1968—sandal print with crushed trilobites in the impression, encased in Cambrian Wheeler Formation—520 million years old
*Near Gothaab, Greenland—1896—cut and polished obsidian cones and cylinders encased in Sirius Passet Formation—520 million years old
*Above Victoria Falls near Loch Maree, Scotland—several machine-rolled and cut bands of iron embedded in Torridon Red Sandstone—550 million years old
*Salt mines in the Salt Range Mountains, Pakistan—1945—fossils of angiosperms, gymnosperms and other forms of advanced flowering plants, pieces of wood from trees, as well as insect remains, found in the Saline Series of the early Cambrian, suggesting that highly evolved flora and fauna have appeared more than once on this planet—550 million years old

PRECAMBRIAN 560–610 million years ago—

*Meeting House Hill, Dorchester, Massachusetts—1852—bell-shaped vessel made of zinc composite with intricate inlaid silver design work, blown out of Roxbury Conglomerate—at least 600 million years old

PROTEROZOIC 610 million–2.5 billion years ago—

*Sierra Anchor region near Phoenix, Arizona—1972—series of hollow petrified cylinders encased in Proterozoic sandstone—1.2 billion years old
*Hudson Bay, Canada—1872—corundum alloyed micro-sculptures embedded in the Belcher Group Formation—1.8 billion years old
*Near Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada—1982—human-like footprints with four toes and in double rows—2 billion years old
*Perth region, western Australia—1966—wire and sheet metal artifacts discovered by X-ray inside geodes among Bitter Springs Prokaryotes Fossil Beds—over 2 billion years old

ARCHEAN 2.5 - 3.8 billion years ago—

*Wonderstone Silver Mine near Ottasdal, Transvaal, South Africa—beginning in 1979—over 200 nickel-steel alloy spheroids some incised with three grooves, embedded in pyrophylite—between 2.8 and 3.2 billion years old
*Namibian Kalahari Craton, southwest Africa—1899—gold alloy branched tree-like artifacts, found in the African Bulawayar Formation—3.5 billion years old
*Near Pretoria, South Africa—1859—silicon-titanium posts in Onverwacht Group strata—3.5 billion years old
*West of Darwin, northern Australia—1908—artificially carved molybdenite crystals encased in Pilbara Supergroup layers—3.6 billion years old
*Southeast of Walvis Bay, Namibia—1898—unnatural cubic formations of an unidentified metal, dug out of Kalahari Craton strata—3.7 billion years old

HADEAN 3.8–4.5 billion years ago—

*Eastern Yukon Territory, Canada—1933—numerous non-crystal alloy octahedrons showing signs of machine-tooling, encased in Acasta Gneiss— 3.9 billion years old
*Twin Sisters Range, Washington—1961—a group of over 100 unspecified metal forms which make up a message composed of three-dimensional letters, embedded in olivine stone—4.1 billion years old

[SPECIAL NOTE—Be sure to see the Reports offered under the Deep Time Artifacts Series for more complete studies of the objects listed above] So far, a total of 220 well-documented cases of what are called out-of-place artifacts have been found scattered throughout the geologic record. Their inherent sophistication demonstrates the existence of intelligent culture-producing life on this planet stretching back to its very beginnings. In taking a closer look at these relics from the forgotten past, we find a number of consistent patterns.

First, the artifacts come from practically every corner of the globe. Wherever humankind has penetrated into the rocky layers of the planet—whether through water or petroleum drilling, ore mining, construction digging, agricultural tilling or scientific exploration—the relics crop up with much the same frequency as natural fossil remains. Sometimes it is the fossils themselves that are the anomalies, especially if they reveal the presence of modern-type human beings far down the strata long before they were supposed to have evolved. If there are regions which lack the presence of out-of-place artifacts, it is only because those areas remain relatively untouched by present-day investigation and excavation work. The artifacts’ distribution reveals that they are not by any means a spatially isolated occurrence, but are a pervasive phenomenon throughout the world.

Secondly, the artifacts appear to exist in every geologic age, all the way to the very beginnings of the Earth. It is true that some epochs are represented by a rich collection of relics, while others only have a scant few items encased in rock. But this is understandable, given the different types of preservation media in which the artifacts are found, and the various degrees of durability of the artifacts themselves over vast periods of time. Those geologic eras during which prehistoric plant matter slowly metamorphosed into coal appears to have been a far better preserving agent for many artifacts, as opposed to other periods predominated by either sedimentary deposits caused by turbulence or igneous rocks formed by volcanic eruptions that allowed for fewer relics to survive. Likewise, the presence of more delicate human skeletal remains and cultural items become increasingly rarer due to deterioration as time goes by, until the bottom-most layers only contain the most durable metallic objects.

The point to be made here is that all the signs of intelligent forms of life and their cultural and technological products are evenly spread throughout the geologic past. This goes to demonstrate that this planet has always been inhabited by higher sentient beings who once passed through great cycles of unknown civilizations that have risen and fallen myriads of times, leaving behind for us tantalizing clues concerning their forgotten existence.

What is also revealed by examining the full spectrum of out-of-place artifacts is that every level of cultural sophistication can be observed—from crude flint scrapers to wooden and metal tools and utensils, from stone and ceramic sculptures to machine-rolled coins and iron bars, from simple human artistic portraits to examples of sophisticated writing scripts, from petrified wooden boats and masonry walls to intricately carved and silver-inlaid objets d’art, and from metal-cast mechanical parts to highly advanced electronic components the purposes of which are beyond our present understanding.

Most importantly, we do not find these artifacts in any kind of discernable developmental order, slowly progressing from simple to complex. Instead, they show a continuous rising and falling, a repeating cycle of growth and regression, with numerous signs of cultural and technological achievements followed by evidence of loss over and over again.

Our primary question is, how can we explain the presence of these artifacts? By extension we can also ask, what paradigm of past events can we utilize that best allows us to comprehend all the many implications these artifacts suggest to us?

At the present time, there exist four major frameworks of interpretation. These are the Uniformitarian Evolutionary perspective, Bible-based Creationism, the Ancient Astronaut theory or Extraterrestrialism, and the Philosophical-Metaphysical-Occult-Esoteric viewpoint. Let us examine each one of these.

The most predominant belief structure today—considered to be the established or accepted theorem by the majority conservative historical community of scholars, writers, educators, academicians, geologists, geophysicists, paleo-botanists, paleontologists, anthropologists and archaeologists—comes under the general heading of Uniformitarian Evolution, or singular gradual evolution.

Its chief concept is that not only has all organic life on the planet undergone a slow yet steady evolutionary development from simple one-cell forms to today’s wide variety of complex plants and animals, but that the appearance of humankind, as well as his cognitive and cultural skills, have likewise passed through a series of gradual stages of growth and expansion in similar ways.

This concept is also known as linear progression. More specifically, as it is applied to human cultural development, the main idea is that humankind endured a lengthy period of time known as the Stone Age discovering fire and chipping flints, then attained the first rudiments of civilization only a few thousand years ago in Egypt, Sumer, India, China, Mexico and Peru, before finally experiencing the Renaissance, the Age of Reason and the Industrial Revolution. Today, we supposedly stand at the pinnacle of a very long line of ascent from primitive beginnings to achieving our modern cultural and technological accomplishments.

The problem with this somewhat egocentric view of our history is that it does not allow for any deviations. It dictates that the farther back in time we go, the simpler and more archaic the artifacts left behind had to have been. All the products of early human manufacture are purposely and carefully classified to conform to this pattern of upward development. There cannot be any exceptions to this rule, because any evidence of complex or advanced knowledge suddenly appearing in the midst of ancient or prehistoric remains would totally contradict and discredit the fundamental idea of linear progression.

For this reason, the present-day conservative historical establishment has absolutely no room in their framework of the past for the existence of out-of-place artifacts, both in the archaeological and especially in the geological records. They steadfastly maintain that humankind’s rise to civilization happened just once, and only in the past few millennia. But the growing number of out-of-place artifacts that have been brought to light tell a radically different story. They testify instead to grand cycles of intelligent-produced cultures extending back millions of years.

The only way that intransigent scholars bound to their narrow linear progressive vision can come to terms with out-of-place artifacts is to take one of two positions. For those objects that appear within a known historical context, conservative experts try to explain them away as flukes of history, anachronisms, the product of a rare genius who invented something unique that was never repeated again until a later age. But for those items that are found in deep time, located in strata that are concurrent with the first appearances of humankind, even life itself, all that they can do is label these as hoaxes and frauds, even though in most cases the unearthing of such artifacts is well-documented.

The major problem is there are now an ever-increasing number of artifacts being uncovered and thoroughly investigated, that are too many to be denied any longer. Trying to sweep them under the proverbial rug is only making the rug too lumpy to be ignored.

In the final analysis, Uniformitarian Evolution, despite all its overwhelming support by conservative historians the world over, nonetheless can offer us very little if any answers to the questions we are seeking regarding the real story behind the presence of out-of-place artifacts.

Many of today’s modern fundamentalist Christian denominations are faithful supporters of Creationism, which can be said to hold positions the exact opposite to that of Uniformitarian Evolution. It completely disavows that the process of evolution has ever taken place, either among the flora and fauna of the world or in humankind’s origins. Instead, all life forms came into existence complete and unchanging at a specific moment in time by the intervention of the Divine Creator. What is more, Creationists do not believe in the extremely long periods usually attributed for geological and biological transformations, accepting instead a total age for the Earth of only six thousand years. This is formuated on a Bible chronology based on the patriarchal genealogies of the Book of Genesis chapters 5 and 11. All the geologic strata from Pleistocene to Proterozoic are further explained as being the result of a single world-wide catastrophic event, Noah’s Flood.

If all global rock layers were laid down all at once, then this can only mean that all the out-of-place artifacts found in the layers had to have been the product of a single pre-existing world. Bible scholars point to the description in the early chapters of Genesis about the immediate descendants of Adam and Eve forming what has been termed the Antediluvian civilization. As portrayed in these texts, several of the pre-Flood patriarchs were the inventors of fire, tool-making, agriculture, animal husbandry, architecture and city-building, social and religious organization, art, music, theater, metal-working and casting.

This knowledge Noah and his family supposedly carried with them through the Deluge cataclysm and was used to build all the various post-Flood civilizations that later emerged in the ancient Middle East and beyond. The more advanced technological elements that they also preserved became the out-of-place artifacts of the archaeological record, while the existence of those artifacts unearthed from the older geological layers Creationists regard as proof of the original pre-existing Antediluvian civilization.

While this scenario has some intriguing points to consider, the overall framework has two serious flaws. First, trying to construct a valid chronology based on Biblical genealogical texts does not work. A comparison of patriarchal lists given in both the Old and New Testaments reveals numerous discrepancies, where names are left out in certain places and extra names are added in others. As a geneaologist will tell you, when the chain of descent is broken or has holes in it, any attempt to create a reliable sequence for counting time periods is defeated.

Not only this, but when comparing the earliest manuscripts that the modern Bible originated from—the Messoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint—the number of years recorded are all different between when a Genesis patriarch was born and when he fathered his son who became the next generation in line. What has come down to us in the King James Version was a seventeenth century attempt to make an estimated compromise from all the various older manuscripts’ mismatched numbers. With there being no basis of certainty for any of the lengths of time given, trying to create a workable chronology back to the Creation of the world clearly falls far short of the mark.

The second failing point for Creationism is its somewhat simplistic interpretation of geologic history. If all the rocky layers of our planet were laid down in the single event of the Biblical Flood, then it also means that all the fossils contained in these layers represent every life form that was alive on the day the Deluge began and was subsequently buried by the cataclysm. The problem is, the total number of fossils that exist globally points to the presence of more flora and fauna than the entire Earth could possibly support by as much as 80 to 100 times. No matter how much you try to stretch out every conceivable model of an ideal pre-Flood ecological system, there simply would have been insufficient supportive environmental mechanisms, let alone enough terrestrial surface room, for such a massive quantity of life co-inhabiting the planet all at the same time.

By extension, this same critical argument also holds for out-of-place artifacts embedded in the geologic strata. If, as some Creationists argue, all the artifacts were the product of a single Antediluvian civilization, then we face a quandary of explaining why there would have been such a wide spectrum of different cultural elements existing concurrently. According to Biblical chronology, the descendants from Adam to Noah only had 1,656 years to have flourished before being destroyed. Even if we were to speculate that for some reason Antediluvian society developed along multiple lines of diversity from its very beginnings, its short existence could not possibly have produced so wide a variety of cultural forms and technologies exhibited by the sum total of artifacts.

Put another way, as rich and diverse as our own civilization is today, it would have paled into insignificance compared with the proposed single Antediluvian civilization if it had been composed of the wide spectrum of cultural elements represented. Just as our planet can hold only a certain limit of life numbers, so human civilization, constrained by similar limitations, can hold just so much diversity before it would fall apart. This becomes especially crucial when, as we noted already, there was only a millennium and a half for all this to have happened. This, coupled with the fact that the Genesis account records that humankind began with only two people and multiplied exponentially from there, the severe lack of both time and available manpower could not possibly have generated that much cultural and technological diversity.

In addition, we find no cultural correlations or developmental patterns among the artifacts themselves. Every portrayed artistic style is unrelated to one another, none of the samples of scripts match each other, and the various machine parts and electronic components are not part of a larger design correlation as one would expect in a singular technological culture. Rather, each artifact stands alone and is unique unto itself, and cannot be interpreted as being compatible in a greater unifying context.

There is also the problem of deposition and positioning. If the artifacts were the remnants of a civilization lost in the violent turbulence of the Deluge, why do we not discover more of a mixture of the debris? If we look at the results of destruction caused by modern-day flooding, we usually find in the wreckage bits and pieces representing all walks of life and cultural backgrounds jumbled together. In contrast, the positioning of the various out-of-place artifacts is more indicative of specific cultural levels of development being distinct from each other in the rock layers. This in no way suggests deposition occurring all at once, but instead separate burials under different conditions and at very different times.

Based on this evidence, what we can say for sure is that in reality there have been not one but a number of planetary cataclysms in the past that wiped out a myriad of forgotten civilizations. The Biblical account of Noah’s Flood was the memory of only one of these, very likely the last such major world-wide upheaval event which coincided with the ending the the last Ice Age and the accompanying sudden rise of ocean levels circa twelve thousand years ago.

Noteworthy is the fact that this was also the very same time frame Plato recorded in his writings that the land of Atlantis sank amid mighty convulsions. If one compares Plato’s narratives to the Genesis story regarding the Antediluvians, one finds there are many striking correlations between the two. Are both these in fact memories of the same pre-cataclysmic civilization?

Creationists are right when they say that those out-of-place artifacts found in the more recent archaeological record were indeed remnants which came through with the survivors from a destroyed former world. Where they are wrong, however, is in trying to lump together all the artifacts found in the geological record into a single prehistoric precedent. In truth, they belonged to not one pre-Flood world, but to a great multitude of lost worlds reaching far back into time.

A third possible paradigm for interpreting the remains of the past is Extraterrestrialism, or what has been popularly called the Ancient Astronaut theory. In their many published books on the subject, proponents postulate the repeated arrival of alien beings from other planets to our world, who then were responsible for heavily influencing the development of human civilization. The presences of out-of-place artifacts, advocates argue, were merely the result of extraterrestrial visitations and close encounters with our earliest ancestors.

The major assumption these researchers and authors usually make, however, is that humankind was not intelligent enough to develop the sophistication found in most artifacts, and that therefore it had to have been introduced from somewhere else, namely from outer space. What is behind this view is the unspoken endorsement of the concept of linear progressive history, that we have been continually developing upward in culture and technology over a long period of time. Conversely, the farther back we look the more primitive humankind had to have been. On this basis, the Ancient Astronaut theorists try to surmise that anything that is out-of-place from the linear framework must therefore have come from an extraterrestrial source.

There is an old rule of thumb called Occam’s Razor which states that, when faced with more than one possible answer to a mystery, go with the simplest and most direct, because chances are that is the most correct. In this case, rather than invoking alien astronauts to explain these items, a simpler and literally more down-to-Earth explanation would be that we ourselves are the creators of our own past accomplishments, the result of many cycles of lost civilizations forgotten to us today. If the linear model of history is false to begin with, then the whole basis of the Ancient Astronauts theory disappears, leaving it with no foundation whatsoever.

This is especially true when it comes to interpretations of mythic gods coming out of heaven in flying craft and bringing with them the elements of advanced culture. Here again there is a far better and more practical answer than identifying these beings as aliens in spaceships traveling from some other world.

As many ancient and classical writers chronicled in their histories, there were times in the distant past when technological civilizations existed side by side with primitive cultures, just as they do in our age, and the former greatly impacted itself on the latter. The initial reaction of a primitive culture on first contact with the members of an advanced civilization was to regard them as gods, the bearers of wondrous and magical gifts of their advanced wisdom.

In our recorded history, we remember how the Aztecs responded to Cortez, the Incas to Pizzaro, and the Hawaiians to Cook. In more distant past cycles, we know from legends and stories that certain lost civilizations had flying craft with which they traveled the globe, and they did indeed appear as deities coming out of the skies. However, they were not from outer space, but rather originated from somewhere else on the same planet, Earth.

As a good modern example of what can happen, during World War II when the Allies landed in New Guinea, the indigenous peoples were awestruck by the sudden appearance of airstrips built to bring aircraft loaded with food and clothing, which the soldiers shared with them. But when the War ended and the armies and planes left, the native New Guineans found themselves cut off from any further supplies.

What developed next has since been called the Cargo Cult phenomenon, whereby the New Guineans built their own runways dedicated to the gods, complete with full-sized bamboo airplane decoys, in the hopes of attracting other aircraft back to their supposed nesting grounds.

What is true for our age may have also been true in the past. Numerous ancient myths and texts preserved around the world tell of gods arriving and bringing elements of an advanced culture, then suddenly departing and leaving only the memory of their visitation behind. Subsequently, the various ancient recipients honored their mysterious guests by building temples and prophesying their return. Were such incidents the ancient version of the Cargo Cult experience, that involved contact from a forgotten advanced Earth-based civilization rather than from extraterrestrial intelligences?

When we look more closely at the wide array of out-of-place artifacts found in both the archaeological and geologic records, nowhere are we confronted with anything that is truly alien in its composition or form. There is nothing among any of them that was made except with purely terrestrial materials, or which did not serve a purely terrestrially-bound cultural purpose. We have discovered no exotic metals, no off-world technologies, nothing with a distinctive molecular signature other than what exists in our own world. If communications had been opened in the past with space-faring aliens, we would expect to have found at least some physical evidence pointing to artifacts being from exclusively extraterrestrial sources. Admittedly, a number of the out-of-place items are very high tech and even have a bizarre and unexplainable appearance. But they are not beyond the scope of what intelligent beings right here on our own planet would have been capable of producing.

As an important corroboration, where we have discovered the presence of deep time artifacts embedded in the rocks, we have also found clear evidence of the presence of some form of human beings. Noteworthy is the fact that along with the objects of worked stone and metals there likewise have been discovered human skulls, bones and footprints. This means that human forms much like us existed contemporary with the artifacts. Therefore, logically the artifacts were of their making. There is no need to invoke spacemen, or look to the stars, for our best answer of who created the out-of-place artifacts from the distant past.

The bottom line is that we, and those who came before us, should not be sold short. Our inheritence from the forgotten past is far older, deeper and richer than we can ever imagine. It is time to better appreciate what the ancient and prehistoric inhabitants of our own world once accomplished, and from which we have much to learn yet again.

The last major framework we will examine is called, for want of a better term, the Philosophical-Metaphysical-Occult-Esoteric perspective. The reason for it being identified with so many names is because it is a concept coalesced from among a wide variety of backgrounds and belief structures.

The main central theme of this paradigm is that history has always bee cyclic in nature. Such a viewpoint was shared in common among all classical and ancient philosophers and historians. Most major cultures and religions of the world, past and present, preserve mythologies or sacred texts which depict in great detail humankind’s passage through several world ages or repeating series of creations and destructions that were recorded to have been hundreds of thousands if not millions of years old. These ancient insights in turn are being corroborated by more modern occult and esoteric writers who have received intuitive, psychic, visionary and channeled information from spiritual sources of a highly accurate quality. They have received volumes of messages on the lost histories and advanced achievements of such forgotten cycles of civilization known as Atlantis, Lemuria, Mw, Hyperborea and Polaria.

Ancient philosophers, metaphysicians and mystics alike generally accept the basic tenets of evolution, but with important differences. Uniformitarian Evolution teaches that when the Earth first formed 4.5 billion years ago, it went through a long period of being in a hot liquid state before eventually cooling. Cyclic history advocates on the other hand believe that the duration of our planet has been much longer, being of the same age as the rest of the universe or 15 to 20 billion years old. If this is the case, then the Earth would have had time to experience a series of meltings and coolings. Each time the planetary surface solidified, it supported its own unique array of evolving plant and animal life, as well as its own intelligent life forms who developed a multitude of unimaginable civilizations.

Eventually, every time the surface returned to a molten state due to periodic meteoric bombardments or massive world-wide eruptions triggered by cosmic cataclysms, the fossil and artifact records were wiped clean. The significant exceptions may be the existence of incredibly old time-capsules deliberately left behind that were buried much farther down in the early Earth’s more stable mantle, or were placed on other planets for us to find one day.

In more recent geologic history, Uniformitarian Evolution insists there has been only one line of evolutionary development from simple to complex life forms, represented in the fossil record. But cyclic historical supporters point to the existence of numerous fossil anomalies among the planetary strata which suggest that in truth complex creatures have emerged more than once, leading to intelligent life. And it has been these beings who in the distant past evolved further to develop a multitude of their own cultures and technologies. Here, metaphysicians and mystics claim, is the real source for the presence of out-of-place artifacts embedded throughout the geologic record.

If we take our own physical evolution over the past 18 million years as one average, and our present cultural blossoming in the last 10,000 years as another average, then we are looking at the possibility of 250 previous evolutions of intelligent beings producing 450,000 cycles of pre-existing civilizations extending all the way down to the bottom layer of the present geological strata.

[Copyright 2009. Joseph Robert Jochmans. All Rights Reserved.]