The article I wrote on Ancient Beliefs and UFOs for the front page of Book of THoTH has been up for a couple of days, and I'd really like to thank everyone for checking it out. Coast to Coast picked up the link and put it on their daily news, and The Anomalist did as well. I never imagined that nearly 8,000 people would read it in the first couple of days it was up, and it's been a lot of fun seeing what people think about it. I owe a huge thanks to THoTH for, I'm sure, encouraging those other sites to link to it. If you haven't checked it out yet, here's a little preview.

Each of these petroglyphs seems to tie into a belief in extraterrestrial life, which in turn points toward the common belief in an ancient flood having wiped out much, if not most, of humanity in antiquity. For today, I'd just like to give some minimal background, present a few petroglyphs, and give what I know of the story that goes along with them. Each of the ones that I'm showing here are from the Americas, almost all from the American southwest, although there are examples from around the world that I'd like to eventually write about, as well as many archaeological artifacts that go along with this story.

The Anasazi were the predecessors to the modern day Hopi, and are believed to have settled the American Southwest as long as 3,000 years ago, although their heritage has been traced back much further than that. Modern day scientific classification only recognizes the people there as a distinct culture starting in 1200 BC. This is considered to be the beginning of the "Basketmaker" era, and the beginning of the Anasazi culture itself, as a distinct culture. However, the "archaic" classification traces the people themselves back to approximately 8000 BC, currently, and continues to be pushed back further as more scientific evidence is gathered. Just recently a scientific expedition has begun in the hopes of collecting evidence of long lost civilizations under water off of the east coast of the United States. The Hopi, in particular, have maintained many ancient traditions and beliefs throughout the years, much of which has been publicized as "The Hopi Prophecies" on the internet and in books.

In short, the Hopi believe that we are currently in the fourth age of man. Each age ends in a cleansing of sorts, and that now we are nearing the Purification Day. The first age was ended in fire, the second in ice, and the third from a flood. This most recent cleansing coming approximately 11,000-12,000 years ago. Since the people have currently been traced back over 10,000 years in the American southwest, this date seems to make cultural sense, and also may tie into the Mayan tradition which says that one of the Gods destroyed the third creation in a great flood and we are now living in the fourth creation. This exactly mirrors the Pueblo belief in which the third world is ended in a flood by one of their gods and only a few people are rescued and are able to move on into the fourth world.

This idea of a great flood also seems to make some sense to people raised in the western world, since so many were raised with the Bible, which, of course, has a quite famous flood itself. Interestingly, this also ties in with the stories told in the ancient stories from India, specifically the Ramayana, which tells of major "Earth shifts" approximately every 10,000 years. Along with this, it dates the last Treta Yuga, or the ending of one of the "age(s) of man", at 10,000BC. Of course, this matches up remarkably well with the Hopi idea of the last cleansing having come 12,000 years ago and approaching again in the not too distant future.

In fact, most every society worldwide, not just in the Americas, have some sort of flood myth. Most, however, don't give as specific of time references as these above do. For instance, the Toltec story simply states that the original creation lasted for 1716 years before being destroyed by a great flood. While it's interesting that they put such a definitive length of time on it, it's fairly ambiguous as to how long ago the flood is said to have happened.

But don't just go read my article. There's two other new front page articles, one by BoT member Sol, and one by member Carbonek, each of which have some really great information.

Sol wrote an article titled "Bastet, Sex, and Women's Roles" and Carbonek wrote one titled "The Scientist and Dharma".