Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [62]
Earth drawings near Nazca, Peru, with the modem Pan-American Highway crossing at the lower left (dotted line). The bright lines on the right side are modem tire tracks. Only ancient tracings are shown in the accompanying diagram. Institute Geografico Militar, Peru
But it is with the tired old song-and-dance about the "Great Pyramid" that von Daniken really takes off on flights of invention. He has plenty of antecedents. Over a century ago, "Pyramidology" was born, when serious men actually began to imagine that they could find, expressed in the pyramid, unexplained relationships of mathematics. To these observers, as to von Daniken, mere men—especially those of darker skins—could not possibly have designed and built the structure. And whatever dark powers did stand behind the pyramid must have meant it as a message that only smart folks could fathom. A number of such smart people immediately announced themselves.
As prominent a person as the Astronomer-Royal of Scotland, Professor Charles Piazzi Smyth, picked up the banner in 1864, when he published his first book, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid. The claims are all-encompassing, for the Great Pyramid is not only a history of the past, said Smyth, but also a history of the future! Every major event in mankind's story is represented there, he claimed, and he labored mightily, though badly, to prove it, in an obsession that consumed the rest of his life.
Smyth was following in the steps of one John Taylor, who earlier had proclaimed that the biblical "cubit" was expressed in the pyramid. Taylor found that the polar radius of the earth divided by 10 million came out to about 25 inches, which he declared was a cubit. It is something he just preferred to believe.
The biblical connections of Pyramidology were further pursued. During Smyth's investigations, one of the original casing stones that long ago covered the Great Pyramid to provide a smooth and even surface was unearthed nearby. Over the ages almost all the casing stones had been taken away by locals, who obviously believed the "bread before poetry" philosophy and felt that using the big pile of stone in a practical way was permissible. It is another crime against posterity that we cannot argue against. Taylor, who died before this discovery, would have been pleased to know that the stone was slightly more than 25 inches on a side, and Smyth lost no time in conclusion-jumping, his favorite sport. He declared that this new measurement was the cubit so long sought, and he also proclaimed the "Pyramid Inch," one twenty-fifth of the cubit. This is exactly one-millionth of the earth's polar radius, said Smyth. But unfortunately for this stroke of inspiration, several more casing stones were then dug up, and Smyth's Pyramid Inch went out the window, for these stones had widely varying widths. As one might expect, this in no way altered the theory. Smyth pushed on, ignoring the facts.
The figure of a monkey inscribed on the Peruvian desert. The scale is indicated by the width of the tire tracks on the upper left (dotted line in the accompanying diagram). Instituto Geografico Militar, Peru
He assigned a One Pyramid Inch/One Year ratio to distances inside the pyramid to show that the passages represented a world history and prophecy. By this means he "proved" that the world began in 4,004 b.c.—a somewhat conservative estimate of the figure, but conveniently in agreement with the calculations of one Bishop James Ussher, another searcher after truth who based his number on biblical calculations. Evidently, Smyth was a fan of his. Endless numbers of dates were found represented in the pyramid measurements, but as Martin Gardner has pointed out, "It is not difficult to understand