The Piri Reis Map

In 1929 a group of historians at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, found something rather fascinating. Imprinted on an old Gazelle skin dated 1513 they uncovered a segment of an amazing map. The chart seemed to depict part of the Atlantic Ocean and included the Americas and Antarctica in perfect detail. The mysterious thing was it had been drawn up only a few years after Columbus’ discovery, and three centuries before Antarctica was even known about. Over the years since the find, debate has raged about how the cartographer had assimilated his knowledge. Did an advanced ancient race, or aliens, create his source charts, or have the map’s features been adapted to fit wishful-thinking theories?

The map came to be named after its creator – Piri Reis. 

The word ‘Reis’ actually means ‘Admiral’, and it was discovered that Muhiddin Piri had originally worked as a privateer for the Turkish Ottoman empire, before accepting a role in the imperial navy. On his travels, he had collected all manner of charts, sketches, drawings and diagrams of coastlines and lands in the known world. In 1513, using an exhaustive list of source charts and data, he drew his first world map, which is what we now recognize as the Piri Reis Map. He is known to have compiled another, quite different, global study in 1528 and continued to enjoy a distinguished military career until 1554, aged almost 90, when he was beheaded by the Ottoman Sultan.

The segment of the map that still exists is only a portion of the original, and shows the Atlantic Ocean from the west coast of Africa, to the east coast of South America, to the north coast of Antarctica in the south. Piri also included details about his sources on the map, claiming some of the reference charts he used were from the fourth century or even before. The map is not drawn with the straight lines of longitude and latitude found on today’s maps. It was designed using a series of circles with lines radiating out from them. These types of charts were called ‘portolan’ maps and were used to explain sailing routes, guiding ships from port to port, rather than giving sailors a definite position in the world. Ancient charts of this type were widespread, and Columbus is said to have used one when he set off to find the Americas.

Many Piri Reis Map enthusiasts believe the level of geographical detail and mathematical knowledge needed to create the map was far beyond the reach of navigators from the sixteenth or earlier centuries. Indeed, experts at the United States Air Force in the 1960s found the map so accurate they used it to replace false information on their own charts. Some people believe the map could only have been achieved with the help of aerial surveys, and suggest alien creatures mapped the planet thousands of years ago, leaving their results behind to be copied by Mankind.

The map’s seemingly accurate depiction of the geography of Antarctica is its most fascinating aspect. Antarctica was discovered in 1818, and the actual land of the continent was only mapped in 1949 by a combined British and Scandinavian project that had to use modern equipment to see the land underneath the mile-deep icecap. The theory put forward to compensate for this is that an ancient race using advanced, but now lost, technology was able to accurately record details of the continent before it was covered with ice. Most experts suggest Antarctica was ice free no later than 6,000 years ago, although others believe ice has covered the continent for at least hundreds of thousands of years. Similarly, many cartography experts claim the accuracy of the portolan system of map drawing is more in the eye of the beholder, and many maps of this time included imaginary continents in the south Atlantic. But there are still some explainable accurate details on the map.

The Falkland Islands are placed at the correct latitude, despite not being discovered until 1592, and the unknown Andes mountain range was included on the map of America. Similarly, Greenland was shown as three separate islands, a fact only discovered this century. So the debate continues. Did Piri Reis just strike lucky with cartographic guesswork? Or did the Turkish admiral have access to charts and maps created by an advanced race, living on the planet thousands of years ago?

Which leaves the map un-demystified ......

Atlantis

Our knowledge of the world’s most famous lost continent comes from the work of one man – Plato. 


The great Greek philosopher was the singular source of all information about the ill-fated island race and whilst experts write long winded theses about the age and position of Atlantis, nobody is entirely sure that Plato did not just invent the Atlantean people as an allegory for what happens when a civilization over-reaches itself. Despite this, the hunt for Atlantis is as fierce as ever. Plato lived in Greece between 428 and 348 BC, and revealed the story of Atlantis in his dialogues ‘Timaeus’ and ‘Critias’. Many of Plato’s fables were fictional creations used to illustrate a point, but the history of Atlantis was repeatedly stated as fact. The dialogues recount the story of Solon, a Greek scholar who travelled to Egypt in around 600 BC to learn more about the ancient world. The Egyptians were known to have knowledge and records dating back centuries, and as Solon tried to impress his hosts with tales of Greece’s achievements, the wise old Egyptian priests put him in his place. They revealed a story about a continent and a people completely unknown to him. 

Around 10,000 BC, a powerful race lived on an island in the west, beyond the ‘Pillars of Hercules’, now believed to be the land masses along the coasts of the Straits of Gibraltar. The island was the kingdom of Poseidon, the Sea God. It had a huge central mountain with a temple dedicated to the deity, and lush outlying districts, there was an elaborate system of canals to irrigate its successful farms, and a bustling central city. The island was rich in vegetables, and was home to different types of exotic animals.

The Atlanteans were originally a powerful but fair race. They were an advanced people with a prosperous trading industry, a strong and noble army and a highly educated, cultured society. Their influence reached far and wide, and they controlled large areas of Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean. Although the island left its inhabitants wanting for nothing, their taste for power and empire led to them over-extending themselves. An attempt to conquer Athens failed, and the Atlanteans retreated home to face a cataclysmic disaster. Legend says that the great god Zeus saw the corruption that had seized the island’s people, and sent down upon them an immense barrage of earthquakes, fire and water. Atlantis disappeared under the waves.

Whilst Plato’s story was well known, the renewed modern interest in Atlantis began in 1882 with the publication of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by a former US congressman, Ignatius Donnelly. Donnelly’s book was a mixture of conjecture, misinterpreted fact and actual history. But there were some interesting ideas; he noted similarities in the science and culture of native races which apparently could never have met. Likewise, the great ancient flood, which is said to have destroyed Atlantis, is logged in ancient writings and traditions of peoples around the world.

Exactly who the Atlanteans were is unknown. Some say they were aliens, some believe they were descendants of the Lemurians, and some say they eventually traveled westward and became Native American tribes. Similarly, the actual placing of Atlantis is a subject open to argument. Many experts suggest the island was actually in the Mediterranean, and a constant stream of archaeological investigations in the area has tried to prove this. There are theories that Sardinia in the Mediterranean, and the island of Thera in the Aegean Sea, could be Atlantis. Both had highly-evolved civilizations: the Nuraghi people on Sardinia and the Minoan culture on Thera. Both also suffered terrible natural disasters. But neither of these islands are westwards of the Straits of Gibraltar, so to accept them is to doubt Plato’s geography.

Also, the advanced races on these islands disappeared about 900 years before Plato – he stated that Atlantis became extinct 9,000 years before him. Other experts say Atlantis was in the middle of the Atlantic, and all that is left of the island are its mountains, the peaks of which show through above the waves. These are now believed by many to be the Azore islands. There is also evidence to suggest a huge comet or asteroid crashed into the southwest Atlantic Ocean many thousands of years ago and two 23,000-feet-deep holes have been identified on the seabed close to Puerto Rico. Experts believe the falling rock that caused them would have created massive natural movements, enough to destroy any mid-Atlantic islands.

The theory was also used in many well known movies like
The Journey to the center of the earth - 2

The Veil Of Veronica

While finding about The Turin Shroud, I also came to know that THE TURIN SHROUD is not the only ancient artifact purporting to show a mysterious imprint of Christ’s features. Christian legend tells of a fabled, linen veil which also inexplicably shows the face of Jesus. It is a cloth said to have miraculous healing powers and supernatural qualities. Just like the Turin Shroud, it is also the source of controversy. However, the veil has more intriguing mysteries surrounding it than just what caused the image. The Vatican claims it has been holding the cloth in its archive continuously since the twelfth century, but in 1999 an expert in Christian art history, who works for Vatican organisations, said he had found the real veil hidden in a remote Italian abbey. So what exactly is the world supposed to believe? 

When Christ was carrying his cross through Jerusalem on the way to being crucified at Calvary, a woman stepped forward and used her veil to wipe the sweat and blood from His face. As a sign if gratitude, He left an image of his likeness stained on the cloth. Although this episode is not mentioned in the scriptures, legend says the woman’s name was Veronica. She is said to have kept the cloth and realized that it had holy healing powers. She took the veil to Rome where she used it to cure Emperor Tiberius of a malady, and then left it in the care of Pope Clement and the Catholic Church.

Historical records show that the veil was in Rome from at least the fourth century. In 1297 it was placed in the Vatican Basilica and was the subject of worship from pilgrims who believed the picture was indeed the genuine likeness of Christ. The image itself was almost identical to the face seen on the Turin Shroud. In 1608 the area of the Basilica displaying the veil was demolished in order to be redesigned, and the cloth was placed in the Vatican’s archives. Under tight security,it was brought out once a year for public viewing. Or so Catholics believed.

On 3rd June 1999, a professor of Christian art history at the Vatican’s Gregorian University, and official advisor to the Papal Commission for the Cultural History of the Church, revealed he had successfully completed a 13-year investigation to find the real Veil of Veronica. A German Jesuit, Heinrich Pfeiffer explained that the artifact annually displayed was merely a copy that the Vatican had created so as not to disappoint pilgrims. He claimed to have actually found the true relic in an abbey in the tiny village of Monopello, high in the Italian Apennine mountains. Records in the village’s monastery revealed that the wife of a jailed soldier stole the veil in 1608, and sold it to a Monopellan nobleman to release her husband from prison. The nobleman gave it to the abbey’s Capuchin monks, who have kept it in the monastery and revered it as a sacred icon ever since. The veil Pfeiffer found is an almost transparent cloth 6.7 inches wide and 9.4 inches long. The dark red image on it depicts a bearded man with long hair and open eyes. 

There are also red drop marks, which are believed to be blood. The picture itself seems to appear and disappear in different light – a quality that Pfeiffer says would have been viewed as supernatural in less advanced times. Pfeiffer also revealed that ultraviolet testing confirmed that veil the image was not created by paint, and the image has been infused identically on both sides. Skeptics are not convinced. They believe the extremely thin nature of the cloth allowed the image to seep through to be the same on each side. Many believe the similarities between the veil and the Turin Shroud occur because the veil was a deliberate copy of the larger cloth. They also point out the fact that Veronica’s meeting with Christ has never been historically documented, and her name itself is a work of fiction – being an amalgamation of the Latin words for ‘true image’, or ‘vera-icon’. The only scientific way of determining the age of the cloth is by carbon dating, but its brittle, delicate state means it could be irreparably damaged during any such tests.

For Pfeiffer there is no doubt about the religious authenticity of the veil, and he is entirely convinced that his find is the true artefact. But for other Catholics, it is not so easy. Even if they accept the legend, which veil do they chose as the genuine relic??

Turin Shroud

Research Starts....

The world's most famous piece of linen cloth shows a faint , dark image of a bearded man bearing the same wounds as a person who has been crucified (nailed to a wooden cross and left to die). Some say it was the actual cloth that covered Jesus following his crucifixion , others claim it is just a medieval hoax.

But no one knows how the image was made. what is remarkable is that when the cloth is looked at as a photographic negative , as shown above , the image shows up even more clearly. The Turin Shroud has been kept in the Cathedral of St. John in Turin, Italy, since 1578 and has been shrouded in mystery ever since.

The exact origins of the Shroud remain unknown. Its first certain appearance was in 1357, when the widow of the Templar knight Geoffroy de Charnay displayed it in a church in France. Some people believe the image dates from this time and shows the Templar knight himself. There are legends of an image of Jesus on a cloth in places such as Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) long before, but they are unproven. In the 6th century, a similar image was described in Edessa (now part of Turkey), but it showed only a face.

How the image was made is one of the Shroud’s great mysteries. The image is strange because it looks like a black (or rather brown) and white photograph, yet it was made long before photography was invented. Computer reconstruction reveals that the marks on the cloth make up a three-dimensional image, as if they were made while the cloth was resting on a real body, not drawn on flat cloth. A high-powered microscope shows the image is not paint or dye, but a microscopic layer of caramelized sugar. To this day, no one really understands how the image was produced. 

In 1988, the pope let scientists take a fragment of the Shroud for radiocarbon dating. The scientists agreed that the Shroud dated from 1260–1390. If so, the cloth could not possibly be the burial shroud of Jesus. However, US professor Raymond Rogers showed that the sample material used came from a piece of the cloth that was likely to be a medieval patch different from the rest. Microchemical tests showed traces of a natural substance called vanillin in the sample patch, but not in the rest of the Shroud. Vanillin decomposes with time, and is found in medieval materials, but not older ones. As a result, the main Shroud could be much older.

1354
The first historical mention of the Shroud, when it is recorded as being in the hands of Geoffroy de Charnay. After his death three years later, Geoffroy’s widow displays the cloth for all to see in Lirey, France.

1389
The image on the Shroud is denounced as a fraud by Bishop Pierre d’Arcis in a letter to the pope. The bishop claims a painter admitted to making the Shroud, but he does not name the artist.

1453
Geoffroy’s granddaughter, who has inherited the Shroud, sells it to Louis of Savoy, who displays it in many cities all around Europe.

1532
Unfortunately, the Shroud is burned in a fire at the house of Savoy. A group of nuns tries to repair the damage to the cloth and use patches to rectify some parts.

1578
The Shroud is moved to Turin Cathedral, where it has stayed to this day. In 1978, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of its move to Turin, the Shroud is put on display
for the public to see.

2002
During restoration work, a mysterious second image of a face is discovered on the back of the cloth. Are there yet more mysteries to the Turin Shroud?

Time has to decide!!

Poltergeist

Research starts....

In German ,the word ‘poltergeist’ means ‘noisy ghost’. It is an apt title, because of all paranormal activity, poltergeists are the most physical, forceful and frightening.They can make objects fly across the room, items shake, and strange and loud noises be heard. Often they are dangerous, and can leave people in a state of trauma. The most intriguing aspect of poltergeists is that they are actually caused by human predicaments and mental powers. In fact, they are such a well-studied and established phenomenon that science actually takes an active and interested role in researching them. A haunting, and our traditional concept of a ghost, usually involves the lost soul of a deceased person who is spiritually still in the same place where they lived or died. It is as if they have not realized their time has passed, and they are indiscriminate to whom they appear. Indeed, it is generally perceived that ghosts do not even realize the modern world is happening around them.

Poltergeist activity as featured on the cover of the French magazine La Vie Mysterieuse in 1911.

Poltergeists, on the other hand, do react, disruptively, with their environment. Their disturbances can begin and end abruptly, and they have a very real, intrusive relationship with the people close by. Also, unlike traditional haunting, it is believed they actually need a human to be the

catalyst, or agent, for their activity.This agent is crucial for poltergeist occurrences. Indeed, experts believe the agent is actually the root cause. It is understood that any type of person can be an agent, but there seems to be a particular susceptibility to poltergeist activity with young women. Although many agents are stable, balanced individuals with no control over the poltergeist, it is widely recognized that some agents have some deep-seated mental difficulties. It has been discovered that extreme states of anxiety, depression, hysteria, anger, schizophrenia and emotional fatigue are all powerful catalysts for poltergeist activity. Similarly, highly stressed individuals, or those with epilepsy, are regularly found to be poltergeist agents. The resultant events only serve to heighten any problems the agent has.The symptoms of poltergeist disturbances are initially banging or knocking noises, awful smells, inexplicable lights, flying or moving objects and electrical equipment failures. As time passes by, if the cause is not sorted, the activity becomes more and more extreme. Experts are sincere when they believe poltergeists are dangerous both physically and mentally. They say that a person cannot run or move to escape from the poltergeist, that because the agent is responsible for its disturbances, it follows them. More advanced poltergeist activity involves unexplained dripping water, random fires igniting and vague apparitions appearing. Poltergeist activity is noticed and experienced by everyone in the room, and the disturbance is genuine physical activity,

not imagined events. As poltergeists have been studied for decades, scientists and experts have reached some conclusions.

Many believe these strange events are caused by the agent releasing psychokinetic energy in an attempt to relieve stress. Psychokenisis is the idea of ‘mind over matter’ energy, and people are understood to expel huge amounts of it when under pressure. The actual activity that occurs is also symbolic of the problem. For example, some agents who feel intense guilt inspire a poltergeist to beat them and end up physically bruised all over. If an agent is incredibly angry with someone, then it will be their property that is thrown across the room and smashed by psychokinetic power.

In almost all cases, the agent is as scared as everyone else, and does not realise that they

are causing these events. Experts agree that poltergeist activity is possible to solve, and many strongly suggest that those who experience it should seek help immediately. Whether the help comes from a priest or a psychologist, it is clear that poltergeist agents have an incredible power running loose that needs to be tamed. Once the cause is addressed, or even simply when the agent realises that they are the root of the disturbances, activity often stops. As with

many paranormal experiences, the horror of poltergeists is not created by some unseen beast or phantom, but by the inexplicable power of the human mind.

Do Humans use only 10% of their brains??

Research Starts....

Famous people such as Albert Einstein and Margaret Mead have been quoted as stating a variation of it. This myth is probably one of the most well-known myths about the brain, in part because it's been publicized in the media for what seems like forever. Where did it come from? Many sources point to an American psychologist of the early 1900's named William James, who said that "the average person rarely achieves but a small portion of his or her potential". Somehow, that was converted into only using 10 percent of our brain.

This seems really puzzling at first glance. Why would we have the biggest brain in proportion to our bodies of any animal (as discussed in the sixth myth in our list) if we didn't actually use all of it? Many people have jumped on the idea, writing books and selling products that claim to harness the power of the other 90 percent. Believers in psychic abilities such as ESP point to it as proof, saying that people with these abilities have tapped into the rest of their brains.

Here's the thing, though; it's not really true. In addition to those 100 billion neurons, the brain is also full of other types of cells that are continually in use. We can become disabled from damage to just small areas of the brain depending on where it's located, so there's no way that we could function with only 10 percent of our brain in use.

Brain scans have shown that no matter what we're doing, our brains are always active. Some areas are more active at any one time than others, but unless we have brain damage, there is no one part of the brain that is absolutely not functioning. Here's an example. If you're sitting at a table and eating a sandwich, you're not actively using your feet. You're concentrating on bringing the sandwich to your mouth, chewing and swallowing it. But that doesn't mean that your feet aren't working -- there's still activity in them, such as blood flow, even when you're not actually moving them.

Sources :

• Williams, Geoff. "Myth Buster: Ten Percent of Your Brain." AARP Bulletin Today, June 26, 2008. http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourhealth/healthyliving/articles/myth_buster__ten_percent.html
• Woolsey, Thomas A. "The brain atlas : a visual guide to the human central nervous system." Wiley, 2003.
• Yucel, Murat, et al. "Regional Brain Abnormalities Associated With Long-term Heavy Cannabis Use." Archives of General Psychiatry, Volume 6, issue 3, June 2008
• Chudler, Eric. "Brain Facts and Figures." Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/facts.html#brain
• "Do we really only use 10 percent of our brains?" Scientific American Ask the Experts, March 8, 2004. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=do-we-really-use-only-10&page=2
• Radford, Benjamin. "The Ten Percent Myth." Snopes.com, July 21, 2007. http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percent.asp