RHS1 Connector – November 2009
In this issue…
- RHS1 Announcement
- Treasure…Odyssey Update…
- MINED IN THE USA LAPIDARY MATERIAL
- FIRST HUNT FOR A 7 YEAR OLD
- Earthwatch.. Planet in crisis
- ARCHAEOLOGY/PALEONTOLOGY IMPORTANT
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Odyssey Marine Exploration Signs Letter of Intent with Robert Fraser & Partners LLP to Syndicate Shipwreck Projects
Tampa, FL – October 27, 2009 –
Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. (NasdaqCM: OMEX), pioneers in the field of deep-ocean shipwreck exploration, has entered into a letter of intent with Robert Fraser & Partners LLP. Under the terms of the proposed arrangement, Odyssey will provide services related to the exploration and recovery of shipwrecks and other deep-ocean resources to syndicates formed by Robert Fraser & Partners to engage in deep-ocean exploration.
Under the proposed structure, Odyssey will be compensated for search, survey and archaeological excavation as well as development of research files on specific shipwreck and other deep-ocean projects. Odyssey will also have a substantial interest in the back-end of the projects and will be paid for providing other services including conservation, documentation, marketing and sales of recovered cargoes and commodities.
“We have long considered partnering on specific projects in a manner that is non-dilutive to Odyssey shareholders, but it has been a challenge to find a partner that understands the nuances and challenges of syndicating individual projects. I believe we have finally found that partner, and we are currently in the process of developing the syndication of our first project with them,” stated Greg Stemm, Odyssey’s Chief Executive Officer. “This presents an exciting opportunity to move Odyssey forward and generate current revenue from marine operations, research and expertise, while maintaining a significant interest in the projects.”
“We’re delighted on behalf of our clients and investors to be working with Odyssey and we anticipate developing a number of deep-ocean projects with them,” commented Colin Emson, Chief Executive Officer of Robert Fraser. “Having previously worked with a number of clients on a broad range of marine projects, we have gained a real appreciation for the first-class work that Odyssey has demonstrated in the field. Contracting with Odyssey is seen as bringing together highly compatible skill sets for further development of this fascinating and emerging deep-sea field. We are most enthused about working with the benefit of the new exploration technologies in which Odyssey is the acknowledged world leader and look forward to securing our first contract with them as soon as possible.”
Odyssey Marine Exploration Closes Funding on First Shipwreck Project with Robert Fraser & Partners LLP
Tampa, FL – November 5, 2009 –
Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. (NasdaqCM: OMEX), pioneers in the field of deep-ocean shipwreck exploration and its associated company, OVH, Inc., have executed agreements to provide project research and shipwreck search and survey services for a project code-named “Enigma” to Robert Fraser Marine Ltd and client companies of Robert Fraser & Partners LLP.
Under the agreements, Odyssey furnished research related to the “Enigma” and its sinking and will provide a research vessel, equipment and crew to search a specified area and inspect targets in that area. The contracts provide initial cash payments totaling 2,104,700 pound (approximately U.S. $3.5 Million) to Odyssey and OVH, Inc. as well as additional payments upon the sale of coins or artifacts from the “Enigma” project. After repayment of salvage costs and fees, Odyssey and OVH, Inc. will receive 80% of net revenue in aggregate until an additional 11,899,200 pound (approximately U.S. $20 Million) has been received and then 50% in aggregate of all further net revenue.
Upon location of the “Enigma” shipwreck, Odyssey will enter into additional agreements for the archaeological excavation of the site as well as conservation and documentation of the artifacts recovered. Odyssey will also have exclusive rights to market the recovered cargo.
“We’re looking forward to beginning work on the ‘Enigma’ project and developing additional projects with Robert Fraser Marine Ltd,” stated Greg Stemm, Odyssey’s Chief Executive Officer. “This presents an exciting opportunity to move Odyssey forward and generate current revenue from marine operations, research and expertise, while maintaining a significant interest in the projects.”
“On behalf of the investors and our client companies, we are very pleased to be working with the Odyssey team,” commented Colin Emson, Chief Executive Officer of Robert Fraser. “We’re delighted that this first project could be closed so quickly and we are already working with Odyssey on new projects. The depth of knowledge of shipwreck research and the technological resources available through Odyssey are exactly compatible with our objectives.”
About Robert Fraser & Partners LLP
Robert Fraser & Partners LLP is part of the London-based Robert Fraser Group, which has operated since its formation in 1934 in the fields of merchant banking and corporate, marine & property finance and structuring. The group’s core areas of expertise include extensive experience in the areas of venture capital, corporate finance, merger & acquisition structure, company expansion, new venture and global business structuring. Robert Fraser Marine, Ltd. is a part of the group which specializes in assembling projects directed at shipwreck exploration and the development of deep ocean resources.
About Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.
Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. (NasdaqCM: OMEX) is engaged in the exploration of deep-ocean shipwrecks and uses innovative methods and state-of-the-art technology to conduct extensive search and archaeological recovery operations around the world. Odyssey discovered the Civil War era shipwreck of the SS Republic in 2003 and recovered over 50,000 coins and 14,000 artifacts from the site nearly 1,700 feet deep. In May 2007, the Company announced the historic deep-ocean treasure recovery of over 500,000 silver and gold coins, weighing 17 tons, from a Colonial era site code-named “Black Swan.” In February 2009, Odyssey announced the discovery of Balchin’s HMS Victory. The Company also has other shipwreck projects in various stages of development around the world.
Odyssey offers various ways to share in the excitement of deep-ocean exploration by making shipwreck treasures and artifacts available to collectors, the general public and students through its webstore, exhibits, books, television, merchandise, and educational programs.
Odyssey’s operations are the subject of a Discovery Channel television series titled “Treasure Quest,” which is produced by JWM Productions. The 12-episode first season aired in the US and the UK in early 2009 and is scheduled to air worldwide throughout 2009. Production on a second season is underway.
Following previous successful engagements in New Orleans, Tampa, Detroit, and Oklahoma City, Odyssey’s SHIPWRECK! Pirates & Treasure is currently on exhibit at Discovery Place in Charlotte, NC. Additional information is available at www.discoveryplace.org.
For details on the Company’s activities and its commitment to the preservation of maritime heritage please visit www.shipwreck.net.
Odyssey Marine Exploration believes the information set forth in this Press Release may include “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934. Certain factors that could cause results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements are set forth in “Risk Factors” in the Part I, Item 1A of the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, which has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Odyssey Marine Exploration P.O. Box 320057 Tampa, FL 33679-2057 www.shipwreck.net
FIRST HUNT FOR A 7 YEAR OLD – THE ADVENTURE OF GETTING ONE ROCKHOUND STARTED
Haylynnes First Hunt:
Over the years the most frequent question I have been asked is how to get a child started in a rock and gem hunting hobby. I’ve offered a lot of advice on the issue but it was pretty muchly “cooked” information. Not having children, I had never had any first hand experience in getting a young one started — until a few weeks ago.
My current roommate is a single mom who has custody of her 7 year old girl for two weeks each month. I had dropped some rocks in the driveway after picking through my cache from a hunt I had gone on to the area West of Owyhee Reservoir a few weeks earlier. Before I knew it Haylynne was rummaging through the driveway picking all of them up. I showed her the ones I had kept from the hunt and decided that it might be fun for her to take her first hunt out. She’d been camping, but never rock hunting before.
The night before we went on our hunt I showed her again the type of rocks we would be hunting for on our trip and then got onto google and showed her what that type of rock looked like when it was cabbed and polished. While she had been interested in the rocks themselves, a first hand view of what could be made from the agates really got her going. She was extremely excited the next morning when we set out for Graveyard Point at the Idaho/Oregon border – a 40 mile trip, but endless drive to a 7 year old girl I soon found out.
Upon arriving at our destination, I found that there were plenty of surface agates as well as many holes that had been filled in but had many rocks on and around to sort through. At first I was worried about whether a 7 year old’s stamina would allow for hunting uphill but found that being absorbed in looking at the ground and picking up possible specimens, she really didn’t notice the climb much.
For the first half hour she walked just a few feet from me and we would discuss what she would pick up each time. After a time I drifted over further from her and let her go it on her own. At one point she decided her pack was getting to heavy and decided to sort a few of her less interesting finds out of the pack. I really wasn’t watching this process, and wish that I had been more attentive having arrived back at the house to find that she had tossed a few of her better finds. I know now that the next time out I’ll want to help her make such decisions.
Hunting through her finds for the day I thought that she didn’t do too bad for a first time out but might have done a bit better with just a bit more coaching. This is an independent child and she liked hunting on her own, though, so it may have been a good trade to allow her to pick up a few not so great specimens rather than dampen her enthusiasm by “mothering” her too much in the field. A few times I picked up a specimen and looked it over and teased her “oops, you missed on this one”. That is easy to do out here as sometimes things shine in the field in a way that allows you to mistake what you are picking up if you don’t examine it very closely. The same is true that many things that are actually quite nice can be passed up if not carefully inspected. I once almost threw out a very nice moss because it looked like just another shiny black rock but, thinking twice for some reason I lifted it to the sun before I tossed it and found it to be green moss rather than solid black.
So now comes the finishing touch that will make the trip out one that she will remember a lifetime although I think she would have anyway nonetheless. Today I am choosing one or two of her finds to send to RHS1 member, James Madej  who has offered to cut a cab or two for her from her collection. She is extremely excited about having her own finds cut into the pretty stones like the ones we saw on the computer the night before we went out. I’ll be sure we get those before and after pictures in one of the next few newsletters for you to see so you can share her excitement.
For those of you who write in and wonder about how you get a young one started rockhounding, that is how I managed with this little rock enthusiast. While each of us can expect to have a different experience depending how skilled we are as hunters ourselves, going along on a child’s first time out has proven to me to be quite an awesome experience. For those of you who are not experienced hunters, I would suggest getting together on your first hunt with a member of a local rock and gem club or going to a fee dig where the staff can give you pointers on what to look for and how to find it. At this point in time, however, after having had the actual experience I have so often been asked about, I have to say it is one great time out for you and a life changing event for the little one.
ROAD TIPS FOR HUNTERS
Klondyke 1849
I thought that some information on roads in areas I’ve been through might be a good idea for those out catching some last minute rockhounding.
Windy Peak – N. Washington — this area is probably being snowed in as I type, but for those of you planning a trip to that area, please note that you will probably have to walk in the last several miles as those roads are being closed indefinitely and very possibly permanently. The terrain is medium, there is a lot of wildlife including bears. Be prepared. Weather can become turbulent very fast in the region as well.
Whiskey Dick Road above Ginkgo State Park, WA. Again too washed out to get up the first hill in my rig. It was too hot to hike up with Munchie having a heart illness so I’m not sure if that road gets any better after that. You could make it in a very heavy duty rig or ATV despite. The ruts are very deep and there isn’t much room to maneuver around them. The road into that area from the East a mile or two is closed to traffic to the west. You might find some decent specimens in the canyon and there is a drivable 4WD path that will place you so you can walk into the canyon on a flat hike.
Ellensburg, WA – North of town in the Ellensburg Blue areas – Green Canyon is closed off from all directions. The only way into the canyon is on foot from above. The Ranch at the entrance to the canyon is being sold and no one was available to give me passage to hunt while I was there. Whether new owners will be giving passage or charging a fee for passage is something we will all have to wait and see. Be ready for a very steep trip. Until snowfall (be sure to check that before taking the trip out) roads are not all that bad out that way. Many are traversable by car, however, as always 4WD is suggested. Most road closures in that area are due to private property rather than impassible roads.
Succor Creek Reservoir, ID – Not the park, the reservoir out on the Idaho side of I-95. Unless you have a very high test rig you are going to find yourself walking into this region as well as a flood early this year tore up the roads pretty badly. I wasn’t able to get up the first hill from State Line Road in my little rig. There is a huge trench in the road at the top of the hill heading into the reservoir. That’s as far as I got and had to back down a rough road for a ways to be able to turn around again. Not recommended for others with light weight rigs – even 4WD. The Cow Creek road route to the reservoir is also washed in areas and not recommended for anything less than a high test vehicle or ATV.
Jordon Valley Road, off of Succor Creek Road, OR– the first road to your right will take you in a mile at the most. Where the road begins a steep decline the road is washed out . You would need an ATV to get through that area this year. It is still clear of snow but there’s no guarantee how long that will last. Wear bright clothes out in that area as there are quite a few deer hunters in the area at the time. That’s probably a good idea for anywhere you are wandering around at the time.
Spring Creek Road South of the recreation area – the road south of the recreation area becomes quite rough once you get past the flat land area. I had to turn around when the road started going uphill. A heavy duty rig might have been able to get through. Material on the side of the roads in that area was disappointing but gave clues there might be some pockets of nicer find here and there.
If you have information about road closures or washouts in hunting areas, please drop me an email so we can let people know what they need to expect if they are planning to go out.
After posting the three year quake statistics pdf, I decided to put off watching quakes for a year or so and see if there is any change again in 2010. The climate is going into a cooling phase and with sunspots being way behind schedule, resulting in cooling, I thought that by 2010 trends in quakes might just change a bit. Here is is around 10 months past our watch (and I do take occasional peeks) and suddenly we get a month of frequent and very hard shaking. So I had to follow that month a bit closer.
It appears that this year might just be a heavier year for quakes than we have experienced lately – but not by that much. The average number of quakes of 5 and 7 mags had been lower than post 1990 averages since 2006 anyway. There was one stretch of time that we had a string of 8 mag quakes, which was an unprecedented number since we have been able to track in remote regions. Of course, those quakes might have been going on semi regularly for some time, but we now can track them so can keep more accurate information than we were once able to obtain. Still – to our knowledge, that string of 8 mag quakes was unprecedented in frequency and a bit unsettling.
As of the times between September 20, 2009 and October 2009, the earth went through another quite heavy spasm, that I felt deserved a bit of attention. Below are the figures of what went on during that month. You will see from the figures exactly how strongly the earth shook during the end of September and most of October. The average for these quakes is the post 1990 official average. If you would like to see the 2006,07.08 three year average, it is in the pdf report which you will find at the bottom of this quake report.
9/20 – 10/18
8 mags – we had 1. This quake brings us to the high level of the current annual average, which is 1 if any.
7 mags – there were 4. The current yearly average is 17. We have been under for 3 years running and are only 3 away from the average this year. Had all other months been as heavy as the one featured here, we would be looking at 48 per year.
6 mags – there were 24. The usual frequency of these quakes is posted as 134 per year. If the rate of quakes during the Sept/Oct observation here were continuous for 12 months we would be seeing 288, or over double the normal amount.
5 mags – The post 1990 average for these quakes was 1319 per year. Our 9/20 – 10/18 total was 197! If these shakers continued this frequency on a month by month basis, we would experience almost double the amount of these strong quakes as well.
At this point of time there is no way to tell if these types of frequencies will become more prevalent during cooling. We also have no way of knowing for a fact whether cooling would be a/the trigger if frequency does pick up. With extreme colds predicted this winter, many features of earth could be effected. We will be keeping our eyes open over the last few months of 2009 for more periods of increased shaking. On January 1st, 2010, we will resume our daily watch.
If you missed the free three year report of earthquake statistics – here it is:
You might also find good use of the earthquake safety report, which is also a free report, just click and read:
EARTHWATCH UPDATE:
EARTH WATCH – PLANET IN CRISIS SERIES:
THE STATE OF THE PLANET
Global Rainfall 2009-05:
Water/Drought
Worldwide precipitation has quelled many drought areas in recent months. It appears that crops for most countries have a good outlook for next harvest season baring future weather disasters. One such disaster area is in India where major floods have wiped out millions of dollars worth crops, killing people (around 250 as of mid October) and displacing millions. Government agencies there are predicting imminent food shortages in the country.
One country is not yet experiencing a relief of drought. That country is Iraq where over 100,00 people have already relocated due to drought and another 36,000 are expected to do so soon. The drought and excessive well pumping over the last four years is collapsing the underground aqueducts. Of 683 systems only 116 are now in operation. Each karez (as the aqueducts are called) provides water for 1,440 households (8,640 people) and whole communities are migrating in areas where karez systems have collapsed. Lack of water is also leaving thousands of hectacres of usually irrigated land barren of crops. Plans have been made to rebuild the aqueducts, but without water to pump, the land remains barren and the people will continue to migrate. Water shortages also threaten food stability in Iraq. If food is not available, people will not come back.
Global distribution of Flora 2009-08
WHAT ARE SCIENTISTS SAYING?
Nasa has just put together a program called the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). It is a monitor of earth on a global grid which looks at the ecosystems of the planet. What they are seeing isn’t making them real comfortable. MA has evaluated 24 categories of ecosystem health and found that over half are being degraded at rates that cannot be sustained.
The scientists are now able to monitor on a global scale what only special interest groups were monitoring on regional scales. There has been much dissent between different factions of special interests. Human organizations express anger with conservation interests for not valuing human life, while ecological concerns insist that humans have got to let up on dwindling resources. For the first time a monitoring system is in place that has found that eco-health is directly linked to human health and well being. We cannot allow further degradation of the ecology without the human population suffering as well.
What is the most pressing problem we have to face? Desertification. Dry lands make up 41% of the earth’s land surface. Desertification is the spread of dry land that is unable to be used for crops. One third of the human population now lives in dry land areas and the fragile ecosystems are being destroyed. Soil degradation, loss of flood control, loss of water purification systems, and loss of pollinating insects are just a few of the problems scientists brought into view as very prevalent problems for dry land populations and the earth in general. In consideration that most of population of dry lands are already poverty stricken, further degradation of these dry lands will be a shattering, and possibly the final, blow to human well being for those populations.
Other dangers to the planet that are reaching emergency proportions are over-fishing which is devastating fish supply. While populations in many areas rely on fishing for their livelihood, allowing over-fishing to continue will only result in eliminating a food supply, as well as livelihoods, as populations continue to grow. Deforestation and habitat fragmentation from logging and human sprawl are much more detrimental than realized and scientists are now taking into account the cost to human economic and health issues which are linked to these repercussions of human activity. We cannot sustain continued degradation of our forest lands.
How to resolve the problems that we face as a result of high levels of population disseminating ecosystems that are being found to have more connection to human well being than ever previously supposed is not a problem that can readily be answered, even though we need the answers now.
Arctic ice cap.
EARTHWATCH THUMBS UP To: A TEAM OF SCIENTISTS (listed below)
Who have just released a study stating that CO2 has nothing to do with the warming of the planet, but rather the tilt and rotation resulting in the amount of sunlight which hits the planet and how it hits is the cause of warming. (GEE, do ya think they might have been reading RHS1 Earth Watch for the last couple years?).
During their analysis of 6,000 dates, locations, and ice sheets the team confirmed a 50 year old theory that cited ice ages were triggered by changes in the Earth’s rotation, but they were also able to add gravitational influences of other planets on the earth’s rotation and tilt as contributing to the changes. They claim to be able to calculate changes as far back as 50 million years using their technique.
While the team claims changes take place slowly, and speak in terms of a thousand years, they have stated that we are now moving into a global cooling after a 10,000 year warm period.
While they still maintain that greenhouse gases caused rapid warming over the last two hundred years, they attribute the trigger of warming to the sun and maintain that greenhouse gases follow warming rather than causing it.
It can only be speculated whether politicians will refrain from levying Carbon taxes in light of this study.
You can read this and other full papers at Science for a fee.
You can read the abstract of this paper online at:
Science 7 August 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5941, pp. 710 -714 DOI: 10.1126/science.1172873
Research Articles
The Last Glacial Maximum
Peter U. Clark,1,* Arthur S. Dyke,2 Jeremy D. Shakun,1 Anders E. Carlson,3 Jorie Clark,1 Barbara Wohlfarth,4 Jerry X. Mitrovica,5 Steven W. Hostetler,6 A. Marshall McCabe7
1 Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
2 Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E8, Canada.
3 Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
4 Department of Geology and Geochemistry, Stockholm University, SE-10691, Stockholm, Sweden.
5 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
6 U.S. Geological Survey, Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
7 School of Environmental Science, University of Ulster, Coleraine, County Londonderry, BT52 1SA, UK.
Sally Taylor…RHS1 Earthwatch.
How Old ???
ARCHAEOLOGY/PALEONTOLOGY IMPORTANT
Facts For You to Consider About The Scientific Community.
The following article I believe to be of major importance. It came to me during Columbus day, which we celebrate yearly even though Columbus did not “discover” this continent, that the majority of the population has no access to real facts and by the time they read anything scientific it has been run through the “official position ringer”. This ringer is the one which gave us the official position global warming was OUR fault and which may still to this day cause many taxes to be levied against our wallets. It is this position that has caused 8 – 9 foot human skeletons given to the Smithsonian to be lost and unheard of and the finder out of an extremely important find and even ridiculed for mentioning it, and the world from true knowledge of who these people were and what part they played in our ancestry.
It was through establishment bullying for ownership of pictures that RHS1 acquired unseen photos first released on our site when the photographer finally had had enough of the strong arming. In my years with RHS1 I have talked to many scientists, and have found that there are questions to be asked about “official positions” at every level of science. Many scientists are working hard to bring us the truth, and many others are working just as hard to deny them.
If you want the real truth about science and how the public is manipulated perceive it, you will do yourself a major favor to read the following article, compliments of www.suppressed science.com
A Brief Look at Anomalies and Suppression
in Archeology and Paleoanthropology
In 1993, Cremo and Thompson exploded an archaeological and paleoanthropological bombshell by showing the existence of a large body of suppressed evidence for the existence of anatomically modern humans and even civilization in Earth’s remote past. They make a convincing argument that this evidence was emphatically not properly disposed of long ago by academia simply because it was bad, but suppressed because it did not fit preconceived notions of human prehistory. Since its publication in 1993, academic archeology has never been able to refute more than a small fraction of the material, yet despite (or because of?) this lack of explanation, it summarily dismissed the entire work, and its authors as “Hindu Creationists”. A decade later, scholars in both disciplines still continue to base all their thinking on the conventional theory of human origins, using the accusation of “creationism” to silence anyone who makes a scientific argument against the accepted picture.
To illustrate to what lengths the academic establishment will go to cover up inconvenient evidence that radically changes the established time line of human evolution, an extended quote is in order. In the 1960s, advanced stone tools were discovered near Hueyatlaco, Mexico. Geologist Virginia Steen McIntyre and other members of a team from the U.S. Geological Survey examined the site and, using four independented dating techniques, found that the implement-bearing layers were about 250,000 years old. This result radically contradicts the established notion that humans capable of manufacturing such tools first existed about 100,000 years ago in Africa. This is how the “scientific” establishment reacted to this bombshell, in the narrative of Cremo and Thompson.
“Virginia Steen-Mclntyre has sent us some of her correspondence, which documents the difficulties she had in publishing her findings on Hueyatlaco. We shall now introduce excerpts from this correspondence. Our purpose in doing so is to clarify how anomalous evidence is treated by the scientific community.
We have already shown that much evidence for the presence of anatomically and culturally modern humans in the Tertiary epoch was suppressed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mainly because it conflicted with emerging theories of human evolution. Some might object that we have misinterpreted what went on in that period, taking the normal scientific procedures scientists use in differentiating good evidence from bad as some kind of diabolical plot to distort the truth. Others will maintain that even if good evidence was in fact rejected for reasons that appear unscientific in hindsight, this just does not happen any more. But the case of Hueyatlaco (along with Texas Street, Sheguiandah, Calico, and Lewisville) demonstrates otherwise.
Among the social processes that discourage acceptance and reporting of anomalous evidence are ridicule and gossip, including attacks on character and accusations of incompetence. Furthermore, discoveries have almost no impact in the world of science unless they are published in standard journals. The editorial process, especially the practice of anonymous peer review, often presents an insurmountable obstacle. Some submissions are met with a wall of silence. Others are shunted around for months, from editor to editor. Sometimes manuscripts are mysteriously lost in the shuffle. And while positive reports of anomalous evidence are subjected to protracted review and/or rejection, negative critiques are sometimes rushed into print. Occasionally, a maverick report eventually does appear in a journal, but only after it has gone through such extensive modification that the original message has become totally obscured-by editorial deletions and, in some cases, rewriting of data. (..)
Virginia Steen- Mclntyre experienced many of the above-mentioned social pressures and obstacles. In a note to a colleague (July 10, 1976), she stated: “I had found out through backfence gossip that Hal [Malde], Roald [Fryxell], and I are considered opportunists and publicity seekers in some circles, because or Hueyatlaco, and I am still smarting from the blow.”
The publication of a paper by Steen-Mclntyre and her colleagues on Hueyatlaco was inexplicably held up for years. The paper was first presented in 1975 at a joint meeting of the Southwestern Anthropological Association and the Societe Mexicana de Antropologia and was to appear in a symposium volume. Four years later, Steen-Mclntyre wrote (March 29, 1979) to H. J. Fullbright of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, one of the editors of the forever forthcoming book: “We received your name and address from Dave Snow, who said you were the one to contact about the publication date for the SWAA-SMA symposium volume. We hope that it is soon! I personally have been put in an awkward position by the publication delay. Our joint article on the Hueyatlaco site is a real bombshell. It would place man in the New World 10x earlier than many archaeologists would like to believe. Worse, the bifacial tools that were found in situ are thought by most to be a sign of H. sapiens. According to present theory, H.s. had not even evolved at that time, and certainly not in the New World.”
Steen-Mclntyre continued, explaining: “Archaeologists are in a considerable uproar over Hueyatlaco-they refuse even to consider it. I’ve learned from second-hand sources that I’m considered by various members of the profession to be 1) incompetent; 2) a news monger; 3) an opportunist; 4) dishonest; 5) a fool. Obviously, none of these opinions is helping my professional reputation! My only hope to clear my name is to get the Hueyatlaco article into print so that folks can judge the evidence for themselves. (Geologists have no trouble with it.) The longer the delay, the more archaeologists will be convinced that the whole thing is just a crass attempt of another egomaniac for publicity. I’m quite certain the archaeologist who was in charge of the excavations and who no longer corresponds with me feels this way.”
Steen- Mclntyre, upon receiving no answer to this and other requests for information, withdrew the article. Later she got a letter from Roger A. Morris of Los Alamos, who explained that he had taken the liberty of opening a letter addressed to Fullbright, who had been transferred to another group of researchers. Morris said he would return her manuscript, but it never came.
A year later, Steen-Mclntyre wrote (February 8,1980) to Steve Porter, editor of Quaternary Research, about having her article printed. She first explained its status. “It’s been languishing down in Los Alamos for almost five years, awaiting publication as part of a symposium volume. During that time I have written or called a dozen times to learn the status of the volume only to receive no response. (The original editor was always ‘in conference’ or ‘out of the office’ or would ‘return my call,’ which he never did.) In the meantime, there’s been a lot of false information circulated about the site and the work we did there in 1973. Especially damaging is an article by Cynthia Irwin- Williams published in 1978 (Summary of archaeological evidence from the Valsequillo Region, Puebla, Mexico, in Cultural Continuity in Mesoamerica, Brownman, D.L. ed., Mouton). In it she discounts Szabo’ s uranium-series dates (concordant) on butchered bone supplied by herself because she doesn’t believe in the method. She does the same with Nasser’s 2 sigma zircon fission track dates for two tephra layers that we proved by a cross-trench and direct tracing of the stratigraphy to overlie beds exposed in the archaeological trenches. Needless to say, she never showed us a draft of this ms or even told us she planned to publish anything on Hueyatlaco!”
Steen-Mclntyre added: “The ms I’d like to submit gives the geologic evidence. It’s pretty clear-cut, and if it weren’t for the fact a lot of anthropology textbooks will have to be rewritten, I don’t think we would have had any problems getting the archaeologists to accept it. As it is, no anthro journal will touch it with a ten foot pole. Right now I don’t even have a copy to send you. The editor’s copy is still in Santa Fe and my working copy disappeared into the office of Science 80 (AAAS) months ago and, despite howls and threats, has yet to be returned.”
Steve Porter wrote to Steen-Mclntyre (February 25,1980), replying that he would consider the controversial article for publication. But he said he could “well imagine that objective reviews may be a bit difficult to obtain from certain archaeologists.” The usual procedure in scientific publishing is for an article to be submitted to several other scientists for peer review. It is not hard to imagine how an entrenched scientific orthodoxy could manipulate this process to keep unwanted information out of scientific journals. The manner in which reports by Thomas E. Lee about the Sheguiandah site were kept out of standard publications provides a good example of this (Section 5.4.1.2).
Steen-Mclntyre wrote to Porter (March 4, 1980): “Often it is next to impossible to get a controversial paper published that even indirectly challenges current archaeological dogma; George Carter is a case in point!” In a letter to Steen- Mclntyre, Carter had called the dominant clique of New World archaeologists “priests of the High Doctrine” and complained that they bragged among themselves about having blocked him from publishing in the major journals. He compared his treatment to a modern Inquisition. Steen-Mclntyre then stated: “I had thought to circumvent these ‘true believers’ by publishing in an obscure symposium volume, but no such luck.”
The competence of Steen- Mclntyre’s associates was also called into question. Steen-Mclntyre informed Porter: “there’s the old saw that Fryx wasn’t in his right mind when he did the work. Those folks forget that I saw the stratigraphy too, and once you get into a cross-trench, it was relatively simple, thanks to a magnesium-stained bed that traced on the excavation wall like a pencil mark!”
On March 30,1981, Steen-Mclntyre wrote to Estella Leopold, the associate editor of Quaternary Research: “The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns the manipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of ‘Enigmatic Data,’ data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking. Hueyatlaco certainly does that! Not being an anthropologist, I didn’t realize the full significance of our dates back in 1973, nor how deeply woven into our thought the current theory of human evolution had become. Our work at Hueyatlaco has been rejected by most archaeologists because it contradicts that theory, period. Their reasoning is circular. H. sapiens sapiens evolved ca. 30,000-50,000 years ago in Eurasia. Therefore any H.s.s. tools 250,000 years old found in Mexico are impossible because H.s.s. evolved ca 30,000- . . . etc. Such thinking makes for self-satisfied archaeologists but lousy science!”
As demonstrated in this book, the stone tools of Hueyatlaco are not an isolated example of “impossible” evidence that challenges the recent origin of Homo sapiens by a Darwinian evolutionary process. We have already discussed numerous examples of such impossible evidence from the Pliocene, Miocene, and earlier periods. And there is much more to come in the remainder of this volume. We have simply paused briefly in order to demonstrate that the suppression of such evidence did not end with the nineteenth century-it has continued to the present day. We also take the current examples of suppression of anomalous evidence as confirmation that our interpretation of what went on in the nineteenth century (and early twentieth century) is in fact correct. ”
On May 18,1981, Steen-Mclntyre wrote to Estella Leopold and Steve Porter about “suppression of data on Hueyatlaco and other possible Pre-Wisconsinan Early Man sites in the New World by unethical means.” She told how she had submitted a general paper on her dating techniques to be included in a volume in a scientific series. Steen-Mclntyre then learned from the editor that “he had decided to ‘drastically edit’ this manuscript, essentially by deleting most of the section on Hueyatlaco and by treating the remainder in a negative way.” In her letter to Leopold and Porter, Steen-Mclntyre stated: “I protested strongly, and he agreed to reinsert some of the deleted material, but only in a way that will hold both me and my research up for laughter and ridicule.” In a note to our researcher, Steve Bernath, dated January 29,1989, Steen-Mclntyre explained that the editor had, in the course of his drastic editing, altered one of her data tables. According to Steen-Mclntyre: “when I threatened him he replaced the missing material [in the text] but forgot to retype the table.”
Steen-Mclntyre’s case is not unique. Some American scientists reporting anomalous evidence for a human presence in North America have found it necessary to publish overseas. Steen-Mclntyre said in her letter to Leopold and Orter that “Roy Schlemon, a pedologist who has helped date Calico and who is working at other sites in Southern California… had been publishing outside the country.” A pedologist is a scientist who studies soils.
Eventually, Quaternary Research (1981) published an article by Virginia Steen-Mclntyre, Roald Fryxell, and Harold E. Malde.
It upheld an age of 250,000 years for the Hueyatlaco site. Of course, it is always possible to raise objections to archeological dates, and Cynthia Irwin-Williams (1981) did so in a letter responding to Steen-Mclntyre, Fryxell, and Malde. Her objections were answered point for point in a counter-letter (Malde and Steen-Mclntyre 1981). But Irwin- Williams did not relent. She, and the American archeological community in general, have continued to reject the dating of Hueyatlaco carried out by Steen-Mclntyre and her colleagues on the U.S. Geological Survey team.
As in the case of Sheguiandah, the anomalous findings at Hueyatlaco resulted in personal abuse and professional penalties for those who dared to present and defend them in the scientific literature. This involved withholding of funds and loss of job, facilities, and reputation for at least one of the geologists involved in the dating project (Steen-Mclntyre, personal communication).
The case of Virginia Steen-Mclntyre opens a rare window into the actual social processes of data suppression in paleoanthropology, processes that involve a great deal of hurt and conflict. In general, however, this goes on behind the scenes, and the public sees only the end result-the carefully edited journals and books that have passed the censors.
A final note-we ourselves once tried to secure permission to reproduce photographs of the Hueyatlaco artifacts in a publication. We were informed that permission would be granted only if we gave a date of no more than 30,000 years for the artifacts. But permission would be denied if we intended to cite a “lunatic fringe date” of 250,000 years. We grant that the 250,000-year date may be wrong. But is it really appropriate to apply the term “lunatic fringe” to studies such as the one carried out by Steen-Mclntyre and her colleagues?”
John Anthony West and geologist Robert M. Schoch have uncovered undeniable geological evidence that the Egyptian Sphinx is thousands of years older than conventionally assumed, yet conventional Egyptology refuses to self-correct, insisting that evidence that doesn’t fit the prevailing theory is inadmissible. In a recent Open Letter to the Editors of Archaeology in response to a special issue that trashed West’s and Schoch’s work, West summarizes,
“To bring Archaeology readers up to date on the geology– since developments in this ongoing investigation somehow do not find their way into your pages– here is a brief update. Our geological evidence was presented first at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in 1991; further compelling evidence was presented at the GSA Meeting in 2000, both times with the overwhelming support of attending geologists — and shrieks of outrage from archaeologists and Egyptologists. Over the intervening years a handful of opposing geologists, most with a stake in academic archaeology or Egyptology, have offered mutually exclusive alternative theories to account for that weathering ranging from demonstrably just plain wrong (K. Lal Gauri) to certifiably inept and inane (James ‘Wet Sand’ Harrell’s theory.) All have been easily, systematically and conclusively dismantled and rebutted point by point. Meanwhile, two English geologists, Colin Reader and David Coxill, independent of each other and of ourselves, have studied the matter on site and support the theory (precipitation-induced weathering) unconditionally, categorically necessitating re-thinking the dating of the Sphinx and with it pretty much everything archaeologists accept as dogma regarding very ancient history. ”
Legions of other archaeological anomalies (such as structures and objects that would be difficult to replicate even with modern technology, or show that the builders had advanced knowledge of astronomy) suggest that present-day humanity is not the pinnacle of evolution, but the product of a devolution from advanced civilization that has existed in the remote past. Replicating the great pyramid of Gizah would create formidable engineering problems even today, with modern technology; the claim that slaves moved and lifted granite blocks such as the 70-ton monolith over the King’s chamber is extraordinary in the extreme. There have been a few successful demonstrations of pyramid and obelisk building, but they involved scaled-down versions of the original which have no evidentiary value since engineering challenges are highly scale dependent. It is therefore fair to assert that the conventional idea that the great pyramids were built with primitive technology and slave labor is an unproven and highly questionable claim. But, so the goofy circular logic of the egyptologists goes, the obelisks and temples and pyramids stand, don’t they? So they must have been built by slave labor since we know that only our civilization has produced advanced technology.
Writer Lloyd Pye has made a case that re-engineering our modern domesticated plants and animals from their wild varieties from scratch defies even current bio-engineering abilities, and that the very existence of these species therefore proves the existence of advanced scientific knowledge in the remote past. He writes:
Nearly all domesticated plants are believed to have appeared between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago, with different groups coming to different parts of the world at different times. Initially, in the so-called “Fertile Crescent” of modern Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon came wheat, barley, and legumes, among others. Later on, in the Far East, came wheat, millet, rice, and yams. Later still, in the New World, came maize (corn), peppers, beans, squash, tomatoes and potatoes. Many have “wild” predecessors that were apparently a starting point for the domesticated variety, but others-like many common vegetables- have no obvious precursors. But for those that do, such as wild grasses, grains, and cereals, how they turned into wheat, barley, millet, rice, etc., is a profound mystery.
No botanist can conclusively explain how wild plants gave rise to domesticated ones. The emphasis there is on “conclusively.” Botanists have no trouble hypothesizing elaborate scenarios in which Neolithic (New Stone Age) farmers somehow figured out how to hybridize wild grasses and grains and cereals, not unlike Gregor Mendel when he cross-bred pea plants to figure out the mechanics of genetic inheritance. It all sounds so simple and so logical, almost no one outside scientific circles ever examines it closely.
Gregor Mendel never bred his pea plants to be anything other than pea plants. He created short ones, tall ones, and different colored ones, but they were always pea plants that produced peas. (Pea plants are a domesticated species, too, but that is irrelevant to the point to be made here.) On the other hand, those Stone Age farmers who were fresh out of their caves and only just beginning to turn soil for the first time (as the “official” scenario goes), somehow managed to transform the wild grasses, grains, and cereals growing around them into their domesticated “cousins.” Is that possible? Only through a course in miracles.
Actually, it requires countless miracles within two large categories of miracles. The first was that the wild grasses and grains and cereals were useless to humans. The seeds and grains were maddeningly small, like pepper flakes or salt crystals, which put them beyond the grasping and handling capacity of human fingers. They were also hard, like tiny nutshells, making it impossible to convert them to anything edible. Lastly, their chemistry was suited to nourishing animals, not humans. So wild varieties were entirely too small, entirely too tough, and nutritionally inappropriate for humans. They needed to be greatly expanded in size, greatly softened in texture, and overhauled at the molecular level, which would be an imposing challenge for modern botanists, much less Neolithic farmers.
Despite the seeming impossibility of meeting those daunting objectives, modern botanists are confident the first sodbusters had all they needed to do it: time and patience. Over hundreds of generations of selective crossbreeding, they consciously directed the genetic transformation of the few dozen that would turn out to be most useful to humans. And how did they do it? By the astounding feat of doubling, tripling, and quadrupling the number of chromosomes in the wild varieties! In a few cases they did better than that. Domestic wheat and oats were elevated from an ancestor with 7 chromosomes to their current 42, expansion by a factor of six. Sugar cane expanded from a 10-chromosome ancestor to the 80-chromosome monster it is today, a factor of eight. The chromosomes of others, like bananas and apples, only multiplied by factors of two or three, while peanuts, potatoes, tobacco and cotton, among others, expanded by factors of four.
This is not as astounding as it sounds because many wild flowering plants and trees have multiple chromosome sets. But that brings up what Charles Darwin himself called the “abominable mystery” of flowering plants. The first ones appear in the fossil record between 150 and 130 million years ago, primed to multiply into over 200,000 known species. But no one can explain their presence because there is no connective link to any form of plants that preceded them. It is as if…dare I say it?…they were brought to Earth by something akin to You-Know-What. If so, then it could well be they were delivered with a built-in capacity to develop multiple chromosome sets, and somehow our Neolithic forebears cracked the codes for the ones most advantageous to humans.
However the codes were cracked, the great expansion of genetic material in each cell of the domestic varieties caused them to grow much larger than their wild ancestors. As they grew, their seeds and grains became large enough to be easily seen, picked up, and manipulated by human fingers. Simultaneously, the seeds and grains softened to a degree where they could be milled, cooked, and consumed. And at the same time, their cellular chemistry was altered enough to begin providing nourishment to humans who ate them. The only word that remotely equates with that achievement is: miracle.
Of course, “miracle” implies there was actually a chance that such complex manipulations of nature could be carried out by primitive yeomen in eight geographical areas over 5,000 years. This strains credulity because in each case in each area someone had to actually look at a wild progenitor and imagine what it could become, or should become, or would become. Then they had to somehow insure that their vision would be carried forward through countless generations that had to remain committed to planting, harvesting, culling, and crossbreeding wild plants that put no food on their tables during their lifetimes, but which might feed their descendants in some remotely distant future.
It is difficult to try to concoct a more unlikely-even absurd-scenario, yet to modern-day botanists it is a gospel they believe with a fervor that puts many “six day” Creationists to shame. Why? Because to confront its towering absurdity would force them to turn to You-Know-What for a more logical and plausible explanation.
To domesticate a wild plant without using artificial (i.e. genetic) manipulation, it must be modified by directed crossbreeding, which is only possible through the efforts of humans. So the equation is simple. First, wild ancestors for many (but not all) domestic plants do seem apparent. Second, most domesticated versions did appear from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago. Third, the humans alive at that time were primitive barbarians. Fourth, in the past 5,000 years no plants have been domesticated that are nearly as valuable as the dozens that were “created” by the earliest farmers all around the world. Put an equal sign after those four factors and it definitely does not add up to any kind of Darwinian model.
Botanists know they have a serious problem here, but all they can suggest is that it simply had to have occurred by natural means because no other intervention by God or You-Know-What-can be considered under any circumstances. That unwavering stance is maintained by all scientists, not just botanists, to exclude overwhelming evidence such as the fact that in 1837 the Botanical Garden BIN RAS in St. Petersburg, Russia, began concerted attempts to cultivate wild rye into a new form of domestication. They are still trying because their rye has lost none of its wild traits, especially the fragility of its stalk and its small grain. Therein lies the most embarrassing conundrum botanists face.
To summarize: many independent lines of evidence exist, some merely suggestive, some strong, and some nothing less than commanding that should have forced a major reappraisal of the entire time line of human prehistory by now, but no such thing is forthcoming from academic archeology and paleoanthropology. The modus operandi remains “evidence that doesn’t fit theory is inadmissible”.
Copyright:2004.http://www.suppressedscience.net/ This text may be freely copied and/or reposted as long as it is not changed and reproduced in its entirety.
Sally Taylor…RHS1 Earthwatch.
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