Sacsayhuaman and Tiahuanaco conceal a great number of pre-historical mysteries for which superficial, but quite unconvincing explanations are hawked around. Moreover, sand vitrifications are also found in the Gobi Desert and in the vicinity of old Iraqi archaeological sites. Who can explain why these sand vitrifications resemble those produced by the atomic explosions in the Nevada Desert?

When will something decisive be done to give a convincing answer to the pre-historic puzzles? At Tiahuanaco there are artificial overgrown hills, the 'roofs' of which are absolutely level over an area of 4,784 square yards. It seems highly probable that buildings are concealed beneath them. So far no trench has been dug through the chain of hills, no spade is at work to solve the mystery. Admittedly, money is scarce. Yet the traveller often sees soldiers and officers who are obviously at a loss for something useful to do. What is wrong with letting a company of soldiers carry out excavations under expert supervision'

Money is available for so many other things in the world Research for the future is of burning importance As long as our past is undiscovered, one entry in the account for the future remains blank. Cannot the past help us to reach technical solutions, which will not have to be found for the first time because they already existed in antiquity?

If the urge to discover our past is not sufficient incentive to set modern intensive research work in motion, perhaps the slide-rule could be usefully employed. So far, at all events, no scientist has been asked to use the most modern apparatus to investigate radiation at Tiahuanaco, Sacsay-hueman, the legendary Sodom or in the Gobi Desert. Cuneiform texts and tablets from Ur, the oldest books of mankind, tell without exception of 'gods' who rode in the heavens in ships, of 'gods' who came from the stars, possessed terrible weapons and returned to the stars. Why do we not seek them out, the old 'gods'? Our radio-astronomers send signals into the universe to try to make contact with unknown intelligences. Why don't we first or simultaneously seek the traces of unknown intelligences on our own earth, which is so much closer? For we are not groping blindly in a dark room—the traces are there for all to see.

Some 2,000 years before our era the Sumerians began to record the glorious past of their people. Today we still do not know where this people came from. But we do know that the Sumerians brought with them a superior advanced culture which they forced upon the still semi-barbarian Semites. We also know that they always sought their gods on mountain peaks and that if there were no peaks in the regions they inhabited they erected artificial 'mountains' on the plains. Their astronomy was incredibly highly developed. Their observatories achieved estimates of the rotation of the moon which differ from present-day estimates by no more than 0.4 second. In addition to the fabulous Epic of Gilgamesh, about which I shall have more to say later, they have left us one thing that is quite sensational. On the hill of Kuyundjik (former Nineveh) a calculation was found with the final result in our notation of 195,955,200,000,000. A number with fifteen digits! Our oft-quoted and extensively studied ancestors of Western culture, the Greeks, never rose above the figure 10,000 during the most brilliant period of their civilisation. Anything beyond that was simply described as 'infinite'.

The old cuneiform inscriptions credit the Sumerians with a literally fantastic span of life. Thus the ten original kings ruled for a total of 456,000 years and the twenty-three kings who had the arduous task of reconstruction after the Flood still managed to hold the reins of government for a total of 24,510 years, 3 months and 3 1/2 days.

Periods of years that are quite incomprehensible to our way of thinking, although the names of all the rulers exist in long lists, neatly perpetuated on seals and coins. What would happen if here too we dared to take off our blinkers and look at the old things with fresh eyes, the eyes of today?

Let us suppose that foreign astronauts visited the territory of the Sumerians thousands of years ago. Let us assume that they laid the foundations of the civilisation and culture of the Sumerians and then returned to their own planet, after giving this stimulus to development. Let us postulate that curiosity drove them back to the scene of their pioneer work every hundred terrestrial years to check the results of their experiment. By the standard of our present-day expectation of life the same astronauts could easily have survived for 500 terrestrial years. The theory of relativity shows that the astronauts would only have aged about forty years during the outward and return flight in a space-ship that had travelled just under the speed of light! Over the centuries the Sumerians would have built towers, pyramids and houses with every comfort, they would have sacrificed to their gods and awaited their return. And after hundreds of terrestrial years they actually did return to them. 'And then came the Flood and after the Flood kingship came down from heaven once again,' it says in a Sumerian cuneiform inscription.

In what form did the Sumerians imagine and depict their 'gods'? Sumerian mythology and some Akkadian tablets and pictures provide information about this. The Sumerian 'gods' were not anthropomorphic and every symbol of a god was also connected with a star. Stars are depicted in Akkadian picture tablets as we should draw them today. The only remarkable thing is that these stars are circled by planets of various sizes. How did the Sumerians, who lacked our techniques for observing the heavens, know that a fixed star has planets? There are sketches in which people wear stars on their heads, while others ride on balls with wings. There is one picture that instantly reminds one of a model of an atom: a circle of balls arranged next to each other that radiate alternately. If we look at the legacy of the Sumerians with 'space eyes' it teems with questions and enigmas beside which the terrors of the deep and the wonders of the heavens pale into insignificance.

Here are only a few curiosities from the same geographical area:

• Drawings of spirals, a rarity 6,000 years ago, at Geoy Tepe.

• A flint industry credited with an age of 40,000 years at Gar Kobeh.

• Similar finds at Baradostian are estimated to be 30,000 years old.

• Figures, tombs and stone implements at Tepe Asiab are dated 13,000 years back.

• Petrified excrement, which is possibly not of human origin, was found at the same place.

• Tools and stone engravers were found at Karim Shahir. Flint weapons and tools were excavated at Barda Balka. Skeletons of grown men and a child were found in the Cave of Shandiar. They were dated (by the C 14 method) to about 45,000 B.C.

The list could be considerably enlarged and every fact would strengthen the assertion that a mixture of primitive men lived in the geographical territory of Sumer about 40,000 years ago. Suddenly, for reasons inexplicable so far, the Sumerians were there with their astronomy, their culture and their technology.

The conclusions to be drawn from the previous presence on earth of unknown visitors from the universe are still purely speculative. We can imagine that 'gods' appeared who collected the semi-savage peoples in the region of Sumer around them and transmitted some of their knowledge to them. The figurines and statues that stare at us today from the glass-cases of museums show a racial mixture, with goggle eyes, domed foreheads, narrow lips and mostly long straight noses. A picture that is very difficult to fit into the schematic system of thought and its concept of primitive peoples.

Visitors from the universe in remote antiquity?

In the Lebanon there are glass-like bits of rock, so-called tektites, in which the American Dr Stair discovered radioactive aluminium isotopes.