LOS NEW MASS MEDIA INVISIBILIZADOS: LA INTERFAZ DE USUARIO

Lest you feel tempted to exclaim, concerning the Vimanas. ‘There is no such animal !’ I shall now offer more detailed evidence for the existence of these prehistoric flying saucers. I say

‘saucers’ and not ‘airplanes’ because the principle which held them aloft had nothing to do with wings. They were sustained entirely by the force they emitted; a stream-lined plane set at an angle of four degrees to the line-of-flight played no part in it. They were true wingless aircraft. So are flying saucers.

We are all very tempted to measure out the length and the breadth and the depth of what we are willing to believe, and circumscribe it with a magic circle containing many violent (and often none too polite) incantations prohibiting the approach of any alien idea, evil spirit, or malicious genii who threatens the security of our little flock of cherished notions. In that circle, for good measure, we set up Bacon’s Three Idols, which he aptly called the Idol of the Cave, the Idol of the Marketplace, and the Idol of the Theatre, an unholy trinity whose collective name is Personal Prejudice. These idols have always formed a triple deity for humanity, and will probably continue to do so until this planet reverts to a state of matter quite unknown to modern science whose exponents, through excessive worship at their shrine, may inadvertently reduce our Earth to that primal state, several billion years before it was originally intended.

It is easy to dismiss all the ancient Sanskrit descriptions of flying saucers as mere myth, until one has read them. But the ancient writers made a scrupulous distinction between myth which they called ‘Daiva’ and factual record which they called ‘Manusa’.

In the ‘Manusa’ accounts the most elaborate details for vimana building are set down. The Samarangana Sutradhara says that they were made of light material, with a strong well-shaped body. Iron, copper and lead were used in their construction. They could fly for great distances and were propelled by air. A hint is then given concerning the propulsion, by the statement that they had ‘fire and mercury at the bottom’.

The Samarangana Sutradhara devotes 230 stanzas to the principles of building vimanas and their uses in peace and war. They were very manoeuvrable and could attack anything in the air or on the ground. The author, like Scott Elliott, gives them three principal movements, that of ascending vertically, cruising thousands of miles, lastly halting and descending. They moved so fast that they could hardly be heard from the ground.

In the Vedic Brahmanas, description is given of the Agnihotra vimana, with its two propelling fires, the Ahavaniya and the Garhapatya. The curious statement is then made that the pilot offers milk to the three Agnis or fires. It is obviously a ‘blind’ for the secrets of their power were jealously guarded in case they came to be wrongly used.

The Sanskrit Samarangana Sutradhara says:

‘Manufacturing details of the vimanas is withheld for the sake of secrecy, not out of ignorance. The details of construction are not mentioned for it should be known that... were they publicly disclosed the machines would be wrongly used.’ This confirms Scott Elliott’s statement that they were never mass-produced like our modern aircraft. In another place, in the same work, we are told:

‘Strong and durable must the body be made, like a great flying bird, of light material. Inside it one must place the Mercury-engine with its iron heating apparatus beneath. By means of the power latent in the mercury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky in a most marvellous manner.

‘Similarly by using the prescribed processes one can build a vimana as large as the temple of the God-in-motion. Four strong mercury containers must be built into the interior structure.

When these have been heated by controlled fire from iron containers, the vimana develops thunder-power through the mercury. And at once it becomes like a pearl in the sky.’

The Tibetan books, the Tantjua and the Kantjua, also contain many references to marvellous prehistoric flying machines, which they often call ‘Pearls in-the-sky,’ I had a letter from California recently from some friends who had observed a flying saucer for about six minutes. They wrote: ‘It was the colour and lustre of mother of pearl. In fact it looked just like a huge oval pearl flying along silently in the sky’. I have replied asking them to get hold of a copy of the Tantjua if they could, to make their own comparisons.

The Samar account makes it perfectly clear that the full details must be withheld ‘in the interests of security’, to use a phrase beloved by moderns. The ancients, however, took a less selfish and somewhat more moral view. They kept their secrets because they foresaw the terrible uses the vimanas could be put to in war: fears well justified in the Daytan Wars when whole cities were wiped out and armies destroyed by the airborne Astra and Brahma weapons. ³⁵

35/ The ancient Aryans well knew how the Element Fire could be used in war, as can be seen from their ‘astra weapons’ which include—among the list of projectiles or Soposamhara (lit., throwing-out weapons): Sikharastra (a flame-belching missile);

Avidyastra (a missile of illusionary powers); and the Prasvapana which caused sleep, also the ‘Arrow of Sleep’ (some kind of gas projectile); Gandharvastra (a weapon of Vishnu the Destroyer); Samvarta (a smokescreen or fog producer); Saura (a missile of the Sun God); four kinds of Agni Astras, or fiery missiles which travel in sheets of flame and produce thunder. Lastly, the terrible Dart of Indra which could slay ten thousand men with its thunderbolt. It was shot from a ‘circle bow’, which sounds like a piece of ordnance.

Then came ‘magical’ weapons controlled by will and sound: The Satyakirti; the Kamarupaka (taking shape according to one’s will); the Kamaruci (acting according to one’s wish); Vajara the Thunderbolt, which required Mantras or sound to operate it; and Viruci (a fiery weapon).

See Warfare in Ancient India, pp. 277-30, by V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, Macmillan

& Co. Ltd.. 1948.

The Samar is sufficient to dispel any lingering doubt that the vimanas were a product of poetic imagination, or an allegorical account of divinities and certain cosmic forces. That description of the ‘Mercury Engine’ is intriguing. What exactly does ‘the power latent in the mercury’ mean ? Could they have known how to release the fundamental energy contained in heavy metals, and used it as a highly efficient type of jet propulsion ? Dr. Meade Layne of San Diego, California, had never heard of ancient vimanas until I drew his attention to them.

But long beforehand he had written that he believed that a certain type of flying saucer (‘ a very ancient type’) propels itself by the atomic disintegration of air, while travelling in the atmosphere, and of metal when out in space.

A little later I shall present evidence to suggest that the ancients knew more than we imagine

in that line; perhaps not nuclear fission, but some other aspects of atomic power which could be turned to peaceful or warlike uses with devastating results.

The Samar says a controlled fire was applied to the mercury: that thunder-power was then developed. Farther on its says: ‘Moreover, if this iron engine with properly welded joints be filled with mercury, and the fire be conducted to the upper part, it develops power with the roar of a lion.’

Now fire, in the ancient works, does not always mean the fire of combustion. The esoteric books list forty-nine fires, most of which seem to refer to various electrical and magnetic phenomena. The ‘controlled fire’ in this case might possibly refer to an ordinary furnace, although it is difficult to see how the formation of oxide of mercury is going to provide jet propulsion. More likely the ‘fire’ in question is one of the electrical ‘fires’ now more or less familiar to science.

The Samar then continues with a straightforward engineer’s account of the vimanas’

versatility, and gives performance figures which our aircraft designers might envy.

‘The subdivisions of the vimanas’ movements are: Slanting; Vertical ascent; Vertical descent;

Forwards; Backwards; Normal ascent; Normal descent; Progressing over long distances, through proper adjustment of the working parts which gives it perpetual motion.’

‘The strength and durability of these machines depend on the material used. Following here are some of the aerial car’s main qualities: It can be invisible; It can carry passengers; It can also be made small and compact; It can move in silence; If sound is to be used there must be great flexibility of all the moving parts which must be made of faultless workmanship; It must last a long time; It must be well covered in; It must not become too hot, too stiff, nor too soft;

It can be moved by tunes and rhythms.’

In fact there seems to be nothing it cannot do. It surpasses a helicopter in manoeuvrability. It can move silently without the helicopter’s rending uproar. It is so manoeuvrable that it can hover accurately a few measured inches off the ground. ‘Yudhishthiva’s vimana had remained at the height of four fingers’ breadth from the surface of the earth.’ ³⁶ As an alternative method of propulsion it can be driven solely by the power of sound, ‘tunes and rhythms’. It also seems capable of appearing and disappearing at will, owing to some particularly clever optical illusions.

36/ Drona Parva.

All these things can also be done by flying saucers.

Very well ! Supposing that a forgotten civilisation did once know how to build a primitive form of flying saucer here on Earth, you’re not going to tell us, we trust, that they could go to or come from other planets ? There is a limit to what we can believe !

Personally, I shall do no such thing. But the Samar will; and the Samar unfortunately is one of those documents designated ‘manusa’ or ‘strictly factual’. Strictly and factually it makes the simple statement: ‘By means of these machines, human beings can fly in the air and heavenly beings can come down to Earth.’

In other words, the ancients were quite accustomed to receiving men from other planets, even in those days.

Another passage states bluntly that some vimanas could ascend to the Solar Regions (Suryamandala) and thence out and beyond to the Stellar Regions (Naksatramandala), which

means that some vimanas were built to traverse the Solar System, or even the Galaxy itself.

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