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          Erich von Daniken in his 1973 photo-journal In Search of 
			Ancient Gods
          included two color photos of the inside of two subterranean corridor 
			on pages 79-80 along with this observation:
		
			
			"Did 
			extra-terrestrial beings give our early ancestors sophisticated 
			tools? 
			
			 
			
			When you walk through the caves in Ecuador and other South 
			American countries, you can't help asking the question. The caves 
			were certainly not the work of nature, which does not produce 
			right-angled curves, polished surface areas, extremely accurate 
			grooves and straight corridors. 
			
			 
			
			These gigantic caves on this and the 
			following page must have been cut out of the solid rock by tools 
			that are quite unknown to us."
		
		
          
          Across the Yucatan Peninsula, throughout Belize and Guatemala; 
			as far south as Northern Honduras, and as far north as the Chiapas of Mexico. 
		
           
		
          
          This was the land of the Olmec 
			and Maya. Here, just as in South America, we find 
			mysterious abandoned stone cities and stories of strange underground 
			chambers and tunnels. Fifty miles north of Mexico City in the 
			province of Hidalgo is the town of Tula. 
		
           
		
          
          Writing in 
			Lost Cities of North and Central America (1992)
          David Hatcher Childress tells of the French explorer-historian 
          Claude Joseph Desire Charney who, with the help of the locals, 
			cleared the jungle away from some overgrown mounds near the town.
          
          
          Childress wrote:
		
			
			"Charney soon came across huge basalt 
			blocks more than seven feet long that appeared to him to be giant 
			feet of statues. Indeed, they were, the incredible Atlanteans, 
			as they are known today, huge figures designed as columns to hold up 
			a gigantic temple. 
			
			
			(page 254)
		
		
          He then tells of his own observations:
		
			
			"Peter and I walked around 
			the site, and were most impressed by the gigantic Atlantean figures 
			that had been erected on top of one of the pyramids. 
			
			 
			
			They were 
			indeed huge, more than 30 feet high in four sections with stone 
			plugs neatly fitting into corresponding contacts. Each holds a 
			strange weapon on his side. 
			
			
			 
			
			 
			
			Zecharia Sitchin in "The Lost Realms" claims that these devices 
			are plasma guns, used for melting rock in the mining operations that 
			were the main reason for the construction of many of the early 
			cities in North and South America." 
		
		
          A closer look at The Lost Realms is called for. 
		
           
		
          On page 105 Mr Sitchin
          tells us,
		
			
			"Experts in earthworks, masters of stonework, diggers of 
			trenches, channelers of water, users of mirrors" - what, thus 
			endowed, were the Olmecs doing in Mesoamerica?
		
		
          Stelae show them emerging from,
		
			
			"Alters that represent 
			entrances into the depths of the earth (fig 58), or inside caves 
			holding a puzzling array of tools, as on the stelae 
          from La Venta in which it is possible to discern the enigmatic 
			mirrors being attached to the tool holders helmets. 
			
			 
			
			All in all, the 
			capabilities, the scenes, the tools appear to us to lead to one 
			conclusion; the Olmecs were miners, come to the new world to 
			extract some precious metals - probably gold, perhaps other rare 
			minerals too." 
		
		
           
		
          
			
			
			
		
           
		
           
		
          Mr Sitchin continues saying that the legends of Votan, 
			which speak of tunneling through mountains, support this conclusion. 
			
		
           
		
          So does the fact that among the Olden Gods whose worship was 
			adopted from the Olmecs by the 
          Nahautl
          people were the god Tepeyolloti, meaning "Heart of 
			the Mountain" was a bearded God of caves; his temple had to be 
			made of stone, preferably built inside a mountain. 
		
           
		
          His 
			glyph-symbol was a pierced mountain; he was depicted holding as 
			his tool a flamethrower  -  just as we had seen at Tula!. 
		
           
		
          Our suggestion that the flame thrower seen there 
			(both held by the Atlanteans and depicted on a column) was 
			probably used to cut through stone, not just carving on stone, is 
			manifestly supported by a stone relief known as Daiza No. 40 
			after the site in Mexico's Oaxaca Valley where it was discovered.
		
           
		
          It 
			clearly depicts a person inside a confined area, using the flame 
			thrower against a wall in front of him.
          
          
          The travels of Votan sometimes called Pacal Yotan 
			or just 
          Lord Pacal 
          by the Maya was covered in Irene Nicholson' s book 
			Mexican and Central American Mythology (1967).  
		
           
		
          Ms. 
			Nicholson tells us: From some unknown origin he was ordered by 
			the gods to go to America to found a culture. So he departed from 
			his home, called Valum Chivim and unidentified, and by the 
			way of the 'dwelling of the thirteen snakes' he arrived at
          Valum Votan (snakes are known to live in the underworld.
          
           
          
          The story continues:
		
			
			"From 
			there he traveled up the Usumacinta river and founded Palenque. 
			
			
			 
			
			Afterward he made several visits to his native home, on one of which 
			he came upon a tower which was originally planned to reach the 
			heavens but which was destroyed because of a 'confusion of tongues' among its architects. 
			
			 
			
			Votan was, however allowed 
			to use a subterranean passage in order to reach 'the rock of heaven'."
		
		
          The December 1975 issue of National Geographic's cover 
			story "The Maya, Children of Time" by Howard LaFay 
			tells of his visit to the ruins of
          Palenque in Mexico's state of Chiapas. 
		
           
		
          He explains how,
		
			
			"in 
			1949, Dr.
          Alberto Ruz Lhuiler - then in charge of the excavations at 
			Palenque - discovered the most elaborate pyramid tomb in the New 
			World."
		
		
          He then tells us of his trip into Pacal's tomb. 
		
			
			"... I 
			descended the stairway found by Ruz. The limestone passage 
			glistened moistly. You go down, steeply and deeply, through a series 
			of brilliantly engineered corbeled vaults.  
			
			
			 
			
			The awesome passage drops 
			away before you like the nave of a cathedral plunging into the 
			depths. What impresses you when you enter the tomb of mighty Pacal? 
			The silence. The void that comes with time, too dies.  
			
			
			 
			
			For 1,300 
			years Pacal had reposed here in absolute silence, in total darkness." 
			
			
			(page 761)
		
		
          David Hatcher Childress tells of his trip into Pacal's 
			tomb in 
          Lost Cities of North & Central America. 
		
           
		
          He describes the lid of 
			the sarcophagus, which is our main concern.
          
			
				- 
				
				"The monolithic 
			sarcophagus is 5 feet 5 inches high, 6 feet 10 inches wide and 9 
			feet 9 inches long. The massive, 5 ton cover slab is 12 and one half 
			feet long by 7 feet inches wide and 8 inches thick..." 
				   
- 
				
				"The sarcophagus lid has 
			attracted a great deal of attention because of its fascinating 
			detail of a rather odd scene. A man apparently Lord Pacal, is in a 
			seated position, and has an intricate, decorated scene around him" 
          
          Erich von Daniken 
			popularized the nation in the late 1960s that this sarcophagus lid 
			showed the portrait of an ancient astronaut
          taking off or landing in his spaceship, a stylized rocket. 
		
           
		
          Von 
			Daniken
          is worth quoting, 
		
			
			"Although the tombstone forms a frame in the 
			middle of which a being is sitting and leaning forwards (like an 
			astronaut in his command module.)   
			
			
			 
			
			This strange being wears a helmet 
			from which twin tubes run backwards. In front of his nose is an 
			oxygen apparatus. The figure is manipulating some kind of controls 
			with both hands.  
			
			
			 
			
			The fingers of the upper hand are arranged as if 
			the being was making a delicate adjustment to a knob in front of 
			him.  
			
			
			 
			
			We can see four fingers of the lower hand which has its back to 
			us. The little finger is crooked. Doesn't it look as if the being 
			was working a control such as the hand-throttle of a motorbike? 
			
			
			 
			
			The 
			heel of the left foot rests on a pedal with several steps." 
			
			
			
			(pages 197-l98) 
			
			
		
		
          However, for reasons that make a lot of sense, Childress 
			explains in his well researched book, Von Daniken's 
			explanation is highly unlikely. He then goes on to say:
		
			
			"A more 
			credible, and in fact, as interesting an explanation for the 
			sarcophagus lid of Lord Pacal is that the engraved relief represents 
			a division of the universe in three layers;
          the Upper World, the Middle World, and the Underworld." 
			
			
			
			( page 
			199)
		
		
          Howard LaFay in the 
			December Issue of 
          National Geographic's, "The Maya, Children of Time" 
			gave another interpretation:
		
			
			"Frozen in a perpetual fall, Pacal, 
			the great ruler of Palenque, drops at the instant of death into the 
			jaws of an underworld monster, just as the sun sinks each day in the 
			west. This interpretation holds that, again, like the sun, he will 
			ascend into the heavens, thus fulfilling a cosmic cycle." 
			
			
			
			(page 
			760)
		
		
          What do Maya legends say about the relief?. It is a vessel returning
          Lord Pacal (Pacal Votan to the underworld). I 
			believe the Maya, the descendents of Lord Pacal, told us in 
			their legends exactly what the scene represents.
		
          
          Once again our research proves that the real answer backs up our 
			theory. 
		
           
		
          I submit that Lord Pacal is shown sitting in a tunnel 
			car used to travel the 800 miles of subterranean passages (the 'dwelling 
			of the thirteen snakes') to the land of the underworld and his 
			home, Valum Chivim.