Uhh, myths. Grab you earplugs I think i`m just about to start one of my too long and too tiresome monologues.
The problem for me about all these myths are all those "additions" that are added over time.
Look at Atlantis, todays picture of Atlantis in the media is often one about a city with superior technologies. But the original stories about Atlantis from Plato only mention a city that was rich and modern for an ancient city but there is nothing about any overly advanced technologies. So the myth became bigger and bigger (especially thanks to the magic of Hollywood).
Of course it also works in the other direction - old myths being deconstructed by modern theories. Let`s take a look at Marco Polo. One of the key theories of the critics that say "he never was in China" claim as a proof that he didn`t mention the crossing of the Great Wall of China. If he had crossed such a significant building he would have certainly mentioned it. But he didn`t mention it - so he couldn`t have been in China. Well, that`s a nice theory, the catch is that these modern day critics forget an important detail. We all know the picture of the big wall that spans across mountain ridges and we think that is the Wall that surrounded China, that is the Wall Marco Polo would have had crossed and certainly mentioned if he had been there. But this big Wall on the mountain ridge, well that`s only a part of the northern walls. The great wall was actually a whole network of walls, build in different centuries, different regions and various sizes. Now Marco travelled along the Silk road in the south and the wall there was only about 3 meters high at the edge of a huge desert (you don`t need a high wall if you have a desert in front of it). A 3 meter high wall certainly wouldn`t be worth mentioning for an Italian who had not only seen some higher Citywalls in europa but also the ancient walls of Persia and maybe even some of the indian Moghulforts. But in our modern times we only think about the pictures the media shows us and those are of course the more impresive parts of the walls that make us believe that there is only one huge wall surrounding the whole country. Therefore the theory about Marco Polo not being to China bacause he didn`t mention the wall sounds somewhat logical to us.
And to cover another modern western myth: Despite being impressive to look at (especially here in the northern regions like the nearby Badaling) from the ground and certainly one of the wonders of the world - you can`t see the wall from space
Or let`s look the story about the Nazis and the UFO mentioned by Tyber earlier. Well, if we hear the term UFO most of us will think about flying saucers and aliens. But the term UFO itself was first used in the early 50`s by the US airforce. So back in the 40`s towards the end of the war nobody would have even dreamt of aliens being involved with the nazis. Like Tyber said the term means "Unidentified flying object" and if you had told some allied officiers about an unidentified flying object, aliens would have certainly been the last thing they thought about, they would have thought that you mean just another new fancy idea the german engineers have come up with -especially at the end of the war when the allies discovered all these plans and projects were discovered that luckily never were finished or only existed on paper. In case of the german UFO`s these prototypes might be especially interesting:
Sack AS-6 (german, prototype proved to be to ineffective so the project was s****ped in 1945) Lippisch P13a (the prototype was captured by the americans and had it`s first succesfull testflight in the USA)
Another protoype that somehow ends up to be shown as a german UFO were the early prototypes of the canadian (later also american)
Avrocar even if it was developed after the war.
So for me personally the myth is clear: Yes, they had a unsuccesfull flying saucer (the Sack plane above), but NO they didn`t have alien spacecrafts
They didn`t even need aliens to have crazy ideas about new warmachines. I mean look at the plans the allies found at the end of the war:
Panzer VII Maus (Mouse) 2 working prototypes for a 188 ton tank (the largest tank ever buil, as reference: the american Sherman had 30 tons, the Tiger II about 70 tons). And even as the prototypes showed that the tank was too heavy and slow too be usefull, they simply didn`t stop. Instead they planned the next bigger step (until the project was cancelled in 1943 because even building one would have used too much off the scarce german ressources): the 1000 ton
Landkreuzer P1000 Ratte (landcruiser Rat) and the
1500 ton P1500 Monster (suppossed to carry one of the big railroad artillery cannons). They just loved the idea that these wonderweapons would win the war by means of "shock and awe". And well if you look at the V1, V2 or the jetfighters at the end of the war, some of these ideas really worked (they luckily came too late and due to the lack of resources in too low numbers to change the course of the war).
So, for me there are no aliens in these myth - but unknown flying and driving machines? Of course, it`s part of our german spirit to believe that an advanced enough machine can solve almost any problem (some americans seem to have the same spirit with big guns).
So, if it comes to historical myth that actually interest me I love to check the "old" sources first before seeing all these modern theories. Knowing more of the background just makes it more fun to watch mystery shows because it might be easier to seperate the original myth form the modern "sensational upgraded"myth.
Some of the other "non mythical" videos seem to be part of bigger Discovery documentaries, I remeber seeing some of the scences here on DiscoveryChannelAsia. So to be honest, I just spent more time to look at other videos on that site than at looking for the actual myth videos. It`s a very interresting link, thanks for posting it Jayjay.
Besides all that - I only really believe in Myths that were "confirmed by the Mythbusters"
(who also have a some short videos on that site).
How about you? (Read 2680 times)