UFOs and Flying Machines in the Ancient World

UFOs and Flying Machines in the Ancient World

When I first came across this subject many years ago, I promptly dismissed it as historically and scientifically impossible.  After all, we only began to master flight just over a century ago, right? But as I became more curious and interested in ancient history, I began to realize that scientists, historians, archaeologists and other experts didn’t have the answer to the many questions I began to have.     

Next thing I knew, I was reading about ancient flying machines called vimanas and hidden, suppressed technology, and although many of these books were written by laymen without impressive titles or credentials, they actually made more sense to me than the history books we are taught at school and in universities!  

One of the most compelling arguments for flight in ancient times, in my opinion, are the Nazca lines in Peru.  Not only are most of the diagrams and pictograms on the flat desert plains meant to be seen from high above, but a hilltop had been flattened to look exactly like a modern-day runway.

Then there are artifacts that look like model planes, found both in Ancient Egypt and the ancient Americas.  Granted, some of them could be representations of birds or even a fish, but then there’s also an ancient written text describing flying machines called vimanas.  That’s right:  the Vedic texts of Ancient India mentions them several times.

http://www.theancientaliens.com/technology--quimbaya-airplanes

http://www.theancientaliens.com/technology-vimanas

https://exemplore.com/advanced-ancients/Ancient-Indian-Flying-Saucers

Erich von Däniken, who wrote Chariots of the Gods and similar books about what is now referred to as “the Ancient Alien”  theory, has found countless pictures, statues and artifacts which resemble flying craft, astronauts and other highly advanced technology.   Can we really dismiss it all as misinterpretation of historic records? 

Other people, some with impressive credentials in science and physics, believe that Tesla had developed a completely different "science" which included anti-gravitational electromagnetic energy.   One plausible theory is that this technology, which became hidden or suppressed and was only known to a select few, is being used to make modern-day flying craft in the shape of saucers.  Could these be the UFOs people keep seeing in our skies?

Whatever the truth may be, I have used this idea in Rhuna: New Horizons, which is set in Ancient India, and where the 'vimanas' are propelled by electromagnetic anti-gravitational forces.

https://www.amazon.com/Rhuna-Horizons-Urban-Fantasy-Book-ebook/dp/B0714JJV82

Here are some more references:

https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Gravity-Unified-Science-Adventures-Unlimited/dp/0932813100

https://www.amazon.com/Vimana-Machines-David-Hatcher-Childress/dp/1939149037

From Writing Letters to Writing Books

From Writing Letters to Writing Books

It began at the age of 10.  A girl I had meet on my first trip overseas with my parents asked to be my penfriend, and my parents agreed for me.  Answering her letters was part of my homework, which I usually did reluctantly at first...until a year or two later, when I lived overseas for a year and missed my friends back home. 

Then letters from home became the most exciting and special thing in my life!  Suddenly, the written word was magical and full of power. 

A year later, and back home, I got excited about letters from new friends I had made overseas.  And then I realized it was just as exciting to receive letters from people I had not even met!

And so, my teenage years were spent "penpalling" with like-minded girls of my own age all over the world.  I began reaching out to unusual and exotic countries, curious to learn what life in a faraway country was like. 

While there were many ways of finding new penfriends, such as ads in some pop culture magazines, there were also "Friendship Booklets" which were sent around from one person to another.  Someone starts a booklet, stapling a few pages together and writing their name, address, age and interests on one page.  They enclose it with the letter to one of their penpals, who then adds his/her name, address and details, and forwards it to another penpal. 

This way, Friendship Booklets reached avid letter-writers and helped like-minded people connect, and waiting several weeks for a reply was the norm back then.

Once you found a like-minded penpal, letters became long and involved, often expressing thoughts and feelings that one couldn't speak easily to anyone face to face.  In this way, letter-writing became an important form of expression combined with creativity, as one still had to form sentences, paragraphs and write in an entertaining style to keep one's penfriends interested and involved.

Those letter-writing days are long gone now, thanks to email and a life busy with other things, but the creative writing and expressions through words have developed and enriched my life, and I thank penpals and Friendship Booklets for these rewards!

Fantasy or Magical Realism?

When I first began writing my novels, I called them Fantasy and Historical Fantasy, but meanwhile I have decided that the new sub-genre “Magical Realism” is much more fitting.

One of the main things that make novels like mine more “Realism” than “Fantasy” is that the people are normal human beings (albeit some with special powers!) who have problems and concerns like everyone else.

For example, my main character, Rhuna, is a woman living in the mystical past of Atlantis and Ancient Egypt, but her relationships, everyday concerns and moments of self-doubt are things that every reader can understand and identify with. 

In the 3^rd and latest book, “Rhuna, The Star Child,” Rhuna is re-united with her 18-year-old daughter, who has spent the last few years under her father’s very restrictive control.  And what is the first thing she does when she arrives in Ancient Egypt to be with her mother?  She falls in love with the first intriguing man she meets – but he’s every mother’s worst nightmare because he has a terrible reputation as a philanderer, and he is the leader of an underground Dark Magic organization – which in our day may as well amount to a crime gang. 

So, Rhuna is confronted with the challenges of being the mother of a young woman who is involved with the worst kind of guy, and everyone says so.  But she’ll only drive her daughter away and right into his arms if she puts too much pressure on her to break it off. 

These are the kind of realistic situations and personal challenges my characters find themselves in, and I hope most readers enjoy this kind of light fantasy with realism they can identify with.