POLE SHIFT IN 2012

Solar System - Did you notice? In February 2001, the Sun did a magnetic polar shift. The next one is due again in 2012. NASA scientists who monitor the Sun say that our star's awesome magnetic field flipped 22 months ago, signaling the arrival of a solar maximum. But it wasn't so obvious to the average human. The Sun's magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere just a few months ago, now points south. It's a topsy-turvy situation, but not an unexpected one. "This always happens around the time of solar maximum," says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "The magnetic poles exchange places at the peak of the sunspot cycle. In fact, it's a good indication that Solar Max is really here." The Sun's magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with the north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun's southern hemisphere, until the year 2012 when they will reverse again. This transition happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year sunspot cycle -- like clockwork. Earth’s magnetic field also flips, but with less regularity. Consecutive reversals are spaced 5 thousand years to 50 million years apart. The last reversal happened 740,000 years ago. Some researchers think our planet is overdue for another one, but nobody knows exactly when the next reversal might occur. Although solar and terrestrial magnetic fields behave differently, they do have something in common: their shape. During solar minimum the Sun's field, like Earth's, resembles that of an iron bar magnet, with great closed loops near the equator and open field lines near the poles. Scientists call such a field a "dipole." The Sun's dipolar field is about as strong as a refrigerator magnet, or 50 gauss (a unit of magnetic intensity). Earth's magnetic field is 100 times weaker. When solar maximum arrives and sunspots pepper the face of the Sun, our star's magnetic field begins to change. Sunspots are places where intense magnetic loops -- hundreds of times stronger than the ambient dipole field -- poke through the photosphere. "Meridional flows on the Sun's surface carry magnetic fields from mid-latitude sunspots to the Sun's poles," explains Hathaway. "The poles end up flipping because these flows transport south-pointing magnetic flux to the north magnetic pole, and north-pointing flux to the south magnetic pole." The dipole field steadily weakens as oppositely-directed flux accumulates at the Sun's poles until, at the height of solar maximum, the magnetic poles change polarity and begin to grow in a new direction. Hathaway noticed the latest polar reversal in a "magnetic butterfly diagram." Using data collected by astronomers at the U.S. National Solar Observatory on Kitt Peak, he plotted the Sun's average magnetic field, day by day, as a function of solar latitude and time from 1975 through the present. The result is a sort of strip chart recording that reveals evolving magnetic patterns on the Sun's surface. "We call it a butterfly diagram," he says, "because sunspots make a pattern in this plot that looks like the wings of a butterfly." In the butterfly diagram, pictured below, the Sun's polar fields appear as strips of uniform color near 90 degrees latitude. When the colors change (in this case from blue to yellow or vice versa) it means the polar fields have switched signs. The ongoing changes are not confined to the space immediately around our star, Hathaway added. The Sun's magnetic field envelops the entire solar system in a bubble that scientists call the "heliosphere." The heliosphere extends 50 to 100 astronomical units (AU) beyond the orbit of Pluto. Inside it is the solar system -- outside is interstellar space. "Changes in the Sun's magnetic field are carried outward through the heliosphere by the solar wind," explains Steve Suess, another solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "It takes about a year for disturbances to propagate all the way from the Sun to the outer bounds of the heliosphere." Because the Sun rotates (once every 27 days) solar magnetic fields corkscrew outwards in the shape of an Archimedian spiral. Far above the poles the magnetic fields twist around like a child's Slinky toy. Because of all the twists and turns, "the impact of the field reversal on the heliosphere is complicated," says Hathaway. Sunspots are sources of intense magnetic knots that spiral outwards even as the dipole field vanishes. The heliosphere doesn't simply wink out of existence when the poles flip -- there are plenty of complex magnetic structures to fill the void. Or so the theory goes.... Researchers have never seen the magnetic flip happen from the best possible point of view -- that is, from the top down. But now, the unique Ulysses spacecraft may give scientists a reality check. Ulysses, an international joint venture of the European Space Agency and NASA, was launched in 1990 to observe the solar system from very high solar latitudes. Every six years the spacecraft flies 2.2 AU over the Sun's poles. No other probe travels so far above the orbital plane of the planets. "Ulysses just passed under the Sun's south pole," says Suess, a mission co-Investigator. "Now it will loop back and fly over the north pole in the fall." "This is the most important part of our mission," he says. Ulysses last flew over the Sun's poles in 1994 and 1996, during solar minimum, and the craft made several important discoveries about cosmic rays, the solar wind, and more. "Now we get to see the Sun's poles during the other extreme: Solar Max. Our data will cover a complete solar cycle." http://www.polereversal.com/

Pole Shift & Pole Reversal in 2012
In 2012 the next polar reversal will take place on earth. This means that the North Pole will be changed into the South Pole. Scientifically this can only be explained by the fact that the earth will start rotating in the opposite direction, together with a huge disaster of unknown proportions.
In my books I reveal the immense cataclysm that is going to torment the earth in the near future. It is presently assumed by most people and the general scientific world at large, that the rotation of the Earth is stable, however, as expounded in my previous works on this subject, this is not the case. The gruesome reports of the previous catastrophes should, hopefully, be clear to all.
The historical exploration of cosmology in previous books is founded on the translation of hieroglyphs, cracking of codes, unveiling of the magnetic reversal of the sun, study of old maps, decoding of astronomical clues, geological research, and the discovery of the most exciting archaeological find in modern times. Considering these I came to the following conclusions:
1. With clock-like regularity, sudden reversals and pole shifts are natural to the Earth. The result is worldwide destruction, and is supported by paleo-magnetic evidence and early manuscripts. 2. The reversal of the poles is attributed to the harmonic cycle of the magnetic fields of the sun. 3. Polar reversals can be calculated precisely on the basis of the sunspot cycle theory or the magnetic field theory, which the Maya and the Old Egyptians were privy to. These secrets are contained in the Labyrinth of Hawara, a huge complex consisting of three thousand rooms.
I explained abundantly clearly that life after a polar reversal is nothing but horror, pure unimaginable horror. All securities you presently have at hand, like - amongst others - food, transport, and medicines, will have disappeared in one big blow, dissolved into nothingness. As will our complete civilization. It cannot be more horrifying than this; worse than the worst nightmare. More destructive than a nuclear war in which the entire global arsenal of nuclear weapons has been deployed in one blow. Are you grasping the facts?
The earth will be subjected to total destruction. It will be many times worse than my description. Terrible hunger, cold and pain, and more will rule your daily life: without hope of a quick recovery, because all knowledge and resources will have been completely destroyed. That will be the reality of your daily life after the forthcoming polar reversal. And it is in this scenario you will have to try to survive.
The Riddle of the Magnetic Field Solved
At present scientists still do not know much about the mechanism that generates the magnetic field of the earth, which is more than frightening. Without doubt, our continued existence depends upon this. Thousands of years ago our ancestors knew that when this magnetic field tilts, a worldwide destruction takes place. The present geologists, astronomers and physicists know little about this. For that reason we are running towards our end, without a single acknowledgement from official sources.
So, what do our professors indeed know? Next to nothing. In short, the scenario is as follows: a solid central core rotates in the center of the earth. It is surrounded by a liquid iron-like layer, on top of which the earth's crust is continuously drifting. This whole structure therefore appears to be a huge rotating dynamo. In addition, the liquid layer rotates in the electrostatic field of the sun, recharging itself.
However, this is not at all efficient: more electrical potential is lost than gained. Just like a battery that is almost empty, it is difficult to recharge and it becomes exhausted more easily and quickly. This is the situation with the "battery" of the magnetic field of the earth. For this reason one sees the force of the magnetic field diminishing, almost 60% over the last two thousand years.
At this rate there will not be much left within a couple of decades! And then one can expect a reversal of the poles. But nobody knows in what way this will happen, nor what the consequences will be, in contrast to the Maya and the Old Egyptians who knew the terrible consequences only too well. Their science, their religion and way of life were completely based on them. They encoded their knowledge in Holy Numbers and in their architecture.
I needed days, weeks, months and years to follow their carefully applied clues and decode them. After an exasperatingly long search, I found out that these codes were connected with the catastrophic events on earth that were caused by pole shifts. Some of the codes were terribly complicated, although not incomprehensible. Once you have figured out the cipher, you are able to decipher the different levels of their scientific language. Then you can literally peel away layer after layer until you reach the ultimate result: the naked scientific figures regarding the background of these catastrophes.
Unknown Sunspot Cycle Theory Gives the Answer
The answers to these questions are alarming and devastating. All my deciphering points to a complex and ingenious science. Let me explain. When you, as a scientist, stumble upon results that the present astronomers do not know, you have, without doubt, stumbled upon something terribly important. Everybody will have to admit it, and that is exactly what I have done: I discovered an echo of a long-lost technological terminology; a majestic building with immensely sophisticated keys. Many numbers were based on the sunspot cycle, which they had discovered. A theory that is irrefutably correct and not known by our physicists! It cannot be more alarming!
This theory, in turn, correlates with the periodical polar reversals of the earth. I succeeded in cracking the whole puzzle and a large-scale structure appeared. Its development was such that the mathematical matrix ends on the day of the next polar reversal!
Just like the way we count down to the launching of a rocket, they counted down to the End of Times. On the last day of the calendar the magnetic north of the earth will change into the south. They knew this would not only mean the end of their civilization, but also of the whole civilized world!
Solar Lightning Causes the Polar Reversal
From legends and the sunspot cycle theory of the Maya, we can reconstruct the cause of a polar reversal. It has long been known that when a beam of lightning strikes a magnet, a reversal of the magnetic poles takes place. Let's apply this principle on a broader scale.
Our earth is a huge magnet, with its own North and South Poles. A short-circuit with another external "beam of lightning,” or magnet, can end in a catastrophic polar reversal. This means that the magnetic North Pole changes place with the magnetic South Pole. But what sort of external beam can cause this? What force is powerful enough to stop the rotation of the earth and revert it?
Only one object can cause this: our sun. You know from my book, The OrionProphecy that the magnetic field of the sun undergoes a drastic change every 11,500 to 12,000 years. Once a crucial point has been reached, it reverses instantaneously. Chaotic outbursts accompany this phenomenon and an immense cloud of plasma is catapulted into space. Then a shock wave of particles reaches our planet and the polar reversal of our earth commences.
With unknown power this solar lightning strikes our planet and causes a gigantic short circuit. That is the catastrophic truth behind a polar reversal of the earth. But how can we scientifically describe this fact? What is the precise physical cause that produces this polar reversal? Solar Storms Cause the Pole Shift
In the book Earth under Fire I came upon the correct theory. More precisely, in the chapter entitled "Solar Storms and Geomagnetic Flips." The astronomer Paul La Violette writes “Field flips have been accomplished experimentally, by shooting large quantities of loaded particles on a strong bipolar magnet. These particles are then caught in the magnetic fields and cause a "ring-stream" in them. At a certain moment this stream speeds up to such an extent that the field of the magnet reverses completely.”
In an equivalent scenario the field of the earth can reverse in just the same way. Astronomers know that the particles of a solar storm can compress the earth's magnetic field and temporarily speed up the power of the earth's field.
When the solar particles reach our planet, the electromagnetically-loaded particles will move in a spiral along the magnetic lines: from the magnetic north pole to the magnetic south pole and back. While passing this north-south axis, they will move into the direction of the equator. When they arrive there, they will join into a super powerful "ring current."
This "ring current" generates an intense magnetic field that is opposite to the earth's magnetic field. In order to overpower the earth's magnetic field you need a solar flame a hundred times more forceful than the biggest one we have ever seen. At the reversal of the magnetic field of the sun this degree will certainly be reached.
From here on, my point of view deviates from that expressed by Paul La Violette. Not only will the poles reverse, but also the earth will begin to rotate in the opposite direction! This can only occur when the "ring current" pushes the inner core of the earth in the opposite direction.
Everybody knows that when you change the poles of an electric motor, it will start turning the other way. The same holds for the interior of the earth. When an external short circuit takes place, the core cannot do otherwise but start turning in the opposite direction!
Destruction & Renewed Life
This catastrophe will not only result in the massive destruction of life on earth, but also its continued existence, however incomprehensible this may sound. Let me explain this. The magnetic field of the earth is not an accident of natural science. Its primary task is to protect us against cosmic and solar radiation. Without this field, life is practically impossible and in a short time, life on our planet would be extinguished. An all-burning, deadly radioactive radiation would torment the earth's surface.
So here we are talking about an incompatible duality: despite the fact that a huge amount of people, animals and plants will die, life will continue to exist, because the exhausted battery of the earth will be reloaded by the enormous solar storm. During thousands of years the magnetic field of the earth can therefore remain stable, protecting the flora and fauna against the damaging radiation. While doing this job, the inner battery of the earth will run out again and another cycle of destruction followed by creation and mutation will start anew.

Why the North Becomes South
Years ago I started my quest, intending to discover why pole shifts take place. I found answers that put my imaginative powers heavily to the test. But through my persistent search, I found evidences for it, telling of a highly advanced civilization that was exposed to three catastrophes. Each time, the movement of the earth’s axis was severely disrupted and the whole earth was subjected to a gigantic cataclysm.
From this we can state the following: The graph of human evolution does not appear as a straight line. Towards the end it draws steeply upwards, but after every disaster it slips tremendously quickly downwards. Priests and scientists knew this, and intertwined their knowledge with religion in order to make everybody fully aware of it. But with the passage of time, the knowledge was lost. Fourteen thousand years ago the priests knew how to decipher the secrets of polar reversals.
At present nothing is left of it, and there isn’t a single scientist now in possession of this knowledge; a catastrophic downfall in the pre-primeval age. Hopefully as many people as possible will hear my echo before it is too late. Or will they neglect the messages from our distant past?
The following text shows that in antiquity people were notified about the forthcoming end via The Book of Enoch: "Behold, destruction is coming, a great flood and it will destroy all living things." A great many codes hide in this short sentence, and they are relative to the forthcoming destruction. Scientific knowledge having been interwoven with religion. The Magnetic Field of the Earth Compared with that of a Dynamo
Everybody knows that the dynamo of a bicycle creates a magnetic field, and therefore electricity. As long as you keep cycling, the inner magnets keep turning around and electric power is generated. The earth has a somewhat similar, though more complicated, principle. Just like the bicycle dynamo, the magnetic field is generated in the earth’s core, because the liquid upper layer rotates with a different speed in relation to the earth’s core. There, the mechanical energy is transformed into magnetic energy, resulting in a North Pole and a South Pole.
Should you want to change the poles of a dynamo, you would have to change its direction of rotation! Expanding this principle, the earth also has to change its direction when the North Pole becomes the South Pole! So here we find a scientific proof for polar reversals. It correlates completely with the statement of the Old Egyptians on this subject: after every pole reversal the sun rose from the opposite direction. West Became East
Because the earth’s axis turns anti-clockwise, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. These are the plain facts. But, was it always like this? Is this a constant law? When you look at Pluto, you see it rotating from the east to the west, so that the sun rises in the west there. Was this the same situation on earth in earlier days? Shockingly enough, it was!
When you examine the Old Egyptians’ way of encoding, there is no other possible explanation. During their time, the earth underwent sudden drastic changes. Before the previous pole shift our sun rose in the west! From then on in the east, because the direction of rotation changed! When we apply this principle again, the sun will rise in the west after the forthcoming pole reversal!
As our present science knows, our earth cannot continue its undisturbed rotations indefinitely, and will end its task as a chronometer; it first undergoes a deceleration and then an acceleration in the opposite direction. The physical consequences of an abrupt deceleration are phenomenal: continuous earthquakes, cyclones, colossal tidal waves, scalding hot lava streams, et cetera., will wipe away the existing civilization of that time.
Of course it doesn’t stop there. Not only a deceleration takes place, but also a reversal. Instead of turning from west to east, it will start to turn from east to west. It cannot be more frightening, because it will bring along a destruction of immense proportions. Everything that took place beforehand will now happen again.
The magical Papyrus Harris speaks of a colossal catastrophe of fire and water when "the North becomes the South." Plato wrote about this in Politicus: "In certain periods, the universe has its present rotating movement and in other periods it turns in the opposite direction… Of all the changes that take place in the sky, this reversal is the biggest and the most complete."
Read again these words, remember them forever and pass them on to your children. Only in this way will this terrible truth remain in existence. It is the only way to preserve the next civilization from total destruction. Because, without this knowledge, within twelve thousand years it will be thrown back into the Stone Age, just like ours will be very soon now. Scientific Proof for a Reversal
The proof of previous events is found in the earth layers, the rocky crust of our planet. The lithosphere consists of igneous rocks like granite and basalt, topped by sedimentary rocks. The latter are formed on the igneous rocks, which form the original earth crust. One can regularly find places where the igneous rocks cover sedimentary rocks over large areas. Cuvier (1769-1832), the founder of the science of rib-skeletons was deeply impressed by the image they showed of successive earth layers.
He was convinced that the bottom of the sea had repeatedly changed into mainland and vice versa. From his studies he concluded that huge disasters had destroyed life in extensive areas. In Essay on the Theory of Earth he writes: "When the traveler moves through these fertile plains he will not have the slightest notion that nature has also had its inner wars, and that revolutions and catastrophes have tormented the terrestrial surface. But he will change his opinion when he starts digging in the ground that now looks so peaceful."
What he saw were the destructions caused by countless polar reversals. Doesn’t a sudden deceleration and acceleration of the earth mean a complete destruction of civilizations? The end of billions of animal lives? The Orphic Hymns remind this only too well: "When the arch of heaven, the mighty Olympus, tremendously trembled … and the earth was screaming terribly, the sea fumingly rose, tempestuous of purple waves."
For the survivors of the forthcoming catastrophe, the result of the next pole reversal will be more than overwhelming, as if a gigantic cosmic catastrophe could make the universe rotate in the opposite direction. The inhabitants of the earth will experience this in the same way, because all the stars and planets will now rise on a different horizon. Our sun too, the closest star, will experience this almost unbelievable situation: it will now rise in the west and set in the east, and oceans will also rise. Those are the results of a magnetic field out of control. Mountain-High Waves
The Choctaws from Oklahoma tell the following about this: "In the north appeared mountain-high waves, quickly coming closer." The Indians of Oregon tell the following story about Mount Jefferson, three kilometers high: "A huge flood inundated the land. Then the water drew back. A second time a flood inundated the land and drew back. Afraid of a next and even bigger flood, they cut the biggest cedar tree they could find and made the biggest canoe they had ever seen. When the flood came for the third time, they chose the strongest and cleverest man and woman and placed them in the canoe, together with enough food for many days. Then a bigger and deeper flood engulfed all the land and all the people."
A long time ago our ancestors gained scientific insight into the catastrophes that took place with a reversing magnetic field. To top that, they knew how to calculate this beforehand… We would now be building survival arks if wars hadn’t caused the loss of this knowledge. But it turned out to be different. All knowledge about the cataclysm that awaits us has been dissolved in the mist of times.
And when the earth reverses its direction of movement, the seas will again gather into immeasurable tides…and planetary lightning will electrocute huge parts of the earth. Without notice the astonished spectators will start fighting a battle they will lose against this planetary violence of nature adrift, and almost all will perish in a horrible way…

Cosmic RaysWhat are cosmic rays?
The base structure of all things is the atom. Atoms are full of movement, both internally (electrons orbiting the nucleus) and externally (interacting with other atoms). This movement creates kinetic energy that is measured in electron volts (eV). The atoms of the air we breathe move as fast as cannonballs and generate around 0.03 eV. They bounce into other atoms of air but, like bumper cars at a fairground, they don’t do much harm to each other.
Elsewhere we find atomic particles moving much faster than this, which create more heat and more energy. Electrons within the Sun’s plasma have up to 10,000 eV, and protons in the magnetosphere [*] are higher still, in the range of 10 - 100 million eV. [1] The atomic particles in the magnetosphere move at speeds of 400-800 kilometres per second.
This is all rather calm relative to the greater universe. Bombarding the Earth from light years away are the ions we call cosmic rays. [†] They can move close to the speed of light and can pack a walloping 50 joules of kinetic energy (3 × 1020 eV). That’s the power of a cricket ball moving at 160 km/h, packed into the size of a sub-atomic particle.
Most cosmic rays are the nuclei of atoms (protons), ranging from the lightest to the heaviest elements in the periodic table. The lightest elements are the most common, with hydrogen (89%) and helium (10%) dominating, along with other light elements (lithium, beryllium and boron). A few will be medium elements like carbon or oxygen, with heavier elements becoming less and less common. This is a similar relative abundance to the elements within our solar system. [2] This is just a small portion of my online book, Survive 2012 - a look into possible ways our world might end, and how to survive. Available in bookstores sometime before 2012, fingers-crossed...
Who discovered them?
In 1912 Austrian-American physicist Victor Hess found that his electroscope discharged more rapidly as he ascended in a balloon. He theorised that there must have been radiation entering our atmosphere from outer space, which he dubbed cosmic rays. In 1936 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery.

Where do they come from?
Cosmic rays hit Earth from every direction, but this tells us nothing of the location of their original source. Because they are magnetically charged, any interaction with a magnetic field, even an extremely weak one, will change their path. They are constantly deflected by magnetic fields throughout the galaxy, until any clues to their origin is lost. (However, it is possible to trace cosmic rays in other regions of the galaxy by the electromagnetic radiation they produce). [3]
Within our local planetary system the solar wind creates a magnetic field of its own. This makes it difficult for cosmic rays to make it to Earth - there is a correlation between the peak of the sunspot cycle and fewer cosmic rays reaching Earth. [4]
We don’t know where all the cosmic rays come from. The Sun emits low energy cosmic rays, typically accompanying solar flares. But even if every star in the known universe created cosmic rays in a similar manner, they would only explain a fraction of them.
The majority are believed to come from supernova explosions [‡] , which occur approximately once every 50 years in our Galaxy. They either originate from the explosion itself, or are created by the shock waves interacting with the surrounding interstellar gas. This reasoning is based on the energy requirements for creating cosmic rays, with only supernovas being deemed powerful enough to make them. In both cases the ejected matter expands at supersonic velocities, accelerating nuclei from the material they pass through, transforming them into cosmic rays. [5]
Other sources could be neutron stars, radio galaxies, X-ray binaries (such as Cygnus X-3), active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and black holes.
To measure cosmic rays directly, before they have been slowed down and broken up by the atmosphere, particle detectors can be placed on spacecraft and high altitude balloons. [6] Or they can be detected indirectly on our planet’s surface. When cosmic rays collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere, they create secondary particles (pions, electrons, positrons) which shower down to the Earth, spreading out over hundreds of metres. A grid of a hundred or so detectors is used to sample this area. The more particles that are detected, the stronger the cosmic ray. The atomic number of the cosmic ray’s nucleus cannot be discovered using this technique, just statistics of size and frequency. The biggest registered so far, a 50-joule cosmic ray, was at a Utah desert observatory in October 1991. On average one of this size will enter our atmosphere every second.
The world’s biggest cosmic ray observatory is being built in Argentina and will be operational in 2004.
Cosmic rays of this size are labelled "ultra high-energy". To date, scientists have been unable to determine the limits of the cosmic-ray spectrum, simply because they lack a detector large enough. The more powerful the particle, the less common it is, and the larger a detector needs to be to spot it. So even when the galaxy is quiet, there may be much larger cosmic rays hitting Earth and going undetected.
Ultra high-energy cosmic rays are a puzzle for scientists. Astrophysicists have decided that only black holes of a billion solar masses would have the energy to create them. Because interaction with the universal microwave background (remnants of the Big Bang) causes them to lose energy, their source cannot be more than 30 million light-years away. But within our own galaxy there are no known mechanisms to create such powerful particles. [7] An obvious answer comes to mind that most scientists will have difficulty accepting, that something within our galaxy - that has yet to be observed - could create them.
It is understandably hard for us to recreate the conditions of the cosmos here on Earth. The most modern artificial vacuums do not come close to achieving the emptiness of space, which has a density as low as one atom per cubic centimetre. Because ultra high-energy cosmic rays move close to the speed of light, time-scale adds to the problem. If we could observe a cosmic ray for 10,000 years, from the particle’s point of view only one second will have passed [8] . Viewing it for a microsecond in a particle accelerator will not tell us much. The complicated electrical and magnetic fields of outer space add to the difficulties. So, even if we can estimate where cosmic rays come from, we have no idea how they are created. And the time scales are impossible to recreate. Guesses and theories abound. Definitive answers do not.
Is the rate of bombardment constant?
No. This is one reason why carbon dating (http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/articles/00articles/taylorcap2.html) (the carbon isotopes they measure are created by cosmic rays) is inaccurate, because it assumes that the rate is a constant, which is a typical gradualist way of looking at things. Evidence from a half-metre long stalagmite that grew between 45 000 and 11 000 years ago in a cave in the Bahamas, shows that the cosmic ray intensity for that period was double what it is today - see here or here for more info.
What happens when they hit earth?
The combined energy of all the cosmic rays approaching Earth is massive. Fortunately the atmosphere and magnetosphere [§] protect us from them as effectively as a slab of concrete four metres thick. Even so, when cosmic rays collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere, they release showers of gamma rays, X-rays and subatomic particles. Most of these secondary particles will make it to the Earth’s surface. And the most energetic fragments, although rare, are capable of penetrating miles underground. [9]
Atomic structures mainly consist of space - space between the nucleus and electrons, space between the individual atoms. Because of this, sub-atomic particles can travel a great distance before they collide with anything. Consequently most cosmic rays and secondary particles pass right through houses, trees, rocks, birds and humans. But a few will occasionally crash into atoms within these structures and beings. Don’t be too alarmed; this cosmic radiation is minor compared to the Earth’s natural background radiation, which in total hardly affects any of us at all anyway.
Thousands of rays and fragments pass through our bodies every minute. [10] Outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, where some satellites and astronauts roam, cosmic rays are very dangerous indeed - their sheer frequency means they can ionise electronic circuitry and mutate the genes of astronauts.
How dangerous is flying?
Altitude matters. Whether you are flying in an airplane or living at a high altitude such as Tibet - the amount of cosmic radiation your body must deal with is increased.
During solar radiation storms, passengers on jets flying nearer Earth's poles can get zapped with than the equivalent of 10 chest X-rays
A 1996 paper in the American Journal of Epidemiology examined the incidence of cancer among 2,740 Air Canada pilots. The group had a sharply higher incidence of four specific types of cancer compared to the general population: myeloid leukemia, astrocytoma, prostate cancer, and malignant melanoma. Myeloid leukemia is definitely associated with radiation exposure, and occurred in the Air Canada pilot group four times more frequently than in the general population. A Danish study also found an association between exposure to cosmic radiation and leukemia among aircrew - it was published in Lancet 1999; 354: 2029-31 Astrocytoma (a type of brain cancer) occurred twice as often in the Air Canada pilot group as in the general population, and increased incidence has also been found in other studies of airline pilots.Significantly higher incidences of prostate cancer were found in both the Air Canada study and another study of British Airways pilots. Current thinking is that this might be related to electromagnetic radiation from weather radar and other avionics rather than from cosmic radiation.A study of female airline flight attendants in Finland and Denmark showed an increased incidence of breast cancer, and a study of male U.S. Air Force pilots showed they had significantly more genital and testicular cancer than non-flying USAF officers.
In 2000, the European Union introduced legislation which requires all European airlines to monitor cosmic radiation levels during flight and to inform aircrew of the possible health risks.
NASA says:
"Airline pilots, crew, and passengers definitely are hit by more cosmic radiation than someone on the ground. The radiation is stronger at higher altitudes, and especially over the poles. Individual flights are almost certainly not a problem, since the radiation will never get anywhere near the 2.5 millirem per hour maximum allowable radiation dose (OSHA) even for a 41,000 ft flight right over the poles. But it is possible that pilots and crew accumulate enough to slightly increase their cancer risk. A Finnish study showed a higher breast cancer rate for stewardesses than for non-stewardesses, but there are other environmental factors (air quality for instance) that could affect this.
The weight of shielding required to protect against this radiation would make these flights nearly impossible. So there's not really anything you can do except decide not to fly."
The invisible passenger : radiation risks for people who fly by Robert J. Barish
Time Magazine - JULY 9, 2001, VOL.158 NO.1
"Yet to become a legal issue is the worry over cosmic radiation. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, at 12,000 m air travelers are exposed to as much as 265 times the radiation dose they receive on the ground. Some airlines take pregnant female flight attendants off airborne duties to avoid exposing the fetus to cosmic rays. Passengers who make a transpolar journey, like the new direct Hong Kong-New York routes operated by Continental Airlines, United Airlines and, from September, Cathay Pacific, receive on average the equivalent to three chest X rays. (The rays concentrate around the North Pole's magnetic attraction.) Five round-trips on these flight paths would put the traveler in excess of the recommended annual limit for exposure to radiation, experts say. Already, since the flights commenced in March, Continental and United have rerouted one each, Continental citing passenger health concerns, United radio interference from solar radiation. (United said last week it was canceling its flight from next month for business reasons.) Maria Blettner, head of Germany's Radiation Protection Commission, is finishing a large-scale mortality study on cancer among flight crews, which is examining the medical history of 22,000 pilots and 50,000 flight attendants. Results are due soon, but Germany's Cockpit Association, a professional organization of pilots and engineers, warns the findings will reveal breast-cancer rates among stewardesses may be twice as high, and skin-cancer rates up to 15 times as high as those of the general populace."Should I worry?
Although you can’t feel them, cosmic rays, and/or their secondary particles, pass through you all the time. Mostly they won’t touch the sides. But, occasionally they will connect with one of your atoms, and, if your DNA repair system doesn’t kick in, you might in some way mutate. Standard theories of Darwinian evolution always mention random mutations, but rarely point out the mechanism behind them - cosmic rays are a leading cause.
At current levels, unless you are a pregnant frequent flier, there are many, many other factors in your daily life that do you more harm. But if the level of cosmic ray bombardment increases - as it has done in the past - it might be prudent to investigate ways of shielding yourself from them.Links:
Cosmic Ray Deflector Society (not serious)
Cosmic Ray Intensities at Major Cities Worldwide (bottom of the page)
Online Cosmic Ray Detector
High Altitude Radiation Monitoring Service
Radiation detector and software
Radioactive Products and Household Sources Of Radiation
Dosimeters - for measuring an individual’s exposure
Radiation exposure for aircrew - a big article from AVWeb
Using the Moon as a cosmic ray detector
Downloadable program - allows flight crew to calculate their levels of exposure

EuropeEngland

Silbury Hill, Wiltshire has been carbon-dated at 2660 years BC, the same era as the Giza pyramids. It contains an estimated 340,000 cubic metres of chalk and earth, rising to a height of 39.6 metres. The base of the monument is 167m in diameter and it is perfectly round. The flat top is 30m across. It is part of a sequence of ancient sites in the area that are in alignment.
Despite its external appearance, this is actually a step pyramid, consisting of six, six metre high steps. The steps are walled with blocks of chalk, which easily deteriorates when left exposed. Consequently the builders preserved it, by covering it with earth and grass.
Excavations have revealed that it is not a burial mound. This is just a small portion of my online book, Survive 2012 - a look into possible ways our world might end, and how to survive. Available in bookstores sometime before 2012, fingers-crossed...
Ireland
Near Drogheda, 45 kilometres north of Dublin on the east coast of Ireland, exists a concentration of standing stones, earthworks and passage graves. One of these, Newgrange, is the largest pre-historic structure in Ireland - and one of the oldest in the world. It dates back to 3250 BC.
It appears that we have drifted a long way from what might be defined as a pyramid. This egg-shaped mound of pebbles was once 14 metres in height with a diameter of 76 metres - hardly a massive monument compared to the largest pyramids, but still more than a days work. Like Silbury Hill it has no straight sides, and appears not to point to any cardinal directions, astronomical events or other structures. But if you venture inside, on the right day of the year, something magical happens. Like the Egyptian pyramids, Newgrange contains a passage and chambers. These were constructed using giant slabs of stone, and then buried under a mound of pebbles. At the end of an 18 metre long, one metre wide passage are three chambers. The roof above them, although not required to withstand as much weight, uses the same corbelled design as the pyramids in Egypt (good pic here). At dawn on the midwinter solstice, the suns rays shine through a special window above the passage entrance, down the passage and illuminated the centre of the chambers. Precisely and deliberately.
It isn't so big, yet has much in common with other pyramids, especially those in Egypt. Is it's location of any importance? We'll check on that soon.

Canary Islands
The Canary Islands are a popular solution to the location of Atlantis, based on their location west of the Mediterranean, and their mountainous terrain - they are part of a volcanic archipelago with marine trenches as deep as 3,000 metres and mountains as high as 3,718 meters above sea level.
Archaeological findings suggest that the original inhabitants were Berbers who arrived from north Africa around 200 B.C. However, some early navigators reported the Canarians as being a race of tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed people, perhaps suggesting a northern European (or Atlantean) origin.
The Canary Islands were part of the route Columbus took to the Americas - he stopped in Tenerife for provisions in 1492. Dozens more photos here
The six pyramids in Tenerife are quite small, like training exercises for those in Central America (one could almost suggest that it was Columbus that built them!). They are found near Guimar, a town on the eastern shore of Tenerife Island, about 40 kilometers (24 miles) south of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Long dismissed by locals as mere piles of rubble, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl turned up and declared that they were indeed pyramids, not unlike those in Tucume, Peru that he had been studying.
Only a small study [i] has been of them to date, with these aspects being ascertained:There are six step pyramids, reaching a maximum height of about 12 metres. They are rubble-filled, with facings of black volcanic stone, and are the result of multiple episodes of construction. The main complex of three pyramids were found to be astronomically orientated with the sunset of the summer solstice. Stairways ascend from a level plaza to the top of each pyramid, where there is a flat summit platform covered with gravel. The stairways are all on the west wall, suggesting a ceremonial purpose, because someone ascending them on the morning of the solstice would be directly facing the rising sun.Greece
There are 16 pyramids in Greece. Ligourion
The Ligourion pyramid is found in northwestern Peloponnese, near the village of Ligourion, at the base of Mount Arachnaeum, not far from the site of ancient Epidaurus. Unfortunately it has almost totally disappeared, with its blocks being a handy source of masonry for the locals. Some of the sandstone blocks were used to construct the walls of a nearby church. Originally, its base measured 14 by 12 metres and using the method of thermoluminescence it has been dated to roughly 2100 B.C. Hellenicon
The Hellenikon pyramid is located near the village of Argolis. The Academy of Athens used thermoluminescence to determine an erection date of approximately 2720 BC, predating the earliest Egyptian pyramid by at least 100 years. Chania Pyramid
This pyramid is located in the south of the Chania area, Crete, at an altitude of 290 m above sea level. It is roughly 8.5 metres high with a circumference of 29 metres. The interior of the cone has a chamber, carved out of the solid rock, of approximately 2.2 by 2.1 by 1.4 metres. Mount Taygetus
There is a big question mark over whether this rock structure is manmade or a natural occurrence. Visitors have described how the texture of the rock surface suddenly becomes smooth, relative to that below, where the pyramid shape begins.
"The ancient Greeks believed that the sun drove in a chariot across the sky; hence the Rhodians, who worshipped the sun as their chief deity, annually dedicated a chariot and four horses to him, and flung them into the sea for his use. Doubtless they thought that after a year's work his old horses and chariot would be worn out. From a like motive, probably, the idolatrous kings of Judah dedicated chariots and horses to the sun, and the Spartans, Persians, and Massagetae sacrificed horses to him. The Spartans performed the sacrifice on the top of Mount Taygetus, the beautiful range behind which they saw the great luminary set every night. It was as natural for the inhabitants of the valley of Sparta to do this as it was for the islanders of Rhodes to throw the chariot and horses into the sea, into which the sun seemed to them to sink at evening. For thus, whether on the mountain or in the sea, the fresh horses stood ready for the weary god where they would be most welcome, at the end of his day's journey." [ii] Italy
A relatively modern pyramid was built by Gaius Cestius in Rome, 1st century BC. Built of concrete and faced with marble, it has an interior tomb vault and is 35 metres high. It was constructed during the "Cleopatra craze" in architecture that swept across Rome at the time.Montevecchia (= Old Mount in English)
Discovered only recently (from the air), in the north of Italy, 40 kn from Milan, are three pyramids, dating back to 3,000BC, and in the same alignment as Giza and Orion. The tallest is 150 metres in height, and beneath the earth are stone buildings, yet to be excavated. Alternatively, they could just be terraced hills, with stone support structures...

More here (in Czech), and here (in Italian), and here or here (in English)OthersAstana, Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan’s capital city of Astana is adding an iconic structure to its cityscape. World-renowned architect Lord Norman Foster has designed a "Palace of Peace," a glass pyramid with a 62-meter base, at President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s behest. The building, scheduled for completion in the summer of 2006, is designed to serve as a symbol of inter-ethnic harmony in Kazakhstan. Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun
Many experts have stated that it is not man-made. A few experts say it is. Located at the town of Visoko, northwest of Sarajevo, the 213 metre hill, upon which the Old town of Visoki was once sited, is roughly pyramid-shaped. More at Wikipedia, and the "official" site.

Egypt
Egypt is home to the most famous pyramids of all, three well-formed examples located at Giza on the outskirts of Cairo. Just as there are pyramids throughout the world, it should come as no surprise that Egypt has more than just these three. Egyptologists have actually catalogued over 90 major pyramids that were built over the course of 1,000 years (roughly 2600-1550 BC).
All the pyramids can be found close to the west bank (none on the east bank) of the Nile, with the majority found along a 17-kilometre stretch incorporating Abu Ghurob, Saqqara and Dashur. Giza is 11 kilometres further north. Because of their size and relative proximity, when visiting a site it is quite normal to see other pyramids on the horizon.
Although each Egyptian pyramid has individual features, they are far more alike than houses in our modern suburban streets. The shape we know. The heights range from 17 to 146 metres, with the faces at an angle to the base of 42-57 degrees, with a couple of 18 metre pyramids attaining more than 70 degrees.
The largest pyramids were built in quick succession:
"The truly gigantic stone pyramids were built over the course of only three generations: Sneferu, Khufu and Khafre. If Sneferu did indeed build the Meidum pyramid as well as his two stone pyramids at Dashur, his pyramids alone contain more than 3.5 million cu. m (124 million cu ft.) of stone. All the other pyramids of Egyptian kings combined (excluding queens' and other satellite pyramids) contain only 41 per cent of the total mass of the pyramids of Sneferu, his son Khufu and grandson Khafre." [1]
This is just a small portion of my online book, Survive 2012 - a look into possible ways our world might end, and how to survive. Available in bookstores sometime before 2012, fingers-crossed...
It makes sense, on first impressions, to label these pyramids as gigantic mausoleums for deceased pharaohs. They typically contain secret entrances and passages, some which lead to rooms underneath the pyramid, and some that just come to an abrupt dead-end. The main rooms have stress-relieving chambers above them - to stop the immense weight crushing down and destroying whatever was in the room. These rooms have contained sarcophagi, but never with a body still within, which has prompted alternative researchers to look for other, non-burial purposes for these structures. Some sarcophagi were even found closed and sealed, yet still empty!
Ancient Egyptian texts have mentioned 80 men being required to set the lid on a stone sarcophagus. This is in keeping with the overall immensity of size and weight. The pyramids represent inconceivable size and unbearable weight. To my thinking they represent the scale between the ordinary and the incredible, between a simple burial chamber and a pyramid, between a standard earthquake or hurricane and a global cataclysm.
In close proximity to the major pyramids, there are usually temples and/or satellite pyramids - miniatures commonly known as Queens' pyramids. These can also contain passages and chambers.
The Great Pyramid of Cheops/Khufu
The pharaoh Khufu reigned for 23 years from 2789 to 2767 BC, and it is the accepted orthodox view that he constructed the Great Pyramid as his personal tomb. However, the pharaoh's body was not found within it, nor any treasure, or anything remotely related to a funeral. No mummy has ever been found in a pyramid in Egypt. Mummies have always come from mastabas or tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
Independent researchers have come up with an array of alternative dates for the construction of the Giza pyramids. But if we rule out the endless possibilities of inter-galactic visitors, there are no solid theories as to who else could possibly have made them.

Location
The Great Pyramid is huge. Its base covers 13.6 acres and for its weight estimates vary between 5.75 - 6.5 million tons, based on 2.3 - 2.6 million blocks. [2] Napoleon's surveyors calculated that the three Giza pyramids contained so much stone that they could build a three metres high by one metre thick wall around the perimeter of France with it.
The pyramid is located at 29 degrees, 58 minutes, 51.06 seconds north latitude, and 31 degrees, 9 minutes, and 0.0 seconds east longitude. This is very close to 30 degrees north, and it has been suggested that the Giza Plateau was the best spot to place such an immense weight, whereas other areas would not be able to cope. [3] The line of 30 degrees latitude is only a mile or two the north, so they may have thought it was the best they could do, short of building an unstable pyramid that might not last the required millennia.
Some believe that Giza is a special location that is at the centre of the earth's land mass. If you follow the east/west parallel around the globe, it crosses more land than any other parallel. The same goes for the north/south meridian that intersects with Giza. These two lines also cross in the ocean.

Although there appears to be more land along the Russia / Alaska parallel, if you use a globe this illusion disappears.
Much has been made of the extreme accuracy of the Great Pyramid's alignment to north, with less than 1/15 of one degree of error. [4] However, this might be the least remarkable feature, when you consider the math that has been built into it (see below).
The top of the two giant pyramids are at the same height, although the Great Pyramid is actually larger because its base is lower. A lot of effort was put into creating this effect:
"the base of Khufu's pyramid is level to within just 2.1 cm.in building the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre the ancient masons started on a sloping plateau c. 7-10 m (23-33 ft) higher than the eventual base and in each case left a massif of rock in the body of the pyramid" [5]
It is hard enough to fathom why this design aspect was so important in Giza, without considering that in Teotihuacan, Mexico they did the same thing with their Pyramids of the Sun and Moon.
Another feature which is rarely mentioned is that the four faces of the pyramid are slightly concave, a feature probably unduplicated anywhere else, ever. Some say that this curvature is the same as the earth itself, which would add weight to ideas regarding the pyramid as a model of our planet.

The centre of each side is indented to form an eight-sided pyramid. The effect is not visible from the ground or from a distance but only from the air, and then only under the proper lighting conditions. [6]
Mathematics
The measurement used in the construction of the pyramid is known as the pyramid inch "PI". It is equal to 1.0011 modern inches. Twenty-five pyramid inches made up one "Sacred Cubit".
The perimeter of the pyramid's base divided by twice its height equals "pi" to 5 decimal places:
9131*4 / 5813*2 = 3.141579+
The dimensions used are pyramid inches, but because this is a ratio, any form of measurement will give the same result. In this way it is future proof, in that alien beings could arrive and inspect it thousands of years from now, and still derive pi.
What makes this extraordinary is what is required to make this ratio occur - the slope of the pyramid's sides needs to be precisely 51 degrees, 51 minutes, and 14.3 seconds. Of the 90 major pyramids in Egypt, the Great pyramid of Giza is the only one with this angle.
The perimeter of the base is equal to the calendar year - 365.24 pyramid cubits
Many, many other equations have been discovered, with dozens of books consisting of not much more than pyramid numbers. Some are ridiculous, and most are hard to prove without a single, definitive source of measurements. Many are so complicated that they appear contrived.
By focussing on the few definites - location, size, angle and alignment, we can be certain that someone, long ago, was trying to impress upon us that they knew things. They wanted our attention.
Nubia


Nowadays located in northern Sudan, the ancient kingdom of Nubia had an incredible 180 pyramids. Admittedly, some were only a few metres in height, however a few attained a height of 40 metres or more. Built much later than their Egyptian counterparts, they were created in the last millennium BC through until about 350 AD, and situated along the banks of the Nile. For more information, see Mark Lehner's "The Complete Pyramids".
Ziggurats
You've probably heard of the biblical Tower of Babel. The word "Babel", in its original Akkadian language means "the gate to god". In Mesopotamia attempts to recreate the Tower of Babel were known as ziggurats - man-made mountains with a shrine at the top.
A ziggurat is a pyramidal, stepped temple tower. characteristic of the major cities of Mesopotamia (now in Iraq) from about 2200 until 500 BC. The ziggurat was always built with a core of mud brick and an exterior covered with baked brick. It had no internal chambers and was usually square or rectangular, averaging either 170 feet square or 125 170 feet (40 50 metres) at the base. Approximately 25 ziggurats are known, being equally divided in number among Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria.
No ziggurat is preserved to its original height. Ascent was by an exterior triple stairway or by a spiral ramp, but for almost half of the known ziggurats, no means of ascent has been discovered. The sloping sides and terraces were often landscaped with trees and shrubs (hence the Hanging Gardens of Babylon). The best-preserved ziggurat is at Ur. The largest, at Chogha Zanbil in Elam, is 335 feet (102 m) square and 80 feet (24 m) high and stands at less than half its estimated original height. The legendary Tower of Babel has been popularly associated with the ziggurat of the great temple of Marduk in Babylon. [7]


As you can see from the photos, ziggurats do not have the geometric beauty of their cousins the pyramids. Yet, when broken down to components, they are very similar - religious purpose (typically there was a shrine at the summit), gigantic size, stepped and stair cased. They are also very old - the Ur ziggurat dates to the 25th century BC, making it contemporaneous with the Giza pyramids. Therefore I feel that they belong in our studies of pyramids and their purpose.
TurkeyMt Nemrut, Kâhta is a natural mountain (2150m), with a 50 metre artificial peak built on top. It was constructed as a tomb for King Antinochus I during the period 80 B.C-72 B.C. If pyramids are meant to represent mountains, the builders of this one have gone a step further by placing it on top of a real mountain.


Not just an artificial mound, this site features huge (10 metre high) statues.

North America
As with other continents, the mounds and pyramids of North America vary greatly. It could be that humankind has a primal need to build fake mountains, and that there are absolutely no connections between these sites. Or perhaps size and shape are irrelevant, and location is everything, and the guidelines for their placement was once universally known. Monk's Mound at Cahokia, USA
Just east of St. Louis, near Collinsville, Illinois is the largest earth mound in the western hemisphere. It is 30 metres high and dates back to 1100-1400 AD.
"The largest of these mounds, Monk's Mound covers 16 acres; it rests on a base 1,037 feet long and 790 feet wide, with a total volume of approximately 21,690,000 cubic feet, a base and total volume greater than that of the pyramid of Khufu, the largest in Egypt. In all the world, only the pyramids at Cholula and Teotihuacan in central Mexico surpass the Cahokia pyramid in size and total volume. No other structure in the United States approached the size of the Cahokia pyramid until the building of airplane hangars, the Pentagon, and skyscrapers in the twentieth century." [1]
There are more than one hundred other, smaller mounds at Cahokia - as well as Woodhenge, which is of course a wooden counterpart to England's Stonehenge. This is just a small portion of my online book, Survive 2012 - a look into possible ways our world might end, and how to survive. Available in bookstores sometime before 2012, fingers-crossed...
According to the Cahokia website, around March 1998 something unexpected happened:
"During the process of installing horizontal drains to relieve the internal water in Monks Mound that had contributed to several severe slumping episodes along the west side (Second Terrace), the drilling rig encountered stones about 140 feet in and 40 feet below the surface of the Second Terrace. The operator said it felt like "soft stone," probably limestone or sandstone, and that it was mostly cobbles or slabs at least six inches in diameter. The drill went through about 32 feet of stones and the drill bit broke off. We have no idea what it is, what shape or size it is, or why it is there. It should not be there. No other cores or excavations have revealed stone in Monks Mound or any other mound at the site, or, as far as we know, at other Mississippian mound sites. We do not know its vertical thickness or the extent of it horizontally, other than the 32 feet that the drill went through."Etowah Mounds of Cartersville, Georgia, USA
These were made during the same Mississippian Temple Mound Building Period, as were mounds at Moundville (near Tuscaloosa, Alabama) and at Cahokia - roughly 700 AD to 1400 AD.
The six flat-topped earthen knolls and a plaza were used for rituals by several thousand Native Americans between 1000 and 1500 A.D. The largest mound has a height of 63 feet. Only nine percent of this site has been excavated, but we already know that the mounds have caves underneath them as do some Mayan and Giza pyramids.
It may also just be a coincidence, but there is a Limonite mine at Etowah. Limonite is a iron-bearing ore with a very special use - as radiation shielding for atomic bomb tests, nuclear reactors and space stations. It is also what gives Mars its red colour.Poverty Point, Louisiana, USA
Poverty Point combines mounds with an aspect of ancient Rome - an amphitheatre. Consisting of concentric ridges 5-10 feet high and 150 wide, the construction has a diameter of ¾ of a mile, five times the diameter of the Colosseum in Rome. The ridges were built with 530,000 cubic yards of earth (over 35 times the cubic amount of the Great Pyramid of Giza). Of the earth mounds, one has a base of 700 feet by 800 feet and is 70 feet high. It is shaped like a bird.Miamisburg Mound, Ohio, USA
This mound is conical, like Silbury Hill in England. Archaeologists believe that it was constructed by the Adena Indians (800 BC - 100 AD). The mound sits on a 100 foot high bluff, and measures 877 feet in circumference. Originally it attained a height of 70 feet.See also the Conus Mounds of NE USA - they are not very big, but they are manyIt is hard to determine how many mounds were built in North America, for many have been destroyed by modern civilization - but there were many. One hundred and fifty years ago, for example, there were approximately 20,000 Indian mounds in Wisconsin alone, with a large portion of them alongside the Mississippi River. Now, after a century of plowing, town construction and urban sprawl [2] , there are less than 2,000 mounds remaining in the state.
As anyone who was in the area in 1927 would tell you: the Mississippi floods. In that year over one thousand people drowned, almost a million people were forced from their homes, and over five million acres of farmland were ruined. Regular flooding replenishes the soil in this region and makes it rich. This is the same reason the ancient Egyptians lived alongside the Nile. In fact, the similarities between the Mississippi and the Nile (floods and pyramids) caused the original settlers of Illinois to name new towns after places in Egypt, such as Goshen, Cairo and Thebes.
Floods. Pyramids.
Central America
This region has many, many pyramids. Here I choose to merely describe a handful of them.Palenque, Mexico
There are three stepped pyramids within this ancient Mayan ceremonial centre, located in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The more famous of these is the Pyramid of Inscriptions. Its height of 20 metres consists of eight stepped storeys, not counting the temple on top. Inside the temple, two large vaulted chambers house three glyphic panels which collectively make the second longest known ancient Mayan inscription . Deciphered in the 1970s, the inscriptions revealed that the funerary crypt within the pyramid belonged to Lord Pacal, whose reign ended with his death in 683 AD. The crypt is found via a secret staircase below a slab in the temple floor. Within this crypt was found a five-ton slab of carved rock lying on top of Pacal's sarcophagus. Much has been made of this lid, especially by Erich von Daniken, because of its bizarre imagery - easily taken to be a man in a spaceship. See it here Central American pyramids are closely related to the ziggurats of Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria: they are step pyramids with a central staircase, and a shrine at the top. Size and geometric perfection seem to be less important than religious and mathematical function.
Pyramid of Inscriptions (left)
Ziggurat (below)

Teotihuacan
Near Mexico's current capital, this city of ruins was thought to have been home to 125,000 people in 600 AD. Teotihuacan was founded in 100 BC, and deserted by 750 AD, which sounds tragic yet few civilizations manage to last 850 years.
Founded by who? Archaeologists have been trying to figure this out and have few clues to work with. The civilization was smart enough to create this massive city, but no trace has yet been found of a writing system - there is the occasional pictograph, but no hieroglyphs or words have been found.
Whoever they were, they were succeeded by the Toltecs, and then by the Aztecs. The Aztecs named the place ("Place of the Gods") and its major structures.
From the air, it looks not unlike a computer circuit board, containing two large processor chips, the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, and 600 smaller pyramids. Once again, there are parallels with Egypt - the construction of satellite pyramids. The Pyramid of the Sun has sides of 225m, giving it a similar base area to the Great Pyramid of Giza, although it is only half the height. Like the Great Pyramid, it incorporates the mathematical ratio of "pi". The perimeter of the base of the Pyramid of the Sun is 4pi times its height, whereas the Great pyramid of Giza's base perimeter is 2pi times its height.
Another Giza connection: the tops of the Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun are level, because the smaller Pyramid of the Moon is built on an elevated location. The same relationship exists between the two largest pyramids at Giza.
And another. Bottom middle of the red layout below is The Citadel, which many consider to be the base of a pyramid the size of the Pyramid of the Sun, that was never built. Had it been, the three main pyramids would've had a similar Orion layout as Giza.


In 1971 it was discovered that the Pyramid of the Sun was built over a natural cave with four chambers, which had been enlarged from a natural lava tube (the region is very volcanic). The cave was obviously a sacred place for it contained remains of offerings and rituals from a period much earlier than the pyramids.
It is common for ancient sites to have been built in stages, reinforcing the idea that it is the location that is most important. The Pyramid of the Moon went through five distinct phases of building successively larger pyramids on top of previous ones, often partially destroying the previous pyramid in the process. If the unknown civilization had continued for a few hundred years more, perhaps even larger pyramids would have been built on top of the existing ones. Anyone looking for meaning in the angles and lengths of the pyramids should perhaps take into account the prior phases buried beneath the last layer of construction.An interesting fact highlighted by Graham Hancock in Fingerprints of the Gods is that some of the pyramids contain broad, thick layers of mica, which had to be transported over 2000 miles from Brazil.[3] These sheets are ninety feet square and were not visible, but merely another layer in the construction. Perhaps its purpose was radiation shielding? Sheets and rods of mica bonded with glass can tolerate extreme temperatures, radiation, high voltage, and moisture. One of the modern uses of mica is windows for microwave ovens. It is also used in Geiger counters and cosmic ray detectors. (see here ) Chichen Itza
The Pyramid of Kukulkan is 30 metres in height, with sides that measure 55.3 metres. Graham Hancock explains the effects generated by it's positioning in Chapter XXX.
Most of the many other Mayan pyramids are of the same basic shape.South AmericaPeru
Many of Peru's ancient structures have lasted well, but not the pyramids. Most of them have eroded so much they are unrecognisable. Below is a restored adobe pyramid from around 800BC, located in the middle of the high-rise district of San Isidro.
Covering over 540 acres and including 26 major pyramids the Tucume site dates to about 1100 AD. The largest of the adobe brick pyramids, Huaca Larga, is 2300 ft long, 910 ft wide and 65 ft high, although it may have originally been three times this height.
Huaca del Sol, Moche
Is it so surprising that, with so many pyramids, the Americas also had mummies? This one was found within a pyramid at Huaca Huallamarca.