The Lost World of Agharti- the Mystery of Vril Power

by Alec MacLellan

  Despite his driving obsession to find gold, Frank felt too nervous to stay in the green-lit room for long. For one thing he could see no source for the strange light. And for another, several of the bodies were grouped around a hole in the far wall of the cave which looked like a continuation of the tunnel. Although he couldn’t be sure, he had the uncomfortable feeling that they might have been its guardians – as well as the keepers of the gold statues – when they were still alive …

  That, in essence, is the story which Frank White revealed to a few sceptical listeners in Brawley in April 1935, although he was careful not to be too specific about the location of the tunnel. The ‘discovery’ of the strange underground passage was briefly reported in a few of the Californian newspapers (in particular those of nearby San Diego) and then forgotten. A small group of other prospectors later set out with Frank to see if they could rediscover the secret cave and perhaps make their fortunes from recovering the gold statues, but there is no indication they even succeeded in finding the place again.

  True story? Or yet another of the colourful mysteries that have come out of old California? The puzzle remains to this day, and indeed it would probably not be worth recounting in this book but for a number of important and substantive facts. Firstly, the knowledge that there are indeed a number of underground tunnels running beneath California and its surrounding states. That there had been earlier accounts of such subterranean places reported both in the twentieth century and back over the years to the days when the great Red Indian tribes roamed the continent before the arrival of the white men from across the oceans. And, thirdly, that the description of the tunnel, the gold statues in the ‘treasure chamber’ and the strange green light, all correspond with the facts we have already been assembling about the underground roadway to Agharti.

  For it is my belief that Frank White found another of the entrances to this great network and if he had had the courage to go on beyond the place of death he might just have discovered ancient knowledge more precious than any gold. I am encouraged in this view by the redoubtable Harold Wilkins in his Mysteries of Ancient South America, who makes a specific comment on this area of California:

  There are spots along the cañon of the Rio Colorado, where arrows cut deeply into the face of the sheer walls can be seen in certain lights and incidences of the solar rays. They are, by roamers who go hunting treasure westwards across the Gila Desert and unpeopled, thirststricken and heat-crazed Arizona, believed to be pointers towards ancient caches of unknown and extremely ancient races, and, it may be, are memorials of the unknown race whose buried temples, lofty stone pyramids, seven of them within a mile square, and massive granite rings and dwellings, circular walls round venerable trees, and blocks of hieroglyphics, speak of ruins of some very ancient Egypt, or Phoenicia of the wild region, at the head of the Gulf of California, ‘a day’s march from San Diego’, in 1850, when they were discovered.

  Nor do we need to be satisfied with just this remark, for if we examine the old legends and reports of prehistoric America we can find plenty of references to underground caves and tunnels which help us build up our own picture.

  One of the very earliest North American legends tells us that mankind actually emerged onto the earth’s surface from an ‘underworld’. As Sabine Baring-Gould has written in his Cliff Castle and Cave Dwellings (1911): ‘According to Indian legend, the first men were bred like maggots in the heart of the earth, but laying hold of some depending fibre drew themselves up into the light of day.’

  The American Indians are, of course, generally regarded as the earliest inhabitants of what is now the United States of America. According to that great pioneer researcher Henry R. Schoolcraft in his Historical and Statistical Information Respecting Indian Tribes of the United States (1851–57):

  At the close of the Fifteenth Century, the tribes of the present area of the United States were spread out, chiefly, in seven principal groups, or generic families of tribes – bands, or large totemic circles. Each of these spoke a language differing in some respect from the others. Each circle had some peculiarities, in custom or manners. These groups were the Apalachian, Achalaque, Chicorean, Algonquin, Iroquois, Dacota and Shoshone.

  It comes as no surprise to learn that as soon as the ‘New World’ was discovered by the European sailors, a great interest developed in the ‘red men’ who lived there. They were referred to, mistakenly of course, as Indians, because Columbus at first believed he had found the Indies. What was not a subject for argument was the fact that they seemed in all respects like a unique race who had dwelt in a mystic continent isolated from the rest of mankind for countless centuries.

  Later research showed that the American Indians were, in all probability, an offshoot of tribes from the continent of Asia and had originally reached their ‘mystic continent’ by crossing the narrow Bering Strait. The Marquis de Nadaillac explains in his classic work, Pre-Historic America (1885):

  The physical characteristics of the American aborigines are generally admitted to point towards affinities with people belonging to the Northern Asia region. The approximation of Asia and America at Bering Strait lends probability to the hypothesis of migration. It has been shown that the route to America via Bering Strait is feasible, and in glacial times if the shallow waters near the strait were, as there is some reason to suppose, filled with grounded ice, there is no reason why people like the Eskimo of the present day, or even lower in the scale, might not make their way along this temporary bridge and subsist on the marine animals which probably swarmed along its borders.

  Such is the scholar’s view of the populating of America. But, as I quoted Baring-Gould saying, the Indians themselves speak of originating from either a subterranean world or, alternately, and perhaps even more surprisingly, from a lost continent which it might be argued was Atlantis! Let us look at these legends.

  According to Lewis Spence in Myths of the North American Indians (1914) the mythologies of the ‘Red Man’ are infinitely more rich in creation and deluge myths than those of any other race in the world. He says that tales which deal with the origin of man are exceedingly frequent, and many are strikingly similar to European and Asiatic myths of the same kind.

  ‘In some of the creation-myths of the various Indian tribes,’ he tells us, ‘we find the great gods moulding the universe, in others we find them merely discovering it. Still others lead their people from subterranean depths to the upper earth.’ In this context, Mr Spence then cites F. H. Cushing’s retelling of a Zuni Indian legend which appears in his Outlines of Zuni Creation Myths (1896):

  Then from the nethermost of the four caves of the world the seed of men and the creatures took form and grew; even as with eggs in warm places worms quickly form and appear, and, growing, soon burst their shells and there emerge, as may happen, birds, tadpoles, or serpents: so man and all creatures grew manifoldly and multiplied in many kinds. Thus did the lowermost world-cave become overfilled with living things, full of unfinished creatures, crawling like reptiles over one another in black darkness, thickly crowding together and treading one on another, one spitting on another and doing other indecency, in such manner that the murmurings and lamentations became loud, and many amidst the growing confusion sought to escape, growing wiser and more manlike. Then P-shai-an-K’ia, the foremost and the wisest of men, arising from the nethermost sea, came among men and the living things, and pitying them, obtained egress from that first world-cave through such a dark and narrow path that some seeing somewhat, crowding after, could not follow him, so eager mightily did they strive one with another. Alone then did P-Shai-an-K’ia come from one cave to another into this world, then islandlike, lying amidst the world-waters, vast, wet and unstable.

  He sought and found the Sun-Father, and besought him to deliver the men and the creatures from that nethermost world.

  In his own collection of creation-myths, Mr Spence relates the more specific legend of the Mandan Indians (a tribe of the Siouan linguistic stock living
in the Missouri region), who believed they originally emerged from a subterranean world. Again it is worth quoting in full because it demonstrates what we are told was a ‘widespread belief among the early inhabitants of North America and because it is obviously the source of Baring-Gould’s quotation:

  The Mandan tribes of the Sioux possess a type of creation-myth which is common to several American peoples. They suppose that their nation lived in a subterranean village near a vast lake. Hard by the roots of a great grape-vine penetrated from the earth above, and, clambering up these, several of them got a sight of the upper world, which they found to be rich and well stocked with both animal and vegetable food. Those of them who had seen the new-found world above returned to their home bringing such glowing accounts of its wealth and pleasantness that the others resolved to forsake their dreary underground dwelling for the delights of the sunny sphere above. The entire population set out, and started to climb up the roots of the vine, but no more than half the tribe had ascended when the plant broke owing to the weight of a corpulent woman. The Mandans imagine that after death they will return to the underground world in which they originally dwelt, the worthy reaching the village by way of the lake, the bad having to abandon the passage by reason of the weight of their sins.

  By no stretch of the imagination could it be argued that this fantastic myth does anything other than underline a belief in a subterranean world. But from the more general myths of the Sioux nation comes the story of an Indian brave who made a journey to an underground kingdom. The Sioux, of course, dwelt in what are now the states of North and South Dakota. And, as we shall see later, there is an enduring tradition of subterranean passages in this region.

  The story – one version of which is related in Spence’s Myths of the North American Indians – concerns a chief of one of the Sioux tribes who lost a son in an underground passage. The boy had been hunting buffalo with some other braves and had cornered one animal, which then dashed into a cave. Without a second thought the boy plunged in after it.

  The cave was regarded in superstitious awe by the tribe, and the other braves were afraid to follow their chiefs son. When he did not reappear after some time they returned to their camp and reported what had happened. Angrily, the chief returned with the braves to find out why his son was still missing.

  At first none of the braves would enter the cave, but when the chief offered the hand of his daughter in marriage to anyone who would go into the passage to find what had become of his son, one young man stepped forward. He would go, he said, and without another word stepped into the darkened passageway which sloped away steeply under his feet. With pounding heart, the brave walked for some distance until he stumbled upon something lying on the floor. In the gloom, he could just make out that it was the chiefs son – and that he was obviously dead.

  Somewhat saddened, the Indian hauled the body back to near the entrance of the tunnel. Then he called to the chief and the other braves that he had found the missing son. He did not wait for them to arrive, however, but turned back the way he had come. Something had fascinated him about the tunnel and he decided to explore further.

  After walking for some distance the brave suddenly found himself in a brightly illuminated cavern, where a pale-skinned man and woman with golden hair were sitting on the floor. They were evidently very sad.

  Cautiously, the brave approached the couple who did not look up until he was almost upon them. As soon as they saw him, both began to cry. When the brave inquired what was wrong, the man and woman said that their only son had just died.

  A short conversation ensued, in which the brave explained how he had come to be in the tunnel. The couple listened quietly and then said that they were dwellers of this subterranean world, and though they knew all about the people who lived on the surface, he was the first person they had actually met.

  The Indian did his best to cheer up the couple and indeed finally made them smile with stories of his life in the Sioux encampment. Following this, the boy asked if they would help him find his way back to the surface, as the tunnel had had many twists and turns in it.

  The couple readily agreed to do this and as a gesture of gratitude gave two presents to the Indian – a white horse and a talisman made of iron which they said had the power to satisfy his every wish. It could even melt rocks and thereby facilitate his return to the surface.

  Shortly afterward, goes the legend, the brave once again emerged in his own country and was soon recounting his adventure. The chief, true to his word, allowed the young man to marry his daughter and also made him a head chieftain.

  Soon his fame and the story of his journey underground spread throughout the whole Sioux nation, and his reputation became assured when he used his magic piece of iron to charm buffaloes and thereby kill more than any other brave. He looked set to live out the rest of his days in honour and peace. But it was not to be, as Lewis Spence tells us in concluding his version of the legend:

  Now it so happened that the chiefs remaining son was very jealous of his brother-in-law. He thought his father should have given him the chieftainship, and the honours accorded by the people to his young relative were exceedingly galling to him. So he made up his mind to kill the youth and destroy his beautiful white horse.

  On the occasion of another great buffalo hunt the wicked schemer found his opportunity. By waving his robe he scared the buffaloes and caused them to close in on the young brave, seemingly to trample him to death. But when the herd was scattered and moved away, there was no trace of the brave or his milk-white steed. They had returned to the Underworld.

  There are other similar legends to this one about Indians entering the Underworld, but I can see no point in repeating them here. Instead, I should like to move on to what these same myths tell us about the race of people dwelling below the surface.

  According to Lewis Spence, their domain is known as the ‘Land of Supernatural People’. They have dwelt in their tunnels and caves since time immemorial and are said to be ‘a spiritual race some degrees higher than mankind’. These people apparently eat, drink, hunt and amuse themselves in the same manner as those on the surface of the world, and are by no means invulnerable or immortal. Their main difference from the Indians, however, was that they were white-skinned and fair-haired.

  That most famous race of Indians, the Apaches, who so fiercely opposed the intrusion of the settlers into their territory of Arizona and North Mexico, have a strong tradition of a race of pale-skinned people who dwelt in tunnels beneath their reservations. Again, this adds emphasis to the modern reports we have of tunnels in the vicinity of Phoenix, Arizona, of which more in a while.

  The Apaches called these people the Numungkake and said that they had originally come from another great island before settling in the subterranean tunnels. Was this island Atlantis and were these people Atlanteans, the same Atlanteans we have already read about who colonized a large part of South America? Harold Wilkins thinks they were, as he asserts in another of his books, Secret Cities of Old South America (1950):

  The Apache Indians say that their remote ancestors came from a great fire island in the eastern ocean, where there was a great port with an entrance of architectural masonry where ships had to be guided in by pilots. The Fire Dragon arose and made their ancestors flee from this island – which can be none other than the old Atlantean island of Pluto, mentioned by the lost and ancient Punic historian, Procles. The Apaches eventually reached the mountains of Tiahuanacu, where they were forced to take refuge in immense and ancient tunnels, through which they wandered for years carrying seeds and fruit plants.

  Wilkins says that the Mandan tribe – a branch of the Sioux family who I mentioned earlier – claim that the first men to emerge from these old American tunnels were the Histoppa, or tattooed. They perished in the Deluge, having emerged too soon above ground to see how things were. The rest of the men stayed on below ground. And he adds: ‘There are ancient North American traditions which actually assert that th
ese mysterious tunnels were built or bored by an ancient race of white men, long since dead and who caused an ancient cataclysm!’

  Such evidence of Atlanteans in North America is fascinating though not conclusive. As the Marquis de Nadaillac has written in his study, Pre-Historic America:

  Similar myths are found among various Indian tribes; the legend of a deluge and of a saviour and benefactor of the human race extends to the Alaskan tribes and is in fact almost worldwide among all classes of men in some form or other. No dissemination of merely Christian ideas, since the conquest, is sufficient to account for these myths … That America was peopled at different times by scions of different races is highly probable from the physical differences to be observed between the remains of pre-historic man and the complexion and features he bequeathed to his historic descendants.

  What, in fact, the evidence does point to is that a race of white-skinned people were abroad in America before the Indians and were responsible for the construction of many of the artifacts and, in particular, the great tunnel systems in both North and South America.

  The French scholar de Nadaillac again supports this argument with evidence from the Indians, telling how:

  The Shawnees are said to have claimed that the ancient inhabitants of Florida were white, and that when they arrived in the country they found there buildings and customs, with a civilisation very unlike their own. The Tuscaroras are said to possess a legendary chronology going back nearly three thousand years; according to them, their fathers were natives of the extreme north, of districts far beyond the Great Lakes, who came from tunnels in the ground to establish themselves upon the St Lawrence.