The Samoan Pyramid
Page 10
So what does this all tell us? Is it possible that there was a second group living on the island? We know that the ‘Lapita’ people arrived in Samoa around 800 BC and settled along the coasts. Archaeologist Roger Green tells us that there was a second group, with possibly as many as 50,000 people who were, at one time, living in the interior of the island. And that this second group were long gone before the English Missionaries arrived.
Two groups living on the island. The Lapita living along the coasts and another, separate group living in the interior of the island at Pulemelei. A second group? A second group that had built an enigmatic pyramid on the side of a volcano, deep in the jungle. A second group that was entirely missing from the historical record. Could that be? Who on earth were they?
20
Vailima
By the time I made it back to my little hut and nestled into the shoreline at Manase, the sky was a dark velvet blue. I had missed dinner, the little camp shop was closed for the night and I desperately wanted a cold beer. I quickly washed the jungle out of my hair, threw on some clean clothes and headed up to the bar where I hoped I might catch up with Noah, he’d be keen to hear about my adventure to the pyramid.
I took a seat at the bar, my legs now aching pleasantly from the day’s hike. It had been a remarkable day. I was mulling it over as I ordered a bottle of Vailima beer and asked the barman if he had seen Noah.
‘He’s not been in yet tonight,’ he said placing the bottle of beer on the bar in front of me. It looked gorgeous. Beads of condensation slowly rolling down the glass sides of the bottle. I took a sip of the cold nectar and closed my eyes.
‘Maya…Maya!’ I heard a woman’s voice behind me. I turned around to see Jess, Mani and the whole New Zealand crew.
‘Hey! How are you guys?’
‘How did you get on?’ asked Jess. ‘What was that woman like?’
‘Who’s that?’ I asked, completely forgetting for a moment that Baba had been a last minute stand in. ‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘She couldn’t go, so I went with her brother. You won’t believe it Jess,’ I said leaning in, ‘it was the same guy that was watching us at the lake.’
‘You went into the jungle with McRapey? No fucking way!’
I winced. Poor Baba. ‘Agh, don’t call him that! Baba’s really a great guy. He took me there.’
‘F-o-o-o-o-o-ck! Did you find the pyramid?’
‘Oh Jess it was amazing. I don’t know where to start, it’s been such a mental day. The pyramid is there, for sure. It’s gigantic and it has all this weird stuff happening and…’
At this point I realised that all the other conversations in the bar had stopped and everyone in the place was listening in. So I told the story, the entire dramatic adventure with all of its intrigue and epiphanies. All twenty or so people in the bar were following along with me every step of the way. As I retold the events of the day I could hardly believe that what I was saying was true. But it was true, every last bit of it. I told them about the giant with his machete and AK47. How had we got past him? I could only put it down to sheer good luck. I described the beautiful natural cathedral that we had found, the jungle chorus that serenaded us and the sparkling life force of the jungle. As I recounted the tale, it began to sink in that I really had just lived through an extraordinary day. I had walked on ancient roads that snake their way through a lost city. I really had made it to the ancient pyramid of Pulemelei and stood on the very top of it.
I told them everything. The giant pyramid with its weird magnetics, the purple flashes, the terrible sense of dread, everything. When I finished my story and brought us back to the moment that I entered the bar desperate for cold Vailima beer, everyone burst into applause. I got a standing ovation. As I looked round the room I saw Noah standing near the door, smiling.
When Stuart Scott and Roger Green left the jungle, they didn’t get nearly as friendly a reception. What they had uncovered in Samoa during the 1960s was a watershed in Pacific research, but when Roger Green published their findings in the books ‘Archeology of Samoa I & II’ he took the extraordinary step of prefacing the volumes with an apology. He talked about ‘the lack of any sense of unity’ in the research which he blamed on a ‘wide variety of factors.’ He lists chief amongst these factors the hot and damp climate and the Samoan society itself. Green said the work ‘offered many problems and no immediate solutions.’23
Their work was met with mixed reviews. Green, Davidson and Golson were quietly praised, while Scott was criticised by some of his peers in the Journal of the Polynesian Society for his work at Pulemelei. His professionalism was called into question. It was claimed that there were problems with his maps. His account of what he had found at the site was said to be confused and some attacked his technique. It must have been an awful experience.
I feel the impulse to come to Scott’s defence. It is true that later maps do show some discrepancies, most notably in the mapping of the cairns on top of the pyramid. Scott’s map shows only 10 cairns, while the later map by Helene Martinson Wallin shows more than forty. But I felt such a strong kinship with Scott that, even now, I find it difficult to criticise him.
For the most part, once the attacks subsided, the efforts of Scott, Green and the others were ignored. By the time their research was published in 1969, man had walked on the moon. Perhaps people were so rapt by the vision of a technological future to worry too much about such an ancient civilisation, a lost city and a forgotten pyramid. At perhaps any other time their discoveries would have made headlines around the world. Slowly but surely, the trail of the pyramid builders went cold. It would be fifty years before anyone made sense of what these three great archeologists had unveiled.
Five decades on from Green and co, Helene Martinsson-Wallin and her team from the Thor Heyerdahl Foundation left the island. They left a bit of stink behind them in their wake. Their investigation had sparked renewed interest in the area, the strange stories they dug up and the fact that their dates ran contrary to the traditional view intrigued people. This turned up the heat on Pulemelei and soon enough the villagers, the Nelson Corporation and the government found themselves locked in a bitter dispute about who owned the land and what should happen to it. Violence between the different sides soon became a frequent occurrence. In 2010 a court ruling banned the local people from visiting the area. All excavation at the site was stopped. The churches began to speak out to their congregations against the pyramid more and more. By the time I arrived on the island, it was well and truly a sore subject.
Following the departure of Wallin and co, and the violence that erupted in their wake, a new duo of researchers, Geoffrey Clark and Antoine De Biran, arrived on the island.
All excavation had effectively been stopped by this time but Clark and De Biran had decided that they wouldn’t need to excavate. They would use high tech equipment to ‘look’ inside the pyramid, using only radar waves. The two men wanted to use ground penetrating radar specifically to see if they could find any evidence for burial chambers or tombs within the pyramid. Their reasoning was that if they were able to locate anything that looked like a tomb or a burial chamber inside the pyramid it would strengthen the case of the local villagers against the Nelson Corporation. If they found nothing inside the pyramid then the local villagers claim over Pulemelei as the final resting place of their ancestral chief would be put to rest once and for all. For these reasons the investigation was vitally important to both sides. The stakes couldn’t have been higher, all eyes were on them.
And so they carried their hulking great machinery, a ground penetrating radar (GPRS) and a caesium magnetometer, into the jungle and heaved it up the side of the pyramid. On top they cleared away any metal objects they found there- some corrugated iron, some nails and a few empty corned beef tins. Then, as they were were calibrating their machinery, they were struck by something very strange. They found that at Pulemelei the Earth’s magnetic field is ‘wrong’. That’s to say, it isn’t what a scientist would expect to
find. Does that sound completely insane? Allow me to me explain.
We are all familiar with the concept that the magnetic field of the Earth acts something like a very large magnet. And just like a magnet, the Earth generates magnetic field lines. On the Earth's surface these magnetic field lines vary from being horizontal near the equator to being vertical at the poles.
Now, the angle of these magnetic field lines at different points on the planet are recorded in a scientific reference guide called the IGRF, the International Geomagnetic Reference Field.24
Scientists from around the world collaborate by collecting and sharing magnetic field data from satellites, observatories and surveys to create the IGRF reference. This reference details what it calls the ‘angle of inclination to the horizontal’ of the magnetic field for any given point on the earth. In the southern hemisphere these values are given as negative values and in the Northern hemisphere they are positive values.
Using the IGRF reference Clark and De Biran expected the inclination of the Earth’s magnetic field at Pulemelei to be round about minus 13 degrees. That’s what the reference books told them it would be. That’s what the geomagnetic model of the earth told them it would be. That’s what all good scientific reason told them it would be. But it wasn’t -13 degrees. The angle of the Earth’s magnetic field at Pulemelei was nothing like what the IGRF said it would be. Instead of sitting at -13 degrees, the inclination of the Earth’s magnetic field at Pulemelei is +10 degrees. A difference of 23 degrees. That is a huge difference. Not only does the magnetic field at Pulemelei run at a very different angle from what the researchers had expected, the flow of energy along the magnetic field lines is in the opposite direction, positive instead of negative.
This is hugely significant because it tells us that Pulemelei sits right at the centre of a massive magnetic anomaly. An anomaly so strong that it changes the magnetic field of the Earth.
But, incredibly, that wouldn’t be the weirdest thing Clark and De Biran would uncover.
With their equipment correctly calibrated for the environment, Goeffrey Clark and Antoine De Biran started the ground penetrating radar and began to take readings. Radar waves penetrated the mound, reflecting back off any objects inside and then bounced back into the GPRS to give them their reading. Then they picked the machine up, moved it forward by exactly twenty five centimetres and set it down again. They checked the calibration again, took another reading. For weeks they repeated this process over and over until the entire pyramid had been mapped, measured and recorded.
When their results were published they showed that there were no burial chambers inside Pulemelei. There were no discernible internal rooms at all. The pyramid was a solid structure. They did, however, note what appeared to be a ‘small mound shaped structure’ underneath the pyramid. Perhaps a much older monument that the pyramid had been built on top of. But they also discovered something else. Something amazing. The results showed that where the pyramid meets the ground, at the so-called ‘mound-ground interface’, there is a polarity reversal.25
What does this mean? If you have ever held two magnets in your hands and tried to push them together only to feel them push apart, you have experienced a polarity reversal. At Pulemelei, Clark and De Biran found that the pyramid and the bedrock act like two giant magnets that are pushing apart from each other. As unbelievable as it sounds, the pyramid, at least at the level of its electrons, pushes away from the ground it sits upon. In short, at a molecular level, the Pyramid floats.
An ancient floating Pyramid in the jungle, built by an unknown ancient civilisation who’s very existence could re-write the history books, surrounded by a mysterious fluctuation in the earth’s magnetic field.
Pulemelei. The pyramid that just keeps giving.
21
That Last Night
That last night on the island, I rolled into bed happy and exhausted. I had done what I’d come here to do and I felt immensely satisfied, I had no problem drifting off to sleep. Once under, however, I slipped into a terrible dream. All my demons came at once. From somewhere deep in my psyche a horrible tale unfolded in that surreal agonising way that nightmares do. Bizarre subconscious connections, each one more terrifying than the last. I awoke in a startle in the dark, chased from my tormented sleep, my body covered in sweat, my heart thumping in my chest. Night terrors. Tapu.
It was just after dawn. Unable to get back to sleep, I showered, dressed, packed and sat down to read for a while. After a restless few minutes I found that I couldn’t focus, the bad dream had deeply unsettled me. As the warmth of the sun crept in, I decided to take a short walk along the beach to clear my head. The guys from the crew had a full day of shooting ahead and were up and ready by the time I got back. We took a light breakfast and said our goodbyes, hugging and swapping email addresses. I threw my bag into the car and set off.
I was worried that the scuffs on the car might cost me a few tālā, but they didn’t even cause a raised eyebrow. I dozed in the taxi to the ferry, on the ferry and in the taxi to the airport. My muscles ached everywhere from the hike, I felt as though every ounce of energy had been drained from me.
Zombie-like, I boarded the flight, took my seat and turned my face to the window. Soon I was watching Samoa speed away beneath me, smaller and smaller, eventually obscured by a thick layer of white cloud. The events of my trip were still buzzing around my mind, but I didn’t have the strength to work them through. Who built the pyramid? Why did being there make me feel so angry and then so unwell? What were those flashes of light? Why wouldn’t my compass work? I was flying away from Samoa with more mysteries to solve than I’d landed with.
Out of nowhere, a huge grinding sound, metal on metal. At first I didn’t even dare to acknowledge it. People were murmuring, the timbre of the engine sound had unmistakably changed. Then I was looking out of the window and watching smoke pouring out of the mechanical gaps on the wing. A flash of light blinded me temporarily. There was no time to think, suddenly I could hear screaming and feel a painfully strong g force pulling on my guts. The whine of the failing engines. I tried to scream, tried to breathe.
I jolted awake. Fluffy clouds were passing peacefully beneath us. The guy next to me was reading a crime thriller. The engines were enveloping everything in their usual steady roar. I was damp with cold sweat. Another nightmare. I called for the air steward and asked for a gin and tonic.
For six months after my return from Samoa, the nightmares continued. Terror clung to me, night after night I was jolted awake by fear. I couldn’t find the cause of the nightmares, couldn’t make them stop. I was tired, stressed, grumpy and dreaded going to bed. If this was tapu, I could see how it sent people mad. What had I done to myself? What had I brought back from the top of that ancient pyramid? It was nearly a year before I began to find the answers.
About the Author
Maya Lynch was born on the west coast of Scotland. She has worked as a musician, designer, deckhand and club promoter. She eventually trained as a computer programmer and worked for twenty years in the advertising industry, firstly as a digital creative promoting big brands and then later as a strategist advising governments and NGOs. She is presently writing the 'Journey to the Heart of a Lost Empire' series.
Maya lives in the Waitakere Ranges, on the west coast of New Zealand, with her partner and their two dogs.
Connect with Maya here:
www.mayalynch.com & www.facebook.com/MayaLynchAuthor
Acknowledgements
My first and primary thanks go to my family for their support and patience during the writing of this book.
Great thanks go to Phil Eaglesham who read this story in essay form and encouraged me to write it as a novel.
It would be impossible to list everyone in Samoa who showed me kindness and hospitality, but I have to mention my companions on the research expedition to Pulemelei; Baba, Jess, Tina and Mani and the many others who helped, but don’t appear in these pages.
Thanks to To
m and Lindah who provided the initial catalyst for this adventure when they first opened my eyes to the ancient Samoan starmounds.
I am obliged to Felicity Moore who prepared for me some wonderful black and white illustrations of Pulemelei and to Hutch, Leonie, Carren and Claire who all read sections of the manuscript and gave their feedback.
Special mention has to be given to my editor Peter Bloxham who has stuck with this project and improved it immeasurably at every turn. Thank you Peter for your good cheer when I needed it most, for your encouragement and for believing this was a story that deserved to be told.
Notes
California Love
1
John B Stair: missionary 1897:111-112. Green, Roger Curtis. Archeology in Western Samoa I. Auckland. Auckland Institute and Museum, 1969. P 89
2
Sterndale Howard. the Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives of New Zealand, Session 1, 1884. Confederation and Annexation. Papers relating to the Pacific Islands. Mr Sterndale’s “Memoranda on Some of the South Sea Islands.” New Zealand. Wellington. 1884. P26
Noah
3
Stevenson Robert Louis. The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston edition Vol. 18. Guttenberg Press. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31557/pg31557.txt retrieved 22/7/14