National Geographic Tales of the Weird

by David Braun

  June 1937: Starts a second round-the-world trip from Miami, Florida, with Fred Noonan,

  July 2, 1937 After departing New Guinea, her plane disappears over the Pacific.

  July 19, 1937: Official search efforts end.

  Getting It on Paper

  In July 1937, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished over the central Pacific Ocean while attempting to fly around the world following the Equator. Earhart had already made history five years earlier, when she had become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

  The remains of Earhart, Noonan, and their twin-engine plane were never recovered. But in 2009, researchers with the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery found a bone fragment on the South Pacific island of Nikumaroro, which they believed might have been from one of Earhart’s fingers.

  It should theoretically be possible, but no team has yet claimed to have extracted DNA from purported Earhart remains. Some scientists have even suggested the Nikumaroro bone fragment isn’t human at all but may instead belong to a sea turtle whose remains were found nearby.

  The new Earhart DNA project will be headed by Dongya Yang, a genetic archaeologist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. Yang will examine Earhart’s letters and attempt to extract DNA from the saliva she used to seal the envelopes.

  Mining a trove of more than 400 correspondences between Earhart and various people, the researchers have chosen four letters to family—deemed the most likely to have been written and sealed by Earhart herself—for analysis.

  Earhart “did have her own secretary, so it’s most likely that anything that was business related was done by the secretary,” project funder Long said. “But if she’s just at home writing a personal letter, there’s much less reason for the secretary to be involved.”

  How Did Earhart Lick?

  Fortunately for the team, people in Earhart’s time typically opened letters from the side, using a letter opener, so the original seals haven’t been broken. Yang is aiming to gather two kinds of DNA from the letters: mitochondrial DNA, which children inherit from their mothers only, and nuclear DNA, which contains the bulk of a person’s genetic information and is housed in each human cell’s nucleus. If both DNA types can be obtained, the team says it can create a genetic profile of Earhart that is complete enough to positively identify any potential remains.

  The DNA-harvesting technique is thought to be nondestructive, but just in case, Yang is perfecting his procedure on test envelopes first. “When we have the best technique available, that’s when we’ll move on to the real letters,” Yang said.

  Yang thinks it’s very likely his team will find cells on the envelope seals, but how many cells are present will depend in part on how Earhart sealed her letters. “A strong licking or a light licking may leave more or less cells with the seal,” Yang said.

  “For food I carried a very simple ration—tomato juice. I think that serves as food and drink, and I used just a few swallows of it … The fact is, one doesn’t think much about food on such a journey.”

  Amelia Earhart

  accepting the National Geographic Society’s Special Medal for being the first woman to make a solo transatlantic crossing, 1932

  Wanted: DNA

  Geneticist Brenna Henn said she knows of no other case where DNA has been harvested from decades old letters. But she said Yang’s methodology “sounds reasonable.” The team will need “quite a bit of DNA” to succeed, though.

  Extracting nuclear DNA will be challenging, since each cell has only one copy, said Henn, of Stanford University. “You need more than just one copy of the cell in order for the [nuclear DNA] amplification to work,” said Henn, who’s not involved in the Earhart project.

  Also, if the team obtains only short fragments of Earhart’s nuclear DNA, the genes may not be useful for identification purposes, she added. “The problem is the majority”—about 99 percent—“of the nuclear genome is identical among all humans,” she said. “If they could obtain little fragments, they have almost no power to discriminate between Earhart’s DNA and that of other living people.”

  To ensure that the DNA from the letters indeed belonged to Earhart, the team will compare it to DNA from Earhart’s still-living relatives and also DNA extracted from another letter, written by Earhart’s sister and addressed to Elgen Long. If the project proceeds smoothly, Yang said, the team could have a genetic profile for Earhart soon.

  PYRAMID PUZZLE

  Great Pyramid Mystery

  To Be Solved by Hidden Room?

  A sealed space in Egypt’s Great Pyramid may help solve a centuries-old mystery: How did the ancient Egyptians move two million 2.5-ton blocks to build the ancient wonder?

  A little-known cavity in the 4,500-year-old monument to Pharaoh Khufu may support the theory that the pyramid was constructed inside out, via a spiraling, inclined interior tunnel—an idea that contradicts the prevailing wisdom that the monuments were built using an external ramp. The inside-out theory’s key proponent, French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin, says for centuries Egyptologists have ignored evidence staring them in the face. “The paradigm was wrong,” Houdin said. “The idea that the pyramids were built from the outside was just wrong. How can you resolve a problem when the first element you introduce in your thinking is wrong?”

  Stone Cold Facts

  1. The heaviest blocks are estimated to weigh as much as 70 tons.

  2. There are no hieroglyphics or writing on the stones in the Great Pyramid.

  3. Two types of limestone were used for construction: a soft limestone for the core blocks and a hard white limestone for the outside.

  Finding Flaws

  Even the most widely held Great Pyramid construction theories have flaws, Egyptologist Bob Brier said. For example, a single, straight external ramp would have been impractical, said Brier, of Long Island University in New York.

  TRUTH:

  THE GREAT PYRAMID IS THE OLDEST OF THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD.

  To deliver blocks to the 481-foot (147-meter) peak at a reasonable grade, the ramp would have had to have been a mile (1.6 kilometers) long and made of stone. And during the decades of the pyramid’s construction, workers would have had to continually increase the ramp’s height and length as the pyramid rose. “That’s like building two pyramids. And we’ve never found the remains of such a ramp,” Brier said.

  Another theory suggests a stone ramp wound around the outside of the Great Pyramid. But an outside ramp would have obscured the pyramid’s surface—making it impossible for surveyors to use the corners and edges for necessary calculations during construction, Brier said.

  Greek historian Herodotus, writing around 450 B.C., theorized the use of small, wooden cranes or levers to lift the blocks. But, Brier said, “you’d have to have thousands, and they didn’t have enough wood in all of Egypt for that,” Brier said.

  Like Father, Like Son

  For Houdin, the Paris architect, the puzzle of the pyramid is a family affair. His father, a civil engineer, came up with the idea of an internal construction ramp a decade ago. Houdin was soon hooked, as suggested by his books, co-written by Brier—The Secret of the Great Pyramid: How One Man’s Obsession Led to the Solution of Ancient Egypt’s Greatest Mystery. Houdin eventually left his architecture firm to pursue the inside-out theory full-time.

  For what they thought would be a matter of weeks, he and his wife moved into a 236-square-foot (22-square-meter) studio apartment. They ended up staying for four years, as Houdin toiled away at his self-financed project.

  From the Inside Out

  Houdin’s theory suggests the Great Pyramid was built in two stages. First, blocks were hauled up a straight external ramp to build the pyramid’s bottom third, which contains most of the monument’s mass, Houdin believes. Houdin says the limestone blocks used in the outside ramp were recycled for the pyramid’s upper levels, which might explain why no trace of an original ramp has been found.

  Egypti
an-archaeology specialist Josef Wegner sees merit in the recycling idea. “The notion of using the already quarried smaller blocks to build the lower ramp and then dismantling that for use in upper sections would be a very logical approach to speed up the overall construction process,” said Wegner of University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

  After the foundation had been finished, workers began building an inclined, internal, corkscrew tunnel, which would continue its path up and around as the pyramid rose, Houdin said. Because the tunnel is inside the pyramid, Brier said, “when they finished getting blocks all the way up to the top this ramp disappeared [from view].”

  The Secret of the Hidden Room

  New evidence uncovered about two-thirds of the way up the Great Pyramid supports the inside-out theory, said Houdin. At about the 300-foot (90-meter) mark on the northeastern edge lies an open notch.

  On a recent expedition with a National Geographic film crew, Brier—aided by a videographer with mountain-climbing experience—scaled perilous crumbling rocks to reach the notch. Ducking inside the notch, Brier entered a small L-shaped room. He wasn’t the first to visit the space, but until now Egyptologists had taken little notice of it. Houdin said the feature figures perfectly with his theory.

  Open Corners for Turning Blocks?

  For the interior tunnel to work, it would have required open areas at the Great Pyramid’s four corners, Houdin says. Otherwise the blocks wouldn’t have been able to clear the 90-degree turns. Like railroad roundhouses, these open corners would have given workers room to pivot the blocks—perhaps using wooden cranes—so the stones could be pushed into the next tunnel.

  The notch and room are remnants of one such opening, Houdin claims. They are located at one of the spots where Houdin’s 3-D computer models suggest they should be. Inside the corner space, which was apparently walled in as the pyramid was completed, there should be two tunnel entrances at right angles to each other—each leading to a section of the internal ramp, Houdin believes. Perhaps all that stands between him and the solution to the mystery are massive blocks that thousands of years ago sealed the tunnel, Houdin said.

  The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Photo Credit 5.7)

  If this previously known space truly is the missing link in the puzzle of the Great Pyramid’s construction, the question remains why no one would have surmised this by now. Brier said, “If you weren’t thinking about internal ramps and notches and you climbed right by this thing, it wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  An Important Clue

  Prior to the room brainstorm, Houdin’s most important piece of evidence was the product of good luck. In 1986, a French team in an ultimately fruitless search for hidden chambers in the Great Pyramid had done a survey of the monument’s density using a technique called microgravimetry which measures the strength of local gravitational fields.

  Nearly 15 years later, Houdin was presenting his ramp theory at a conference and was approached by a member of the 1986 team. The man showed Houdin an image from their survey that they’d dismissed as unexplainable. But to Houdin, and later Brier, the explanation was clear. The image shows what looks like a spiraling feature inside the structure’s outer walls. “If I hadn’t seen that diagram, I’d probably be thinking this is just another theory,” Brier said.

  Seeking Confirmation

  The 1986 image, the notch room, and other evidence may make Houdin’s theory plausible, but the case is far from closed. “As with all archaeological theories, the proof is in the pudding, and many logical and compelling theories have fallen by the wayside under the weight of hard evidence,” said the University of Pennsylvania’s Wegner. But “verification of the proposed internal spiral ramp would be a remarkable and groundbreaking discovery,” Wegner added.

  Houdin believes that verification is possible. He has suggested that an infrared camera—positioned about 150 feet (46 meters) from the pyramid—could potentially record subtle differences in interior materials and temperatures. Those variations could reveal clear-cut “phantoms” of the internal ramp.

  “What we need is the authorization, by the Egyptian authorities, to stay around for 18 hours, close to the pyramid, with a cooled infrared camera based on an SUV and to take images of three [pyramid] faces every hour during this period,” Houdin said. “A green light from Cairo and the Great Pyramid mystery could be over.”

  Built for a King

  Egyptologists believe that the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth-dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu, who ruled from 2589 to 2566 B.C. Not only was Khufu honored by the pyramid, he was also its architect. The giant structure took more than 20 years to build, and construction finished around 2560 B.C. For almost 4,000 years, it was the tallest man-made structure on Earth.

  TRUTH ABOUT FREEMASONRY

  The Freemasons

  8 Myths Decoded

  Books like Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol have shined a light on secret societies like the Freemasons, generating new interest and new conspiracy theories about them. But what’s true?

  Society’s Secrets: Freemasons have been accused of everything from conspiring with extraterrestrials to practicing sexual deviancy to engaging in occult rituals to running the world—or trying to end it. Detractors include global conspiracy theorists and religious organizations, including the Catholic Church.

  But what if Freemasons—the world’s largest international secret society—are just a bunch of guys into socializing, nonsatanic rituals, self-improvement, and community service?

  To separate Freemason fact from myth, National Geographic News went inside the centuries-old order with two Masons and a historian of the ancient Christian order from which some claim the Masons sprang in the 17th or 18th century.

  MYTH 1

  Masonic Symbols Are Everywhere

  It’s true that Masonic symbols are anything but lost, said Freemason and historian Jay Kinney, author of the newly released Masonic Myth.

  Freemasonry is rich in symbols, and many are ubiquitous—think of the pentagram, or five-pointed star, or the “all-seeing eye” in the Great Seal of the United States. But most Masonic symbols aren’t unique to Freemasonry, Kinney said.

  “I view the Masonic use of symbols as a grab bag taken from here, there, and everywhere,” he said. “Masonry employs them in its own fashion.” The pentagram, for example, is much older than Freemasonry and acquired its occult overtones only in the 19th and 20th centuries, hundreds of years after the Masons had adopted the symbol.

  Likewise, the all-seeing eye saw its way to the Great Seal—and the U.S. dollar bill—by way of artist Pierre Du Simitiere, a non-Mason. The eye represents divine guidance of the U.S. ship of state, or as Secretary of the U.S. Congress Charles Thompson put it in 1782, it alludes “to the many signal interpositions of providence in favour of the American cause.” There was one known Mason on the committee to design the seal: Benjamin Franklin. His proposed design was eyeless, and rejected.

  MYTH 2

  Masons Descend From the Knights Templar

  Much has been made of the Freemasons purported lineage to the Knights Templar. The powerful military and religious order was established to protect medieval pilgrims to the Holy Land and dissolved by Pope Clement V, under pressure of King Phillip IV of France, in 1312.

  After modern Masonry appeared in 17th- or 18th-century Britain, some Freemasons claimed to have acquired the secrets of the Templars and adopted Templar symbols and terminology—naming certain levels of Masonic hierarchy after Templar “degrees,” for example. “But those [Knights Templar] degrees and Masonic orders had no historic connection with the original Knights Templar,” Kinney explained.

  “These are myths or symbolic figures that were used by the Masons. But because the association had been made with these degrees, and the degrees had perpetuated themselves, after a time it began to look like there had been a connection.”

  Helen Nicholson, author of The Knights Templar: A New History, agrees that there is no possi
bility that Freemasons are somehow descended from the Knights Templar. By the time of the first Masons, the Cardiff University historian said, “there were no more Templars.”

  MYTH 3

  Masons Are Hiding Templar Treasure

  One of the Templar-Mason theory’s many veins suggests that some Templars survived the order’s 14th-century destruction by taking refuge in Scotland, where they hid a fabulous treasure beneath Rosslyn Chapel. The treasure, and the Templar tradition, were eventually passed down to the founders of Freemasonry, the story goes.

  In fact, there was Templar treasure, Nicholson said, but it ended up in other hands long ago. “The most likely reason [the Templars were dissolved] is that the king wanted their money. The King of France was bankrupt, and the Templars had lots of ready cash.”

  MYTH 4

  Washington, D.C.’s Streets Form Giant Masonic Symbols

  It’s long been suggested that powerful Freemasons embedded Masonic symbols in the Washington, D.C., street plan designed mainly by Frenchman Pierre L’Enfant in 1791.

  “Individually, Masons had a role in building the White House, in building and designing Washington, D.C.,” said Mark Tabbert, director of collections at the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia. “And [small scale] Masonic symbols can be found throughout the city, as they can in most U.S. cities.”