What do you think about this?
In 1900, Greek sponge divers off the coast of Antikythera surfaced with what they thought was a corpse. It turned out to be a bronze statue, part of a Roman shipwreck dating to roughly 60 BC.
Over the next year they pulled up coins, jewelry, pottery, and a misshapen, corroded lump of bronze and wood that nobody could identify. It sat in a museum drawer in Athens for 50 years, ignored, while researchers cataloged the more obvious treasures.
Then in 1951, a British science historian started taking the lump seriously.
X-rays revealed at least 30 interlocking gears inside, machined to a precision that would not be matched in Europe for another 1,400 years. The teeth were cut at angles that allowed differential rotation. The whole thing was a clockwork model of the cosmos.
It predicted lunar and solar eclipses. It mapped the cycles of the moon, the wandering of the five known planets, even the four-year cycle of the Olympic Games. It could account for the elliptical, non-uniform orbit of the moon long before Kepler.
Built around 100 BC.
We do not know who designed it. We do not know how many existed. We do not know how the knowledge was lost.
Whoever built the Antikythera mechanism understood mathematics, astronomy, and mechanical engineering at a level we did not credit to them.
Could it be we have been underestimating the ancient world this whole time?
What do you think about this? Over five months from late 1989, more than 13,000 people in Belgium reported a silent black triangle with three corner lights. In March 1990 two F sixteen jets locked radar on it, and it made moves no pilot could survive. Secret aircraft, or a genuine visitor?
What do you think about this? The Abenaki spoke of something in Lake Champlain long before Europeans arrived, and Port Henry still keeps a sign counting sightings. In 1977 Sandra Mansi photographed a long neck and a dark hump, and no hoax was ever found in it. Log, or a real animal?
What do you think about this? In 1579 Francis Drake beached the Golden Hind somewhere on the northern California coast and claimed the land for England. Nobody can say which beach. A brass plate found in 1936 was celebrated for decades, then proved a hoax. Point Reyes, or somewhere else?
What do you think about this? Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, one is engraved on copper instead of parchment, and it is a treasure map. It lists 64 hiding places holding tons of gold and silver. Not one has ever been found. Real temple gold, or an ancient legend set in metal?
What do you think about this? On August 15, 1977, an Ohio telescope caught a 72 second burst from Sagittarius, 30 times stronger than background, right on the hydrogen frequency. The astronomer circled it and wrote Wow. It never came back. Fluke, or one word of a conversation?
What do you think about this? The Shroud of Turin carries a full length image of a man that behaves like a photographic negative, which nobody noticed until it was first photographed in 1898. Carbon dating said medieval. Nobody can explain how the image formed. Artwork, or something else?
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