A New Ancient Crystal Skull Discovered in Africa

A New Ancient Crystal Skull Discovered in Africa

The Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull is no longer unique! Out of Africa – by way of California – emerges another ancient skull with a detachable jaw. Already, this skull is recarving the crystal skull landscape.

by Philip Coppens

With the 2008 release of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, crystal skulls attained a far higher level of exposure than ever before. Before, crystal skulls had only become somewhat
famous in the 1980s, particularly in New Age circles. Today, there are hundreds of crystal skulls, almost all of them of modern fabrication (most made in China) and used in various New Age-type seminars.
Only a handful of skulls are suspected of having ancient origins, including the most famous of all crystal skulls: the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull.


“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” makes scant references to the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull. It stands out for it is by far the most complex, and the only skull with a detachable jaw, meaning that whomever made this, was a master artist in carving crystal – able to create a feat that modern carvers have been unable to accomplish.
Gerald Leandro De Souza, a master skull carver from Brazil with 25 years of experience behind him, notes that “the process of cutting the jaw from a skull causes the jaw to break and is almost impossible for skull carvers to accomplish.”


Still, skeptics, principally led by Jane Walsh, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, try to argue that all these skulls are of modern fabrications. So far, none of the claims made by Walsh and co. have been substantiated, let alone supported by factual evidence. Specifically, Walsh tries to point the finger to Germany and the town of Idar-Oberstein, arguing most of these skulls were carved there by the resident artists. However, no records of skull carving have ever been found there; there are no records of any carver doing carving in the middle of the 19th century, when some of these skulls are said to have been made. In short, Walsh’s theories remain totally unsubstantiated – not very scientific!

On the other side of the debate are the likes of Nick Nocerino, one of the first crystal skull researchers, who travelled extensively throughout Central America, in search of them. He noted how on several occasions, Indian tribes offered skulls on sale to him, as with the money, the local shamans could buy precious Western medicine and like, to help their tribe at a time when the Mayan people were subjected to genocide. Nocerino always refused such offers, as he strongly believed the skulls were such an integral part of Mayan society, that these tribes needed their precious talisman. (Though he did everything to help the tribes in other ways.)
The Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull too comes with a Central American origin. The family itself stated that Anna Mitchell-Hedges found the skull in the ruins of Lubaantuun on her 17th birthday in 1924. It is a story Anna adhered to until her death, though it was subjected to intense criticism from the sceptics. Indeed, a more likely story about how her father found the skull is told in his novel, “The White Tiger”, published in 1931. In it, he relates a largely autobiographical account of an Englishman who is initiated by a Mayan tribe, to become the principal caretaker of a most important treasure. When the Mayan priest shows him the treasure, the Englishman is led down into a series of tunnels, before the treasure is unveiled to him:
“Before him, piled in endless confusion, lay the treasure of the Aztecs. Gold chalices, bowls, jars and other vessels of every size and shape; immense plaques and strange ornaments all glittered dully. Of precious stones there were none, but many rare chalchihuitl (jadeite pendants) [sic]. Masks of obsidian and shells beautifully inlaid were all heaped together with heads carved from solid blocks of crystal. Legend had not exaggerated the treasure of the Aztecs. Almost boundless wealth lay at the disposal of the White Tiger.”
“Heads carved from solid blocks of crystals”: a reference to crystal skulls made by Frederick “Mike” Mitchell-Hedges in 1931, more than a decade before he – according to the likes of Walsh – acquired a skull at auction at Sotheby’s in London in 1943.
Because it is the 

most complex, the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull is both the most famous and the most debated. It is unique. But today, the Mitchell-Hedges skull is no longer unique: on August 6, 2009, former Alaskan fisherman Joe Bennett was able to finally buy, from a Californian import shop, a crystal skull… with a detachable jaw, which he soon named “Compassion”. A new era in crystal skull research had therefore dawned, for a number of reasons.
Bennett is a retired fisherman from Alaska. He had earned the nickname “the crystal sailor”, as for years, he had been collecting an impressive array of crystals. In his hunt for crystals, in 2006, he stumbled upon a crystal skull, in an import store in Carmel, California. The skull had belonged to a close friend of the owners, who had brought it over from Africa. Upon his death his family liquidated the estate and asked the import store to sell the crystal skull for them.
Bennett relates how he “noticed a crystal skull in the back of this shop on a high shelf. I admired the extreme craftsmanship, saw the price and forgot about it. Like most people I didn’t have any reference for crystal skulls other than Halloween witches or Black Magic.” However, the skull did not let go of Joe, who had a series of vivid dreams about the skull, so much so that he dispatched his sister – who lived nearby – to make a series of photographs, which she sent to Joe. It was now only a matter of time before the skull would end up in Bennett’s care.
Compassion is human-sized and clear quartz, 5.5” tall, 5.5” wide and 8 inches long, weighing 11 pounds – very similar in dimensions to the Mitchell-Hedges skull. The mouth has 28 teeth. Little is known of the origins of the skull. It is known that the skull was in storage in the United States for five years prior to the shop putting it up for sale. Before, it had spent 22 years in a warehouse in Africa. The name of the people who owned it in Africa is not a matter of public record, but initial analyses of the skull have shown that the crystal is not from Brazil. Gerald Leandro De Souza argues that the “quartz probably is from Africa”. The likeliest source is Namibia, Africa, which is a well-known location where quartz crystal can be found.
Whereas the Mitchell-Hedges skull is “crystal clear”, Compassion is more like another crystal skull, known as MAX: Compassion is made out of three distinct layers (MAX has five such layers). The largest, frontal part is made of the clearest quartz crystal. Behind, roughly the top of the forehead, is a somewhat softer section of less-clear crystal. Behind is a final, third layer, separated from the others by a small fissure of iron oxide, which one can only truly see from the back of the skull.
The possibility that the material inside the fissure is iron oxide was first suggested by crystal carver James Ziegler, who added that the material at the bottom of the fissure was feldspar. This conclusion was confirmed when Bennett had the skull examined by Dr. Ray Corbett, Associate Curator of Archaeology at the Natural History Museum in Santa Barbara and Geologist Dr. John Minch on March 30, 2010. It was Minch who confirmed that the fissure was filled with iron oxide.
These experts furthermore accepted that the grounding of the crystal had occurred by hand, and not by machine. One area of the skull shows pie-shaped areas, which a carver would keep, but a grinding wheel would smooth out. There are other aspects of the skull, especially to do with a lack of symmetry between the right and left side, which show that the work was carried out by human hands. Corbett and Minch also identified that the natural growth of the crystal is for the skull to be placed with the teeth pointing up. This means that the iron oxide layer was at the bottom of the then axis of the crystal, with the layer of the face being the clearest and the top one. The carver would have to carve against the grain of the skull and skip over these fractures, a task which crystal carvers say is extremely hard to do – surpassing their expertise.
When one runs a fingernail along the top of the skull, one can feel the fractures between the layers. Dr. Minch said that whoever made this skull, would have to do so very slowly, for if the quartz were to get hot, it would shatter – thus underlining that the usage of tools in the making of this skull was unlikely.
During testing, Dr.
Minch also noted there was an “air bubble” inside the skull. When the skull is rocked, the bubble moves over half the thickness (about 1mm) up and down in a solution which he believes is water, which somehow made its way into the skull and trapped the air bubble inside.
Bennett has speculated whether this air bubble should be interpreted as a representation of the pineal gland, a part of the brain that is often referred to as the “third eye”, and which is therefore heavily imbued with esoteric meaning. René Descartes even labeled it the seat of the soul, echoing a belief that goes back thousands of years.
Minch also found golden rutile in both skull and jaw. Rutile is a major ore of titanium, and is found as microscopic inclusions in quartz and precious gemstones. It is responsible for many of the light effects that one sees within these objects.
Scientists have a hard time admitting that the detachable jaw of the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull is made from crystal (it is), and is from the same crystal as the rest of the skull (it is). But no such doubt can arise in the case of Compassion: its right cheek has a foil in the crystal that runs from the right cheek into jaw, and hence clearly shows that both the main part of the skull and the jaw are from the same crystal.
It will be interesting to see what skeptics are now going to do. In the case of the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull, they tried to debate the jaw away, as the creation of such a jaw has never been accomplished by modern crystal workers. But Compassion will not look compassionately upon these skeptics, who will have to come up with stronger arguments, if they want to persist in continuing the same old controversies in trying to explain away what is one of the most interesting recent discoveries.
However impressive Compassion is, its face is not symmetrical. With its detachable jaw placed underneath the skull’s teeth, Compassion looks and is symmetrical, but remove the jaw and it becomes clear that the skull is off-centre: the teeth are slanted to the right. The only place where polishing marks are evident to the human eye is under the maxilla. This area was not finely polished, maybe to illustrate it was hand carved. The rest of the skull does not show any of these marks. Indeed, Compassion brings us to an interesting conclusion: the skull is clearly made by human hands, but whoever made it had an expertise in working with quartz crystal which exceeds that of anyone alive today. In short, there is an entire lost science of working with quartz crystal. But where did it come from, and where did it go?
Finally, when we stare into its eyes, it is clear that both are not identical: the left eye is far clearer than the right. It was in fact while Bennett and his wife stared into the skull’s eyes, that they felt “it” looked sad. His wife said she “showed compassion in her gaze” and a name was born. Both also felt that Compassion held a feminine energy.
Bennett has photographed the skull extensively. Some of the close-ups have revealed a number of interesting subliminal images that Compassion conjures up. When the skull was placed on a light-box, one such image that emerged was of an enigmatic head, while nearby, there was the outline of a horse’s head.
The key question is whether Compassion can ever be proven to be ancient. As mentioned, the likes of Jane Walsh from the Smithsonian have gone out of their way – abandoning the scientific process altogether – to argue come what may that all skulls are of modern origin. Their scientific bias was apparent during the testing of the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull in 2008, when one member of the team straightforwardly proclaimed that the detachable jaw clearly was and could only be glass. When it was found out not to be glass soon afterwards, he exclaimed somewhat reservedly “this did not mean it was crystal” – even though previous testing by Hewlett-Packard had clearly shown that the jaw was indeed crystal!
The problem is that crystal is impossible to date, so any dating needs to happen through other, secondary means. Evidence of tools, especially the wheel, has been put forward as the key indicator as to whether a skull is ancient (read: pre-Columbian) or modern. However much this argument is flawed, it cannot apply to a skull that comes from Africa – Africa was never an isolated continent, witnessing the origins of Mankind several tens of thousands of years ago. The argument only works if we see crystal skulls as a purely American phenomenon, whereby the wheel is assumed to have
been introduced with the arrival of Western Europeans.
Of course, the skull’s presence in Africa for a number of decades does not mean it was always there. Equally, the origins of civilisation in Central America itself remains enigmatic. The Olmec civilisation dates back to at least 1,200 BC, and some have argued for an African origin to this civilisation. In 1972, Dr. A. Wiercinski argued that some of the Olmecs were of African origin, supporting his claim with skeletal evidence from several Olmec sites.
According to Clyde Winters, the Olmecs were from the Mandinka region of West Africa (north of Namibia). Their language is known as Mende, the script which was actually found on monuments at Monte Alban in Mexico. Interestingly, it is at Monte Alban that evidence has been found that the Mayans were definitely familiar with crystal artefacts.
Still, the quartz crystal itself having Namibia as its likeliest origin means that the skull itself must have had an African connection, wherever it was carved or used. And whereas there are Mayan legends of how skulls with removable jaws could “sing and talk” during certain religious ceremonies that were performed in the many Mayan sanctuaries, the question is which African cultures held crystal skulls dear.
Little is known about Compassion and seeing its existence has only been known about for a year, most discoveries about it are still to come. If we were to assume that it is indeed of African origins, then we are confronted with crystal skulls on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, bearing great similarities. Are they evidence of pre-Columbian contact between the two continents, in which case the Olmecs are the likeliest candidate, or should we look at much older origins, including the fabled lost civilisation of Atlantis?
Those who have communicated with the skulls – in trance, meditation or otherwise – keep referring to an Atlantean connection. During a crystal skull conference in September 2009 – one of the first public airings of Compassion – Mayan elder Hunbatz Men was one of the speakers and he became intrigued by Compassion. Studying the skull closely, he exclaimed “Atlantis!” He added that there was a matrix in the back of the skull which showed an ancient map which he did not understand. Several months later, Bennett realised that the iron oxide layer in the skull largely resembles a map of the African continent. Coincidence, or not?
Another psychic who has worked with Compassion is Carole Wilson/Davis. Wilson originally worked with the Mitchell-Hedges skull, resulting in “The Skull Speaks”, published in 1985 and one of the first books to appear on crystal skulls altogether. For Wilson, the iron oxide came in the shape of a phoenix, spreading its wings, with a head and a beak in the centre. She added that the information from Compassion changed, whereas that of the Mitchell-Hedges was stable – “the same information every day.”
Within Mayan creation mythology, there is a special role for skulls. Ancient temple complexes like Chichen Itza are three-dimensional renderings of the Mayan creation myth. Near the famous pyramid and ball court is an unimpressive “Platform of the Skull”.
In the creation myth, when playing ball, the Twin Maize Gods disturbed the lords of Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. The Xibalbans summoned the Maize Gods to the underworld to answer for their disrespectful behaviour. There, they subjected them to a series of trials. When they failed these tests, they were killed and buried in the ball court of Xibalba. The eldest twin was decapitated, his head hung in the tree next to the ball court, as a warning to anyone who might repeat their offence. This was visualised on the Platform of the Skull.
There is no archaeological evidence as to what type of skull hung there, but seeing it was a divine skull, which spoke and spat, a crystal skull with a detachable jaw would definitely have impressed all visitors – in a way any other type of skull would not have been able to accomplish!
Crystal balls are also used for scrying. Is it possible that Compassion was used for scrying? The various images that people have seen inside of her, would thus be parts of the scrying process. And extended staring in the skull might have placed the person in a trance. Users of Compassion are sometimes transported to another reality, for example by staring into its eyes – especially the left one.

In the 1980s, when the Central American crystal skulls came to prominence, various atrocious crimes were committed against the Mayan population there. In countries like Guatemala, an oppressive regime slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Mayan people. It took years before the news of this “Silent Holocaust” became known; throughout the genocide, Western governments supported the Guatemalan government. Only able to rely on themselves, the Mayan people began to organise themselves – becoming terrorists or freedom fighters, depending on your perspective – and they began to use key dates from the Mayan calendar for their campaigns, hoping to shake the Mayan people awake and embrace their true origins and common heritage – one that transcended the modern borders Western world powers had created.
Sociologists have labeled it the “Mayan Renaissance”. Today, three decades later, the world is very much aware of the Mayan calendar – especially its key date, December 21, 2012 – and millions of people visit the various Mayan monuments of Central America.
The 2010 World Cup in South Africa was seen as a joyous event for Africa, showing that Africa is not just a country of civil war and hunger. There is great joy in a continent that gave us the Ancient Egyptian civilisation, while Kenya is seen as the “cradle of Mankind”, for the remains of the earliest hominids have been found in that country.
Twenty years ago, American bestselling author Kathleen McGowan attended a crystal skull workshop lead by Susan McCune. McGowan was told that in the future, she would work with skulls from Africa and that several skulls would emerge from that continent. When she saw Compassion in July 2010, McGowan remembered McCune’s prophecy. And if McCune is right, Compassion is but the first in a series of African skulls that will make their existence known the world. And with their emergence, will there be a renewed appreciation for the African continent?
At this moment in time, Compassion’s existence has already changed the entire crystal skull debate, showing that the Mitchell-Hedges skull is not unique in its complexity, and that Central America is unlikely to be the only origin of crystal skulls. The question as to the origins of the crystal skulls has therefore been redefined: did various ancient cultures have them? Did an African civilisation bring them to the American continent? Or do we need to delve further back in time, to a lost civilisation, like Atlantis, from which these skulls originated? A new dawn in crystal skull research has just broken…
This article appeared in Atlantis Rising, Issue 84 (November – 

December 2010).

From Philip Coppens @ http://www.philipcoppens.com/compassion.html

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Göbekli Tepe: the world’s oldest temple

Göbekli Tepe - the world’s oldest temple

12,000 Year Old Civilization

A 12,000-year-old temple that is being excavated in Turkey is rewriting the historical record and seems to belong to a larger, hitherto unknown civilization that is slowly being uncovered.

by Philip Coppens

Five millennia separate us from the birth of ancient Egypt in c. 3100 BC. Add another five millennia and we are in 8100 BC, coincidentally the start of the Age of Cancer. Add another millennium and a half, and we have the date when Göbekli Tepe, in the highlands of Turkey near the Iraqi and Syrian borders, was constructed.

Archaeologically categorised as a site of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period (c. 9600–7300 BC), the world’s oldest temple sits in the early part of that era and so far has been carbon-dated to 9500 BC. It is the time-frame when Plato’s Atlantis civilisation is said to have disappeared. And it was built an incredible 5,000 years before the rise of what many consider to be the “oldest civilisation”, Sumer, not too far south of Göbekli Tepe as one goes down the River Euphrates and leaves the highlands of the Taurus Mountains in Turkey.

Göbekli Tepe is an incredible site. David Lewis-Williams, Professor of Archaeology at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, says that “Göbekli Tepe is the most important archaeological site in the world”. It is a small hill on the horizon, 15 kilometres northwest of the town of Sanliurfa, more commonly known as Urfa—which has been linked with the biblical Abraham (some claim that Urfa was the town of Ur mentioned in the Bible) and which once hosted the Holy Mandylion, linked with Christ’s Passion. Once also known as Edessa, Urfa is on the edge of the rainy area of the Taurus Mountains, source of the river that runs through the town and joins the Euphrates. Urfa was (and still is) an oasis, which could explain why Göbekli Tepe was built nearby. A life-sized statue of limestone that was found in Urfa, at the pond known as Balikli Göl, has been carbon-dated to 10,000–9000 BC, making it the earliest-known stone sculpture ever found. Its eyes are made of obsidian.


An old Kurdish shepherd, Savak Yildiz, discovered the true nature of Göbekli Tepe in October 1994 when, spotting something, he brushed away the dust to expose a large oblong-shaped stone. A survey of the site had been carried out by American archaeologist Peter Benedict in 1963, but he identified the area as a Byzantine cemetery. When German archaeologist Harald Hauptmann and Adnan Misir and Eyüp Bucak of the Museum of Urfa began excavations in 1995, they soon learned that the site was so much more.

Göbekli Tepe is a series of mainly circular and oval-shaped structures set in the slopes of a hill, known as Göbekli Tepe Ziyaret. “Ziyaret” means “visit”, but this is often left out of the name. And though some translate “Göbekli Tepe” as “Navel of the World” and “Gobek” does mean “navel” or “belly” and “Tepe” means “hill”, the most correct translation of the site’s name should be “bulged-out hill”.

The more sensationalist media have made attempts to link Göbekli Tepe with the biblical Garden of Eden. Göbekli Tepe is indeed old, but it is not unique; nor was it a garden. However, over the past 50 years the time-frame for the beginning of civilisation has been gently pushed back from the rise of the Sumerian civilisation to the construction of Göbekli Tepe. Alas, it has been a voyage that has not received the attention it should have had.
Pushing back the birth of civilization
The discovery of the biblical town of Jericho and its stone walls, dated to c. 8000 BC, was the first to push back the date of the birth of “civilisation”. ‘Ain Ghazal is often seen as a sister site of Jericho and, with its 15-hectare area, is the largest Neolithic site in the Middle East and four times as big as Jericho. American Gary O. Rollefson, its principal archaeologist, was able to date the town to 7250 BC, and there is evidence of agriculture in the area dating back to c. 6000 BC—later than the establishment of the town itself. In its heyday, 2,000 people lived at ‘Ain Ghazal. However, by 5000 BC the town was completely deserted. Thirty statues have been found there, measuring between 35 and 90 centimetres; they are human in appearance but may represent deities or the spirits of ancestors.
Jericho’s discovery added weight to the argument that the Bible is history, not myth. But when it was next learned that there are even older sites than Jericho, “unfortunately” not located in Palestine but further north in Anatolia, southeast Turkey, media interest in these new discoveries seemed to wane.


The most famous of these sites is Çatal Höyük. It was discovered in 1958 by British archaeologist James Mellaart, who began excavations in 1961 and eventually dated the site to 7500–5700 BC. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date. Mellaart described it as “a Neolithic Rome”, and it is indeed worthy of the name “town”. Its constructions show clear signs that its inhabitants possessed a religion—labelled by some to be a Mother Goddess cult, although this theory has been the subject of much controversy. What is known is that the dead were buried beneath the floors of the buildings, and that several of these structures contain depictions of bulls. Some people have gone so far as to suggest that there is likely a common origin between Çatal Höyük and the Minoan civilisation on Crete, despite the fact that 3,000 years separate the two.


Çatal Höyük was the first of several discoveries to slowly unveil the Turkish region’s ancient history. Göbekli Tepe is but one of several extremely old sites and is the oldest discovered so far. However, the existence of these sites has only been reported within the specialised press, although each site has a wow factor.

The site of Çayönü, located around 96 kilometres from Göbekli Tepe, conforms to a design that is known as a “grill plan”, as it looks like a grill. This reveals that careful planning went into its construction. Americans Linda and Robert Braidwood, together with Turkish archaeologist Halet Çambel, began to excavate Çayönü in 1964 and found that the floors of the buildings were made of terrazzo (burnt crushed lime and clay), although at the time of the discovery it was thought that this had first been used by the Romans. The site also revealed the use of metals and the earliest evidence of the smelting of copper, though some nevertheless argue that the copper was originally cold-hammered rather than smelted. The use of copper should not come as a total surprise, as the site is within range of copper ore deposits (as well as obsidian) at Ergani in nearby Diyarbakir Province. And all of this in a site dated to 7500–6600 BC. Çayönü is often seen as the site that began the epoch that would culminate in Çatal Höyük.

Çayönü presented evidence of the first farmyard pigs, but it also revealed a hoard of human skulls, one found under an altar-like slab and stained with human blood. Some have concluded that this is an indication of human sacrifice, while others have been unwilling to go that far based on a single type of artefact. Other archaeological evidence suggests that some people were killed in huge death pits, while children were buried alive in jars or roasted in large bronze bowls. Çayönü is therefore civilisation, but perhaps not as we like to know it.

Another important site is Nevali Çori, in Hilvan Province between Diyarbakir and Sanliurfa. Here, Harald Hauptmann began excavations in 1979 and was able to uncover large limestone statues. In 1991, the site was submerged with the construction of Lake Atatürk Dam. It shares many parallels with Göbekli Tepe and is dated to 8400–8000 BC. All the artefacts retrieved are now in museums, including a life-sized egg-like head with crude ears and a carved ponytail, found in a niche at the centre of a north-western wall. Interestingly, the ponytail is actually a curling serpent that ends in a mushroom-like cap. Whatever being the figure is meant to represent, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt believes it was worshipped as a deity.

Nevali Çori set the stage for Göbekli Tepe: shortly after its disappearance under the waters, Göbekli Tepe emerged from the sands. Many people highlight the T-shaped pillars of Göbekli Tepe as the “signature” of the site. However, such T-shaped pillars were also found in Nevali Çori. Site-wise, Nevali Çori is more square than circular in design, although a square precinct has been found at Göbekli Tepe, too. Although there are several parallels between the two sites, Nevali Çori’s pillars are nevertheless smaller and its shrine is located inside a village.

The Göbekli Tepe site revealed

In comparison, the site of Göbekli Tepe is small. British author Andrew Collins has compared its size to that of “three tennis courts”. Its principal excavators are Klaus Schmidt and Harald Hauptmann of the German Archaeological Institute in Istanbul. All of the complexes in Göbekli Tepe that they have unearthed so far are typified by structures containing T-pillars.

These pillars were used as “drawing boards” and many depict animals, with an apparent preference for boars, foxes, reptiles, lions, crocodiles and birds, as well as insects and spiders. Most of these were carved out of the flat surfaces of the pillars. However, some are three-dimensional sculptures, including one find, made during the 2006 excavation season, of a reptilian creature descending on the side of a T-pillar, demonstrating that whoever created this had mastered the art of stone carving—on a par with much of what we would see thousands of years later in Sumer and Egypt.

So far, four circular/oval shaped complexes have been excavated. The walls are made of unworked dry stone and the floors of terrazzo. The interior of the walls usually have several T-pillars set along them in a radiating pattern, the depth of the pillar normally against or near the wall so that the two main surfaces of the pillar could be carved and seen by whomever was inside the complex. A low bench runs along the entire exterior wall of each complex.

The structures are situated on the southern slope of the hill, orientated roughly north–south with their entrances to the south. All the T-pillars were excavated from a stone quarry on the lower southwestern slope of the hill. One pillar remains in situ in the quarry; it is seven metres long and three metres wide, and if fully excavated would have weighed around 50 tonnes, underlining that building with stones that weigh tonnes did not begin in Egypt or in England with Stonehenge.

Complex A, the first circular structure to be excavated, is nicknamed “the snake column building” because depictions of the snake somewhat dominate the carvings on the T-pillars. One is of a “net” containing snakes. Another pillar, however, depicts a “triad” of bull, fox and crane, positioned one above the other. Some pillars only feature a bull, others only a fox, and so on.

Complex B measures nine metres in diameter when measured from east to west, and 10 to 15 metres north to south (part of it is still to be excavated). It is nevertheless the only complex dug to floor level, revealing the terrazzo floor surface. Two central pillars have a large fox depicted on them. One central pillar, no. 9, is 3.4 m high; pillar no. 10 is 3.6 m high; their weight is 7.1 and 7.2 tonnes respectively. The complex was clearly built to “house” these monolithic pillars, which prove how well-versed our ancestors were in working with gigantic stones, not merely in quarrying them but in shaping and decorating them as well. Archaeologists believe that 200 T-pillars originally stood at Göbekli Tepe. If each weighed “only” five tonnes, it would still mean that 1,000 tonnes of pillars were excavated and decorated, and it highlights the importance of the site and the effort that went into creating it.

Complex C is nicknamed “the circle of the boar”, as it depicts various wild pigs. There remain nine pillars around the wall, but several were removed at some point in the past. One pillar shows a net of birds. As later cultures are known to have caught migratory cranes in nets, could this be a custom that was practised much earlier than assumed? Complex C is also of interest because a U-shaped stone has been found there which is deemed to have been the access stone. This stone has a central passage of 70 centimetres in width, and one side of the U is topped with a depiction of a boar; the other side unfortunately is missing.
Again, the U shape and the boar underline the craftsmen’s technical expertise in carving, which is shown even more so on pillar no. 27, featuring the earlier-mentioned three-dimensional reptilian creature. This intricate sculpture could be regarded as being on a par with Michelangelo’s statue of David.

Complex D is nicknamed “the Stone Age zoo”. Pillar no. 43 has scorpions, and some pillars are indeed so profusely decorated—much more intensively than in the other complexes—that “zoo” is quite an apt description. Once again, there are two central pillars (nos 18 and 31), though other pillars reveal symbols, like one in the shape of the letter H as well as one with an H turned 90 degrees. The site has revealed other symbols, specifically a cross, a resting half-moon and horizontal bars—evidence that the origin of writing is likely to be much older than is currently assumed. Pillar no. 33 is the “star” of the complex. Schmidt states that the shapes on this pillar come close to the Egyptian hieroglyphs, hence he posits the existence of a pictographic language in the 10th millennium BC.

Combined, these four complexes—and others, still unexcavated—are a series of ovals and resemble the layout of the oval-shaped Stone Age complexes found on Malta. This is all the more remarkable as Malta’s oval shapes were considered unique, though some of the megaliths on Sardinia also display some oval-like tendencies but not as profoundly as at Göbekli Tepe.

A “rock temple” lower down on the slope is equally oval in shape and has an opening to the “burial chamber”. Whereas at other sites these openings are so narrow that a human could not navigate to the interior, here it is wide enough to enter.

Elsewhere on the site, on the northern slope of the hill, there is a rectangular complex named “the lion column building”. Its four pillars have depictions of leonine creatures, which could also be tigers or leopards. One pillar has a 30-cm-high graffito of a squatting woman who appears to be giving birth.

Speculation on Göbekli Tepe

Excavations at Göbekli Tepe are still ongoing; only a quarter of the suspected 200 T-pillars have been discovered so far, and not all the structures have been unearthed. In short, further surprises may be in store. It is therefore early days to draw major conclusions, but what could it all mean? The site definitely demonstrates that things which we thought were much more recent are far older—and all present in one site, sitting in a region which shows that a civilisation worthy of that name existed there in the 10th millennium BC, millennia before anyone would have dared to guess a few decades ago.

Klaus Schmidt has labelled Göbekli Tepe “the first temple” and “a sanctuary of the Stone Age hunter”. He sees the site as part of a death cult, not specifically linked with a sedentary group but a type of central sanctuary for several of the tribes living in the region. The carved animals are believed to have been there to protect the dead. At Çayönü, as previously described, one structure has a cellar that was found to contain human skulls and bones. So far, though, Göbekli Tepe has no evidence of habitation and therefore appears to have been purely a religious centre.

Once again, it appears that, just as the ancient Egyptians did, the civilisation that constructed Göbekli Tepe had far greater regard for their religious buildings than for any structures of a “practical” or more materialistic nature. Still, with only Complex B excavated to floor level, no tombs or graves have been found to date.

Some have voiced criticism as to whether hunter-gatherers could have created such a structure as Göbekli Tepe. The many flint arrowheads (and the lack of construction tools) found around the site would seem to support this criticism, and one could even see these artefacts as part of sacred hunts rather than as part of the daily activities to put food on the table — if indeed tables even existed then.

Schmidt maintains that the hunter-gatherers convened at the site at certain times of the year. Whether these meetings were determined by solar or lunar cycles is anyone’s guess, but it is nevertheless an interesting question to ponder. Equally, one could logically conclude that those who constructed the site lived there and were a dedicated resource supported by others who sustained them in dietary and housing needs.
Archaeologists have estimated that up to 500 persons would have been required to extract the 10- to 20-tonne pillars and move them from the quarry to their destination, a distance ranging from 100 to 500 metres. However, Schmidt actually believes that maintaining the community of builders was the real reason behind why our ancestors “invented” agriculture: they began to cultivate the wild grasses on the hills to sustain this sedentary population. In short, he believes that “religion motivated people to take up farming”.

As well as appearing to have ritual significance, Göbekli Tepe, with its large and exquisitely decorated stone blocks, reveals that its creators had an extraordinary ability and familiarity with stone masonry and carving. That our ancestors in 10,000 BC were so skilled is an archaeological discovery that is wiping out long-cherished beliefs about the origin of civilisation.
As for the carvings, why were some and not other animals chosen? Why do the depictions seem to have no clear or apparent organisation but appear to be a rather random collection? Truth is, we don’t know. In later civilisations, all of these animals were given divine attributes. Some cultures chose to depict snakes because these animals shed their skin, which they saw as a symbol of rebirth. Others opted for the same animal for different reasons. So far, there is no way of knowing what beliefs the creators and users of Göbekli Tepe held.

Some observers have pointed out that some of the cranes are depicted with human-like knees and have suggested that a form of shamanism was practised inside this temple. Sister sites have revealed sculptures of a mixture of animal and human, specifically that of the body of a bird with a human head. As it happened, thousands of years later the ancient Egyptians used this symbol as a hieroglyph to depict the ba, the human soul freed from the body at death or during shamanic flight.
Andrew Collins has specifically underlined the shamanic potential of these sites in modern-day Turkey. The image of the previously mentioned naked woman depicts her hair in the shape of a hemispherical mushroom cap. The side of one pillar at Göbekli Tepe features a series of serpents with mushroom-shaped heads, four winding their way downwards and a fifth one climbing up to meet them, while the other side shows several interwoven serpents wearing mushroom-like caps, eight emerging at the top and nine at the bottom. Is this evidence of a ritual involving hallucinogenic mushrooms or similar mind-altering substances?


The bones of vultures have been found at Nevali Çori, Göbekli Tepe and Jerf el-Ahmar (in Syria). A communal cave site, Shanidar, in the Upper Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq, contained a series of severed birds’ wings covered with red ochre. The remains have been dated to c. 8870 BC. The wings are believed to have been used in some ceremony, but precisely in what manner remains unknown. However, it is known that, in the distant past, the people of this region placed the bodies of the dead on high constructions and let vultures eat the flesh of the dead.
Depictions of such a Neolithic excarnation tower have been found on a mural in Çatal Höyük. Interestingly, human bones have recently been found in the soil that once filled the niches behind the megaliths at Göbekli Tepe. Schmidt argues: “...the ancient hunters brought the corpses of relatives here, and installed them in the open niches by the stones. The corpses were then excarnated.” Not just vultures but wild animals seem to have taken part in this ritual. This may explain why so many animals are depicted on the T-pillars: perhaps the people who constructed these sites felt that “something” of the dead lived on in these animals.

Cradles of civilisation

What is known is that Göbekli Tepe and its sister sites have pushed back the age of monolithic building much further in time. Previously, we looked to the likes of Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, but now we find that our ancestors were hauling massive stones to build their constructions around 12,000 years ago. Even if a structure like the Sphinx were suddenly found to be 10,000 years old, the immediate reaction might now perhaps be: “So what? It is not that unique.”
Furthermore, if the dates for some of these sites in Turkey pre-date the assumed time-frame for such events as the disappearance of Atlantis or the Great Flood, it means that these ancient ancestors cannot be neatly placed as “survivors from a deluge”.

Our ancient history has grown much more interesting and complex. The cultures that followed the establishment of Göbekli Tepe had domesticated pigs, sheep, cattle and goats and cultivated wheat species such as einkorn. Indeed, recent analysis has shown that the first cultivation of domesticated wheat occurred at Karacadag, a mountain 32 kilometres from Göbekli Tepe. Other domesticated cereals such as rye and oats also originated here. According to Schmidt, this adventure began c. 8000 BC.

It is easy and tempting to label this region as “the cradle of civilisation”, but the fact of the matter is that it has already been proven that corn (maize) was engineered in Mexico at the same time, only underlining how the frontiers of “civilisation” are being pushed back on both continents. In fact, there is evidence of Barbary sheep being cultivated by our ancestors in North Africa as early as 18,000 BC. Furthermore, several grains of emmer wheat have been found at the Palestinian site of Nahal Oren, suggesting cultivation of this crop occurred there as early as 14,000 BC.

In any case, it is clear that Göbekli Tepe is not alone. It may be receiving much of the focus, but another site, Karahan Tepe, 63 kilometres east of Urfa in the Tektek Mountains, deserves attention. Discovered in 1997 and investigated by archaeologist Bahattin Çelik of the Turkish Historical Society, it has been dated to c. 9500–9000 BC. It has a number of T-pillars as well as high reliefs of a winding snake and other carvings similar to those at Göbekli Tepe. Covering an area of 325,000 m2, Karahan Tepe is much bigger than Göbekli Tepe. The stone pillars are spaced 1.5 to 2.0 metres apart and protrude above ground level, waiting for an archaeologist to expose them fully. Other carved stones include a battered torso of a naked man and polished rock with forms of goats, gazelles and rabbits.

It is too early to draw any extraordinary conclusions from these sites, apart from the fact that our history is no longer as we know it. But just as Jericho proved in part that the Bible contains historical facts, these sites may yet substantiate some of the Sumerian myths which claimed that agriculture, animal husbandry and weaving had been brought to mankind from the sacred mountain Du-Ku, which was inhabited by the Anunna deities. Though it’s unlikely that this mountain was Göbekli Tepe, we are probably in the correct general vicinity here at the frontier of the Taurus Mountains.

Around 8000 BC, descendants of the creators of Göbekli Tepe turned on their forefathers’ achievements and entombed their temple under thousands of tonnes of earth, creating the artificial hill—a “belly”—that we see today. Why they did this is unknown, though it was a decision that preserved the monument for posterity but also involved an extraordinary amount of time and effort. Schmidt argues that the local landscape began to change around that time: as the trees were chopped down, the soil began to lose its fertility; the area became arid and bare, and the people were forced to move elsewhere. Could it be that they began to make their descent and, millennia later, established what is known as the Sumerian civilisation? Such a scenario is just one possibility.

Even in ancient Egypt, religious constructions were often abandoned if not dismantled after a while because they belonged to a particular “cycle” of time that had since passed. If that were the case with Göbekli Tepe, it would mean that knowledge of astronomy is older by millennia. The past five decades have so radically reshaped our understanding of the period 10,000–4000 BC, specifically the level of “civilisation” our ancestors had achieved in those days, that this shouldn’t at all come as a surprise. And it seems that it’s a given that somewhere, even older towns are waiting to be uncovered.

However, it is equally clear that entering into the mindset of these hunter-gatherers—how they saw these animals and what they believed happened to the dead—is a difficult subject which will require years of study. Alas, it is an area where few archaeologists dare to tread, and in all likelihood they will hop from one site to the next, as they’ve done for several decades, and will “only” uncover the fact that civilisation is much older than we’ve assumed. Already, other sites are vying for Göbekli Tepe’s fame. The previously mentioned site of Jerf el-Ahmar, located along the Euphrates in Syria, has been dated to 9600–8500 BC. Other sites will certainly soon submit their applications. It’s likely they will all reveal that they are part of our history, but not as we know it.
This article appeared in Nexus Magazine, Volume 16, Number 4 (June-July 2009) and Darklore (Volume 4).

From - http://www.philipcoppens.com/gobekli.html

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State Sponsored Terror In the Western World

State Sponsored Terror

In the Western World

 

Most terrorist attacks in Europe, whether attributed to left-wing or right-wing activists or even Islamist fundamentalists, can be traced to actions by government sponsored military or intelligence agencies.

Inner Terror:

Your Government Doesn't Mind Killing You

One of the most controversial and least discussed aspects of Western society is the notion that Western governments would be able to, let alone actually, kill their own civilians. But is reality far worse than what we seem incapable of imagining?

In the movie V for Vendetta, a police detective ponders: "I want to ask a question. I don't care whether you answer me or not. I just need to ask this aloud... The question that I have to ask is: what if the worst and most horrifying attack in this country's history was not the work of religious extremists?" His assistant objects: "We know it was. They were caught. They confessed." The detective adds: "And they were executed. I know. And maybe that's really what happened... What if someone else killed all those people? Would you really want to know who that was? Even if it was someone working for this government? That's my question. If our own government was responsible… was responsible for the deaths of almost 100,000 people, would you really want to know?"

On 31 December 2006, three people were killed in the Thai capital Bangkok. The military-backed interim regime blamed the ousted prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, and his supporters as prime suspects. But US security expert Zachary Abuza said that "it could be the military trying to justify further crackdowns", (1) thus demonising the former prime minister so that it could continue to enforce martial law. Whom to believe?

One of the major stumbling blocks to accepting a major conspiracy (such as the claim that 9/11 was an "inside job" performed or allowed by the authorities) is the unwillingness to believe that a nation's institutions would kill its own civilians. Thailand is not a stable Western nation and many believe that the Western world is free of such atrocious acts, whereas the sad truth is that since World War II many Western nations have seen a long series of state-sponsored terrorism — directed against its own citizens.

Russia's 9/99 bombings and the stifling of dissent

The deceased Russian dissident and former spy Alexander Litvinenko argued in his book Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within that certain Russian terrorist attacks had been engineered by the Kremlin. He alleged that agents from the FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the successor to the KGB) co-ordinated the September 1999 bombings (popularly referred to as the 9/99 bombings) that killed more than 300 people during explosions in three apartment buildings in the capital Moscow and the southern Russian city of Volgodonsk in a period of two weeks. (2) 

The Russian authorities, directed by the newly appointed prime minister Vladimir Putin, blamed the bombings on Chechen separatists and, in response, ordered the invasion of Chechnya.

Former FSB officer Litvinenko, Johns Hopkins University and Hoover Institute scholar David Satter (3) and Russian lawmaker Sergei Yushenkov have asserted that the bombings were actually "false flag" attacks perpetrated by the FSB in order to legitimate the resumption of military activities in Chechnya and bring Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin and the FSB to power. False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations or other organisations, which are designed to appear as if they were carried out by other entities than the ones really responsible. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colours, which was practised in both naval and land warfare.

A famous example is Operation Greif, led by Otto Skorzeny, (4) in which he ordered his men into action in American uniforms during the final stages of World War II. Litvinenko, Satter and Yushenkov thus charged Putin with ordering state-sponsored terrorism, aimed at its own nation, killing 300 innocent citizens.

This is not just a conspiracy theory emanating from Russian dissidents or critics of Putin's regime. Shortly after the final attack (when a truck bomb exploded on 16 September outside a nine-storey apartment complex in the city of Volgodonsk, killing 17 people), FSB operatives were caught by local police and citizens in the city of Ryazan planting a bomb with a detonator in the basement of an apartment building at 14/16 Novosyelov on the night of 22 September 1999. (5) An alert resident of the building noticed strangers moving heavy sugar sacks into the basement from a car. Explosives experts found that the bomb tested positive for hexogen and all roads from the town were brought under heavy surveillance, but no leads were found. A telephone service employee tapped into long-distance phone calls and managed to detect a conversation in which an out-of-town person suggested to take care and to watch for patrols. That person's number was found to belong to an FSB office in Moscow.

On 24 September, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the FSB, stated that the bomb had been a dummy and that the entire operation was a training exercise. (6) The original chemical test was declared "inaccurate" due to contamination of the analysis apparatus from a previous test. As a consequence, the General Prosecutor's office closed the criminal investigation in April 2000.

But despite these official denials, Yuri Tkachenko, the explosives expert who defused the bomb, insisted that it was real. (7) Tkachenko also said that the explosives, including a timer, power source and detonator, were genuine military equipment. He added that the gas analyser that tested the vapours coming from the sacks unmistakably indicated the presence of hexogen —  not sugar, as the FSB officially claimed.

The police officers who answered the original call and discovered the bomb also insisted that the incident was not an exercise and that it was obvious from its appearance that the substance in the bomb was not sugar. (8)

Litvinenko's prolonged fight for life following the ingestion of radionuclide polonium-210 in November 2006 was popularly depicted as Putin's revenge against this whistleblower. But Litvinenko was not the only or first person to die. Sergei Yushenkov, who shared his interest in the 9/99 bombings, was gunned down at the entrance of his Moscow apartment block on 17 April 2003. (9) In this case, there may not be a direct relationship with the 9/99 bombings, as Yushenkov was a member of parliament and the ninth member of parliament to be shot dead in as many years, none of the cases ever having been solved. Still, one member of the Liberal Russia party, Yuly Rybakov, speculated in the Moscow Times newspaper that Yushenkov could have been killed for his attempts to show that the security services are guilty of the 9/99 bombings. (10)

Yushenkov had been responsible for inviting Mikhail Trepashkin, (11) a Moscow attorney and a former FSB agent, to assist with an independent investigation of the 9/99 bombings. After Yushenkov's death and the collapse of the official investigation, two Russian-American sisters Tatyana and Alyona Morozova, whose mother was killed in the 9/99 bombings, hired Trepashkin to represent them. (12) While preparing for the trial of the two Russian Muslims who were officially charged with the attacks, Trepashkin uncovered a trail of a mysterious suspect whose description had disappeared from the files. The suspect turned out to be one of his former FSB colleagues. He also found a witness who testified that evidence was doctored to lead the investigation away from incriminating the FSB.

On 22 October 2003, a week before the hearings commenced, Trepashkin was arrested after what appeared to be a traffic stop when, he claims, FSB agents stationed on the side of the road tossed a satchel with a stolen handgun into his vehicle. Trepashkin was imprisoned, unable to attend the hearings and thus smoothing the path for an easy conviction of the two Muslim suspects.

However, the Trepashkin story made it into the Western media and on 20 May 2004, an article in the Los Angeles Times gave an overview of his tribulations, adding that the central suspect was FSB agent Vladimir Romanovich. According to Trepashkin, Romanovich was an FSB contact charged with infiltrating Chechen criminal groups in Moscow. As evidence, Trepashkin referred to Romanovich's mysterious release from custody after an arrest by the organised crime squad several years before.

Trepashkin added that Romanovich was recognised by the landlord at one of the apartment buildings. The landlord, Mark Blumenfeld, confirmed that he had worked with the FSB on a sketch of the man he'd seen, only to be cast aside when his composite bore no resemblance to Gochiyayev, the man whom officials had identified as one of the masterminds behind the bombing. Romanovich subsequently died in a car crash in Cyprus. (13)

In 2003, Yuri Shchekochikhin, another MP who was on the independent 9/99 commission, died in mysterious circumstances and is believed to have been poisoned. Shchekochikhin was taken ill suddenly and developed awful symptoms: his skin peeled, he was covered in boils, his hair fell out and he eventually suffered respiratory failure. His colleagues were unable to investigate his death because they were told that the autopsy results were secret and would not be released even to his relatives.

Shchekochikhin was also an editor at Novaya Gazeta, the independent newspaper where Anna Politkovskaya, the fierce Kremlin critic, worked until she was gunned down in October 2006, weeks before Litvinenko died in a London hospital. (14) [She was gunned down on Putin’s birthday – Ed]

 

NATO's secret war in Belgium

Whereas in the aftermath of Litvinenko's mysterious death in November 2006 people were willing to entertain that Putin could order attacks against his own citizens, "surely" Putin's Western equivalents, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, would be unable to? And as such, a "conspiracy theory" hits its major hurdle: the willingness to accept one scenario, yet reject an identical scenario elsewhere—closer to if not at home.

Let us therefore begin in Belgium. In 1983, the Cellules Communistes Combattantes (CCC) was founded in Belgium and claimed to be the only Marxist revolutionary organisation that would wage an armed fight against the capitalist system. In 1984 and 1985, 28 "terrorist" attacks were committed by the CCC, allegedly in the hope of engaging the "proletariat" in its revolution. The figure of 28 is actually a record number when it comes to armed terrorist attacks by one group in Western Europe. (15) The CCC targets were, like 9/11 but unlike the 7/7 London bombings, flagships of the Western economy and American hegemony: factories that produced military equipment, the headquarters of political parties or offices, military infrastructure, the police force, a NATO oil pipeline and banks. The CCC furthermore operated not in one specific region but across Belgium, which underlined their capability to strike anywhere — and cause fear anywhere. On 1 May 1985, the group exploded a small van that was placed in front of a government office but, unfortunately, two firefighters died in this explosion. "Unfortunate", for the CCC's campaigns were organised to minimise, if not exclude, a human death toll.

Indeed, this makes the CCC not fit neatly into those attacks in which civilian casualties are acceptable. But this was just stage one. The CCC became part of the government investigation after Belgium, together with Switzerland and Italy, set up parliamentary commissions following the discoveries of "stay-behind armies" in 1990. The scope of the investigation was the extent to which the existence of a national secret army, co-ordinated by NATO (and inspired by the US and the UK in the wake of World War II) within several NATO and non-NATO states, had interfered with these democracies.

The Belgian defence minister, the Socialist Guy Coëme, who stated to have been unaware of the existence of the secret armies, had this to say about this secret army's involvement with terrorism: "Furthermore, I want to know whether there exists a link between the activities of this secret network and the wave of crime and terror which our country suffered from during the past years." (16)

Coëme was referring to the years 1983 to 1985 and the CCC, but also to a series of brutal robberies and attacks by the so-called Nijvel gang, in which the geographic area around Brussels saw 14 brutal terrorist attacks on shoppers in supermarkets. These attacks left 28 people dead and many more injured in a series of 17 burglaries and armed robberies, which in late 1985 turned extremely violent. In the three final attacks, 16 people died during armed robberies in supermarkets in Braine-l'Alleud, Overijse and Aalst, the gang stealing (in total) not more than US$56,000 (reducing a human life to $3,500). (17)

The Belgian Senate inquiry revealed that the secret army was staffed by Belgian citizens and took its orders from the Belgian State Security, the equivalent of the Russian FBS or the American CIA. The cell was code-named SDRA8 and was directly linked to NATO's stay-behind centres, the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) and the Clandestine Planning Committee (CPC). However, the Senate inquiry was unable to clarify whether the secret army had anything to do with the Nijvel gang murders, as the Belgian military secret service refused to co-operate.

Several journalists, including Allan Francovich, suggested that SDRA8 had linked up with the Belgian right-wing organisation Westland New Post (WNP), an opinion that was confirmed by WNP member Michel Libert, who stated during a televised interview that he had been told by his SDRA8 handlers that: "'You, Mr Libert, know nothing about why we're doing this. Nothing at all. All we ask is that your group, with cover from the Gendarmerie, with cover from Security, carry out a job. Target: the supermarkets. Where are they? What kind of locks are there? What sort of protection do they have that could interfere with our operations? Does the store manager lock up? Or do they use an outside security company?'" Libert added: "We carried out the orders and sent in our reports: hours of opening and closing. Everything you want to know about a supermarket. What was this for? This was one amongst hundreds of missions. Something that had to be done. But the use it was all put to, that is the big question." (18) A "big question" that would soon be answered, and which had a human death toll of twenty-eight.

The logical conclusion is that there was a NATO-sponsored secret army operating within Belgium, apparently outside the knowledge and control of the government itself.

A most interesting statement came from a member of the inquiry, Hugo Van Dienderen, who said: "This secret network did more than prepare for a war against a Communist threat... Agents tried to infiltrate peace movements. Certain American groups tried to contact them... A former director of the CIA [William Colby] leaves no doubt that it was their intelligence agencies that were at the basis of these networks." (19)

When Jean Bultot, one of the suspected killers in the supermarket murders, spoke from his hideout in Paraguay, he stipulated that certain members of the gang were indeed part of the national intelligence network. He added, without being asked, that the activities of the CCC followed the same formula.

Two police officers, Martial Lekeu and Robert Beijer, made similar statements. According to Lekeu: "There must exist a type of organisation between the members of the national intelligence agency, the gendarmes and the judiciary department. In my opinion, the attacks of the CCC are part of the same plan. One of the caches of the CCC was hired by a brother of a member of the State Security." (20)

And thus, the two terror campaigns that Belgium witnessed in the early 1980s were apparently carried out by a group of Belgians operating as a secret army, sponsored by an organisation —  NATO — to which Belgium not only belonged but whose headquarters it actually hosted. Furthermore, though politicians were apparently unaware, the Belgian intelligence agencies were not, and they specifically and consistently accused "communists" (the CCC) as well as the "extreme right" (the Nijvel gang) of carrying out terror activity, whereas they were actually part of the planners if not executioners.

Remarkably, in 1985, despite never-before-seen protest marches, NATO installed nuclear missiles in Belgium. This time, it seems the intended goal was not an invasion…

In 1995, the Belgian Chamber of Representatives organised a parliamentary inquiry into the effectiveness of the Belgian police and judiciary with regard to the Nijvel gang investigation. The conclusions of this inquiry, as well as the earlier Senate inquiry on SDRA8 and the Chamber inquiry on banditry, resulted in the preparation of new legislation governing the mission and methods of the Belgian State Security, which was passed in 1998.

Unlike the US government with its so-called Patriot Act, which was signed into law on 26 October 2001 in the aftermath of 9/11, the Belgian government decided to contain the powers of the intelligence and law enforcement network as much as possible, so that the wilful complicity of the Belgian State Security in allowing, if not organising, the deaths of people it was supposed to protect would not happen again.

Gladio's terror campaign in Italy

The scope of Belgium's state-sponsored terrorism is minimal compared to in Italy, where the then prime minister Guilio Andreotti stated in August 1990 that the report into Gladio21 (the local name for the stay-behind networks) confirmed that in his country, too, Gladio had been run by NATO with funding from the CIA.

As early as 1983, the Italian intelligence agencies had published a study on international arms trafficking which stated that in 1969, with the agreement of Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger (Haig was Military Assistant to the Presidential Assistant for National Security Affairs, Kissinger), the Italian secret services recruited 400 military officers within the freemasonic Propagande Due (P2) lodge. (Interestingly, the Swiss stay-behind network was known as P26.) This was later confirmed by former CIA agent Richard Brenneke, who worked as an arms trafficker within Gladio.

Brenneke stated that the US government had $10 million per month at its disposal for this service. Brenneke added that P2 "...was used during the 1970s to let Italian terrorism explode, as well as in other countries. This lodge is still active." (22) Brenneke was specifically referring to one of the cruellest terrorist attacks that occurred in Europe before the new threat of "Islamist fundamentalism" was identified: the 1980 Bologna massacre. The Bologna massacre was a terrorist bombing at the city's central station on the morning of 2 August 1980; it killed 85 people and wounded more than two hundred. The timed explosive device was left in an unattended suitcase inside a waiting room, the subsequent explosion destroying the roof, which collapsed onto the passengers.

The Italian government, led by Francesco Cossiga, and police authorities first thought that the blast might have been accidental, then tried to suggest that the militant Red Brigades (communists, of course) were responsible for the bombing. But it was then discovered that the bombs came from an arsenal used by Gladio, and the awful truth slowly began to dawn.

The commission into this terrorist attack reached its conclusion in 1986, after years of sabotage by the Italian State Security apparatus. The conclusion was that "a private structure existed in Italy which was composed of military people and citizens who cooperated, with the express goal of influencing democracy through non-democratic means". To achieve this goal, the group used terrorist attacks organised by neo-fascist movements. "There was an invisible government, in which the lodge P2, certain levels of the secret services, organised crime and terrorism were intimately connected," concluded the judges. 

Subsequent investigations reached the same conclusion: "During several years, a clandestine group, with extra-institutional connections, operated in our country with the goal to politically condition the democracy and to acquire personal power. To achieve its goal, this group used terrorism." In short, a nation's authorities, specifically its intelligence agencies, had organised a terrorism campaign, killing innocent civilians in an effort to "condition the democracy"—condition the people, that is, in an effort to prove that there was an enemy out there, even inside, intent on killing them. (23)

As a consequence, the term "strategy of tension" was coined. It is described as a way to control and manipulate public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs and false-flag terrorist actions. Throughout the 1980s, the suspected aim of these actions was to make the public believe that the bombings were committed by a communist insurgency, with the cause being not to create an authoritarian government (which itself was a victim of this campaign) but to make sure that the people accepted the need for NATO and the need for weapons on its soil—aimed firmly at the enemy "out there" who, as the terrorist campaign had proven, was inside as well. In the cases of Belgium and Italy, the governments fought back and came down against the self-granted, illegal powers of its security services.

Eventually it was found that Gladio's first terror campaign in Italy dated back to 12 December 1969, when a bomb exploded in the National Agrarian Bank in Piazza Fontana, in Milan's centre, killing 16 people and wounding up to ninety. Giuseppe Pinelli, a young anarchist, was first accused of the crime. Pinelli then suffered a suspicious death, which the authorities labelled as suicide.

But there was more to come. General Gerardo Serravalle, the head from 1971 to 1974 of "Office R" (the office that controlled Gladio from within the Italian military secret service, SIFAR), told the terrorism commission that, at a crucial Gladio meeting in 1972, at least half of the upper echelons "...had the idea of attacking the communists before an invasion. They were preparing for civil war." Later, he put it more bluntly: "They were saying this: 'Why wait for the invaders when we can make a pre-emptive attack now on the communists who would support the invader?'" (24)

If we are to transpose this onto 9/11, we should note that there is substantial evidence that al-Qaeda was indeed planning an attack on the United States. But was 9/11 an attack or a "pre-emptive strike"? General Serravalle was not alone. Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra confessed in 1984 to judge Felice Casson of having carried out the 31 May 1972 Peteano terrorist attack, in which three policemen died and for which the communist Red Brigades had previously been blamed. Vinciguerra explained during his trial how he had been helped by Italian secret services to escape the police and to fly away to Spain — very much like Belgian terrorists were able to escape to Paraguay.

Vinciguerra confirmed Serravalle's warnings: "I say that every single outrage that followed from 1969 fitted into a single, organised matrix... Avanguardia Nazionale, like Ordine Nuovo [the main right-wing terrorist group active during the 1970s], was being mobilised into the battle as part of an anti-communist strategy originating not with organisations deviant from the institutions of power, but from within the state itself, and specifically from within the ambit of the state's relations within the Atlantic Alliance [NATO]... The December 1969 explosion [in the Piazza Fontana] was supposed to be the detonator which would have convinced the political and military authorities to declare a state of emergency." (25)

The European stance against US-sponsored terror

On 22 November 1990, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Gladio, requesting full investigations — which have yet to be carried out — and the total dismantling of these paramilitary structures—which has not yet been proven.

The EP, in its resolution, condemned "the existence for 40 years of a clandestine parallel intelligence" as well as an "armed operations organisations in several Member States of the Community" which "escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO", itself sponsored by the American CIA. In this resolution, the EP denounced the "danger that such clandestine network may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of Member States or may still do so", especially before the fact that "in certain Member States military secret services (or uncontrolled branches thereof) were involved in serious cases of terrorism and crime". The European Parliament obviously held the US responsible, for it made the extraordinary directive that the United States Government should receive a copy of the resolution. (26)

The full investigations have not yet occurred; hence, on the American State Department website, we can read a denial of any involvement: "...West European 'stay-behind' networks engaged in terrorism, allegedly at US instigation... This is not true." (27)

Or is it? Richard Brenneke was a stay-behind insider. And it is thus perhaps unsurprising that his name comes up in a "terrorist" and "Islamist" campaign, in which the lives of 66 US citizens were treated as pawns in a political manoeuvre in which the goal was to determine who would occupy the Oval Office between 1981 and 1984.

The Iran hostage crisis took place from 4 November 1979 until 20 January 1981. 

During the crisis, the "Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line" held hostage 63 diplomats and three other US citizens inside the American diplomatic mission in Tehran. During the 444-day period, the hostage-takers released several captives, leaving 53 hostages at the end. The United States launched a rescue operation, Operation Eagle Claw, which failed and which caused the deaths of eight servicemen. Some historians consider the crisis to have been a primary reason for US President Jimmy Carter's loss in his re-election bid for the presidency in 1980. But that is not all.

A BAC 1-11 aircraft left Andrews Air Force Base in the late afternoon of 19 October 1980, its destination Paris, France. Among its passengers were: Richard Brenneke; William Casey, soon to be director of the US Central Intelligence Agency; Donald Greggs, soon to be US ambassador to South Korea; and George H. Bush, future vice-president and president of the United States and former director of the CIA under President Ford. Officially, Bush claims he spent the weekend at Andrews Air Force Base, which is of course not exclusive with what Brenneke has said about Bush; Brenneke merely adds that Bush left Andrews AFB on a secret mission that weekend. (28) The incident has become known as the "October Surprise" and Brenneke was the first to testify, for which he was charged with perjury though a Federal jury later acquitted him, upholding his testimony that the flight actually took place.

The crux of the October Surprise is that an agreement was made between Bush and Casey and the government of Iran to delay the release of American hostages until after the November 1980 election. Bush, while in Paris, met with Hashemi Rafsanjani, the second in command to the Ayatollah and later the president of Iran, and Adnan Khashoggi, a controversial Saudi Arabian businessman. Arrangements were apparently made to pay Iran US$40 million to delay the release of hostages in order to thwart President Jimmy Carter's re-election bid. The October Surprise would grow into the "Iran–Contra scandal", but it seems that in this long series of scandals and abuse of power, the initial claim —  namely, that civilians were used for political purposes — was forgotten. Most importantly, the statement that the US "does not negotiate with terrorists" was here exposed as the greatest of lies.

Finally, we note that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, several Saudi Arabians, including members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to fly out of America at a time when another member of the bin Ladens was identified as the main culprit in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The comparison to Jean Bultot and Vincenzo Vinciguerra and their flights to safety following their terrorist attacks is no doubt too logical and simple to be the truth.

The sad truth is that state-sponsored terrorism is not an invention of the post–World War II political climate. There is a long list of military false-flag attacks that have served as pretexts for war. In the Gleiwitz incident in 1939, Reinhard Heydrich fabricated evidence of a Polish attack to mobilise German public opinion and to fabricate a false

justification for a war with Poland — the start of World War II. In the 1931 Mukden Incident (often referred to as the "September 18 Incident"), Japanese officers fabricated a pretext for annexing Manchuria by blowing up a section of railway.

The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the US administration for a war with Cuba involved scenarios such as hijacking a civilian passenger plane and blaming it on Cuba (though in this scenario, no US citizens would die, as only military personnel would board the plane as civilians and the plane would later be substituted by a drone). It is clear that in 1999, the Russian state, specifically the security service, planted bombs in people's apartments in an effort to blame Chechen rebels and to restart a war and again invade Chechnya. Dare we ask whether 9/11 followed the scenario of 9/99, whereby sections of the US intelligence agencies planted bombs and carried out terrorist attacks, killing 2,973 civilians, in an effort to blame Islamist fundamentalists and to start wars by invading Afghanistan and Iraq?

If 9/11 and 9/99 eventually turn out to be proved as state sponsored terrorist acts (noting that it took Italy 15 years before such conclusions were reached for their own internal atrocities), both incidents will only be set apart from the rest because of the massive human death toll. On average, less than a hundred civilians "need" to die for the government to invade a country. In 1999, 300 Russians died; in 2001, 2,973 Americans died. ¥

Endnotes:

Several books on Gladio, the CCC and the Nijvel gang have been written in Dutch and French, amongst these a series of books by the Belgian investigative journalist Hugo Gijsels. Equally, a lot of sources on the Russian bombings are in Russian. Below, an effort has been made to quote as many English-language, Internet-based resources as possible. Though this has resulted in a slightly less authoritative look for these sources, they do show the difficulty that English-speaking people have in collating the various pieces of the Gladio puzzle.

1. Associated Press, January 1, 2007, reported in various newspapers and online, e.g., Taiwan News Online, http://tinyurl.com/tyew8

2. Various sources, including http://eng.terror99.ru/

3. Satter, David, Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State, Yale University Press, 2003; http://www.hoover.org/bios/satter

4. http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Operation:Greif.htm

5. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-satter043002.asp

http://www.sais-jhu.edu/programs/res/papers/Satter_edited_final.pdf

6. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=19795

7. Various sources, including http://tinyurl.com/yy7stz

8. Satter, David, "The Shadow of Ryazan: Is Putin's government legitimate?", National Review, April 30, 2002; Satter, Darkness at Dawn, op. cit.; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings

9. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2958997.stm

10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2958997.stm

11. Various sources, including http://eng.trepashkin.ru/

12. An independent documentary Nedoverie ("Disbelief") about their campaign was made by Russian director Andrei Nekrasov and premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival; http://tinyurl.com/y2puus

13. Various sources, including http://eng.terror99.ru/who_is_who/index/

http://www.diacritica.com/communique/content/issuefour/e.html

14. http://www.yabloko.ru/Publ/2006/2006_06/060620_novg_shekoch.html

15. Cellules Communistes Combattantes, http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/

16. Various sources, inc. http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/gladio.htm

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/synopsis.htm

17. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijvel_gang

18. Various sources, including http://tinyurl.com/584ol

 And http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/synopsis.htm

19. Various sources, including http://tinyurl.com/y452cs

20. Various sources, including http://tinyurl.com/yyghop  (noteworthy for being a site by students for students), but also http://tinyurl.com/vddm5. The best overview of Gladio in Belgium is Hugo Gijsels, Netwerk Gladio, Kritak, Leuven, Belgium, 1991.

21. For a general overview of material on Gladio as a whole, see:

http://users.skynet.be/terrorism/html/italy_gladio.htm

22. Various, including http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/gladio.htm

23. Willems, Jan (ed.), Gladio, EPO, 1991, see http://tinyurl.com/u9v2c

24. "Secret agents, freemasons, fascists and a top-level campaign of political 'destabilisation'", The Guardian, 5 December 1990; see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

25. Various sources, including http://tinyurl.com/y3g67j

26. Joint resolution replacing B3-2021, 2058, 2068, 2078 and 2087/90, available at http://tinyurl.com/y3yjq2

27. http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2006/Jan/20-127177.html

28. http://sonic.net/sentinel/usa3.html; http://tinyurl.com/y3yjq2

 

About the Author :

Philip Coppens is the editor-in-chief of Conspiracy Times (http://www.conspiracy-times.com). He has previously contributed seven articles to NEXUS New Times Magazine [including this article in NEXUS, Feb-Mar 2007] the most recent being "Ezekiel's Code and the Ark of the Covenant" (see NEXUS 13/06). His website is http://www.philipcoppens.com, and he can be contacted by email at info@philipcoppens.com.

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