# Egyptian Secrets **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 17, 2002, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659 "2002-10-17T13:47:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eidolon909](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce7236/32.png) [@Eidolon909](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eidolon909)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659/1 "2002-10-17T13:47:35Z")
This question is a little more mundane than “Did Aliens build the Pyramids?” Basically, I remember seeing something or reading something awhile ago about strange markings on a wall somewhere and it wasn’t actually inside one of the pyramids to the best of my recollection. Essentially, it was a strange panel of hieroglyphs that depicted images that resembled helicopters and other modern day things that are not repeated on any other known hieroglyph panels etc. Anyone know anything more about this? Also, not to re-hash the the whole “secret-chamber in the great pyramid that Hawass is purposefully surpressing” but I also read awhile ago about some strange things in the Sphinx that Hawass refuses to explore. Namely a) that rader or sonar echoes have detected a secret chamber within the Sphinx and b) that a tunnel beneath the Sphinx that connects to somewhere else was discovered but the tunnel had been flooded with ground water and was partially collapsed. Again, anyone know anything else about these? Rudimentary searches have turned up little beyond the standard alien conspiracies and numerological junk. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659/2 "2002-10-17T14:04:14Z")
[This](http://members.tripod.com/~A_U_R_A/abydos.html) sounds like the hieroglyph ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659/3 "2002-10-17T15:32:55Z")
I don’t understand the text in that link. Is it saying that the helicopter and the U.F.O. were part of the original or that they were added through digital manipulation of the image? ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659/4 "2002-10-17T15:46:25Z")
It’s saying that the “helicopter” is the result of **overwriting** (or its stonecarving equivalent), and that the image was manipulated to make that less visible. ---
**Author:** ![Bromley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Bromley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bromley)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659/5 "2002-10-17T15:48:05Z")
No, it’s saying that the hele photo has been airbrushed to de-emphasise the back of the bird pertched on the semi-circle (and thus make the hele look more prominent). Although it doesn’t look like a helecopter to me (in context), I’d like to point out that no honest sceptic would present their only picture from a different angle. ---
**Author:** ![Bromley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Bromley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bromley)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659/6 "2002-10-17T15:49:24Z")
(Sorry - response to **ascenray** , not **Nametag** ) ---
**Author:** ![DRomm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@DRomm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DRomm)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659/7 "2002-10-17T16:20:05Z")
So… aliens who have travelled countless light years wind up in Egypt and… use helicopters? Sounds like an interpretation of “Ezekiel saw the wheel”. Doesn’t really make sense. Why would a hieroglyph depict the copter and not, say, the spaceship? Since the spinning blades are hard to see in the air, the picture must be of a ship on the ground. Why isn’t anybody in it, or depicted getting off? What happened to the anti-gravity devices? Lasers? Pall-point pens? Paper? Computer monitors? All the other tech that would be as impressive to the puny earthlings? How could the aliens know in advance what kind of atmosphere (much less gravity) would be on Earth? Can’t see a starship carrying a spare copter (and parts) in it’s hold. The depiction of a helicopter implies that it was built here. Where is the manufacturing center? Hangar? Landing pad? Heck, the failed rescue of the Iranian hostages and Desert Storm taught us that helicopters aren’t all that useful in the desert. I’m all for wild speculation and interesting theories with little to back them up. But the best ones are logically consistent, and this one isn’t. Sorry for the mini-rant, but the Egyptians’ achievements were tremendous, and trying to explain them away by insisting on outside influences has always bugged me. I’d _love_ it if we could prove alien contact with Earth. As yet, we haven’t. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659/8 "2002-10-17T16:30:06Z")
But, see, there _is_ a spaceship in that cartouche. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659/9 "2002-10-17T16:55:47Z")
This is what the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) website has to say about the search for the cavities under the Sphinx. (As the A.R.E. exists to promote the work of Edgar Cayce, who predicted the existance of a secret chamber near the Sphinx, they do have a vested interest in finding one.) > [@](#): > > \*\*In Egypt, A.R.E. members Joe Jahoda and Dr. Joseph Schor have been unable to obtain permission to do further additional radar analysis of the 25 x 40 foot underground cavern that they discovered near the Sphinx in 1997. NASA scientists verified the cavern and Jahoda and Schor were allowed to do limited drilling in order to drop cameras down for a better look. Although the cavity appeared to be a natural formation, it made what may be an unnatural, 90-degree turn. Tentative approval was given for a more sophisticated radar analysis to be done in 1999. Due to a bureaucratic snafu, the permits were not approved. In a July 2001 article on the web site of the National Geographic Society, Zahi Hawass, Director General of the Giza Plateau, is said to have recently “urged other archaeologists to join him in a two year moratorium on all excavations in the area from Giza to Aswan.” The only explanation given is Hawass’ concern for the preservation of the existing monuments. \*\* [http://www.edgarcayce.org/am/hallofrecordsupd.html](http://www.edgarcayce.org/am/hallofrecordsupd.html) In other words, the A.R.E. got their chance to see what was there, they didn’t find much and the Egyptians are now understandably reluctant to let them do any further damage when there is only a remote chance that they could ever confirm the A.R.E.'s pet theory. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-secrets/132659/10 "2002-10-17T17:15:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by acsenray \* > \*\*But, see, there _is_ a spaceship in that cartouche. \*\* I’m with you on that, although the diagram at the bottom shows it in black, and black in the key means “identified”. Unfortunately the author does not say what it is identified to be. Actually looks more like a fighter jet to me, beneath a spaceship, beneath a zeppelin. I don’t believe the Egyptians were depecting anything extraterrestrial, but would be interested in what the Egyptologists’ interpretation is. BTW the cartouche is just the part as shown in the bottom diagram encased in a an oval with a vertical line tangent on the left. The parts in the actual photos are not cartouches at all.