As someone said to me not long ago, “I’ll
bet there is an interesting story to go with each of your
books.”
Here are a couple to go with Atlantis Rising, recently
republished by Galde Press (http://www.galdepress.com/books/alternativescience/atlantisrising.html):
Although the book was first published by Dell Books in
1973 and as Frank Joseph, who wrote the Foreword to the
new edition, observed, it “reignited public
interest” in Atlantis, and as William H. Kennedy
notes, it “was the very first work to suggest that
ancient people were visited by extraterrestrials who
helped shape an antediluvian global culture,” the
book was actually written in 1969-’70. An editor who
had been advancing up the literary ladder, moving from
smaller houses to larger ones, called me when she assumed
editorship at Dell Books and said, “Let’s do
that big book on Atlantis that we’ve talked
about.”
After I had completed the book, I learned that Dell
had exciting news for me. Walt Disney studios wanted to
option Atlantis Rising for a motion picture. We met with
a number of executives at Disney in New York, and it
seemed a sure thing that my book would be the basis for a
film. Publication of Atlantis Rising would, however, be
delayed in order to coincide more closely with the
release of the film.Although any author worth his ink is
eager to see a completed work in print, to be linked to a
Disney film seemed a small sacrifice of ego to make for a
delay in publication. However, as many an author has
learned to his dismay, there is a world of difference
between an option and the actual production and release
of a film. I have had many of my books optioned. The only
one to make it to the screen thus far has been one
completely outside the realm of the paranormal, UFOs, or
Atlantis-- Valentino, the biography of the great silent
screen lover, optioned and actually made by Ken Russell.
The only tangible thing with which I was left from the
Disney experience was a fistful of Mickey Mouse pens for
my children.
My Dell editor moved on to another publisher, and the
years passed. Disney finally made Atlantis: The Lost
Empire in 2001, which bombed at the box office-- the
studio’s rightful Karma, I felt for not filming
Atlantis Rising. But back in 1970-‘72, my inquiries
to Dell about the fate of my book were met with confused
and awkward patches of silence. My agent guessed that
they had lost the manuscript and that the book would
never be published.
Then, incredibly, with but a couple of weeks to go on
their contractual rights of possession, someone at Dell
found the manuscript of Atlantis Rising and announced
that it would be published as soon as possible. Within a
few months after publication in 1973, Atlantis Rising had
gone into eleven printings.
Another interesting story that occurred during the
writing of the book was the strange telephone call that I
received while working late one night on the manuscript
from someone who claimed to be an Atlantean and who was
calling from one of their undersea bases. Yes, I know
what you’re thinking: Why should I be surprised if
I, an author of the strange and unusual, received a call
from a nut who believed that he was living in a city
under the ocean? Maybe. But I just happened to be working
on Chapter Five: “Mighty Teachers from an Undersea
Kingdom” when he called.
If Atlantis should still exist, I am convinced that
the most likely place for its domain would be under our
seas. In 1969, Dr. Roger W. Wescott, chairman of the
anthropology department at Drew University, Madison, New
Jersey, published The Divine Animal, in which he
presented a well-reasoned theory that extraterrestrials
had landed on Earth circa 10,000 years ago, intending to
teach humankind a better way of life. The anthropologist
feels that the space travelers were viewed as gods by our
human ancestors, but when Earth's dominant species
continued to demonstrate their avaricious and destructive
nature, the extraterrestrials gave up in disgust and
withdrew to establish undersea bases.
Although the cosmic tutors were temporarily thwarted
in their attempts to build a better world here on Earth,
they did not give up hope, and they emerge from time to
time to conduct certain spot-checks to see if humans are
advancing intellectually and becoming less barbaric. Such
monitoring forays explain the sightings of UFOs which
have been reported for thousands of years.
Dr. Wescott also suggests that when the UFOnauts
withdrew from the Earth's surface, they took some humans
along with them to train and to tutor according to their
advanced extraterrestrial principles. Dr. Wescott
conjectures that some of these specially tutored humans
might have been returned to the surface at certain
intervals to have become leaders. Some of these
apprentices worked to change humankind for good, while
others, corrupted by a combination of their secret
knowledge and the malleability of the less-advanced
surfaced humans, only brought additional chaos and
confusion to the world. Dr. Wescott speculates that such
individuals as Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Genghis Khan, and
Attila the Hun might have been sent up to the surface by
the UFOnauts with varying degrees of success.
In Dr. Wescott's view, such a theory helps to explain
two of the most widespread and persistent legends found
among nearly all peoples and all cultures: 1.) There was
a time when gods walked the earth and tutored humankind.
2) There was a culture called Atlantis, whose thriving
civilization met with catastrophe and sank beneath the
sea.
Dr. Wescott also theorizes that there may not have
been a catastrophic destruction of a continent, but,
rather, an orderly withdrawal of the "gods," the cosmic
teachers, as they transferred their bases from the land
to the sea floor. If such a theory as the one he proposes
may be true, Dr. Wescott suggests that the many reputable
sea captains who have seen UFOs going in and out of the
ocean might well be seeing aerial vehicles from undersea
bases constructed by advanced beings.
******
Ever since I began an intensive study of the UFO
phenomenon in 1956, I have been intrigued by those
reports from individuals who claim to have witnessed
strange aerial craft entering and leaving large bodies of
water. What is more, the mystique and the reality of
undersea USO (Unidentified Submarine Objects) bases seems
to grow more convincing with each passing year.
In mid-February 1942--five years before Roswell--Lt.
William Brennan of the Royal Australian Air Force was on
patrol over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne,
Australia, on the lookout for Japanese submarines or
long-range German U-boats. Fishermen in the area had
reported mysterious lights bobbing on the sea at night,
and after the Japanese attack on Darwin on February 19,
the Allied High Command was urging the strictest
vigilance.
The air patrol was flying a few miles east of the
Tasman Peninsula about 5:50 P.M. on a sunny evening when
a strange aircraft of a glistening bronze color suddenly
emerged from a cloud bank near them. The object was about
150 feet long and approximately 50 feet in diameter. Lt.
Brennan saw that the peculiar craft had a dome or cupola
on its upper surface and he thought that he might have
seen someone inside wearing a helmet.
The unidentified aerial craft flew parallel to the
RAAF patrol for several minutes, then it abruptly turned
away and dived straight down into the Pacific. Lt.
Brennan emphasized that the USO made a dive, not a crash,
into the ocean; and he added that before the craft left
them, he noticed what appeared to be four finlike
appendages on its underside.
******
For many years now I have received regular reports of
UFO harassment of shrimp boats. An early account that I
received from Ira Pete, owner of the Ruby E., a
sixty-seven-foot shrimp boat, who had his vessel sink
under mysterious circumstances in the first week in July,
1961, was considerably more serious than the accounts of
UFOs surfacing beside the shrimp boats or buzzing the
crews.
According to Pete, he was fishing in the Gulf of
Mexico off Port Arkansas with his two-man crew when
something hooked into the boat and ripped off its stern.
Fortunately for the three shrimpers, there was another
fishing vessel close by.
******
On February 5, 1964, the 105-foot yacht Hattie D. was
rammed by an underwater something near Eureka,
California. Ten men and one woman were lifted from the
fast-sinking yacht in a dramatic Coast Guard helicopter
rescue.
The survivors all agreed that the Hattie D. had been
run into by something big made of steel. When Crewman
Carl Johnson was informed that no submarines were
reported in the area and that the yacht had sunk in 7,500
feet of water, he adamantly replied that he didn't care
how deep it was in that area--and he knew that whatever
"holed" the yacht had been a very long piece of
steel.
******
On January 12, 1965, Captain K, an airline pilot on a
flight between Whenuapai and Kaitaia, New Zealand,
spotted a USO when he was about one-third of the way
across Kaipara Harbor. As he veered his DC-3 for a closer
look at what he had at first guessed to be a stranded
gray-white whale in an estuary, it became evident to him
that he was now observing a metallic structure of some
sort.
Captain K saw that the object was perfectly
streamlined and symmetrical in shape. He could detect no
external control surfaces or protrusions, but there did
appear to be a hatch on top. Harbored in no more than
thirty feet of water, the USO was not shaped like an
ordinary submarine. He estimated its length to be
approximately 100 feet with a diameter of 15 feet at its
widest part.
Later, the Navy stated that it would have been
impossible for any known model of submarine to have been
in that particular area due to the configuration of
harbor and coastline. The surrounding mud flats and
mangrove swamps would make the spot in which Captain K
saw his USO inaccessible to conventional undersea
craft.
******
On July 5, 1965, Dr. Dmitri Rebikoff, a marine
scientist making preparations to explore the Gulf
Stream's depths, found himself faced with a most unusual
challenge when he detected and attempted to photograph a
fast-moving undersea USO on the bottom of the warm water
stream that flows from the Florida Keys to Newfoundland
and onward to northern Europe. Dr. Rebikoff told Captain
L. Jacques Nicholas, project coordinator, that the object
was pear-shaped and moving at approximately three and one
half knots.
The peculiar object was moving beneath various schools
of fish, and at first, judging from its size, Dr.
Rebikoff thought it to be a large shark. As he monitored
it, however, he noted that the USO's direction and speed
were too constant.
The marine scientist theorized that the object was
mechanical and running on robot pilot, but since they
were unable to receive any signal from the USO, he really
had no idea what it might have been.
******
In the summer of 1969, Englishman John Fairfax rowed
his way across the Atlantic, docking in Fort Lauderdale
after six harrowing months alone on the sea. When asked
by journalists to name the most impressive thing that had
happened to him during the ocean adventure, Fairfax
replied rather reluctantly that the answer to that
question would have to be the appearance of objects that
could not have been anything other than flying
saucers.
Emphasizing that he had never believed in such things,
he went on to explain that there was much more involved
in his experience than simply observing UFOs. There was a
force he told reporters; it was as if the objects kept
asking him if he wanted to come with them.
"And I was fighting [the force] and saying
back, 'No, no, no,'" Fairfax said. “It was like
telepathy, like being hypnotized. Then these luminous
saucers swooped down over the ocean, rose and swooped
down again.” ******
In December, 1997, a massive craft was seen emerging
from the sea next to an oil platform in the Gulf of
Mexico. According to engineer Jeremy Packer, the sighting
was witnessed by 250 oil rig workers.
At about 7:58 A.M., Packer said that everyone got
frightened when they heard a rumbling noise that they
knew couldn't be the engines that ran the platform bore.
Looking toward the west, they sighted twenty-five to
thirty helicopters on maneuvers. This was not unusual,
Packer said, except that the rig commander said that he
had not received the usual alert regarding Coast Guard
maneuvers.
Then, according to Packer, they all saw something that
totally changed their lives. All of the helicopters
stopped in midair and a huge metal cigar-shaped object
about the size of the oil platform surfaced beneath them.
The massive craft, about as long as two football fields,
soared straight out of the water and into the air, where
it hovered above the helicopters for about two
minutes.
Packer described the object as concave on its
underside with four large domes on its bottom. The
topside of the cigar-shaped craft was encircled by
beautiful lights of every color that one could
imagine.
And then, as if someone had turned off a light switch,
the giant craft had disappeared. One second everyone was
studying the object through binoculars or telescopes,
then, in the literal blink of an eye, it was gone.
As an interesting sidenote, Packer said that the crew
noticed that their watches were 30 minutes later than the
actual time when they got back to the mainland.
******
In 1990, on a dark night somewhere in the Andes near
the ancient site of the sacred Incan city of
Ollantaytambo, Peru, my wife Sherry and I watched
numerous illuminated UFOs emerge from the surface of a
lake, soar into the night sky in a peculiar zigzag flight
pattern, then descend once again beneath the water.
Obviously quite accustomed to the sight, the Peruvian
villagers went about their tasks of carrying grain and
water to their families in jars atop their heads, paying
little attention to the USO phenomenon. In answer to our
queries regarding the glowing objects, the
villagers’ answers were consistent:
“Angels…the Old Ones…the grandfathers, who
have never left us.”
######
Timeline
of Atlantis Rising
By
William H. Kennedy
1916: E.W. Maunder suggested alien visitations in "A
Strange Celestial Visitor" Observatory, 39 (1916):
213-214
1919: Charles Fort suggested alien visitations
in The Book of the Damned.
1954: Dr Herman Oberth suggested alien
visitations in Flying Saucers Come from a Distant World
(The American Weekly, October 24, 1954)
1955: Morris K. Jessup suggested alien
visitations in The Case for UFOs
1957: George Hunt Williamson suggested alien
visitations in The Saucers Speak
1957: Peter Kolosimo suggested alien visitations
in Il pianeta sconosciuto
1958: Henri Lhote suggested alien visitations in
The Search for the Tassili Frescoes
1959: Matest M. Agrest suggested alien
visitations in Astronauts of Yor
1959: Jacques Bergier suggested alien
visitations in Morning of the Magicians
1960: Brinsley Le Poer Trench suggested alien
visitations in The Sky People
1964: W. Raymond Drake suggested alien
visitations in Gods or Spacemen?
1966: Charles H. Gibbs-Smith suggested alien
visitations in May interview (Victoria & Albert
Museum)
1967: Brad Steiger published the booklet The
Flying Saucer Menace which states that beings from other
planets visited Earth and formed an antediluvian global
culture. Steiger consolidated previous writers in this
area and gives them due credit. The booklet received
world-wide distribution. Steiger began to form basis for
an expanded book on this subject which he decided to call
Atlantis Rising.
1968: Erich Von Daniken published Erinnerungen
an die Zukunft (Chariots of the Gods?) in German which
draws from most of the themes expressed in The Flying
Saucer Menace. Von Daniken acts as if he were the
originator of the ancient astronaut theory. Steiger
completed initial draft of Atlantis Rising and submits it
to publisher.
1968-70: Steiger's publisher mysteriously delays
release of Atlantis Rising and Steiger expanded the book
until 1970 adding new developments.
1970: Documentary based on Chariots of the Gods?
gets Oscar nomination and book is translated into English
and becomes best seller.
1972: Critics begin to punch holes into Von
Daniken's deceptive and misleading scholarship.
1973: After five years of delays Atlantis Rising
is finally released and revives interest in the ancient
astronaut theory. Steiger's scholarship is outstanding
and the book becomes a best seller.
1973-2005: Over 2500 books appear which deal
with Atlantisology most of which draw heavily from
Atlantis Rising.
2006: Von Däniken files for bankruptcy when
his Swiss UFO theme park fails to attract tourists.
2007: Galde Press publishes reissue of Atlantis
Rising.