Customer Reviews

The Hidden Records I

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Wayne Herschel possesses a magnetism in his thoughts, his devotion to discovery, his human vulnerability as one who has encountered near death or out of body experiences or paranormal light events, and in pulling his probing investigation of the cosmos into a book that feels like a gift to the reader. Whether or not every reader will greet his theories and substantial documentation with an open mind is something no one can control. But for those who like to think out of the box, who admit that there are so many possibilities to explain our existence in the universe, for those hungry and adventuresome minds this book HIDDEN RECORDS is a little fascinating feast!

Herschel, ably assisted by Birgitt Lederer, has followed his instincts in exploring the fact that all pyramid systems on the face of the globe have definite relationship to the stars. He is an archeo-astronomer and has been able to illustrate how the ancient pyramids of Egypt are aligned with the belt of Orion stars that are tangent with the Milky Way. He does not merely toss off this idea, but instead gives multiple diagrams, maps, photographs and other documentation that the placement of the pyramids follows the design of the stars.

Herschel then takes us through the design of the pyramids of the Incas of Peru, the mysterious Stonehenge construction and yes, even to the face of Mars. Each extension of his relationship between the remnants of older civilizations and the stars is well discussed, well mapped, and well presented. But the most fascinating discussion in this engrossing book is Herschel's postulate that the Great Pyramids of Egypt may just provide us with information to continue to explore the concept that life on planet earth came from a distant star via a means of migration that is as bold in concept as it is exciting to ponder.

For centuries people have laughed at individuals with ideas that seem on the edge of credibility, finding that such concepts as gravity and the rotation of the sun and earth challenge our sense of security, that we must have certain pieces of information we hold 'sacred' and are taken on 'faith', only to find that in time the principles once thought bizarre actually are found to be fact.

Herschel does not preach his ideas, does not alienate spirituality (if anything his thoughts are closer to deity than to science fiction), but he does simply unfold his years of thoughtful pondering in a book that hopefully will cause thought and controversy. If there is a down side to the book itself, it is in the writing style Herschel has chosen. Had the flow of the writing been more poetically eloquent it would come closer to seducing the doubters. But that is a small point. This is a book to exercise the mind and the imagination, and reading it opens windows into understanding the universe in ways we have never wandered. It is a fine read and a feast for the mind. Grady Harp, May 06

If you have already read other books that center around the question of who made the pyramids, and why, and so on, then this is the one to read next. I was profoundly shocked by this book. I have known about the "Chariots Of The Gods" idea, and other such bizarre speculations, for decades now - and could not be surprised by anything like that. Entertained, yes, but not surprised as I have already heard it all before. Or so I thought.

I already know that there are pyramids all over the world. Pyramids in Europe, in both North and South America, all over Asia, and so on. But just as a sort of "catalog of pyramids" alone (and there turns out to be MUCH more to it than only that) this book is stunning. The book is printed expensively on large (8 by 10 inch) glossy paper. There are photographs, aerial photographs, maps, pictures taken inside pyramids, reproductions of murals, and so on. What a treat. Somebody put an enormous amount of work into this.

But all of that is only the wrapping paper. What comes out of the box is REALLY something. You are in for a surprise even if you have already read Zecharia Sitchin, William Bramley, Graham Hancock, Colin Wilson, and so on. In fact, having already read those only sets you up for the really big wallop when you read this one. If you have already read this topic, but then miss this book, it would be such a sad irony. This is the one where it all finally comes spilling out. Surprised me. I figured this business was unknowable beyond a certain point, and it is - but that point is not located where I thought it was. I certainly did not expect this much would come out during my lifetime if ever.

I am curious that so many reviewers here gave the book such bad marks for supposedly being poorly written. Based on that information, I was expecting the book to be a horrible mess, but such was not the case at all. There are a few typos, and an informal English is used (about like what I am using here), but that is all. Wayne Herschel is from South Africa and he apparently speaks in a certain way because of that. If you and I disagree about something, I would say that your opinion is different from my opinion, but Wayne Herschel would say that your opinion is different to mine. So, he uses the word "to" in cases where we might expect the word "from" to be. And so on. There are a number of things like this in the book, but I found the book to be nicely written and in an enjoyable style - and even if this book was written in bad English I would by no means want to miss out on the information in it. Not for that or for any other reason.

I would give this book more than 5 stars if the system here allowed for it. On a scale of 1 to 10 I rate this book to be at maybe 15 or 20. Don't miss out. A great deal of seemingly unknowable information has come to be known. And so "off the scale" is not an unreasonable rating.

By far a very thorough and intelligent read. I could not put it down.

The evidence that pyramids all over earth from a lost epoch of man align to specific star clusters is overwhelming in my opinion.

Doesn't take a PhD to realize that if something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.... chances are it's a duck.

Everthing is presented via full color images and in an easy to comprehend format. It has changed my perspective and at the same time answered many questions for me personally; and of course will raise many more!

An absolute must read!

Hidden Records confounded this reviewer because the book is so poorly written -- yet demands attention. The writing is full of mispelled words, lousy grammar, and poor construction. Normally I would never recommend such a book; however, I am pleased to make an exception in this case, because the content is absolutely riveting.

If Wayne Herschel's ideas about Giza, Abusir, Tikal, Teotihuacan, Angkor, and Stonehenge turn out to be correct, he will have pulled an amazing coup: proving that you don't need to own a PhD, in fact, don't even need to be able to write, in order to make an important contribution.

The author makes a persuasive case for the central role of the Pleiades, the seven sisters, to the ancient world. I was especially impressed with Herschel's discovery of a scaling rule which, if true, establishes the pyramids of Abusir as even more important than the better known pyramids of Giza. He quite convincingly shows that the leg of the Bull, the central astronomical symbol in the zodiac of Denderah, refers to the Pleiades -- rather than to the Dipper, the standard interpretation. His decipherment of a related star map at Cydonia, on Mars, is nothing less than mindboggling.

Astronomers should point their sophisticated telescopes and hardware in the direction of Herschel's mystery star to prove or disprove his theories. And let's get on with it. We need answers now! The story of human origins has languished in the dark for too long.

Sometimes we have to "Think Outside the Box" to make progress down a path that has been slow over the years to interpret. This is a very handsome book with many pictures and diagrams that make it easy to follow the concept. No doubt it will be controversial!
If the wonder of the world's megaliths has ever intrigued you, I recommend you read this book. With this author's concept, I believe he has shown, through, mathematics, scrolls, cuneiform tablets, and astrology, how they are similar and all point in the same direction! I found this book very thought-provoking and compelling. I like thinking for myself!
AND, there are even more surprises covered in the book.

"The Hidden Records: The Star of the Gods" is a new and iconoclastic analysis of coded information presented in ancient or prehistoric structures such as the pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge, and the ancient edifices of both the Americas. Wayne Herschel presents in vast and colorful detail his painstaking conclusions after many years of study of these diverse 'star-maps' of antiquity. Many color photographs and illustrations help to document his many findings, some of which are shattering to established or conventional science. Readers will want to follow this material closely as further evidence unfolds and is analyzed. The idea of ancient astronauts is perhaps not new; but the evidence is startling and convincingly presented. Profusely illustrated in color throughout, The Hidden Records is a welcome and recommended addition to personal and academic Metaphysical Studies collections, as well as supplemental reading lists in the fields of astronomy, mythology, and ancient history.

If you know your facts, and have done some research of your own, you'll love it.
I myself have read the "The Orion Mystery"by Robert Bauval, and had to agree that he had something there.- Wayne Herschell and Brigitt Lederer, finally had the courage to go out, and search for something that actually was lying in front of all of us the whole time. It was staring us in the face, but we were too afraid to admit it!
The layout of the book is easy to follow, and the pictures are the best I've seen so far, compared to other books in this field.

I would recommend it to anyone who has questions and an interest about ancient civilazations and our history. It's brilliant!

This book advances the hypothesis that each of several pyramid sites on Earth (Egypt, the Americas, Asia) and Mars (Cydonia) were intended as star maps. Each such map is thought to mark for special attention the location of a sun-like star near the Pleiades. Supposedly, this star hosts the planet that is home to an advanced species of space traveller who visited our planet in the past, prompting the construction of these ancient monuments. It is not clearly posited whether the extraterrestrials did the building themselves or merely directed it, nor whether they are still among or visiting us.

Sadly, the book fails to provide a cogent scientific argument that supports its dubious thesis. First and foremost, a star map intended to be a long-lived and useful navigational aid must of necessity be a four-dimensional abstract of a real region of the cosmos since the relative spatial positions of stars change through time. Even a static three-dimensional star map would lose its validity after a sufficient length of time, and clearly the pyramids were built to last. However, the book attempts to make a case for effectively two-dimensional star maps - akin to a "roadmap" showing only two towns as dots joined by a straight line without any scale or direction indicators - and grave misgivings are warranted in view of the aforementioned argument.

Second, the positional correlations between pyramids and the stars they supposedly represent are quite poor. Like Bauval, on whose suggested correspondence between Gizeh's pyramids and Orion's Belt the authors build, they fail to note that, to work, this correlation requires rotating Gizeh north-to-south - even then the angles and relative distances don't match well. Elsewhere, pyramid/star positions are arbitrarily shifted to produce the desired result, these amendments being defended by spurious post hoc rationalisations, e.g. a pyramid would have to be located in the Nile or far into the desert. Such adjustments constitute unsound science in that data are force-fitted to a theory, and this practice condemns what it intends to prove. Moreover, if the pyramids owe anything more than possible homage to an extraterrestrial culture capable of interstellar travel, is it not reasonable to suppose that they would at least get their positions correct even if it means a little extra inconvenience? Surely, so advanced a race would be undaunted by topographical obstacles in their pursuit of accuracy.

Third, it is statistically almost impossible for sections of a large, effectively random collection of points in a plane not to exhibit local congruencies with a second, perhaps smaller, collection of such points, especially if we can arbitrarily reorient, shift and scale at will to find subjectively "close enough" matches. Given such wide latitude, a great many stars in the sky to choose from, and scores of pyramids with their attendant structures, it would be profoundly astonishing not to find similar relative positioning even if we do restrict ourselves to more prominent stars. The scaling issue is conspicuously ignored (hardly any of the illustrations show any scale), but it is worth noting that the Egypt star map covers about 35 km on the ground whereas other maps cover a few hundred metres or less, a difference of two orders of magnitude.

Fourth, the work is littered with inconsistent treatment of data offered in support of the thesis. Chief in this context is the use of a computer program to extrapolate backward in time the position of the "mystery star" to coincide with the position inferred from the star maps (about 17,250 years ago, an age far greater than archaeologists credit the pyramids with). This treatment is not applied anywhere else in order to back-check the validity of the alleged star maps, and no credible independent confirmatory line of evidence is sought: the analysis of Cydonia, Mars, demonstrates how pareidolia and imaging artefacts, tweaked with wishful thinking and misapplied technology, can quickly add up to nonsense.

Fifth, the book bases much of its argument on the outlandish conjectures of other writers who are labelled "respected" or "experts," which is misleading since none of those in question is thus recognised by any scientific orthodoxy, and popularity guarantees neither erudition nor inerrancy. The book exhibits a common blunder in characterising such orthodoxy as composed largely of narrow-minded, stuffy conservatives who have nothing better to do than resist "groundbreaking" ideas, and a few oblique allusions to the likes of Galileo, Copernicus, Bruno, Wegener, etc. are found. Furthermore, there is a notable want of references in the text, a fact that is defended on the basis of the work being entirely that of its originators. Even ancillary substantiations, e.g. translations of hieroglyphics, remain unreferenced. However, the most telling statement revealing the book's egregious disregard for science and its methods is the claim that, unless mainstream scholars can disprove the theory, the case is proved. Obviously, the burden of proof rests with the theory's proponents, and this book does next to nothing to lessen that load. Accepting the book's arguments as compelling would be an act of gullibility, not open-mindedness.

Finally, and perhaps most damning of all for potential readers or buyers of the book is that it is written in a manner that this reviewer finds irritating and childlike. The frequent..., distracting... and superfluous... use of ellipsis... and multiple exclamation marks!!! seeks, one presumes, to convey the "excitement of the chase" the researchers experienced during their mission. Vocabulary suffers from such annoyances as malapropisms (e.g. "misnomer" for "mistake"), and presentation is marred by numerous misspellings. It seems clear that the manuscript was inadequately proofread, and that no technical review was undertaken. The authors also bemoan the arduousness of, and resistance to, having the book published.

No doubt, there will be devotees who believe in the truth of the book's tenuous thesis, regardless of any contrary evidence or logical objections. It is, however, worth pointing out that the theory suggests, by implication, that not only were the ancients too stupid/primitive to have conceived and built the pyramids without external assistance, but also that modern scholars are similarly handicapped since, despite their honest toil, they missed these "deep findings." Science-bashing is becoming an ever more popular pastime, fuelled by a cultivated and myth-preserving disdain for how science, as an enterprise, actually works, and this book succeeds in further widening the rift between proper scientific endeavours and the public's understanding thereof. Many "mysteries" cited in the book have prosaic explanations that don't require inordinate stretching of one's credulity, and one may wish to contrast this against the principal author's writing about "The Author" in the third person.

Writers like Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Phil Plait, Nigel Calder and Schick & Vaughn, among others, share their awe at the natural and manmade mysteries that surround us without encumbering these with unnecessarily contrived attributes. As long as reasoning proceeds along similar loose lines to those used in The Hidden Records, works such as this one will inhabit the shadow-lands behind the light cast by real scientists, rather than contributing to that illumination.

This book is very detailed in its thesis and the conclusions drawn are right on the nose, so to speak. It is color illustrated with excellently written text with plentiful examples extant in Egypt and other countries throughout the world. I highly recommend it. It is a good reference book also for any library or personal library.

I have bought The Hidden Records three years ago and spent so many enjoyable hours reading and rereading it, researching the claims and comparing the evidence with other authors in this field - outside mainstream science - and was gratified to see that Wayne's conclusions concur with other authors in the field; although he worked independently and did not know of the others' similar conclusions - which simply strengthens his case for objective evidence found and interpreted on his own, without relying on the opinions of others. As for arguments for and against the star-map-pyramid-reflection-theory; it is not acceptable to say it must be wrong simply because the mainstream scientists did not come up with it, and to reject it on the basis of 2-dimensional and 4-dimensional correlations seems like so much hair-splitting and prevarication. The general public accept the claims of mainstream science simply because it is based on inter-subjective consensus - therefore on the same basis, we accept the claims of those outside mainstream science as based on a different inter-subjective consensus - and comparing star constellations with the structures along the Nile and other ancietn sites is very stimulating; makes sense and widens the possibilities. Mainstream science and cosmology is based on conjecture and nice, compact theories that only last as long as the evidence can be made to fit those speculations; and new maverick theories afford the opportunity to broaden the mind and try more possibilities. If Einstein came along with his alternative theory of Relativity and all called out "You are wrong because your presentation style is unorthodox and mainstream scientists are not interested in you", the world would have been the poorer for it! Actually, I am glad to have read criticism on the book, because that made me realise how well it is written, how it meets the needs of its target readers; and I sympathise with superior intellects who cannot enjoy variety in style and presentation and who are condemned by their own standards of excellence to only ever appreciate a small amount of the endless variety offered by this diverse world.