Who Really Built the Pyramids

There is a plethora of those who believe the pyramids weren’t exactly built by humans. Chris Skinner is just one who doubts the power of humans who utilize massive collaboration. There is an article at this link written and published by Skinner. His sole belief is that Ancient Aliens assisted the Egyptians in building the Great Pyramid of Giza and others. We can tell through his provided “evidence” that his argument doesn’t sit on solid ground.

His first entry is:

You know those big stone structures out in Egypt?  The ones  which were supposedly built to house the remains of dead pharaohs???  The ones you thought were built by the Egyptians?Well, you are wrong!THEY WERE BUILT BY ALIENS!Let’s take a look at some undeniable evidence….

So far it is clear to anyone who reads this that Skinner is passionate in disproving the capabilities of humans. The next body of Skinner’s page is:

First, look at this diagram:

The pyramid is highlighted in red, and its two diagonals are extended beyond the end of the pyramid to the north-east and north-west.  The mass of squiggly lines above the pyramid is the Delta of the Nile River, and, as you can see the two diagonals encase the Nile neatly and entirely.  IS THAT A COINCIDENCE???

Yes,  I’m sure that the way the Egyptians did this was to have someone walk hundreds of miles to the end of the delta and hold a really, really long piece of string while someone walked all the way back to the site of the pyramid.  Then,  those two people stood there while two more people repeated the process on the other side of the Pyramid.  Just so that they could build a big building in such a way that its diagonals lie on those two lines.
NOW THAT IS LIKELY????

Here is what really happened: A couple of aliens, flying high enough over the earth to be able to see where the Nile Delta’s origin is, easily saw what orientation the pyramid would need to be in order to have its diagonals  lie on those two lines.

In response to the first paragraph, the only thing to be said is yes it is a coincidence. I’m not sure where the author is taking his argument, maybe this is building on something. But adding the first paragraph to his argument is a mistake, unless he later provides why the fact that the pyramids diagonals aligning with the delta proved to provide any kinda of benefit to the Egyptians or said “Aliens”.  This is like saying the sculptor of Mt Rushmore needed Aliens flying high above earth to find the cliff big enough for proposed sculpting. It just so happen that the Great Pyramid of Giza was built on the diagonals, that diagram looks to me like it proves that the Egyptians wanted the Pyramid to look-out on to the delta. Following that, the second half is now null and void because since it was a coincidence they wouldn’t have had to measure anything. Again, what would they have to gain by having the diagonals align with the delta?

Skinner then goes on to say:

Second piece of evidence:

The big dark shape on the upper left of this diagram is the great pyramid.  If you look at the compass rose in the bottom right, you can see that the pyramid is lined up exactly with the magnetic North Pole,  a difference of only 16 minutes, or some absurdly small number like that (there are 60 minutes in one degree).  COINCIDENCE?   How could the Egyptians possibly have built their pyramid facing the exact magnetic North Pole without even having a compass?  FYI, a compass was not invented for a few thousand years after the ancient Egyptians were long gone?  IS THAT LIKELY????

This is how it really worked:  Those aliens, abundant in their knowledge and drowning in technology, came along and using their compasses,  they landed on earth and found the actual magnetic north and south poles.  THEN THEY BUILT THE PYRAMIDS!

I don’t think the author has done much, if any, research on the ancient Egyptians. It is a known fact that Ancient Cultures were affixed to the night sky. Their whole lives, mythology, and religions often revolved around stars and astrology. It is easy to navigate at night using a star map with the night sky and an enlightened astrologist of course. The fact that the Pyramid aligns to the north is no surprise considering “the Egyptians were masters of aligning buildings, temples and especially the pyramids to fixed stars, apparently in an effort to bring about sympathy between terrestrial structures and the stars with which they were associated” (Hand, 7). In addition, Egyptians were never, nor are they now “long gone”. The authors evidence lacks solid and factual backing. These are all speculations made by the lack of research and knowledge of these peoples’ capabilities.

At the end of his article, Skinner shotguns more claims which can easily be debunked.

“What about the fact that the Egyptians had not even invented the wheel yet,  but the blocks that they had to carry to build the pyramids weighed about 2 tons each? 4,000 lbs.?  What did they do… use cement?   In fact, they used so much stone, that if you took all of the stone they used and cut it into 1 foot square blocks, it would extend 2/3 of the way around the earth!!!”

I’m not sure where to begin with this one. Even if the Egyptians had wheels or logs to roll the stones on, it would prove to be impractical due to the sand and dust covering the ground. Instead, the Egyptians used “sledges” as a sled, like pulling someone on a sled in snow, to transport the blocks. As for Skinner’s second statement here, the truth seems plausible, such that the stone cut into square-foot blocks would extend two-thirds the circumference of the earth. It’s uncertain how this further disproves anything, however.

“Did you know that the height of the pyramid (481 feet) is almost exactly 1/1,000,000,000 of the distance from the earth to the sun (480.6 billion feet)?”

Did you know that this argument is almost exactly irrelevant? This is almost as vague as the first argument of his article. What would any ancient Egyptian or Alien have gained from this “proof”? If it were common knowledge that all extraterrestrial life forms needed to build a structure one-billionth the distance from earth to the Sun, then this might strike as good evidence. Unfortunately, the distance of the building to the Sun would lead to a different conclusion, one not relating to Ancient Aliens’ involvement.

And finally, my favorite:

If you take the perimeter of the pyramid and divide it by two times the height,  you get a number that is exactly equivalent to the number pi (3.14159…) up to the fifteenth digit.  The chances of this phenomenon happening by sheer chance is remarkably small.  Did the ancient Egyptians know what the number pi was?  Not likely,  seeing as it was a number not calculated accurately to the fourth digit until the 6th century,  and the pyramids calculate it to the fifteenth.

No ancient Egyptian who designed the pyramid sat there in his hut and said “I want the perimeter of the pyramid divided by twice the height to equal x“. The author at this point is desperate for additional “evidence”. He is reading far too much into things that aren’t applicable. Pi was calculated because pi is a number found almost everywhere. In architecture, engineering, even Egyptian pottery contained pi. They didn’t know it, but it was there. Just like science was magic before we knew how to explain it. Even Albert Einstein pitched in on the topic. In her article, “What Makes Pi So Special?”,  Natalie Wolchover writes about how “He used fluid dynamics and chaos theory to show that rivers tend to bend into loops. The slightest curve in a river will generate faster currents on the outer side of the curve, which will cause erosion and a sharper bend. This process will gradually tighten the loop, until chaos causes the river to suddenly double back on itself, at which point it will begin forming a loop in the other direction” (Wolchover).  They didn’t calculate pi by building the pyramid, pi is there because the pyramid was built using the most convenient way to stack blocks. The same way the Mayans and Aztecs built all of their ‘pyramids’.

The author’s evidence supporting his claim that Aliens assisted the Ancient Egyptians in building the pyramids is vague, far-fetched, and almost as if he wanted to ignore the real evidence. The Ancient Egyptians were people capable of such building. It’s not like the Pyramids utilize keypad entry or titanium foundations and electrical lighting. The facts are all there, but Chris Skinner made-up his own abstruse facts to “prove” the Aliens’ involvement.

Works Cited:

Hand, Robert. The History of Astrology — Another View. 1 Mar. 1996. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. <http://www.lightforcenetwork.com/sites/default/files/Copyright%201996%20robert%20hand.pdf>

Wolchover, Natalie. “What Makes Pi So Special?” LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 9 Aug. 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. . <http://www.livescience.com/34132-what-makes-pi-special.html>