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So after the endless discussions of the hidden chambers in the pyramid, we finally had a genuine eye-witness who had been there and seen them. Unless, of course, Schmidt's adventure was just another variation of the classical visits to the underground fairy palaces of yesteryear. Science took over. In 1969 a group of American scientists beaded by Dr Luis W. Alvarez travelled to Egypt and set up expensive cosmic ray detectors around the Great Pyramid. Their theory was that any cosmic rays penetrating the pyramid and passing through hidden chambers would be recorded as moving slightly faster than ray particles travelling through solid stone. They fiddled with their gadgets for months and did get some very eccentric readings at first. But finally, in the February 6th, 1970 issue of Science, Dr Alvarez glumly announced that no hidden chambers had been detected with his sophisticated apparatus. The cuttists all nudged each other and winked knowingly. Obviously it was all a cover-up... part of the great conspiracy to keep the truth from the public. Men have been scratching their heads over the Great Pyramid for at least four thousand years. It has never really been dated, and it could be considerably older. Whoever built it was so clever that countless efforts to find an entrance met with failure for thousands of years. Finally, in A.D. 820 the Caliph Al Mamaun launched a full-scale attack on the structure, expecting to find it filled with treasure. His men chipped away at it, heating the stones with fires and then cooling them suddenly by pouring vinegar over them. Slowly the stones cracked and they worked their way into the pyramid until they came upon a passageway. It was completely empty. They found a larger passageway, now known as the great gallery, which leads upwards to two small chambers. The lower chamber's entrance is so small a man must enter on his hands and knees. The upper chamber contains nothing but a crude stone tub which really doesn't resemble the elaborately designed sarcophagi used by the ancient Egyptians to entomb deceased royalty. The total absence of artifacts and hieroglyphics has given archaeologists plenty to speculate over. Some have suggested that the pyramid was used as a kind of grain elevator and that wheat was measured out in that tub. Others have tried to find astronomical significance to it. In the mid-nineteenth century the pseudoscience of pyramidology was bom. A writer named John Taylor published a book in which he concluded that the whole purpose of the structure was to preserve andent Egyptian measurements. He was followed by an astronomer, Charles Piazzi Smyth, who extended this notion to include prophecies of the past and future. He measured every inch of the pyramid, inside and out, and every angle. In 1864 Smyth published a six-hundred- page book expounding his theories, and it caused an uproar in archaeological circles for years afterwards. A small but devoted cult still exists, still trying to validate his now thoroughly dis- credited concepts. Most of the literature on lost Atlantis also discusses Smyth and pyramidology. The UFO cults also have their pyramidologists. Just as the pyramids are a cornerstone in human history, they also serve as key evidence to many cults with widely diversified causes. These records indicated, Schmidt claimed, 'The end of this present Earth cycle will be 1998." * Neville Spearman Limited, London.