The 102nd annual Indian Science Congress was scandalized this week when one guest lecturer claimed that ancient sanskrit texts referenced interplanetary aircrafts — among other crazy scientific breakthroughs like, “a cow bacteria that turns anything eaten by an animal into pure gold.”
Captain Anand Bodas, a retired principal of a pilot training facility, gave the lecture and said that “there is a reference to ancient aviation in the Rigveda,” which is a sacred Hindu text. He went on to explain: “The basic structure [of the aircraft] was of 60 by 60 feet, and in some cases, over 200 feet. They were jumbo planes. The ancient planes had 40 small engines. Today’s aviation does not know even of a flexible exhaust system.”
The more than 3,000-year-old manuscript also described ancient pilots’ diet and clothes. According to Bodas, during specific periods pilots drank the milk of buffalo, cow and sheep, and they wore clothes made from vegetation grown underwater.
Other ancient “technologies” were mentioned:
Among other technologies, introduced at the congress there were polymers to build houses, made of cactus juice, egg shells and cow dung; a cow bacteria that turns anything eaten by an animal into pure gold, and the curious procedure of an autopsy, conducted by leaving a dead body floating in water for three days.
Bodas’s claims were not well-received by some of the more traditional scientist attendees at the conference; NASA scientist Ram Prasad Gandhiraman actually started an petition to have the lecture canceled due to his belief that it mixed mythology and science. The petition was signed by 1,000 party poopers who were concerned with stuff like “facts” and “proof.”
When it comes to prehistoric civilization flying spaceships and cows shitting gold, I’m firmly on the side of Special Agent Fox Mulder: “I want to believe.”
(Photo: Wikimedia)
