- Whether they are the Isles of the Blest, Elysium, the
Fortunate Isles or the surviving mountaintops of fabled Atlantis, the Canary
Islands--an archipelago off the coast of northern Africa--remain enshrouded
in mystery, a fact overlooked by its burgeoning tourist trade, more interested
in the cloudless skies and fine beaches. The islands of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura,
Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Palma, Gomera and Hierro, which have belonged to
Spain since the archipelago's conquest by Norman mercenaries in the 14th
century, were a point of interest to all the chroniclers of antiquity and
medieval Christianity. The religious and occult significance of the seven
volcanic isles has been handed down from the earliest dynasties of Ancient
Egypt to our own UFO-minded times.
-
- The association with an earthly paradise
is not difficult to understand. A spectacular landscape awaited the mariners
of yore: the twelve-thousand-foot peak of Mount Teide presiding over a
cobalt-blue ocean festooned with flying fish. Flowers, chestnut trees and
rich green valleys covered the seaward landscape, while the landward side
(facing Africa) revealed nightmarish vistas of lava flows and beaches of
black volcanic sand. The Canaries offer surprises galore, with trees unique
to the islands; giant lizards--now nearly extinct--that gave the Spanish
conquistadores quite a surprise; enormous ravines and canyons that become
raging rivers during the wet season, and arid plains where camels are used
to pull the plough. Contrary to popular belief, the islands were not christened
after the bird of that name, but due to the abundance of local dogs (canes)
encountered by the Conquistadores.
-
-
- Who were the Guanches?
-
- The Guanches, the original inhabitants of
the Canary Islands, were a warlike race, according to chroniclers. Tradition
claims that Saint Avitus, an early Christian martyr, met death at the hands
of the Guanches during his attempt to evangelize the islands.[i] The Guanches
possessed no weapons or boats--the latter being a very unusual feature
for island dwellers--wore goatskins, and were subdued by the European invaders'
use of the horse, which was unknown to them. Ignatius Donnelly pointed
out in his groundbreaking book on Atlantis that stones had been uncovered
in the isles of Hierro and Palma that bore sculptured symbols closely resembling
those found in archaeological digs near Lake Superior, prompting an association
between the enigmatic Guanches and the cultures of North America.[ii]
-
- The tall, fair-skinned Guanches, believed
by many to be the last surviving specimens of the Cro-Magnon Man, employed
a curious language consisting of whistles when communicating with one another
across gorges or hilltops. They also practiced the art of mummification
to an extent known only to the Incas and the Egyptians, believing in the
immortality of the dead, and going as far as leaving dead rulers mummified
and unburied to provide "assistance" to the living monarch. They
lived in complete isolation from the rest of the world, and indeed, from
one island to the other.[iii] Spanish chroniclers state that the Guanches
presumed that the rest of humankind had been lost in the Flood, and that
they were its only survivors.
-
- Certain cultural aspects found in the modern
Canaries are believed to be part of the Guanche legacy: cockfights, the
agricultural methods which were later imported to the Spanish Caribbean
and even a culinary contribution, gofio, a form of cereal that is still
consumed today.[iv]
-
- Ancient seafarers
-
- The Canary Islands were known to the Carthaginians
and to other sea-faring peoples of the Mediterranean. The Roman chronicler
Marcellus, describing the "land of the Aethiopians" mentions
a cluster of seven islands in the Atlantic Ocean, whose inhabitants preserve
memories of a much greater island which held sway over them for ages; They
are the seven Hesperides made famous in mythology by the labors of Hercules,
and described in the Book of Ezekiel as the isles of Elysium (Ezek. 27,7).
In the 1st century B.C., an unsuccessful bid to conquer the island was
made by King Juba II of Mauretania.[v]
-
- But all evidence points to signs of an earlier
occupation by unknown quantities. On the isle of Hierro, there exists a
wall of basalt facing the ocean, far above sea level which is carved with
a number of undeciphered glyphs, among which are prominently displayed
discs, labyrinth-symbols and sunbursts. The gorges of Tejeleite and Candia
also contain rock shelters with petroglyphs presumably etched into the
rough basalt by the aboriginal occupants of the archipelago. Elaborate
cave systems--like that of Belmaco, on Palma--are filled with the same
insistent petroglyphs and images of discs and sunbursts. The Zonzama Stone,
unearthed on Lanzarote, provides more intricately carved symbols: messages
from a past we unable reconstruct.[vi] Who were the original carvers of
these symbols, and what was their purpose? It is true that the oceans were
being navigated by Neolithic mariners whose voyages may have well inspired
those of the Phoenicians or the Cretans. They left no traces of their existence
aside from the "cyclopean" stone walls, tumuli, fortresses and
memorials can be found on the coasts of the continents bordering the Mediterranean
and the Atlantic coast of Europe as well as on the Canary Islands and Malta,
and perhaps even as far south and inland as Zimbabwe. Two German scholars,
-
- Hermann and Georg Schreiber, have pointed to the existence
of a "heliolithic" cultural sphere (borrowing a term coined by
H.G. Wells), owing to the fact that solar worship, personified by the disk
symbols, is common to all these sites). The Canaries were important to
them, following this line of thought, as an important center of solar worship.
Or perhaps for other reasons...
-
-
- A wealth of UFO Sightings
-
- Unexplained lights have soared above the
volcanic peaks of the Canary Islands throughout history. Commercial airliners
have been repeatedly intercepted over Lanzarote as they prepare to land
on Gran Canary or Tenerife. Could these brilliant lights be the discs represented
on the ancient Guanche stellae, and the reasons for the islands prominence
not only in recorded history, but also in the days of lost Neolithic realms?
-
- In 1975, coinciding with a global increase
of UFO sightings, a group of contactees from Santa Cruz de Tenerife allegedly
established contact (by means of an improvised Ouija board) with the occupants
of the enormous flying craft which had hovered every night over their skies
at La Tejita, a beach not far from the slopes of Mt. Teide. On one of these
instances, the Canarian investigators were able to witness an enormous
light some 1200 feet away from the beach. Double rows of windows emitting
a purplish light could be made out through the use of binoculars. The spectators
experienced a "missing time" interval during their sighting,
and were assured later on by the light's "crew" that they had
been brought aboard for an hour and a half.[vii]
-
- A year later, a driver on a lonely stretch
of road saw a perfectly round orb, silhouetted in a bluish light, which
flew over his car at low altitude, causing the engine to stall. The
witness was able to see two tall humanoids in attired in red garments through
an aperture in the noiseless sphere, which landed on the roof of a nearby
farmhouse before taking off again in the general direction of Tenerife.
Shepherds had encounters of a grislier nature with a "robotic entity"
that sliced a mountain lion to pieces and walked in a stilted, crab-like
manner.
-
- By 1979, UFOs had started to interfere with
the regular operations of commercial airliners flying in Canarian airspace.
A DC-9 flying between Lanzarote and Grand Canary was intercepted by an
oval-shaped craft as it took off, flying over the airliner and "escorting"
it for 20 minutes until it became lost in the clouds. A smaller commuter
plane was equally intercepted and escorted for ten seconds at an altitude
of 9000 feet by another object, which bathed the plane in a bluish-green
light.[viii]
-
- In a world where it is increasingly harder to keep
a secret, particularly in the post Cold War era, surprisingly little coverage
has been given to a recent "crash/retrieval" scenario which took
place in 1992. Two Canarian youths and their friends claim that the Spanish
military, in conjunction with unnamed foreign powers, retrieved a mysterious
artifact that fell from the skies on the evening of October 12, 1992.
-
- Sergio and Mario, whose surnames remain undisclosed,
were on their way to Las Cañadas del Teide Park, an expanse of wilderness
on the island of Tenerife, with another acquaintance and his girlfriend,
when they found the narrow road leading to the natural landmark barricaded
by armed personnel in yellow Jeeps with "ET" license plates (Ejército
de Tierra, the infantry). The would-be tourists were told in no uncertain
terms to turn around and not to attempt re-entering through the park's
southern entrance, either. The officer in charge of the barricade told
them that landslides had wiped out the roads ahead.
-
- Their curiosity piqued by the suspicious
roadblock, the foursome decided to park their vehicle and try to enter
Las Cañadas on foot, finally managing to reach a hillside from which
they were able to see another detachment of military vehicles. A powerful
beam of light swept the sides of Mt. Teide, as if searching for a
- particular object. But what was it?
-
- According to investigators, the Canaries
Astrophysical Institute had placed a call earlier that evening to the Spanish
Army, claiming that "an artifact" had crashed in the Ucanca Valley,
at the feet of Mt. Teide. Whatever "it" was, it possessed a tremendous
mass, having apparently snapped off a 450-ton lava projection jutting from
an outcrop close to the summit of Mt. Teide itself, which can be reached
by cable car from the ground.
-
- Rescue helicopters from the Spanish Air Force
base at Gando were dispatched to the area in question the following morning,
unable to find anything at all after five separate sorties. The airbase's
radar claimed not to have picked up anything unusual on the night of October
12 or the early hours of the 13th.
-
- On the island of Grand Canaria, across the
water from Tenerife, a couple in the village of Almatriche had witnessed
the descent of strange lights, which they were unable to identify, and
which appeared to be heading straight toward them. The lights changed course
in mid-air and headed toward Tenerife. The time of the sighting was 10
p.m.--just prior to the Canarian youths' arrival at Las Cañadas.
-
- The evening's excitement wasn't over for
Sergio and Mario. Once back in their car and returning home, they were
surprised to encounter a convoy of ten large military container trucks
with balloon tires, darkened but for their intermittent hazard lights.
The convoy moved slowly, and the onlookers were given the impression that
materials of great weight were being carried aboard the sealed vehicles.
-
- The allegations of the four witnesses aside,
the fact remains that all approaches to Las Cañadas park were blockaded
for two weeks until authorities announced that the "landslides"
had been cleared. A hunter who had been spending the night of October 12
at El Refugio, a natural shelter on the slopes of Mt. Teide, claimed having
seen "a brilliant cloud" come within six meters of the peak's
summit and spin around it at tremendous speed, giving off bursts of energy
before flying away. Local UFO researchers Asunción Sarais and Francisco
Padrón initiated what promises to be months of research into this
possible "crash/retrieval" incident, which is merely the most
recent episode in a long history of sightings. In spite of official silence
on the incident, it has since become known that employees from the Canaries
Astrophysical Institute were threatened with the possible loss of their
jobs if they discussed the incident.
-
- In the U.S., increasingly greater attention
has been paid to the folklore and traditions of our native peoples with
regard to manifestations of the UFO phenomenon. The same is beginning to
happen in Spain, where anthropologists have experienced a renewed interest
in searching for Guanche artifacts and possibly even locating surviving
Guanches in isolated communities on the smaller islands.
-
- ####
-
-
- [i]. Atienza, Juan G. En busca de la historia perdida.
Barcelona: Ediciones Martínez Roca, p. 207.
-
- [ii]. Donnelly, Ignatius. Atlantis: Myths of the Antediluvian
World,Chicago, 1882.
-
- [iii]. Berlitz, Charles. Atlantis: The Eight Continent.
New York: Fawcett, 1984.
-
- [iv]. Llorens, W. El Habla Popular en Puerto Rico. Rio
Piedras: Editorial Edil, 1981.
-
- [v]. Bailey, James. The God Kings and the Titans. New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1973.
-
- [vi]. Atienza, Juan G. En busca de la historia perdida.
-
- [vii]. Benítez, J.J. 100,000 kilómetros
tras los ovnis. Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1978.
-
- [viii]. Benítez, J.J. Encuentro en Montaña
Roja. Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1981.
-
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