The most well-known documentation of the ancient Vimana flying machines comes from the Vaimānika Śāstra, an early 20th century translation of many accounts of Vimana technology found in ancient Vedic scriptures. It details drawings of a range of crafts, including the sources of fuel used to power them, although some can be confusing. The translations talk of certain elements and minerals we are familiar with, like mica, quicksilver and mercury, but also mentions strange liquids referred to as honey, which may have been an unknown substance with a similar viscosity or appearance to a bee’s nectar.

On top of every Hindu temple or pyramid, one can find a Vimana, and often they are rounded, saucer-like objects, which certain theorists believe were the vehicles of extraterrestrials. Erich von Däniken points out the modern sightings that created our perception of UFOs look very similar to the Vimanas of ancient India.

Von Däniken also points out that the depiction of Shiva flying on his bird, Garuda, could easily have been a primitive description of an airplane or spacecraft. Garuda was known for dropping bombs, flying to the moon, and bringing Shiva to different locations throughout the solar system. In trying to explain this sight to future generations, the elders’ story of a “god” flying around on a “giant bird” or “bird-like” craft might sound ridiculous and be considered merely mythological to those who may have never witnessed it.

When we look closer at these Vimanas, the descriptions of the sounds they made and the way they looked when they took off begin to resemble jet propulsion more and more. One translation of a passage in the Vedic Mahabharata describes a Vimana.

“The Vimana had all necessary equipment. It could not be conquered by the gods or demons. And it radiated light and reverberated with a deep rumbling sound. Its beauty captivated the minds of all who beheld it. Visvakarma, the lord of its design and construction, had created it by the power of his austerities, and its outline, like that of the sun, could not be easily delineated.”

The passages speak of Krishna’s cohort and epic hero of the Baghavad Gita, Arjuna, describing a trip he took in a Vimana into the heavens, where he saw thousands of airborne chariots and another massive Vimana that was seven stories tall. Much like Enoch’s trip taken up in a wheeled chariot, Von Däniken says he believes that this could have been a primitive interpretation of a trip to the mothership, from which the many Vimanas seen on Earth could have originated.

The Drona Parva’s Nuclear War

One of the strangest stories of the ancient Hindu Vedas comes from a translation of the Drona Parva, the seventh book in the Mahabharata. The book describes Drona, a warrior appointed as leader of an army in the Kurukshetra War and his ensuing death in that battle. The story fits in with themes seen elsewhere in the Mahabharata, and other ancient texts that detail the difficulties of war, but this particular book provides some descriptions that sound eerily similar to the effects of a nuclear war.

Explosions that level everything, animals screaming and engulfed in flames, pregnant women’s babies dying and metal armor melting onto the skins of warriors who wear them, all sound like the result of nuclear blast. It mentions birds falling from the sky, due to a single projectile charged with all the power of the universe, as bright as a thousand suns.

“We beheld in the sky what appeared to us to be a mass of scarlet cloud resembling the fierce flames of a blazing fire. From that mass many blazing missiles flashed, and tremendous roars, like the noise of a thousand drums beaten at once. And from it fell many weapons winged with gold and thousands of thunderbolts, with loud explosions, and many hundreds of fiery wheels,”(source).

Were these scarlet clouds resembling blazing fires and the subsequent death and destruction in the ancient scriptures describing the effects of a nuclear fallout? The primitive technology of the time couldn’t have been exposed to radiation of any sort, though the descriptions of pregnant mother’s babies dying sounds very much like the effects of radiation exposure.

After we developed the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, J. Robert Oppenheimer even quoted the Baghavad Gita saying, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Oddly enough, Oppenheimer, who developed the bomb, was also a scholar of Sanskrit, and some have compared his story to that of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna must be convinced to fight in a battle he does not want to take part in due to a moral dilemma, which some have compared to Oppenheimer’s hesitance in developing the atomic bomb.

The Unexplained Destruction of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa

The remnants of two ancient civilizations in the Indus Valley of modern day Pakistan and India have puzzled archeologists for decades. These cities were both deserted suddenly, coincidentally around the time of the construction of the great pyramids in Egypt, despite having been thriving centers of technology and culture for centuries. Mohenjo Daro, in particular, appears to have been flattened, or collapsed after 600 years of being inhabited. Could this have been the location of what may have been an ancient nuclear war?

Mohenjo Daro and Harappa are anomalous not just because of their desertion by the people who lived there, but also because of their incredibly advanced technology and decentralized, secular society. Archeologists have determined that the layout of these two massive cities shows evidence of an egalitarian civilization with no distinct hierarchy or elite ruling class and was likely governed by elected officials. The ruins of Mohenjo Daro show careful urban planning, advanced irrigation and drainage systems, and a 900 sq. foot, watertight, communal bath that was filled by the Indus river. This civilization spanned over 500 acres and supported a population of somewhere between 20,000 – 40,000 citizens.

Harappa, which came into ruin around the same time as Mohenjo Dara, was equally as advanced, with granaries, superstructures, and calculated trading practices. These civilizations had board games like chess, traded precious gems and jewelry, and valued cleanliness and hygiene. Both were civilizations with thriving cultures that disappeared suddenly and without explanation.

Excavations at Mohenjo Dara unearthed the skeletons of a family holding hands, appearing to have been flattened with rubble and ash covering them as if they had died in an abrupt and unforeseen event. Some accounts say that a layer of radioactive ash was found in the soil before the site was dug up, adding to the theory of a nuclear event that could have been the cause of destruction of this ancient city.

These claims however, are somewhat unsubstantiated with insufficient evidence to support the discovery of this radioactive material. It is strange though, that these two highly advanced civilizations experienced apocalyptic events at the same time, while being situated within the same region, but still being many miles apart.

Whether these stories found in the ancient Vedic scriptures actually provide evidence of a nuclear war or not, they seem to at least describe some incredibly advanced, apocryphal technology. Could there really have been flying crafts and a nuclear event that wiped out these two ancient civilizations like the one described in the Mahabharata? If so, could these “gods,” who were behind this technology, actually have been an extraterrestrial species with advanced technology that is common to us today?