Jack Skeleton reviewing the Scientific Method, from The Nightmare Before Christmas (www.mia6.tumblr.com).

What I love about both science and working on this WordPress page is that I am always learning something new. I like to say science is not math. While 1 + 1 will always equal 2 (at least in our known part of the Universe), science works by making observations, developing a predictive hypothesis to explain how something works, and then testing that hypothesis. If the resulting data supports the hypothesis, additional tests are done for further validation. However, if the resulting data to not support the hypothesis, it has to be either modified or thrown out for a new hypothesis. This has been the case for my analysis on the origin of the Great Race.

Based on the available data at hand, I hypothesized in the first article that the cone-shaped beings (CSBs), were either related to one of two Class of Mollusks (Gastropods or Cephalopods) or that they need to be in their own separate phylum. I concluded the second article citing the bizarre life forms that were identified in the Burgess Shale, which is dated between 530 and 510 million years ago . I then hypothesized that maybe the CSBs were the decedents from a species that resided in the Burgess Shale.

The Great Race (some fantastic artwork by Steve Maschuck)

However, Tom Ardans brought to my attention a specific quote in the text of HPL’s The Shadow Out of Time: “The beings of a dying elder world, wise with the ultimate secrets, had looked ahead for a new world and species wherein they might have long life; and had sent their minds en masse into that future race best adapted to house them – the cone-shaped beings that peopled our earth a billion years ago.”

The key to that passage is the CSBs were on Earth a billion years ago. Thus, the CSBs are approximately twice as old as the multi-cellular residents of the Burgess Shale (maybe the CSBs have been on Earth longer than a billion year ago)! Additionally, according to HPL’s At the Mountains of Madness, the Elder Ones (or Things) came to Earth in the Archaean Aeon. Following S.T. Joshi’s approach, I will use the more up-to-date age estimated for the Archaen Aeon. Thus, the Archaen Aeon is estimated to be between 2.5 and 4 billion years ago (cited in both M.J. Benton’s The History of Life and in the explanatory notes by S.T. Joshi for At the Mountains of Madness, found in The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories; 2001).

The Great Race examining some text on a future civilization (more great artwork by Tom Ardans)

When the Elder Things arrived on Earth in the Archaen Aeon life was limited to prokaryotic cells (bacteria). It was the Elder Things, through elaborate forms of bioengineering and endosymbiosis, who created more complex eukaryotic cells, which eventually gave rise to dinosaurs, humans and Shoggoths (which were probably the pinnacle of success for their experiments). Is it possible that the Elder Things also created the CSBs? Were the CSBs an early experiment that slithered away to evolve on their own, only to have the Yithian minds invade their bodies approximately 400 million years ago (this date was identified in the 2nd edition of The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana by Daniel Harms; 1998)?

Unponderable Elder Thing by Henning (www.henningludwigsen.com)

To summarize, we know based on HPL’s writings that the CSBs were not aliens. They were natives of Earth. If that is the case, and the Elder Things arrived on Earth before the CSBs appeared, then more than likely the CSBs were a by-product of the Elder Things experiments on life. This strange geologic relationship between the Elder Things and the Great Race will be discussed in more detail in the next article. Thank you – Fred.