I can't solve all of the (cue reverb) MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE, but I have solved one. There are a set of hieroglyphs in Seti I's temple in Abydos, Egypt that certain people have decided show the ancient Egyptians had, or knew about, helicopters, tanks, submarines and jets. Yes, I can see how it looks like that, but the truth is, of course, mundane. It took me a day to figure out what was going on. (Yay Google images, Wikipedia and an amateur interest in hieroglyphs!)

[Click on any picture to bring up a larger photo] Without going into a dissertation (I could make this three times longer), this is part of what was an unfinished temple, started by Seti I but finished by his son Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great) after Seti's death. This section of the roof support was one huge cock-up, it appears. In other pictures where there is even more of the support to be seen, it is clear that someone decided the wrong name was there along the entire length.But to show the "big oops" here, I do need to explain a few things: Pharaohs had 5 names. Each name is usually started with specific pictograms. Their birth name (duck and sun - the name in an oval cartouche), their throne name (bee and sedge plant - the name in an oval cartouche), their Horus name (a falcon atop a rectangular cartouche), their Golden Horus name (a falcon sitting on a swag) and their Nebty name (a cobra and a vulture over baskets). The latter two names are not confined in a cartouche but are simply preceded by the Golden Horus or Nebty.The part of the roof support hieroglyphs in question are explained by the dueling Nebty names of Seti I and Ramesses II. (farther to the left out of the picture are superimposed sedge and bee names as well) That is to say, one name is carved over the other along the entire thing. Anywhere it says Seti I, Ramesses II is carved over it, or vice versa. [here the hieroglyphs read from right to left and from top to bottom]:Seti INebty name: Wehemmesut Sekhemkhepesh Derpedjetpesdjet"He who renews the births, strong with a sword, who subjugates the nine bows."Ramesses IINebty name: Mekkemet Wafkhasut"Protector of Egypt, who curbs foreign lands."Seti's name is done with fine craftsmanship and continues on out of the picture to the right, while Ramesses name almost looks like graffiti; it is poorly done and cramped in a small space. I have no idea which came first. Was it a way of defacing Seti's name in effect saying "The King is dead, long live the King"? Or did a junior craftsman start chiseling in Ramesses' name till the master craftsman came along, freaked out and called him "a son of a jackal", and put in Seti's name instead?The big "Ah ha" to the puzzle came when I saw another picture from the temple showing how that section of Seti's Nebty name should look. (it says: "who subjugates the nine bows"):The final piece to the puzzle was finding Ramesses II Nebty name on his obelisk which is now in Paris. It isn't exactly the same 'spelling' as in Seti's temple, but that is the reason hieroglyphs are so difficult -- there are numerous ways to show the same thing. However, it is extremely close (though facing the other direction and running vertically) even to an uneducated eye, and I went through the spellings myself. (anyone with LOTS of patience can start here and double check) Ramesses II Nebty name:I know this is a lot of blah blah to New-Age/UFO/Atlantis enthusiasts but I get really irritated at gullibility and sloppy thinking. What looks like one thing to modern man looked like something else to the ancient Egyptians. What we see as the tail of an airplane,automatically saw as an upper arm! I also get angry that the people who actually built these things aren't given the credit for intelligence and ingenuity that they deserve. Aliens had to be involved or disembodied 'spiritual masters' had to whisper in someone's ear. Say that to Ramesses II, Leonardo Da Vinci or Albert Einstein and then get ready to run. That isn't to say there aren't any mysteries out there, but most of them are explainable given enough information, and that is fascinating in it's own right.