Megalithic Marvels - Ancient Apocalypse: Episode 1 Gudung Padang (REWIND w/ Derek & Ben)

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

In this episode, Derek is joined by special guest Ben Pospisil  to recap episode 1 of Graham Hancock's new Netflix documentary Ancient Apocalypse. Derek & Ben share their thoughts & opinions regarding episode 1 and highlight all of the intriguing aspects information Graham shared about Indonesia's ancient archaeological site known as Gudung Padang. Did an advanced civilization flourish here during the last ice age?” You are not going to want to miss this! SHOW NOTES Gudung Padang Egypt Tour Follow Megalithic Marvels on the following platforms: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/megalithicm... Blog - https://megalithicmarvels.com/ Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpiP... Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/megalithicma... TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@megalithicmarvels Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/10186... Twitter - https://twitter.com/MegMarvels

Marvels. Well, I am excited today to be joined by my friend, fellow explorer, uh, entrepreneur Ben Pospisal. Ben, how you doing, bud? Man, so excited to finally be on your podcast. This is amazing. We go way back and, um, I know you've kind of lately, last couple of years,

been taking the red pill of ancient history. And, uh, you reached out to me about asking, Have you seen the new Netflix documentary, ancient apocalypse? And I was like, dude, I just watched the first episode. And I'm thinking about recapping these. And I loved it. You were bold. You were like, hey, let me be your co-host.

So here we are. So, yeah, for listeners who may not know, we're talking about the new Netflix series. It just released this last Friday. It's by Graham Hancock. And it's called Ancient Apocalypse. and this is where Graham Hancock is traveling the globe. He's hunting for evidence of what he calls a mysterious lost civilization dating back to the last Ice Age. And now what makes this series obviously so huge in the megalithic Marvels world is that this is really the first time of film.

And Ben, I think I was explaining this to you, goes against the mainstream narrative history. It's kind of the first time it's been released and promoted by. a major modern streaming platform like Netflix. And obviously the mainstream narrative of history basically tells us that the further we look back in time, the more archaic the ancients were, right? The more inferior their methods of architecture. But this series paints a whole different story, doesn't it, Ben? Yeah, it really does.

And there's so much to unpack in this first episode, it's amazing. Yeah, and to set this up, so I just talked about the mainstream narrative history. And to kind of, again, if you're a little bit new to this world of megalithic history, I want to break that down for you. So I did a Google search yesterday, and I Googled Ancient History Timeline. And I recommend everybody try this. Ben, you've got to try this. Google Ancient History Timeline. and you're going to obviously see all these things pop up.

And the first search on the top that pops up, of course, is from Wikipedia, right? And when you click on it, what's that? I said the experts. Yeah, the experts, right? When you click on their ancient history timeline, here's just three examples of what you see. it says 2,200 BC completion of Stonehenge, 2,560 BC, it says King Kufu completes the great pyramids of Giza. Okay, I got to stop right there because A, they're saying that King Kufu completed this pyramid, not that long ago really, 2,500 BC. And if you read further, they're going to say he made it as a tomb. So right there,

there's all kinds of problems. Because if you go in the Great Pyramid like I have and many others have and many other great researchers have written about, this thing is not even functional to be a tomb. No hieroglyphs, no ancient Egyptian artwork depictions, no mummies were ever discovered in any of the great pyramids, right? And then you look at the geology and weathering and these things are probably far, far older than, you know, 2,500 BC. Okay, so that's, and then you go to the very end of Wikipedia's timeline. Guess what date it gives you. 3,200 BC is where their timeline ends and it says,

Sumerian cunaform writing system and Egyptian hieroglyphs are first used. I say all that to say the mainstream narrative is that 3200 BC is kind of where it all started and there's really not a whole lot to look at or think about before then. Isn't that nuts, Ben? Yeah, I mean, obviously there's a lot that happened way before then, but that is pretty wild. I mean, it's kind of like, what else is happening and who's not telling us anything.

Where's all the information? So that's why I thought when the show came out, it was so wild that someone else was giving a different narrative like you were saying, Derek is like, as soon as I tell it, I was like, I've got to call Derek. I've got to see if he's, if he's even watched this. And of course, as cutting edge as you are, yes, you've seen it and you're watching it. You know what? I'm so excited about it.

It's like I heard of some people that were like binge watching it all in one day. I'm like, this is too good for that. You got to save it. Like one episode a week. Let me just take it in, marinate on it, do a podcast about it with Ben, right? And so for people who, again, may not be familiar with Graham Hancock, I wanted to just say that, so Graham Hancock is a journalist. He's from Britain. He's got a cool accent, which also makes him seem cooler than us American dudes.

And smarter. Why is that? Why do British guys always sound smarter than us? So he's just a journalist. Back in the day, he was a journalist, I think covering news, writing news stories. But he explains in this series how he, as he traveled the world, right? He, and he would see different sites. He would think critically, like, how can this only be that old? And he ended up writing several books. One of them was called Fingerprints of the Gods. And this book he wrote really impacted Joe Rogan, who's got the biggest podcast in the world. And so for the last several years, Joe Rogan's been inviting Graham Hancock onto his show to talk about all these alternative theories of ancient history, right? Such as there being a worldwide cataclysmic flood 12,000 years ago, which is a huge part of Graham Hancock's theology or belief system, right? and that ancient advanced civilization with advanced technologies existed before this cataclysm.

And so Rogan has really helped to push Graham's ideas into the mainstream to where now Netflix is launching this as a legit series. This is exciting stuff. You know, one of the most crazy pieces of the first episode, I don't want to jump too far into it, but I do want to say this. one part that I thought was so crazy and I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as you guys are all you know the the the megalithic squad but I do think it's insane that they talked about the flood happening and occurring through every single religion every single religion has a historic flood that they've all addressed in their manuscripts or whatever I didn't know that I was like what so you've got you've got multiple religions all accounting which is pretty pretty historic

true for all you know for most major events but I just thought that was that was a super wild point I didn't realize I don't know that yeah no I'm glad you said that because that was one of my favorite parts of this episode was the oral tradition he shared and I actually wrote it down so that we can you know talk about here in this episode the the narrative he shared of the oral tradition in this part of the world of a flood it was crazy so I loved how So again, what I want to do for the next couple weeks is kind of do what I call a rewind or a review of each episode. And so today we're going to break down a part one of ancient apocalypse, which is titled Once There Was a Flood. And this is where Graham travels to, Ben, tell me if I'm saying this right, Ganoon, Gn Padang.

I think that's Ganoon or Gnong Padang, which was really close to, uh, Bali. I was in Bali and I believe it's pretty close to that. I think it's just south along because there's Indonesian strips of islands all the way below Thailand. So it's it was it was pretty close to where I was, which I wish I would have known. You're right. Well, now you have a reason to go back. And so this is an Indonesian archaeological site and I love the opening statements that Graham Hancock makes in episode one. I mean, right out of the gate, he's coming out

with both barrels blazing. He says, quote, we have forgotten something incredibly important in our own past. And I think that that incredibly important thing is a lost,

advanced civilization from the Ice Age, end quote. And then he goes on to say, quote, I'm trying to overthrow the paradigm of history, end quote.

So that, to me, was just tough. Like, to say, I'm trying to overthrow the paradigm of history. I mean, this guy is a serious pioneer. And I've listened to some other interviews recently with him and Joe Rogan. We're talking about this upcoming series.

Okay. And this guy, Graham Hancock, he's actually, I mean, I don't know if you call it persecution, but he's been blacklisted for decades because of his beliefs that go against the mainstream, right? ridiculed by the scientific community, the archaeological community. So it's so cool to see him kind of on the other end now as like, you know, the momentum is shifting. The surge is happening. And he's like, it's payback time.

One thing that I think is crazy is this dude is coming out blasting every single historian, geologist, or whatever you want to call it. And this dude's just putting people on blast. And he's literally putting his neck on the line because nobody, I mean, as you know, you go to any of these colleges, any of these archaeological societies. And they're just going to shoot this dude down. They're just going to blast him. But this guy, I don't know who he's funded by or how he came to the Netflix scene. But this dude just jumped out and was like, here it is.

This is actually what's going on. And you guys have been talking about this trash for, God knows. how long and I'm going to show you why what I'm saying actually is valid and when I saw that that's immediately when I texted and I was like Derek yeah what the heck this show no I love how you said that because yeah it's you can just see the fire in him like again he's suffered years of ridicule and he even mentioned on Joe Rogan's

podcast how he's been banned now in Egypt which is tragic it's tragic the poor guy who loves ancient history can never go to Egypt again because they've blacklisted him because of his alternative views. I mean, that tells you right there you're over the target. What's there to hide though? Like, what are we hiding? Maybe you know the secret. I don't know. Like, what is the big deal about just explore? I mean, is there so much money that's gone into this? And we've, you know, it's kind of like when you're like three quarters of the way done with a project and someone comes and tells you, I wish you wouldn't have built it like this. Let's go back and

rebuild this project. Let's let's let's let's spend more money and more time kind of like actually building it what I think is the right way to build it. I don't I mean what's what have you yeah no I think it's multi-layered I think the most I guess the entry level reason would be if a scientific community has spent decades saying it's one thing writing it in school history books making their documentaries I mean you go to Egypt and the you hear the mainstream narrative that again, Kufu built a great pyramid in, you know,

whatever it was, 2,500 BC. And so to come out and agree with Graham Hancock would be to say that they were wrong that entire time, right? It would basically be a rewrite of history. And it would probably cost a lot of people, money.

It would probably cost a lot of people, their careers, that what you would, you told us this thing for this long and it wasn't true. I mean, all the Egyptologists that have been studying this stuff for the last 50 years would find out everything they said was not the truth. Yeah, imagine how many school books you'd have to replace.

Yeah. So I just loved how he started out the show, like right out with both barrels blazing. It was awesome. So, okay, let's talk about episode one. It was so exciting. And I should say, what makes this series a little different than like the ancient alien franchise? Obviously, is that ancient apocalypse does not really include the ancient astronaut theory. They don't talk about extraterrestrials.

Graham is talking about a lost civilization of Earth. That had ancient knowledge. And so to me, that's a big difference there. Okay, so in part one of this great series, it's going to be. called Once There Was a Flood. Again, Graham Hancock is traveling to Indonesia, and he starts out saying, quote, one of the most remarkable and controversial archaeological discoveries of our time is located in Java, Indonesia, at a site known as Ganun Padang. The initial evidence has utterly confounded mainstream archaeologists because it calls into question everything they have taught us about the prehistory of

humanity, end quote. Ben, what were your initial thoughts as they began to show the amazing drone footage and Graham began to tell us about this site in Indonesia? Oh yeah, my first thought is, you know, when you look, when I saw those stones in the tiered system that you can see from the drone, it actually reminded me a lot of what's going on, a lot of the formations over in, is it Ireland

where they've got the hexagonal kind of, columns coming out of the ground. But these ones were non, they actually weren't in their natural state. So they're, and they explained that they were laying on their sides and they were, they were built in tiers. And so obviously they mentioned that there's, there's in between these stones, there's mortar, right? So they naturally forming, they would not be stacked on top of each other.

And for the longest time, they were mentioning that these, these stones that came out of the ground were actually just naturally forming. And they weren't even, and I don't know how far you want to go into detail, but because I know we want to piece it all together. But at the end of the day, they were, they were mortar together. These things were stacked on top of each other with mortar and being a contractor. Like these dudes were, I mean, anyways. Yeah. No, and you're, you, you know a little bit about construction with your background. So I think that's a valuable insight for this site too, with what you were seeing with your eyes, but I liked how he started out saying

that archaeologists always just assumed that this was just a big old jungle hill, right? Out in the dense, deep jungle. However, once you ascend that massive crest of the hill, you see it. Thousands upon thousands of these basalt, like you said, hexagonal blocks, scattered everywhere.

And what blew my mind was like, When you see these incredible drone shots in this episode one, I mean, I'm a drone guy. I've got a drone. This was epic drone footage. And I mean, with the people walking, with Graham walking on the site, this was a freaking huge site. And you could tell that that whole giant center top of that hill had been cleared. Like, that wasn't natural, right? Yep. And then you see, how many thousands of blocks did he estimate were there? I think they said 50,000. 50,000.

Yeah. And each of them weighing a little over two tons, I believe, I don't quote me on that. But over 50,000 of these blocks were stacked in a tiered formation around their site. And I love how at one point you see all the scale. But they say basically as you look closer, you can see that they've been clearly cut shaped. And then you begin to see these giant mounds on the site. And then they said rectangular rooms and that massive long retaining wall. There's no mistaking.

That was a massive retaining wall. Yeah. To me, that was just incredible to see. and so tell us about Ben the archaeologist guy he had on there and kind of what his basic premise was that he was sharing well from how I remembered it they were they were talking about you know like I said they were that this site was naturally forming but they started doing geotests on it and started pulling up different layers of this site and as they started digging down they started getting different carbon footprints from from all these different layers.

Oh yeah. Further they down, they started getting results from 10,500 years ago. And that's where I texted you know, I was like, how long ago did they claim the flood happen? And you know, we talked about some numbers. Yeah. But in the day, they started coring out these samples, which I don't think has ever been done on that site yet. And and they found, I mean, they did sonar there. They started scaling it. scanning the ground, doing, I think it was like GSR, I don't know what it's called, ground scanning, whatever, and doing all these different ground scans of the entire area.

It's pretty cool. They've got these PVC pipes that shoot, you know, detection. It was wild. I don't even know what it is. But when I saw it, I was like, okay. Yeah. They discovered those rooms below it. Okay.

I'm so glad you said that. To me, that was maybe the most fascinating reveal in episode one, right? Like you said, they were using. I think they called it GPR for ground penetrating radar. There you go. And so not only is it this massive hill with 50,000 cut blocks. And like you said, these are archaeologists from the University of Indonesia. Okay, so again, this isn't Joe Blow out there just messing around.

these archaeologists are carbon dating taking samples and finding that on the, I think they said what, the surface, the layer they dated to 500 BC, the surface layer, but when they went four meters down, it was dating to a minimum of 5,200 BC.

But then later, but yeah, then the big reveal was with the ground penetrating radar, they found these actual giant rooms that were perfectly placed in the center right of each side of this structure so that that couldn't be coincidence right i mean these were like massive voided vaults and i do do they have access to these vaults i think it was completely closed off right they had no access to them right yeah and i don't i can't remember if they said they weren't allowed to go

down but um you could tell that that one archaeologist was clearly expressing frustration to his findings. And it was pretty bold of him to actually come on this, you know, write this show with Graham Hancock and admit this stuff. Because, I mean, what's that mean for his career? But, yeah, it was incredible. And the other thing that jumped out to me was when they showed their CGI recreation of what the site might have looked like,

how epic was that? That was amazing. Because it had, it almost, was there, was there a water feature that came from it? Because didn't they mention something of a spring being up there? I don't know if I remember. I don't know if I remember the water, but I know they said they think there was a massive staircase up the front, right? That's what it was. That's what it was.

It was like this, this long staircase that went all the way up the front of it on these different levels and these different tiers. And as you know, anytime you have these pyramid style structures, most of these are, if not all of them, are sacred grounds. So it's like what, you know, so many questions. Yeah. And I thought it was, I'm a visual guy. So seeing that the digital recreation to me really gave me a visual for what this thing might have looked like. And it just got you excited about the prehistoric past because here in Indonesia was likely this massive fortress

on this jungle hill in the middle of nowhere. But you could see how in its day in its new state, how incredible this thing looked. And again, it's not just a bunch of stones stacked on top of each other. This thing had chambers in rooms. And just crazy to think about, I know they said the staircase that they believe existed what was over 300 feet tall. So that was crazy. But the other part that's crazy, Derek, is all of these stones were not native to this location.

Boom. These stones were not from here. Right? I mean, I don't know if you have that in your notes. But, but these stones, But these, I don't know if you're planning on talking about that, is what I'm saying. No, no, please go with this. Because this, this to me is one of the biggest important aspects. Tell us more. Well, I mean, it's not a bunch.

But at the end of day, someone felt the need to carry these stinking two ton blocks. I mean, these things, some of them were like three, four, five, six feet long. And they brought in 50,000 of them. I mean, so you probably needed at least two or three guys. guys, maybe four or five guys per piece. I mean, you could do the math pretty quickly. So let's just say 2,000 pounds. Let's just say this thing is 2,000 pounds, okay?

Every man can probably carry 200 pounds comfortably. That's a lot of weight. I can probably carry a man, right? So we've got 10 men. Now, you got 10 men trying to carry one piece? You got 50,000 pieces? either these men were massive and it was one guy carrying lumber like he was walking out at Home Depot or you had 10 small dudes carrying this thing.

That's what blew my mind is how the size of these things and how heavy they were and they weren't from that location. That's the part and then the fact that they mortared, they were mortaring between the joints. That part blew my mind. Right. That's one of the keys. These stones were not naturally just sitting on this hill.

They were quarried and brought to this location up a massive hill. Like Ben said, we're talking 50,000 these blocks. Some of them over a ton or maybe they said two ton, but they were at least a quarter ton, I think Graham Hancock said each. So you've got quarrying going on. You've got GPR showing scans, showing these massive voids underneath.

You've got the archaeologist themselves carbon dating, like you said, the core samples that were 15 meters below, they said 11,600 years ago or as old as 24,000 years. No sign in the old is that old. Well, at least nothing has been recorded as that old, right? Right. Right. So you've got all of these anomalies.

And then we've got that you referenced earlier this, oral traditions and legends, even in Indonesia of an ancient flood. And I took some notes. But Ben, was there anything else you wanted to say about the flood narrative that jumped out to you or anything you remember about it? I mean, the flood there. I mean, the main piece was that every religion was documenting a flood narrative, right? So that was wild to me.

The other piece that I thought was amazing was they said the water levels were down 140 meters which are 400 feet something like that I can't convert meters that quickly but to think that all of this land was actually walkable prior prior to this flood all the land was all connected so that's that's the piece that really blew my mind is is all the way down through you know the Asia all the way down into Indonesia you were able to walk that it wasn't all islands so Yeah, that's insane to think about. I know.

So, yeah, so Graham in the video says, he makes mention that nearly every ancient culture preserved ancient traditions of a flood. And he talked about how the, I think it's the Batak people or Baddik people of Indonesia, have their own tradition of a flood. And so here's what he said in a nutshell, quote, A long ago, the earth grew old and dirty. So the creator God, Tabata, sent a great flood to cleanse the earth of every living thing.

The last human pair had taken refuge on the highest mountain, but just as the waters were about to drown them, the God repented from ending humankind. He conjured a clot of earth into being and laid it on the rising flood forming the islands of Micronesia, and the pair was saved and had children to repopulate the earth, end quote. crazy legend. Is that Indonesian legend

or culture? Well, that was him. Yeah, that was him paraphrasing the Batak people of Indonesia's oral tradition of an ancient flood. I mean, how similar does that sound to the biblical flood narrative? It sounds

identical, dude. It sounds identical. Wow. And then I like how Graham ends kind of making a point that the notion that all of this is just coincidence doesn't make sense. Everything we've talked about at the site, right? And he says, I believe there was a global cataclysm, you know, 12,000 some years ago, and it was preserved in legends. It was preserved in art,

and it was preserved in stone. And that's why grandma is 100% correct. Almost every ancient culture has some oral tradition, art, or something in stone about an ancient cataclysmic flood. And it's crazy to consider, you know, all the stories might be a little different, but they all have the same kind of story, right, about a God bringing a flood, someone or some people being saved and then repopulation of the earth, right? How do you deny that, Ben? I mean, what I thought was wild is the first off, it's very hard to deny that. But the other thing I thought that was wild was that these structures were all in the shape of pyramids, but apparently they didn't have communication with each other.

So how are they all working the same style of erecting these structures into a pyramid form? But apparently none of them had communication with each other. That's another thing I thought was wild. Okay, that's a great point. I'm so glad you brought that up because I forgot to say something earlier that I wanted to say when we were talking about the recreation, the digital recreation of the site, Graham himself said it was basically a step pyramid, right? And it looked, their recreation looked very similar, eerily similar to the Mayan pyramids we see in Mexico,

to the Kuku Kukukon pyramid. And the site also looks similar to what you see in Peru with the Inca terracing and some other structures there. So, yeah, how were these people who didn't have cell phones on every far, far vast different corners of the planet building very similar structures? What kind of knowledge did they have? And where did it go? It's almost like they were a global culture. there are global people. If you think about it, the only thing that makes sense is you're using similar techniques

all across the globe, but you have no communication with each other. So to me, it just seems like the world was probably a lot more united than we thought. Interesting. Well, so that was us recapping part one of ancient apocalypse. Ben, any closing thoughts on an episode one before I ask you, to give us a teaser about episode two, because I know you've seen it and I haven't. Any closing thoughts in episode one? I will say it really sparks and it really ignites your mind into thinking what have we really not uncovered.

And my mind, whenever I see these big cities where this, this, you know, we, Samuel and I were in Portugal. And you've got this, we were just there in Lisbon and we were walking up this cobbled, street. And in the middle of this tight little street, there was this, this, uh, archaeological site that they had covered. And it was probably 40 feet down. And it was all of these, all of the, like this insane, like, like, like, uh, uh, arena. It was like an arena in the middle of the little town. And my brain just goes to think like, what if we just dig a little bit, because obviously if there was a great flood, you know, there's a transfer of dirt and mud, right? Probably rock. And so you think about that as like, what's below the surface?

You know, if we start digging down further, what will we uncover? And I think a lot of these ancient sites, like, I don't think we've done far enough. That's my thought. That's a great, great question, Ben. So, Ben, here's the question for you, because I know you live in Texas. Yes. Have you ever heard of a town called Rockwall, Texas? I have.

It's like 20 minutes away. Okay, bro. I'm going to send you on an expedition. for megalithic marvels. Really? Do you have any inclination of why it might be called Rockwall, Texas? I think I've heard about this.

Okay. Because there's rock wall all around rock wall. There's an ancient rock wall that seems to, that's pretty much buried in the ground. Like this thing, again, may have predated a flood it's now been mud covered, right?

But there's still places you can see it. All the local oral traditions talk about it, old newspapers. This thing looks somewhat megalific. Really? Yeah. So we're going to have to send Ben on scene to Rockwell, Texas. That's amazing. So Ben, give us a, I haven't seen episode two.

I know you've seen episode two. Give us a teaser without giving too much away. what's our um so episode two i'm trying to think of the episode hang on let's pause there for a second let me let me remember what what episode two was um i got to go to netflix you have to cut this out

yeah no worries trains are in time oh chalula mexico oldest continuously inhabited city of the turner most largest period all right so a teaser for episode two is in the middle of right near mexico city is the largest pyramid ever created and when i say pyramids on pyramids on pyramids on pyramids and i'm referring to one structure there's your teaser wow well um ben

thanks for joining me this was fun and i think our audience is really going to enjoy um not just hearing boring old me, but fun Ben. So thanks for your time, bro. Thank you for having me. And anytime I get to be a guest in your show, man, I'm excited. I love what you're doing. I love your discoveries and your information and you're crushing it. Keep doing it.

How can people follow you if they want to keep up with the life of Ben Pospisal? They can go to Ben Pospisal on Instagram. That's where I'm at. Is that your handle, Ben Pospisal? Ben Pospisal. That's it. How do you spell that? P-L-S-P-I-S-I-L.

And then obviously, Ben. So Ben, P-O-S-P-I-L. So. Go find it, everyone. We're going to do it. We need to do a documentary on Rockwall. Yeah, so everybody, everybody follow Ben on Instagram so you can see his feature posts about Rockwall.

Thanks, Ben. Thank you. So much fun.