Dear Friends,

I remember the time when I first read Tompkins’ book Secrets of the Great Pyramid, I felt cheated by academics. Looking through the eyes of Tompkins and many other researchers, I became convinced Egyptologists were patently wrong in their interpretation of the pyramids of Egypt. I felt as though I had been “sold a bill of goods” and my natural reaction was one of anger and resentment. I believe this is a natural reaction for many people who have been persuaded to believe something only to learn later that they were misinformed or, worse, downright duped.

Affecting the beliefs of a large number of people should not be taken lightly by anyone, and authors take on a tremendous responsibility when they attempt to influence people’s views. Writing non-fiction brings other responsibilities also. Because non-fiction works have the potential of becoming a part of the historical record, non-fiction authors are responsible for defending and explaining what they have written to those who raise serious and legitimate questions.

When I first read Giza: The Truth I focused on the segments of the book that addressed my book, The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt. My first reaction was to ignore it. It seemed to be the thing to do, as there were other authors, whose work was criticized in this book, seemed to be ignoring it also.

There was a part of the book, though, that I had to pay attention to. Ian Lawton and Chris Ogilvie-Herold effectively dismissed my theories of how the ancient Egyptians drilled granite using ultrasonic machining by referring to the studies of John Reid, an acoustics engineer, and Harry Brownlee, a stone mason. (For readers who are unfamiliar with my theory they can follow the Advanced Machining link at www.gizapower.com.)

My theory of ultrasonic machining was based on Sir William Flinders Petrie’s book Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh. In his book, Petrie described an artifact with marks of a drilling process that left a spiral groove in granite that indicated that the drill sank into the granite at .100 inch per revolution of the drill. Reid and Brownlee, upon physical examination of this artifact, the infamous drill core #7, testified that the grooves were not spiral grooves but individual rings, and were common to cores found in any modern quarry in England.

After reading this report in Lawton and Herald’s book, I immediately posted to my website, www.gizapower.com, a statement to the effect that I suspend any assertions I have made about ultrasonic machining of these holes and cores.

During this time, also, I was inundated with emails that sprang from an errant message I had broadcast confirming a part of The Giza Power Plant theory. The message resulted in the beginning of a bulletin board discussion on Gizapower on the www.atlantisrising.com website. It was here that one of my readers, Eddie Newmiller, asked what my opinion was of Giza: The Truth. The discussion that followed is very interesting.