Konspiracy Korner

[The Black Spot]

I'm sure that everyone's familiar with the "big hitters" of alternative science / history (such as Velikovski and Hancock), but there are plenty more out there.

Here's a weirdly attractive theory: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/volatile/Niemitz-1997.pdf

Basically, the author is saying that almost 300 "phantom" years have been inserted into history, and we're actually living in the 1700's (arrrr....).

I've discussed this with a couple of historians, and they're convinced it's all bunk. The web of history seems too complete and complex to allow for the fiddling of dates on such a grand scale.

Anybody got any others?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

That is a serious contender to the Cuckoo Cocoa Puffs Prize. I imagine that the absence of discrepancies with Chinese history (including chronicles of comets, etc) were just overlooked. 

As many conspiracy theories, there are problems with the accepted canon but that doesn't make them completely useless nor the first crazy theory to explain them, valid.

[Griffin NoName]

Yes.

Theories.

I. It was posted on April Fools Day.

II. It's under ~mgk25 user account at Cambridge University. Therefore it is
       II.I. A trojan horse. When you download the pdf it compromises your computer.

       II.II. It's a joke circulating the Computer Lab or the University.

       II.III. It's a piece of research into how many people will hit (as in computer hits) this piece of rubbish.

       II.IV.  It's some sort of other sort of research of a deeply sensitive/secret nature being carried out by Cambridge which has to be disguised.

I will be contacting my Camb.Uni. Computer Lab mates to complain about standards on their /cl/ wwebsite.

Note: the use of roman numerals in this post is deliberate

[Swatopluk]

That theory originated in Germany and got quite a following (the book* was a bestseller).

To praraphrase the thesis: Some emperor wanted
a) deal with the Y1K problem (and presumed Doomsday)
b) polish up his ancestry (by inventing Charlemagne)

The question of calendar discrepancies actually exists even without some dude adding or substracting years/decades/centuries btw. Europe was not that good on bookkeeping in the early Middle Ages and there were** indeed abundant document forgeries (in some areas so bad that "forged until proven genuine" is the default value).

It's one of those "theories" that are less easy to debunk thoroughly than one might presume (despite being complete bovine digestive final product).

*Das erfundene Mittelalter
** then. modern forgeries are another problem.

[The Black Spot]

Here's a pretty good refutation of the Phantom Years: http://www.calendersign.com/en/cs_astrophoby.php

By comparing ancient records of eclipses to computational models of the solar system, there do not seem to be any missing years at all.

[Griffin NoName]

Well that's a relief. I'm too exhausted to live through another 300 years just to get to where I am today.

[The Black Spot]

I dunno.

1707 were a fine year. YARRRRR!

[Swatopluk]

But there are still people around looking for the lost hours of Gibeon and Hiskia's 40 minutes and some even claim to have found them.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I believe that my mother-in-law's theory (given that no one alive saw most historic events 100+ years ago, history is for all practical purposes fiction) more than this goof.

Meh...

[Griffin NoName]

.....(given that no one alive saw most historic events 100+ years ago,

Hang on. If the oldest person alive is say I dunno, it's around 115 or so isn't it? They would have known people of say, um, ok, we'll go for a lower figure, erm, say 95, so that's someone who can truthfully recount someone else's memory back to 210 years...

so I reckon the 300 missing years is wrong and it is probably really 210. 

[Swatopluk]

But how could that person be sure that the "memory" is not just a good yarn made by something quite old too?

[Griffin NoName]

The same way we know if we are hallucinating?

[Swatopluk]

The burnt-in logos give it away

[Sibling Chatty]

Where's Sweeper? The History Monks can tell you all you need to know about this.

[Swatopluk]

I hope working on a bonsai volcano under some undisclosed location