AUSTRALIA'S STONEHENGE
In 2013 an historian, Richard Patterson, fell upon some old letters in the back rooms of a small country town's history museum. They were written correspondence from the years 1938 and 1939. The letters were by a respected principal of a rural school and an eccentric archeologist who worked as a big-city journalist in Sydney.
The letters were about what could be an historic, earth-shattering discovery on the east-coast of Australia. They ended with fears that there was a government-run conspiracy to cover-up the findings of their private archaeological expedition. It was an examination and survey of a huge man-made earthen mound and a large stone arrangement standing upon it.
The letters were about what could be an historic, earth-shattering discovery on the east-coast of Australia. They ended with fears that there was a government-run conspiracy to cover-up the findings of their private archaeological expedition. It was an examination and survey of a huge man-made earthen mound and a large stone arrangement standing upon it.
A white-only version of invasion: A painting of explorer Captain Cook raising the British flag after landing on the continent and claiming it for king and country.
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The expedition's data indicated that Australian Aboriginals might have been sophisticated and were a lasting influence. It was a dangerous theory to have. When Australia was conquered by the British the land was deemed to be Terra Nullius . It's latin for "nobody's land' and was used in international law to justify the takeover of foreign territory
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When the Europeans invaded in 1788 they claimed that because the Australia Aboriginal did not work the land or build permanent structures as the European's did that they didn't legally exist.
This paved the way for the approval of a swift invasion of the continent and warfare against the Aboriginal 'interlopers'. They were seen by the European as an uncivilized, uneducated, inferior race and doomed to burn in the Christian hell if they refused to abandon their heathen beliefs.
In the 1930's when the expedition was underway,an interest in Aboriginal people was a quaint hobby. Like taxidermy or stamp collecting. The correspondence between the archaeologist and the principle ceased without warning just as Australia joined Britain to fight in World War 2.
Five years later, a boy who told the school principle of the giant mound and the carved stone arrangement on his family's farming property, returned from the war. After serving as a soldier in Papua New Guinea, the boy promptly followed the first order given by his father and using new earthmoving machines, tore down the stone arrangement.
The global conflict meant emergency laws passed that allowed the government to take private land for national security. Even though it was 1945 and the war had officially ended, the laws hadn't yet expired.
The father received a tip-off that the government had gotten hold of the papers of the 1939 archaeological dig, including the private letters and were going to take his farm. The farmer figured if he destroyed the mound then the government would no longer have a reason to take his property.
It was an interesting twist that the writers of the letters feared the museums would work with the government to steal their information on the dig, and that Patterson found them, 80-years later scattered in a museum storeroom.
The official view, since Patterson made the documents he rediscovered public, is that there is nothing to see and the letters are of little value even though the local museum now keeps them in a sealed room, locked in a safe.
This paved the way for the approval of a swift invasion of the continent and warfare against the Aboriginal 'interlopers'. They were seen by the European as an uncivilized, uneducated, inferior race and doomed to burn in the Christian hell if they refused to abandon their heathen beliefs.
In the 1930's when the expedition was underway,an interest in Aboriginal people was a quaint hobby. Like taxidermy or stamp collecting. The correspondence between the archaeologist and the principle ceased without warning just as Australia joined Britain to fight in World War 2.
Five years later, a boy who told the school principle of the giant mound and the carved stone arrangement on his family's farming property, returned from the war. After serving as a soldier in Papua New Guinea, the boy promptly followed the first order given by his father and using new earthmoving machines, tore down the stone arrangement.
The global conflict meant emergency laws passed that allowed the government to take private land for national security. Even though it was 1945 and the war had officially ended, the laws hadn't yet expired.
The father received a tip-off that the government had gotten hold of the papers of the 1939 archaeological dig, including the private letters and were going to take his farm. The farmer figured if he destroyed the mound then the government would no longer have a reason to take his property.
It was an interesting twist that the writers of the letters feared the museums would work with the government to steal their information on the dig, and that Patterson found them, 80-years later scattered in a museum storeroom.
The official view, since Patterson made the documents he rediscovered public, is that there is nothing to see and the letters are of little value even though the local museum now keeps them in a sealed room, locked in a safe.
You can read the bureaucrats opinion on the claims made by the expedition in this museum document, First People of the Brunswick, by the Richmond River Historical Society.
The excavation of the site revealed to the team that the aboriginal people once used advanced technology and a highly fluent and scientifically styled written language.
The evidence retrieved by the expedition, the letter writers believed, could prove it as a fact that the Aboriginal people were far more culturally advanced than their neolithic cousins.
The conclusion of the team that examined the Aboriginal's standing stone site was that in the most ancient of times people came to Byron Bay from all corners of the world to be taught by Aboriginal clever men. That they ruled over all other races and nations, for perhaps many thousands of years, from this region of Australia, which was the center of a kind of sacred world empire.
The evidence retrieved by the expedition, the letter writers believed, could prove it as a fact that the Aboriginal people were far more culturally advanced than their neolithic cousins.
The conclusion of the team that examined the Aboriginal's standing stone site was that in the most ancient of times people came to Byron Bay from all corners of the world to be taught by Aboriginal clever men. That they ruled over all other races and nations, for perhaps many thousands of years, from this region of Australia, which was the center of a kind of sacred world empire.
The letters said that the Aboriginal people built and operated sophisticated, massive stone arrangements. That each arrangement taught an aspect, of science, spirituality or art. Some of the installations used hundreds of stones.
That the idea that in the distant past there may have been a kind of Aboriginal master-race, was fascinating, but could it be true?
Patterson thought that too many people would have had to die to hide something so immensely important to the world. Then he read about the massacres of the Aboriginal people and the genocide performed against them.
That the idea that in the distant past there may have been a kind of Aboriginal master-race, was fascinating, but could it be true?
Patterson thought that too many people would have had to die to hide something so immensely important to the world. Then he read about the massacres of the Aboriginal people and the genocide performed against them.
Patterson thought nobody could have taken away all the stones even if they wanted to. It would be incredible that Europeans who settled had the means to haul away hundreds of stone blocks and demolish in a 100 years that may have stood for thousands.
However, no towns in Australia were better suited to move huge stone plinths than the towns in this region. They had the specialised moving equipment and people with skills on engineering. This region was blessed with the machinery and transport infrastructure to drag felled giant cedar trees in sections weighing hundreds of tonnes through mountainous terrain.
Early film clip of the 'timber getters' in action.
However, no towns in Australia were better suited to move huge stone plinths than the towns in this region. They had the specialised moving equipment and people with skills on engineering. This region was blessed with the machinery and transport infrastructure to drag felled giant cedar trees in sections weighing hundreds of tonnes through mountainous terrain.
Early film clip of the 'timber getters' in action.
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The townsfolk also had the tools to lift and transport massive 30-tonne humpback whales from the sea. The Whaling industry ran from 1954 till 1962. Many of the whales, hauled away to be slaughtered at Byron Bay’s whaling hub, were 16 meters long. More than 1,000 whales were killed and transported, during the very years that the last of the bigger stones were moved away.
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A BBC newsreal of Byan Bay's whaling in full swing.
What makes Patterson think Mullumbimby sits upon a lost stone-age civilization hiding in plain site, is it explains all those big standing stones everyone sees everyday around this place.
Patterson was already known for making bold claims. In 1997, when he was studying in Melbourne, he said publicly that he may have solved a series of mysterious murders. Patterson pointed the finger at Francis Thompson, an English poet for being Jack the Ripper. This was the unknown slayer of several women in London in 1888.
In 2015, Patterson strengthened his theory with the results of new research. The press jumped on the circumstantial evidence that Patteson presented. It went viral and by 2016, Patterson's book, Jack the Ripper the Works of Francis Thompson was on shelves and he had won a writer's contract with a UK publisher.
Patterson, In 2012, moved interstate from his hometown Melbourne to a small country town called Mullumbimby. It was not too far from Byron Bay. A large town at the easternmost point of Australia. A very popular tourist destination.
Byron Bay was built over the Aboriginal's area of Cavanbah which means meeting place. Patterson spent five years living in a mountain cottage high up in Mt Jerusalem National Park, Main Arm.
The property was built before the surrounding 50,000 acres of forest was made into a park. It was here, hidden in the half-tamed forested mountains and with views of clear white beaches and the Pacific Ocean that Patterson finished his non-fiction book, ‘Jack the Ripper, The Works of Francis Thompson.'
Byron Bay was built over the Aboriginal's area of Cavanbah which means meeting place. Patterson spent five years living in a mountain cottage high up in Mt Jerusalem National Park, Main Arm.
The property was built before the surrounding 50,000 acres of forest was made into a park. It was here, hidden in the half-tamed forested mountains and with views of clear white beaches and the Pacific Ocean that Patterson finished his non-fiction book, ‘Jack the Ripper, The Works of Francis Thompson.'
In 2013, while in the middle of writing his book, Patterson learnt a popular Australian Aboriginal dreamtime story. The story explained the unique belief of the Aboriginal tribe that were keepers of the Mullumbimby area. The tribe felt that they had a very special role which is to welcome all people here because the land was nobodies to own and all to share. Regardless of race or creed or origin the Aboriginal elders encourage all of us to share here and speak about it.
The origin story of the Aboriginals here that is taught in the high schools is that their people were a family of refugees who survived a shipwreck. There are variations of the story but they all begin with the family arriving from a powerful, distant land that underwent an upheaval.
Alex Vesper (1892-1976) of the Githabal People gave the following account of the origins of his people.
Alex Vesper (1892-1976)
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'I am sixty-seven years of age. I heard this story from my grandfather who was a full-blood of the Ngarartbul tribe near Murwillumbah. On my grandmother’s side the tribe was Gullibul, from Casino and Woodenbong.
I heard this story also from many old Aboriginals who came from other tribes. Three brothers who came from the central part of the world were compelled to explore for land on the southerly part of the world because they were forced out of the centre part of the world because of revolutions and warfare of those nations of the central part... They came in a sailing ship. They anchored just off the mouth of the Clarence. ... Then a storm came up and drove the ship out to sea and never seen again. These three brothers had each a family of his own and they had their mother. Their three wives were with them.... They went on in that manner and eventually they became tribal races, and the first language of their origin we call Jabilum, that means, ‘The Originals’. The race of the Aboriginals as it was continually generated had often a knowledge of the other races across the sea in the other islands.' |
Dreamtime stories, might not normally be given much scientific weight but they are increasingly being recognised for being accounts of actual events. Scientists are now looking at dreaming stories and connecting them to history.
Some oral stories and songs survived unchanged through many past generations and match what happened thousands of years ago. Such past changes include the height of sea levels, the spread of animals and plants and witnessed stellar events such as meteorites and supernovas.
Some oral stories and songs survived unchanged through many past generations and match what happened thousands of years ago. Such past changes include the height of sea levels, the spread of animals and plants and witnessed stellar events such as meteorites and supernovas.
Patterson contends that the proof of a sophisticated stone-mason culture existing in Australia might just be staring us in the face. They are the giant stones left placed about the towns of Mullumbimby, Ocean SHores, Byron Bay and Brunswick Heads.
Patterson thinks that the stones warrant further examination. Specially since the recordings of the early settlers, accounts by the local Aboriginal people, and texts in the town libraries and museums all agree that most of these stones were removed from the dozens of stone arrangements on the grassy mounds by European settlers.
People are taught to believe that there were no standing stones in Australia, and that is a big reason why, at first glance, the idea of a grand ceremonial stone arrangement existing in Australia, is dismissed. It takes some digging to find the truth.
In the 2004, book ‘Community Based Heritage Study Thematic History’ by Joanna Boileau is written,
‘Stone arrangements are a particular feature of the Tweed Aboriginal landscape. Significant arrangements are known to have existed on the western slopes of Mount Warning, as did an arrangement known as the ‘Aboriginal giantess’s grave’ at Terragon, in 1885. The arrangement was quite complex and heavily decorated was a ring of twenty or thirty standing stones, about 5-meters in diameter, with each stone 1-meter long and 1.5-meters thick. The stones were grouped in and pairs and a number of sparkling clear coloured stones of all shapes and a single grey, crescent-shaped stone about 28-centimeters-long.’
In the 2004, book ‘Community Based Heritage Study Thematic History’ by Joanna Boileau is written,
‘Stone arrangements are a particular feature of the Tweed Aboriginal landscape. Significant arrangements are known to have existed on the western slopes of Mount Warning, as did an arrangement known as the ‘Aboriginal giantess’s grave’ at Terragon, in 1885. The arrangement was quite complex and heavily decorated was a ring of twenty or thirty standing stones, about 5-meters in diameter, with each stone 1-meter long and 1.5-meters thick. The stones were grouped in and pairs and a number of sparkling clear coloured stones of all shapes and a single grey, crescent-shaped stone about 28-centimeters-long.’
The 1983 book, ‘Aboriginal Pathways in Southeast Queensland and the Richmond River, by Steele, John Gladstone has written in it that;
‘Stone arrangements abound in the Mount Warning area, but many have been destroyed. Those which were in the rain forest were safe until the forest was cleared, then the growth of grass and the trampling of feet of cattle soon obliterated the arrangements. Such was the case at the foot of The Pinnacle in the Tweed Range. This site 1.7 kilometers north-east of this famous landmark was discovered in 1904 in rain forest; it consisted of a circle of stone mounds on level ground,’
‘Stone arrangements abound in the Mount Warning area, but many have been destroyed. Those which were in the rain forest were safe until the forest was cleared, then the growth of grass and the trampling of feet of cattle soon obliterated the arrangements. Such was the case at the foot of The Pinnacle in the Tweed Range. This site 1.7 kilometers north-east of this famous landmark was discovered in 1904 in rain forest; it consisted of a circle of stone mounds on level ground,’
Closeup of sketch from 1904 of a standing stone arrangement on the Pinnacle of Mt Warning, Northern Rivers ara.
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An 1885 Sketch of a standing stone arrangement, the Giantess's Grave. Torn down in 1901, by farmers.
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Other fieldwork by Sharon Sullivan an archaeologist who worked at Armidale University, resulted in her 1964 publication, ‘The Material Culture of the Aborigines of the Richmond and Tweed Rivers of Northern New South Wales’ Her paper said that the ethno history of the Tweed River valley contained accounts of many stone rings. Her research showed that in this region were standing stone counterparts, different to earth bora rings found in other parts of Australia. Sullivan wrote that the construction of stone arrangements was a localized tradition. Although much of the physical evidence had been destroyed during the white invasion, in 1964, they were still part of oral stories told by the Aboriginal elders.
By the 1960's when Baby Boomers where growing up and coming to their senses, there was hardly any evidence that Mullumbimby had been anything but a sleepy little place, nestled beside a long dead volcano. Patterson's announcement of its rediscoververy has since generated many misconceptions and myths
When the new regime of the European invasion of the continent crept into the area in the 1840s the entire place was considered by the British newcomers who were equipped with steel knives, gunpowder, saws, artillery, ships,horses and diseases, to be theirs for the taking.
The following clip is from a 1988 ABC documentary on the harsh treatment of Aboriginal People since the European invasion of 1788 until the 1930's
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To the squatters and selectors who grabbed the land in the 1850's they were rewarded with prime real estate already cleared for the English to move in.
The British colonists were happy to retain its original Aboriginal place name, Mullumbimby, which meant Little Hills in the native tongue In the 1860s the bare hills with Aboriginal-built fantastic views and easy access were all confiscated from slaughtered Aboriginal people. The elders, the keepers of lore, were the first to be killed and then the stone arrays were all pushed downhill or gathered into piles. To the now respectable old-timers Mullumbimby was a perfect place as far as the eye could see.
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The town, with its back to the mountains and its feet in the sea, is known for its music festivals. People have a short memory so most don’t realise that music festivals, hosted by Aboriginal People, had been going on for thousands of years.
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The incredible landscape around Mt Warning, NSW.
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The road going into Mullumbimby.
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There was a short cancellation for the white invasion in 1788, but now concerts and events have come back into fashion. There is the Splendour in the Grass festival held at the North Byron Parklands, the Mullum Music Festival, and the Byron Writers Festival.
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The post-invasion town community is made up in a part from influential New People also called hippies who have, since the counterculture 1960s, been meeting here to explore alternative lifestyles.
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They and the Old People whose ancestors built the roads and bridges and the hospitals, churches and schools. all enjoy the idyllic mountain surrounds and picturesque, wide white-sand beaches.
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There is also the First People. The area around Mullumbimby & Brunswick Heads, was widely known as where Aboriginal people cared for large stone circles. Now, that is forgotten. It is never discussed even while all around us we all can see certainly hundreds of stone pillars left standing around the shire.
All the New People know nothing about it, most of the Baby Boomers, turned Old People say they don't know about it and nobody listens to the First People because they were almost wiped out. Mullumbimby is seen as just another Aussie town; mostly harmless. |
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The settlers routinely cleared centres of Aboriginal worship from their selection of land. First with their bare hands then by hauling them away using horses or bullocks and finally by powered earthmoving equipment.
Mullumbimby is known for its amazing stone pillars, particularly the ones made from crystals. The Aboriginal clans of the region traded in crystals.
In the face of the legends that the pre-invasion, Aboriginals were caretakers of huge rings of stones, possibly made from crystal and traded in crystals. Maybe It's not just a coincidence that the most popular tourist attraction of the region is Crystal Castle and its collection of biggest and most beautiful crystals in the world that people enjoy and trade in.
In the face of the legends that the pre-invasion, Aboriginals were caretakers of huge rings of stones, possibly made from crystal and traded in crystals. Maybe It's not just a coincidence that the most popular tourist attraction of the region is Crystal Castle and its collection of biggest and most beautiful crystals in the world that people enjoy and trade in.
Neither the New People nor the Old People think anything of the First People. They have no idea that the huge stone pillars all around them just might be the dismantled components of a civilization that had so well perfected their relationship with the environment that they survived for 120,000 years.
The most enduring substance of solid stone, since the invention of writing, has been relied upon to store people’s stories.
To Stone Age man a stone arrangement was a repository of knowledge much like a library might hold books. What made Mullumbimby special was the rumour that it was built upon what was long ago a worldwide headquarters of stone circles. Today, the large number of remaining, disturbed standing stones possibly point to the existence of a world-wide centre of learning in the distant past.
The great number of stones point to the existence of a now destroyed, mega-structure.
It conceivably operated as a centralised theroracratic academia from the beginning of the Pleistocene glaciation until the European invasion when it was scattered and its people driven away or killed.
It conceivably operated as a centralised theroracratic academia from the beginning of the Pleistocene glaciation until the European invasion when it was scattered and its people driven away or killed.
The documents found by Patterson, in 2013, were compiled in 1964 by Dave Marrinon, an agricultural teacher from Mullumbimby High School. The documents had mostly fallen behind an old cupboard and had been missing for decades. The documents strengthen local’s stories of an ancient, lost spiritually-advanced civilization as being based on real events.
The 1939 expedition to the Mullumbimby stone arrangement was organised by the Australian Archaeological, Educational and Research Society of Australia. The society President was Frederic Slater, the journalist that had been contacted by the school principle after he had seen the largely intact mound and stones. It was one of his students who had told him it was on his family's large dairy farm.
That anyone would bother being interested in learning anything about Aboriginal culture, in the 1930's was considered an almost creepy thing to do. Aboriginal people were treated as half-beast like savages who had not progressed at all since the Stone Age. This Australian Government funded documentary has the presenter, Norman Tindale, describe Aboriginal people in racially loaded language that today many people would consider offensive.
The film shown below is an example of Tindale's tabloid style racist productions, mocking Aboriginal culture.
Patterson was astounded to track down in the museum the survey maps of what appeared to ba a stone temple that was the size of a modern building. It was described as serving multiple functions and that it had been around since the height of the last ice-age.
The stone structure was built on top of a 15 meters of soil, like a giant step, into a hillside On it were 188, standing stones and some were 9 meters high. The maps from the 1939 survey show that it consisted of two sets of stone circles, each equivalent in size to the English Stonehenge erected in Wiltshire. Joining both circles was a chain of groups of stone, with each group carved, arranged and etched to depict fables and themes of the pantheon of dreaming gods.
Here is a 38 page typed facsimile of the handwritten 1939 letters from journalist Frederic Slater, to Fred Fordham the Brunswick Heads school Principal about the King RIver Site on a Mullumbimby Diary Farm - aka - Australia's Stonehenge.
Patterson studied the letters, accompanying notes and examined the maps and diagrams in comparison to the actual location.
Plans from the 1938 Expedition showing the central bora rings of the snake path.
The main stone arrangement was a complex piece of engineering. Many of the stones were carved into unusual shapes or engraved in strange hieroglyphics.
In the private letters of those heading the 1939 site survey, Patterson read that the experts had evidence to show the stones had been placed there more than 10,000 years ago.
The experts relied on 1850 translations of Aboriginal Song line chants and rock carvings. These were co-written by an eminent poetess David Hamilton Dunlop, wife of the first magistrate at Wollombi, with a respected Aboriginal chief Boni. The language, Murrigiwalda, (meaning sacred language) matched what was written on the stones and were far too similar to Early Egyptian proto-hieroglyphics to be coincidental.
This sacred language was observed by western explorers who noted that the Aboriginal men encountered all along the coast of Australia, shared a similar hand sign language.
Murrigiwalda was spoken for timeless spiritual matters, unchanging sciences and deep emotions. But a more practical language was adapted for different places needed new sets of words to describe landforms, animals and plants that were connected to a specific place and time..
It was not the Australia-wide Murrigiwalda language but the many everyday functional languages restricted to a particular region that white, European scientists divided Australia's Aboriginals. This why, in the present day we have 500 different tribes.
The experts relied on 1850 translations of Aboriginal Song line chants and rock carvings. These were co-written by an eminent poetess David Hamilton Dunlop, wife of the first magistrate at Wollombi, with a respected Aboriginal chief Boni. The language, Murrigiwalda, (meaning sacred language) matched what was written on the stones and were far too similar to Early Egyptian proto-hieroglyphics to be coincidental.
This sacred language was observed by western explorers who noted that the Aboriginal men encountered all along the coast of Australia, shared a similar hand sign language.
Murrigiwalda was spoken for timeless spiritual matters, unchanging sciences and deep emotions. But a more practical language was adapted for different places needed new sets of words to describe landforms, animals and plants that were connected to a specific place and time..
It was not the Australia-wide Murrigiwalda language but the many everyday functional languages restricted to a particular region that white, European scientists divided Australia's Aboriginals. This why, in the present day we have 500 different tribes.
This was done despite that Aboriginals people were capable of learning several area-specific languages and moving through many tribes and that elders, the clever men, all shared a pan-Australian sacred language. The arbitrary grouping of aboriginals solely on the local language, although relatively easy with vastly reduced numbers of native speakers, still brings anxiety to Aboriginal people and issues of land custodianship.
The Great Murrigiwalda language, those who spoke it, and the stones were scattered.
The letters between experts told that the translated messages on the stones were incredibly similar to the early concepts of science and religion that first developed on other continents
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The influence of the Australian Aboriginal people overseas is shown by how the Bundjalung language of the Northern Rivers area of NSW, where the mound of the arrangement is, matches languages spoken overseas. For example, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage has shown that very many words spoken by, a jungle tribe in Chota Nagpur, India, are the same as the Bundjalung. Both tribes share the same fascination with standing stones. It's on the Chota Nagpur Plateau where there is arguably the world’s largest collection of megaliths. They are found on 53 sites. One site was found with 7,000. megaliths.
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Subhashis Das. 'The Archaeoastronomy of a Few Megalithic Sites of Jharkhand'. Book on Standing stones in Chota Nagpur region of India.
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The letters said the site was proof that at the dawn of time other fledgling nations came from across the Earth to learn in the continent of Australia from First High Priests The size and complexity of the place was why, in 1939, it made it into all the papers.
The 1930’s expedition's assessment of the the site was the most important discovery ever. They marvelled at the carefully placed giant stones set in complex arrangements in patterns of circles, crosses, and spirals.
The design of the cross in the circle, or what is commonly called the sun cross is first found in Australia as 40,000 rock art in the Kakadu National Park. It is said to be a motif of the Southern Star which can be only seen in the Southern Hemisphere.
The 1939 research team concluded that the positions of each stone, relative to each other, the directions that the stones pointed, and the different symbols carved into it consisted of a set of 1,000 sacred words of a 28,000-word language.
The design of the cross in the circle, or what is commonly called the sun cross is first found in Australia as 40,000 rock art in the Kakadu National Park. It is said to be a motif of the Southern Star which can be only seen in the Southern Hemisphere.
The 1939 research team concluded that the positions of each stone, relative to each other, the directions that the stones pointed, and the different symbols carved into it consisted of a set of 1,000 sacred words of a 28,000-word language.
Australia’s Stonehenge was measured to be twice as old as its English counterpart. How the writing found on the stones resembled the earliest human writing in other parts of the world is why the experts concluded it was also the center of world knowledge and the cradle of civilization.
It could mean that at least 10,000-years-ago Australia housed an industrial-sized ceremony initiation site that taught all philosophies of art, religion and science then and yet to come.
The researchers of the mighty stone arrangements may have changed world history with their revelations but then came the disturbance of World War 2 and everyone looked the other way.
When it ended, before anyone could show any more interest, a farmer bulldozed the stones.
When it ended, before anyone could show any more interest, a farmer bulldozed the stones.
The world during and after the war was for many years divided. First Australians were convinced to cast a wary eye outwards for the Japanese attacking army. Then there was around 40 years of fearing the red menace of the communists in the Cold War when anyone different could be an enemy spy. Near endless propaganda gave plenty of time for papers to go missing and memories to become fuzzy.
Meanwhile the stories of the old-timers here in Australia are that once, very long ago, First Nation people used to gather from all over to be hosts to an international educational concert and perform in festivities of song, science, and spirituality.
After news of the Australia's Stonehenge hit the news in 2013, some saw the potential for tourism.
After 3 years of planning, in 2016, stakeholders announced the proposal for a private eco-village to be built on the land, encircling the site. Construction required the land be rezoned from agricultural to residential property. It would also involve making sure that no Aboriginal remains or sacred sites were disturbed. In 2017, a required heritage report was submitted to the Byron Shire council.
After 3 years of planning, in 2016, stakeholders announced the proposal for a private eco-village to be built on the land, encircling the site. Construction required the land be rezoned from agricultural to residential property. It would also involve making sure that no Aboriginal remains or sacred sites were disturbed. In 2017, a required heritage report was submitted to the Byron Shire council.
The planners performed a search on the Aboriginal people's links to the area and on what was named Area 17, which was the location of the mound. The final report by Planners North in Byron Bay consisted of a desktop study. Meaning that they did not examine the site first-hand.
Their online searches had them conclude that the area was fine to have houses built upon it and that because farmers had extensively disturbed the site any artifacts found would be of low scientific value. The also decided that the,
"Stone Arrangement not believed to be of Indigenous origin is located within the subject site, in an easement near Lot 9.”
Incredibly, the report accepted the truth of the existence of a group of stones having been artificially placed but did not attribute the intelligent design to the Aboriginal people. The report did not explain who had built it, if not the Aboriginal people who once lived there. Dismissing an Aboriginal Australian link to the arrangement allowed the planners to state that there would be "minimal constraints" to rezoning and that any Aboriginal history that might be destroyed was only worthless "background scatter."
Here is the Planning Report by Planner North.
Here is the Planning Report by Planner North.
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The plan to turn the area around Australia's Stonehenge into a green utopia was not passed by the Council. There was an online petition against the rezoning of the area to protect the site The talk explains why more than 7,000 people signed a petition stating that it is a prehistoric sight of international significance that needs to protected and studied by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. You can learn at the talk why the petitioners argue that if the area can be understood it will cause every dormant ancient ley and songline everywhere to switch on
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Today, the stones are still everywhere, of course, right in front of us but instead of teaching they decorate major intersections, heaped together on roundabouts and lining the front of important buildings. The stones, because their patterns of arrangement are all broken, are now mute tokens and mocking reminders of the annihilation of a race of people perhaps once revered as superhumans.
These people's artefacts, the smaller stones, the ones worshipped by the ‘ungodly’ Aboriginal peoples in the eyes of the invader, were taken by Christian settlers and broken up to be used for manufacture retaining walls or to landscape gardens.
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The more interesting stones, the ones carved into shapes or with symbols, were pilled into a heap and used as the insulation for backyard barbecues and incinerators to fire up with the leftover limbs of the giant, 60 meter-high cedar trees that used to grow around the cleared circles on hills, ridges, and peaks.
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Upon reading the letters and performing further research,Patterson tracked down the location of the site. He befriended the property owners and visited the property often. He explored the site many times and recorded it and verified its existence.
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Patterson shared his findings with everyone.
His first public talk on his rediscovery of the site, was organised online and many attended to listen on December 7 2019 in Mullumbimby's St Johns Primary School. He holds talks that covers much of the history of the site and the area and the lessons it can teach us. |
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It has been a long time but once again the wise and powerful are coming to learn from the Aboriginal mounds and Patterson has had the privilege to show them its manifestations.
Aboriginal Elders have told Patterson of the pillars of energy that rise from the site. Perhaps it's why beneath where the stones once stood, a fully formed eucalyptus tree grows from the trunk of its fallen mother tree. |
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As well as famous authors and researchers visiting the site. Documentaries on it have been watched by many millions of people. A History Channel’s series featured Australia's Stonehenge. This was beamed into 95 million homes around the world. It asked if the stones could provide insights to humanity and other stone arrangements around the world. Books have been written about them and groups want to put it back together again.
Many people think doing this might magically activate it and in turn, every ancient stone structure and the best of the modern ones will turn on. There is now a call to rebuild the stones as they once were.
Doing so is conceivable since many of the giant, up to 10-meter high, stones dotted around the countryside, have only sometimes been moved a few meters from where they once long stood and the maps have been found to place persistent stones into their original positions.
Doing so is conceivable since many of the giant, up to 10-meter high, stones dotted around the countryside, have only sometimes been moved a few meters from where they once long stood and the maps have been found to place persistent stones into their original positions.
They think that when the mother mound is returned from its dormant to an active state that it will amplify the energies given off from other stone arrangements and structures.
The prophecy is that this beneficial energy will be directed to Uluru and then to the younger, smaller Stonehenge in England, to the obelisk that is the Washington Monument in the US to the Pyramids in Egypt and to all other significant sacred sites.
Their hope and wish is that this will be enough to generate a true paradigm shift a way to directly bring to our sensory realm a palpable, tangible change for greater good in the human species.
The prophecy is that this beneficial energy will be directed to Uluru and then to the younger, smaller Stonehenge in England, to the obelisk that is the Washington Monument in the US to the Pyramids in Egypt and to all other significant sacred sites.
Their hope and wish is that this will be enough to generate a true paradigm shift a way to directly bring to our sensory realm a palpable, tangible change for greater good in the human species.