The Mind Parasites. Colin Wilson

stones of the Cheops pyramid—or those at Stonehenge, for that matter—had been moved; these ancient people may have possessed a far greater knowledge than we realize…

      Before I had finished talking to the New York Times man, three more helicopters appeared. More journalists. By four o’clock, Reich had been persuaded to emerge from his tent, and was demonstrating the mechanism of the probe—with a bad grace. By six o’clock, we were both hoarse and weary. We escaped back to the hotel in Kadirli, and managed to eat a quiet supper. The manager had been told to refuse all telephone calls. But at nine o’clock, Fu’ad got through to us. He was waving a copy of the New York Times. The whole front page was devoted to the story of the ‘World’s Biggest Discovery Ever’. I was quoted as endorsing the theory that we had discovered the city of a race of giants. I was made to hint that these giants had also been magicians who had raised their thousand ton building blocks by some strange art that has now been forgotten. A well known colleague of mine gave his opinion that the pyramids of Egypt and ancient Peru could never have been built by any known method of engineering, and that this new discovery would surely prove it beyond all doubt. On the inside page of the newspaper, a popular writer on archaeology contributed an article called ‘The Giants of Atlantis’.

      I assured Fu’ad that I had never said anything about giants—at least, not in the context quoted. He promised to ring the New York Times and correct their account. Then I crept off to Reich’s room to drink a final glass of brandy, leaving instructions that I was at home to no one—not even the Sultan of Turkey.

      I think I have said enough to indicate why we were unable to return to the site for another week. The Turkish government supplied soldiers to guard our equipment; but they had no orders to keep visitors at bay, and the air above Karatepe swarmed with helicopters like wasps around jam. The hotels in Kadirli were jammed for the first time since they had been built. Reich and I had to stay in our rooms, or risk being accosted a hundred times an hour by cranks and sensation seekers. The Turkish government granted us the hovercraft within twelve hours, but it was impossible to use it. On the following day, the Carnegie Foundation granted us two million dollars for starting the tunnel, and the World Finance Committee produced another two million. Finally, the Turkish government agreed to build a forty foot wire enclosure around the Black Mountain, and they did this in less than a week, with some help from American and Russian Foundations. We were then able to return to work.