Futuristic technology from the ancient past
On the Vaimanika Shastra, a Sanskrit manual that surfaced in the early 20th century, that described ancient aircraft that seem akin to UFOs
We typically associate Sanskrit with religious texts, or literary works of a bygone era. During the First World War, however, a Sanskrit manual with dramatically different content came to light. It had instructions on how to make vehicles capable of flight. It described 12 “spectacular” movements that these craft would be able to perform. They would also be able to traverse multiple media. One of the vehicles described in the manual, the Tripura (three part) craft, could move on land, in the air, on the sea, and underwater. The manual also gave details on how these craft could evade detection. The aircraft could be camouflaged either with chemical remedies to make its outer surface look like the sky, or using machines and mirrors installed within. Pilots could use a special device to view the scene on the ground beneath them. They could even use a “sound capturing device” to listen to conversations carried on inside other vehicles. Oddly enough, all the features just mentioned – the strange movements the craft could perform, their ability to operate on multiple media, maintaining low visibility, and readiness to respond to the movements of other vehicles – characterize what we know of UFOs.
The Pentagon and NASA recently acknowledged that UFOs, or UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) are real. Luis Elizondo, who headed the Pentagon’s investigation into UAPs, gleaned many years’ data based on pilots’ and naval officers’ accounts of strange airborne or seaborne objects. Based on these, he highlighted the unusual features displayed by UFOs. Apparently, UFOs don’t look like the aircraft we are used to. They are tubular, or oval, and don’t have wings or even visible rotors, or windows. Unlike conventional aircraft, they could not only be airborne without wings, but could accelerate at unusually high speeds, changing direction at gravity-defying velocities. Elizondo stated that when UFOs were approached by aircraft or submarines, they would accelerate sharply, retreating 60 miles within a few seconds. Like the vehicles mentioned in the Sanskrit manual, the UFOs were not only capable of sudden retreat, but also of rapid responses to enemy vessels. They can descend rapidly from a height of 80,000 feet – at speeds roughly 30 times the speed of sound – and position themselves, motionless, above the sea. They can stay absolutely still, even when buffeted by strong winds and atmospheric currents, unlike the aircraft known to us. Again, rapid descent and the ability to stay still were exhibited by the vehicles described in the manual. UFOs can go underwater, where they have supposedly been detected moving at roughly twice the speed of nuclear submarines. So they are capable of traversing different types of media. Observers have seen UFOs rotating, hovering, receding, and moving from side to side like ping pong balls – reminiscent of all the “spectacular movements” described in the manual. UFOs are good at “cloaking” or maintaining “low visibility”. They are difficult to detect through advanced radar technology, and by the naked eye, alike: all that observers can see is the glow surrounding them. This is reminiscent of the Sanskrit text’s procedures for camouflaging craft.
Some of the models described in this Sanskrit book were tested in 2017 by Travis Taylor, an aerospace engineer, at the University of California, Irvine. He performed a wind tunnel experiment on a tubular model, which lacked wings and rotors. It resembled many of the UFOs mentioned by Elizondo, such as those witnessed during the 2004 Nimitz incident. Taylor found that the model was flight-worthy. (The YouTube video of the experiment is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpKIj4-bmt0) It was capable of lift and stayed motionless in the air, exhibiting remarkable stability even when buffeted by strong winds. This also harmonizes with Elizondo’s descriptions of UFOs which displayed anti-gravity lift without visible means of propulsion. In fact, he also discusses the possibility that the models in the book were actually models of spaceships.
We now come to the story behind the Sanskrit text. We begin with a man later known to the world as Pandit Subbaraya Shastry (1866-1940). Born into a poor, disease-ridden family of little education, he lost his parents early, and was abandoned by his siblings while partly crippled by smallpox. Wandering around in this miserable state, Subbaraya was found by a holy man who tended to him and cured him. This man became his guru and taught him for five or six years. Among his teachings was part of a Sanskrit book, handed down in the oral tradition. Bharadwaja, a famous sage from ancient times, was credited as the original composer of the book, and its contents concerned making vehicles capable of flight.
What is the connection between the Sanskrit oral tradition, Bharadwaja, and flight-worthy craft? Starting with the Rigveda, ancient Sanskrit texts were handed down as oral canon. As India was subject to frequent invasions, and as ancient manuscripts were written on perishable media like palm leaves, written material would often be plundered or destroyed – providing an incentive to preserve the oral tradition. Surprisingly, our oral tradition did contain many early accounts of flight worthy vehicles. The Rigveda talks of a godly race (devas) who were considered hugely superior to our own in terms of power, longevity, and technology. These beings rode self-propelled flight worthy vehicles that could traverse multiple media. Two groups of deities – the Ashwins, twins who served as healers, and the Maruts, a group in charge of storm management, are presented as possessing such vehicles. Bharadwaja was closely connected with the Sanskrit oral tradition, as he and his descendants are believed to have composed one of the several “family books” of the Rigveda. His connection to flight worthy vehicles is also intriguing. Due to unfortunate circumstances (the details of which are found in the Matsya Purana), Bharadwaja was not accepted by his parents, but luckily found a loving home with his maternal grandparents. Lore has it that they were the Maruts and as a member of this family, Bharadwaja received intimate knowledge of flying vehicles.
We now return to Subbaraya. With the help of a young engineering student in Bangalore, who illustrated the book, it was written between 1918-23, and called the Vaimanika shastra. The colonial government apparently frowned on the contents of the book and jailed Subbaraya, ensuring that the general public did not interact with him. The models in the Vaimanika shastra were completely unlike what the western world was building and as a result, perhaps, the book was immediately labelled a hoax by many, including Indian scientists.
Recently, however, thinking about the book has changed in some quarters. As suggested by Taylor’s experiments, and by Elizondo, the craft described in the book are closer to UFOs or spacecraft than conventional aircraft. Elizondo also mentioned the possibility that UFOs were present in the ancient world (The YouTube video of Elizondo’s talk is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yX6ETCKyPo). He mentioned an ancient Roman scroll, at least 2,000 years old, where airborne objects shaped like flaming shields followed Roman soldiers from battlefield to battlefield. Popular culture has thrown up mentions (By Frank Edwards, a 1950s radio TV host and writer, in Stranger Than Science,1959, Lyle Stuart, NYC) of discoid flying shields that alarmed elephants during Alexander the Great’s fourth century BC battle with the Indian king Porus. This made the elephants stampede, alarming the Greek ranks. Perhaps it was this spooky experience that made the Greek army refuse to continue their invasion of India.
The technology conceived of in the Vaimanika shastra was, by these accounts, several thousand years old. The materials used were those that were available in the ancient world and might seem unfamiliar now. They have no doubt been superseded by more technologically advanced materials.
The Vaimanika shastra suggests using liquid mercury as fuel. At first glance, this may seem dubious. Current investigations, however, are showing mercury to be quite feasible. NASA used mercury in its engines in its SERT mission tests in the 1960s. They were using ion engines where powerful magnets pushed away charged particles at high speed, generating thrust to power the spacecraft. When mercury was used as the fuel instead of krypton or xenon, which are lighter, it could generate a stronger thrust because of its greater weight. In 2018, a space startup named Apollo Fusion was planning to use mercury to fuel high-power, low-cost rocket engines. Other fuels are, however, considered to have fewer environmental risks.
How did a text that was supposedly handed down from the ancients and that came to light in the early part of the 20th century include so much knowledge about spacecraft, especially when this knowledge was not available in the western world? Much research is required to unlock this mystery. Until then, we are left with an intriguing mosaic of clues, which suggest that some ancient Indians were familiar with UFOs and even, who knows, perhaps had a hand in developing them.
Brishti Guha has a PhD in economics from Princeton and is currently an associate professor at the School of International Studies, JNU.
Indrani Guha is a psychotherapist and a Harvard-Radcliffe alumnus.
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