Dear list members:
The following information is excerpted from THE REALITY OF THE UNDERGROUND,
by Riley Crabb, published in the early 1960s by Borderland Sciences Research
Associates Foundation. This was originally a transcribed lecture. This is a
recent acquisition for me, and it contains much valuable information.
The predatory aspects of underworld phenomena, like cannibalism or eating of
human beings, human sacrifice and the interest in "virgins" and "youths"
(i.e., genetics and possible interbreeding stock) is indicated as well. The
account of a temple dedicated to underworld "deities" and mysteries, which
is built over a much older catacomb and cavern realm of immense size, gives
a good indication of how human beings have been hoodwinked and manipulated
for thousands of years with subterranean "oracles" and other tricks. This
information is particularly pertinent to some of our discussions here,
especially the part about "missing schoolchildren," with no hell-bound bus
involved!
The stuff about ancient "serpent worship" is purely speculative, IMO, but
the "serpents" may have been symbolic of the entities which lived in the
caverns below, which are described. "Vhujunka?" Blind Nephilim? Apparently
there are indications of both diminutive and giant forms of life in the
cavern system under Malta.
Please excuse any typos, as I had to key this in, since it was apparently
produced with an older typewriter and defies OCR scanning. The information
is excerpted, and the complete original is highly recommended.
--Mike
···
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When Richard Walter visited Malta in 1939 he was told that a person could
walk from one end of Malta to the other through the caves, until the British
government walled some of them up, including portions of Hal Saflini. This
neolithic marvel, duplicating the style of the surface temples was dated at
3,000 B.C. by Zammit, curator of the Valetta Museum. The temple and its
hapless priesthood was destroyed by an enraged and long-suffering populace,
in desperate revolt against insatiable earth gods who had been devouring
virgin maids and youths for hundreds of years.
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By the time Hal Salfini was cleaned out and ready for the first eager
tourist, enough human bones had been taken out to account for 33,000 people
having been killed and eaten in there! And these were the bones of
normal-sized, modern surface dwellers like you and me. They were not the
bones of the little people who must have dug the cave. the passageways
between the rooms were only four and a half feet high. Shaver claims that
the Deros are cannibals and here is one fact that seems to bear him out.
The National Geographic has featured Malta many times over the years and Hal
Salfini has come in for its share of comment. The best single feature on
the marvelous megalithic find is in the National Geographic for May, 1920.
This article "Malta, The Halting Place of Nations" by William Arthur Griffin
contains the best pictures on the interior of the cave, as well as a lengthy
description.
Here is Griffin's description of the "Oracle" in the cave: "...at about the
level of a man's mouth is a hemispherical hole in the wall about two feet in
diameter. Here it was noticed only a few months ago that any word spoken in
this place was magnified a hundredfold and audible throughout the entire
underground structure. A curved projection is specially carved out of the
back of the cave near this hole and acts as a sounding board, showing that
the designers had a good knowledge of sound-wave motion. The impression upon
the credulous can be imagined when the oracle spoke and the words came
thundering forth through the dark and mysterious places with terrifying
impressiveness."
---------
When Paul Wilstach toured Hal Salfini it left a lingering impression on him
which is well described in his book "Islands of the Mediterranean." He
remembered the guide pointing out a funnel-shaped pit in one of the lower
levels as being "the pit of the sacrificial serpents;" but Griffith writes
the most significant description of it.
"...The pit is shaped like a funnel with a curious slipway worn out just
below the hole in the opposite wall which communicates with the main hall.
After sloping downward and inward the pit widens considerably and is
sufficiently deep to prevent even a tall man from climbing out. It has been
thought that sacred serpents were kept in this pit, the curving sides of
which would prevent their escape. Possibly after the serpent had been
lifted up, as was done by Moses in the wilderness, and due worship was made,
it would be returned to its lair through the hole in the wall. The larger
entrance on the opposite side would permit a man or woman being cast among
the serpents to be stung to death (See Niram Bingham's "Peru" in National
Geographic for April, 1913)."
Griffith tugs at the fringes of the Shaver Mystery when he says that Hal
Salfini is "so complex that one can only speculate as to the use or
significance of its many extraordinary features."
Griffith seems to have been the only one of the cave's writer explorers who
suspected lower levels to the labyrinth. This was when he was retracing his
steps from the Holy of Holies through the room which contained a phallic,
upright stone and on into another set of chambers on the left. Here he
noticed that "the rock, instead of sounding solid to the tread, suddenly
sounds very hollow, as if there were a well or a room not yet opened. What
wonderful store of archeaological wealth is perhaps here awaiting that
opening!"
He wouldn't have thought it so wonderful if he had accompanied the school
children who disappeared into those lower levels of Hal Salfini about
fifteen years later!
--------
In the case of Hal Salfini thousands of tourists and technicians must have
explored all three levels from 1906, when it was officially opened, until
the time when Lois Jessup and her five friends toured the place in the
mid-thirties. Certainly a few of them, like her, would have refused to
accept the guide's laconic statement on the third level that "This is all
there is to see." Even in the last room there are still more openings
leading off into the blackness. These are even lower in height than the
four-and-a-half foot corridors.
Archaeologist J.D. Evans, in his well-illustrated, comparatively new book,
"Malta," describes this final, high-ceilinged room "from which opened four
small oven-like chambers; these were obviously intended to be used for
burials but were found empty when the building was first explored." And we
can suppose that the scientist gave these dark cubicles at least a cursory
glance to satisfy himself that this was indeed the end of Hal Salfini.
-------
But that wasn't what Joe, the guide, told Lois after she and her friends had
completed the regular tour and were asked to retrace their steps back to the
surface.
"What's down there?" she asked the guide, pointing to a small opening off
the walls.
"Go there at your own risk, and won't go far," he replied.
This was a challenge Lois couldn't pass up. She talked it over with her
friends. Two of them decided to stay with Joe. The other three summoned up
enough courage to explore with her.
"I was wearing a dress with a long sash that day and as I decided to lead
the group I asked the fellow behind me to hold onto it. So, with half-burnt
candles in our hands the four of us started through that low, narrow
passage, groping and laughing our way through.
" I cam out first, of course, onto a ledge pathway only two feet wide, with
a sheer drop of fifty feet or more on my right and the wall on my left. I
took a step forward, keeping close to the rock wall side. The person behind
me, still holding on to my sash, was still in the tunnel.
"I held my candle higher and peered down into the abyss, thinking that with
this dangerous drop it was better not to go on further without a guide.
Then I saw about twenty persons of giant stature emerge from an opening deep
below me. They were walking in single file along another narrow ledge down
below. Their height I judged to be about twenty to twenty-five feet, since
their heads came up about half way on the wall on the opposite side of the
cave. They walked very slowly, taking long strides. Then they all stopped,
turned and raised their heads in my direction. All simultaneously raised
their arms and with their hands beckoned to me. The movement was something
like snatching or feeling for something, as the palms of their hands were
turned down."
By this time her friends back in the passage were becoming impatient of the
delay. There was a tug at the sash.
"Go on. We're all getting stuck in here. What's the matter?"
"Well," stammered Lois, "there's nothing much to see."
She took another hesitant step forward, her candle in her right hand, her
left hand against the cold rock for support. but it wasn't on a cold rock
wall, it was on something damp and wet, AND IT MOVED!
"Then a strong wind came from nowhere and blew my candle out! Now I really
WAS scared in the darkness. I yelled to the others, "GO BACK! GO BACK!
Guide me with my sash. I can't see!"
"They pulled me back into the low tunnel and we backed up all the way along
the passage into the larger room."
Lois was relieved to see her friends and Joe, the guide, again.
"Did you see anything?" one of them replied.
"No, my candle went out," she replied with finality. "There was a strong
draft in there."
"Let's go," said Joe, looking at Lois, and she returned his glance eye for
eye. She knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that at one time Joe had also
seen those giants. There was an expression of caution in his glance which
held her to silence.
"Out in the hot Malta sunshine again we thanked our guide and as we tipped
him Joe said to me: "If YOU really are interested in exploring further it
would be wise to join a group. There is a schoolteacher who is going to take
a party exploring soon."
Lois left her address with him, suggesting that he have the schoolteacher
get in touch with her; but she never heard any more of it. Some few days
later one of the friends of the Hal Salfini excursion called her on the
phone.
"Remember that tunnel you wanted to explore in the Hypogaeum?" Well, it says
here in the local paper that a schoolmaster and thirty students went
exploring and apparently got as far as we got. They were roped together,
with the end of the rope tied to the opening of the cave. As the last
student turned the corner where your candle blew out the rope was clean cut.
None of the party was found because the walls caved in."
Miss Jessup was shocked by the news, but it only strengthened her own
resolve to say nothing of what she had seen and felt that unforgettable day
in Hal Salfini. Some months later her sister came to Malta on a visit, and
insisted on touring the famous Hypogaeum. Reluctantly, Lois went along,
retracing the same route but this time with a different guide! She awaited
that fateful opening with a dread expectancy as they worked their way
through the corridors and rooms to the lowest level. The entrance to the
tunnel was boarded up!
----------
Actually, Lois found the giants of the cave hard to describe because of
their covering seemed to be like long white hair, combed downward and shaggy
looking. Their heads were unusually elongated at chin and top with large
features, and the hair on their heads fell about the shoulders like a draped
monk's cowl. Lois found the Heindel drawings exciting because "the currents
in the desire body" sketches were the first to resemble in any way the cave
dwellers she saw on Malta. Nor does her description of them correspond to
Shaver's Deros, hideous dwarfs or trolls who might very well have carved
that portion of Hal Salfini now open to the public. this conflict in sizes
and types very well illustrates the point I made earlier, that the
underworld is peopled with beings of many sizes, shapes and varying degrees
of density, from the completely physical to the completely invisible.
-------
I saw it in Richard Walter's "Wanderers Awheel in Malta" in the August 1940
National Geographic. "Years ago one could walk underground from one end of
Malta to the other, but all entrances were closed by the government because
of a tragedy. On a sight-seeing trip, comparable to a nature study tour in
our own (American) schools, a number of elementary school children and their
teachers descended into the tunneled maze and did not return. For weeks
mothers declared that they heard wailing and screaming from underground.
but numerous excavations and searching parties brought no trace of the lost
souls. After three weeks they were finally given up for dead."
