24: Debunking a Chinese Theory
I posted a comment on our Facebook page about the Haast Eagle and the fact the Moa it fed upon were killed of by early Maori which included burning the forest to flush them out. In that post I had a reply from someone I'm connected to about how the forests of the South Island were really burned off. We were told that a comet caused it in 1420. When you research this it turns out there is a book called 1420 which I must admit I haven’t read. I’ll tell you why I’m not rushing to do so in a moment. The story was that a Chinese junk fleet was destroyed by a comet that hit near NZ causing a huge tsunami that hit the island along with a huge fireball which burned all the forest of the entire South Island. The comet crater exists underwater between Campbell Island and Stewart Island apparently, and I’ve asked for the geological report I was told confirms it. It may indeed exist. But that’s not the red flag.
As you will know from these blogs, we do believe that others found these shores before the Maori canoes arrived here – albeit in isolated incidents and also shipwrecks - never to return. If they had returned home, NZ would be different to what Cook found as many would have told their home worlds what was here. They didn’t. So, for all we know the Chinese may have indeed visited these shores - but that is not the issue. The issue is with some wild statements made by a Cedric Bell, a retired Engineer. Below has been taken by a website which mentions his study.
In 2003, Cedric Bell, a marine engineer, visited New Zealand’s South Island. Magnetic anomaly surveys he made during his stay threw up an astonishing possibility: a considerable number of junks had been wrecked on the southeast coast of the South Island......Findings disclosed that a sophisticated people who arrived by junks had lived and worked in New Zealand long before the Maoris, the Europeans or, indeed before the arrival of Zheng He’s fleets. When Cedric Bell returned to New Zealand in 2004 he found yet more startling evidence – not least that wrecked junks were to be found impaled upside down high up on the cliffs of South Island. Some wrecks were charred; some were upside down and tilted as if a giant had hammered them into the cliffs, some lay nearly one hundred feet above the sea. The only feasible explanation for such widespread destruction was a huge tsunami. As New Zealand lies on a fault line, the tsunami and forest fires could have been caused by a seismic event but an earthquake would not explain how the wrecks had been turned to charcoal before being impaled in the cliffs. Aborigines in Australia and the Maoris in New Zealand both reported a comet being the cause of the ‘mystic fires’. Then in November 2003 researchers announced they had found that a comet had impacted the sea between Campbell Island and New Zealand South Island, blasting a crater twenty kilometres across. The comet, named Mahuika for the Maori God of Fire, hit the ocean some sixty miles south of the combined fleet. Gigantic waves, more than six hundred feet high, toss the ships about like matchsticks, the masts and rigging are afire, fanned by four hundred mile an hour winds.
I don’t have an issue with a tsunami hitting the South Island. That may be true but when that ‘evidence’ is linked to a certain statement, you can see why I’m not rushing to read the book 1421 and why we see a red flag. Cedric says he found and I quote... When Cedric Bell returned to New Zealand in 2004 he found yet more startling evidence – not least that wrecked junks were to be found impaled upside down high up on the cliffs of South Island. Some wrecks were charred; some were upside down and tilted as if a giant had hammered them into the cliffs, some lay nearly one hundred feet above the sea. The only feasible explanation for such widespread destruction was a huge tsunami.
This was in 2004. Now - we are pretty sure that those amazing things called cameras actually existed back in 2004, yet there are how many photos of these multiple numbers of Chinese junks? None! Not one photo of just one!
Then I found an article that said just one wreck was in the cliffs of Wakanui Beach in Canterbury. But there are still no photos. He said they were just charcoal remains and these were tested by Waikato University and dated to 1422. yet there is no report show to prove the type of timber which I almost guarantee would have been NZ timber burned by early Maori. More importantly there is no report at all from Waikato University in this regard. If there is it would be there for all to see wouldn't it? It would be the evidence, the proof...but nothing exists.
But that is still not the red flag I mentioned in relation to Cedric Bell - this is. He goes on to mention there are Chinese cannon balls at Moeraki...200mm stone cannon balls. I’ve been to Moeraki many times since childhood. They are natural concretions dropping out of the cliffs and there were once hundreds of them, and some as much as 2 metres wide...that is a big cannon ball!. Of course there were smaller ones scattered everywhere once, but many were picked up and now reside in residential gardens before it became illegal to do so. But many more are still being eroded from the cliff face. Below are some recent photos. That’s some cannon the Chinese must have used aye! Cedric Bell seems to have forgotten to take his medication in my opinion, and I say that openly. And if he is this wrong with something as simple and obvious as natural concretions, we have cause to doubt the burned wood he found, the report and the many other things he stated.
The Maeraki Boulders in Otago. Click pic to view larger image
Apologies to all who may get upset at my opinion of Cedric Bell's theories. But that is all they are - and bad ones at that. If you follow this blog regularly you will know that we are only interested in evidence, and even we sometimes offer a suggestion of a theory to consider – but not wild theories expected to be taken and believed as fact.
If we hope to produce the evidence of our ‘tall ones’ - ones that will prove others existed here before Maori, then we expect others to produce evidence as well or even we will debunk you. Yes, us - the ones who are trying to prove people existed here before Maori. At this stage I don’t care if the final tests prove the skeletons come from Iceland or Timbuktu. Where they came from is not my concern just yet. But because of our belief in tangible evidence, or at the very least - stated suggestion, surely we have the right to ask of those who make wild claims (particularly stuff that has occurred over 10 years or more ago) to produce said evidence.
Enough said…end of article.
