Free The Gold of the Gods by Erich von Däniken

proprietor of the best Chinese restaurant I have ever eaten in, the Lu-Taipeh in Lucerne. Mr. Chi spent most of his life as chef to Chiang Kai-Shek, before he decided to become a restaurateur in Switzerland. My friend Chi knew that I was obsessed with the desire to find out as much as I could about the mysterious finds at Baian Kara Ula.
    That was the site in the Sino-Tibetan frontier zone where the Chinese archaeologist Chi Pu Tei found 716 granite plates in 1938. They were 2 centimeters thick, with a hole exactly in the center from which a double-tracked grooved script ran out spirally to the edge of the plate. In fact they were rather like our longplaying records. Brilliant scholars puzzled for years over the secret of the stone plates until Professor Tsum Urn Nui of the Academy of Prehistory, Peking, succeeded in deciphering part of the grooved scripts in 1962. Geological analysis showed a considerable cobalt and metal content; physicists established that all the plates had a high vibration rhythm, which led to the conclusion that they had been exposed to high electrical tensions at some time. The finds at Baian Kara Ula became a sensation when the Russian philologist Dr. Vyacheslav Saizev published some deciphered texts of the stone plates. They related that 12,000 years ago members of an alien people landed on the third planet, but their aircraft no longer had enough power to take off from that distant world. I have established these proven facts in detail in
Gods from Outer Space
.
    But the reason for my journey to Taiwan was that the news published in Moscow, the scholar’s full report on the stone plates, was deposited both in the Peking Academy and the Historical Archives at Taipeh.
    Thanks to a letter from my friend Chi, I had an appointment on this cold, wet January afternoon with the Director of the Palace Museum, who had confirmed our meeting in a courteous letter before I had even started on my third journey round the world.
    The chances of my getting on the track of the stone plates in the Palace Museum seemed very good. The precious collection, with more than 250,000 cataloged items, had been moved from its original home in Peking on several occasions during the last 60 years. In 1913, during the uprising of the Kuomintang Party, in 1918, during the Civil War, in 1937, during the war with the Japanese, who occupied Peking, and in 1947, when Mao Tse Tung founded the People’s Republic of China with the People’s Army of Liberation and made Peking the capital again. Since 1947 the art treasures have been stored in Taipeh.
    A decorative visiting card on which Mr. Chi had written greetings and recommendations to his friend Chiang Fu-Tsung with a fine brush made smiling men in uniform silently open all doors till we reached the Director’s office. He greeted me in German—only when I apologized for being late did he wave my excuses away with a long sentence in Chinese.
    “You are a friend of my friend, you are my friend. Welcome to China. What can I do for you?” he asked. As we approached a low table, he gave an order aloud—to whom? Even before we could sit down, museum guards brought paper-thin porcelain cups and a decorated pot full of herb tea. The Director filled our cups.
    I went straight to the point and said that I was interested in the Baian Kara Ula finds and that I should like to see the scholar’s report on the stone plates that was here in Taipeh. My enthusiasm was dampened when Mr. Chiang explained that this extensive report had not shared the Museum’s odyssey, but was still preserved in the Peking Academy, with which he had no contact. He noticed my intense disappointment, but could give me very little consolation with the rest of his information.
    “I know about your efforts. They delve deeply into the prehistory of peoples. I can only help with our primeval ancestor Sinanthropus, who was discovered in 1927 in the valley of Choukoutien, 25 miles southwest of Peking. In the opinion of