PETROCOINS AND PICTOCOINS, INVEST IN ROCK ART:

Gold petrocoin, designed by Dall3.2.

It is high time that we students of rock art get out of our ivory towers and start participating in the world of greed and commerce. To this end RockArtBlog is announcing a new cryptocurrency Petrocoins and Pictocoins. Get in on the excitement now and don’t miss out on the valuable opportunity to cash in.

Gold petrocoins, designed by Dall3.2.

Petrocoins and Pictocoins are a computer-based cryptocurrency backed up by what we value so highly, rock art.

Silver petrocoin, designed by deepai.org.

It pretty much all started with Bitcoin, a free-market decentralized cryptocurrency. People were jumping on this bandwagon in the early 2000s, especially President Donald Trump. It seems like pretty much anybody in the news today has started their own cryptocurrency so I am proposing a new one for rock art enthusiasts, Petrocoins and Pictocoins.

Silver petrocoin, designed by deepai.org.

AVAILABLE IF YOU CAN FIND THEM!

Invest now in the exciting and profitable new opportunity to make a fortune without lifting a finger.

Silver petrocoin, designed by deepai.org.

Available on April 1 – April Fool’s Day!

A PETROGLYPH OF BIGHORN SHEEP PLAYING PATTICAKE AT NINE-MILE CANYON:

 Column for 1 April, 2025.

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, lambs playing. Internet image, public domain.

We have all seen photographs of lambs playing, we have probably all seen photographs of bighorn sheep lambs playing at head-butting. Now, from Nine-Mile Canyon in Utah we have photographic proof of adult bighorn sheep playing, not head-butting, but patticake.

Petroglyph panel, Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

I took the photograph in 1993, of the entire panel in question in Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah.

Close-up of bighorn sheep playing patticake, petroglyph panel, Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

In this close-up you can see it more clearly. Now, I know this seems a little far-fetched, but the only other possible explanation is that they are Siamese Twins with two grown sheep sharing the same hoofs, and that seems really a bridge too far.

So, now I find it encouraging that with the state of the world as it is we can still learn something new about the animals that share the planet with us – at least on April First.

PARANORMAL PHENOMENA IN ROCK ART - FLYING RODS - April 1:

Flying rod. Photograph from abovetopsecret.com.

Flying rod. Photograph from assap.ac.uk.

This year for my April 1^st column I am going to reveal a paranormal phenomena illustrated in rock art that has been covered up – the Flying Rod.

“Flying rods are a phenomena in which mysterious rod-shaped objects appear in video footage or photographs. Some people believe these rods to be an unknown form of life, perhaps extraterrestrial in origin. Skeptics believe most flying rods are actually insects or small birds that only appear to have the mysterious rod shape because they are blurred by photographic exposure time.

Flying Rod. Photograph anomalien.com.

A typical flying rod includes the following features:

•       A central rod-shaped “torso.”

•       Multiple fins or wings.

•       May be anywhere from a few centimeters to a few meters in length.

•       Travel at high velocities, changing direction at will.

•       Invisible or barely visible to the human eye without the aid of photographic or video equipment." (Paranormal Encyclopedia)

Flying rods. Online photograph, public domain.

"Flying rods are also known as Sky Fish or Solar Entities. Flying Rods were popularized by film maker Jose Escamilla. On March 19^th 1994 Escamilla filmed some unexplained flying objects in Midway, New Mexico. These were the first images to be interpreted and labeled as flying rods, and the flying rod theory was born. Many people assumed the rods to be a new form of cryptid (unknown or unexplained life form).” (Paranormal Encyclopedia)  We obviously have a mysterious phenomena which many believe to be completely new.

At this point the cover-up began, the powers that be, for some reason, went out of their way to explain away these sightings.

“Robert Todd Carroll (2003), having consulted an entomologist (Doug Yanega), identified rods as images of flying insects recorded over several cycles of wing-beating on video recording devices. The insect captured on image a number of times while propelling itself forward, gives the illustion of a single elongated rod-like body, with bulges.

A 2000 report by staff at “The Straight Dope” also explained rods as such phenomena, namely tricks of light which result from how (primarily video) images of flying insects are recorded and played back, adding that investigators have shown the rod-like bodies to be a result of motion blur, if the camera is shooting at relatively long exposure times.” (Wikipedia)

“In August 2005, China Central Television (CCTV) aired a two-part documentary about flying rods in China. It reported the events from May to June of the same year at Tonghua Zhhenguo Pharmaceutical Company in Tonghua City, Jilin Province, which debunked the flying rods. Surveillance cameras in the facility’s compound captured video footage of flying rods identical to those shown in Jose Escamilla’s video. Getting no satisfactory answer to the phenomenon, curious scientists at the facility decided that they would try to solve the mystery by attempting to catch these airborne creatures. Huge nets were set up and the same surveillance cameras then captured images of rods flying into the trap. When the nets were inspected, the “rods” were no more than regular moths and other ordinary flying insects. Subsequent investigations proved that the appearance of flying rods on video was an optical illusion created by the slower recording speed of the camera.” (Wikipedia)  So what are they all covering up?

Flying rod petroglyph, Picketwire Canyonlands, Bent County, Colorado. Photograph 1995, Peter Faris.

This phenomenon has been photographed literally all over the world since 1994, but is that really when they first appeared as some cryptozoologists have maintained? Flying rods have indeed been observed and recorded for centuries before photography and video technology existed. They are recorded in petroglyphs and pictographs all over. Here in the western United States I have examples from Nine-mile Canyon and Cedar Mesa in Utah, and Council Rocks in Arizona.

Flying rods, from Council Rocks, Arizona. Online photograph, public domain.

Moon House Ruin, McCloyds Canyon, Cedar Mesa, Utah. Online photograph, public domain.

Others, from Colorado and California, either show different species of flying rods, or, because the portrayals are different, perhaps they represent differences in how their observers perceived them. In any case, they seem to be omnipresent – at least on April Fool’s Day.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Paranormal Encyclopedia, Flying Rods, https://www.paranormal-encyclopedia.com/f/flying-rods/. Accessed online 6 March 2023.

Wikipedia, Rod (optical phenomenon), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/rod_(optical_phenomenon). Accessed online 6 March 2023.

FIDDLER CRABS IN THE GRAND CANYON?

For a very long time Creationist fringies have been desperately trying to prove that humans coexisted with dinosaurs. In 1980 Beierle’s book “Man, Dinosaur, and History” identified this petroglyph from a canyon wall on the Havasupai Reservation in Arizona as a dinosaur proving that people must have coexisted with dinosaurs in order to have seen one to make the picture of.

Original Fig.99, p.84, from Beierle, Man, Dinosaur and History, 1980, 

 photograph Ed Natziger.

Retouched for clarity, Fig.99, p.84, from Beierle, Man, Dinosaur and History, 1980, 

 photograph Ed Natziger.

Retouched by Peter Faris, 4/1/2022.

Beierle’s caption for his figure 99 states “Photo by Ed Nafziger, science teacher from Kent, Washington. Believed to be a dinosaur carved on the canyon walls of Havasupai Indian Reservation in Arizona.” (Beierle 1980:84) And on the next page Beierle further explained “Carvings on the canyon walls of the Havasupai Indian Reservation located in northwest Arizona picture not only modern-day animals but animals that appear to be dinosaurs. The Havasupai Indians have said that these canyon wall carvings were not made by them, but were already on the walls when their ancestors arrived.” (Beierle 1980:85)

 

Ink drawing of so-called dinosaur petroglyph. Image from Phil Senter.

Then in 2012 Phil Senter totally debunked that nonsense. “Bighorn sheep in most southwestern rock art are drawn with a distinct neck and with the horns obviously arising from the head (Figure 6), whereas in HD2 the horns seem to arise directly from a neck that is barely there. However, bighorn sheep drawn with horns directly arising from a neck that is just barely there are characteristic of southwestern rock art of the late Pueblo III period (Turner, 1971). Alternately, it is possible that the long ‘horns’ are ears, and that the animal is a rabbit. Either way, these two possibilities show that there is no need to invoke a dinosaur to explain this petroglyph. Also, the petroglyph does not resemble any specific, known kind of dinosaur.” (Senter 2012:8)

 

Male fiddler crab. Internet file, public domain.

Now I have a great deal of respect, even admiration, for Phil Senter, and I would hate to be seen as attacking him in any way, but Phil, you are just wrong. Not as wrong as Beierle to be sure, his identification is 65 million years off base, while yours at least is in the correct time frame. No, your error is just in your designation of the creature that Beierle so embarrassingly misidentified as a rabbit or desert bighorn sheep. This petroglyph from the Havasupai Reservation in Havasu Canyon at the Grand Canyon is very obviously a picture of a Fiddler Crab.

Male fiddler crabs display with their one enlarged claw, called a cheliped, for territorial retention, mating display, and, rarely, for fighting. Now you ask “how could a fiddler crab be there on the Havasupai Reservation in Havasu Canyon at the Grand Canyon?”  There are a couple of possibilities here: 1. There might well be an undiscovered species of large freshwater Fiddler Crab living there in the Colorado River and its tributaries, or 2. It is known the Native Americans of the southwest highly prized seashells and a Fiddler Crab shell might have been traded here from the Baja and was so highly prized that it was portrayed as the petroglyph in question.

Map of Grand Canyon and Supai. Internet file, public domain.

Either of these possibilities is actually very easy to picture as a possibility. I can see a happy group of residents in Supai sitting around a fire with a small dish of melted butter chowing down on cracked crab to celebrate this April Fool’s Day.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Beierle, F.P., 1980. Man, Dinosaur, and History, Perfect Printing, Prosser, Washington.

Senter, Phil, 2012, More ‘dinosaur’ and ‘pterosaur’ rock art that isn’t, Palaeontologia Electronica, Vol. 15, Issue 2:22A, 14p:palaeo-electronica.org/content/2021-issue-2-articles/275-rock-art-dinosaurs

EXTINCT ANIMALS IN ROCK ART - THE NAUGA:

A group of naugas. Dinwoody style petroglyphs, Fremont County, Wyoming. Photograph Peter Faris, September 1992.

Rock Art researchers have long referred to images of animals in rock art to try to picture what extinct animals might have looked like. Perhaps the best known examples of this are the aurochs and paleolithic horses of Europe so beautifully illustrated in the European painted caves.

Nauga. Internet photograph, Public Domain.

One extinct animal that is frequently found pictured in the Dinwoody style rock art of northwestern Wyoming is the nauga. The facts of the extinction of the nauga are quite mysterious and hard to discern. Based upon their large mouth full of sharp teeth I assume that they were carnivorous and may have almost extinct with the demise of the megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene that they depended on for food. It would appear, however, that a relic population must have survived in northwestern Wyoming because of their appearance in the Dinwoody Style rock art of that region. These must have survived on the bison that were so numerous. This rock art was produced by the Shoshonean residents of that area.

Nauga petroglyphs, Dinwoody style, Legend Rock, Hot Springs County, Wyoming. Photographs Peter Faris, September 1992.

It is well known that the US Government attempted to reduce the free Native American population on the Great plains by encouraging the over-hunting of the bison that they depended on to force them onto designated reservations. The over-hunting of the bison also led to the extinction of the naugas who depended upon them for food, as well as forcing the Native Americans onto reservations.

      Nauga petroglyphs, Dinwoody style,    Torrey Lake Canyon, Fremont County,         Wyoming. Photograph Peter Faris,                           September 1998.

The US Government has tried to cover up this shocking genocide by promulgating this phony cover story. “Naugahyde is an American brand of artificial leather. Naugahyde is a composite knit fabric backing and expanded polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic coating. It was developed by Byron A. Hunter, senior chemist at the United States Rubber Company, and is now manufactured and sold by the corporate spin-off Uniroyal Engineered Products, LLC. Its name, first used as a trademark in 1936, comes from the name of Naugatuck, Connecticut, where it was first produced. It is now manufactured in Stoughton, Wisconsin.” (Wikipedia)

But who knows what might still be found in the backcountry of Yellowstone. I urge cryptozoologists and other interested parties to conduct a detailed survey of the remaining wildlife in Yellowstone National Park. The much mistreated nauga might just be still there, holding on to life - I would suggest starting as soon after April 1 as possible.

NOTE: An image in this posting was retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of this image is not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on this reports you should read the original report at the site listed below.

REFERENCE:

Wikipedia, Naugahyde, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naugahyde

AN ANCIENT GREEK LAPTOP PICTURED IN A MARBLE RELIEF CARVING:

Carved Marble Naiskos,

Eastern Greek, circa. 100 BCE.

Internet photo, Public Domain.

It seem like almost every day we learn how some ancient civilization was surprisingly advanced. Now I have proof that the ancient Greeks had laptop computers.

Carved Marble Naiskos,

Eastern Greek, circa. 100 BCE.

Internet photo, Public Domain.

"Currently on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, Calif., the marble carving is titled "Grave naiskos of an enthroned woman with an attendant" and dates to about 100 B.C. The relief, which is a little over 37 inches tall, depicts a woman sitting on a cushioned throne while a servant girl holds an open box. According to the museum, the rectangular object held by the servant is "the lid of a shallow chest." (Rossela 2016)

I know that laptop computers in ancient Greece just doesn't seem possible, but, given the Antikethera Mechanism we just have to broaden our mental limits to fit the evidence.

Antikythera Mechanism, bronze,

Greek, circa 200 BCE,

Internet Photo, Public Domain.

The Antikythera Mechanism "is a complex clockwork mechanism composed of at least 30 meshing bronze gears. Detailed imaging of the mechanism suggests that it had 37 gear wheels enabling it to follow the movements of the Moon and Sun through the zodiac, to predict eclipses and even to model the irregular orbit of the Moon, where the Moon's velocity is higher in its perigee than in its apogee. This motion was studied in the 2nd century BC by astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes, and it is speculated that he may have been consulted in the machine's construction." (Wikipedia)

It is nothing less than an analog astronomical computer, and, if the ancient Greeks could build such a machine, how hard is it to picture them experimenting with some form of laptop computer? Actually, it is really easy on April Fool's Day.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCE:

Lorenzi, Rossela

2016 No, The Ancient Greeks Didn't Have Laptops, February 5, 2016, https://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/no-the-ancient-greeks-didnt-have-laptops-160205.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/antikythera_mechanism

WHO PAINTED THE MAMMOTHS?

Kapova.

www.donsmaps.com.

Public domain.

Mammoth, Public domain.

From the very beginning of cave art studies we have assumed that all cave paintings were made by Paleolithic Homo Sapiens. The splendid paintings of horses, aurochs, deer, and mammoths must have all been made by our ancestors living back at that time. But no one seems to have asked the question "could these have been painted by someone other than us?" Now, in his 2012 book Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution, David Rothenberg has given us a direct - and unexpected - answer. It turns out that very presentable pictures of elephants can be painted by elephants, and I must therefore assume that very presentable pictures of mammoths and mastodons could have been painted by mammoths and mastodons.

Elephant painting.

www.mnn.com.

Public domain.

Elephant painting.

Public domain.

No less an investigator than Desmond Morris, the great naturalist, has delved into this subject for the Daily Mail. Morris visited an elephant sanctuary in Thailand where he observed elephants painting pictures of elephants, flowers, and trees. These pictures are eagerly snatched up by tourists and the proceeds of the sale help support the elephant sanctuary. These elephants hold a paintbrush in their trunk and, dipping it into paint, then create the image on paper held on a heavy easel, but it could just as easily be painted onto a rock surface.

Paya painting and elephant.

Public domain.

www.i.dailymail.co.uk.

Public domain.

Now it may be that many of the images of mammoths and mastodons found in caves are in locations that elephants could not have gotten to because of small, narrow passages, low ceilings, etc., and in those instances we can credit homo sapiens with the images. However, if the access was otherwise unimpeded I believe that we have to allow for the possibility of non-human creativity in these cave paintings, at least on April Fool's Day. 

NOTE: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the originals at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Morris, Desmond,

2009    Can Jumbo Elephants Really Paint?, 21 February 2009, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/articcle-1151283/Can-jumbo-elephants-really-paint-indtrigued-stories-naturalist-Desmond-Morris-set-truth.html.

Rothenberg, David

2012    Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution, Bloomsbury Pub., London.

ROCK ART PROOF THAT THE CREATURES IN THE TREMORS MOVIES WERE REAL?

La Cieneguilla, Southwest of airport,

Santa Fe, NM. Photograph Patricia

Price, December 1991.

La Cieneguilla, Southwest of airport,

Santa Fe, NM. Photograph Patricia

Price, December 1991.

The series of Tremors movies was memorable for a number of reasons; fun and frightening, with parodies of so many types of people that we all know. I was, however, quite surprised to find that the creatures upon which the movie were based are apparently real rare, but real. I am referring, of course, to the Graboids, the ravening, monstrous, carnivorous worms, and their other incarnations, the Shriekers, and the Ass Blasters.

Shrieker from the Internet,

by teratophoneus-d7rlcz5,

http://deviantart.net

Now I am not suggesting that I know where we can run off to and observe the real thing. There is, however, a petroglyph panel at La Cieneguilla, south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, that convincingly portrays Shriekers. The movie Tremors, was supposedly filmed in California, and was fictional from beginning to end. These petroglyphs add an interesting possibility. Conspiracy theorists should be able to see how the selling of this movie as fiction is a very clever government plot to convince people that the real creatures actually do exist (or do not exist, it depends upon your conspiracy).  The Ancestral Puebloan people of the area obviously knew of them, and knew them well enough to leave pictures on the rocks. This brings up the obvious question then; is it possible that we can hope someday to find evidence of the Graboids as well? Well, quite possibly on next April Fool's Day. 

EXTINCT PREHISTORIC GIRAFFES PICTURED IN NINE-MILE CANYON, UTAH:

 

 

Mile-36, 9-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photograph:

Peter Faris, August 1993. The arrows point

to the images in question #1 and #2.

Petroglyphs of Aepycamelus, an extinct giraffe/camel relative have been identified in Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah. The creature lived during the Miocene epoch, between 23 and 5.3 million years ago.

 

 

Long-necked quadruped #1 in upper left.

Mile-36, 9-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photograph:

Peter Faris, August 1993.

 

Long-necked quadruped #2 on left side.

Mile-36, 9-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photograph:

Peter Faris, August 1993.

 

“Aepycamelus was a prairie dweller of North America (Colorado, etc.). It was a highly specialized animal. Its head was relatively small compared with the rest of its body, its neck was long, as a result of giraffe-like lengthening of the cervical vertebrae, and its legs were long and stilt-like, with the elbow and knee joints on the same level. The top of its head would have been about 3 meters (9.8 ft) above the ground“. (Wikipedia)

 

Aepycamelus, formerly called Alticamelus,

Wikipedia

 

 

Aepycamelus, formerly called Alticamelus,

Wikipedia

“Its strange body structure gives us plenty of information on its mode of life and habits. Aepycamelus obviously inhabited dry grasslands with groups of trees. It is presumed to have moved about singly or in small groups, like today's giraffes, and like them, browsed high up in the trees. In this respect it had no competitors. It survived a relatively long time, through most of the Miocene epoch, and died out prior to the start of the Pliocene, possibly due to climatic changes.” (Wikipedia)

The Miocene epoch covered the period of roughly 23 to 5.3 million years ago. So, could there have possibly been a rock artist back in the Miocene who carved these images of Aepycamelus at that time? Perhaps there was a relic population of Aepycamelus that lasted longer in northeastern Utah, until the great extinction of North American megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene period 13,000 years ago. How else can we explain these pictures?

 

Well, we could explain them by pointing to the fact that it is April 1^st – APRIL FOOL’S DAY!

(NOTE: The rock art is real, it is the explanation that is bogus.)

SOURCE:  Wikipedia

 

STONE CARVINGS PROVE THAT GOLF WAS INVENTED IN ANCIENT EGYPT:

Ancient Egyptian golfer with his caddy behind

him holding out his putter. Distinctive

hooked pin in front of him marks the hole.

The modern game of golf is known to have been played in some form or other for a number of centuries. When and where it was actually invented has been debated however. Now, careful analysis of ancient Egyptian carvings in tombs and temples has indicated the true origin of golf to be ancient Egypt.

Ancient Egyptian golfers holding their

distinctive style of golf clubs.

“The origins of golf are unclear and much debated. However, it is generally accepted that modern golf evolved in Scotland during the Middle Ages. The game did not find international popularity until the late 19th century, when it spread into the rest of the United Kingdom and then to the British Empire and the United States of America.

A golf-like game is recorded as taking place on 26 February 1297, in the Netherlands, in a city called Loenen aan de Vecht, where the Dutch played a game with a stick and leather ball. The winner was whoever hit the ball with the least number of strokes into a target several hundred yards away. Some scholars argue that this game of putting a small ball in a hole in the ground using golf clubs was also played in 17th-century Netherlands and that this predates the game in Scotland. There are also other reports of earlier accounts of a golf-like game from continental Europe.

In April 2005, evidence re-invigorated the debate concerning the origins of golf.  Recent evidence unearthed by Prof. Ling Hongling of Lanzhou University suggests that a game similar to modern-day golf was played in China since Southern Tang Dynasty, 500 years before golf was first mentioned in Scotland.” (Wikipedia)

Bronze head for a golf club (driver) found

in an ancient Egyptian burial.

New evidence from ancient Egyptian tomb paintings and carvings, however, now shows that golf was invented and played in ancient Egypt over 4,000 years ago. Funny-shaped, but recognizable, golf clubs have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs, and illustrations of the game being played have been found painted and carved on tomb and temple walls leading to the speculation among some so-called “experts” that playing golf was a sacred ritual to the ancient Egyptians.

Wooden putter found in an ancient Egyptian tomb.

Indeed, careful study of many of the golf clubs held by the ancient Egyptian players shows that they have some sort of fork at the other end of the handle, evidently a “grabber” for retrieving the ball from the hole so they would not have to bend down so far (see below). This seems to be a clever adaptation that our contemporary golfers could emulate. Additionally, we can see that the head of the club is at a different angle than modern golf clubs, and the handle is longer so the golfer would have had to stand farther back from the ball to swing at it. 

An ancient Egyptian golfer wearing the distinctive golfing
dress of the period.  Note: in a display of gender equality

his caddy is a female.

How can we explain the fact that golf died out for 3,000 or more years only to be reinvented in China and Europe? Illustrations also show us that golfing outfits, the clothing they wore, was just as silly in ancient Egypt as it was in recent history. Indeed, according to tomb carvings and paintings, it appears that the players often had to wear kilts, animal masks, and headdresses. My guess is that after a short period of popularity in ancient Egypt people just felt too silly wearing the outfits, and quit playing the game. Evidently, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Oh yes, and happy April 1^st.

REFERENCES:

Wikipedia