2016-12-01 00:00:00
This airfield is a legacy of ancient civilizations, which, according to some information, had aircraft - the so-called vimanas.
In 1875, in one of the temples of India, the treatise Vimanika Shastra, written by Bharadvaji the Wise in the 4th century BC, was discovered. e. based on even earlier texts. Before the eyes of the astonished scientists appeared detailed descriptions strange aircraft of antiquity, reminiscent of their technical characteristics of modern UFOs. The devices were called vimanas and possessed a number of amazing qualities, among which 32 main secrets are listed that make vimanas also a formidable weapon.
In any case, no one knows for sure by whom and when Yundum was built.
This former British colony is located on the Atlantic coast of tropical Africa and belongs to the group of the most economically backward countries not only of the world as a whole, but also of its by no means prosperous continent. The territory of the state is strongly elongated in the latitudinal direction. Inland, the Gambia juts out for 350 kilometers from west to east, it is located along the channel of the full-flowing river of the same name. The width of the country from north to south does not exceed 50 kilometers. A little over one and a half million people live in the Gambia, including 75% in rural areas. The industry is extremely underdeveloped there and consists of peanut butter, beer, soft drinks and clothing industries. The export of peanuts gives the country half of its foreign exchange earnings. The backwardness of the Gambia is eloquently evidenced by the fact that, until recently, the population could receive higher education only abroad: in Senegal, the USA or Western Europe. The situation changed only in 1999, when the University of the Gambia was established in the capital Banjul. There is only one library in the country, and not so long ago the first museum was opened, now, however, there are already five of them. Here, the transition at the end of the last century from manual processing of fields with hoes to plows harnessed by bulls, horses or donkeys is considered an achievement. Equipping fishing boats with outboard motors was also evidence of Gambia's involvement in technological progress. Of course, this small country has its own strengths. It belongs to those few on the Black Continent where a multi-party political system functions. In the vicinity of Banjul, there are several magnificent resorts with spacious and clean sea beaches, where tourists from the UK love to relax. Animal husbandry can be considered highly developed: the number of cattle exceeds 400 thousand heads.
Asphalted, marked and flew.
But in the Gambia there is a real international airport. Plus it's mysterious. This is Yundum - the one so beloved by ufologists and alternative historians. It is located 27 kilometers from Banjul. The length of its runway (runway), which meets the highest requirements, is 3600 meters, so that Yundum is able to receive aircraft of any weight. The Gambians themselves did not build this expensive runway. They only laid asphalt on the already existing roughly polished stone slabs cleared from the ground and made markings. NASA then helped the Gambia, since the US space agency was interested in creating an alternate airfield for reusable shuttles. Initially, the United States chose the airport of the Senegalese capital of Dakar, but its runway has too much angle relative to the main flight path of the shuttles. Therefore, in September 1987, the Americans reached an agreement with the Gambian side on the use of the Yundum airfield for these purposes. The runway has been upgraded. In particular, its width was increased from 29 to 45 meters. The Americans also installed the necessary electronic control and navigation systems. And in 1996, the building of the international airport, built according to a joint Anglo-Gambian project, was put into operation. If you look closely at satellite imagery, you can see that the central part of the Yundum runway is actively used, but there are unused sections on both sides of the runway. They are paved with light slabs of an unusual sandy-brown color. There are also extensions of the strip that have not yet been cleared of the earth. And the trees along it grow very interestingly - along the lines of some faults in the soil.
Versions, versions, versions.
So where did this runway come from? The most sensational, of course, is the hypothesis that the runway was built back in the days of pra-civilization, and that from here, very possibly, ancient Indian or Atlantean aircraft - vimanas - took off. However, lovers of versions of the conspiracy plan expressed another assumption. Like, the airfield was secretly built by the Germans during the Second World War. Sometimes they give a more precise date - 1944. At first glance, this version is not without some plausibility. Indeed, during the war years, the Nazis showed great interest in African uranium and allegedly even took it out of the Congo by plane, making several intermediate landings. In this regard, one can even recall the secret German airfields built in the Arctic in the rear of the Soviet troops. As far as the Gambia is concerned, there are several big "buts" here. Firstly, such airfields were not paved with massive stone slabs, but with small metal ones, which also had several holes to reduce weight. Secondly, the Gambians claim that slabs partially covered with soil have always been there, and did not appear in the middle of the 20th century. Finally, thirdly, back in January 1943, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Banjul. This was due to the conference in Moroccan Casablanca. During the meeting, Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, together with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States and Great Britain, discussed the prospects for opening a Second Front and a strategy to combat German submarines in the Atlantic. The port of Banjul at that time was used as a stopover for Allied naval convoys, and the mysterious airfield was chosen by the US Army Air Corps. So there simply could not be any secret Nazi bases in the immediate vicinity of such a strategic Anglo-Saxon hub.
Did the allies try?
On some sites, one can even find statements that the Yundum, in fact, was built by the allies themselves. So is there really no secret of the ancient airfield? No matter how! The length of the runway is clearly excessive for aircraft of that time. As we already know, the locals saw this cover long before the war. And the color of the slabs is very different from concrete. There is a photograph of the only combat aircraft of the Gambian army, a Su-25 attack aircraft purchased in 2008 from Georgia, standing on a concrete slab site attached to the Yundum runway. They obviously have a different - gray - color, which concrete should have. It can also be noted that, judging by the photographs, sandy-brown stone slabs vary in size, and this is absolutely not characteristic of airfield pavements of the 20th-21st centuries.
So the mystery of Yundum really exists, and it has yet to be solved.
This airfield represents the legacy of ancient civilizations, which, according to some information, had aircraft - the so-called vimanas. In any case, no one knows for sure by whom and when Yundum was built. I offer you all the information available on this issue, since the mystery of Yundum really exists, and it has yet to be solved.
This airfield is a legacy of ancient civilizations, which, according to some information, had aircraft - the so-called vimanas. In any case, no one knows for sure by whom and when Yundum was built. This former British colony is located on the Atlantic coast of tropical Africa and belongs to the group of the most economically backward countries not only of the world as a whole, but also of its by no means prosperous continent. The territory of the state is strongly elongated in the latitudinal direction. Inland, the Gambia juts out for 350 kilometers from west to east, it is located along the channel of the full-flowing river of the same name. The width of the country from north to south does not exceed 50 kilometers. A little over one and a half million people live in the Gambia, including 75% in rural areas. The industry is extremely underdeveloped there and consists of peanut butter, beer, soft drinks and clothing industries. The export of peanuts gives the country half of its foreign exchange earnings. The backwardness of the Gambia is eloquently evidenced by the fact that, until recently, the population could receive higher education only abroad: in Senegal, the USA or Western Europe. The situation changed only in 1999, when the University of the Gambia was established in the capital Banjul. There is only one library in the country, and not so long ago the first museum was opened, now, however, there are already five of them. Here, the transition at the end of the last century from manual processing of fields with hoes to plows harnessed by bulls, horses or donkeys is considered an achievement. Equipping fishing boats with outboard motors was also evidence of Gambia's involvement in technological progress. Of course, this small country has its own strengths. It belongs to those few on the Black Continent where a multi-party political system functions. In the vicinity of Banjul, there are several magnificent resorts with spacious and clean sea beaches, where tourists from the UK love to relax. Animal husbandry can be considered highly developed: the number of cattle exceeds 400 thousand heads.
Asphalted, marked and flew.
But in the Gambia there is a real international airport. Plus it's mysterious. This is Yundum - the one so beloved by ufologists and alternative historians. It is located 27 kilometers from Banjul. The length of its runway (runway), which meets the highest requirements, is 3600 meters, so that Yundum is able to receive aircraft of any weight. The Gambians themselves did not build this expensive runway. They only laid asphalt on the already existing roughly polished stone slabs cleared from the ground and made markings. NASA then helped the Gambia, since the US space agency was interested in creating an alternate airfield for reusable shuttles. Initially, the United States chose the airport of the Senegalese capital of Dakar, but its runway has too much angle relative to the main flight path of the shuttles. Therefore, in September 1987, the Americans reached an agreement with the Gambian side on the use of the Yundum airfield for these purposes. The runway has been upgraded. In particular, its width was increased from 29 to 45 meters. The Americans also installed the necessary electronic control and navigation systems. And in 1996, the building of the international airport, built according to a joint Anglo-Gambian project, was put into operation. If you look closely at satellite imagery, you can see that the central part of the Yundum runway is actively used, but there are unused sections on both sides of the runway. They are paved with light slabs of an unusual sandy-brown color. There are also extensions of the strip that have not yet been cleared of the earth. And the trees along it grow very interestingly - along the lines of some faults in the soil.
Versions, versions, versions.
So where did this runway come from? The most sensational, of course, is the hypothesis that the runway was built back in the days of pra-civilization, and that from here, very possibly, ancient Indian or Atlantean aircraft - vimanas - took off. However, lovers of versions of the conspiracy plan expressed another assumption. Like, the airfield was secretly built by the Germans during the Second World War. Sometimes they give a more precise date - 1944. At first glance, this version is not without some plausibility. Indeed, during the war years, the Nazis showed great interest in African uranium and allegedly even took it out of the Congo by plane, making several intermediate landings. In this regard, one can even recall the secret German airfields built in the Arctic in the rear of the Soviet troops. As far as the Gambia is concerned, there are several big "buts" here. Firstly, such airfields were not paved with massive stone slabs, but with small metal ones, which also had several holes to reduce weight. Secondly, the Gambians claim that slabs partially covered with soil have always been there, and did not appear in the middle of the 20th century. Finally, thirdly, back in January 1943, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Banjul. This was due to the conference in Moroccan Casablanca. During the meeting, Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, together with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States and Great Britain, discussed the prospects for opening a Second Front and a strategy to combat German submarines in the Atlantic. The port of Banjul at that time was used as a stopover for Allied naval convoys, and the mysterious airfield was chosen by the US Army Air Corps. So there simply could not be any secret Nazi bases in the immediate vicinity of such a strategic Anglo-Saxon hub.
Did the allies try?
On some sites, one can even find statements that the Yundum, in fact, was built by the allies themselves. So is there really no secret of the ancient airfield? No matter how! The length of the runway is clearly excessive for aircraft of that time. As we already know, the locals saw this cover long before the war. And the color of the slabs is very different from concrete. There is a photograph of the only combat aircraft of the Gambian army, a Su-25 attack aircraft purchased in 2008 from Georgia, standing on a concrete slab site attached to the Yundum runway. They obviously have a different - gray - color, which concrete should have. It can also be noted that, judging by the photographs, the sandy-brown stone slabs vary in size, and this is absolutely not characteristic of airfield coatings of the 20th-21st centuries. So the mystery of Yundum really exists, and it has yet to be solved.
According to supporters of paleovizit, in ancient times, our planet was actively visited by aliens from outer space. They taught earthlings how to cultivate the land and a number of crafts, gave them knowledge of medicine and the structure of the solar system. Having left the Earth, the aliens left behind not only a long memory, which became the basis of a number of ancient myths and legends, but also quite material traces, for example, their spaceports...
With the light hand of the researcher Erich von Daniken, the famous Nazca desert on the southern coast of Peru was “assigned” as the main ancient spaceport for aliens on our planet: “Near the modern provincial town of Nazca on the desert plain, aliens from other worlds once landed and built a temporary ships, consisting of two tracks. The ships carried out patrols in the vicinity of the Earth. When the astronauts completed the task, they departed for their planet.”
According to Daniken, the local tribes have been waiting for the return of the "gods" for a long time, but they still did not appear. Then they decided to attract them and began to draw new straight lines in the desert. When this did not bring results, the Indians depicted giant insects and animals on the earth's surface. This is how, according to Daniken, Nazca acquired its famous lines and figures. Of course, such arguments are not taken seriously either by archaeologists or historians, or even by many ufologists.
The fact is that alien ships that had reached the stage of space flights in their development should have had the ability to strictly vertical landing and takeoff, and therefore they did not need runways. In addition, the soil of the desert after the rains becomes quite viscous and multi-ton starships would simply get stuck in it. However, it cannot be ruled out that the planes of the Hyperboreans or Atlanteans landed in the Nazca Desert, and perhaps the Vimanas of the ancient Indians.
There is a hypothesis by Jim Woodman and Julian Nott, according to which the Nazca Indians were able to take to the air themselves, for the first time in the world, building primitive balloons from thin dense fabric and filling them with warm air.
The famous explorer Maria Reiche, who devoted more than 40 years of her life to studying Nazca, believed that the desert drawings were a giant ancient calendar. In her book, she wrote: “For the ancient peoples, the positions of the Sun and Moon served as a calendar by which they determined the arrival of spring and autumn, seasonal fluctuations in the water regime, and, consequently, the timing of sowing and harvesting.” Reich managed to establish the astronomical significance of many lines and even images of the Nazca desert.
GIANT TRILITON OF BAALBEK
In the mountains of Lebanon, in the Dead Sea basin, there is a striking structure - the Baalbek Terrace, built of gigantic slabs weighing over 1,000 tons each. One of them still lies in an ancient quarry. What titans, with the help of what technical means, could lift such slabs up the mountain and lay them in a structure there, at a height of seven meters? After all, even now, with all the technical power, this is impossible to do.
“For what purpose did they emphatically choose such bulky and solid details of the structure, in comparison with which the blocks of the pyramid of Cheops or the rock-pedestal of the Bronze Horseman seem like pebbles?” - this is how the science fiction writer A. Kazantsev once described the Baalbek terrace that struck his imagination. It is located in the ancient temple of Jupiter, which is directly adjacent to the Lebanese city of Baalbek.
The first mention of Baalbek was found in one of the Assyrian inscriptions dating back to 804 BC. e. The city was founded by the Phoenicians, it was they who worshiped the god Baal - the lord of the sun and water, and the sanctuary of this god was called Baalbek, which means "the city of Baal." The temple that glorified this city was founded by Alexander the Great on the site of the ancient sanctuary, and the Romans finished it, dedicating it to the god Jupiter.
It was on a platform that was higher than all the other buildings. It is in this platform, called the Baalbek Terrace, that three huge stones are located, which in ancient times were called trilithons and were considered sacred.
At the very beginning of the 60s of the XX century, the Soviet mathematician M. M. Agrest suggested that this terrace was built in ancient times by aliens from outer space. According to his hypothesis, it could be either an ancient spaceport, or a kind of memorial structure left by aliens for future generations of earthlings.
Erich von Daniken also became an ardent supporter of this hypothesis, who saw a surviving fragment of an alien landing site in the trilithon of the Baalbek terrace. According to the researcher, the trilithon is very ancient, and the builders of the temple did not move it, but only used it in the construction of the platform.
Trilithon is truly amazing. The length of the giant monolithic blocks is 19.5 meters, the width is 4.5 meters, and the thickness is 3.75 meters. The weight of each of the blocks is about 750 tons, although some researchers often give a figure of 2,000 tons. In addition to the trilithon, there is another huge block that remained in the quarry, its dimensions are 16x4x2 meters.
Huge stone blocks of Baalbek ask scientists a lot of mysteries. How were these stone monoliths, without distortion or damage, mined in a quarry, moved a distance of two kilometers and perfectly fitted to each other? How did you manage to make a stone surface of tens of square meters absolutely even, because it is impossible to do this with hand tools? These questions are still waiting to be answered.
Is it worth linking the appearance of these blocks only with aliens? After all, such blocks could well have been made by representatives of the civilization of giants, whose existence in the distant past is no longer disputed by many researchers. It is unlikely that the aliens needed such a powerful platform for their ships, but it is still impossible to completely exclude the hypothesis of an ancient spaceport.
THE MYSTERY OF THE YUNDUM AERODROME
On the territory of the small African country of the Gambia is the mysterious Yundum airfield, which has been written about a lot in recent years. What is the mystery of this airfield? The fact is that no one built its main and most expensive component - the runway (runway) here, since it already existed. The runway consisted of monolithic stone slabs, carefully fitted to each other. As the locals assured, these plates were in this place from time immemorial.
During the construction of the airfield, it only remained to roll asphalt onto these slabs, apply markings, and a magnificent runway 3,600 meters long was obtained, capable of receiving any modern aircraft, regardless of their weight and dimensions. It is worth noting that NASA took an active part in the creation of the Yundum airfield.
The American space agency has chosen it as an alternate airfield for landing their reusable spacecraft - the Shuttle. With the help of the Americans, the necessary radio-electronic control and navigation systems were installed on Yundum, and in 1996 the building of the international airport, built according to a joint American-Gambian project, was put into operation.
It is curious that, despite the impressive length of the strip, not all ancient slabs are covered with asphalt, and some of them can be seen both at its beginning and at the end. And then it turns out that the ancient runway was much more impressive than the modern one. But who took off from it? It is still difficult to answer this question - from the available publications it becomes clear that no one has conducted any research on this topic.
The sections of the strip not covered with asphalt are represented by light sandy-brown slabs carefully fitted to each other. The age of the plates has not yet been determined. According to some publications, their surface is roughly polished, while others claim that the polishing is close to ideal. Judging by the published photographs, the first is closer to the truth, but this only speaks of the antiquity of the plates, the perfect polishing of which could be significantly damaged by long-term weathering processes.
FASCISTS, ALIENS OR ANCIENT EARTHLANDS?
Attempts to explain the presence of such an impressive runway in the African wilderness led to the hypothesis that it was built in the 40s of the XX century by the German Nazis, who allegedly exported uranium from the Black Continent during World War II.
However, it is completely incomprehensible why the Nazis needed to build a strip with a length that significantly exceeded all available at that time. Opponents of this version note that the Germans at their secret military airfields built runways using small metal plates with a series of holes to reduce weight.
To build this strip, the Germans would need to open a large-scale stone-cutting production, use powerful machines and cranes. But local old-timers assure that nothing like this has ever happened here, and the slabs have always been here - with their grandfathers, great-grandfathers, great-great-grandfathers, etc.
Thus, the existence of this runway can only be explained by the assumption of some ancient terrestrial civilization that built it, or it can be associated with aliens. As for the last option, it seems less convincing, because extraterrestrial ships should have the ability to land on any unprepared, albeit fairly flat place.
From numerous publications about the Yundum airfield, we can conclude that no research has been carried out on ancient plates, they are simply used, and that's it. Of course, one should study them carefully. However, it is possible that NASA employees conducted some research during the construction of the airfield, but withheld their results.
Of all the alleged spaceports of antiquity, Yundum is the most promising place for research. Perhaps spaceships did not start here, and it was not a spaceport, but an airfield from which ancient planes took off, whose appearance was brought to us by golden artifacts from Colombia.
The discovered ancient maps of Antarctica without ice cover, the mysterious slab found in Bashkortostan by Professor A.N. Chuvyrov and called the Map of the Creator, on which a map-layout of a part of the earth's surface was made, indicate that aerial photographs were clearly used in their manufacture.
It is doubtful that extraterrestrials were in any way involved in making the map on an impressive stone slab from Bashkortostan. Its authors, most likely, were representatives of an ancient terrestrial civilization, destroyed as a result of any global cataclysm or nuclear war. Recall: a number of authoritative researchers believe that aliens had nothing to do with the construction of the so-called ancient spaceports, they were built by earthlings.
Perhaps, once our very distant ancestors managed not only to rise into the sky, but even visited the Moon and Mars. Now such assumptions seem fantastic to many, but recently more and more facts have been accumulating in favor of this particular hypothesis.
Recently, a lot has been said about the mysterious Yundum airfield, discovered on the territory of the small African country of the Gambia. This airfield is almost a heritage of ancient civilizations, which, according to some information, had aircraft - the so-called vimanas. In any case, no one knows for sure by whom and when Yundum was built.
In this photo, the red circles mark the unpaved sections of the ancient runway slabs.
This former British colony is located on the Atlantic coast of tropical Africa and belongs to the group of the most economically backward countries not only of the world as a whole, but also of its by no means prosperous continent. The territory of the state is strongly elongated in the latitudinal direction. Inland, the Gambia juts out for 350 kilometers from west to east, it is located along the channel of the full-flowing river of the same name. The width of the country from north to south does not exceed 50 kilometers. A little over one and a half million people live in the Gambia, including 75% in rural areas. The industry is extremely underdeveloped there and consists of peanut butter, beer, soft drinks and clothing industries. The export of peanuts gives the country half of its foreign exchange earnings.
The backwardness of the Gambia is eloquently evidenced by the fact that, until recently, the population could receive higher education only abroad: in Senegal, the USA or Western Europe. The situation changed only in 1999, when the University of the Gambia was established in the capital Banjul. There is only one library in the country, and not so long ago the first museum was opened, now, however, there are already five of them. Here, the transition at the end of the last century from manual processing of fields with hoes to plows harnessed by bulls, horses or donkeys is considered an achievement. The equipping of fishing boats with outboard motors was also evidence of Gambia's involvement in technological progress.
Of course, this small country has its own strengths. It belongs to those few on the Black Continent where a multi-party political system functions. In the vicinity of Banjul, there are several magnificent resorts with spacious and clean sea beaches, where tourists from the UK love to relax. Animal husbandry can be considered highly developed: the number of cattle exceeds 400 thousand heads.
Asphalted, marked and flew.
But in the Gambia there is a real international airport. Plus it's mysterious. This is Yundum - the one so beloved by ufologists and alternative historians. It is located 27 kilometers from Banjul. The length of its runway (runway), which meets the highest requirements, is 3600 meters, so that Yundum is able to receive aircraft of any weight. The Gambians themselves did not build this expensive runway. They only laid asphalt on the already existing roughly polished stone slabs, cleared of the ground, and made markings.
The Gambia was then assisted by NASA, as the US space agency was interested in creating an alternate airfield for reusable space shuttles. Initially, the United States chose the airport of the Senegalese capital of Dakar, but its runway has too much angle relative to the main flight path of the shuttles. Therefore, in September 1987, the Americans reached an agreement with the Gambian side on the use of the Yundum airfield for these purposes. The runway has been upgraded. In particular, its width was increased from 29 to 45 meters. The Americans also installed the necessary electronic control and navigation systems. And in 1996, the building of the international airport, built according to a joint Anglo-Gambian project, was put into operation.
If you look closely at satellite imagery, you can see that the central part of the Yundum runway is actively used, but there are unused sections on both sides of the runway. They are paved with light slabs of an unusual sandy-brown color. There are also extensions of the strip that have not yet been cleared of the earth. And the trees along it grow very interestingly - along the lines of some faults in the soil. 
Versions, versions, versions....
So where did this runway come from? The most sensational, of course, is the hypothesis that the runway was built back in the days of pra-civilization, and that from here, very possibly, ancient Indian or Atlantean aircraft - vimanas - took off. However, lovers of versions of the conspiracy plan expressed another assumption. Like, the airfield was secretly built by the Germans during the Second World War. Sometimes they give a more precise date - 1944. At first glance, this version is not without some plausibility. Indeed, during the war years, the Nazis showed great interest in African uranium and allegedly even took it out of the Congo by plane, making several intermediate landings.
In this regard, one can even recall the secret German airfields built in the Arctic in the rear of the Soviet troops. As far as the Gambia is concerned, there are several big "buts" here. Firstly, such airfields were not paved with massive stone slabs, but with small metal ones, which also had several holes to reduce weight. Secondly, the Gambians claim that slabs partially covered with soil have always been there, and did not appear in the middle of the 20th century. Finally, thirdly, back in January 1943, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Banjul. This was due to the conference in Moroccan Casablanca. During the meeting, Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, together with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States and Great Britain, discussed the prospects for opening a Second Front and a strategy to combat German submarines in the Atlantic. The port of Banjul at that time was used as a stopover for Allied naval convoys, and the mysterious airfield was chosen by the US Army Air Corps. So there simply could not be any secret Nazi bases in the immediate vicinity of such a strategic Anglo-Saxon hub. 
Did the allies try?
On some sites, one can even find statements that the Yundum, in fact, was built by the allies themselves. So is there really no secret of the ancient airfield? No matter how! The length of the runway is clearly excessive for aircraft of that time. As we already know, the locals saw this cover long before the war. And the color of the slabs is very different from concrete. There is a photograph of the only combat aircraft of the Gambian army, a Su-25 attack aircraft purchased in 2008 from Georgia, standing on a concrete slab site attached to the Yundum runway. They obviously have a different - gray - color, which concrete should have. It can also be noted that, judging by the photographs, sandy-brown stone slabs vary in size, and this is absolutely not characteristic of airfield pavements of the 20th-21st centuries.
So the mystery of Yundum really exists, and it has yet to be solved.
Valdis PEYPINS
Secrets of the twentieth century
Recently, a lot has been said about the mysterious Yundum airfield, discovered on the territory of the small African country of the Gambia. This airfield is almost a heritage of ancient civilizations, which, according to some information, had aircraft - the so-called vimanas. In any case, no one knows for sure by whom and when Yundum was built.
This former British colony is located on the Atlantic coast of tropical Africa and belongs to the group of the most economically backward countries not only of the world as a whole, but also of its by no means prosperous continent. The territory of the state is strongly elongated in the latitudinal direction. Inland, the Gambia juts out for 350 kilometers from west to east, it is located along the channel of the full-flowing river of the same name.
The width of the country from north to south does not exceed 50 kilometers. A little more than one and a half million people live in the Gambia, including 75% in rural areas. The industry is extremely underdeveloped there and consists of peanut butter, beer, soft drinks and clothing industries. The export of peanuts gives the country half of its foreign exchange earnings.
The backwardness of the Gambia is eloquently evidenced by the fact that, until recently, the population could receive higher education only abroad: in Senegal, the USA or Western Europe. The situation changed only in 1999, when the University of the Gambia was established in the capital Banjul. There is only one library in the country, and not so long ago the first museum was opened, now, however, there are already five of them.
Here, the transition at the end of the last century from manual processing of fields with hoes to plows harnessed by bulls, horses or donkeys is considered an achievement. The equipping of fishing boats with outboard motors was also evidence of Gambia's involvement in technological progress.
Of course, this small country has its own strengths. It belongs to those few on the Black Continent where a multi-party political system functions. In the vicinity of Banjul, there are several magnificent resorts with spacious and clean sea beaches, where tourists from the UK love to relax. Animal husbandry can be considered highly developed: the number of cattle exceeds 400 thousand heads.
But in the Gambia there is a real international airport, moreover, a mysterious one. This is Yundum - the one so beloved by ufologists and alternative historians. It is located 27 kilometers from Banjul. The length of its runway (runway), which meets the highest requirements, is 3,600 meters, so that Yundum is able to receive aircraft of any weight. The Gambians themselves did not build this expensive runway. They only laid asphalt on the already existing roughly polished stone slabs, cleared of the ground, and made markings.
The Gambia was then helped by NASA, as the US space agency was interested in creating an alternate airfield for reusable Shuttle-type spacecraft. Initially, the United States chose the airport of the Senegalese capital of Dakar, but its runway has too much angle relative to the main flight path of the shuttles. Therefore, in September 1987, the Americans reached an agreement with the Gambian side on the use of the Yundum airfield for these purposes.
Photo: Wolfgang REH
The runway has been upgraded. In particular, its width was increased from 29 to 45 meters. The Americans also installed the necessary electronic control and navigation systems. And in 1996, the building of the international airport, built according to a joint Anglo-Gambian project, was put into operation.
If you look closely at satellite imagery, you can see that the central part of the Yundum runway is actively used, but there are unused sections on both sides of the runway. They are paved with light slabs of an unusual sandy-brown color. There are also extensions of the strip that have not yet been cleared of the earth. And the trees along it grow very interestingly - along the lines of some kind of faults in the soil.
Red circles mark unpaved sections of ancient runway slabs
So where did this runway come from? The most sensational, of course, is the hypothesis that the runway was built back in the days of pra-civilization and that from here, very possibly, ancient Indian or Atlantean aircraft - vimanas - took off. However, lovers of versions of the conspiracy plan expressed another assumption. Like, the airfield was secretly built by the Germans during the Second World War. Sometimes they give a more precise date - 1944.
At first glance, this version is not without some plausibility. Indeed, during the war years, the Nazis showed great interest in African uranium and allegedly even took it out of the Congo by plane, making several intermediate landings.
In this regard, one can even recall the secret German airfields built in the Arctic in the rear of the Soviet troops. That's just, with regard to the Gambia, there are several big "buts". Firstly, such airfields were not paved with massive stone slabs, but with small metal ones, which also had several holes to reduce weight.
Secondly, the Gambians claim that slabs partially covered with soil have always been there, and did not appear in the middle of the 20th century. Finally, thirdly, back in January 1943, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Banjul. This was due to the conference in Moroccan Casablanca.
During the meeting, Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, together with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States and Great Britain, discussed the prospects for opening a Second Front and a strategy to combat German submarines in the Atlantic.
The port of Banjul at that time was used as a stopover for Allied naval convoys, and the mysterious airfield was chosen by the US Army Air Corps. So there simply could not be any secret Nazi bases in the immediate vicinity of such a strategic Anglo-Saxon hub.
On the Internet, one can even come across allegations that the Yundum, in fact, was built by the Allies themselves. So is there really no secret of the ancient airfield? No matter how! The length of the runway is clearly excessive for aircraft of that time. As you know, local residents saw this cover long before the war. And the color of the slabs is very different from concrete.
There is a photograph of the only combat aircraft of the Gambian army, bought in 2008 in Georgia. This is a Su-25 attack aircraft standing on a platform of concrete slabs attached to the Yundum runway. They have a clearly different - gray color, which concrete should have. It can also be noted that, judging by the photographs, sandy-brown stone slabs vary in size, and this is absolutely not characteristic of airfield pavements of the 20th-21st centuries.
So the mystery of Yundum really exists, and it has yet to be solved.
Valdis Peipins
