PRE-FLOOD LIFESPAN DEGRADATION ANALYSIS

CLICK ON THE IMAGE FOR A LARGER PIC

Well, being a loud-mouth and an Engineer, I get myself into some interesting situations. One of my favorites was when I spent an hour with the Teachers Quorum one Sunday figuring the theoretical diameter of Kolob based on its period of rotation around its "governing body". When I bump into one of my old teachers, they still mention that as one of their most memorable lessons - I get animated with a piece of chalk in my hand....

Anyway, one of the other times I got into a corner was when I was dealing with a fellow aerospace Engineer who believed all Mormons have horny protrusions jutting from the top of their skulls (and he was totally serious). This guy was an adherent to Ed Decker and the whole anti-Mormon crowd (a totally different blog topic of how I did a smackdown on good old Ed Decker..... one of the many wicked and adulterous people I have run into who hate the truth because they would be forced to zip up and put up - or get out). Anyway, my fellow engineer and I - besides having to deal with what he thought were serious structural problems with my skull, developed kind of a level of comfort - even with me being 'spawn of the devil' and all. Since we were not able to find much common ground in the NT, our lunch time topics stuck mostly to the OT. One of the topics I always thought was interesting was how the life spans of the ancients dropped off around the time of the flood and thought a graph would be in order. Everything in nature and in our universe follows mathematical principles (even if they might as yet be undiscovered). The curve fit that came out of the data was BEAUTIFUL! I dropped it into a file and forgot about it until I went looking for missionary spiritual experiences which I will be blogging in the month of March.

Hope you enjoy it. I had a great time making it. If you want to copy it - feel free to use it, expand on it, etc.

Also, I have a feeling that the data on this chart explains the erratic nature of/complete unreliability of carbon dating data before 2000B.C. Something is going to come out some time soon that will nail this little detail down - once science catches up with revealed religion. Can't wait until the world's history is shown 1000 years at a time!

THE CLEANSING OF AMERICA - IS IT ALL JUST A BAD DREAM?

Well, I just awoke from a bad dream about something I have been writing about and pondering over for years - why the 'over the top' stuff written in the Book of Mormon and how does it apply to us in our day. The over riding theme is how a people were continuously cleansed/held at bay by an outside power until they had crossed a line and then they were virtually wiped out; forever. How did they get themselves into that mess, how did they not see the warning signs - what was so intoxicatingly powerful that they would continue that self-destructive trajectory knowing what the end result would be? What diverted their gaze from their Savior and then held it as they were carefully pulled from the true path to one that was irrecoverable; lost in the mists of darkness as it were.

About the dream I just had (it was not necessarily inspired - but informative); I was sitting down to a lecture in a lecture hall at some worldly university and the professor was speaking about astronomy. I was enjoying the lecture when the topic came very close to what happened (astronomically speaking) at the Savior's first coming. I called out, "It will happen again". Before I could get the full phrase out, I was drowned out completely with catcalls and very disapproving glares were directed at me from virtually all in the room - and those that were not glaring at me were too afraid to speak out in favor of what I was saying. The battle of public opinion had been lost and political correctness had won out. The professor then went on to talk about some topic that appeased the telestial masses in the room (it had something to do with a scientific study on how many sexual partners one could have before one was at risk, statistically speaking, for STDs using the latest contraceptives).

Alot of people would not believe that the above scenario could happen, but I can emphatically state that this very kind of scenario plays out at least every other week in a work forum. I do not talk about religious or political topics directly with co-workers, but rather deal in principles so that the wicked that I am forced to deal with, do not full-on rebel. For example, I can no longer say something like "Bill Clinton was a pervert who brought complete and humiliating shame on the office of the President.", but instead have to couch it in terms of "I would never vote for someone who would steal the innocence of someone his own daughter's age." On topic of abortion, I cannot say "Abortion is a moral evil whose effects will collectively be brought down upon the heads of the people of this nation.", I have to say something more along the lines of "People expect to be able to participate in something that is forbidden and then have no consequences of the outfall. We are a 'something for nothing' generation.".
Directness and boldness is more often met with a slap-down than with approval - especially from the younger, hipper, SNL crowd. So, we have lost the battle of political correctness, moral high ground, etc. and we have 20 years, or less, before we are where the Nephites were; having crossed over the line to the point of no return. Where the redemptive grace no longer covers our shortcomings and we are left to fend for ourselves.

What does that mean for members of the Church who do not cower and lurk in the shadows saying and doing nothing? It means that we will endure ever-increasing amounts of persecution until it becomes politically correct to persecute us again. We are headed beyond Prop8 levels of rhetoric to where the early Latter-day Saints were, then beyond to where the ancient Saints found themselves, then beyond to a whole new level. The Saints will have their last purge. There will be a convenient out for those who want to take it - but it will come at a cost; personal salvation. The rest will have to sacrifice all for the truth.

Just as it reaches the most intense point, there will be a physical salvation in the form of I am not sure what (at least enough to put hand to keyboard) but I do know that "mens' hearts will fail them..." because it will not be pretty. The purge will then move from the Lord's house (the inner vessel) to that without - or to those who have brought the intense persecution before the 'winding up scene', as Joseph Smith describes it. Those who were just skimming along with little or no oil in their proverbial lamps will wither in the heat of the furnace of affliction and not abide the day.

Which leads to what has gotten me so excited the last few days. I have written about the purging of (the Church first, then) America due to wickedness and abominations in the same (and if this phrase just made anger well up within you, you just failed the litmus test of which side you are on....), but just got a confirmation in the form of Cleon Skousen. I had known that there was some book he had worked on for the decade before he died that was not released (for what reason I am not sure) until now: "The Cleansing of America". It is for sale pre-release for an April 1st date. If I am reading my wife right, I have a Father's Day gift coming..... :)

Anyway, if you have enjoyed any of the previous posts on what will happen to America, you will be certain to enjoy his book. I have a feeling that he told his sons of what to wait for before publishing it - and the time is right now.

Enjoy!

VITAMIN DEFICIENCY AND AGE-RELATED DISEASES

Reading previous posts, you will know that we just discovered that my wife suffered from a major vitamin deficiency (B12).

Not only does it lead to bi-polar symptoms, but lack of B12 can cause dementia, premature greying, and a whole host of other late-life maladies. Recent research from a leading scientist would seem to agree with this:

Bruce Ames: Vitamin insufficiency boosting age-related diseases
Post a comment09-Feb-2010

Related topics: Research, Antioxidants, carotenoids, Minerals, Vitamins & premixes, Bone & joint health, Cancer risk reduction, Cardiovascular health, Cognitive and mental function, Diabetes

It is literally all about living for today. By understanding that nature favours survival today over tomorrow, a theory that vitamin inadequacy is behind the rise in chronic diseases “makes sense… and it is almost certainly going to be right,” says world-renowned scientist Bruce Ames.

In an exclusive interview with Stephen Daniells, Professor Bruce Ames from the University of California, Berkeley explains why his “triage theory” could have enormous implications for human health.

For many, Professor Ames needs no introduction. In the 1970s, he invented the Ames Test, a simple and inexpensive assay to check the mutagenicity of compounds. Since then he has dedicated his research to understanding the biochemistry of ageing, with a focus on mitochondria, the power plants of our cells, as well as how micronutrients may prevent disease, malnutrition, and obesity.

So, when the native New Yorker with over 450 scientific publications tells you his triage theory is “the most important thing I have ever worked on”, you sit up and listen.

Evolutionary mechanisms

Triage – from the French word trier meaning to sort, separate, or select – works on the battlefield by military doctors prioritising treatments depending on the probable survival of the wounded.

Prof Ames’ theory works in much the same way: By appreciating that natural selection favours short-term survival over the long-term, Prof Ames’ hypothesised that our short-term survival is achieved by prioritising the allocation of scarce micronutrients. In other words, to stop us falling over from a lack of iron in the heart, for example, iron is pulled from non-essential sources.

The triage theory is a way of “measuring the insidious damage going on over time”, he said.

The theory was first proposed in 2006 (PNAS, Vol. 103, Pages 17589-94) to explain why age-related diseases like heart disease, cancer, and dementia may be unintended consequences of mechanisms developed during evolution to protect against episodic vitamin/mineral shortages.

“If this hypothesis is correct, micronutrient deficiencies that trigger the triage response would accelerate cancer, aging, and neural decay but would leave critical metabolic functions, such as ATP production, intact,” explained Prof Ames in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

However, since it was first published Prof Ames concedes that the wider nutrition community has not embraced the theory.

“A new idea is always hard to get through,” he said. The resistance has come from some of the “old timers”, said the octogenarian scientist, who think that such a theory would “encourage people to take more vitamins”.

Despite claims that the theory may have important implications for determining the optimum intake of all vitamins and minerals, as well as major implications for preventive medicine, financial funding for triage research has been difficult to obtain, said Prof Ames.

Scientific support

While the finances may be the lacking, scientific support is not. Working with the “very good” Joyce McCann, PhD, Prof Ames recently applied his theory to vitamin K. Writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Vol. 90, pp. 889-907), they reported that five of the 16 known vitamin K-dependent proteins are required for coagulation had critical functions, meaning that animals genetically manipulated to have inactive forms did not survive.

On the other hand, another five proteins were found to be less critical, and the animals survived through weaning. However, a lack of these less critical vitamin K-dependent proteins, inadequate intakes of vitamin K1 from the diet, or vitamin K deficiency were all associated with age-related conditions, including weaker bones and hardening of the arteries, which increased the risk of cardiovascular disease. An increase in the incidence of spontaneous cancer was also observed.

“The triage theory supplies a unifying framework explaining why a crop of diseases associated with aging is emerging for so many micronutrients,” wrote McCann and Ames in the AJCN.

“It is our hope that this analysis will stimulate further efforts to redefine micronutrient adequacy on the basis of long-term effects,” they added.

Triage theory has cleared every hurdle it has come up against, but that doesn’t surprise Prof Ames.

“My triage theory makes sense,” he said. “And it is almost certainly going to be right.”

Professor Ames is also a senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI).

HERE IS ONE MORE LINK TO AN AMAZON BOOK THAT DELVES INTO THE B-12 MYSTERY (CLICK ON THE LINK).

ENJOY THOSE VITAMIN WATERS AND YOU JUST MIGHT HAVE AN EASIER TIME REMEMBERING WHERE YOU LEFT YOUR DENTURES IN THE SILVER YEARS.....

LOST HEBREW CIVILIZATION - EXCELLENT DVD WORTHY OF YOUR TIME

Just got a DVD in the mail that my daughter found called "The Lost Civilization of
North America" documenting Hebrew/Pheonician groups that lived in America. We watched it with the kids for Family Home Evening - fascinating stuff they forgot to teach us in our history classes. This video is the kind of stuff that I love to share!

www.lostcivilizationDVD.com

GAS PRICE BY COUNTY - THERE WILL BE NO VEHICULAR TRAFFIC AT THE END OF THE COLLAPSE

If you have read most of the forward looking US prophecies on this blog, you will have seen that one of the things they all have in common is that there will be no vehicles on the roads and movements of people will occur mostly on foot.

The gas/diesel will become scarce before that time which will be another cause of social panic and breakdown. If fossil fuel is one of your modes of energy to get you through, you should alter your plans to accommodate for heat and travel - or have an ample supply on hand, if you do plan on using it.

When you find us sending to troops to yet another locale (Korean penninsula), you will begin to see the fuel costs skyrocket. Here is a map that keeps an eye on prices. You can see which states have the highest gas taxes, which ones use more domestic oil supplies than others (Utah, Wyoming etc.) - just by watching the trends. This is also a good way to project how much that summer vacation with the big rig and trailer will cost you.

Here is the map:

http://gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx

Hope this comes in handy!!

AMERICAN INDEPENDENT PARTY PROPHECY

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Quick post. I thought this graph was interesting in light of Joseph Smith's prophecy on the shift away from Republicans and Democrats as the politickin gets ugly.

Here is the prophecy that I posted earlier on my site. (HOVER AND CLICK ON COLORED FONT TO GO TO LINK)

How will you vote in the next election??

TALENT AND VISION FROM HEAVEN

This little girl (young woman) clearly has a gift from God. I consider myself somewhat talented but her ability to self-teach can only be explained by a heavenly touch.

Check out this youtube and look at how she portrays our Lord (blue eyes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmm-0-Rdxo8

ENJOY!!

JUST A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS ON BLOG TOPICS

I have a whole load of topics I want to expand on in 2010. Here are a few:

- BOOK REVIEW; LIFE EVERLASTING
- DALLIN DREAM
- POWER IN THE PRIESTHOOD - A MONTANA FARMER'S FAITH OVER THE ELEMENTS
- TENT CITIES - OQUIRHH MOUNTAINS ENCAMPMENT
- TEN LOST TRIBES - ROLE IN THE LAST DAYS WINDING UP SCENE
- MY VISIT TO INDEPENDENCE MISSOURI AND THE TEMPLE LOT
- THY DAYS ARE NUMBERED - A TREATISE ON HOW WE CANNOT ADD NOR SUBTRACT FROM OUR APPOINTED HOURS
- CLEON SKOUSEN - THE ATONEMENT; APPENDIX THE FIFTH THOUSAND YEARS
- A SYNOPSIS OF THE HORSESHOE ROUTE
- ONE MIGHTY AND STRONG - WHO IS IT?
- THE SECOND PATRIARCHAL BLESSING OF JOSEPH SMITH
- FAVORITE QUOTES FROM THE BOOK "FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS OF THE PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH"
- PARABOLIC VALLEYS AND ANCIENT ORATORY - KING BENJAMIN'S ADDRESS
- THE GHOST DANCE
- MOSIAH HANCOCK - THE PROTECTING POWER OF THE HOLY GARMENT
- NOAH'S GARMENT
- THE BLACK IRISH AND TAMARA TEPHI
- JOSEPH OF EGYPT; A REDDISH-BROWN HAIRED MAN THE SCATTERING OF JOSEPH'S DESCENDANTS
- JESUS; BROWN HAIR, BLUE-EYED DESCENDANT OF JUDAH
- DESOLATING DESTRUCTION - A COMMON CONNECTION
- THE WATERS OF THE ATLANTIC LAPPING AT THE FEET OF THE CHRISTUS STATUE
- ENCOUNTER IN BRAZIL WITH EVIL; POWER IN THE PRIESTHOOD
- SPARED FROM CERTAIN DEATH IN BRAZIL - PREPARATION IN BELLINGHAM
- CONNECTIONS BETWEEN LOVED ONES OR ONES WHO HAVE LOVED OVER EXTREME DISTANCES
- MAKING SENSE OF TRAGEDY ON A LARGE SCALE
- THE LOGAN TEMPLE RECORDER - STORIES OF FAITH
- THE DESTRUCTION OF KINGSTON, JAMAICA; SUBSIDENCE ZONES
- METHANE SLUSH; ENERGY SOLUTION
- BUILDING GREEN, GREEN ENERGY PRINCIPLES
- A SURVIVAL GARDEN - THE NEED FOR NON-HYBRIDIZED SEEDS
- EDWARD J. WOOD; FOREKNOWLEDGE OF APPOINTED TIMES
- CATASTRPHISM; TRAGEDY ON THE MISSOURI SHOWS THE POWER OF NATURE 150 YRS LATER
- ALOT MORE I CAN'T BEGIN TO THINK OF.

Sorry about the caps, I am often in bed with the laptop trying to tap these out and get to sleep and caps is the easiest to do with the mousepad tripping me up.

ELIZA R. SNOW - HOW THE EVERLASTING HILLS SHALL TREMBLE

Alot of the time we just get things line upon line, here a little, there a little on this fascinating journey we call life. The more our faith increases - and our ability to assimilate what we are given grows - the faster it comes. When we say, "It is enough", the drought of knowledge and revelatory silence can be deafening. Just try it sometime (not!).

When I was at my Dad's last spring following my wife's g-ma's funeral, and I mentioned something about this mystifying Eliza R. Snow hymn from an old hymnal I had read about. My Dad's wife ran off and came out later toting this 1895 Hymnal. It took us an hour to go thru it (no index) and I found the jewel which I had been seeking for many a year. I was nearly jumping up and down - I had sourced this mysterious hymn where one of the Prophet's wives (who I am sure regularly shared pillow talk - and was actually capable of comprehending what he had to say) wrote the truth about our planet's past and its future. This is one of the greatest mysteries that nails down what the heck happened to the ten tribes. It also nails down so many details of this earth's history that modern science is just in the nascent stages of comprehending. Enjoy!



CLICK TO ENLARGE

I pretty much idolize this woman - excellent enough that she could hang with Joseph through anything. Most people could not take the mind-bending stuff he was exposed to and of all the things he yearned for in this life - was to have someone that could hang with him and go where he could go without having to throttle back or water it down. He had so much meat to share having had the visions of the eternities opened to him - and most were content to handle just skim milk, or less.

I have two daughters who were named after her (Eliza Suzanne and Annelise). I hope to be able to spotlight more of Eliza's stuff as time goes on.

Here is a great post that I ran into that is a synopsis of her life:

ELIZA ROXCY SNOW

IOHANI WOLFGRAMM AND POLYNESIAN KINGLY LINES

Iohani Wolfgramm went out on a limb and openly declared that the royal bloodline of Israel (through the Book of Mormon Mulekites - only recorded surviving son of Hezekiah) also made it into the royal blood of the Tongan and other peoples of the Polynesian archipelago (link later). He got called on the carpet on this detail several times including once at Church headquarters.

Whether Hagoth truly made it to the friendly islands is speculation for some LDS, I feel comfortable with what some modern prophets have had to say on it (link later), what the Spirit whispers to me, and what Thor Heyersdahl and the rest of the Kon Tiki crew found out as they sailed the South Pacific.

I remember reading the accounts of their voyage as a kid and thinking "I bet this actually was possible". Look for what the Aymara legend had to say about their adventurer that left never to come back. Sounds like a second witness for Hagoth or some other Nephite adventurer?

A simple third witness came directly to me when I was over in Hawaii back in 1997 for a 777-200 environmental controls hot soak ground test at one of the hotter places on the globe (yeah, right - the pilot who set the itinerary and had no real part in the ground test wanted to R&R on that particular beach...spoiled flyboys!). Anyway, I rented a convertible for our small systems engineering group and we hit the beach and saw the sights of Kona and the lava fields on the off hours. On one of our jaunts we got directions from the locals to a beach just behind the airport. As I navigated down a path through a lava field I looked over to my right and there was a small platform step pyramid (made from cut volcanic stone) jutting out of the middle of the lava field. I thought I must be dreaming - I had no idea that I would see something that might be more at home in Central America than in the middle of a remote Pacific Island.

It all fits with Thor Heyerdahl's theories and with the legends and stories the New Zealanders passed on to my parents while they were missionaries over there back in the 1950's.

Enjoy this article - this man, Knut Haugland, knew how to live a life!

Knut Haugland: A real-life adventure story

He fought the Nazis. He braved the Pacific. And he hated being called a hero. Jonathan Brown looks at the extraordinary career of Knut Haugland, the last Kon-Tiki survivor

Monday, 28 December 2009

The Independent Close

Adventure stories rarely come more epic than that of Knut Haugland, the Norwegian resistance fighter who died on Christmas Day at the age of 92. His exploits were already the stuff of legend even before he joined Thor Heyerdahl's crew aboard his balsa wood raft, Kon-Tiki. Together they not only conquered the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean using only the most primitive of technologies – but in doing so, they helped rejuvenate the crushed spirit of human endeavour in the bleak aftermath of the Second World War.

A heavily decorated commando who escaped three times from the clutches of the Nazis, his bravery and endurance gave rise to one of the most enduring legends of the Second World War – one retold in spectacular style in a Hollywood movie.

Yesterday Haugland's successor as director of the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, where thousands flock each year to relive the optimism and excitement of that intrepid voyage, announced that the former radio operator had succumbed to natural causes in a city hospital, closing the final chapter on an extraordinary life.

Haugland's death, following that of Heyerdahl himself in 2002, marks the passing of the last of the six-man crew that set sail from Callao in Peru in April 1947, bound several thousand nautical miles for the far-flung islands of Polynesia based on little more than an anthropological hunch. That journey set a new benchmark for modern adventurers, spawning an international best-selling book published in 66 languages and an Oscar-winning film in which Haugland played himself. It also helped popularise Heyerdahl's passionately held belief that the great oceans had been highways and not barriers for the movement of ancient seafaring civilisations.

Haugland's role aboard the Kon-Tiki was that of radio operator, keeping the outside world aware of the raft's stately progress during the long drift westwards on the currents off South America. He had trained in the technology before the war and fought against the invading German forces until Hitler's troops overran Norway in 1940. Under occupation the then 23-year-old gave the impression of having settled down as an Oslo factory worker but was in fact a major figure in the Norwegian resistance movement. His first brush with the Nazi authorities came in August 1941 when he was arrested but escaped. In exile, he joined the Norwegian Independent Company, a celebrated band of patriotic Nordic fighters assembled under the auspices of the newly-formed British Special Operations Executive which was planning raids in occupied northern Europe. Key to the British strategy was the establishment of a network of radio sets and operators allowing for the co-ordination of anti-Nazi operations.

The most famous of these became known as the Norwegian Heavy Water Sabotage – an ambitious raid on the Norsk Hydro Rjukan plant at Vermork. The operation provided the sensational plot line for Anthony Mann's 1965 film The Heroes of Telemark, starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris. Appropriately enough it was being broadcast once again on the BBC yesterday as news of Haugland's death was announced.

Yet Haugland was always unhappy with the depiction of events in the film and particularly the use of the word hero. "I never use that word about myself or my friends. We just did a job," he said in one of his last interviews to mark the 60th anniversary of the raid. "Forty-one men were killed and it could have been avoided. Because of the loss of life you shouldn't glorify the story."

The plan of action grew out of Allied fears that the Nazis were preparing to build their own atomic bomb. One of the key components in the production process was deuterium oxide, otherwise known as heavy water. The hydro plant at Vermork provided the Germans with a ready supply as a by-product of local fertilizer production capable of manufacturing 12 tons of the stuff a year. Before the war the French had carried away much of the reserves but while the hydro plant was still operable the threat remained.

In November 1942 a forward party of four local resistance fighters, including Haugland, was parachuted onto the Norwegian wilderness from where they would ski to a base close to the plant. It was their task to report back to the British after memorising the blueprint of the facility. This first phase was codenamed Operation Grouse and was achieved successfully. But the second phase – Operation Freshman – was a disaster. Despite the harshness of the Nordic terrain and savage weather, the British planned to land two gliders packed with Royal Engineers and members of the 1st Parachute Regiment on a frozen lake. They took off from Wick in Caithness pulled by Halifax bombers. One plane and both gliders crashed with much loss of life. The crew that were not killed outright were interrogated by the Gestapo before being put to death.

The failure not only alerted the Germans to the importance of the heavy water site, but also consigned the Norwegian advance party to a gruelling winter on the remote Hardanger Plateau where they were forced to endure temperatures of minus 20F. Food was so short they resorted to eating the contents of a reindeer's stomach. Haugland's job was to keep in contact with the British using a radio he had fashioned from a stolen fishing rod and an old car battery. Each morning at 1am he would make contact, often unable to control the chattering of his teeth.

The final phase of the sabotage began in February 1943. Named after SOE head Sir Charles Hambro's favourite grouse shooting moor, Operation Gunnerside saw a further six Norwegian commandos parachuted into the target area. Luck played its part and the two groups were united, launching their assault on the now heavily mined and floodlit plant. To bypass the exposed bridge which led to the plant they waded through snow and forded an icy river before scaling a sheer ravine side to reach their target via an old railway line. In the end the cells producing the heavy water were blown up without a shot being fired. The Norwegians made their way back to the plateau undetected, leaving behind a British gun to divert suspicion from the local resistance, including the mole working inside the hydro plant.

Three thousand Germans were involved in the hunt for the saboteurs and though it was revealed that the Nazi high command had not in fact been planning to build a bomb, the operation came to be regarded as a triumph of its kind.

After surviving this, the perils of the Pacific held little fear for Haugland. He had first met Heyerdahl at a military training camp in Britain in 1944 where he had fled once more after another close scrape with the Gestapo. Sufficiently impressed with the anthropologist's powerful personality and controversial theories on Polynesian migration patterns, he agreed to join the expedition, taking a break from a military career which was to see him rise to the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring from his position as head of the Norwegian Resistance Museum in 1983. In 1947, the desire to sail across the Pacific baffled many in a world still mourning the deaths of thousands of mariners who lost their lives in oil-choked seas during the war. Yet few could resist the spirit of resurgent individualism and heroic adventure which the Kon-Tiki project embodied, even if many were baffled by Heyerdahl's devotion to the idea that New World mariners had populated Polynesia from the east rather than the west.

The raft itself was named after a mythical seafarer who, according to the Aymara Indians of Lake Titicaca in modern-day Bolivia, had set sail over the horizon never to be seen again. Despite the reliance on primitive technology – the raft was built by the men on the dockside based on drawings dating back to the time of the conquistadores – the expedition allowed itself the luxury of a hand-cranked radio. Haugland spent much of the 101 days at sea briefing the outside world. The voyage came to a halt when the vessel was grounded on a reef off Raroia Island, part of the Tuamotu group, some 3,770 nautical miles from the Peruvian coast. They were eventually rescued from the tiny islet after several days, and taken back to Tahiti by a French schooner. An expedition which included Heyerdahl's grandson duplicated the voyage in 2006.