Were the Pyramids Built by Aliens?
Benjamin John Welch
Were the Pyramids Built by Aliens? This question has been asked time and time again
throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The mysterious nature of the Great Pyramids of Giza
stems from their sophistication at a time of very primitive technology. The tallest of the three, the
Great Pyramid of Khufu, looms at a height of 455 feet and consists of approximately 2.3 million
chiselled stone blocks, some of which weigh more than 50 tonnes. Dr Viktor Ivanovich, a former
scientist for the Russian Kremlin, claimed in 2001 that “this particular visitation took place about
11,000 BC”. It is understandable how people get drawn into these conspiracy theories; the
pyramids are truly awe-invoking. However, no matter how exciting these conspiracies may be,
there is also evidence that the pyramids were built by humans. In this essay, I will explore both
sides of the argument using Mathematics.
One of the most well-known mathematical principles that can be found in the Great Pyramids is
Pi. It was originally an English author, John Taylor, who proposed that Pi had been incorporated
in the pyramids. In 1859, he presented his ideas in his book, “The Great Pyramid: Why Was It
Built? And Who Built It?”. He discovered that if you divide the Great Pyramid’s perimeter by its
height, you obtain a very close approximation of . Equivalently, the slope of each face of theπ2
Great Pyramid is very close to . This relationship is 99.96% accurate or better depending on
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π
the measurements used. This relationship is so close that it is incredibly unlikely that is it a
coincidence.
The earliest written evidence of a civilisation having knowledge of Pi dates back to ancient
Egypt and Babylon. A clay tablet found in Babylon dated 1900 - 1600 BC treats Pi as or
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3.125, an approximation that is 99.47% accurate. In Egypt, the discovery of the Rhind Papyrus
gave us an insight into ancient Egyptian maths. It is dated 1650 BC but was copied from a
document from 1850 BC and gives Pi as or roughly 3.16. The Great Pyramids are)( 9
16 2
estimated to have been built before 2504 BC, at least 604 years after the earliest evidence of an
understanding of Pi. However, this length of time isn’t so great as to make it impossible that the
Egyptians did understand Pi when building the Great Pyramids. In fact, many people have
claimed that the Egyptians treated Pi as as early as the Old Kingdom due to the apparent
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incorporation of Pi in the pyramids. These claims, however, have been met with scepticism by
experts as there is little evidence to support it.
If you assume that the Egyptians had not discovered Pi before building the pyramids, an
assumption that is perfectly reasonable, then how is Pi found so perfectly incorporated in them,
over 4,000 years later? One possible answer is aliens. It seems impossible that the connection
to Pi is a coincidence but if the Egyptians didn’t know to make this connection then who did?
