Did aliens establish a primitive postcode system in ancient Britain?

Source: guardian.co.uk
By Matt Parker

Ancient monuments align with every postcode in the UK, suggesting powerful extraterrestrial influences at work

The uncanny alignment of prehistoric monuments indicates some form of external guidance. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Every single location in the UK is at the convergence of three or more ley lines between ancient monuments. As I type this, the line formed by the ancient Brill Earthworks and the Southam Holy Well crosses the line running through Morden Park Mound and the Leydene Ditches, pinpointing my precise current location. Not only that, but the ley line that crosses Small Down Knoll and the most renowned of all ancient sites, Stonehenge, also goes right through my house.

It's as though prehistoric Britons built monumental sites as a form of "ancient postcode".

In fact, all modern postcodes mark the convergence of three or more prehistoric ley lines, one of which will always include Stonehenge. If you want to look up your home's ancient monumental alignments, just enter your postcode into this site built by programmer Tom Scott.

The "ancient postcodes" theory is very similar to the work of Tom Brooks, who believes the locations of ancient monuments in England and Wales form such precise isosceles triangles that prehistoric Britons must have built them as a form of ancient satnav. Mr Brooks has been back in the news recently as he has just reissued his press release from 15 months ago to help promote his new book, Prehistoric Geometry in Britain: the Discoveries of Tom Brooks.

The fact that every single modern postcode is mapped out in the alignment of prehistoric monuments must be significant because, in the words of Mr Brooks, "you cannot do that by chance". We are forced to interpret these amazing alignments the same way he does his triangles and "conclude that they received some form of external guidance".

Of course, my conclusions are vacuous. There are so many prehistoric sites in England and Wales (about 1,500 of them), you cannot stand anywhere in the UK that is not at the hub of multiple ley lines. It's like standing in the middle of a dense forest and then being amazed when you look around and several trees line up with your location.

If you want more than just alignments of lines and have a thing for triangles, then those 1,500 ancient sites form 561,375,500 different triangles. That's more monumental triangles in England and Wales than there are seconds in 17 years and 9 months. That's more than 9,000 triangles for every square mile in the country. Out of that many triangles, some of them will form at random what appear to be very precise patterns.

When Mr Brooks last told us about his discoveries in January 2010, I responded by finding the same types of patterns, to the same level of precision, in the alignments of ancient Woolworths stores.

There is actually a whole area of maths known as Ramsey Theory which shows that you can find any pattern you want, to any level of precision you want, if you have enough random data to sort through. This method of selecting just the pattern you're after and then ignoring the vast majority of the data has since become known as "pick 'n' mix data analysis".

The prehistoric sites that dot the UK are indeed a national treasure that still have plenty of mysteries to reveal. However, plucking random patterns out of their distribution and claiming aliens must have been involved cheapens the genuine wonders of archaeology. I'm sure the ancient Britons did build certain sites along significant paths, but it's a shame to miss the forest because of the random distribution of trees.

Originally read @ davidicke.com