THE recent story of NASA discovering a %u201Cmysterious 1.75 million year ancient bridge%u201D is now clearly exposed as a deliberate fraud by Hindu fundamentalists. It was initially propagated by Vaishnava News Network an ISKON web site and was promptly hailed as a scientific proof of Ramayana by Hindutva internet sites. Not much notice would have been taken of such claims, which are after all periodic in the Hindutva sites, if PTI and television channels had not picked up the story. Finally, the fraud was exposed: NASA clarified that its pictures were neither mysterious nor new. These pictures, taken from space borne cameras of the 30 kms long sandbanks, have been around for more than six years and most certainly NASA did not certify them as man-made. NASA has debunked that it had identified the structure as man-made. It is difficult for a space agency from kilometres out in space taking photographs to identify a structure as man-made. As if this absurdity is not enough, the original news report also talked about NASA not only declaring the structure as man-made but also precisely dating this to be 1.75 million years of age. And to cap it all, NASA was even supposed to have declared human habitation in Sri Lanka to date approximately to this time. All of this from outer space! In the eyes of Hindu fundamentalists, NASA scientists must seem really super human: they can do from outer space what their own archaeologists such as B B Lal cannot do on the ground.
