In recent years, alternative historians have gained remarkable insight into the mysteries of ancient Egypt—but according to Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, their discoveries tie into a dangerous conspiracy nearly fifty years in the making. At the center of this conspiracy is a group of respected, powerful individuals who believe that the ancient Egyptian gods are really extraterrestrials who will soon return to earth. The conspirators have intimate and exclusive knowledge of this momentous second coming—but they insist on keeping it to themselves. What could be the purpose of such a conspiracy? Why are the conspirators so desperate to keep their information a secret? And what does it mean for mankind? In this riveting, well-researched book, Picknett and Price offer compelling evidence that the conspiracy exists—and expose the insidious motivations of the individuals and organizations behind it.... “Picknett and Prince are first-class storytellers and their magical mystery tour is totally enthralling.”— Daily Mail  (London) Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince are writers, researchers and lecturers on the paranormal, the occult, and historical and religious mysteries. Strange though it may seem, this is not the book we originally set out to write. In a sense, we are very surprised — and not a little shaken — to have found ourselves on the rock-strewn path that led, ultimately, to The Stargate Conspiracy . We had intended to write a follow-up to our 1997 book The Templar Revelation , which argued that Christianity was essentially an offshoot of the ancient Egyptian religion of Isis and Osiris — meaning that our culture is not Judeo -Christian at all, but Egypto -Christian. The implications were astonishingly far-reaching, but we also disclosed the most carefully hidden of all the secrets of the heretical Knights Templar in the most controversial revelation of the book — namely, that they believed that John the Baptist was the true Messiah, and that Jesus was, to say the very least, his usurper. Wanting to learn more about our civilization’s Egyptian roots, we researched further into the ancient religion, and found ourselves examining the Pyramid Texts and the origin of Hermetic writings. The more we progressed, the more we realized the ancient Egyptians possessed astonishing knowledge, far beyond that generally accepted by modern academics. We discovered that those far-off people had an understanding of cosmology unequalled until our own century, and even now perhaps they still have something to teach us. But in the end even the largely unknown and unacknowledged genius of the ancient Egyptians was not to be the subject of the book. As non-academics researching ancient Egypt we could not remain unaware of the upsurge of interest in the ‘alternative Egypt’ of Andrew Collins, Colin Wilson and others, whose books challenge the often rather complacent ‘certainties’ of mainstream Egyptology. Above all three authors have become associated in the public mind with radical new ideas about ancient cultures, particularly Egypt: Robert Temple, author of the seminal The Sirius Mystery (1976); Robert Bauval, co-author with Adrian Gilbert of The Orion Mystery (1994); and Graham Hancock, whose runaway success was established with The Sign and the Seal (1992). Since then Hancock has gone on to entrance huge audiences worldwide with Fingerprints of the Gods (1995) and, with his wife Santha Faiia, Heaven’s Mirror (1998), and also collaborating with Robert Bauval to produce Keeper of Genesis (1996) and (together with John Grigsby) The Mars Mystery (1998). These books encompass a vast range of fascinating and radical new ideas, many of which have now become so entrenched among their readers as to be accepted as hard fact. And, like most of their readers, we, too, began as enthralled admirers. After many months of researching and writing this book, we still admired those authors’ energy and commitment, but as we stood back from their work, we have perceived a new and considerably larger pattern taking shape. Whether or not those authors are aware of it, their work forms an intrinsic part of what amounts to an orchestrated campaign. And the matter does not end there. The bitter controversy surrounding the idea of a long-dead civilization on Mars has also been absorbed into this campaign and — like the mysteries of Egypt — has been pressed into service to present a carefully stage-managed message. Essentially, it proposes that the ancient gods were extraterrestrials —and they’re back . But the subtext is very clever: only certain, chosen people hear their words, and only certain chosen people will be part of the revelations to come. We can hazard a guess at the identity of some of the chosen, but the others may be rather surprising. This is the well-worn tactic of ‘divide and rule,’ and has worrying, quasi-religious overtones. And it is no obscure and tiny cult, but a massive phenomenon that, in one shape or for