Gunung Padang and Sulawesi | Danny Hilman Natawidjaja | Megalithomania Podcast

Hey Megalithomaniacs, I've got a special treat for you today. We're here with the one and only Danny Hillman who's come all the way over from Indonesia to share his research on Gunung Padang, the latest updates on that but also to show us some other sites in and around Indonesia which he's been investigating and even some incredible underwater archaeology which is kind of going to be big news very soon. So I traveled with Danny and Andrew Collins to Gunung Padang way back in 2015, a decade ago now and it was an incredible experience just to see the site and to explore the whole area and get a full download of what was going on there with yourself and some of the other researchers but quite a lot's been happening since then. There was an academic paper that you published but yeah so and we've got a few slides for you which featured in Danny's presentation here at the Cosmic Summit in 2025 and yeah so welcome Danny, thanks for joining us and coming on to Megalithomania channel. So what have we got there so far? We know about Gunung Padang, we know it's this amazing site in Indonesia. Can you just describe it a little bit and about and the you know the implications of it? Yeah yeah so Gunung Padang is an extraordinary site it has multiple layers of cultures, pyramids since the ice age so but the Gunung Padang is only the tip of the iceberg in Indonesia. There are lots lots of the magnetic sites that are fascinating in Indonesia so besides Gunung Padang I have presented here in the Cosmic Summit is the new discovery, new pyramids in Toba Lake and then also magnificent megalithic site in South Sumatra. There's some figures just like in Olmec, the figures of the face and stuff. Fascinating, it's a fast megalithic site in, it's near Dempo volcano in South Sumatra and then the other site that I'm presenting here is the megalithic site in Central Sulawesi which is amazing. It has hundreds of granite statues, it's like an eastern island but in granites and also there are lots of similarities with the eastern island and also with the Gobekli Tepe like the hand gestures and stuff and all. And well in my guess about the age which I will do the radiometric dating like this year with my colleagues from France, hopefully, I would think that the age will be kind of similar to Gobekli Tepe back to like 11,000 to 12,000 years ago. That's very very interesting, very interesting. So what is the update on Gunung Padang? Because we know it's like a kind of basalt columns, it's completely constructed from that, you go very deep into the structure as well. Gunung Padang really is a special place, I mean we have the, you know, it's like a mountain basically, a mountain of light is one of the names given to it. It's pretty much constructed of these basalt columns which are half a ton each or so, multiple platforms and levels and other such things. And so what is the latest on like the dating of the site especially? The dating is still, there's no new dating yet, so what is good is that the new government, especially the new minister of culture, is going to support us, hopefully, very hopefully. So I would say that they said that in the next like a couple months we will be starting the research again there. It's not even, it's not just research, I think they will conduct like a full excavation for, it's not renovation, is that the, yeah, renovating the structures, you know, complete restoration of the structures, that's what they call it. So I hope that will happen starting this year, but I will say that the large excavation will be next year, I think. It needs to be prepared and, you know, some bureaucratic procedures and stuff and government. But not only that, it seems that also we're gonna, they're gonna support me to explore other sites besides Gunung Padang, so this includes the Pyramid in Jogja and, you know, in Sundar Sulawesi also, which is good. Shall we have a look at some images? Yeah, so today there's a debate on Atlantis. Basically we propose that the best land that described that match the Plutus Atlantis and Tungas Critias is Sundaland here. So this is like red zone is the the landmass in the ice age that has been submerged now, and that is Sundaland over there. This is Sundaland from the ice age and then it's getting submerged, you know, by years. This is 11,000 years ago, 9,000, 7,000, and then this is now, so so it's just like Pato described that the remaining is only the bones or the But of course we need more evidence to prove that there was an ice age civilization here, so that's what we found. Okay, so here this is Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, so in the ice age the shallow sea between this island, this is Java Sea, this is the Karimata Strait, is a beautiful, beautiful valley that is surrounded by volcanoes, mountains over there. This is the major river, this is as big as the Nile River, so this is the source for life to grow the civilizations. And here there's the Java Sea that also matches the description of the central plain where the Atlantis city sits on, and also very much over there. And what's amazing is over there, there, this is Sunda Strait, Sunda Strait where we found the underwater structures over there. Let's see, here, here's the zoom of the Sunda Strait. So this is Java Island, that is Sumatra. Fifteen years ago there was a plan to construct a bridge connecting Java and Sumatra, just right over there, this is Sanghyang Island, and of course because of that plan we had to do the bathymetric survey using sonar. So this is the image of high-resolution bathymetric survey that has been conducted by my friend, my close friend, Dr. Gagar Prasetya. But, well, accidentally what he found is he found these structures, the blue one, the rectangular blue one, that is the sunken harbor. The green color is about 60 meters below the sea level, and this blue one is about 150 meters below the sea level. And you can see that the entrance and narrow gate goes up there, and then the exit gate over there. And I can show you that the 3D image that I developed from that data, see a beautiful harbor, which is big, it's about six kilometers wide. There's an entrance over there. And it's very interesting also, there's a twin peaks over there on the entrance and on the exit way. That is the closer look of this harbor. I think I would say that this is the main harbor over there. This is something else, maybe it's a VIP, maybe, I don't know. And this could be something, it could be a restaurant, I don't know. So this is the main harbor that should be over there. So it's not a geological nature. I mean, I'm a geologist, I know the geology in here. So this should be a harbor. And also I have consulted this to the harbor engineers who know how the harbor. And he said, I didn't say to him what it is, but he said, it's a harbor, where is it? Well, it's underwater now. And I'm teaching them, well, why do you say it's a harbor? It could be natural. He said, no way, I know, it's just the dredging, something like that. So this is the other view, there's a harbor over there, looking at the Indian Ocean. So this is the Indian Ocean, this is the Java Sea over there, there's a twin peak over there, it's very suspected over there. That's the harbor. Incredible. So this is the old, this is Sundaland then, this is the old kind of traditional kind of super ancient lost civilization of this part of the world. So it's a harbor, so I would, we could propose that, that is the Atlantis Harbor, whatever, but it's a harbor. And what interesting also, in the front of this harbor, there's a famous volcano, it's Krakatau, which was erupted in 1883. At that time, the height of the Krakatau is about 1,000 meters above the sea level. But before that, the ancient Krakatau in the Ice Age is larger, it's about 2,000 meters above the sea level. So you can imagine that the Krakatau is very active, it's always, always has smoke and fire, so it's a tower of fire, basically. And it will be a spectacular natural lighthouse, you know, for the sailors to see the harbor, oh yes, the Krakatau. I will be guiding them home. Not just that, this is Bali Strait, this is East Java, this is Bali. Here, the same friend of mine, he has a project of developing the tide wave electric generator, so he also conducted the telemetry over there. And here's the result. That is the natural channel, this is the ocean over there, going over there, this channel. But as you see here, okay, this is the yellow one, it's about 90 meters below the sea level, and the green is about up to 200 meters below the sea level. And you can see that this channel is going up, going to the south, but it has been filled. I think this is a construction field. And they made this one, this one is very, that one, that is the bridge connecting Java and Bali. And also it's a dam, because there's a water pond over here, a big dam of the water. Yeah, that's it. And that is the 3D image. So that is the bridge. That's very interesting. So this is all brand new research. Well, we have this data, like, more than five years, it's 10 years. But, well, we plan to just keep the data until we get probably a research grant to get further details of that, doing marine survey exploration, just to get more proof that this is a construction. So would the dating of this fit with your dating of Gunung Padang? Absolutely. So because this is 60 meters below sea level, then from the sea level history, it should be 11,000 and even more older. So it's an Ice Age construction. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's absolutely fascinating. There you have it. The third one, this is also fascinating. So this is the Gulf of Thailand over there. And we have a very good, high resolution 3D seismic data from oil exploration, because at that time, my friend is a consultant for the oil industry. So we have this data. Usually for the oil exploration, the data, the shallow data from the seabed to, like, tens of meters to hundreds of meters, they just throw it away. They don't need it, because they need the deeper data for oil exploration. But now they process the data because they know we're interested in ancient history. So here's what we look into that. So this is a seabed. When we slice the data, this is a 3D image. 10 meters below the seabed, we see this ancient river under the seabed, 10 meters. And we slice again 20 meters below the seabed, we see another channels, the same channels always changing. So it's like a history book, page by page. And look what we see on the 30 meters below the seabed. This is what we see, 30 meters below the seabed. That is the river, but that rectangular stream is not natural. That is the irrigation canals. See, so this is 30 meters below the seabed. If we cut deeper, then we found this ancient river, the big one. It's a measuring system that you can compare with modern Chao Phraya River in Thailand. So this is a closer look at how it is, the irrigation channel system. And we can get the close-up. Obvious, this is not a river, this is the irrigation channel system. And we can even get more detail looking at this cross-seismic section. So we can measure the width of the channel and also the depth of the water. And what we see here, the channel, the canal, the irrigation canal, the depth of the water is like one to seven meters, and the width of the canals is like 50 to 150 meters. That's pretty deep, yeah. Well, if you have checked the GPT, what land that really matches perfectly the Atlantis description, well, Sundaland. 100%. Yeah, yeah. And you can see for yourself, see the description of the land of the Atlantis and see the description of the Sundaland. Yeah, especially. But it's just a fact. Regardless of Atlantis, you found something there. That's right. I mean, I don't care if it's not Atlantis, but still, it's a civilization that created that harbor, the dam, structures, irrigation canals. Yeah. And what's the next stage of research with this? How are you going to develop this? And also, I mentioned, we have a lot of this artifact from the Java Sea that's from Iron Meteorite. Oh. Yeah. Let's see. I'll show you. That one. That's an artifact, a real artifact. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. It's hidden. Nowhere else. Nowhere else on the Earth. It's only from the Java Sea. Yeah. You've got a photo of Poseidon. That is quite a... Yeah. It's very heavy. It's an Iron Meteorite. That is a powerful photo. Oh, yeah. That's a dragon, man. It's a dragon with fire. So, that is incredible. I mean, that is just... I didn't realize you've done all this. This is absolutely mind-blowing. I'm glad you took the time to show us this. Shall we have a look at some of the other stuff around Indonesia that you've been looking at? We know about Gunung Padang. We looked at that previously. Another megalithic site, yeah? Yeah. I mean, there's some remarkable megalithic sites. If there's any updates on Gunung Padang, we can have a look at that as well. It's just, you know, it's showing that the oldest part of the Gunung Padang, Unit 2, Unit 3. Unit 2 is about 8,000 years old. They're all exposed. There's a misunderstanding that they think the pyramid structures, the 8,000 and also the 16,000 to 27,000, is just from the geophysics and the core drilling. That's not true. They are all exposed. So, if you come to Gunung Padang, you will see that this is the youngest structure. You can see the structure of the Columnar Basyatik is, like, coarse, you know, and fresh. And if you look into the Terasuan, you can see that Unit 1 is the youngest. This is Unit 1 with the standing stone and also the platform over here. But the high wall over there is not Unit 1. That's Unit 2, that's 8,000 years old, and the structure is very different over there. If you dig just a little bit on the soil, you also get that Unit 2, that's 8,000 years old, stuff like that. Yeah, and also in this Teras 2 and Teras 3, the Unit 2 is just exposed as the rock platform over there. And we have digged and we see that the alignment of this Unit 2, Unit 1, is only, like, imposing this Unit 1. And, yeah. It is quite prudent. I mean, but this article, this paper that came out a couple of years ago that you did, and I know Graham Hancock supported you with this as well, but they then retracted this article, and it's like, why would they do that? I mean, why can't they accept that you could come up with this? I mean, this is very scientific. Yeah. It's not like you're making it up out of thin air. This is, like, serious research. Yeah. And it baffles me a little bit, and it makes me wonder what that's all about. Yeah, yeah. So the retraction notice said that, well, the Unit 2 and Unit 3 that I'm showing you is natural, which is, oh, come on. So it's not natural at all. I'm a geologist. I know what's natural and what's not. So there is no scientific reason to retract the paper. And you're asking why? Well, I think the main reason why is that, this one. Because Gunung Padang, the first construction is before 11,000 years old. It's believed to be the starting of our civilization. So Gunung Padang is really a threat to the established paradigm about the history. I think that's the real reason why our paper is retracted. That's interesting, especially now we've got, you know, testable sites in Southeast Turkey, which are pushing those dates. That's right. It makes you wonder why they would want to dismiss that. Yes, I think this one. Yeah, this is the established paradigm. It's always the, our civilization started from 11,000 years ago. Yeah, the agricultural invention. Yeah, and the oldest civilization is Mesopotamia. But this paradigm has been shaped after the discovery of the Gobeli Tepe already. So this is our alternative world history, which I think makes more sense. And Gunung Padang, Unit 3 construction is over here. So this is a problem for the mainstream. I think that's the main reason. That's the main problem, yes. And I remember we also went to the gun stove. Do you remember that Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. Another special place, very little lesser known place, very dangerous place to get to. But we found it. That was that was a good trip. I put some images in of that. But there's an all over Indonesia do have some remarkable sites. The whole Sulawesi discoveries that you've been looking at those as well. Yeah. And as you said, I mean, what is going on there? I mean, I know Graham's talked about that previously. He's visited the area. And then we have this. We have this site as well. And even pyramids in that region. Right. So what can you just describe this briefly? Okay, so this is the pyramid that our recent discovery in Toba. So if you look into this, it's like chameleon because it's like camouflage on this last green. So this is a pyramid over it's about another 20 meters high. And the structure is still intact. So it's just hidden under all these trees. So all we need to do is just cutting the trees and it will reappear again. So it's seriously megalithic. Oh, yeah. And there's lots of megalithic beside the pyramid. It's not just one, it's three pyramids on the same valley. Wow. One, two, three. I call it A1, A2, A3 because the local people just call the pyramid as a hill because like a character. A1, A2, A3. And yeah, between the pyramids are lots of megalithic megaliths or something like that. That is just like something out of like megalithic Europe. I mean, it's quite remarkable. Yeah, I mean, what do you make of this? Do you think this is part of the same civilization as connected with Gunung Padang? Yeah, yeah. If I'm like looking at the structures, the degree of weathering, I would say that this construction, the age is correlated to well, between unit one and unit two of Gunung Padang, so something like that. But we have conducted the geophysical survey also here, and the digging, and there's a very good chance that we also have an older layers on this pyramid. So the research is still ongoing. This is the second site in Sotsumatra, in Depok volcano. Yeah, you see that figure with the helmet, with the little elephant. That is very similar to the statue discovered recently at Karahantepe. Really? The big statue. Yeah, the one holding his kind of face. Yeah, yeah, with the hat on. That is oddly similar. Right. That's the elephant trunk over there with the boot. And you see the details of that. He's carrying the backpack and that water vase. And it has that flexible hose, you know. What are the dates on this? What are the dates? There's no date. No date. No dating. Yeah, yeah. But you see that the face of this, where's the face? Okay, hang on. So the face of that, protruding eye, flat nose, thick lips. So it's like an old man. It is a bit old, mate. I mean, this is something that I know David Hatcher Childress has looked at. The Cam culture, the C-H-A-M culture that were in Southeast Asia and possibly going over to the Americans. Yeah, he's written a whole book about it. He is convinced that the Olmecs and the Southeast Asians are connected. Very much so. The whole ancient culture, seafaring as well. So this fits in with his research as well. This is absolutely fascinating. And look at the size also. You see from this man and the elephant. Yeah, he's big. He's big. And then you've also got the sites of Sulawesi, which are just incredible. Is this Sumatra still? Oh, this is the same place. That's like bedrock. Oh, this is like a cliff, like one kilometre cliff, but it's still covered by bushes, by forest, by vegetation. So it's only like two exposures. And here it is, a carved cliff. Remarkable. This is different. It's something else. I don't know what it is, but it looks like this. Excellent. Say what? Amazing. Okay, so that's really intriguing. So let's look at a couple of the... Yeah, the Sulawesi, yeah? The Sulawesi. Yeah, this is the statue from Granite. This is Graham over there. So there's two kind of the megaliths. One is the statue, looks like in the Easter Island, and the other one is a stone jar with Granite over there. A similar jar is also found in Laos and India. Yeah, seaside. Look at this. This is unfinished, and you can see the tool marks. I think that's equipment they used to make that cylinder, you know, a jar. So I don't think it's a primitive tool. It's very advanced tool. That is very interesting, isn't it? And again, they don't know the dates of these really, do they? No, no, no. But it's very easy to date them with the cosmogenic dating. Oh. Oh, yeah, yeah. So what are we getting? What are you getting from that? With the cosmogenic dating, we can know when this Granite cut from the social, and then expose to the sun, then the radiometric dating clock starting. Okay. Very easy, very easy. I mean, and what dates do you think they are? I think it will be similar to cosmogenic dating. Oh, especially considering some of the similar... That's right, the similar hand gestures and stuff. Yeah, that is very, very interesting. Look at this. See that? Just like the Easter Island. Yeah, like tiki statues, aren't they, really? We already found like hundreds of them, like 300 of these megaliths. But according to the local archaeologists, who really knows their place, because he's also a local people, a traditional local people, he said that there are still thousands, thousands of these statues underground, and also hidden in the forest. Wow. You see that? The connection, yeah, the similarities, yeah. Very interesting. I mean, this is... Yeah, that's actually the statue, but around the back of the head, you have this haircut. It's like a Mohican almost, sort of like a mullet. It's a mullet like that. It's like a tsunami, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so these connections just don't ever stop. They just keep coming up, don't they? Wow, this is fascinating. So what is your next area of... Yeah, there's more similarities there. There's a pyramid also in there. Oh, yes, yeah, that's right. You mentioned this in your talk. So this is actually... So this is like... Is this from the bedrock or is this a wall? It's a wall. Okay. Yeah, because we have... And there are lots of unfinished megaliths over there. So it means that the builders... It's got interrupted. Something happened, like catastrophic. Builders maybe just like dead or something. So there are lots of them. There are lots of them. Where is this? That is one place I really have to go to. That is just something else. This is the survey that we have been conducting there. So there are lots of men here and other megaliths in the area over there. So from this, our survey, we know that the granite is not the intrusion. This is the huge block of granite that has been taken from the surrounding mountain to the centre of the valley by the big boat. So it's a big megalith site. It's a pyramid. Very interesting. Well, okay. I mean, there's more here, but let's just never really get insights in that. This is good. Oh yeah, look at that. I mean, that is just... How do you explain that? It's also interesting. The local people, the local legend, call them Anitu. Anitu. It means that the ghost from the sky. The ghost from the sky. That is utterly bizarre. I must admit, that is something like... Ancient aliens would love this. I mean, this is something special. Yeah, Mr. Alien again, there you go. Wow. How's that? That is brilliant, Danny. I really appreciate you coming in and having a chat with me and showing me these incredible graphics. It's been really a real treat to meet up with you after 10 years since we last saw you. We tried to meet you in Egypt a few months ago, but we couldn't do it. And so I'm amazed by this research. I want to thank you for joining us. I want to thank you for being on the Megalithomania channel. All our watchers will be delighted to see you get this update. So thanks once again. Thank you, Megalithomaniacs for watching and we'll see you next time.